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A Beach, Burb, and Billionaire “Citizens’ Plan” for San Diego’s Urban Neighborhoods

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Editor’s Note: Some months ago Attorney Cory Briggs and others rolled out the “Citizens’ Plan for the Responsible Management of Major Tourism and Entertainment Resources,” better known as the Citizens Plan. They are hoping to have this on the November 2016 ballot as an alternative to the current tourism/development scheme, which is dominated by hotel industry’s financial interests. 

UrbDezine’s Bill Adams raises serious questions in the article below about just what it is would be accomplished should the Citizen’s Plan be adopted. Cory Briggs is writing a response we hope to publish next Monday. What is important about this debate about the future of San Diego’s downtown is that neither author is assuming the status quo is acceptable. I urge you to read both essays before passing judgment. 

By Bill Adams / San Diego UrbDeZine

They’re calling it the “Citizens’ Plan” initiative. Like all such initiatives, the name is misleading. Said citizens are an alliance of a billionaire and a few advocates for a limited selection of  public interests. Not included are the citizens who are most impacted nor the economic interests of the City’s working populace. Citizen Kane Plan might be a more appropriate name for the way it attempts to manipulate public opinion into believing it is a grassroots plan.   [Read more…]

Wonder Where San Diego’s Redevelopment Money Went?

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…Not to address homelessness

By Jeeni Criscenzo/ Part one of a series

Since the statewide dissolution of redevelopment agencies in 2011 Katheryn Rhodes, a local advocate for homeless people, has been speaking up at City Council meetings about the millions of dollars that could be used to address homelessness that the City is letting slip away. You’d think that someone suggesting that there is money available for a problem that is starved for adequate funding, would get an eager audience. Problem is, no one seemed to understand the reams of spreadsheets and data the soft-spoken Rhodes provided to support her claims.

At a recent event, I told City Councilmember Gloria that I believe Rhodes claims have merit, but I’m at a loss how to explain it. He sighed, admitting no one seems to be able to figure it out. That’s actually progress because for the past five years eye-rolling has been the usual response to Rhodes’ requests to consider her findings. Reasonably smart people, myself included, assumed that since they couldn’t make sense of the myriad of acronyms, encumbrances and legal requirements Rhodes offered to support her claims, that she is either a financial savant or a flake. No one likes to admit that something is too complex for them to comprehend.   [Read more…]

San Diego Celebrates the Dead: Días de los Muertos 2015

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By Brent E. Beltrán

Candles. Photos. Marigolds and other flowers. Some favorite foods. Maybe a beer or shot of tequila. We all remember differently our loved ones who have passed.

Some remember with regret, others with joy, sadness, longing. But we remember.

Death is but a natural part of life. We carry our dead with us in our hearts and some are hoisted upon the bony blades of their forbearers. But we remember.   [Read more…]

California Lawmakers Seek Local Oversight of Downtown Planning

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Murtaza H. Baxamusa, Ph.D., AICP / San Diego UrbDeZine

“Downtown is for people” wrote legendary urban planner Jane Jacobs in 1958, in response to building-centric redevelopment that was a byproduct of politics and economics seeking to rebuild cities across America. During her lifetime, she advocated for citizens to decide what end results they wanted, pioneering concepts like “social capital,” and advocating for planners to steer the rebuilding machinery to serve the community.

Yet, even today, downtown San Diego is being built as a collection of projects, with an approval process that consistently favors developers. Today, the large-block redevelopment is back in full force. The older, affordable housing stock is being demolished, and replaced with luxury high-rises. Economic development agreements are benefiting projects that do not pay living wages to the workforce. And taxpayers across the city are subsiding the mitigation of environmental impacts of downtown projects.   [Read more…]

Iconic Vision or Elitist Tunnel Vision? The Future of Downtown’s East Village Green

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

Who could possibly be against a park? A bit of open space to take a stroll; rest on a bench and breathe in the fresh air; enjoy the peace and quiet… Maybe that’s what most of us think of when we think of a park, but that’s not what developers see. Last night, at the third “workshop” for the East Village Green, we were treated to what one lady exclaimed as an iconic vision and what I thought was a perfect example of elitist tunnel vision.

The East Village Green would be a 4.1 acre wonderland between 13th St and 15th St. and F and G Street in East Village. It has been promised to the people of the neighborhood for almost 10 years–about the same time a poor family will have to wait to get Section 8 housing.   [Read more…]

A Look at San Diego’s Infrastructure Blues

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By Doug Porter

While there is near-universal agreement about the sorry state of San Diego’s infrastructure, building a consensus on the ways and means of getting the job done has proved to be challenging.

The Mayor’s office has been very public about wanting a deal to build a new football stadium, but conversations about how to keep the roads to that stadium in shape and the pipes carrying all the recycled beer away have been muted.

And then there’s the Convention Center, where monies that could have been used for keeping the building in shape were gambled on an improbable expansion plan.   [Read more…]

Humble Heart Thrift Store: Thrift, Coffee, Love

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By Avital Aboody

The Humble Heart Thrift Store will be celebrating its 5th birthday on August 10, 2015. Five years ago, Michael Modrow Jr. was laid off from his job as a manager at Midas where he had worked for seven years. To get by, he started doing yard sales at his home, selling off a handful of personal things that he had collected over the years. Mike is an active member of his church. Upon hearing about Mike’s situation, the church offered to give Mike permission to sell the variety of donated items that weren’t a good fit for distribution to the homeless, such as furniture.   [Read more…]

Public Scrutiny Turns Civic San Diego Board Testy and Defensive

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Civic’s Community Benefit Policy enactment a study in #democracyfail

By Anna Daniels

The Civic San Diego Board of Directors and President Reese Jarrett scored a victory at their April 29 board meeting. Civic San Diego, which describes itself as a “city-owned non-profit that is the entrepreneurial development partner for targeted urban neighborhoods” approved its own Community Benefit Policy with one dissenting vote after two hours of board discussion and public testimony. The one dissenting vote was cast by Dr. Murtaza Baxamusa, who described the policy as “toothless, meaningless and unenforceable…It is the job of the City Council to tell us what to do … this is 1,300 words, non-enforceable and not approved by the City Council. ”

The Civic San Diego Board determined in the meeting that they could set their own policy without City Council review but would provide it to Councilmember Myrtle Cole’s Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee.

While the board vote was a victory for the policy’s passage, it was apparent that some board members were surprised– and clearly resentful–that Civic San Diego has had to fight so hard to avoid City Council oversight and that it has been subjected to so much public criticism.   [Read more…]

SDFP Is Going All in for $15 Today!

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By Staff

SDFP editor Doug Porter will be spending the day at the locations listed below. He’ll be tweeting throughout the day, so check our twitter feed. Doug’s column The Starting Line will return tomorrow with lots of news and analysis of today’s events.

Here’s the list of times and locations for protests on Wednesday:

7 am – Fast Food Worker Strike: 2345 El Cajon Blvd, San Diego, CA
8:30 am – Fast Food Worker Strike: 2829 El Cajon Blvd, San Diego, CA
11 am – Security Officer Event:750 B Street San Diego, CA
Noon – State Workers Event: 1350 Front St, San Diego, CA
1:30pm – City Heights Rising Event: 3795 Fairmount Ave, San Diego, CA
3:30 pm – Home Care Worker Rally: San Diego State University 5500 Campanile Drive San Diego, CA (Between the music building and open air theatre)
4:30 pm– The Big Event: San Diego State University Scripps Cottage Lawn near Hepner Hall 5500 Campanile Dr, San Diego, CA   [Read more…]

Civic San Diego and the One Minute Citizen

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Notes from the March 18 Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee

By Anna Daniels

At 4:45 pm on March 18, Marti Emerald, City Councilmember and Chair of the Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee (PS&LN) announced that there were still 62 speaker slips remaining on the topic of community benefits. The agenda item with the most speakers had been switched to the last one that would be heard that day. Emerald courteously asked the citizens remaining in the room to limit their testimony to one minute and to please not repeat what had already been said. The committee would lose its quorum at 5:30.

Why had so many people shown up at 1:30 earlier that day, packing the committee room and overflowing into an adjacent room? Why were they willing to wait three hours to provide one minute of public testimony about Civic San Diego (CivicSD), the public non-profit development agency owned by the City of San Diego?   [Read more…]

San Diego Sues Monsanto for Polluting Bay With Banned Carcinogenic Chemicals

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Lawsuit says toxins manufactured by agrochemical giant ‘have been found in Bay sediments and water and have been identified in tissues of fish, lobsters, and other marine life’

By Sarah Lazarre / Common Dreams

San Diego authorities filed a lawsuit on Monday (March 16) against the agrochemical giant Monsanto, accusing the corporation of polluting the city’s bay with carcinogenic chemicals that are so dangerous to human health they were banned in the U.S. more than 30 years ago.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court by City of San Diego and San Diego Unified Port District and focuses on Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). “PCBs manufactured by Monsanto have been found in bay sediments and water and have been identified in tissues of fish, lobsters, and other marine life in the Bay,” the complaint reads.   [Read more…]

Civic San Diego and Its Stakeholders

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By Anna Daniels

Who are Civic San Diego’s stakeholders? Who are the people and institutions who have the most to benefit from their success? And who has the most to lose if they are not successful? The answer depends upon whom you are talking to—CivicSD and its surrogates; City of San Diego elected representatives; or community residents and resident based organizations.

Community residents and community based organizations from areas of the city which have been designated by CivicSD as their immediate focus for economic revitalization have been particularly vocal on this matter, but they are hardly the only ones.

Community voices have been articulating the need for an enforceable city policy regarding the kinds of community benefits that must be generated in tandem with CivicSD’s economic development projects, as well as additional City of San Diego oversight of development activities. They have called for more transparency and accountability in CivicSD’s operation.

In short, those communities which are already fully aware of the economic and social problems that they face, are asking to be recognized as stakeholders and to be given the participatory power to shape the development process.   [Read more…]

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