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Clean and Safe Program soaks downtown San Diego property owners
Thinking about it...it IS possible that the overpaying downtown PBID taxpayers will NEVER see a dime in reimbursement for the overcharges. The reason: their PBID is the ninth member of a group of special property assessments, one of which, a fake MAD, was recently ruled invalid in a lawsuit filed by the assessed property owners. “Invalid” means that the fake MAD was found to be in violation of State law. The State Constitution. It did not pass the smell test of what a real MAD must be and do. The City has decided to continue levying and collecting the invalid tax anyway, while they appeal. Because they can! And the City continues turning over Golden Hill taxpayers' money to the City’s partner in crime, the Greater Golden Hill Community Development Corporation. The GGH Community Development Corporation unilaterally decides how to waste the ~$500K/year, and is doing a bangup job of finding incredible ways to spend wastefully. Our firestation may have idle equipment, but there are dandy banners screaming “Clean, Green & Safe!” hanging outside the station. Banners that cost tens and tens of thousands of dollars. The City may be able spin out the appellate process for years, but in the end will be faced with reimbursing thousands of Golden Hill property owners millions of dollars. I'm thinking that the City is thinking that by reimbursing the overcharged downtown PBID taxpayers, they will be establishing a precedent of reimbursing for wrongly charged special assessments. Oh goody.— April 23, 2010 10:40 a.m.
Clean and Safe Program soaks downtown San Diego property owners
Next Tuesday, April 27 (see docket link, Item-106), http://dockets.sandiego.gov/sirepub/pubmtgframe.a… the City Council will be asked to approve the FY 2011 BID levy assessments on the downtown businesses that pay the Downtown San Diego Partnership to manage the business district taxes. The Parnership also manages the PBID and is paid $72,000 out of the property tax assessments to do so. (As stated in the docket Item-106 supporting document "budget narratives," page 23.) I suggest that all interested parties owed money show up at the Council hearing and demand what is owed. Perhaps Beth Murray, Bill Anderson, Jay Goldstone, Jerry Sanders, and Luis Ojeda will be there, along with Faulconer, and they can all explain just why the money has not been returned to the tax-paying property owners.— April 22, 2010 10:37 p.m.
Nearly New York
Mazara's is the best pizza in North Park (note to Ed Bedford: South Park starts on the south side of Juniper and runs south to the north side of A Street). We love to get their special pepperoni - really great spicy sauce and great crust. For $10.99. Yep. The best straightforward, spicy, tasty, cheesy new York-style pizza in North Park, for that price, and the people in the shop are super nice!— April 15, 2010 5:03 p.m.
What’s Up with the Big Cortez Hole?
Thanks for this story. It's great to have a publication/journalists that make the effort to explain and describe what we see around the city.— March 26, 2010 8:28 a.m.
Scott Kessler works with FBI investigating Marco Li Mandri
Part 4 In an ironic turnabout, early in 2009, both the Redevelopment Agency and the Economic Development division under Murray/Anderson were after some of the illegitimately collected MAD money. Both Tracy Reed of the RA and Li Mandri were pushing the Crossroads PAC members to vote to approve spending College Heights MAD monies on sidewalk repairs and replacements. The Crossroads PAC members rightfully objected and voted the idea down, repeatedly, feeling that RA money should be spent on sidewalks, and questioning the legitimacy of making all property owners throughout a district pay special taxes for sidewalks in front of individual properties. Li Mandri, attending the Jan 2009 College Area BID meeting, along with Luis Ojeda, Tracy Reed, and Cynthia Harris from D7, said of the CH MAD that “with a surplus of funds and new members in the City office that this would be a good time to ask about limitations on spending.” Was Li Mandri planning on approaching Jan Goldsmith, like he did Casey Gwinn? Given the exposure of inside-City processes, provided by Kessler's lawsuit, will Goldsmith be as flexible as Gwinn was, in proposing Muni Code changes that violate State law? Time will tell.— March 18, 2010 10:57 a.m.
Scott Kessler works with FBI investigating Marco Li Mandri
Part 3 So why didn't CPCI/Economic Development just encourage the formation of PBIDs, instead of maintenance assessment districts, and instead of amending Muni Code such that it violated State law? The answer is that PBIDs are more difficult to form, compared to legal maintenance assessment districts (MADs). It is easy to rig a MAD ballot election, at least in San Diego, but not so easy to rig a PBID election, because of tougher State laws dictating formation processes. In San Diego, there are scores of legally formed MADs, run by Park and Recreation. There are eight illegal MADs: these were all formed and are run by CPCI/Economic Development. Ben Hueso, never to be overlooked as a player, worked in Economic Development before being elected to the Council. Hueso was instrumental in helping create the first of the illegal MADs, the Central Commercial MAD. Li Mandri was next, involved in setting up the Adams Avenue MAD. In addition to Li Mandri’s Little Italy MAD, the other illegal MADs are named City Heights, College Heights, Greater Golden Hill, Hillcrest Commercial Core, and Newport Avenue MADs. (In Feb 2010, the Greater Golden Hill MAD, the last of the Economic Development-run MADs formed, in 2007, was ruled illegal in San Diego’s Superior Court. That means that the other seven sister Economic Development MADs are also illegal.) The eight illegal MADs generate a total of $8,135,000 property tax dollars/year for the nonprofits (such as Li Mandri's Little Italy association) that run them, of which $322,000 is taken by the nonprofits and $193,255 is taken by the Economic Development division, for "administrative" costs. There would have been another illegal MAD, in Pacific Beach, if Faulconer hadn't pulled it from the ballot in May 2008. I always thought Faulconer pulled back on taking the PB MAD to ballot because of the huge outcry by PB residents; reading now about the behind-the-scenes fights between Kessler and Li Mandri, and the legal violations and investigations going on with Economic Development and the RA and HUD money, I wonder....— March 18, 2010 10:56 a.m.
Scott Kessler works with FBI investigating Marco Li Mandri
Part 2 Why spend Redevelopment Agency money on items such as business district trashcans and flower baskets, in an area that already collects a huge amount of maintenance assessment money form area property owners? The answer resides in State law: the California Constitution seriously restricts the way monies collected in legally formed "maintenance assessment districts" may be spent. Trashcans and flowers, blocks away from a property, do not meet the legal requirement of being a "special benefit" to the distant property. Li Mandri had been addressing this inconvenient legality for years. Working with former City Attorney Casey Gwinn, Li Mandri got Gwinn to write legal opinions in 1998 and 2003 in support of broadening the ways San Diego assessment districts could spend their assessments. The City Council approved ordinances in both years, amending the then-existing Municipal Code provisions that governed maintenance assessment districts. The amended ordinances no longer followed State law. The ordinance changes amended the code such that the definition of assessment district "improvements" was expanded to allow for a variety of facilities, services, and activities. These facilities, services, and activities, such as powerwashing business district sidewalks and business district private security patrols, were exactly like those already allowed under State law for property-based business improvement districts (PBIDs).— March 18, 2010 10:54 a.m.
Scott Kessler works with FBI investigating Marco Li Mandri
This story is real web, indeed! - Part 1 Yes, Nancy Graham, the Redevelopment Agency, and Marco Li Mandri had a very good working relationship, going way back. When Graham first arrived in San Diego in 2005, the Redevelopment Agency spent over $1000 each for decorative trash receptacles in Little Italy. In July 2007, as reported in the U-T, http://archives.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/2007… Graham riled downtown residents by budgeting $200,000 of Redevelopment Agency money for hanging flower baskets in Little Italy. Li Mandri, Little Italy Association administrator (in 2007 in charge of over $700,000/year in property taxes imposed especially for the LI Maintenance Assessment District, co-administered then by Kessler/Anderson/Murray), defended the decision, even though a determination of "blight" was required, a label that property owners paying hefty LI maintenance assessment fees might find objectionable. Graham dodged the blight issue by saying that the blight didn't have to be on India Street for the expenditure to be legal: "“You don't have to say this particular corner on this particular block has to be a problem in order to put this flowerpot on it. That's just not the way it works”. The "way it worked" was that the RA was giving up public money to decorate Li Mandri's fiefdom.— March 18, 2010 10:53 a.m.
Tweet this
Looks like there was a bit of discussion in Sanders' office about the amount of time spent (or was it just the substance that caused the embarrassment?) tweeting at City Hall. Now we have Rachel tweeting on two accounts: one for "work" and one for personal (TheFunRachel). Twitter is so great! It posts the time of the tweet, so we can audit the City twits and see if any fun stuff is tweeted on the taxpayers' dime.— March 11, 2010 7:02 a.m.
Tweet this
^ Like I said, "Try asking a simple question of any City employee, and see what type of mindless response you get..." But maybe it's a good sign that José doesn't know much about Twitter...those who do seem to spend a good deal of their public-paid-salary day being twits (Rachel), and that's a pretty good waste of the public's dime, dontcha think?— March 8, 2010 11:35 a.m.