Imagine a city where developers are able to choose from among 57 different business enterprises for a downtown site, either for a single use or any combination thereof.
Welcome to Vista, California, where the purpose of its Mixed Use Zone is “…to allow for a mix of residential and commercial, or just residential, or just commercial (standalone) land uses.”
It’s a developer’s wet dream.
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A couple of days ago I came across an article in the Vista Press about the September 6 meeting of the city’s Planning Commission, during which a developer’s site plan to build a 41-unit apartment complex along Creek Walk in downtown Vista was approved (A Two Water Bottle Night at the City Planning Commission Meeting, Sept. 9).
Writer Pat Murphy’s description of the meeting was eerily reminiscent of the August 25, 2015, Carlsbad City Council meeting, where a developer’s plan to build a shopping mall on the banks of the Hedionda Lagoon was unanimously approved — despite an overflow audience of residents voicing their opposition to the project.
Murphy called Vista’s meeting a “two water bottle night” to describe the lengthy session, with standing room only attendance for opponents of the project. The first to speak was an individual introducing herself as a representative of a group calling themselves, “Vistans for a Livable Community.” That sounded to me a lot like the group that dubbed themselves “Citizens for North County,” who spearheaded the defeat of the developer’s plan for Carlsbad. [Read more…]
According to a 2011/2012 San Diego Grand Jury Report, Tri-City Healthcare District Continuing Issues, May 30, 2012, “The Grand Jury believes the coming election to be an excellent opportunity for the electorate to remake the current Tri-City Hospital Board of Directors into a less distracting and more professional body.”
So, how did that go? In the four years since the 2012 election, the “remade” board fired its CEO, hired and fired his replacement, and hired another to take his place.
A series of failed lawsuits cost the hospital over $30 million in settlements, attorneys fees, and lost revenue resulting from bogus allegations related to the purchase of a medical office building that remains vacant to this day on the hospital’s campus. [Read more…]
A few days ago I received a mailer from my Congressman titled, Getting Results for California’s 49th District. Below the title a quote from The Washington Post declares “Darrell Issa one of the ‘Most Effective Lawmakers’ in Congress.”
Then came the small print: PUBLIC DOCUMENT-OFFICIAL BUSINESS. Then, in even smaller type: This mailing was prepared, published, and mailed at taxpayer expense.
It’s perfectly legal. The Congressional franking privilege allows taxpayer funding for incumbents to promote themselves by mail, so long as they do not solicit your vote or a donation to their campaigns. Issa’s mailer didn’t ask me for my money or my vote. But after a closer look I found reason enough to deny him both. [Read more…]
Why did elected officials unanimously support an L.A. developer’s failed attempt to bring a shopping mall to the city’s Agua Hedionda Lagoon last year?
Carlsbad voters may find an answer in the August 1 Financial Disclosure Statements filed by incumbent city council candidates Keith Blackburn and Lorraine Wood. Just follow the money they’ve already raised this year, combined with their 2012 campaign stashes, to see why city leaders get along so well with developers.
There’s a lot of overlap in the special interest groups supporting Blackburn and Wood. Topping the list is one of the few local residents with a financial interest in winning the favor of council members, James Ukegawa. He’s the owner of the Carlsbad Strawberry Company. Other than the billionaire developer, he’s also the single individual who had the most to gain from the lagoon mall project. [Read more…]
When Tri-City Medical Center fired Larry Anderson three years ago, they wanted to save the $650,000 in severance pay his contract required if they fired him without cause.
They chose to rely on an anonymous telephone call, followed by a secret internal investigation conducted by hospital attorneys, to come up with a list of fourteen reasons to fire him for cause. He was accused of one or more of the following offenses: committing a felony, an illegal act involving moral turpitude, a willful and dishonest act, or a breach of duties and obligations.
Without telling him in advance what the charges were, the hospital offered Anderson thirty minutes to defend himself at a hastily arranged board meeting. When he refused to attend the board voted to fire him. [Read more…]
Carlsbad’s elected officials took the city’s vision of “a small town feel and beach community character” and twisted it into a developer-friendly General Plan. Fortunately, their questionable integrity and patronizing “we know best” attitude are not reflected in the leadership and staff of Carlsbad’s talented, courteous and responsive city employees.
The 2009 public opinion survey that led to the development of the city’s Community Vision produced statistically sound results. But Mayor Hall and his council colleagues used them to justify land use changes allowing shopping centers and multi-use commercial/residential housing near the beach and lagoon. [Read more…]
At the California Coastal Commission’s May 11 meeting Carlsbad Mayor Matt Hall testified that the city’s General Plan, updated last September, reflects the community’s vision for its future. But the responses to Carlsbad’s 2009 Public Opinion Visioning Survey Report paint a different picture.
Hall claimed the plan “provides a policy framework that will ensure we live up to our community vision and ensure an excellent quality of life for all who live, work, and visit our coastal city. In fact, values like small town beach community character, access to recreation and open space and multi-modal transportation are top of mind for our residents and given high priority in our General Plan.”
But when you find the General Plan’s land use changes allow mixed use commercial/residential development and high-density shopping malls to be built near the Agua Hedionda Lagoon and on property where the Encina Power Plant now stands, you begin to see the disconnect with the community’s actual vision. [Read more…]
By Richard Riehl / The Riehl World
Regional shopping centers and mixed use residential developments were not allowed to sneak past the California Coastal Commission, thanks to the vigilance of Olga Diaz, the organization’s commissioner, and the leadership of Cori Schumacher, a candidate forCarlsbad City Council.
The attempted scheme was halted during the Coastal Commission’s May 11 meeting to approve a Local Coastal Plan (LCP) Amendment to the city’s General Plan Update. [Read more…]
Five candidates have declared their intention to challenge the two at-large incumbents in Carlsbad’s city council election in November. If they want to bring real change, beyond the addition of new faces, to the city’s go-along-to-get-along political cronyism, they should also lobby for a new city ordinance to limit the amount and source of campaign donations from individuals, business interests, and special interest groups, beginning with the 2018 election.
That’s when the three other council members, who did the most damage to the council’s credibility in the last two years, will be up for reelection. There’s plenty of evidence big money, much of it from out of town, guides the decisions of these city leaders.
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While outsiders Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump attack insider politics at the national level, a rapidly growing number of local citizen activists, who Carlsbad Mayor Matt Hall once claimed were controlled by outside agitators, have launched a political revolution of their own. It began on August 25, 2015, when the City Council ignored the objections of an overflow crowd of residents calling for a special election to decide whether a billionaire L.A. developer would be entrusted with the future of the city’s pristine Agua Hedionda Lagoon for the next 30 years.
The Council had three choices that evening. They could put off their decision for thirty days to seek citizen input, they could call a special election, or they could approve the project. They voted unanimously to approve it. Outraged opponents gathered enough signatures to overrule the council’s decision and put the matter up for a vote. Measure A, supporting the council’s decision to allow the developer to build a shopping mall at the lagoon, was easily defeated, thanks to an army of volunteer political activists. [Read more…]
Over the last two years Carlsbad residents have watched city leaders squander more than $1 million to outsource the future of their Village by the Sea.
They fell in love with L.A. billionaire developer Rick Caruso’s promises to transform the site of the Agua Hedionda Lagoon into a shopping mall magnet for $2.6 million in annual tax revenue, preserve strawberry fields already saved by Prop D, and build scenic trails, all at no cost to the city. After a citizens-led referendum overturned the City Council’s unanimous support of the project, the Council ponied up $650,000 for a special election that allowed voters to send Caruso packing.
In March 2014, while Caruso courted council members, the city signed a $380,000 contract with Dover, Kohl and Partners, a Florida consulting firm, to create the Carlsbad Village and Barrio Master Plan to update the Carlsbad Village Master Plan and Design Manual, the one that was written by city planners and approved in June 2013. The 2016 plan is currently under review by the city’s Planning Commission. [Read more…]
