Big Donors, Big Contracts: Why companies who contribute to school bond campaigns win big.
www.voiceofsandiego.org
SPRING 2013
Vol. 2 No. 2
Land Use, By Committee Coming up with the rules for neighborhood development is a costly, time-consuming production unlike any other in the city. BY ANDREW KEATTS
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Spring 2013
Volume 2 Number 2
20 SCHOOL BONDS
Big Donors, Big Contracts Most of the companies that make the largest donations to local school bond campaigns also receive contracts to work on the bond program. BY WILL CARLESS & WENDY FRY
14 LAND USE
Updating a City, Block by Block Passing legislation at any level is a convoluted process. But determining San Diego’s community-level land use policies is a costly, time-consuming production unlike any other in the city. BY ANDREW KEATTS
Inside 2 EDITOR’S NOTE | Sara Libby An In Sync Moment
26 SPEAK CITY HEIGHTS
Somalia’s Back. So Now What? As Somalia rises from decades of civil war, Somali youth raised in the United States consider returning to their families’ homeland. BY MEGAN BURKS
4 RAISE YOUR VOICE | Mary Walter-Brown Wanted: Concerned Citizens Willing to Pay for Quality Journalism VOSD Programs – Giving the Community a Voice on Local Issues
6 ON THE STREET
COVER PHOTO BY SAM HODGSON
The Great Questions of the Cindy Marten Era | Scott Lewis Sheriff’s Department: No Shoes, No Fancy Degree, No Service | Sara Libby San Diego’s Most Scandalous Mayors | Randy Dotinga What You Need to Know About the City’s Big Streets Plan | Liam Dillon When a Highway Becomes an Impulse Buy | Andrew Keatts
12 FACT CHECK | Lisa Halverstadt Filner’s Promises: Has the Mayor Kept His Word?
35 COMMENTARY | Scott Lewis
Don’t Talk About the Height Limit, Punk
30 HOMELESSNESS
How San Diego Gets Robbed of Homeless Money We have the third-highest homeless population in the country. But that doesn’t much matter when the feds cut the checks. BY KELLY BENNETT Spring 2013 VOSD QUARTERLY
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Editor’s Note MANAGING EDITOR
An In Sync Moment
Sara Libby
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
VOICE OF SAN DIEGO QUARTERLY (that’s this thing you’re reading!) and the main Voice of San Diego website are having an in sync moment. No, not the late ‘90s boy band that I still shamelessly love. Both the print magazine and the daily news site have both been on a bit of an experimentation binge. You’re holding a piece of evidence, in fact — this marks our first iteration of the magazine as a quarterly edition. With it, comes some new content (including the cover story) that is unique to this issue — it’s landed here before it even appears on the website. On top of the cover story, we’re also unveiling a new group brainstorming effort to Fix San Diego. In this issue, folks have weighed in with ideas about what we should tackle next in Balboa Park. We’re also trying some new things online, including some sort-of micro sites we’ve set up using Tumblr. The first, called The Stumblr, is our effort to document broken or crumbling sidewalks. We’ve posted plenty of user-submitted photos there, and our effort has even gotten some national attention. The Atlantic Cities dubbed The Stumblr its “public shaming of the day.” And it might be working. We’ve already been told that a few sidewalks featured on the blog have gotten much-needed fixes from the city since they appeared. The blog could have another effect: The city can be held liable for injuries sustained on a damaged sidewalk if the condition is obvious and has existed for a sufficient period. It’s hard to argue a broken sidewalk isn’t obvious once it appears on a bad sidewalks blog. Emboldened by all the community support for The Stumblr, we set up another Tumblr, called “Dear Superintendent … “ This one aims to collect messages for Cindy Marten, the newly named superintendent of San Diego Unified, and was inspired by a similar undertaking from NPR called “Dear Mr. President.” So far on “Dear Superintendent …” we’ve heard from parents, kids and education activists. Finally, we’ve also wrapped together some entries from our new effort to track the many promises Mayor Bob Filner made to San Diegans during his campaign. It’s an undertaking very similar to our Fact Check: The purpose of both is to vet statements made by those in power, call out their mistakes and recognize the moments when they deliver what they said they would. We’ll keep experimenting across all our platforms. Let us know what you think, and enjoy.
SARA LIBBY
Managing Editor
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2 VOSD QUARTERLY Spring 2013
Andrew Donohue STAFF WRITERS
Kelly Bennett, Megan Burks, Will Carless, Liam Dillon, Lisa Halverstadt, Andrew Keatts CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Ashley Lewis
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Scott Lewis
VICE PRESIDENT, ADVANCEMENT & ENGAGEMENT
Mary Walter-Brown
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
Summer Polacek
COMMUNITY & EVENTS MANAGER
Zachary Warma WEB EDITOR
Dagny Salas FOUNDERS
Buzz Woolley & Neil Morgan BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Blair Blum, Reid Carr, Bob Page, Gail Stoorza-Gill, Buzz Woolley
Spring 2013 | Volume 2 Number 2 Subscriptions and Reprints
VOSD members at the Inside Voice level and above receive a complimentary subscription to Voice of San Diego Monthly magazine as a thank you for their support. Individual issues and reprints may be purchased on demand for $7.99 at VOSD.org/vosd-mag. Digital editions are also available for $2.99.
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AS A NONPROFIT, member-based news organization, Voice of San Diego has a unique challenge. We must convince people to voluntarily support a service they can access and appreciate for free. It goes against most people’s grain to willingly pay for something when they don’t absolutely have to so we face an uphill battle. We’re also fighting a notion that information, especially content produced online, should be free. We’ve become conditioned to expect that amazing journalism will magically appear on our computers or smartphones whenever we want it. Unfortunately, we can’t pay our talented reporters with a wave of a magic wand. We depend on foundation grants, major donors, community partners and individual members to fund our efforts. For the past eight years, we’ve built a diverse group of supporters who’ve helped us get where we are today. But we need more and we’re prepared to step up our efforts in return. This year, we’ll host more than 30 events where we’ll engage thousands of residents. We’ve discovered that journalism is not just online, in print, or on the radio or TV; it’s in person too. Events help us cultivate a community that wants to talk about serious issues and culture. We’re also expanding our coverage with a corps of new contributing writers covering sports, food, arts and education. And, perhaps most exciting of all, we’re about to launch a new “responsive” website that will make it easier to follow issues, narratives and your own commentary.
4 VOSD QUARTERLY Spring 2013
All of these efforts help us better achieve our mission — to increase civic participation by giving residents the knowledge and in-depth analysis necessary to become advocates for good government and social progress — but they require funding. This year we’re operating on a $1.3 million budget, not much when compared to nonprofits like museums and the Zoo which, in addition to philanthropic donations, also have the luxury of charging for admission. That brings me back to our unique conundrum. To be successful we have to run a lean, efficient operation with low overhead and high production and we have to make our investigations and analysis accessible for as many people as possible. For now, that means keeping it free and depending on volunteer donors. Today, nearly 1,400 local residents appreciate our service enough to support it — voluntarily. They’re a special group of people who truly care about making San Diego a better place. We’d like to see our membership reach 2,000 by the end of the year. Help us build a strong community of people who understand the value and importance of strong, independent journalism. Become a member, upgrade your membership or help us recruit others. For more information, visit voiceofsandiego.org/donate.
MARY WALTER-BROWN
Vice President Advancement & Engagement
Thank You American Medical Response Sponsors Homeless Event THANK YOU to American Medical Response for stepping up to sponsor our first “Quest” event on homelessness on February 21. American Medical Response provides 911 emergency medical care and transport to the residents of Chula Vista, Imperial Beach, National City and several San Diego County fire districts, as well as non-emergency ambulance service to patients throughout the region. AMR has been caring for the San Diego community for more than 65 years, providing patientfocused care on every call they respond to, every day of the year.
Shout Out VOSD Tech Committee Geeks Out on New Site A BIG THANK YOU goes out to the wonkishly cool and outrageously talented members of VOSD’s volunteer tech committee who are donating their time and expertise to help us develop an innovative new “responsive” website. Members of our volunteer Tech Committee include: Kelly Abbott, Evan Schumacher, David Lynn, Reid Carr, Jed Sundwall, Seth Hall and John Gennaro.
SAM HODGSON FOR VOSD
Wanted: Concerned Citizens Who Are Willing to Pay for Quality Journalism
News and Updates from Our Member Community
VOSD Programs – Giving the Community a Voice on Local Issues
Members turned out in force for VOSD’s homelessness quest panel discussion at The Alpha Project’s winter homeless shelter.
ONE OF THE THINGS that distinguishes Voice of San Diego from other news organizations in town is our commitment to hosting live events where residents can meet leaders and visionaries and debate key issues. Here is a look back at the events we held during the first few months of the year:
Kelly Bennett talks with Slate economics blogger Matt Yglesias in our “One Voice at a Time” event Held at Luce Loft in East Village, reporter Kelly Bennett discussed housing costs, building height limits, and urban revitalization with Slate blogger and author Matt Yglesias. Our “One Voice at a Time” series regularly draws around 100 attendees and features a VOSD staffer engaging in an intimate and free-flowing conversation with a notable figure. Past speakers have included Donna Fye, David Alvarez and Jan Goldsmith.
JAN 3
VOSD Member Coffee in Little Italy with Todd Gloria, Scott Barnett On a brisk Tuesday morning, FEB nearly 40 VOSD members 12 filled the sidewalk on Cedar Street to sip cappuccinos from Papalecco café and engage in a broad discussion moderated by Scott Lewis that included San Diego City Council President Todd Gloria and San Diego Unified School Board Trustee Scott Barnett.
Slate economics blogger Matt Yglesias speaks with VOSD’s Kelly Bennett at our One Voice at a Time event in January.
QUESTIONS? CONCERNS? Write to mary.brown@voiceofsandiego.org
Members asked about the Plaza de Panama controversy, school accountability and regional transit, among other issues. Though the trash trucks were a bit noisy, the coffee was great and the candor of both Todd and Scott made for an excellent morning. Member Coffees are designed for VOSD members to engage in a very small setting with our reporters and staff about the big issues of the day as well as to talk candidly about their feelings toward VOSD. Recently our Member Coffees have featured public officials, with Councilman Kevin Faulconer stopping by our January Member Coffee.
Homelessness Quest Panel Discussion at the city’s Emergency Winter Homeless Shelter
In what can probably be described as the most unique event VOSD has yet organized, close to 200 people ventured to the city’s Emergency Winter Shelter in Barrio Logan to hear Kelly Bennett moderate a discussion on homelessness in San Diego. Many of the shelter’s residents watched the program, and a few submitted questions. Prior to the event, a dozen VOSD members served dinner at the shelter. Quest discussions are meant to serve as capstones to a reporter’s multimonth exploration of a particular topic. The homelessness event was our first such program, and we eagerly accepted the challenge of designing a program and finding a location that works to equally challenge the VOSD community to think about topics like homelessness in a new light.
FEB 21
Spring 2013 VOSD QUARTERLY
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WOMAN IN CHARGE Central Elementary Principal Cindy Marten was chosen as the new superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District.
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6 VOSD QUARTERLY  Spring 2013
HAPPENINGS
On the Street The Great Questions of the Cindy Marten Era IT’S QUITE FORTUNATE FOR US that the one educator and principal we’ve spent the most time with in the past several years is the one suddenly picked to become the superintendent of the entire district. The choice of rock star Central Elementary Principal Cindy Marten to lead the district might be a stroke of genius. The decision to select her only 24 hours after Superintendent Bill Kowba announced his retirement was, as Greg Dawson at NBC 7 put it “a bold, quietly orchestrated move by a district known for neither.” I join the many who hope deeply for her success. But it won’t be easy. Marten, like most leaders of large organizations, will rise and fall based on the leaders she installs below her. And it’s here that the star principal will face a deep irony.
SAM HODGSON FOR VOSD
“I join the many who hope deeply for her success. But it won’t be easy.” She’ll be the one who hires and fires the most powerful people in the district and, yet, this freedom to hire and fire your team is a flexibility she never had before. Principals do not get to hire the teachers they want. And they certainly don’t, at least very efficiently, get to fire struggling staff. Whether it’s the general manager of a football team or the mayor of a city or the head of company, high-level executives make their mark with the people they put in charge. No matter how well they make all the other decisions, these are the ones that matter the most. This may mean firing some leaders who aren’t performing. It could mean promoting people who are better at their jobs than people more senior to them. These, again, are all things a principal is not allowed to do. And on this point, and all of the decisions she
makes, we have to wonder how Marten will interact with the school board. Are they her bosses or partners? What will they trust her with? Will they let her hire and fire the right people? These are the great questions of the Cindy Marten era. She has four months of orientation while her predecessor transitions out. It will be a boot camp on the confidential dilemmas and stunningly complex financial systems that the district has weaved. Will Carless helped me find a section of an interview with her about this point: hiring and firing teachers. She had described how she used existing evaluation processes and other means to persuade struggling teachers to improve or to push them to look for a different profession. It’s worth a read and provides a window into her philosophy on how to deal with underperforming teachers: When teachers aren’t doing a good job, they know they’re not. Telling them something they already know doesn’t feel good. But if it’s the truth, I’m not just here to say what you’re doing here is not working, I’m here to help. How can I help you? What do you need to feel better because you didn’t come here to not feel good? You came here to change lives. You came here to educate children. And what you’ve been doing hasn’t been working so how can I help you with that? And then they want to engage and they want to get better. So let’s go back to the magic wand, though. So I’ve got the business people and everybody coming to me telling me: ‘Cindy, you know, good for you for trying so hard and my god you’ve turned around a school it’s been nine years you got the staff you want. This is what we want everywhere.’ But, you know, they want to wink at me, you know: ‘If you could have just fired a few people in the beginning it wouldn’t have taken you nine years, right?’ OK, fine. So I’ll give in to the argument. And I’ll say, OK, give me the magic wand right now. Give me the magic wand right now and tell me
Spring 2013 VOSD QUARTERLY
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HAPPENINGS
On the Street this whole reform, the whole teacher evaluation has just been reformed overnight. And I can now do what you think I should be able to do, which is fire those bad teachers that are out there. There’s not one person I would go wave that wand on right now. I would say that if there’s a school or principal who was waiting for that magic wand to — I finally got that power, to go and fire the — I can’t stand the word “bad teacher” — to go and fire an ineffective teacher somehow that power was just given to me. If a principal is waiting for that power to be able to have a teacher give children what they need, that is more of a problem with the principal than it is of an ineffective evaluation system. I don’t need to wait for that power. I can’t wait. If I had waited for that, I’d be in trouble. I would still have too many ineffective people here. I’ve used the Stull evaluation process and the PLC process and the support of my area superintendent and the support of my deputy superintendent to improve teaching and learning at this school by improving teacher practice through everything I’ve just explained to you. I’ve used the Stull evaluation process to improve teacher practice or to invite people to find another profession. She may not have a magic wand yet. But she’s getting a pretty powerful wand. Wonder who she’ll wave it over.
— Scott Lewis
MEET THE PRESS
Sheriff’s Department: No Shoes, No Fancy Degree, No Service
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BY JAN CALDWELL’S STANDARDS, I am a Very Serious Journalist. This has very little to do with the fact that I run a news publication.
8 VOSD QUARTERLY Spring 2013
It has more to do with the fact that I’m nice (almost always), svelte, not disabled and have a fancy journalism school degree. Oh, one more thing: As a Very Serious Journalist, I always wear Very Serious Footwear. Caldwell, the spokeswoman for the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, spoke in February at an event called Grade the Media, put on by the San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional journalists. There, she warned reporters of her No. 1 rule if they want to get information about the county’s chief law enforcement agency: “My first point I want to make is: Be nice to me. I mean, seriously, be nice to me. Because I’m a mirror, and I will reflect how you treat me. If you are rude, if you are obnoxious, if you are demanding, if you call me a liar, I will probably not talk to you anymore.” Golden rule, got it. There’s something a little unsettling about someone sternly ordering niceness and demanding that reporters not demand. But taken at face value, those aren’t unreasonable requests. Then Caldwell takes a turn. She says that it’s time to revisit the issue of journalist credentials, because “you can sit with your Apple laptop in your fuzzy slippers, you can be an 800-pound, disabled man that can’t get out of bed and be a journalist, because you can blog something. Does that give you the right, because you blog, in your fuzzy slippers out of your bedroom, and you don’t go out and you haven’t gotten that degree, should you be called a journalist?” Disregard the fact that Caldwell went from insisting on niceness to vilifying the obese and the disabled in the next breath. The stereotype of bloggers as slovenly basement dwellers is incredibly antiquated. Seriously, people were complaining about how antiquated it was years ago. Bloggers rule the world. The New Republic wrote this month that blogger extraordinaire Ezra Klein’s
Wonkblog has, “arguably become the [Washington] Post’s most successful project, bringing in over four million page views every month.” But blogs that aren’t hosted by the Washington Post are still perfectly legitimate. It’s the journalism that’s produced — how it’s presented, the service it performs — that matters.
“Most of the bloggers are a little out there, and aren’t informed and have agendas.” Voice of San Diego itself, by virtue of being an online-only venture, is probably considered a blog by some people. Kelly Bennett has admitted to occasionally wearing slippers while working from home. On her Apple laptop. And though Caldwell described bloggers with by far the most disdain, she wasn’t alone on the panel in expressing old-school notions of the media. Darren Pudgil, who served as spokesman for former Mayor Jerry Sanders, said he too is very discerning about who he gives information to. “We look at the entity. What type of audience does a media outlet have? What type of reach do they have? … Most of the bloggers are a little out there, and aren’t informed and have agendas,” Pudgil said. I may be a Very Serious Journalist, but I think I’m missing something. Even if there are thousands of these elusive, basement-dwelling, slipperssporting, uninformed bloggers beating down the doors of local public affairs officers (I mean metaphorically, of course, you can’t beat down doors in slippers and without leaving the basement), wouldn’t they be precisely the people whose writing would be improved with the help of a robust,
O’Connor joins a long list of San Diego mayors who are remembered for their resignations, indictments, questionable connections and inappropriate behavior. accurate source of information from their government? If the county is paying someone upward of $130,000 to disseminate information, he or she should feel obligated to answer anyone with a notepad and an earnest question (asked nicely), whether they live in a basement, a mansion or a storm drain. Caldwell and Pudgil aren’t the first to confuse legitimate, journalismperforming bloggers with the rest of the vast, amorphous, anonymous internet. But given that they communicate with the press for a living, you’d think they’d have a better idea of who the press is. I asked a few of my Very Serious Journalist friends what they thought made someone a Very Serious Journalist. One, a journalism fellow at Harvard, said his criteria included “curiosity, tenacity and skepticism. … I think serious journalists must have a sense of civic duty and believe that their work serves the public interest.” Weirdly, he didn’t say a word about plush footwear.
— Sara Libby
HALL OF DISHONOR
San Diego’s Most Scandalous Mayors WE HAVEN’T HEARD MUCH from Maureen O’Connor over the past few years, and now we know why: The former mayor was developing a mammoth gambling habit and, prosecutors say, pilfering from her late husband’s charitable foundation. O’Connor joins a long list of San Diego mayors who are remembered for their resignations, indictments, questionable connections and inappropriate behavior. Not to mention a jail term or two. Who’s the most notorious of all? Leaving out O’Connor, whose scandal
has yet to fully unfold, here’s a ranking of the five most scandalous San Diego mayors.
1
Rutherford B. Irones (19341935): The Hit-and-Run Mayor
Irones cracked up his career when he went out for a drunken spin in a city-provided Lincoln sedan that the press dubbed his “royal coach.” He crashed into a sailor’s car on Reynard Drive in Mission Hills and promptly fled the scene, leaving the sailor’s wife injured. The district attorney later charged that Irones, a physician, failed “to stop and assist, comfort or even sympathize with that little lady lying there with a broken back.” He resigned, was found guilty and received a six-month jail sentence. In the ultimate insult, his death in 1948 only merited a few paragraphs in the San Diego Union.
2
Dick Murphy (2000-2005): ‘Judge Mayor’ Throws Himself Out
A former judge, Murphy was another in a long line of mild-mannered moderate Republicans to hold the mayor’s office. Accusations of financial mismanagement, corruption and fraud at City Hall tainted his terms, punctuated by a Time magazine article that called him one of America’s three worst big-city mayors. He resigned abruptly, saying, “It’s clear to me that the city needs a fresh start.”
3
Roger Hedgecock (1983-1986): Tried, Convicted and Expunged
Hedgecock, elected as a county supervisor in his early 30s and a mayor at 36, skittered into a complicated legal morass as he was accused and convicted of felony conspiracy and perjury counts. Most of the accusations revolved around charges that he accepted illegal donations and covered them up.
He resigned from office but ultimately cleared his name when a court threw out most of the charges. The remaining charge was reduced to a misdemeanor and ultimately expunged. What happened? Only years later was it revealed that a bailiff who believed in Hedgecock’s guilt engaged in misconduct: He “plied jurors with liquor. He reminded them that it was expensive to keep them secluded, so costly that they were expected to ‘do a good job.’ And, against all rules, he partied with the jurors and told them stories suggesting that other juries had let minor issues keep them from a verdict,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
4
Frank E. Curran (1963-1971): He Caught a Cab Scandal
As the Los Angeles Times put it when he died, Frank Curran “saw his career blessed by the city’s growth but ultimately cursed by a wide-ranging bribery scandal.” While he was acquitted of taking bribes from a cab company in return for hiking taxi rates, he was unable to restore his reputation.
5
William “Bill” E. Cleator Sr. (1983-1983): That’s No Way to Treat a (Royal) Lady
Cleator tried to guide Queen Elizabeth II out of a reception during a royal visit and accidentally touched the monarch. This did not go over well considering the royal no-touch policy. “The British media described the gesture as an insult — a commoner daring to touch royalty — and said the gentle brush caused a look of annoyance to cross the queen’s face,” the AP reported upon Cleator’s death. “’Get Your Hands Off Our Queen,’ a headline in one British tabloid screamed. Television stations replayed the incident in slow motion.”
— Randy Dotinga
Spring 2013 VOSD QUARTERLY
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HAPPENINGS
On the Street Figure Out What You Can Do
What You Need to Know About the City’s Big Streets Plan SAN DIEGO CITY COUNCILMAN Mark Kersey’s new plan to deal with streets, sidewalks and other infrastructure is an admission of failure. This is a good thing. For years, basic questions about the city’s nuts and bolts have been left unanswered. How bad are the city’s sidewalks? What buildings need to be fixed the most? What’s more important to people: a new fire station in Mission Valley or a new drainage system in the same neighborhood? The result has been a clunky system for building and fixing city facilities with little to show for these efforts. The city doesn’t spend enough each year to keep streets, storm drains and buildings from deteriorating further.
“If we’re going to fix this problem, the first thing we need to do is really identify what the full scope of it is.” The plan Kersey developed for the first year of the council’s new infrastructure committee doesn’t aim to build new things or even fix broken ones. Instead, it tries to answer these kinds of simple questions. The theory is that City Hall can’t repair anything outside its walls until it deals with the legacy of its own broken processes. “If we’re going fix this problem, the first thing we need to do is really identify what the full scope of it is,” Kersey said.
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Mark Kersey
Here are three things you need to know about what the plan tries to do:
Figure Out What You Got
One of the city’s longstanding problems its infrastructure is that it doesn’t know what’s broken. Without this kind of information, the city can’t know what it needs to fix. Kersey’s plan calls for assessing all city infrastructure at regular intervals. Kersey also wants to publish this information in an easy-to-understand annual report card.
Figure Out What You Want
Evaluating city infrastructure tells you the state of things now. But it doesn’t tell you how things could be. Take roads. Early in former Mayor Jerry Sanders’ first term he pledged to have 75 percent of city streets in good condition, typically pothole free, by the time he left office. By the end of his term, he lowered the bar drastically: He didn’t want roads to get worse than the current 42 percent in good condition. The city doesn’t plan even to meet that reduced target until 2017. Kersey wants to make the same decisions for each kind of asset the city owns: What condition do people desire for their facilities? He plans to figure this out by holding community meetings and developing better tools to engage the community online, among other ideas. These service goals will determine the city’s spending needs.
Despite nearly a $1 billion infrastructure backlog, the city recently struggled to spend a $100 million loan designated for repairs. It didn’t have the capacity to move projects through its system quick enough. Sanders and the Council made a series of changes last year designed to speed up the process, but it’s still unclear how much work the city can handle at once. “If you dropped $1 billion on the city tomorrow, we could not effectively spend that money,” Kersey said.
The Bottom Line
All of these things — figuring out what the city’s got, figuring out what the public wants and figuring out what the city can do — is designed to lead to one thing. Kersey wants a draft fiveyear plan for building and maintaining city infrastructure finished by the middle of next year. That might not sound like a lofty goal. But if it happens, the five-year plan will be the city’s first systematic attempt at addressing its infrastructure challenges in recent memory.
— Liam Dillon
SOUTH BAY BARGAIN
When a Highway Becomes an Impulse Buy MONTHS AGO, a private toll road in the South Bay became part of San Diego’s public transportation network. The San Diego Association of Governments, the county’s coalition in charge of regional planning and transportation, bought State Route 125, also called the South Bay Expressway, from a private company facing bankruptcy for a third of what it cost to build.
SAM HODGSON FOR VOSD, MAP AND PHOTO COURTESY OF SANDAG
OUR CRUMBLING STREETS
“There’s no magic bullet. You either need to show a revenue stream or how you’re paying for it. It’s a zero-sum game.” SANDAG sees the highway grab as a costeffective way to speed up its goal of relieving South Bay congestion. But it could also set an interesting precedent. SANDAG already has laid out a 40-year transportation plan, the 2050 plan, that visualizes how the region will continue to meet its transit needs. SR-125 isn’t part of that plan. If SANDAG can choose to borrow future tax money to act on an unexpected opportunity, A stretch of the South Bay Expressway, east of Chula Vista. then just how far can it step outside the bounds of its own planning document? plan are scheduled toward the end. Transit advocates want That question hits at the heart of the standoff them moved up much sooner. between transit advocates and SANDAG over the 2050 plan. Opponents of SANDAG’s plan, who scored a recent victory Many of the rail-based transit projects envisioned in the in court, are seizing on the idea that deviating from the project schedule is OK, so long as it’s in pursuit of the plan’s broad objectives. “The toll road shows SANDAG has the flexibility to do things differently (than the 2050 plan), and they have an extreme amount of latitude on how to use TransNet funds,” said Jack Shu, director of the Cleveland National Forest Foundation. Shu sees it as a precedent that makes his organization’s plan to fast-track transit projects much more likely, regardless of the outcome of the existing lawsuit. SANDAG isn’t so sure. “The answer is: maybe,” said Gary Gallegos, SANDAG’s executive director. Purchasing SR-125 instead of expanding Interstate 805 was possible for a very specific reason, Gallegos said. Both the highway-widening and the road purchase were funded by TransNet, a sales-tax increase extended in 2004, which only accounts for 15 percent of funding within the 40-year plan. Projects funded through a combination of sources would require a revenue source to pay back any future borrowing, just as the SR-125 purchase pays back the $100 million federal loan using toll revenue. That wouldn’t be possible for any current transit projects, which only recover about 40 percent of their operating costs, said Gallegos. If a hypothetical project doesn’t include a positive revenue stream to pay back a loan, the only option to change its place in the 2050 plan is with a two-thirds vote of SANDAG’s board. “If you’re going to deviate, you need to show how you’re going to pay for it,” Gallegos said. “There’s no magic bullet. You either need to show a revenue stream or how you’re paying for it. It’s a zero-sum game.”
— Andrew Keatts
Spring 2013 VOSD QUARTERLY
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Fact Check FILNER’S PROMISES
Has the Mayor Kept His Word? BY LISA HALVERSTADT
M
AYOR BOB FILNER made lots of promises to San Diegans before he took the city’s most powerful office. Will he follow through? We’ll be watching. We’ll regularly revisit these and other pledges to check his progress as part of a project we’re calling “Filner’s Promises.”
THE PROMISE
Prioritize diversity in staffing decisions Determination: WORKING ON IT to prioritize diversity in his staffing decisions as one of three major pledges he made to San Diegans while campaigning. Women make up more than half of Filner’s new staffers, and more than a quarter of the hires are black or Latino. Filner also brought in Asian and LGBT employees. “I made a simple campaign pledge that we would change the face of City Hall, bringing in the full diversity of the community and I think the diversity of this city, and this nation, is reflected in the staff behind me,” Filner said. We’ll be watching to see whether Filner continues to prioritize diversity as he makes additional appointments as part of our effort to track the status of the mayor’s campaign promises.
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SAM HODGSON FOR VOSD
Analysis: We identified Filner’s promise
Weighing the Truth Behind the Spin THE PROMISE
To establish new rules to permit dispensaries within city boundaries Determination: WORKING ON IT Analysis: Medical marijuana advocates
were excited to see the mayor begin to deliver on his promise to make it easier for patients to fill their prescriptions. They cheered as he effectively halted prosecutions against marijuana dispensaries in early January. That spirit was slightly tempered later that month when the City Council voted to continue civil actions. Still, Filner looks to be making progress on his medical marijuana pledge. Filner said he plans to put together an ordinance that allows for reasonable regulation of dispensaries. “We’ll try to find a balance between compassionate use on the one hand and the unhealthy aspects on the other,” he said. CityBeat has also documented three new promises from the mayor:
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Filner said that with the community’s help, he will get an ordinance drawn up and to the council. He said he believes he has a five-vote majority lined up. He will direct City Attorney Jan Goldsmith to stop going after medical-marijuana collectives.
Filner promised to personally lobby the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House to address the issue under federal law.
He’s already working on those new pledges too. Filner plans to hash out the ordinance and at least temporarily,
city staffers were told not to report dispensary violations. And Filner said he got U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s ear at the recent U.S. Conference of Mayors. Filner so far earns a “Working On It” rating — he’s taken steps to address the issue but the ultimate goal hasn’t yet been reached.
THE PROMISE
To open a San Diego binational affairs office in Tijuana Determination: KEPT Analysis: The new mayor wants to
step up cross-border collaboration. Before he ever took office, Filner suggested a city of San Diego office in Tijuana would help strengthen a relationship complicated by long lines at the border. The Tijuana office made its debut, albeit on a smaller scale than some envisioned. San Diego Binational Affairs Director Mario Lopez now has shiny, new office space at the Tijuana Economic Development Corporation headquarters. The cubicle, complete with a stylish orange chair and access to three private meeting rooms, was unveiled Feb. 22 at the Via Corporativo. Filner has said he plans to devote additional staffers to cross-border issues in coming months but has not said how many will be assigned to the task. He had hoped at least one staffer would work out of Tijuana full time. We’re giving Filner a “kept” rating because he substantially fulfilled his promise to open an office in Tijuana. Though it’s not standalone office, the space will make it easier for San Diego
CONTACT THE WRITER: lisa.halverstadt@voiceofsandiego.org
officials to meet with leaders across the border and serves as an important symbol of San Diego’s relationship with Tijuana.
THE PROMISE
To be available for one-on-one meetings with San Diegans three times a month Determination: PARTIALLY KEPT Analysis: Filner has ventured all over
the city since he was elected — from a menorah-lighting ceremony to a gathering of medical marijuana advocates. But he also pledged to stay put at City Hall at least three times a month. In a July 2012 survey from Voice of San Diego, Filner committed to holding office hours three Saturdays a month. He’s only held two sessions since his December inauguration. Filner hosted his first Saturday session on Feb. 2 and more than 100 San Diegans lined up to talk to him. Filner didn’t schedule additional Saturday sessions in February but held another one on March 2. We asked the mayor whether he’ll spend more Saturdays at City Hall in the future. “We decided to start with one (per month) to see how it works out, to see how the timeframe is, whether people would show up,” Filner said. “We’re starting with one and we’ll see if we need more.” We’ll check to see whether Filner adds more Saturday open houses in the future but for now, this campaign pledge is “Partially Kept.” Reporter Liam Dillon contributed to this article.
Spring 2013 VOSD QUARTERLY
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