Save Las Tunas Drive?

So I’ve been a Temple City/Las Tunas Drive business owner for forty years and I hope “Save” Las Tunas Drive doesn’t mean preserve it as it is.

The business area in town has been a joke for years. And re-vitalization doesn’t come close to describing the need for change; “resuscitation” is a much better fit.

I don’t like being a hater but the city’s track record includes the ongoing 10-year plan “developing” Rosemead and Las Tunas, the eye sore vacant lot (formerly a market) on North Temple City Boulevard and an historical lack of vision regarding business community development. “Downtown” Temple City is a beautiful, inviting place…if you like the charm of a swap meet divided by a freeway.

When I was a kid, we actually used to visit Temple City to buy school clothes at Stoppel’s. But for the last thirty years or so, I’ve recommended Baldwin as the preferred route to my office. A drive eastbound on Las Tunas Drive fails miserably at inspiring buyer confidence. If you find vacant buildings, the word “hodge-podge”, and zero retail attractive, you will love the esthetics of today’s Las Tunas Drive.

But now the City has a resuscitation plan; a ridiculous plan…but still a plan. And I guess every long, overdue, illogical, doomed-for-failure journey begins with one small multiple choice-type step (in this case, behind doors A, B, or C.) The City-favored plan reduces the Las Tunas Freeway to two lanes, includes bicycle lanes, and (get this) reverse vertical parking. Leave it to the City Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight to transform business re-vitalization/resuscitation into slow speed spectator destruction derby and residential chaos.

And we have neighbors like the cities of Alhambra and Monrovia that are models for successful business development transformation so what’s the big problem?

A valued mentor once advised, “Copy genius, don’t invent mediocrity.” In Temple City, why not copy success and competence and not re-vitalize buffoonery?

It’s really frustrating when, as a small business, you invest in marketing and employee training and benefits, as well as space and equipment only to find the City taking the easy government-assisted cheap way out.

~ޜl