This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features a double dose of articles, commentaries, columns, toons, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on: SD feeling the Bern, victory in the fight for $15, Trump the fool, D9 council candidate Sarah Saez, the multi-headed beast known as the Citizens’ Plan, pushing SDPD reforms at the ballot box, neo-feudal financial parasites, EHC’s transportation justice victories, fascism in America, puppy mills in Carlsbad, and lots of other inspiring (and sometimes depressing), grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site. [Read more…]
Search Results for: richard riehl measure a
Carlsbad City Hall No Place For Apologies
By Richard Riehl
Mayor Matt Hall called for peace in the city at the Carlsbad City Council’s March 8 meeting, days after Measure A was defeated. After enduring a verbal waterboarding of criticism by seven speakers who asked him to apologize for his role in dividing the city, he concluded the meeting with a promise:
“If an apology is what it takes to bring us all back together I will say that 1,000 times. I realize there was a difference in this and I realize the passion for what you believe in. But right now I think the best thing for us is to come back together. That’s what separates Carlsbad from any other city in North County. It’s allowed us to go through a lot of different issues where there were differences. But at the end of the day we came back together and were willing to work together. And that would be my commitment to you.”
I guess he wasn’t ready to begin those 1,000 apologies just yet. But after someone yelled from the audience to remind him, he relented. “I apologize to you, Greg. Looking at you, I clearly apologize, if that’s what it takes to bring us back together, I apologize.” [Read more…]
Carlsbad City Council “Very Unfamiliar” with Lagoon Mall Review Process
Three days after the San Diego Registrar of Voters announced the defeat of Carlsbad’s Measure A, Mayor Matt Hall was interviewed on KUSI. When asked how he and the city Council would deal with the fallout over an issue that had been unanimously approved by the Council before the people said no and called for a public vote, here was his reply:
“The city council, our role, is to process projects. And obviously there’s more than one way to process a project. We’re very knowledgeable about the CEQA way of doing things (the California Environmental Quality Act). Mr. Caruso chose to use the 9212 Report, which the city is very unfamiliar with. So part of the difficulty was trying to work our way through a 9212 Report and get clear understanding. Most of the people I’ve talked to leading up to this, that was their biggest concern, that there was this sidestep of CEQA. And I think that’s one of the things we really need to look at. And I know, from my personal belief, that anybody coming forward that want to use a 9212 Report I would say, (long pause, nervous chuckle) not my idea…”
[Read more…]
Looking Back at the Week: Feb 14-20
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, cartoonists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on: post-Scalia partisanship, education Walk Ins, FBI crying wolf, pragmatic realism, becoming bilingual, MTS border racism, Roger and Norma Cazares, the face of homelessness, making peace, socially-blind urban planning, moral courage, ACLU and others calling out SDPD and lots of other inspiring (and sometimes depressing), grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site. [Read more…]
Looking Back at the Week: February 7-13
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, cartoonists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on: the vote for minimum wage increase, Coastal Commissioner coup, grooving on a Saturday, GOP Latino outreach, toxic highways, Briggs’ response to Adams, declining South Bay enrollment, selling off SD land, women in action, and lots of other inspiring (and sometimes depressing), grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site. [Read more…]
Carlsbad Lagoon Foundation No Friend of Nature
Backs Caruso Mall, Measure A
A billionaire L.A. developer came to town planning to transform one of Carlsbad’s three lagoons into a magnet for tourist dollars. After winning the approval of local officials, he encountered a group of protesters bent on preserving the lagoon the right way.
No, that’s not the story of Rick Caruso’s plan to build a shopping mall next to the Agua Hedionda Lagoon. It’s about another L.A. developer’s failed attempt to build an amusement park, Nemo’s Secret Harbor, surrounding the Batiquitos lagoon in 1972. The L.A. Times carried a retrospective story about the fiasco on March 31, 1985.
The size and scope of the 1972 project dwarfs Caruso’s. But the developer’s aim was the same, to make money off the site’s beauty while putting it at risk. There are, however, two important differences: [Read more…]
Ten Reasons to Vote “No on A” in Carlsbad’s Special Election
The Riehl Voters Guide
A guy carrying a clipboard appeared at our front door June 25th last year. He said he was a member of a citizens group on a mission to save the strawberry fields. After he promised there would be a vote on the initiative, I signed it. A few days later, discovering I’d been duped, I was driven by anger and guilt to launch my own mission: to write about a lying developer’s attempt to bypass, not only state and local reviews of his project, but Carlsbad voters.
What follows is a list of reasons I voted no on Measure A, with links to the articles I posted on my blog, The Riehl World, over the last eight months. They tell the story of how a billionaire L.A. developer persuaded elected officials to agree to put our city’s quality of life at risk. On February 23 we’ll find out if he succeeded. [Read more…]
No, Mayor Hall, What We See is Not What We’ll Get
Carlsbad Braces for Special Election Vote on Lagoon Mall
By Richard Riehl / The Riehl World
As the February 23 special election approaches, Carlsbad voters may want to recall words spoken by Mayor Matt Hall and Councilmember Mark Packard at the November 17 meeting of the City Council.
After signatures were ratified on a successful citizens-led referendum, the Council could either rescind its decision to allow a billionaire LA developer to build a shopping mall on the shores of the city’s pristine Agua Hedionda Lagoon, put the issue up to voters in a special election, or put it on the ballot of the General Election.
The Council decided to spend $600 thousand on a special election. As on August 25, the vote was unanimous. The regular absence of split votes by this group on contentious issues suggests either unusually unified thinking or a careless observance of the Brown Act. If it’s the former, a disregard of constituent diversity of opinion is a matter for voters to think about in the next election. If it’s the latter, it’s time for someone on the inside to be a whistleblower. [Read more…]
Looking Back at the Week: Dec 13-19
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, cartoonists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on: SD’s Climate Action Plan, the return of hate towards Central American refugees, fear and loathing for the holidays, HUD burro-crats, Trabajadores de la Raza, Caruso’s lagoon mall, satirizing new laws by Republicants, the Tuna Boat House, a Force filled family, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site. [Read more…]
Carlsbad Report on Caruso’s Lagoon Mall: Close Enough for Government Work?
By Richard Riehl/ The Riehl World
On February 23 the people of Carlsbad will vote on Measure A, an L.A. developer’s attempt to bypass normal city and state reviews, allowing him to build a thirteen-acre shopping center overlooking the Agua Hedionda lagoon.
The City council’s staff report claims to be an “impartial planning, policy, economic, and environmental analysis” of Rick Caruso’s lagoon mall plan. But I was reminded of a summer job I once had with the Washington State Highway Department, working to keep contractors honest by testing their highway asphalt samples.
I learned how politics trumped highway safety when my supervisor kept telling me to re-test failed samples until they passed. I guessed he didn’t want to bring bad news to his boss’s desk. So I stopped bringing it to his, following the advice of my fellow workers, the lab’s old timers, “Close enough for government work.” [Read more…]
Looking Back at the Week: Oct 25-31
By Brent E. Beltrán
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, toons, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on: Gretchen Newsom diving into the mayoral race, modern day racism, marijuana & taxes in 2016, inequality in higher ed, Tom Hom, Chicano Park improvements, Barrio Logan style resistance in prose, local jazz, dia de los muertos, Palestine reflections II, BikeSD, a sleeping seaside village’s awakening and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site. [Read more…]
Carlsbad Referendum Signatures Stun Caruso, City Council Pals
Strawberry Field Owner’s Campaign Donations Revealed
By Richard Riehl
It must have been quite a shock for L.A.’s Caruso Affiliated executives to see the stack of signed petitions delivered to the Carlsbad city clerk’s office last Thursday. The 9,000 signers of the referendum petition are calling for a public vote on the developer’s plan for a lagoon-view shopping center, as promised in the title of the initiative, Measure to be Submitted Directly to the Voters.
When the Carlsbad city Council unanimously approved his plan on August 25, Caruso had already spent nearly $3 million on signature gatherers and a blizzard of glossy, full-color mailers to persuade 20,000 Carlsbadians that his plan to build a shopping mall was all about saving the Strawberry Fields.
The day after the council voted, a grassroots group, Citizens for North County, announced its plan to launch a referendum drive. Caruso had to redouble his marketing campaign. But this time his mailers, accompanied by daily prime time TV ads, featured headshot photos of and quotes from all five city Council members, as well as the owner of the Strawberry Fields. Each repeated the lie that signing the referendum would destroy the Strawberry Fields, despite the promise of Prop D to preserve them, passed by voters in 2006. The Caruso mailer included a detachable, postage-paid card to return to the city clerk for signers of the referendum to have their names withdrawn. [Read more…]