Companion article:  The Iceberg of the Gateway Plan — and the cockroaches, mosquitoes, termites, rats, and rot.

Senator Margaret Chase Smith — 1949 to 1973

Margaret Chase Smith served in U.S. Congress for 33 years, from 1940 to 1973. As a Republican from Maine, she first was a U.S. representative for eight years, and then was elected to the Senate for 24 years starting in 1949. She ran for the Republican presidential nomination in the 1964 election and thus was the first woman to be placed in nomination for the presidency at a major party’s convention. She was born in 1897 and died at the age of 97 in 1995.

Margaret Chase Smith was the first member of Congress to criticize the tactics of the anti-Communist witch hunt led by her fellow Republican Senator, Joseph McCarthy. She said:

“As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist. They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.”

On June 1, 1950, she delivered a 15-minute speech that became famous as the Declaration of Conscience” speech. This speech included her statement: “I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny — fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.” Her speech ended with a warning: “It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques — techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”

In the 1952 election, Smith was widely mentioned as a vice-presidential candidate under the eventual winner, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Instead, the party chose then-Congressman Richard Nixon, and, as is said “The rest is history.” Nixon served as vice-president for eight years, ran against John F. Kennedy in 1960, and then came back to run (and win) against former vice-president Hubert Humphrey, in 1968.

She was a strong supporter of the space program and served as a charter member of the Senate Aeronautical and Space Committee. NASA administrator James E. Webb once commented that the United States never would have placed a man on the Moon if it were not for her.

She supported increased educational funding, civil rights, and Medicare — one of thirteen Republican senators to vote in favor Medicare. She voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968, as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (prohibiting poll taxes) and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Senator Margaret Chase Smith on the issue of trust

During the years of the Vietnam War, she was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. At one point, the Committee found evidence of an Army general misappropriating a (relatively) small amount of funding — that is, using it for a purpose not stated in the budget. There was a budget item labeled as “target practice ammunition” when instead it was used for liquor for officers’ parties. Funding for officers’ parties was a legitimate expense, but some budgetary staffer felt that to call it by what it was — liquor –it might not look good in some parts of the country.  The general’s response was along the lines of “Please accept this — It’s only 45 million dollars.”

Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s response to him became a classic.

“General,” she told him. “If we can’t trust you with the millions, how do you expect us to trust you with the billions?“

Why her words are important to us now

The Gateway Area Plan started out as a bold (for Arcata) experiment.

What would happen if neighborhoods were zoned to be twice as dense as anywhere else in Arcata — with buildings that were twice as tall. What would happen if there was the promise of better walking paths, better biking paths, better and more frequent public transit — and at the same time there was a limit on available parking, so that only one in four (or even one in eight) people of driving age would have a place to park their car.

It would all be an experiment.

• If we make it difficult for people to use a car, will people give up their cars? 
• If we make it easier for developers to build these buildings, will they take the money they’ll be saving and give it back to the people, as community benefits that everyone in the neighborhood will benefit from.
• Will more apartment units built lead to an overall lowering of rent.
• If developers don’t have to provide parking spaces, will the rents automatically be decreased by the cost of otherwise having to pay for the land and costs of parking.
• If developers are allowed to build six-story apartment buildings — will they? Or will they build three-story buildings, because that’s what they know how to do.
• Will the increased cost-per-unit of building four stories and higher result in higher rents?

And then — before any of this is proven to work, before we have a clue whether these “make it easier for developers” policies will result in more, better, or theoretically less expensive housing for Arcata…
How about taking these policies out of the 138-acre Gateway area, and extending these policies anywhere they are wanted, anywhere in Arcata?

If some of this sounds fishy to you, that’s because much of it is indeed fishy.

For more on the failure of the Gateway Area Plan, see:  The Iceberg of the Gateway Plan — and the cockroaches, mosquitoes, termites, rats, and rot.

From that article:  If you see some rot, some misrepresentation, or a few falsehoods — then the great likelihood is there are more that you’re not seeing.

In December, 2022, Arcata’s Community Developer Director asked the City Council to approve $118,000 in additional funding to help improve the development of the Gateway Area Plan. The Council agreed to approved the new funding.

Among what was included in the contract amendment was what was called a “Plan Area Massing Diagram.” The contract amendment included a sample of the type of diagram we’d be getting. As I wrote (see Planwest 3D Massing Diagrams are non-existent), “The Plan Area Massing Diagram would be especially useful at this time, as we are discussing massing and building heights. This is where a 3D image really is needed.”

The stated cost was only $8,560 (plus contingency and management costs).
The outside consultant cost of developing the Gateway Area Plan and the General Plan is over $760,000. The cost of the Plan Area Massing Diagrams would be about one and one-eighth of a percent of that — 1.13%, that’s all.

It was just $8,560 that we have no results from. So what’s the big deal?

To paraphrase the words of Margaret Chase Smith, from fifty years ago, she would say to the Community Development Director:

“Mr. Loya,” she would say. “If we can’t trust you with the thousands, how do you expect us to trust you with the millions?“

On the Community Development Department’s budget spreadsheet for the Gateway Area Plan is a line item called “Task 6 – 3D GIS.” The amount shown is $34,596. As of September, 2023, all but $188 of this had been spent — that is, over 99% of the funds that were budgeted for “Task 6 – 3D GIS” have been spent.

But where is the product? What have we seen of this? 

We’ve seen nothing.

“Mr. Loya,” Margaret Chase Smith would say. “If we can’t trust you with the tens of thousands, how do you expect us to trust you with the hundreds of thousands?“

The Gateway Plan progresses onward. The time when these Massing Diagrams and 3D images would have been helpful is more or less behind us. 

But the money was spent, and with no visible results.

If Senator Margaret Chase Smith were alive and in Arcata, I would beg of her:

Please help us. We’re lost.