Lowe's store made sense because of tax revenue

Regarding Ms. Barker's letter to the editor of Feb. 28 ("Hospital is using scare tactics against the traffic initiative"), I'm pleased to clarify any misconceptions that any one of the proponents or opponents of the Traffic Congestion Initiative may have about my support of the Westlake Village initiative to bring a Lowe's home improvement center to the city of Westlake Village in 2006.

At that time I was a private citizen, not a member of the Westlake Village City Council. But my support of the Lowe's initiative was based in a very large part on my initial experience as a council member. You see, when I was elected to the Westlake Village City Council in 1993, the city of Westlake Village wasn't financially sound. It was, as I like to say, winking at being in the red.

I saw firsthand what it was like to run a city on an extremely limited budget, and it was very disconcerting, to say the least. The council had to set aside almost all of its projects due to lack of funding. It was quite difficult, if next to impossible, to move the city forward.

With the approval of Costco, which was then called Price Club, and then the Westlake Marketplace, the city began to see its coffer grow as it began to reap the benefits of the sales tax these businesses brought to the city.

My support of the Lowe's initiative was based primarily on the fact that I wanted to see a revenueproducing business on what was the last parcel in the city of Westlake zoned to provide that. Instead of Lowe's, it could just as well have been the Do-it Center or Nordstrom or any other useful revenue-producing business.

I'm very fiscally conservative. I wanted to ensure then, and I still want to ensure, that everything was being done that can be done to assure the future financial health of the city of Westlake Village. Kris Carraway-Bowman Westlake Village