Read with interest a long piece in Los Angeles Magazine devoted to the proposed development of Tejon Ranch. Written by Pulitzer winner Ed Humes, the piece is a dagger at the heart of Tejon's plans to develop a small part of the ranch while setting aside 90 percent of it for conservation. Full disclosure: the CEO of Tejon is on my board, and I know Humes from my days in the Los Angeles media environment. Humes is a talented writer and journalist, having nabbed his Pulitzer for a series of stories for the Orange County Register on flawed night vision goggles used at the old El Toro Marine Corps (helicopter) Air Station. Humes also wrote the scathing book "Mean Justice" on the infamous child molestation cases in Kern County. But the LA Magazine piece is deliberately hostile to Tejon, which I found a tad surprising considering Tejon's agreement to set aside 90 percent of the ranch for conservation, a deal blessed by groups like the Sierra Club, Audubon California and the Natural Resources Defense Council. I suppose it's a wonderful idea to think folks who spent a cool billion or two to own the property would simply hand it over for posterity, but things don't work that way. To get an idea of Humes' bias, check out this excerpt from the LaObserved blog (read it here):
"To stand on a windswept hill at Tejon Ranch is to be at once humbled, enthralled and saddened by vistas that in years past defined California and the West by their plenty, rather than their dearth....
"Even though the owners are offering to conserve much of their surrounding land, this development remains exactly the sort of breathtaking sprawl, destruction of nature and epic commuting lifestyle that must stop if we intend to get serious about global warming. Tejon Ranch, then, is really a battle over whether America wants to begin acting like a climate hawk or continue to act the climate ostrich. It's the biggest project of its kind, so it's fair to say this is where our future lies � one way or another.
Wow. Is it really fair to put the onus of global warning on the backs of the directors and owners of Tejon Ranch? You be the judge, but seems to me Humes is playing lead tackle for the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been absolutely intransigent in its opposition to almost any development of the ranch. I felt Tejon's deal with the Sierra Club was sound: set aside a couple hundred thousand acres of Tejon for future generations, but allow the folks who put their own capital at risk to develop something. When I asked Bob Stine, CEO of Tejon, about the story he declined to elaborate, but he did tell me that Humes didn't even give him the courtesy of a call to respond. Hmmmm....
