Garbage truckers’ gripes

The Environmental Services workers are the best of all City workers They never fail to do what is necessary to accomplish the job. Despite morons who cram excessive amounts of trash, or wrong types of trash, in the containers, the ES workers manage. They always show up and they always cope with the difficulties. If it is true that the City is stiffing them, I wish them luck in their lawsuit.
— May 26, 2014 7:10 p.m.

“Sustainability program manager” would cost $200,000

Here we go. Someone to be paid "oversee" a plan. Maybe Gerry Braun is available, if he's used up all the dollars that remained after the failure to oversee a Balboa Park Centennial plan. The ban on single-use grocery bags? No one needs to be paid to address that. It's been addressed for years. The council can just do it, or not. Why do we have a council? If you watch them in session, it's theater, with prescripted, silly, self-serving statements.
— May 23, 2014 11:27 a.m.

Tax and spend on salaries and council campaigns

Amazing, but it's hard to believe that Michell would be worried that anyone on the City Council would dare to vote against the interests of her or the Downtown San Diego Partnership, the new face of redevelopment. Just like the Redevelopment Agency at its worst, with Nancy Graham and Jerry Sanders ripping off taxpayers while the City Attorney looked the other way, the re-invented agency continues confidently to steal tax money and use it to curry political favor. What a sorry sack of a town. In Michell's March 2013 "priorities" message, she writes: "*San Diego Jobs Political Action Committee: the Partnership created the San Diego Jobs PAC to allow for greater dialogue about the importance of job creation and economic growth and raised over $345,000 during the first election cycle*." Yeah, dialogue. Who gave her the $345,000 that she redistributed to Republican locals (at least $9000 to Goldsmith in 2012)?
— May 20, 2014 5:42 p.m.

City can’t drag its heels any longer

There's another error in VoSD's report on the MAD lawsuit: the author stated "The city has 55 of these funding schemes... ." NO! NO, no, no. It does NOT. It has 55 assessment districts of another type, totally distinct in every way, most importantly in their legality. The property owners in Greater Golden Hill were the only property owners, out of 8 other neighborhoods that have the same kind of illegal district, to fight the illegality. So, to report correctly, *"The city [now] has 8 of these funding schemes [remaining]... "* and they are all illegal. Memory Lane/Interesting Facts: San Diego's 8 remaining illegal assessment districts were originally conceived and formed by two stellar locals, once friends but now enemies, darlings of the San Diego Republican/business powerbase in City Hall: Marco Li Mandri and Scott Kessler. Li Mandri seems to have maintained clout at City Hall, despite legal questions, but former Deputy Director of Economic Development Kessler was fired. Li Mandri's own neighborhood (he lives near Jerry Sanders) is probably the only place where he hasn't tried to form an illegal assessment district. Li Mandri has tried to change the terminology of his illegal money-raking districts by calling them "community benefit" districts, loathing to remind people that the districts involve property tax assessments. There is no California state law for "community benefit" districts. Li Mandri's creations are illegal because they mix up, selectively, parts of the laws governing two legal formation processes and restrictions for assessment districts (one for Landscape and Lighting Maintenance Assessment districts, the other for Property-based Business Improvement Districts). Li Mandri has tried to get Vargas and Atkins to pass a new state law for "community benefit" districts: *He wants residential property owners to pay assessments in a district that primarily benefits and is managed by businesses (not legal in PBID law). *He wants residential property owners to pay assessments that can be spent on ANYTHING he calls an "improvement" (not legal in MAD law: the money has to be for a specific capital improvement and its maintenance). *He wants a law that doesn't require 50% of property owners' initial support by petition (PBID law requires this to legally proceed to a ballot). *He wants a law that forms a district with such a long lifetime that few property owners would live long enough to vote again on renewal (PBID law requires a renewal vote after the first 5 years, and every 10 years afterward). His 8 illegal districts in San Diego have NO sunset - they last forever, as do legal MADs and as would have the illegal GGHMAD/PBID hybrid, if not struck down by the court. Good riddance, illegal MAD! It's been educational, however unpleasant. South Park and Golden Hill are looking and doing just fine. We don't need private caretakers dipping into our pockets and running our neighborhoods.
— May 20, 2014 2:57 p.m.

City can’t drag its heels any longer

Dorian Hargrove and The Reader have provided the only *accurate* and *honest* reports on the GGH MAD, in particular, and on MAD procedures and State laws in general. It takes a bit of research to understand what may and may not be done to create the various types of assessment districts, and Mr. Hargrove did the job well. Other local reporting (UT, VoSD) got much of what was at issue quite wrong, or omitted crucial but simple details, and despite comment never corrected what they had written. Given the insider boosterism and privatization scheme support of the entities employing those other reporters, perhaps the bad reporting was intentional. One could see from public comments on those articles that readers were often confused about State assessment laws and their legitimate use, their confusion made worse by what was written. Unfortunately, inaccurate reporting on MADs and PBIDs continues; a recent article in Uptown News on the political unit of Greater Golden Hill (which includes South Park) blurred the distinction between legal (Kensington/Talmadge) and illegal (Golden Hill/South Park) MADs. The Uptown writer scratched his head over how "an area the size of Golden Hill" could manage to exist without a privatization scheme. He conflated the illegal assessment of residential property (Golden Hill) to purchase open-ended lists of goods/events that an administering nonpropfit wanted to buy/undertake, with the formation that is now in progress of a Ken-Tal Landscape and Lighting District (special acorn light installation in the PROW **specially benefiting and adjacent to each property** that would be assessed for capital cost, electricity, and maintenance of the lights). Meanwhile, privatization efforts continue. Todd Gloria, North Park businesses, and the city's Economic Development and City Attorney staffers are proceeding with another privatization scheme, another way to force property owners to pay assessments to a private group. To wit: on the same day that the Golden Hill MAD legal fee payout is docketed, the council will award North Park Main Street (NPMS) $6000 to go toward the ~$34,000 the business group has already obtained in public monies (plus $5000 from J Segal, of the North Parker units). All of the money will go toward creation of an "engineer's" report on the geographic boundaries and the number of properties, at a certain assessment dollar amount, that will be adequate to turn the existing Business Improvement District (BID; fee collected by NPMS only on a business license) into a more lucrative (for NPMS) Property-based Business Improvement District (PBID). Local small-business owners in North Park don't always own the property in which they operate. It'll be interesting to see how the property owner landlords in the targeted location react.
— May 18, 2014 11:22 a.m.

The Spoken One speaks on his graffiti-busting ways

Ian, Thank you for reporting this, and especially for giving the Urban Corps hotline number. Covering up gang tags, or just tags of kids who think it's cool to put their club/group names on the local public spaces, is important. Local residents can and should do it themselves when they can: most paint-pen or sprayed on writing is easy enough to remove using paint thinner or other chemicals. AT&T will give you free packets of the BEST-EVER chemical, graffiti remover, if you ask them for some. They use it on their boxes. It comes in handy packets of saturated wiping clots. Otherwise, using similar colors of paint to paint over is the best idea. If the equipment is City-owned, call the City. They have a graffiti removal program you can find online. The City also contracts with Urban Corps to deal with graffiti in the entire city, so do call them! You are already paying for the extra privatized service that Urban Corps provides.
— May 10, 2014 7:06 p.m.

Golden Hill "Renaissance Project” begins

The owner of the GH pawn shop is a nice person. There's a reason for the very long-term success of the shop: people go there and use the service. I would suggest that it could appear more tasteful in it's color and design, but there's no dishonor in selling on a temporary basis or in buying items from people who hope very much to redeem the items. I think pawn shops are more tasteful than tattoo shops, which were once considered the lowest of the low-life in downtown but now abound in the hipster-oriented realms! It's a matter of how trends shape perception, not absolute values.
— April 22, 2014 6:59 p.m.

Golden Hill "Renaissance Project” begins

Ian, The (misguided) goal is to take the current four driving lanes (2 lane, 2-way, betw B and 94, with parallel curb parking on both sides) and reduce them to two driving lanes and a ctr turn lane, with angle parking and bike lane on each side. For the 30-year history of this, see http://www.sandiego.gov/planning/community/profil… (bottom of the page: the link to the capital project page no longer works, but the pdfs show you the history of consultants being paid for decades). The 2015 budget now posted on the main SD gov page shows $895K already spent on this project. Another $1.9 mill is supposed to be spent by 2015 on removing lanes, restriping parking, and widening sidewalks. The replacement water pipe project for Golden Hill is another project you can find in the 2015 budget, but it does not seem like it will happen at the same time as the lane-removal/restriping project. Meanwhile, the real goal for 25th Street becomes apparent in the Feb 2014 request to the GH Planning Committee, by the Golden Hill City Planning rep, Bernard Turgeon, to include in the updated GH plan "*upgraded [density] areas [to] include 25th St., which includes a mixed-use option to a maximum of 44 dwelling units per acre (du/ac), including a density bonus ..."* Infill, infill, development to the max...
— April 21, 2014 9:02 a.m.

Final verdict on blood moon? Whatever.

Yes, that was Mars. It was beautiful.
— April 17, 2014 6:56 p.m.

Golden Hill "Renaissance Project” begins

There have been few studies of curb vs angle parking safety, and I find no data-based study of head-in vs rear-in angle parking. One 2005 study http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu… shows clearly that curb parking leads to fewer crashes (see Table 4-10). The crash modification factors for various types of street settings are enough to completely rule out angle parking. San Jose has an ordinance making it illegal to back into any kind of parking space, based on safety factors. Most supporters of angle parking, particularly reverse-angle parking, rely on anecdotal concerns, not on engineering safety studies. Most maintain that reverse-angle parking is a traffic-calming/street-narrowing tool. Given that the stretch of 25th Street, from A to the 94 overpass, has no traffic problems at all, it certainly needs no calming. It has no parking problem. It is a convenient, uncrowded 4-lane street with curb parking that is always available, along with free parking lots owned by various businesses. Why would anyone want to create potential traffic jams (considering that metro buses use 25th) by reducing the lanes? Why narrow the street? Maybe some local business-property owners who have pushed this plan for decades would like to see space available in the wider sidewalk PROW for beer and food tables? And then free parking *would* become a problem, and paid parking could be imposed. Whatever. But bicyclists beware: normally, people pull out of a parking space head-first at higher speeds, compared to backing out. And there's no guarantee that any driver will always check for bikers, head-first or rear-first. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2014/a…
— April 16, 2014 10:31 a.m.