Paul Little vents over talks of tree-related boycotts

Paul Little, President of Pasadena's Chamber of Commerce has a blog post up about trees this morning, scolding tree protesters for suggesting a boycott of local vendors:

A former president of Pasadena Beautiful, flanked by a dozen or so supporters, called passionately for a boycott of one of Pasadena's iconic retailers at public comment during last night's Pasadena City Council meeting. Why try to put one of Pasadena's mainstays out of business? Because the store supported the fifteen year-old Playhouse District streetscape plan that calls for, among other things, cutting down 30 or so ficus and carrotwood trees and replacing them with twice as many palms and ginkos.

Later in the post, Little takes the Star News to task for killing trees to put out a printed paper, which is a sophomoric argument more commonly heard from a radical environmentalist than an advocate for business.

Personally, though, speaking as someone who is going to miss those trees, I agree with Little's idea that a business boycott makes no sense... I believe reasonable people can disagree on issues like this. Also, more to the point, businesses have a right to advocate for a plan that will save them money (there is no denying the expense of the sidewalk repairs the trees are costing, and so far the city has not offered to take over that cost).

In a democracy, I believe, that any frustrations over civic policy should be directed at elected leaders, rather than business leaders, who are not accountable to the public.

Why is this relevant? The bigger picture here is a nationwide anger directed at Wall St brokers and at corporations in general.... lately, of course, everyone is upset at Wall St CEOs who took taxpayer funds and then handed out billions of dollars in bonuses to executives. Some of those CEOs were dragged before congress and lectured by the same legislators who failed to insure that the wouldn't hand out bonuses by making it a part of their legislation (Sen. Clare McCaskill of Missouri called the CEOs "idiots" when to me they looked pretty smart- they took our money and used it to retain their top talent... we looked like the idiots for giving it to them with no strings attached).

But who really deserves to be lectured? The people who we elected to represent us.

In this case, that means the Pasadena City Council.... any grievances over how the tree situation worked out should be filed down at City Hall not taken out on local merchants.