By Pacific Coast Business Times Staff Sunday, December 7th, 2008

Julia Louis Dreyfus, aka Elaine from the Seinfeld show, is about to take her long-running protest act before the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.

Dreyfus and a few neighbors have become the hecklers in the audience at one of the most interesting dramas to unfold on the South Coast in recent years. That is the effort by Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso to redevelop the decaying Miramar Hotel site in Montecito.

You would think that with the economy in recession, the county and its schools just about broke and unemployment headed for double-digit levels, Dreyfus and cast would welcome a development such as the Miramar and its potential to provide employment to some of the folks who watch her on TV.

That is not the case. Dreyfus is scheduled to make a final appeal to kill the project at a supervisors hearing on Dec. 16. We’ve said before that with all due respect to her talents on the small screen, Dreyfus is just plain wrong to want to kill the Miramar.

Caruso, who masterminded the Westlake Village Promenade, the Lakes in Thousand Oaks, the Grove in L.A. and Americana in Glendale has made plenty of concessions in downsizing and revising the project to meet the objections of local residents, the Montecito Association and county planning agency.

It’s time to turn some dirt at the Miramar and we encourage supporters of the project to turn out at what should be the final hearing before permits are granted. To the hecklers we say, “yadda, yadda, yadda.”

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