Todd Gloria VS Wal-Mart, next round...

Is there no irony? Gloria is among the contingency of Planning Department employees, consultants, and local hangers-on-looking-to-profit who are currently determined to promote zoning changes in the Mid-City area Community Plan Updates. The main City/developer/business goal is "infill" - that is, building mixed-use, extra rental units, and apartments on every lot, residential AND commercial. Whatever it takes to accommodate this density increase is OK with Gloria, because it means development money for his constituency - builders, realtors, consultants, local restaurant/bar owners (who don't live in our communities, but only rent business space), and land investors. But the irony is that all of these hired guns pushing the infill/density/building in the old communities ringing north and east of downtown speak winningly of "walkability" and "pedestrian friendly." They warn of the dire consequences of too many cars and too much free parking. They seem to believe no one living in Hillcrest or South Park, for example, really needs a car, and that we can all walk to everything to buy our consumer goods. Well, it's a hell of long walk from where I live to Costco, Target, Lowes, Home Depot, Macys, and Nordstrom. I happen to not mind that at all: I drive there and need a car to carry home the purchases. I also like my quiet low-density neighborhood, but I definitely would not mind if a nice big Target was built within a few miles - and stores like Target always provide FREE parking. This is much preferable to the higher investment-return "mixed-use" and useless boutique stores and bars being promoted by Gloria and the Planning Dept, with no parking. The inconsistency of the message and the messengers in the current Community Plan Updates is glaring. Doesn't anyone else notice? Our older neighborhoods ringing downtown are seen purely as investment opportunities. No one but the property owners wanting to live quietly want to retain the single-family and small, independent grocer atmosphere. The City and the developer/business owners want granny flats, zoning changes, and no local grocers with parking lots. Go to the Community Plan Update meetings if you want to see what is happening!
— October 18, 2010 10:31 a.m.

CDC Calls for Mediation with MAD

And by the way, do you really think that you and the CDC are even remotely credible, when, as just ONE example, the idiot husband of CDC's Vice President Sophie Atkins posts blog entries calling respected and well-loved community-elected Oversight committee members "crazies" and "frothing"? Do you all think that because you have crooked illegal-contract-signing Jerry Sanders and his crooked planning department fascists egging you on that you are invisible? You all behave just like Fred Sainz behaves: crude, rude, and ugly. Just disgusting.
— June 25, 2008 7:31 p.m.

CDC Calls for Mediation with MAD

One mistake the CDC did make, says Vandenheuval, was appointing a CDC member to head up the program manager subcommittee. She says it made it appear like the CDC was assuming total control over the program, which was not the case." Oh! Oops! Just a mistake! It only looks that way! It's not really the way it looks! Please, stop embarassing yourself. Are you really as stupid as you make yourself out to be by offering up that kind of idiocy? Are you being forced to say these things by the old power crones? What's in it for you? The next run for Council in the back of your mind? Yeah, you are just what is needed to replace Hueso...the only difference is you aren't quite as fat. But you are sounding just as stupid and looking just as willing to be corrupt. What kind of MISTAKE would it take to disqualify yourself and your entire gang of misguided, greedy, self-serving, lying, self-appointed, private-government money-grubbers from being allowed to select so much as the toilet paper that you've forced the entire community to pay for in your program manager's bathroom in her community-paid-for personal office? You just ask for this kind of contempt by saying things like that. How long do you think good people can continue to be polite and play conciliatory games with you, when everytime you open your mouth you insult their integrity? After a year of your kind of mind-numbing blather and lies, it's way past the point of civility. The kind of contempt you manifest is just going to get it right back in your face.
— June 25, 2008 6:02 p.m.

MAD: Advisory or Oversight Committee?

"Just so I avoid being anonymous, I've put in countless volunteer hours," That's the kind of absurd reasoning that is so objected to in the community by those who only wish for total honesty, transparency, and proper process. The CDC has schemed only to access a new source of easy money in this time of diminishing state and federal grant dollars, to which CDC had grown so accustomed. You are one of the main ringleaders and are still calling the shots and pushing the malleable young people you install to do what you want. Thanks for coming out. You couldn't have revealed yourself better. And you do know me: We volunteered to do many similar things for OUR (not just YOUR) community over the years, going way back. Unfortunately, the CDC's record of disregard for process, and the CDC's willingness to use its 501(c)(3) status further the self-interest of its small group of members, has always limited its membership to a group not unlike yourself. I'm sure that the sidewalks in front of your property will be powerwashed and powerwashed until you can eat pizza right off of them without fear of a single germ. But out in zone 2, the residential areas that get little but contribute the most so that your business frontage can be spit-shined, I will clean my own sidewalks, like I've always done. You used your personal relationship with a City official to get him to push your little money-making scheme through. But it isn't going to be a cake walk. You will have to keep anwering and keep answering questions, until you get honest. Pat yourself on the back over that.
— June 19, 2008 8:02 p.m.

MAD: Advisory or Oversight Committee?

[last chapter] Ah. Truth and lies. But: the good news: the City posted the CDC's budget on the Council docket today, so that Council can rubber stamp it on June 23 (be there!). (See Item-202; see page 12 of http://docs.sandiego.gov/councildockets/dkt2008/d… and part 2 of the back-up materials.) Guess what? In the new 08/09 budget, CDC is budgeting a whopping, humongous $338,364/year for powerwashing sidewalks and clock maintenance and for unspecified "equipment and infrastructure." Since we know that assessments can't be used to repair or replace streets and sidewalks, any guesses as to where that money is going to blow? Oh, and the budget for all this in 07/08 was only $45,500. What a giant leap! Why such a huge increase? Are they buying a fleet of powerwashing hummers? How did they get all that money? Oh, oh, oh, I see: they didn't spend the collected taxes in 07/08, they just TOOK them. Why? They didn't have the right to spend them, because the City didn't sign a contract allowing them to take and spend them until April of 2008. So, what's the right thing to do here, for no work performed, but charged for? Give it back for 07/08: that's what the law says can be done. Give it back or credit it and take none next year! Law? Who cares about laws in San Diego? Hey, PB people: how did you get Faulconer to pull your MAD off the docket and bury it forever? It was just like ours, and we are stiffed.
— June 18, 2008 4:05 p.m.

MAD: Advisory or Oversight Committee?

[cont] Then this was good: Two CDC members who were positioned in the back of the room stood up and read (yes, read! they are that obvious and that incompetent) fawning, adoring, obsequious statements about how much they love and need their CDC and their assessment. Nice. Then two other CDC plants took turns saying things that show they don't have the vaguest idea of what an assessment district is, what ours is or should be, and who properly benefits. One chick was bussed in from the Kessler mini-kingdom-for-hire, El Cajon Business Improvement District, to proclaim the bounties that could be experienced from being assessed. Uh, we're not a business district assessment: Sorry - back to El Cajon Blvd, girl. Then a crazy Golden Hill business owner started screaming, "clean up the town! ... There are leaves in my gutter! I'm having a house fair and people are coming and we've spent a lot of money advertising and you promised you'd clean the leaves!" Ugh. City, Kessler: that didn't go over the way you must have envisioned. Should have had rehearsal on that one, and definitely recast the actress. By the way, lady, I know where your business is, and those aren't LEAVES, they are flowers, yellow flowers. The fall profusely, every second of the day, and won't stop till they are ready to stop. They will be all over your house fair guests, in their hair, eyes, nose, and mouth. Get over it. You are now known as the "leave no leaf behind" lady. [cont]
— June 18, 2008 3:55 p.m.

MAD: Advisory or Oversight Committee?

[cont] So, well, what are the facts about this accusation from the Deputy Director of the Economic Development division (and, surprise, the former President of ...the Golden Hill CDC, though he didn't mention that at the meeting!)? OK, here we go: the only person from the Golden Hill committee who was at the PB MAD flame-out was Golden Hill CDC plant on the GH oversight Committee, Ben Nicholls, CDC/Kessler loyalist (in addition to being the loser PB MAD puppet master and executive director). Mr. Nicholls' goal is to destroy democracy and to use his beloved power to spend other peoples' tax dollars, cuz that's all he knows how to do. His statement at the Golden Hill meeting was that he just wants to spend our tax money: "spend the money!!" He has no concern whether the committee he is on has the autonomy that is legally its right. Advice to the City: hire smarter operators in the future. Nicholls and Kessler are just lame. [cont]
— June 18, 2008 3:52 p.m.

MAD: Advisory or Oversight Committee?

Thanks for this story: it says it all. Mr. Kessler was evasive, dishonest, unbelievable, and refused to answer any question to which he had no ready lie. In the latter case, he kept repeating, "I don't understand the question. I don't understand the question." As he shrank further and further into the wall behind him, he became more and more defensive and ridiculous. The last thing he threw out was an accusation that "some committee member" who was at the Pacific Beach MAD meeting that went down in flames last week told him personally that their goal was to destroy the Golden Hill MAD. Aha! Proof that this committee is not REALLY being disenfranchised, but WANTS to be disenfranchised! But when someone from the crowd asked Kessler to say who, and expose the scoundrel, pointing out that he was making a serious allegation, he smirked "I'd rather not say." This is pretty pathetic for someone who is supposed to be a trusted City employee (and oddly, Kessler volunteered that he had been under an ethics violation investigation, but never said he'd been cleared). [cont]
— June 18, 2008 3:46 p.m.