The public is left out of the decision making, the City Council is not fully engaged

By Jay Powell

Today, Wednesday February 10, the City Council Smart Growth and Land Use (SG&LU) Committee will be asked to recommend approval to the full City Council of the marketing for sale of six City-owned properties that the Real Estate Asset Department (READ) has declared surplus and excess to the needs of the City.

San Diego Free Press recently posted two articles (The Sell-Off of Excess Property and Public Land, Policy and Process) in the series “San Diego Commons at the Crossroads”.

Called into question was the efficacy, advisability and propriety of how these properties have been declared surplus and why. We published the list of properties that was brought forward last summer as an “informational” item by READ.

Here is an update and status report with some editorializing. Since a different item to sell three properties was inexplicably pulled from the Committee’s January 20 docket last month within hours of its posting the preceding week, READ has reshuffled the deck and dealt a few extra cards into the hands of the list of “qualified” real estate brokers. One previous property is listed separately for action from the remaining five which includes the additional three properties.

Exhibit B (click for larger image)

There continue to be troubling irregularities in the information provided as back up to the public record. To wit:

The dates of the Council Action forms and the summaries for the initial January 20 docket and the current February 10 items jump back and forth from December 4 to December 30 mixing up sequence and properties.

Exhibit A which was to list the appraised value of five of the six properties was omitted from the public record posted last week … in case you were looking for it, it appeared in the backup available on Monday as Exhibit B (“Rev 02-04-16”) with location, historic notes, restrictions, location, appraised value, broker with proposed and disposition of the sale proceeds.

The three properties added to the mix (two in the University and one in Mira Mesa Community) totaling over 55 acres are valued at a combined $ 9.52 Million. The other two properties in Item #4 including the “Truax House” with another old Spanish style house and a vacant lot in Maple Canyon open space system and the former Logan Library are valued at $2.47 Million and $270 Thousand respectively.

Add in the property in Skyline-Paradise Hills currently appraised at $630 thousand and the total comes to just under $13 Million before broker commissions. The backup for this item shows that the City Council authorized the sale by resolution in 2007 for a minimum price of $725 thousand. READ is required by policy to reappraise authorized properties each year and inform the Council when values drop. Not sure what the rush is to sell at a loss.

The action summary states that the minimum of at least one of the four rationales to declare a property surplus has been met for all the properties. But they do not delineate which of those reasons apply to which property.

Authorization is the key word. The READ official website has a clickable button for “Property for Sale”. “No properties are currently being marketed for sale” has been the only listing on the site for the past year under the following statement: “The properties below were approved for sale by the City Council….” Until this past week when that statement was deleted and two properties were listed: “Torrey Pines Science Park” (3.18 acres) and “Headquarters Point” (10.31 acres) with the proviso that “All sales are subject to City Council authorization.”

Screenshot Aug. 6, 2015

It is more than a nuance that this is added on because the Council is being asked to authorize the Mayor or his designee to sell these properties and where to put the money in the action before SG&LU. The Council has not authorized the sale.

So what, you say? How is it possible to have all these different summaries for different versions of actions on the same properties with different permutations? Which version of information are we “the public” and the City Council to rely upon?

READ has not provided the required annual plan for seven years and yet it is moving forward with a request for authority to sell six properties.

The request for authorization and the website posting is not in conformance with the City Council Policy. READ is required by the policy to provide annually to the City Council a Portfolio Management Plan with, among other things an inventory of properties, an operating plan, a disposition plan for surplus properties, market research to support anticipated transactions and finally a request for authority to act within defined parameters.

READ has not provided the required annual plan for seven years and yet it is moving forward with a request for authority to sell six properties. The request should be denied and the required Portfolio Management Plan should be provided before any further consideration is given to selling any City-owned property.

If there is an extraordinary reason or public benefit to sell properties absent the required plan having been provided to better inform the City Council and the public, then the City Council should hear the reasons and consider a waiver of their policy to act in what they consider the best interests of their constituents. But no such reason has been provided to the public record.

And therein lies the rub. The City’s Strategic Plan has all sorts of goals and objectives which are quoted in the various Council Action Executive Summaries provided to the public record to encourage “public” engagement and participation.

READ is a City Department and as such it is directed by the Mayor … [and the] public does not get to testify before the Mayor.

Yet in the case of the items brought forward by READ, the public is not engaged prior to Council hearings. The “Council Action Executive Summary Sheet” that accompanies all requests for Council action items continues to ignore opportunities to foster participation, to engage the public or other key stakeholders.

“N/A” is the response if those items are even listed. For the item #4 dealing with five of the six properties they don’t even bother to list that information.

At least one member of the SG&LU Committee — Councilman David Alvarez — has been paying attention.

READ is a City Department and as such it is directed by the Mayor, ostensibly in his role as the CEO implementing the policy direction of the City Council. The public does not get to testify before the Mayor. The Mayor participates in the public hearings through his staff. Technically, other than the staffs of the City Council, the City Attorney, the Independent Budget Analyst, and the City Auditor, City employees are all “his staff.” That’s why they keep calling it the “Strong Mayor” form of government.

The budget keeps growing for PR professionals and an Inside San Diego news source with a new logo pumping happy talk from a new Communications Department ensconced on its own floor in City Hall. But we can’t seem to get the information out right to all the people who might actually care about what is happening in their communities – like selling land that we thought we all owned. Some of these properties were conveyed to the City at its inception as “Pueblo Lands”. The people’s property.

At least one member of the SG&LU Committee — Councilman David Alvarez — has been paying attention. In a January 28 memo to Committee Chair Lorie Zapf and fellow committee members regarding (calendar year) 2016 Committee Priorities he noted the following:

“Procedures for City Property Sales: …. Recently (READ) staff has proposed property sales that were received negatively by the community. The Committee should create a procedure that includes formal community input and Planning Group recommendation before being brought forward for Council consideration. Additionally, the historical review process should be taken into account on historical properties.”

These priorities will be discussed in an item before the proposed property sale authorization request. You might want to let the committee know you support Councilmember Alvarez’s priority for formal community input and Planning Group recommendation prior to selling the public’s land.

Participation. Outreach. Engagement. All the feel good buzz words and beaucoup news releases and news stories keep flowing out of City Hall.

Please, spare us the happy talk.

How about Listening and Public Hearing. Give us the facts in a clear and timely manner. Let us participate in our communities in a meaningful and informed way.

Time to walk the talk.

Update by Jay Powell from February 10 SG&LU committee meeting:

Smart Growth and Land Use Committee Meeting
Wednesday February 10, 2pm
City Administration Bldg, 202 “C” Street, 12th floor

[Editor Note: This is the fourth installment in the ongoing series San Diego Commons at the Crossroads.]

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Jay Powell

Jay Powell, an occasional contributor to San Diego Free Press, writes about energy, neighborhood and community revitalization and other challenges and opportunities for peace and productive cooperation in our times. He has been active in land use and environmental issues with the Sierra Club, the Bay Area Greenbelt Alliance and the Environmental Health Coalition and served 19 years as Executive Director of the City Heights Community Development Corporation.

Latest posts by Jay Powell (see all)

• San Diego Commons at the Crossroads: The Sell-Off of ‘Excess’ Properties - May 18, 2017
• Hide and Seek on the Commons: Selling More San Diego - February 10, 2016
• Preserving the San Diego Commons: Public Land, Policy and Process - January 21, 2016