According to Leon Panetta, every crisis is an opportunity to do the right thing.

Former CIA Director, former Secretary of Defense and current Carmel Valley resident Leon Panetta started his 2022 Arts + Architecture presentation with a bold admission. He doesn't know much about the subject of "land use," the 83-year-old admitted—though this was the main topic to be explored during his lecture.

However, since the problem is a reflection of greater national and global trends, Panetta offered his "national" and "global" take. 

The meeting, attended by Panetta, his wife Sylvia and a brand-new pup (their fifth golden retriever), attracted many of Panetta's neighbors—Carmel Valley landowners—invested in "protecting the quality of rural life" that sometimes stands at odds with sustainable growth and affordable housing.

While recognizing that the large world population, finite global resources and climate change already affect communities in California, "we want to give people an opportunity to live here," Panetta said at the event hosted by the American Institute of Architects, Monterey Bay chapter at the Hidden Valley Institute of the Arts in Carmel Valley on Thursday, April 21.

"I want others to enjoy it. ... It's not easy and it will require good planning," he continued, warning against living "wealthy" and "alone" in what he described (based on his years of travels) as the most beautiful place in the world.

"We are tested by crises, but every crisis provides an opportunity to do the right thing."

To build his case, Panetta referred to his own immigrant roots. While he was born and raised in Monterey, his father was from a huge Italian immigrant family. His father had a restaurant in Monterey where young Panetta washed glasses before the family bought a farm in Carmel Valley and started a walnut farm. Times change and economies shift; now it's tourism, education, the military and small businesses that feed Monterey County, Panetta said. But the number of crises people have been facing in the recent years is unprecedented. Inflation is the worst in 40 years, Panetta said, and homelessness in California seems "a disaster." The current state of the economy fosters inequality and unaffordable housing, he said. 

Instead of just pouring money on these problems, Panetta called for California communities to come together.

"Nothing is happening because communities are not coming together," he said, arguing that America can still be a place that offers people opportunity. 

In addition to proclaiming climate change a national security issue, Panetta spoke about the Russian war in Ukraine, praising the current U.S. support for Ukraine.

"It is risky," Panetta admitted, but taking a risk is necessary, he said. What ultimately happens in Ukraine will tell the world what the 21st century will look like, former secretary said.

"Putin sensed weakness," he said about the Russian attack in February 2022, and listed a series of American foreign policy decisions as a chain reaction leading to Putin's growing defiance: Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014 and finally the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. 

Panetta added Ukraine will require a full-blown country reconstruction and an equivalent of the Marshall Plan, referring to the economic aid offered to Western Europe after WWII that rebuilt France and Germany. 

Panetta's turn at the Arts + Architecture lectern will be followed by two other presentations on land use this spring: A panel discussion with smart growth and private property rights advocates on May 12 and a lecture titled "Building in the Open Landscape: Looking at Successful Transitions from Built to Natural Environment Polarization" on May 26. For more information, visit: artsandarchitecturemonterey.org.