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Fight Over North Park Bar Spills Into the Streets
Clue #2 as to why clueless Planning Commissioners won't touch Adam Cook and Cuong Nguyen: Cook and Nguyen, as members and darlings of the Business Improvement Association (BIA) set, have solid ties to City Planning and to the Economic Development division. They will never lose any fight between residents and Planning officials. BIAs make up the Business Improvement District (BID) loyalists, and come together as the BID Council. This program is very important to Sanders and William Anderson, Planning head. It cultivates Planning loyalists, giving them insider perks in return. The BIAs are basically a third-party, tax- and assessment-collecting, private arm of San Diego goverment. Not only are BIAs allowed to collect and keep a tax on each business inside Association boundaries, on top of the City's business license tax, but they are also allowed to impose and keep property tax assessments on residences inside their boundaries. What's more, as "hipster"-age business entrepreneurs, buying up decrepid properties and turning them into profitable decrepid drinking spots that get lauded in Citybeat, for example, Nguyen and Cook are immune from censure. They also own Café La Maze in National City, and have been written up as "young and aggressive business partners" and real estate investors in the U-T. A past Reader story about dive bars, which mentioned Cook and Nguyen (who would not return calls), began with a quote on economic realities: “No matter what happens,”... “no matter if the economy’s good or bad, you’ve got to drink.” The economy is bad. The City will not touch these shining young entrepreneurs. Here's the glowing write-up from the El Cajon BIA newsletter, Fall 2009: "Adam Cook and Cuong Nguyen, owners of the Soda Bar, were both born and raised in San Diego and have a background in real estate. With the recent downturn in the economy, the two business partners saw an opportunity to diversify their assets by investing in small retail establishments in the up and coming neighborhoods of San Diego. A few years back, they started off by opening the Bluefoot Bar and Lounge in North Park. The staff at the Bluefoot are made up of mostly local artists and musicians who have stuck with them since day one. ... With the transition from Chasers, the dive bar which occupied the space where the Soda Bar is now located, Adam and Cuong wanted to keep prices low and retain that neighborhood bar feel. ... They also support the local art scene by featuring different artwork on their walls every month. With the right staff, a great renovation, affordable prices, community dedication and excellent music, Adam and Cuong are applying all the right tools for long-term success."— March 14, 2011 8:31 a.m.
Fight Over North Park Bar Spills Into the Streets
Well, here's a start: The officers of Bluefoot are listed on the ABC license as CUONG PHU NGUYEN (Pres), MIRA RUOTSALAINEN-COOK (Secy/Asst Secy), and ADAM SCOTT COOK (Vice-Pres). Mira is Adams' spouse, presumably, or otherwise related. And with a name as unique as MIRA RUOTSALAINEN-COOK, it's unlikely that it happens to be another Mira with the same name who works as an Environmental Planner for a company that has prepared Environmental Impact Reports for the City of San Diego Redevelopment Agency. In one Oct 2002 Crossroads Redevelopment Project she is listed as working for Cotton/Bridges/Associates as Primary Preparer of the EIR. Well-known Planning Department employees Tracy Reed and Myra Herrmann are listed as members of the contributing City staff. Small world of connected people. Planning people have worked professionally with one of the bar owners. It's a clue, a small start?— March 13, 2011 11:08 p.m.
Fight Over North Park Bar Spills Into the Streets
Well, they won't be ashamed; shamed...maybe, if enough people could be motivated to act. They are far too insulated for shame by The People and wouldn't be taking time away from their fundraisers and business get-togethers to read The Reader. And as you know, the Sanders regime flunkies don't usually talk to The Reader, just to the U-T and VoSD. So... what to do?— March 13, 2011 7:29 p.m.
Fight Over North Park Bar Spills Into the Streets
Wow, deserttrat. Why on Earth was his daughter there? That bears looking into. And I forgot to mention that the entire building is just so ugly I could puke. Ugly! Nothing in Nature was ever that color of dingy muck blue.— March 13, 2011 6:33 p.m.
Fight Over North Park Bar Spills Into the Streets
All of the Planing Commissioners are appointed by Sanders. They are all in unity with Sanders and his business interests to do no harm to any business owners. Neighborhood residential complainers are to be ignored and considered as powerless morons, who do not know what is good for them. You can easily look at online resumes and profiles of the PC appointees. Most would view the old inner-city commercial-strip neighborhoods as slums and targets for infill, compared to the neighborhoods, distant from commercial areas, if not totally removed, in sterile cookie-cutter burbs (e.g., Commander Smiley, age 67), where they live. Most have aspirations to enhance their business and commercial interests with the city, or head orgs that are about development. One member is on the redistricting committee and blatantly profiles himself as hoping to redivide our council districts to enhance the Republican strength in elections. Losers. Sycophants. What right do they have to decide that bar owners can ruin neighborhoods? Go puke on their lawns.— March 13, 2011 6:13 p.m.
Fox Canyon Neighborhood Protests Governor’s Move to Eliminate Redevelopment Agencies
I need to correct my error: the "exclusive negotiating right" was to Affirmed Housing Group, which Hitzke worked for. Community Collective LLC is another of her companies, registered in Oregon (currently inactive)and sometimes incorrectly referred to as a "nonprofit." It is not registered as a nonprofit, as far as I can find.— March 12, 2011 11:45 a.m.
Fox Canyon Neighborhood Protests Governor’s Move to Eliminate Redevelopment Agencies
Ah yes, I do remember that story. Thanks, Fred. Small world of people circling and swirling around those pots of gold, filled with Redevelopment dollars. And it's all about to get sucked down the drain, out of reach to them. They are deeply offended! They do work really hard to get the Redevelopment money and tax breaks, I'll have to admit. But by now, they know the ropes and all of the giveaway agencies and people completely...Now they scout cities looking for city-owned lots that are empty or offer beach parking (those horrible, anti-green car lovers) and entice the pro-Redevelopment bureaucrats to give them exclusive negotiating agreements for the parcel, at low or no cost, then ask for Redevelopment "loans" to cover the cost of creating plans for infill. In Redevelopment Areas that are clearly NOT blighted, such as Solana Beach (check it out yourself: it's happening in SB, with a reverse twist on the old Joni Mitchell song, "They Paved Paradise"), their mixed-use plans include a token minimal number of "affordable" units in an otherwise high-end-unit and high-end-retail package. Mayors and councilpeople now desperately trying to tie up the Redevelopment funds are eager to accommodate. Once in a while, some people attending such Council hearings comment skeptically on the unseemliness of placing low-income units over high-end retail. But hey, maybe the low-income people allowed in could be the "workforce-in-place." That's one of the fave developer terms for placing low-income tenants into an infill site without adequate parking. The low-income WiP needn't travel far, by bus if necessary, to work as cooks, maids, valets, etc., in the lovely high-end developments. Perfect! It may be a nice deal for a few low-income renters, but it's really a hugely profitable deal for the redevelopers, and they do pop the champagne corks when they pull it off.— March 12, 2011 11:31 a.m.
Fox Canyon Neighborhood Protests Governor’s Move to Eliminate Redevelopment Agencies
Yes, they do show up. And yes, everyone making public comments at the planning committee meetings should disclose. That's not too much to ask. Also, I agree with your previous feelings that not all of what has been done using RA money is bad. But affordable housing alone is a good enough goal, and the RA middle-man must go. The RA-selected developers, the nonprofits and for-profit LPs, LLCs, etc., have acquired enormous wealth tapping the RA gravy train. It's amazing how many of these LPs and LLCs and Associations all come back to a few key players, with scores of their entities listed at a single obscure address. Affirmed HG and associates, for example...in California, Oregon, ...have extensively tapped public money and have huge inventories of land holdings, largely acquired at little or no cost. It's just way too many tax dollars benefiting too few. Also, most of the huge tax-benefit contracts that go to the RA developer state that the developer is required only to rent the units as low-income units for 50 years. After that? They own all the land and the buildings and can do what they want with it?— March 11, 2011 10:08 a.m.
Fox Canyon Neighborhood Protests Governor’s Move to Eliminate Redevelopment Agencies
Addendum #3: Turns out that Mr Lopez has also been employed by Affirmed Housing Group, the for-profit developer that owns Auburn Park and the 69 apartments. People in Poway will recall being interviewed by Mr. Lopez for purposes of their "relocation" when Affirmed got the existing Poway land/buildings to redevelop. His company, Prince Business Management Systems, hired by Affirmed HG, operated out of a house near Auburn Park Apartments. Not wise to do PR for yourself or your cause and not fully disclose your personal interests and involvement. We all need less unaffordable housing (more affordable), but we need it without it being a never-ending cash cow for a few very well-connected and wealthy companies and their circle of local recruits who represent themselves only as "just the neighbors."— March 10, 2011 2:35 p.m.
Fox Canyon Neighborhood Protests Governor’s Move to Eliminate Redevelopment Agencies
Addendum #2: It's getting even more interesting. Not only is Auburn "Park" not a park, but rather part of the landscaping of a private, developer-owned Redevelopment Agency 69-unit project on what Chollas Creek neighbors hoped would be a park and open space and an education center, but Mr. Fox Canyon Neighborhood Lopez has been an employee of Ginger Hitzke on another of her many Redeveloment Agency-funded projects: "Community Collective hired relocation specialist Joseph Lopez to help the site's former residents find new homes"... http://www.allbusiness.com/society-social/social-… Full disclosure, everyone?— March 10, 2011 10:38 a.m.