It's Not a McDonald's -- Yet

Memo to the New York Times:

Thanks for coming to town. Sorry you didn't get your facts quite right.

You see, Mayor Rhodes Rigsby mentioned during Monday's State of the City presentation that the approval of a shopping center in town was becoming national -- nay, international -- news intrigued me. So I tracked down the story, which ran Sunday in the grand Grey Lady., and it said the city was allowing a McDonald's to come to town.

Which is funny, because I don't remember that happening. I remember the city approving a shopping center that was going to bring some much needed income tax to the city.

Yes, all signs point to the Arches as the potential client for the pad in the shopping center. But nothing is set in stone ... and even if it was, it was not the decision of the Loma Linda City Council. They were there to rule on the land use. On whether it was the best interests of the city as a whole to have a new shopping center in town.

(A shopping center, by the way, that will also include a bank and room for a specialty grocery store. And since Whole Foods has been courting Redlands, that leaves Sprouts as the most likely business the developer is going after. Or maybe the Loma Linda Market wants to move into a new location?)

The reasons the Council could have put their foot down and denied the project were even brought up during last Tuesday's meeting. Would the benefits of a new center outweigh the extra traffic, noise and light to the existing neighbors? It was studied, and the answer was no.

Of course, when you bring up the city staff that has to study new developments, you have to remember that it has been cut back as the economy has sunk. Yet another reason that the city could use a broadening of its tax base.

Loma Linda incorporated as a city to keep outside influences out. And that's fine. But the city can't do it without the proper amount of people working behind the scenes and without a thriving tax base. Because if they had the right amount of people and a steady source of income -- the auto center's nice, but sales there can be spotty -- the city would be able to provide much more for its residents -- all of its residents, not just the vegetarians or Adventists.

It's nice that the university has provided for its community with the Drayson Center. But not everyone in the city works for the hospital or university. And certainly not everyone can afford to pay for its services.

Has anyone taken a drive around the north side of town? You know, the area across from the Auto Center? Yeah, that area. They're part of Loma Linda, too. The city has an obligation to take care of their needs as well as those of the churches, schools and hospitals.

To do that, the city needed something on that property other than just orange groves or another office park full of doctors.

And I think that movers and shakers in town (i.e., the hospital and university) knows that. Because if there's not a thriving town around the three major entities in town (the VA being No. 3), then it would become that more difficult to complete their stated mission of Serving Man.

A McDonald's won't be the end of life as we know it in Loma Linda. But that shopping center may be the start of improvements that can serve all the men (women and children) of Loma Linda.