Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Larry's Parting Email from the Planning Dept.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 11:09 AM
To: CTYPLN - CITY PLANNING EVERYONE
Subject: An Old Note From Larry Collins

Greetings All,
Someone on staff ran across this email from Larry Collins on the occasion of his separation from the Planning Department almost three years ago. I thought it captured some of Larry's passion and inspiration, and it seemed worth sharing. His appreciation and promotion of our planning mission, as a non-planner, always impressed me. Thanks,

Larry Collins/CTYPLN/SFGOV
To CTYPLN - CITY PLANNING
09/23/2004 10:54 AM EVERYONE/CTYPLN/SFGOV
Subject Farewell SFPD

Farewell for now. Of course I'll be back frequently (especially via email and other exciting forms of new communications media before they hit the marketJ) to visit friends and torture others. Just in case you didn't know and are interested, I didn't end up here in planning on accident. In a past life I was a Realtor, real estate appraiser, and loan officer in Hawaii before studying information systems in grad school at HPU. After graduating, my ex wife was accepted to Stanford Law School and the WWW and .com boom had just begun. So we decided to move back to California. I'm not going to delineate where I?m going now, just incase this "Kafkaesque" roller coaster ride I'm on has a few more loops in store.

I will miss many, many, people here! So much so that it's extremely hard to keep this short. I won't apologize for its length because I know you're all aware of the delete button J It's the people and the relationships that I've made here in planning for nearly 7 years now that have kept me in the "asylum" far longer then many have advised me I should. So I blame you! Of course I'm kidding, our interpersonal relationships, more than anything else, make life worth living. This planning department is replete with many extraordinarily talented, creative, and driven (some driven nearly insane J) public servants. I don't need to be a professional planner to see brilliance when I see it. That's among several reasons why I'm most perplexed and can't comprehend at all why Scott E is still a 3. Hey, that rhymes J I wish you all well in your battle against "the machinery" as well as the various sources of small/and/or/backwards/and/or/narrow-mindedness that continues to try and too often succeeds at marginalizing your profession. We're living in a world where too often, creativity is squashed by "pragmatism". But hey, on a very positive note, don' ever forget that you are all blessed to have the opportunity, in one way or another, to shape this great city of ours. I personally know that several of you find yourself at SFPD first and foremost, not simply for a paycheck, but in fact because you want to make a meaningful difference in your life. Maybe I'm naïve, I may very well be, but I encourage all of you professional planners to remember why you got into planning to begin with and to forge forward and stand up against the obstacles you face. Don't just sit back and take it! Organize, if need be, pool some money together and hire a private lobbyist and PR agent to promote your collective vision (assuming you can collect one of course J). I can't conceive of another American city that would benefit more from professional planners weighing in more, not less, than this city. We have such little real estate to play with. Wow, I'm starting to sound like a pro union collectivist. What's happening here? Like most everything else in life, the devil's in the details.

OK, I must end with some more politics J. I can't resist, as anyone who's come to know me lately knows, and Carol, politics doesn't drive economics, it's most obviously the other way around J. Being a fiscal conservative and enthusiastic proponent of private enterprise capitalism, and now having worked among socialists in the public sector for nearly 7 years in this "crazy" department as a citizen of one of the highest cost of living and taxed counties in the nation, you might think my commitment to smaller government has grown. You'd be absolutely correct and believe me it's grown considerably.

However, I still fully believe in this planning department's fundamental mission. I also continue to believe that "WELL MANAGED" city planning in general represents both a unique and critically important investment of public monies, if for no other reason (and there are several) than to counter one of capitalism's most gaping flaws. Private Enterprise rarely thinks beyond the narrowly driven interests of its stake holders thus it is imperative that a counter balancing public sector force weighs in, not just as a counter balance, but as a reasoned (public oriented) and professional voice that is intimately tied into the communities that have to live for years with the outcome of whatever is developed.

I'm sure this isn't anything that most of you aren't well aware of and were taught in school, still, I wanted you to know that this staunch capitalists appreciates what you lefties do for a living J Please scroll to the bottom of this email for my parting songs (each URL/link represents a server that is serving the song up just in case you can't connect to one or another). They both are from one of my favorite lyricists, Don Henley. The first is quite political, yet I'm certain my friends and most planners will appreciate it, especially my union buddies who I've cc:d this to. The other is a very uplifting song and one of my favorites from several years back that I grew to love as I was finally coming out of a huge perspective distorting cloud that surrounded me after I got divorced.

Enjoy, keep up the good fight, and please of course try your best to live long and prosper,

Larry (a.k.a SizzleMaster)

p.s.
For life, I most certainly intend to be available via email at larry@datasculpting.com . But hey, who knows where this technological trip
we're all headed on, whether we like it or not, is going to end up right? Also, if any of you are at all interested in sharing anything you think anyone else in this world might be interested in, then please keep your eye on (and bookmark) the DataSculpting Portal, a lifelong Knowledge & Entertainment sharing portal website hobby of mine and others: http://dsp.datasculpting.com.

Cheers?..

Inside Job
mms://mirror4.datafuze.com/music/Don%20Henley/Inside%20Job/07%20Inside%20Job.wma
mms://mirror2.datafuze.com/music/Don%20Henley/Inside%20Job/07%20Inside%20Job.wma
mms://mirror1.datafuze.com/music/Don%20Henley/Inside%20Job/07%20Inside%20Job.wma
mms://media.datasculpting.com/music/Don%20Henley/Inside%20Job/07%20Inside%20Job.wma
My Thanksgiving
mms://mirror4.datafuze.com/Music/Don%20Henley/Inside%20Job/13%20My%20Thanksgiving.wma
mms://mirror2.datafuze.com/Music/Don%20Henley/Inside%20Job/13%20My%20Thanksgiving.wma
mms://mirror1.datafuze.com/Music/Don%20Henley/Inside%20Job/13%20My%20Thanksgiving.wma
mms://media.datasculpting.com/Music/Don%20Henley/Inside%20Job/13%20My%20Thanksgiving.wma