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East Village like ghost town after Padres season
The problem in San Diego, fumber, is that the Republican mayors and councilmembers treat taxpayer money like private toilet paper. Speaking for myself, higher city/county-wide taxes going into the General Fund would be very welcome! But to the Repub administrators in SD, the idea of real taxes is horrifying and toxic, at least if they want to appeal to their anti-tax supporters. But they do know the back door to privatizing taxation, and boy, they go in and out of it like slick little slime balls. If all of the privately controlled tax dollars extorted from area-specific business owners and property owners, and handed over to individual area nonprofits to play quasi-government with, were instead rightfully collected from all city/county taxpayers and added to the General Fund, San Diego would be doing all right. Millions and millions of privately controlled taxes are paying business associations and nonprofit exec directors undeserved salaries, $60K-$75K/year. Add to that their office supplies, office rent, websites, newsletters, insurance, on and on...there is very little bang for the buck for all of the imposed private taxes controlled by business associations/nonprofits. Check it out for yourself via 990 forms, BID/PBID/MAD/Redevelopment PAC council data and meeting minutes, and CDBG allocations.— November 22, 2009 11:17 a.m.
Watching the hound dog
Citybeatkelly, you should have some respect. You don't have much trouble getting quotes from anyone in the City, right, because you are soooo hooked in. Focus on journalism and stop snarking like a twittering teenager, and you might do something, someday.— November 21, 2009 2:11 p.m.
Investigating the investigator
The whole world of San Diego nonprofits is like a Mobius strip highway for the connected "owners" of the town. Even the new media nonprofits are incestuous pools in which old powerbrokers swim silently, managing news stories for public consumption to optimize their Repub agenda. The young turk nonprofit news newbie reporters, posing as progressive types, malign The Reader because they hate the political and personal beliefs of the Reader's owner. But posing it is: they seem OK with Voice of San Diego's president, RB Wooley, who is a huge donor to the Cali Repub Party and Repub candidates. The VoSD secretary (Neil Morgan) is another Repub from the U-T, and Gail Stoorza-Gill, the asst sec and who is on the Board of the Convention Center, has given liberally to Issa, the Lincoln Club, Pete Wilson, and Schenk. Stoorza-Gill chimes in with comments over at SDNN to her amiga Barbara Bry, who used to be a VoSD officer before starting SDNN. Knowing who controls the VoSD, it's easy to understand why none of the "investigative" work ever really finds the dirt on the City or its Republican admin. Unless they aren't Repub and are named Aguirre or Frye...— November 21, 2009 1:57 p.m.
East Village like ghost town after Padres season
And while you're at it, take a look at the staff bios of the company contracted to promote the East Village BID: http://www.southweststrategies.com/people.php In San Diego, consultant contracts to promote privatized tax bases are a lucrative enterprise. The next best lucrative activity in San Diego is contracting with the nonprofits for services paid with the privatized taxes.— November 18, 2009 9:31 a.m.
East Village like ghost town after Padres season
And yet......the CCDC and the City's Economic Development division never stop lusting after the dollars they can force businesses to hand over. The East Village Business Improvement District was initiated and formed by CCDC and various other City pro-privatization zealots this past May. The businesses that are struggling to survive now have the new requirement to pay a business tax to the East Village Association. This is extra business license tax of $250 to $600 annually, going to a private "nonprofit." For that, the empty and failing businesses may see powerwashing of sidewalks, expensive decorative trash cans, banners... yeah, that'll sure bring the customers and fill the condos. I, for one, always refuse to buy anything from any business unless I see that the sidewalk in front of the shop has been powerwashed!!! You can read all about it in the Council docket for May 26, 2009, Item-332.— November 18, 2009 9:09 a.m.
South Park Cat Tales: The Legend of Toes (#5)
Oh my god, ohmygod, ohmy Toes. I've got to go off and think about all of this. My heart is so singing. I''l be back with thoughts when I can think straight. But thank you, thank you, thank you Willa, Jack, Dester, Stella. I'll be back online soon.— November 2, 2009 6:43 p.m.
South Park Cat Tales: An Encounter With a New Friend (#4)
Stella: I'm an uprighter that lives over near the Elm/Bancroft streets entry to the canyon. Please please ask Dexter how old he is, and if he is old enough to have ever heard of a mostly black male cat named Toes. Please ask if he has ever heard of Toes. Toes disappeared a few years ago, at the age of 14 upright years. We looked for him for days, called and called, but we knew he was gone, because Toes was a fraidy cat. He never traveled far from his yard and feared all uprighters except us. Toes ran under the bed and howled when it rained. But Toes was also very brave, and would chase giant racoons out of our yard. If only we had some idea of his last moments, we'd rest easier. Thanks.— October 25, 2009 12:48 p.m.
Soon There Won't Be a Barrio Logan
For the philosopy of infill and displacement of lower income residents, see http://coib.govoffice2.com/vertical/Sites/%7B6283… Note: pp. 15 ("pursue the 'right' tenants") and 16 ("upscale"), and 37 (residents = "captive market," and City gets more tax revenue). This type of infill ("South Park Marketplace") was thwarted, thank goodness, in South Park because of the real estate bust, but we almost lost our only grocery, Gala, which has great, cheap veggies, to American National Investments and Gina Champion-Cain, friend of the City and the local Golden Hill Community Devleopment Corporation. They'd love to pack in 61 rentals and a "gourmet" grocery with captive, upscale buyers.— October 6, 2009 7:17 p.m.
Soon There Won't Be a Barrio Logan
Yes, the fix is in to develop Barrio Logan at the expense of generations of families there. Read CityBeat's article http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/that_a… and then read the VoSD's hit piece on Rachael Ortiz http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2009/10/0… Whereas CityBeat is sympathetic to the people who will fall victim to developers coming in and trying to erase the Latino culture of BL, VoSD seems to be determined to aid and abet the City/developer cabal. Florido's article was mean and incomplete, as usual. Is he just a lazy reporter, or is VoSD directing him to follow in the VoSD pattern of lopsided, pro-business/developer stories?— October 6, 2009 5:42 p.m.
Bypassing Bylaws in Golden Hill
[cont] The longtime CDC members work the local media with propaganda, too. Just as one of a hundred examples, pertaining to a specific desire especially of the CDC members who own houses and properties along 25th and A, right near the Russ Street stretch bordering Golden Hill Park: Last year the longtime CDC member Bonnie Poppe contacted Ken Kramer of "About San Diego" and got him to do a segment about the "Golden Hill fountain," which is just an ugly pile of hideous nonindigenous rocks 4 feet in diameter. That ugly thing was built in the early 1900s and was a "fountain" for only a few years, before it was abandoned as useless and ugly. Poppe, on the Kramer segment, said that the fountain would require "$100,000 to restore." Kramer was dumbfounded, as well he should have been. What CDC/Poppe really want is LANDSCAPING. Water-intensive landscaping. And lots of related maintenance costs for watering and a water fountain that YOU and I can pay for forever, no matter how dear the water costs. Right behind the CDC's members' houses on A Street. How nice for them!! And this awful water-spouting thing with lots of LANDSCAPING (where right now is only summer-dead grassy weeds, maintained by the Park and Rec department, because GH Park is part of Balboa Park and belongs to the taxpayers of the entire City, NOT just GH) would require security, no doubt, and would be vandalized and need repair, no doubt. Maybe good bathing for the poor homeless. Lots of good ways to make sure all the assessment money is spent. That's the plan. Create ridiculous maintenance situations and have the CDC collecting your taxes forever to pay for it all. There are many more stories to tell about these crooks and schemers. Want some more, with names and dates? Good stories about Atkins, Vargas, Inzunza, Hueso, Ojeda, and some of the newcomers who've jumped on the money bandwagon.— September 20, 2009 10:20 a.m.