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Downtown Residents Want Their Refund
SCI Consulting is run by only two people, both of whom are marginally deserving of the title "engineer." The primary engineered goods they produce is property owner dollars for willing partners such as the City of San Diego Economic Development Department. SCI couldn't exist without eager government partners such as Jerry Sanders' EDD, looking for a way to fund privatized services and to pay business groups to run the services (remember the recent Reader story about the Downtown SD Partnership's security patrol guy who refused to call 911 because he didn't want to use up his cell phone minutes?). The City's suit against SCI now, for breach of contract, is really sweet. The City loved SCI's work when it was useful, defending it in a lawsuit by property owners of Golden Hill and South Park (which the City lost), even though the City knew the SCI report was flawed and contained lies and errors (the report included untruthful statements provided by the City, about the process steps the City legally must undertake to form a MAD; SCI apparently felt no obligation to vet the truth). SCI has been notorious statewide for years as a hack company for hire to local groups and governments who want to get their hands on extra tax dollars, without the inconvenience of that pesky 2/3 vote requirement to raise taxes. SCI's purpose is to provide local governments the legal documentation necessary to meet State laws governing assessments, so that the next step, the "weighted" majority vote based on the money value of the assessment, can be implemented to pass the tax. The validity of SCI's "engineering" is widely questioned. They work backwards, staring with the amount that a group wants to collect, to come up with phony data showing that the costs would be that large. In Calaveras County in 2008, SCI was paid $23,000 to conduct a public opinion poll to see how large an assessment people might agree to pay to fund a mosquito and vector control district. Of all local property owners, only 30% responded, and half of those suggested they might be willing to pay up to $16.50/year. Bliss calculated that this would net the district $470,000 per year, and that a weighted vote would pass. SCI's Bliss then urged the County to pay him another $14,000 for an Engineer's Report and $64,000 to conduct a ballot. A County supervisor pointed out that the County environmental management director had recently calculated that budgeting $80,000 for its mosquito and vector control program would be entirely adequate. But according to SCI, why collect $80,000 when you could get $470,000? The County decided that this was wrong and dropped SCI's plan.— July 23, 2011 7:10 p.m.
Backyard Chickens
A few things: Salmonella species are all intestinal types of bacteria. They come from within: they are "on" any animal or human or object ONLY following contact with fecal matter. Contact with chicken and (all bird) poop is to be seriously avoided. Hands must be carefully washed; imperfectly sanitized hands that have touched bird poop or touched tools used to remove/transport bird poop can transfer Salmonella,... to garden soil, a gate, a fence, a door handle, a kid's face or toy, a lightswitch, a cookie, a plate or bowl....anywhere. Take extreme care not to spread Salmonella. The distance of 20 feet would require the coop to be exactly centered in most typical 50-foot-wide yards in North Park, PB, South Park, OB, or Golden Hill. This is very close in terms of noise and smell. Chickens will be noticed, by smell and noise, by neighbors. Hens DO make noise, all the time. They cluck and cluck and cluck, for hours on end. They can be heard many blocks away. Constant clucking is not as horrifying a sound as dog barking is, but it can be truly annoying for hours on end, and would be yet another unnecessary introduced noise on top of the airplanes, freeways, and, yes, insane dogs. And no police will ever come and cite the owners for chickens disturbing the peace. If the code change includes guaranteed police response and noise violation citations, maybe. Otherwise, NO! And, I expect a lot of novices don't know it, but chickens kill each other for little reason. It's bloody and awful. The kids and innocents will be traumatized.— July 13, 2011 4:09 p.m.
Waving The White Flag in PB.
Thanks for your continued efforts, Jerry, and your unflagging devotion to making PB a good place to live. The alcohol-related problems in PB also exist in other older communities to one degree or another, or are evolving, as greater numbers of businesses are licensed to sell alcohol.— June 22, 2011 11:35 a.m.
City Slow to Remove Racial Slur on Sign in North Park
dwbat, if you rent in a BID or MAD area, your landlord property owner pays the privatized tax that ends up in the hands of the corporation that the City lets control the tax. You certainly pay your property owner higher rent because of the MAD tax that the owner is paying, so you have a right to benefit from services that are supposedly covered by the tax. Currently in North Park, over 9000 property owners pay over $320,000/year to the MAD. That is about $18/single-family property and much more for commercial/rental properties. That is about to go way up, with another MAD being instituted on top of the current one. An extra $450,000 in MAD taxes (from about 2000 property owners) will be enforced on top of the current charges, about $65 more/single-family property. The City will give it all to the North Park Main Street business group to spend. The business groups that are the MAD creators and proponents like to see news stories with people complaining about City services: they'll NEVER tell you that if you actually go through the right channels at the City, you can get very satisfactory graffiti removal service. They love to hear about "government failure" ...that's their big justification for creating private tax districts and taking a big chunk of the taxes collected for themselves (phones, rent, admin, advertising, insurance, salaries, mileage, audits; many tens of thousands of dollars spent duplicating the costs that the City already incurs in its service operations). They want to be the private government. Being in control of spending public money is fun! And makes you one of the popular insiders with the City! Big wheels. Woo!— June 17, 2011 3:36 p.m.
City Slow to Remove Racial Slur on Sign in North Park
Hey, dwbat, guess what? Just looked it up: Louisiana and Polk is part of the property assessment district called the North Park MAD, run by North Park Main Street. They already charge property owners an extra, privatized tax, above and beyond government property taxes, to clean up graffiti "above and beyond" regular City services. You need to call the North Park Business Improvement District at 619-294-2501, or email them at [email protected] and teach THEM a lesson.— June 17, 2011 10:33 a.m.
City Slow to Remove Racial Slur on Sign in North Park
Naaah, dwbat, your friend wasn't using the right chemical. Wiping the black or white paint off that shiny red sign would be a cinch with mineral spirits or more pricey graffiti-removal-specific stuff you can buy at Home Depot. Been there, done it, many times. Would take only a minute. What I consider "easy" may be too much for someone else, especially if understanding basic chemistry and solvents isn't their forte. Call the right City department if you want action ... Or just keep spending your time complaining in the wrong place and feeling indignant. If you think complaining to someone so that they can forward your complaint to someone else is efficient, then you need to pay LOTS more taxes. And maybe you need to go to the council office in person and tell them what they need to learn. They might enjoy the lessons you can teach. Or not.— June 17, 2011 10:04 a.m.
City Slow to Remove Racial Slur on Sign in North Park
What is wrong with everyone? Where did you all learn to be so helpless and dependent? Take responsibility for the areas that you travel through or live in. Reach up and clean off the sign yourself. It's easy! A little bit of mineral spirits and a cloth or abrasive sponge, and it's gone. Just do it! The metal signs and utility boxes are very easy to clean (except when the boxes have been turned into garish monstrosities by misguided fools who think "art" is cartoons - and if that's the case, you are already paying a business or property assessment to a BID or MAD for privatized graffiti removal, so call the BID or MAD and complain and demand your money's worth - the City is no longer responsible - you are owned and managed by a nonprofit). AT&T will give you, for free, boxes of handy pocket-sized packets of cleaner-saturated wipers. Carry one or two packets in your pocket when you are walking yourself or your dog. Wipe off any graffiti you see. Make a difference and be responsible for your environment. If the graffiti is too difficult for you to remove yourself, the City does a great job of responding. If you are not getting a response, then you are not reporting properly to the right place or with the right info. Call the Graffiti Hotline (619-525-8522) or submit an online report. http://www.sandiego.gov/graffiti/sighting.shtml The Council office is the WRONG place to complain! Also, if you think the graffiti is gang related, snap a photo and email it to the gang detectives. They are easy to contact if you look online at the SDPD website. The gang detectives want to track the graffiti and need your help to catch the taggers. Every time I have ever asked the City for help in removing graffiti, I had a response within the week. Last year on the day before New Year's Eve day, kids playing on the sidewalks used a can of white shellac spray and really tagged up the sidewalk in my neighborhood. The sidewalks are porous and very hard to clean; I couldn't get the paint off with the tools I had. I called the Graffiti Hotline, and the next day a wonderful City worker came out and quickly blasted all of the paint away, using a solvent and high-pressure sprayer. I gave him a big hug, a bag of New Year's cookies, and a New Year's horn and hat to celebrate. Yeah!— June 17, 2011 8:22 a.m.
Complaint Lodged Against Clean and Safe Program Employee
One more point: that prepaid cell phone that Mr. Bad Safety Amb-ass was so loathe to use was most certainly paid for by the assessed downtown property owners. The PBIDs and MADs give all the PBID/MAD staff cell phones, courtesy of the assessed property owners. Who those staff call is up to them. Looks like this one didn't want to waste his free minutes on the cops!— May 20, 2011 6:49 p.m.
Complaint Lodged Against Clean and Safe Program Employee
It's the property-based taxing entity, the PBID, not a BID, that does the "safety patrol" deal - that's run by the Downtown San Diego Partnership, an arm of the CCDC. But you are correct about the public money that goes to hire useless, phony cops. Wouldn't everyone love it if all that wasted assessment money went to a real police department? Millions and millions of public money, as "assessments," are given to nonprofits, who pay themselves first, and a lot of what's left goes to cover overhead expenses. The City mayor and Planning Department, with the help of some really bad Councilmembers, has organized this approach. It's the Republican thing to do!— May 20, 2011 6:42 p.m.
Complaint Lodged Against Clean and Safe Program Employee
Downtown property owners, please note: the statement "the safety ambassadors are employees of the business improvement district and aren’t subject to oversight by the city,..." is not correct. The so-called "safety ambassadors" are basically the employees of assessment-paying property owners, who pay on their property tax bills money that goes directly to the Downtown San Diego Partnership, an arm of the CCDC. Both DSDP and CCDC are subject to City oversight (although we know oversight is a big joke). DSDP is given all of the property assessments and they run the downtown property-based improvement district PBID (which is not a business improvement district, i.e., a BID; there are lots of downtown BIDs, too, but they collect a business-license tax for their funds and privatized actions). Here is the DSDP website describing the duties of the safety ambassadors: http://www.sdcleanandsafe.org/node/2 An assessment on a property tax bill is public money. Giving public money to private organizations to use is dangerous folly, and there had better be lots of elected-government oversight.— May 20, 2011 1:52 p.m.