I was a safety ambassador in downtown San Diego

Great story. Every large city has these problems, but it's easy to go on living in most with your head in the sand. It's good to print a reality check for all the ostriches out there.
— July 29, 2009 6:29 p.m.

Bruce Henderson: no room for a Chargers stadium downtown

(... continued) As for the Naval Training Center claim, I assume you're talking about Liberty Station? If so, a good breakdown of the land use can be found here: http://www.sandiego.gov/ntc/redevelopment/dpsumma… I encourage everyone to take a look at the allotment for the high end housing development with no public space. Furthermore, the Presidio feels like gigantic open public space, because it is 1480 acres (wikipedia) opposed to 361 (wikipedia) acres for Liberty Station. I agree with Steve Erie that San Francisco does a better job creating and maintaining public facilities, but these things are easier to sustain in a highly urban area. You talk about the need for 400-700 people to park at the new library/school, but you don't address the need for schools to service the new downtown residents. Ideally many of the school's teachers and students would live downtown and take public transportation or walk to work/school. It's hard to envision school teachers living in the luxury highrises built in the greed-fueled boom from the housing bubble, but there are lower-income housing developments and supply and demand should bring the prices of the once-luxury units down to affordable levels. All in all, I don't know if the CCDC is sucking too much money away from other San Diego neighborhoods. I could make a point that greed-caused overdevelopment is not exclusive to downtown neighborhoods. In the end, I strongly believe that the process of redeveloping and establishing an urban downtown area of San Diego is beneficial to all the residents of San Diego in the long run. If there is a problem with how things are being run or how money is being spent I would like to know, but I don't feel like this article presents much to convince me of that.
— July 10, 2009 11:37 a.m.

Bruce Henderson: no room for a Chargers stadium downtown

Don, I think you may have some important things to say, but I don't think this article says anything convincingly. The first problem with this article, is that it's doesn't specify any needs that are not met or any neighborhood affected by the shifting of funds to downtown redevelopment. It's not until Comment #8 that someone specifies a concrete example. You also do not give any history of how, why, and when funds shifted from neighborhoods outside the downtown area into the CCDC. In my opinion, another problem with the article is that a clear relationship between allocation of funds for downtown development and the degradation of parks in non-downtown neighborhoods. How has budgeting for maintenance of public areas directly been affected by reallocation to downtown development? What was the budget for public land maintenance before allocation of money to downtown redevelopment opposed to after? Were there any other notable budget considerations that may have caused a decrease in funding to public areas? Furthermore, you use quotes from Norma Damashek to claim the poor upkeep of public areas has impacted tourism of the city without exploring what other influences could be causing a decrease in tourism to public areas. The poor economy is a very easy explanation for decrease in tourism, unless you can assert and prove with figures that San Diego's tourism industry has fallen more than other domestic tourism. You quote Donna in saying, “I would argue that safe neighborhoods, safe parks, amenities are ways to promote tourism and also benefit the people who live here.” This should be the goal of continued redevelopment downtown and any diversion from that plan should be brought to the public's attention. I would be very interested in seeing a timeline of projects the CCDC has undergone and their impact to the downtown area over time. I feel like this information would be vital to the argument that the CCDC is overfunded. One problem with the article is that you only mention briefly on topics that could be the subject of lengthy debates. For example, the topic of the convention center expansion has legitimate questions about funding, return on investment and need. Without exploring the topic completely, you state that the hospitality industry is pushing for the expansion rather than concentrating their business on the family demographic. You go as far as to suggest that they are failing because their demographic is busy going to Vegas to get what they want. Where is the evidence of this? What numbers do you have to show that? Perhaps the hospitality industry should be employing you as a consultant rather than begging for money from the city to stay alive in a time when the hospitality industry nationwide (perhaps even globally) is hurting. I don't think San Diego government is in a position to bail out the hospitality industry, but you can't blame them for trying. (to be continued...)
— July 10, 2009 11:36 a.m.

My vehicle was towed while I ate at Denny’s

I hope he keeps picketing. If Denny's won't stand up to their parking lot security, they deserve to lose money.
— July 10, 2009 8:44 a.m.