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South Park's Granny Flats — City Says Yea, Some Citizens Say Nay
As the late night, backroom deal to lift the cap on downtown redevelopment showed us, residents cannot trust the city to do anything that is in their best interests. everything is done for the benefit of the developers. AnytimeEyou hear smeone call San Diego "America's Finest City," the correct riposte is "America's Most Corrupt City."— October 29, 2010 8:30 a.m.
Spread the Wealth
The official election material put out by the City stated that 100 percent (not 80, 50, or anything in between) of collected funds would go to about 10 direct services. Now that's been proved a lie, but as long as the City is making money off the deal, no one cares. Try to get a response from Gloria and Hueso and watch them wiggle out of it.— May 3, 2010 5:18 p.m.
Mayor Sanders joins Marco LiMandri against conflict charges
Scott Kessler is the unlikely hero of this article. But Kessler too has muddy feet when it comes to MADs. He was a former head of the Golden Hill CDC before he joined the city's Development Services staff. In that capacity, he was instrumental in pushing through the passage of a MAD in Golden Hill -- a MAD that is much disputed and the subject of litigation. Among Kessler's dirty tricks were: 1) approving an official city ballot that allowed opponents no space to list arguments against the MAD, 2) approving an engineer's report that included sections of Balboa Park (a regional park) in Golden Hill to give the city a heavier weighted vote, and 3) chairing a meeting of citizens at which he chose only to address written questions that supported the MAD. At that meeting he also introduced Mitch Berner as a disinterested party, even though Berner had been hired to promote the MAD. The lesson of all this is, as a previous letter writer commented, that MADs are a cesspool of corruption endemic to this city. City Council members, the mayor, the district attorney, the city attorney, and city staff are all complicit in this corruption. They smile and pretend not to notice the stench from the cesspool.— March 4, 2010 12:19 p.m.
Bypassing Bylaws in Golden Hill
Although many of these comments have rightly taken the CDC to task, we can't ignore the city employees who enable and abet the CDC -- specifically members of the Community Development Agency, who approve all the CDC's actions, whether ethical and legal or not. Scott Kessler, at one time GH CDC president, later worked for this city agency, although rumor has it he was forced out for irregular activities. He was a key formulator of the MAD, even choosing, at a community meeting before the MAD vote, which citizens' questions to answer and which to ignore. His successor, Beth Murray, and his chief henchman, Luis Ojeda, carry out his philosophy by refusing to second-guess any of the CDC's decisions. Presumably they are trying to relieve pressure on the city's general fund by shifting as many expenses as possible to the MAD.— September 21, 2009 9:17 a.m.
Bypassing Bylaws in Golden Hill
Pat Martin asserts that neither the CDC nor the City wanted to get rid of "cantankerous" members of the Oversight Committee. Her statement would be more convincing if she could back it up. The CDC drew names to see which five of the original Oversight Committee would be invited back. Two of the five reappointments were CDC supporters, the third is away for months at a time, and the other two were slots that had been vacant from the beginning. The CDC thus gets to appoint not 10 but 12 new members. From the CDC's viewpoint, this result is the equivalent of drawing to an inside straight, hitting a home run with the bases loaded, and winning the lottery by buying a single ticket. As miracles go, the CDC will only top this when its executive director walks on water. The CDC is not at all a representative body. It consists of self-selected members with definite ideas about how they want to improve the neighborhood. Some of these ideas are pet projects they want everyone in the neighborhood to pay for. The original Oversight Committee managed to scotch or limit some of these. Expect the new committee to sink money into the canyons, repair a park fountain, undertake projects in Balboa Park (not part of Golden Hill at all), duplicate city services, and rent an additional office for the CDC.— September 19, 2009 11:02 a.m.