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North Park vs South Park
Interesting, but...three things: 1. To Judy: There are many poor people living here: they may not be able to afford paying to eat fried eggs and burgers in your restaurant, or go to Chammas' Station Tavern, but visit Gala, Millers, or Food Bowl often enough and you'll see plenty of EBT users. Go over to the Felton/Elm Street cul-de-sac to the low-income rentals and Golden Hill Villas (built and run by the CDC) and ask how many of the kids there are on the free-lunch/breakfast programs at Golden Hill Elementary. Lots. Most. The CDC you mention consists of members Keenan and Stansell, among others, who tout themselves as existing to "improve the quality of [your, my] life".) To fund improving our lives, Keenan, Stansell, and fellow CDCers (aided by City Planning) created an illegal MAD (according to a court decision), a private tax on all property owners. While the City appeals the court decision that ruled the MAD invalid, they are still taking ~half a million/year out of our pockets, via our property bills, giving it to the CDC to spend, and none of it can go into the General Fund to do real things (street repair, library services, sidewalk repair). MAD money lives up to its foolish name: it just goes for meaningless, decorative, CDC-promoting things. CDC, with City approval, just spent over $14,000 of our tax to paint the light poles a garish turquoise. Your life, improved! [cont]— July 21, 2010 4:53 p.m.
Streetlights in the dark
Wow.— July 21, 2010 2:31 p.m.
None
Interesting! But... To Judy: There are "poor" people living here: go into Gala, Millers, or Food Bowl often enough and you'll see plenty of EBT users. Go over to the Felton/Elm Street cul-de-sac to the low-income Golden Hill Villas (built and run by the CDC) and ask how many of the kids there are on the free-lunch/breakfast programs at Golden Hill Elementary. Lots. Most. Everyone forgets this beautiful new SD Unified school member, because the student demographic doesn't fit the upscale dreams of the CDC promoters. For example, the restaurant Alchemy seems to focus only on the charter Albert Einstein students to participate in the gardening/cooking classes. Einstein is the great friend and sometimes fund-raising gala-benefit partner of the real-estate-pumping CDC. (Who consist of Keenan and Stansell, among others, and who tout themselves as existing to "improve the quality of [your, my] life".) To fund improving our lives, CDC (aided by City Planning) created an illegal MAD (according to a court decision), a private tax on all property owners. While the City appeals the court decision, they are still taking ~half a million/year out of our pockets, via our property bills, and none of it can go into the General Fund to do real things. It just goes for meaningless, CDC-promoting things: They just spent over $14,000 of our tax to paint the light poles turquoise. Your life, improved! To Bill Manson.. There really is a discernible difference between the two Parks, North and South: the MADs and how much is taken from the property owners and how it is spent. The Park & Rec runs the NP MAD, starting on the north side of Juniper. The lot owner where Mazara's is pays a MAD tax of $75. Directly across the street on the south side of Juniper, the Economic Development division/GH CDC run the GH MAD and impose a $425 MAD tax on the Cali Liquor lot owner. GH CDC charges almost 5x more, per parcel. Another example: the owners 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. That's a big difference.— July 21, 2010 2:09 p.m.
Little Italy Association Recommended for Parking Contract
It's the 75th anniversary of the meter. It was invented in Oklahoma. http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/20… Why can't Marco agree with NYC's Limandri ?— July 16, 2010 9:43 a.m.
Little Italy Association Recommended for Parking Contract
The most important thing about getting a contract is that it empowers you. Because then you can give out subcontracts. Just as you cultivate relationships with those who hand you contracts, there will be the schmoozers and palm-greasers waiting in line to get the contracts you can hand out. And contracts always require paid administrators. It's the giving of power that keeps the insiders on what they see as their little Moebius strip - San Diego. More on the destroy-then-get-paid-to-replace business model: From the CCDC’s Downtown Parking Management Group meeting, May 6, 2010 (Li Mandri is a member of this group, but was busy and couldn't attend this day): Little Italy Association’s Chris Gomez submitted a request to change four parking spaces in front of Nelson Photo (1901 India) from 2-hour to 30-minute parking. Also requested to change two free parking spaces at 2021 India (in front of Ivan’s Electric Bike Company) to 30-minute metered parking. The request was approved. The theory is that this kind of imposed difficulty and expense makes people give up their cars in favor of bikes or public transportation (yeah, where is that convenient bus and trolley stop, by the way?). The reality is that the difficulty, frustration, and expense make many people go to photo stores and bike shops elsewhere, where they can park for free as long as they need.— July 12, 2010 12:43 p.m.
Little Italy Association Recommended for Parking Contract
First you destroy it, then you get paid to replace it? Straight from the mouth of Li Mandri: "The transition of parking lots into high density housing is very positive," Li Mandri said. http://www.allbusiness.com/real-estate/commercial…— July 12, 2010 11:21 a.m.
Judge Confirms Ruling; Sanders Must Give Deposition
My reading of the HUD report doesn't indicate that Kessler "cooperated." Rather, HUD just interviewed him as the newly appointed department head who would oversee CDBG $. Of course he promised to clean it up! But there is a paper trail indicating otherwise. Apparently, though, Kessler couldn't be relied on to give up his personal vendetta against LiMandri, even with the payoff of control over CDBG $. As for why Honest Jim Waring wanted to make Kessler part of the herd, I'll leave it to you to contemplate the angles. But who believes that ex-Police Chief Sanders, and Waring, didn't know in 2005, about Kessler talking to the SD Police about LiMandri/OSB? Or, subsequently, that Meredith Dibden Brown couldn't figure out what the FBI was up to, asking for all of those documents about LiMandri/OSB? The Liars Club, all of them. Snakes.— July 9, 2010 5:27 p.m.
Judge Confirms Ruling; Sanders Must Give Deposition
"Scott Kessler was fired from the City after giving information to the FBI and a San Diego police detective on alleged corruption involving Marco Li Mandri, a political insider, and felon Joe Mannino." Not quite right - he was HIRED in 2006, AFTER he had ratted out LiMandri in 2005, when he wasn't a City employee. You should ask why Kessler willingly became "one of the herd," when he knew that LiMandri and the Sanders/Goldstone/OSB/cabal were tight. Then there was HUD...if you read the FBI report as it gets into LiMandri's and OSB's CDBG scams, it's like a primer for Kessler; from 2007 through 2008, he helped scam the CDBG monies for his own cronies. Timeline: Kessler was, in 2000, President of the Greater Golden Hill Community Development Corporation. He brought his friend LiMandri into the community to promote MAD formation. Their efforts failed. Kessler was CEO of the BID Council, during April-Aug 2005, when he ratted out LiMandri to the FBI and police. While he was stagnating on the powerless BID Council, his old buddy and rival was striking it rich in collusion with the City/OSB. Kessler was hired by the City in April/May 2006 (from the lawsuit: "Deputy Chief Jim Waring solicited Plaintiff to serve as the City’s Deputy Director of the Economic Development Division.... On or about May 1, 2006, the City hired Plaintiff as the Deputy Director of the Economic Development Division.") Kessler, in July 2007, answered questions posed by HUD officials related to their investigation of Redevelopment Agency misuse of CDCBG monies. Kessler promised that his department, newly given admin control of the CDBG program, would clean it up. Kessler initiates Form 1472 for Council approval in October 2007, asking the Council to reprogram CDBG monies. This included reprogramming of $55,750 to the Golden Hill Community Development Corporation for "Planning (MAD Formation) Activity." Kessler's department, Economic Development, allocated or reallocated, in 2006-2007, CDBG monies to other CDCs or BIDs for "MAD loans," without those groups applying for the CDBG funds. City Atty Aguirre issues a memorandum in January of 2008 about the HUD findings of CDBG misuse, listing as one of the "serious issues" the "City's practice of using CDBG funds ... [for] the formation of Maintenance Assessment Districts and Business Improvement Districts." A corrective was that departments could no longer allocate CDBG monies if there was no application by a group wanting the monies. Kessler is fired on November 21 2008.— July 9, 2010 3:50 p.m.
Tentative Ruling: Sanders Must Give Deposition
You can watch the process today, Department C-61, 10:30. Mr. Bauder: Please stop referring to Kessler as "riding herd." He was an integral part of the crooked herd at Economic Development and CPCI, until the herd saw the cliff ahead when they were exposed. Kessler turned away from the herd to save his dirty self, and is now trying to sell out everyone else. When the illegal pusuits of Sanders and CPCI/Economic Development were exposed, Kessler took the hit and was fired; CPCI's Anderson was demoted for a while as punishment. Kessler knew about and approved using HUD money to hire a PR company(Public Solutions) to promote assessment district formation, and participated in several other abuses of State and Federal laws that go back to the machinations of Casey Gwinn and Marco LiMandri. Kessler lied during Council hearings and public meetings about several related issues. Why don't you ask Faulconer why he pulled the Pacific Beach assessment district formation process from the Council docket in 2007/2008? Ask him if it had anything to do with HUD money and Public Solutions, or with the lawsuit filed against the City over the formation of the Golden Hill assessment district. Kessler "rode herd" over both of those illegal processes. The Golden Hill lawsuit was decided against the City, and the City is now appealing (4th Appellate, Div 1, Case D057004). At stake is not just the Golden Hill assessment, but all of the other eight illegal assessments that Economic Development runs. It's a big deal to them and to LiMandri. Every word Kessler or anyone from the City says about this will be most interesting, related to the appellate case. They were all part of the same dirty group. Snakes, not cattle.— July 9, 2010 7:42 a.m.
Union-Tribune. got rid of more than 30 editors and reporters
Oh, drollery! The likes never before published! Thank you Don and a2z and Reader. "You lose some local knowledge." As if the U-T was ever where one sought local knowledge.— June 30, 2010 7:06 p.m.