When you
don’t know where the theater should go / it can always go – downtown.
When you
are worried, there’s no need to be hurried, you can take it slow – to downtown.
Just listen
to the experts about traffic in the city / Put people on the sidewalk where the
shop windows are pretty / How can you lose?
Delights
they will find you there, you can forget all the flooding, the winter despair
If it’s
downtown, movies are great when they’re / Downtown, no finer place for sure /
Downtown, it’ll be waiting for you.
Don’t hang
around, let the problems confound you / Put the movie show downtown.
Soon it
will grow some little places to go to / Where they never close – downtown.
Just listen
to the rhythm of Petaluma River / People will be dancing when the theater’s
delivered
Happy
again… / The sights are much finer there /
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go
downtown, where all the lights are bright / Downtown - waiting for you tonight
/ Downtown – it’s going to be all right there.
And you
will find the citizens support and understand you / When the downtown movie
house has your helping hand to move it along. / So maybe we'll see you there /
We can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares / So go downtown, movies
are great when they’re / Downtown - don't wait a minute, vote
Downtown –
everyone’s waiting for you.
This coming
Monday, January 13th, the Petaluma City Council is holding a special
evening meeting “for Discussion on Various Movie Theater Proposals.” It’s an
opportunity for you to tell the new Council that Petaluma’s new theater needs
to go downtown. In addition to the song, here are three reasons for it.
Reason #1: Revitalize Downtown. We
have a great opportunity, to learn from other cities that have invested in a
downtown theater. It’s a fact that theaters stimulate business in the
surrounding area. The Central Petaluma Specific Plan acknowledges this in
making the downtown location of a theater one of its high priority
recommendations: "If developed in or near downtown Petaluma, an
entertainment/cinema complex would provide considerable synergy to the
restaurants and specialty shops that currently exist in the downtown... Such a
"centerpiece" project would expand the trade area served by Central
Petaluma." (p.22)
It’s not
likely well get more than one theater complex for the foreseeable future. No
one exactly leaped at the chance to fill the void left by the departed Pacific
Cinemas. Do we want to give our once-in-a-decade economic booster to the
Outlet Mall or the Historic Downtown? If we *could* support two theater
complexes, shouldn’t we make the downtown theater the first? Not sure? Read on.
Reason #2:
Reduce Flood Risk. An Outlet Mall theater, along with the proposed additional
development in the flood plain, will increase the flood risk downstream. Using
parking lots to detain floodwaters will no longer be viable under new state
laws that require removal of absorbed pollutants before the water can be
released back into natural waterways.
Reason #3:
Minimize Traffic Impact. A Factory Outlet theater, given its remote location,
will require access by car. The Environmental Impact Report for the proposed
Factory Outlet expansion (a project which has added the theater to give it more
public appeal) shows unacceptable levels of congestion around the Old Redwood
Highway overpass and at Petaluma Boulevard/Washington Street. Its solution
would be the unaffordable Rainier interchange. A downtown theater, on the
contrary, would be within walking distance of the new bus transit center, the
future rail station, as well as a substantial number of Petaluma homes. Plus,
the City can use Redevelopment funds to subsidize a parking garage located near
one of the main arterial roads.
Here’s an issue that should easy for the new CityCouncil to unite around. Next Monday, go downtown to City Hall at 7PM, and lend them your helping hand.