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Did Somebody Change the Charter?
Thanks Pat, and Don. I think a downtown library is a great thing...I wanted one nearer the water for many years (remember that?). But. I guess we will all find out where this ride takes us. Perhaps it is a shell game...government without government. The faces of the dysfunctional legacy builders (which faces are missing?): http://www.sandiego.gov/mayor/news/librarygroundb…— July 28, 2010 9:16 p.m.
Uptown Apartnership
Donna, you might consider a career move as one of the local Business Association's BID exec directors, or as an exec director of one of the illegitimate MADs the BIDs and Community Development Corps oversee: check out the salaries of Gandarilla, for starters. It's sort of like the City of Bell: the most rip-off-type BIDs operate their scams in the very poorest sections of town, such as City Heights. You could take home a lotta dough for very little meaningful work, Donna.... Dough straight out of the bank accounts of property owners, via the Economic Development division/City Planning Department. Go for it!— July 28, 2010 11:59 a.m.
Uptown Apartnership
Oh how terribly funny: Ben Nicholls complaining about overhead? Now that's a great joke.— July 28, 2010 11:49 a.m.
North Park vs South Park
Founder, You said it all. Perfectly. We will fight the density and the ridiculous anti-local-business destruction of free parking. Whether we will win is a question. Council is shaping up to be worse than ever...Frye gone, Gloria, Faulconer, and DeMaio calling the shots for the developers, Emerald, Young, and ? kow-towing, and ... Hueso, Atkins, and Vargas doing their best from the next level of corruption to aid and abet what they started. Peters the next "strong" mayor? Bleh.— July 22, 2010 2:57 p.m.
North Park vs South Park
Thanks, Founder. You do good work, too, and your cause is just. Just be careful what you ask for. Very important: The Cal State Laws define very specifically PBIDs and their formation protocols and how the assessments can be spent, just as they define these things for MADs. The two are very different in legal formation protocols and in legal application of assessments. In PBID law, STREETS AND HIGHWAYS CODE SECTIONS 36600-36671, see esp. Section 36621. (You need a petition signed by property owners who will pay more than 50% of the assessment to even initiate a PBID formation process. MAD law is covered in Cal Gov Code Sections 53750-53754. There is no such petition threshold requirement. A Business Association or other nonprofit can just decide to get issue before Council w/o any community backing whatsoever. At least, in San Diego.) In 1998 and 2003, Mr. Little Italy himself, Marco "New City America" Li Mandri, got then City Atty Casey Gwinn to rewrite/Council to approve changing the SD Muni Code so that it would contradict (violate) State law concerning what MAD funds could be spent on. No Muni Code can supersede State law, duh! But such chicanery gives a complicit Council an "out" to vote for something that is nevertheless illegal per State law. Especially when the City Atty says it's OK! Read: http://docs.sandiego.gov/memooflaw/ML-98-11.pdf This resulted in O–18523 being amended June 8 1998, under Mayor Susan Golding (“Maintenance Assessment Districts” title amended 6–8–1998 by O–18523 New Series.) Then: ORDINANCE O-19169, introduced April 21 2003 (See Report from the City Attorney dated 2/7/2003; and letter from Marco LiMandri dated 9/30/2002: "On 2/12/2003, LU&H voted 5 to 0 to amend the existing Municipal Code provisions governing Maintenance Assessment Districts to allow assessments to be levied and used for parking, marketing and promotion, and economic development...At the February 12, 2003 Land Use and Housing Committee, a Report was submitted by the City Attorney's Office regarding maintenance assessment districts [MAD]. The Report, dated February 7, 2003, addressed a proposal to amend the San Diego Municipal Code to enable the creation of a new form assessment district. The Committee directed the City Attorney to prepare an amendment to the Municipal Code to expand the definition of the term "improvement" for MADs. The term "improvement" is to be expanded to allow for a variety of facilities, services, and activities to be maintained within a MAD..." Enter Jim Waring, Bill Anderson, Jay Goldstone, Jerry Sanders, and the ex-BID Council president, Kessler, into the Economic Development division, and the “self-managed” MADs really launched! The BIDs, including LiMandri’s Little Italy Assoc, started collecting property taxes and spending them on the same things that the BIDs spent them on. New City America realized some nice new contract dollars from this.— July 22, 2010 12:38 p.m.
North Park vs South Park
Uh, Founder. Not. Little Italy. It isn't a legit MAD, by State law. It's one of the Economic Development's illegit MADs. It's what should have been formed as a PBID, because that's how the money is spent. Do the research. If you want to form a PBID, fine. BUT: It is formed with quite more stringent protocols, compared to MADs. And therein lies the story.— July 22, 2010 10:26 a.m.
North Park vs South Park
Founder, agree on your idea, but that is NOT the way it works in San Diego. A very rigid system exists, and you can't change it just because your idea is sensible. The "self-managed" MADs automatically turn over 15% of all assessments to the private managers and 4% to the City's Economic Development division. The 15% "Administrative fee" doesn't even begin to cover what the private management group is allowed to take. They are reimbursed for far, far more, as "expenses."— July 22, 2010 8:47 a.m.
North Park vs South Park
Founder: curiously, people who live in Burlingame lately say that they live in South Park. The guy who owns Vagabond lives on 30th at Laurel, in North Park's Burlingame, but recently was in a news story in which he said both Vagabond AND his home were in South Park! Why? Greater North Park legally extends down to the north side of Juniper. All property owners in that NP area pay into the NP MAD, and they should be glad. If they want to be in South Park, they have to pay up (5x more).— July 22, 2010 8:39 a.m.
North Park vs South Park
One more thing - To Judy, concerning "poor" people in South Park: Not only are many of our good neighbors low-income-qualified renters, but there are people here who own or did own property and have lost their jobs. I know three personally, in a 3-block area. Two have lost their houses to foreclosure and have moved, and the other has struggled mightily but is hanging in there, barely surviving. Others are in over their heads on mortgages and may or may not make it. South Park runs from the north side of A Street to the south side of Juniper, and from 28th to the east side of Juniper Canyon. In this area, there are plenty of struggling home owners and absentee property owners. South Park is NOT just the CDC booster group revolving around the local realtors, Einstein charter school boosters, and the Mills Act tax-avoiding owners (mainly on 28th, Dale, Granada, Grove). Also, Judy, what do you think about the fake "historic" clock out on the sidewalk in front of the Big K? MAD-assessed property owners are paying a hefty monthly electrical fee and contractual maintenance fee for that clock, which was purchased and installed in 1991 by the CDC. At that time, the CDC, whoever they were, went before the Council and swore that they would pay for all related costs forever. Shortly afterward, the clock got stuck at 2:30 and stayed that way, not running, until 2008, when the CDC got the MAD money from property owners and started charging us for the clock. Note that the time is wrong, and has been wrong since February, but who cares? It has no historic connection to South Park and no one needs it to know what time it is. Meaningless, useless MAD money.— July 22, 2010 8:28 a.m.
North Park vs South Park
[cont] 2. To Bill Manson: There really is a discernible difference between North and South Park: the MADs and how much is taken from the property owners and how it is spent. [Founder, note: "Self-managed" is not the way to go! That is just what you get with the BIDs - a private group with no oversight calling all the shots.] If you want an assessment, get Park & Rec to set it up and run it! They will do it legally, by allowing only a capital project and its maintenance to be assessed for and funded. Park & Rec runs the NP MAD, starting on the north side of Juniper. The parcel owner where Mazara's is pays a NP MAD tax of $75/year. But directly across the street on the south side of Juniper, the Economic Development division/GH CDC run the South Park/Golden Hill MAD. They impose a $425 MAD tax on the Cali Liquor parcel owner. GH CDC charges almost 5x more, per parcel. Another example: the owner of the South Park parcel housing Rebecca's and El Camino pay a MAD tax to the CDC of $515. But the NP owners of the parcel housing The Grove and Daily Scoop pay only $92 to the NP MAD. That's a big difference. And Spark, it's a legal difference, not a state of mind. 3. To Chammas: Very, very few of the SP businesses own the property they are in. (Another CDC booster, Ziegler, doesn't live here but owns whole blocks of apartments.) Lucky that your family had the money to buy GH and SP property (you don't live in South Park, but in GH) and run your own bars and taverns, but most other business owners in SP are renters. That includes Rebecca's, Big Kitchen, the former SP Bar and Grill (old owner in tax default; new business license owners from Diamond Bar), Alchemy, Hamilton's, and on and on.— July 22, 2010 7:45 a.m.