To the victor belong the spoils

What is it about brute force and macho swagger that mesmerizes so many people? 

Picture this: you're at a crowded carnival.   See that big beefy guy up on stage – the one with bulging pecs and thighs like a steel vise?  Watch as he picks up that mallet, swings it high overhead, and smashes it down – smack on target.  The bell at the top almost shatters with a ringing endorsement of this big tough guy.  We all cheer.

Picture another carnival.  Onstage is an international lineup of muscle-flexing politicians.  See the iron-fisted man of steel Vladimir Putin? the vicious hanger-on Bashar al-Assad? how about the take-no-prisoners Kim Jong-un?  And whoa! there's a joker in the pack – the one with a muscle-bound mouth.  Could it be the Donald, our very own wild card?  Even he gets cheers.

Now picture a different carnival setting.  Let's make it city hall in sunny San Diego.  Man-o-man, the politics on this stage are a feminist fantasy come true – not a grandstanding, fulminating, intimidating, testosterone-laden blowhard in sight (at least, not since Papa Doug Manchester pulled out at the U-T).

After ten years under our adopted "strong mayor" system… after dire predictions that abandoning our old city manager form of government would lead to sordid corruption… after gloomy forecasts that venal forces would dominate city affairs… the naysayers were left eating crow.  Brute force? macho swagger? never happened. 

For proof, just look at our mayor Kevin Faulconer – one of the most genteel, photo-ready manikins ever invented by the public-relations industry. 

This gentlemen's gentleman has managed to convince San Diegans that nothing out of the ordinary – nothing unseemly – goes on in our city (give or take some boys-will-be-boys antics over a new billion dollar downtown football stadium).

But the fact is, there is something unseemly going on. When Kevin Faulconer became the city's heir apparent following the not-so-bloodless coup that rudely exiled mayor Bob Filner, the spoils of that peculiar political battle were immediately deposited into the hands of San Diego's old guard – the city's business-as-usual, self-serving, elite club.

The problem is, the political spoils happen to be us… you and me… residents and voters… neighborhoods and communities... the city's future.

But – to the victors – the public voice is a nuisance.  Bad for business. Expendable.

Sure enough, a process has been set in motion that overrides, marginalizes, shoves aside, and manhandles the San Diego public by systematically eliminating city laws and procedures that once guaranteed the public right to be heard.  And honored.  

Rape is not quite the word for it.  Let's call it a violation of the public trust.  It involves the methodical dismantling of years of progress by neighborhoods, community groups, and dedicated public advocates who once worked alongside city officials as partners to promote good public policy and better decision-making. 

Could it be that those "strong mayor" naysayers had a point, after all? 

Here's a short list of civic assaults, with more to be exposed.

Government accountability to the public has all but disappeared.  The proverbial buck stops nowhere.  In fact, it seems that no buck exists anymore.

• Our duly elected mayor, Kevin Faulconer, is the city's CEO but he's AWOL when it comes to taking responsibility for or even acknowledging the documented lack of oversight within city departments; a series of critical reports from the independent city auditor; non-disclosure about how the city conducts business… chooses its vendors... monitors its contractors… sells off public property… ignores building code violations… puts public safety at risk…
• In the old days, an experienced well-trained manager – answerable to the full city council and to the public – was responsible for running city business.
• Nowadays, ever since voters traded in the city manager system for a "strong mayor" system, the mayor is the official head of city operations.  He hires a personal appointee to do the job.  This appointee is answerable solely to the mayor.  
• Do you have any idea who runs the city for mayor Faulconer?  
• Do you have any idea to whom is the public can turn with community grievances?  
• Do you have any idea why no one seems willing to disturb our likable mayor with questions, complaints or demands?

 Then there's the egregious public insult called Civic San Diego – the urban renewal non-profit corporation that replaced San Diego's former redevelopment agencies. 

•  Civic San Diego was created by the mayor, the city council, and downtown developers and financiers.  It's a means of privatizing lucrative real estate activities  in our downtown and adjoining neighborhoods. 
• It replaces the former public planning process overseeing growth and development in our city.  
• To the shock, dismay, and detriment of neighborhood residents and interested citizens, there is no longer an enforceable process where the public can be heard and heeded on big decisions affecting their own communities.  
• The rules were changed and locked into place when no one was looking.

Then there's the process called Charter Change, which voters will confront this November on an obscenely long and complex election ballot.

•  The City Charter is San Diego's basic constitution.  In contrast to our concise U.S. Constitution, our City Charter is in need of a good cut and shampoo.  Some styling, as well.  But our city's elected officials have quietly sabotaged public rights to knowledgeably review and revise our local constitution.
• Rather than opening the process to public scrutiny, rather than actively engaging the public in a representative Charter Review Commission, rather than distinguishing between simple editing fixes and far-reaching policy changes, we will be blindly voting on City Charter strike-outs and insertions that will, in many cases, pull the rug out from under longstanding public protections.  
• Once upon a time many decades ago, San Diegans created a City Charter in their own image. Today, the face of the public is being blotted out.

Then there's the blatant reality that we have no coherent policy or plan to ameliorate our mushrooming homeless population.

Then there's the careless support for a multi-headed "citizens" ballot initiative, created behind the scene by a select few – in the absence of public debate or input – that would rearrange huge tracts of land in Mission Valley and downtown, along with creating an ungovernable hodgepodge of private spheres of influence.  (Ironically, support is coming from groups that pride themselves on government openness and transparency.) 

Then there's the disappearance of a well-functioning, adequately-funded planning department, staffed by city planners who were once permitted to put the public (neighborhoods, communities) interests first.

Then there's the Balboa Park - Laurel Street Bridge imbroglio that denies public participation in the decision-making process governing major structural changes to one of our most treasured public assets.

The list goes on.  But let's end, for the moment, with a cautionary political truism:  If you're not at the table, chances are you'll end up on the menu.   

Which means if we, the public, don't demand to be seated at the victors' big-boy banquet... we're lunch. 

Progress, San Diego style: Where more gets you less

I've lived in San Diego long enough to remember what things were like "way back when."  And you know what?  Not that much has changed!  

True, there are more people living here than ever before.  More restaurants and bars and multiplex theaters.  More monotonous red roofs rimming bulldozed hilltops in the city's north suburbs.  Many more seals and sea lions hauling out on La Jolla beaches.  

There are also many more sleek highrises downtown (but, oddly, fewer pedestrians on the sidewalks than you might expect – a mere fraction of what you'll find in other urban downtowns).

You'll see many more homeless people sleeping on the streets.  Not so many as in New York or Los Angeles but substantially more than in D.C. or San Francisco or Chicago. 

Also true is that nowadays you'll find much more political clout embedded in the office of our mayor – a result of charter changes finalized five years ago.  The new strong mayor governance system has great potential for making progress toward the goal of increasing the public good.  

But in the world of San Diego politics there's a flip side to everything, including "progress." 

As it turns out, at this moment in our city's history we find ourselves saddled with a retrograde mayor – a former public relations professional masquerading as a public servant while pandering to the financial wellbeing of the Chamber of Commerce/ real estate industry/ good-old-boys-fraternity.  

It would be a good idea to keep close tabs on this evasive mayor, given his tendencies to abuse his strong-mayor authority by promoting private development interests over citywide and community interests.

In fact, mayor Faulconer's recent questionable use of the city's public TV channel to lobby against state legislation curtailing the undemocratic overreach of Civic San Diego (a private real estate development corporation created by Jerry Sanders to preserve and enhance the city's outlawed Redevelopment Agency) erases the line that should separate legal mayoral responsibility from unethical, self-serving political expediency.  

Coverage of Civic San Diego in some local news outlets insinuates that "organized labor" is behind the attempt to rein in the tentacles of the mayor's privatized redevelopment organ.  But in fact, the interests of regular San Diegans and their rights to community participation, representation, neighborhood protection, political accountability, and open and transparent decision-making within their own neighborhoods are threatened by Civic San Diego and the mayor's lobbying on its behalf.

And it's the people's investment in good government that gets abused each time the mayor brandishes his public relations wand to fund and promote a nebulous public/private creation called One San Diego – its branded logo stamped on both the official city website and also on a private nonprofit corporation that he, his wife Katherine, and the former councilman Tony Young are or aren't really  in charge of – depending on when and whom and why you ask.  

Is it just sloppiness and incompetence that causes the lines and boundaries of this mayor's agenda to be slippery and blurred?  Or is the public being massaged into passivity and submission by an adroit PR executive who's got inflated political ambitions?  To repeat myself: it would be a good idea to keep close tabs on this evasive mayor...

As for the question, how much has changed in San Diego since "way back when"? here's what we've seen: many quantitative changes on the outside but few qualitative reforms on the inside.  And when you look around to the right and to the left of the political landscape you'll probably agree that the prospect of real progress in our city is not yet in the offing.

Then again– if and when ethical, strong, and reform-minded leadership emerges in our city – the outcome will be more enriching, constructive, and rewarding than what the self-serving, fossilized San Diego establishment has ever provided... at least from the public perspective.

Civic San Diego: the kiss of death for San Diego neighborhoods

The city of San Diego has first-class universities, first-class biotech companies, first-class ethnic restaurants, first-class theater, first-class engineers, artists, and musicians.  Also:

Our city has first-class standing as a prototype of community-based planning. 

Who would have guessed that during the heady years of the 1960s, while the Pump House kids were tripping the waves fantastic at Windansea Beach other San Diegans – more firmly-grounded and civic-minded – were partnering with City Hall as official members of newly-created community planning groups.  The La Jolla community plan was the city's first.  Then the Peninsula plan.  Soon came the others.

Half a century later there are more than 40 recognized community planning groups throughout the city, where locally-elected members meet monthly to opine on neighborhood land-use issues, community goals, and proposed real estate development and relay their advice and recommendations to city officials.  

Although these planning groups are private organizations they have no legal power to take action on behalf of the city.  They're required to adhere to city council policies and city-approved bylaws.    

It's true, our planning groups are frequently dominated by people with personal or business priorities rather than communal well-being.  It's a fact, they generally represent the perspectives of homeowners over renters. Certainly, they can be contentious and rancorous.  Yes, they're sometimes short-sighted and overly-opinionated. 

But in these planning groups you'll find plenty of altruistic, environmentally-aware, economically-savvy, intelligent and openminded social reformers and planning advocates, all determined to do what no one else will do for them – look out their own backyards.  Plus those of their neighbors and neighborhoods in the rest of the city.  

Granted, there's plenty of room for improvement within community planning groups. Dwindling staff support from city planners (who have, themselves, been hammered by planning department reorganizations, budget cuts, unfilled positions, and political machinations) doesn't help. 

But here's a fact of life we should not ignore: imperfect though they may be, San Diego's community planning groups are indispensable.  They're the eyes, ears, and vocal chords of our neighborhoods.  They're the  building blocks of a healthy city.  

Without them, the voices of everyday citizens to improve the environment throughout San Diego are easily diminished... overridden... eventually extinguished.  

Here's another fact of life we should not ignore: one by one, in this way or that, San Diego's community planning groups are being sabotaged.

Look what happened in Barrio Logan and its community plan update.  See what's happening at the opposite end of the city, in Carmel Valley's One Paseo project.  Watch how numerous communities are left hanging out to dry over their community plan updates.  Take note of the chronic battering in Ocean Beach by variances to permit out-sized development.  Notice the attempts to cluster and meld distinct neighborhood planning groups in North Park, Golden Hill, and Uptown.  The Serra Mesa community group knows how hard it is to prevent being devalued and ignored.  The Grantville planning group knows the same.   

Community planning groups routinely tackle blunt questions: Does the proposal under consideration benefit the street? the neighborhood? the community? the city? the public good?  They put themselves on the line each time they resist fast-tracking and outsized projects… each time they challenge spurious claims and empty clichés about "property rights" or "transit-oriented development" or "smart growth"... each time they open the debate about community benefits versus private profits.  

Which brings us back to Civic San Diego and its kiss of death.  

Does Civic San Diego – the recently-created private real estate consortium, endowed by its creator (the city of San Diego) with certain (unalienable?) rights to override, supersede, and nullify the voices of community planning groups – sabotage San Diego's longstanding public system of city planning and community planning groups?  Yes!

Is Civic San Diego's most recent proposal to become a provider of "community benefits" and "work with a diverse range of community stakeholders... on community priorities" a calculated farce to placate their critics and keep themselves in business? Yes!

City leaders created and empowered Civic San Diego as an autonomous purveyor of private development and transferred city government responsibility for planning, zoning, permits, and oversight to a private corporation.  They locked themselves, the public, and city planners out of the process.  They got it all wrong.  

They sabotaged the public's rights to be heard and oversee our own backyards.  The City Attorney's office tiptoes around the edges but appears to have serious reservations about city delegation of authority to Civic San Diego.  The courts may not be as easily intimidated by San Diego's power elite or remain sanguine about Civic San Diego's kiss of death for community planning.

City officials need to cut their losses and try to get it right.  How to do it? 

FIRST, DISASSEMBLE AND DISSOLVE CIVIC SAN DIEGO.  Land use decisions involving the future of our neighborhoods and communities belong in the hands of city officials and the public, not in the hands of San Diego's downtown landed gentry.  Contrivances like Civic San Diego take us backward to the bad-old-days of lining the pockets of the good-old-boys.   Just get rid of it.

SECOND, EXPAND THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY PLANNING GROUPS.   After a half-century history of constructive partnership between community planning groups and the city, the time is ripe to consider enlarging and extending the scope of planning groups beyond land use issues. 

"Backyard" concerns like neighborhood job creation, local crime problems, renters rights, city budget priorities, utility rates, water conservation, transit, homelessness, and government efficiency belong side-by-side with land use recommendations on the agendas of city-authorized, locally-elected, well-regulated neighborhood councils.  It's not a panacea but it is a step forward – in the right direction.

City officials unwisely transformed outlawed redevelopment agencies into Civic San Diego.  That decision should be repealed.  

Our city can get it right by wisely transforming community planning groups into top-rung public assets, namely full-purpose neighborhood councils.  

Think about it.

Civic San Diego – like a hole in the head

We need it like a loch im kopf.  A hole in the head.  It's what people in the old days would say about a bad situation.  It's what I say about Civic San Diego –the reincarnation of our former downtown redevelopment agency.

We need Civic San Diego like a hole in the head.  It's time to get rid of it.

A quick backtrack:  It's been three years since redevelopment agencies throughout California were terminated and instructed to wind down their uncompleted redevelopment projects and make good on their financial obligations.  Other cities complied by doing the job in-house, under public supervision.  

Not so in San Diego.  To take care of the job in our city, former mayor Jerry Sanders created an unaccountable, autonomous corporation named Civic San Diego.  

Previous redevelopment agencies were required to answer to state and local law, to the City Council, and to citizen committees.  The private corporation called Civic San Diego is not required to answer to anyone – the public least of all.  

If we get rid of Civic San Diego, won't everything fall apart?  No.  Take a minute to look at the city's organization chart.  You'll see that our city has plenty of resources to get the winding-down job successfully done.  

The city has a Planning Department, a Park and Recreation Department, a Real Estate Assets Department, an Economic Development Department, a Development Services Department, a Public Works and a Public Utilities Department, a Debt Management Department, a Financial Management Department, a City Comptroller, a City Treasurer, and a Housing Commission.  We have options to hire consultants for specialized services. 

We have an independent City Auditor and publicly-elected officials – a Mayor, a nine-member City Council, a City Attorney – to take responsibility for city business.  We've got active, willing, and informed constituents to share the load.  

The city already has the tools and capacity (backed by a $3 billion annual budget) to wind down redevelopment and to move ahead with the repair and revitalization of our neighborhoods, communities, and local economy.  There's no doubt that the city could function more efficiently but that's no excuse for trying to privatize public business.

So why did former mayor Sanders hand over responsibility for the multi-million dollar redevelopment-decommissioning process to an appointed group of land-development private interests and grant them full exemption from public supervision?

And why did he give Civic San Diego control over planning, development permits, and financing schemes for future multi-million dollar redevelopment-style projects, not only in downtown but in huge swaths of the San Diego landscape like (take a deep breath) Barrio Logan, City Heights, College Grove, Crossroads (eastern El Cajon Boulevard, University Avenue, College Avenue), Grantville, Linda Vista, Liberty Station (former Naval Training Center), North Park, North San Diego Bay (Pacific Highway, Morena Boulevard, Loma Portal, Claremont), SDSU area, and San Ysidro?  You don't have to feel left out – there's probably a big development project coming to a neighborhood near you… 

What about our current mayor Kevin Faulconer? Why is he fully onboard with the downtown power bloc of developers, bankers, law firms, Wall Street brokers, financial middlemen, and other vested interests who promote and defend Civic San Diego? 

(Okay, we know the answer to why.  The important question is how to find leaders with enough smarts and integrity to hang onto their principles despite relentless pressure from big money.) 

There are some who say we should reform Civic San Diego by imposing "community benefits" stipulations.  But that's going nowhere so I'll say it again: Civic San Diego – we need it like a hole in the head.  It's time to get rid of it.  

If you need further convincing, read on: Civic San Diego was given the power to make private decisions about public functions like planning, public works, and community development in dozens of San Diego neighborhoods but isn't required to listen to or be monitored by the public.  It's a tax-subsidized fiefdom run like a private club – immune to public control, direction, or oversight.

What started out as a tool for winding down redevelopment has morphed into a shadow government with its own board of directors, paid staff, numerous departments, and stand-alone subsidiaries serviced by private lawyers and investment consultants.  It's on the receiving end of half a million dollars in annual funding from city coffers.

There's a new twist: Civic San Diego has a leg-up when it comes to competing for federal subsidies called New Market Tax Credits – a new breed of tax-saving incentives for Wall Street investors to stimulate new development in low-income neighborhoods.  Civic San Diego is permitted to skim its cache of New Market Tax Credits to offset its own tax liabilities or for its own administrative costs.  But in contrast to how this program is set up elsewhere in the state and country, under the Civic San Diego arrangement neither the city nor targeted neighborhoods have a say in how, where, or for what purpose these tax credits are used.  

Still not convinced? Keep reading:  The truth is, no one on the outside understands Civic San Diego's inner workings, not if you're trying to "follow the money." 

Huge sums have been socked away while projects sit idle.  The operations, financial

management, business arrangements, policy decisions, and other moving parts of Civic San Diego are an enigma to the public and incomprehensible to the City Council.  Even its own board members are often kept in the dark and out of the loop.  

Still unsure?  Read more: Key commercial corridors in southeastern San Diego are ripe for the picking – there's development-gold-in-them-thar-hills.  But Civic San Diego's ambitious plans to expand operations into new neighborhoods – buttressed by powers to direct, control, acquire, rezone, issue permits, build, and otherwise reap bounteous private profits – come with no guarantees that residents, communities, and ordinary citizens will be the beneficiaries.  

Getting tuckered out? We've come to the bottom line: Does Civic San Diego operate within or outside federal, state, and local law? Did the city act illegally when it farmed out its legislative powers to this corporation?  Is the setup ethical or compatible with the public good? 

Why wait for the courts to embarrass and ultimately force the city to do the right thing?  It's time to get rid of this hole in the head.

The Secret of the San Diego Growth Machine: another case for Nancy Drew

Albert Einstein searched for a unified theory that would unite the forces of nature (he had his eye on relativity and electromagnetism).  

I, too, have been searching for a unified theory – albeit a more modest one  –  to unite the forces of nature (human, in this case) that make San Diego the chronically backwater/ amorphous/ uninspired/ tunnel-visioned/ closed-shop/ quasi-corrupt/ rigidly-manipulated/shady city it is.   

Come join the search.  Just follow the trail of clues, click on a sampling of news links about San Diego, and you'll discover a unifying theme that even Einstein would find surprising.

Clue #1: City governments are not bush league versions of the ones at the top.  The people and forces that drive, define, and control city governments are different from the ones that steer state and federal government.  

Clue #2: At the local level, control and power over city affairs is in the hands of a land-based growth coalition – private interests that profit from increased densities and intensification of land use.  Another term for intensification of land use is growth. 

Clue #3: Who belongs to this influential and politically powerful growth coalition? Corporate investors.  Developers.  Landlords.  Bankers.  Newspaper publishers.  Land use attorneys.   Real estate syndicates. Building trades unions.  Realtors.  Utility companies.  Boosters like the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Economic Development Corporation, Chamber of Commerce, and Taxpayers Association.  

Clue #4: The desire for and profit from growth is the glue that bonds and binds these land-based interests, even when individual members of the growth coalition are at odds over a specific political, social, or civic issues.  

Clue #5: Plain and simple: the goal of land-based growth coalitions is to make money off land and buildings by promoting specific government actions and decisions that will maximize profits through increases in the value of their private land holdings. 

(This contrasts with the goal of corporate interests, which is to maximize profits from the sale of goods and services while trying to circumvent governmental involvement.) 

Clue #6: What do mayors and city council people spend most of their time and attention on?  Land use and growth: suburban retrofits... new office buildings… low-income housing... town centers… residential developments… land giveaway... construction labor agreements… tax incentives for institutions and corporations... funding schemes for sports arenas and convention centers… hotel and tourism expansion… height and building code variances… zoning changes… urban overhauls… infrastructure to keep up with demands of new growth…

(Note this inconsistency: on the national level, business interests condemn job creation and other government interventions in the private sphere.  But at the city level, the pro-growth coalition actively promotes, engages in, and depends upon city government intervention to intensify land use and ensure maximum profits for the private sphere.)

Clue #7: In other words, growth-related land use decisions are the meat and

 potatoes of city politics.  In fact, San Diego is a textbook example of a growth machine whose central mission is to maximize land values and profits for private owners.  

*****************

We’ve reached the end of the trail of clues.  It led us straight to the theory of the Growth Machine.  But is it the end of the road for San Diego?  

Not if we open our eyes to the way the growth machine works in our city and decide that the way things work is not good enough for our city, our neighborhoods, or our society.

Not if we dethrone the controlling, self-enriching, home-grown growth coalition that's held our city hostage for decades.

Not if we replace our focus on growth (intensified land use for private benefit) with a focus on development (qualitative improvements for public benefit).

Not if we demand the creation of good and sustainable jobs that maximize public wealth through reinvestment in our streets, social services, sidewalks, sewer pipes, bridges, water stabilization projects, libraries, recreation centers, clean air, public transit, parks... in our arts, music, sciences, and education…  

 Only then will San Diego lose its civic identity as a backwater/ amorphous/ uninspired/ tunnel-visioned/ closed-shop/ quasi-corrupt/ rigidly-manipulated/ shady city and stand a chance of becoming a city to be proud of.  

(You can read a fuller description of San Diego's growth machine in action in Anatomy of Failure: planning and politics...)

So are they all… all honorable men

 San Diegans are no dummies.  We know what happens to politically independent, outspoken, public-minded individuals who are brash enough to shake things up.  They get maligned, noogied, humiliated, sent packing.  Open your mouth too wide in this city and... you’re dead meat.  

So we're polite and genteel.  Why look for trouble?  Yes, the public gets screwed over and over again but we've learned to turn the other cheek.  Forgive and forget -- that’s our MO.

We swoon over the nice guys, especially the ones with agreeable manners.  Like our avuncular ex-mayor Jerry Sanders, our puckish council president Todd Gloria, our sunkissed mayor Kevin Faulconer -- honorable men beyond public reproach.  Even when they're plotting to pull the rug out from under us.  

I’ll say this as politely and genteelly as I can.  These three guys should be lined up along the wall of our downtown superior courthouse -- TV cameras running at point-blank range -- and publicly charged with inflicting past, present, and future financial, political, and civic harm on the ordinary citizens of San Diego. 

Jerry Sanders, Todd Gloria, Kevin Faulconer, those nice guys handed over exclusive control of the historic, multi-million dollar civic project commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the 1915 Balboa Park Panama-California Exposition to a private corporation stacked with political cronies.

They created a homemade Frankenstein named "Balboa Park Celebrations, Inc."   For over three years Gloria and Faulconer (with Sanders lurking in the Chamber of Commerce back boardroom) abused the public trust and looked the other way as their well-connected cronies sucked million-dollar transfers out of public funds and into this exclusive private enterprise.   

I didn't know what to do, saysTodd Gloria 

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith also averted his eyes from the spurious stunts of this corporate entity, downplaying its specious accounting and yet-to-be-determined legal and financial trespasses. 

But whoops -- the reportedly secretive, arrogant, and incompetent Centennial committee suddenly informs us that they're dropping the ball.  The only grandiose plan they managed to come up with is to leave the city in a royal lurch.  They figure we'll forgive and forget.

Apparently so do Sanders, Gloria, and Faulconer.  Do you remember when these same honorable men tried to push down our throats an unsound and costly private plan to eliminate a few dozen parking spots from in front of Balboa Park art museums by engineering an intrusive bypass-bridge structure and erecting a privately-run parking structure in our world-famous publicly-owned Park?  It took a lawsuit to put a halt to this fiasco.  Didn't we forgive? Haven't we forgotten?

What about when the same official troika spearheaded the creation of a private corporation called the "Balboa Park Conservancy" to privatize Balboa Park management and governance?  Have we forgotten that they transferred control of Park infrastructure, projects, and programs out of public oversight and into the exclusive hands of a stand-alone private corporation?  

"Ironically, no bankruptcy judge would ever force the city of San Diego to transfer control of city assets and public property into private hands.  Yet that is what the Mayor and City Council are doing -- of their own free will.  It's a trickster's story."

But wait!  Jerry Sanders, Todd Gloria, and Kevin Faulconer -- the honorable trio tasked with privatizing basic city functions -- has another notch in its belt.

Maybe you thought that when California governor Jerry Brown ended the decades-old mechanism known as REDEVELOPMENT our city would develop a new approach to planning for urban growth and implementing urban revitalization.  Not so.  Yet again, our nice guys pulled a fast one with another private corporation charged with doing public business. 

Instead of dismantling the city’s preexisting redevelopment mechanisms, our honorable leaders simply melded the powerful downtown redevelopment arm (CCDC) with the city’s southeast redevelopment arm (SEDC) and gave it a new name.   

They call it "Civic San Diego."  This city-owned private corporation wears more than one hat.  It has the responsibility of masterminding the disposition of a $1.7 billion debt and obligation residue left over from CCDC and SEDC.  And it has control over neighborhood and community development in former redevelopment areas.  Moreover, it also has a strong intention to cement and expand its sphere of influence and dominion.   

The city subsidizes the Civic San Diego corporation with millions of dollars from the general fund, yet there is puny public oversight and limited public accountability.  It's the nice guys' version of how to run the city like a private business -- where the public has no voice but foots the bill.

Late breaking news: the honorable mayor Kevin Faulconer and council president Todd Gloria have announced that they’re replacing Frankenstein senior (the discredited "Balboa Park Celebrations" corporation) with Frankenstein junior (the "Balboa Park Conservancy") to  oversee the city’s centennial festivities.  

You may notice that the "Balboa Park Conservancy" -- aside from having rubber-stamped the Laurel Street bypass bridge fiasco -- has a stunningly vacant track record.  Does it feel like a new slap in the public face, bringing onboard another set of unproductive underperformers?   

Will we turn the other cheek?  Will we give another pass to our nice guys?  After all, they are -- aren’t they? -- all honorable men?