Winners and losers: the San Diego edition--Story #1

We know how it’s played at the Del Mar racetrack.  There are winners.  There are losers.  It’s a brutal ordeal for the horses but there's a hefty payoff in the offing for a certain percentage of track regulars. 

City politics has a lot in common with horse racing.   But while it takes years of selective breeding and training to produce a winning horse, a winning candidate can be created through selective inbreeding, deft maneuvering, and discrete fingers on the scale.  

To illustrate what this means in real time, consider the jarring juxtaposition of two seemingly unrelated stories that appeared this month in the news--practically on the same day.  Read them separately and you get a hint of the embedded gentleman’s agreement that controls San Diego civic life. 

View them side by side and you begin to understand that to reform the flimflam politics and vacuous leadership that permeate daily life in America’s Finest City, we need to be more blunt about naming the embedded fixers and paying closer attention to their methods.

Today's story revisits the 1984 San Ysidro massacre.  Tomorrow's story revisits the Bob Filner trauma.

Story #1: San Ysidro Remembers the 35^th Anniversary of the McDonald’s Massacre 

Yes, many of us remember that horrific day on July 18, 1984 when a single gunman had the luxury of spending one hour and 17 minutes in a shooting spree that killed 21 people (adults, teenagers, children, and an 8-month old baby) and wounded 17 others before he, himself, was killed by a San Diego Police sniper with a single shot to the chest.

There was a police review.  But many questions about the way the San Diego Police responded to this emergency went unanswered.  The overriding question--how come it took 77 minutes before a SWAT team sharpshooter was given permission to do his job?—managed to slip through the cracks.  

Who was the featured player in the San Ysidro story (second only to the psychopathic gunman)?  It was San Diego’s former mayor Jerry Sanders.

The official storyline goes something like this: on a sunny Sunday afternoon, while scores of San Ysidro residents were being terrorized by a lone and vicious gunman, the Commander of the San Diego SWAT team— Police Lieutenant Jerry Sanders----was relaxing over a beer (or two or three) at the beach in Mission Bay.  It was the end of a daylong Command Staff retreat.  The deputy police chief (Norm Stamper) approached Sanders to inform him about what was happening in San Ysidro.

The official story says that while Lieut. Sanders was enroute to San Ysidro and stuck in heavy rush hour traffic, he made the sober decision to deny permission to the police snipers--who were poised for action on the scene--to shoot the killer who was shooting customers trapped in McDonald's. 

The official story says that not until he arrived at the scene more than an agonizing hour after the shooting started did Sanders personally give the green light for his SWAT sniper to shoot and put an end to the horrific mass killing.  

The official story concludes with Sanders taking a road trip around the country to share with others his wisdom about this ordeal.  Summing up the lessons to be learned from this violent tragedy, Sanders offered his four keys to good leadership: 

1. set the tone with a (cool, collected) demeanor
2. give calm and direct orders
3. take care of your team
4. always rely on your people

➜➜➜➜A semi-official film documentary of the San Ysidro ordeal was created by Charlie Minn.  It's called  “77 Minutes.”   Watch this video.  It's well worth your time and attention.⬅⬅⬅⬅

The unofficial storyline goes something like this: Lieut. Sanders was most likely inebriated at the time of the shootings.  He was not carrying his beeper and was therefore unreachable at the onset of this emergency.  Twenty-five minutes of murderous activity and terror elapsed before the deputy police chief was able to locate him to give him the news.  

The unofficial story reports that SWAT team members were in attendance at the Command Staff retreat on Mission Bay.  They were unable to deploy their armored vehicle because it required two keys to operate it and, somehow, the backup key had been "misplaced."  

The story goes on to say that Lieut. Sanders scurried home to retrieve the key, don his uniform, and finally get on the road.   

The story also relates that—still enroute to San Ysidro--Lieut. Sanders reversed the order of a field commander already at the scene to let sharpshooters take down the murderous shooter.  It says that Lieut. Sanders chose to deny permission  to his field commander and wait until he, himself, could make his entrance at the scene and personally give the order. 

The official story informs us that--despite his impaired and supremely questionable judgment, and despite 13 subsequent refusals by the Police Department to promote him--Jerry Sanders was subsequently hand-picked in 1993 by city manager Jack McGrory (and confirmed by Mayor Susan Golding and the City Council) to be the city’s new Police Chief.

The story tells us that by 1999 Jerry Sanders was appointed President and CEO of the United Way.  In 2002 he was appointed Chairman of the Board of the Red Cross.  By 2005 he moved into the mayor’s seat.  After terming out as mayor he was awarded the position of President and CEO of the SD Regional Chamber of Commerce, a post he still holds.  

It’s a quintessential San Diego story of how a less-than-ordinary, establishment-protected good old boy--a regular guy who knows how to set the tone and take good care of his team--gets passed off as a thoroughbred and wrapped in cotton batting to keep him cozy and secure in his waning years.  

But don’t be lulled into thinking that the protected status of Jerry Sanders is a one-of-a-kind shaggy dog story.  

There’s much to be written about how other anointed, favored, protected, less-than-ordinary good old boys make it big in San Diego.  Just take a clear-eyed look at current mayor Kevin Faulconer--the Sanders heir and protege.  

And try not to be too starry-eyed about another anointed, protected, favored guy currently chomping at the bit--mayoral hopeful Todd Gloria.  He's a different type of pony, maybe, but he's been brought to you the same old San Diego way, via: selective inbreeding, deft maneuvering, and discrete fingers on the scale.

The official San Ysidro story has no bright ending.  All these years later and there've been no satisfactory or substantive changes to citizen oversight of Police practices and performance.  It's still under discussion at City Hall. 

(see Story #2, next...)

San Diego’s mayor: present, past, and future (part 2)

Mayoral candidate Todd Gloria (TG)

Origin stories are the rage nowadays, but do they make one person intrinsically more worthy than another?  Do they reliably predict the abilities, values, ethical yardstick, or qualifications a person develops over the years? 

Take Todd Gloria, for example. You may already have a mental image of him as a likable, winsome, up-and-coming kind of guy.  He self-identifies as a gay person of color: ½ Alaskan tribal- native American, 1/4 Filipino, a tad Dutch, and a touch Latino (Puerto Rican), nestled in a home-grown man from an economically disadvantaged background.  

In other words, our man for all seasons.  

TG was elected as heir apparent to the District 3 seat of the San Diego City Council following a particularly nasty primary battle against opponent Stephen Whitburn (who's running once again).  The LGBTQ baton was passed to him by Toni Atkins, who had received it from Chris Kehoe.  

At the end of their respective terms, Kehoe, Atkins, and then Gloria advanced to the CA State Assembly.  Kehoe and Atkins eventually mounted the next rung to CA State Senate.  Not TG.  He's been hankering after Susan Davis's seat in the US Congress but she hasn't budged.  

(Correction added) Starting in 2012, assemblymembers can serve a lifetime maximum of 12 years or a combined total of 12 years in both the State Assembly and Senate.  So TG could conceivably hang out in Sacramento for another 8 years.  But he's back to San Diego to run for mayor.  

That’s not to say that being mayor hasn’t been on TG’s mind for a while.  He clearly enjoyed--and made the most of--his 6-month stint as San Diego’s interim mayor, a post he held in 2013 following his dubious partnership with former City Attorney Jan Goldsmith during the orchestrated undoing of Mayor Bob Filner.  

That wasn't the only odd coupling in the saga of Filner’s election as mayor (although it was the most toxic).  TG’s domestic partner Jason Barsi had hooked up professionally with the mayoral campaign of Filner’s Republican opponent Bonnie Dumanis.  

Meantime, the high school daughter of not-yet assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez made a surprisingly sizable campaign contribution to Nathan Fletcher, at that time also one of Filner's Republican opponents.  Fletcher's budding relationship with Gonzalez was already bearing fruit.  

(Targeted from the start by presumed Democratic allies, the hapless super-liberal Bob Filner never stood a chance.  But that’s a story for another day.)

In today’s mayoral race, here’s what distinguishes TG from his opponents: TG is a seasoned city politician who has already captured early support among Democratic Party regulars, labor unions, the hotel industry, and major developers.
  

The assortment of power-brokers and lobbyists in his corner is impressive.  Financial backers include hoteliers Bill Evans, C. Terry Brown, and Richard Bartell, SeaWorld, Sempra Energy, Ace Parking, Cox Communications, Cush Enterprises, CA Association of Realtors, CA Building Industry Association, Chevron, CA State Building & Construction Trades Council, OliverMcMillan, and--recently in the news--private prison contractors doing business with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  

But there’s a flip side to being a seasoned city politician.   After two terms as city councilmember TG left a paper trail, a political record, for all to see.  Once you refresh your memory about his time on the city council you'll be faced with a thorny question: would TG make a good mayor, anyway… despite much of his recorded performance? 

As councilmember:

• TG engineered the establishment of the Balboa Park Conservancy, whose mission is to raise funds to maintain and improve the park (Balboa Park is in TG’s council district).  But the Conservancy stumbled, sputtered, and languished under his negligent supervision…
• TG defied 1) public objections, 2) a lawsuit brought by Cory Briggs, and 3) strong opposition from incoming mayor Bob Filner by forging ahead with an unprecedented 40-year lease extension to the Bahia Hotel in Mission Bay, owned by financial backer Bill Evans... 
• TG actively supported the Qualcomm/Irwin Jacobs makeover plan in Balboa Park for a bypass bridge and city-financed paid parking lot.  Filner opposed the plan and, after becoming mayor, took steps to create a pedestrian friendly Plaza de Panama by eliminating surface parking spots… 

As council president:

• TG chafed mightily under Bob Filner’s ascendency as San Diego’s progressive new mayor.  The two engaged in a fierce public rivalry over who was the city’s rightful top dog… 
• TG conspired with the City Attorney to deny legal support to Bob Filner, an underhanded and unethical tactic to force the mayor to resign or face bankruptcy...
• TG climbed to the top of the bandwagon in support of public funding for the Convention Center expansion...
• TG sidestepped honest analysis of the San Diego worker pension morass, replicating evasive practices of previous city councils to conceal damaging budget impacts from public view…
• TG improperly pressured a city planner (according to court documents) to reverse report findings over a disputed expansion of the Academy of our Lady of Peace, a private religious school.  This unethical manipulation cost the city more than half a million dollars in legal settlement fees...

As interim mayor: 

• TG used his 6-month stint as interim mayor to speedily reverse, undo, and overturn numerous decisions and processes put into place by the elected Mayor Filner… 
• TG put up roadblocks to renegotiating improved terms for the city regarding a tourism marketing deal with San Diego hoteliers, dismantling Filner’s early efforts…
• TG overstepped his job description as temporary mayor and hired consultant Stephen Goldsmith to reorganize city government.  Goldsmith was an "efficiency expert" in privatizing government services and in the sale of city functions to the private sector... 
• TG promptly rehired two lobbying firms, previously rejected by ex-mayor Filner but favored by Jerry Sanders and the Chamber of Commerce.  Peculiar choices for a progressive politician…
• TG rescinded a stop-use order issued by ex-Mayor Filner to prevent zoning code violations by the neighborhood restaurant chain Jack in the Box.  In doing so he overstepped his authority as interim caretaker, turned his back on North Park residents, and reassured big-business backers...
• TG reversed a program--previously funded by Mayor Filner--to keep shelters open year-round, thus impeding the city's ability to provide emergency shelters as needed.  Closing cold weather shelters eventually led to a deadly outbreak of Hepatitis A just a few years later…

More as councilmember:

• TG boldly claimed credit for promoting a much-sought after minimum wage law—an ordinance that had, months earlier, been achieved for contractors doing work for the city by then-Mayor Filner.  In a bizarre twist, TG negotiated worse terms by scaling back the wage increase from Filner’s $13/hour to $11/hour.  Who had the last laugh on this one?...
• TG claimed authorship of San Diego’s Climate Action Plan, which must come as a big surprise to the plan originator Nicole Capretz, who had coordinated with ex-Mayor Filner… 
• TG dropped the ball in creating San Diego's Balboa Park Centennial Celebration, which was to be a spectacular citywide festival.  Through failed leadership and lack of oversight it landed as a disastrous flop.  TG promptly blamed ousted Mayor Filner for having unduly raised expectations...

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

If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's this: bad things happen to a city under bad leadership and bad management.   Next time around we need a good mayor.

So the question for voters remains: is Todd Gloria's proliferation of political warts--scattered across many unexpected places--a dependable indicator of what we can expect from him in the future?  Nobody’s perfect.  The question is, would he be good enough?  

Our next installment looks at mayoral candidate Barbara Bry.

San Diego – the exceptional city (Installment I of III)

Never before in human history have ordinary people – you and me – been able to peer into the quirky, submicroscopic genomic particles that direct traffic within our mortal bodies (hooray for our tenacious medical researchers) while simultaneously scanning the vast cosmos for the daunting mysteries of black holes (posthumous homage to Stephen Hawkings).  ­­­­­­­­­­

By contrast, tackling the routine challenges of daily existence ­– love, work, family, politics – should be a piece of cake.  Alas, not so.  The scientific method, the intellect of experts... these tools are woefully inadequate in the realm of social and political affairs.  

To illustrate, let’s look at our own city of San Diego.  

  

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice that despite huge population growth over the decades… despite a leftish tilt in political party registration... despite city charter reforms to give us district elections, term limits, a strong mayor government, and a new “minority/majority” council district... 

... despite the increasing number of female and lgbt and ethnic candidates elected to office… despite project/labor agreements and living wage resolutions… despite rivers of craft beer flowing through our neighborhoods… 

... despite downtown rallies and marches and declarations of #MeToo… despite new trolley lines and colorful bikes and scooters… despite sprouting cannabis dispensaries... despite the promising winds of change in recent decades... despite it all... 

San Diego has stood its ground as a city that defies the natural laws of nature.  We've mastered the secret of self-cloning to routinely reproduce generations of complacent, lackluster, interchangeable political leaders.  We're stunted by a fossilized political mentality, hobbled by a stubborn disregard for the public good, yet successful at resisting change.  

San Diego is, perhaps, the only place on earth where evolution has been observed to move backwards. 

We also have an exceptional gift for pulling the wool over the eyes of insiders and outsiders, alike.  Take a look at this east coast perspective of our city: 

Like its urban rival Los Angeles, San Diego is not so much a city as a loose collection of overlapping (and sometimes colliding) communities bound by arterial, life-giving freeways: it’s a military town in Coronado; a surf town in funky, eclectic Ocean Beach; and a border town in the historic Mexican-American neighborhood of Barrio Logan. If San Diego has a cohesive identity at all, it’s a shared embrace of an easy, breezy Southern California casualness. With its lack of pretension, the city is often seen by outsiders as a kind of Pleasantville — a bland, happy place with an exceptional amount of sunshine. Depending on how deep you look, that may be all you see. But there are, after all, worse things than Spanish tiles, palm trees, tropical blooms, year-round flip-flops, fresh fish tacos and bonfires on the beach.

 Yes, it’s recognizably us.  

But missing from view is a rendering of the heart, the soul, the driving force of our city – our relentless zeal to pander to land speculators, developers, and the venerable "hospitality" industry.  

Also overlooked is San Diego's well-honed art of seducing, manipulating, and ultimately neutralizing (and eviscerating) would-be reformers as they attempt to turn the political tide toward a more enlightened, equitable city.

But cheer up!  There may still be a future in our future.  A new contingent of ambitious “change-makers” is on the horizon, girded for the battle to redirect San Diego’s historic trajectory.  It's a welcome undertaking but a risky one in a city like ours.   

So here's a useful reminder: our city’s previous brave reformers helped dig their own black holes by resisting the necessity for comprehensive planning and strong coalition-building (think of it as a pragmatic version of "intersectionality").  

What caused them to resist?  Let's just say that inflated egos and personal political goals are equal opportunity afflictions that cut across all political persuasions.  Even “good guys” in pursuit of power for a just cause can succumb to underhanded, undemocratic, and vindictive tactics that eventually poison the well.  

It may not be fair that the “bad guys” don’t have to be encumbered by attributes like honesty, integrity, and ethics while the “good guys” do.  But like it or not, if our new reformers are to be effective advocates for the public good, then higher standards are a sine qua non.  And right now, a brutally honest assessment of San Diego's newest warriors suggests a very mixed score.

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

Next installment we’ll take a tour of the political aspirations and maneuverings of San Diego’s current crop of change-makers. 

What would Nancy Drew do?

Calling all sleuths!  There's a murky mystery afoot in the city of San Diego that feels oddly familiar.  In theme… plot… cast of characters… it's nearly a dead ringer for a sordid drama that took center stage in our city a few seasons ago.  

This new case involves an attempt to bump off a local labor leader, someone most San Diegans probably wouldn't recognize if they saw him in a picket line.  

According to a description provided by his associates, the targeted individual is an unshaven, intimidating, middle-aged man with a budding paunch, contentious personality, rough temper, and not-such-great looks.  The perp (aka "dirt bag") is currently in the public square being scourged and pilloried.

His name is Mickey Kasparian.  He's the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 135 and board president of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council. 

This past December two lawsuits were filed against Kasparian, one for sexual harassment that spanned a 15-year period, and the other for gender discrimination.  A third complaint has recently surfaced, this one alleging political retaliation.

The word on the street is that – when confronting a marauding menace – the good citizens of San Diego have the right to settle certain scores with frontier-style justice.  Never mind a person's constitutional right to due process.  Never mind tedious legal procedures.  

Borrowing freely from the Republican playbook (lock her up! lock her up!) some citizens want to see Kasparian lynched.  Other citizens would settle for immediate banishment from his union job.  Others call for excommunication from the ranks of the Democratic Party.   

I've never met the man.  I have no insider information about his behind-the-scenes conduct in the labor union universe, but I do have some questions:

Has Mickey Kasparian been doing a good job as labor leader?  I haven't heard, one way or another.

Does Mickey Kasparian engage in illegal or criminal activity?  He hasn't had his day in court yet so I wouldn't know. 

Is Mickey Kasparian so obnoxious, uncouth, arrogant, and ineffective that union members should vote him out of his top-dog position?  That's up to them, I would think.

Here's what I do know: there are ladders in the backrooms of union halls.  They interconnect with ladders in the backrooms of political parties.  That's where combatants clamber over one another to reach the top.  It's where political ambitions and party politics and personal grudges engage, mano a mano. 

Another thing I know is that Mr. Kasparian is no novice in the political chess game.  Maybe you've seen him at pro-labor events standing in unity alongside state assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez.   


Maybe you've also seen him step down hard on her toes to block Nathan Fletcher's second attempt to replace Bob Filner as San Diego's mayor.

And maybe you noticed that Kasparian put his money on David Alvarez in that mayoral race.  

But did that prevent him from turning his back on councilmember Alvarez in the recent skirmish over who would become this year's city council president?   

One thing you can say about Kasparian– he's got an unusual way of making friends.  And unmaking them.  Do we detect more clues to what has put him center stage in the current well-orchestrated facsimile of a kangaroo court?

So tell me, what would Nancy Drew do with these clues?

• First, she'd probably refrain from premature judgment about whether Mickey Kasparian is a scoundrel and/or a rat and encourage our good San Diego citizens to keep our own incisors in check.
• Second, she might suggest that internecine dogfights within the local Democratic Party and within the local unions threaten to become a self-imposed death sentence.
• Finally, she'd try to convince the good citizens of San Diego to cancel any and all reruns scripted by activist judge/ jury/ executioners.  She'd advise us to settle for the dry drama of lawful procedure, courtroom hearings, and election ballots to vote the bastards in or out.  And she'd plead with us to resist the addictive and very bad habit of frontier-style justice.  Too many wrongs won't make it right.

San Diego's multi-headed beast: an up-close look at the Briggs/Frye "Citizens' Plan" initiative

A whopper of a ballot petition has been stalking the city these past few months.  It’s a 77-page proposal with the unwieldy title “The Citizens’ Plan for the Responsible Management of Major Tourism and Entertainment Resources.”

Whatever good intentions it may once have had (and I don’t doubt they existed), the “Citizens’ Plan” detoured down a back alley and emerged out the other end as a grotesque, multi-headed hydra.

Now, I’ve read the “Citizens’ Plan.” Then I read it again… and again.  But for the heck of me, I can’t figure it out.  And I’m not the only one!

In fact, nobody I know has gotten past the first few pages of the “Citizens’ Plan.”  I’m talking about community activists… city officials… political candidates… involved citizens.  Nobody I know knows anybody else who understands what’s in the “Citizens’ Plan.”  Not one of them can figure out whose purpose it serves and how it would impact the future of our city.

It’s not the way good government is supposed to work.

So what’s the “Citizens’ Plan” really about?
Is it an attempt to stop the expansion of the Convention Center?

Is it a too-clever scheme to short-circuit a lawsuit against San Diego’s hoteliers and their Tourism Management District?

Is it about raising San Diego’s hotel taxes (TOTs)?

Or is it an ploy to grease the skids for a downtown Chargers Stadium? a multi-purpose-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink “convadium” that could – with canny finagling – be financed with TOTs and other public funds?

(Remember how former-Padres owner John Moores coerced voters into building him a new ballpark with the slogan: It’s more than a ballpark? Last time I checked, the city was still paying off Petco Park bonds while the place sits empty most of the year.

What’s the “convadium” slogan? It’s more than a convention center! more than a stadium! Could be it’s just one more head on San Diego’s corporate-welfare beast.)

 Oddly, people I’ve trusted and respected in past times are working to put the densely-legalese, multi-headed “Citizens’ Plan” on the November ballot.  They’ve attached themselves at the hip to a moneyed group of special interests, some of whom I have little reason to trust when it comes to manipulating city laws and policy.


It’s a peculiar collective: San Diego environmental lawyer Cory Briggs; former councilperson Donna Frye; former Padres owner John Moores; former State legislator Steve Peace, now on the John Moores payroll; San Diego Chargers special counsel Mark Fabiani; land developer Fred Maas, currently special advisor to Chargers honcho Dean Spanos…

Their “Citizens’ Plan” creates a master vision for our city, moving huge development projects in and out of downtown and Mission Valley and fabricating “facts” that make you wince: “The Qualcomm Stadium site and the City’s downtown have long been linked… this link is as natural as the connection tourists and residents have to the Pacific Ocean and its waterways.”  Huh? Really?

Here’s an alternative way to picture it: “The Citizens’ Plan for the Responsible Management of Major Tourism and Entertainment Resources” is really a local version of the well-known computer game, SimCity.

San Diego-style SimCity is played by a high-stakes team of sports and tourism professionals, land developers, and would-be power brokers, using ballot-box planning to reconstruct the San Diego landscape.

It’s the biggest game in town – where manipulation of the public, awarding and withholding development rights, and behind-the-scenes deal-making determine the city’s winners and losers.


CONCLUSION:
“The Citizens’ Plan” is the antithesis of transparency and open government.  It’s the business-as-usual outcome of hidden agendas and private wheeling and dealing.

Any initiative as dependent as this one is on countless moving parts, legalese small print, and unenforceable assurances to the San Diego public should be X-rated and banned from voter ballots – no matter how good some of its intentions might once have been.

IMPORTANT ADDENDUM:
To help you make an informed decision, here is some pertinent information about 1) TOTs and 2) the ballot measure known as “The Citizens’ Plan for the Responsible Management of Major Tourism and Entertainment Resources”

(The information I offer is as accurate as I can make it.  If I don’t get everything exactly right, it’s not for lack of effort and diligence in penetrating the dense, painfully-long document that you, as fellow voters, will be facing on your November ballot.)

1) Taxing hotel guests provides a reliable source of revenue for a city’s General Fund and for tourism promotion and marketing.

TOTs (Transient Occupancy Taxes / hotel taxes) are one of the city’s most valuable and versatile slush funds – a handy revenue source for political leaders as well as for a host of the city’s business and cultural institutions.

When San Diego’s first TOTs were imposed on tourists in 1964 the rate was 4%.  Cities had control over how high to set the rate, a condition that was changed in 1996 by Proposition 218, which required a public vote for tax increases.  For the past 22 years our city’s TOTs have held steady at a rate of 10.5%.

The city council decides how to spend TOT revenues.  TOTs have been divvied up over the decades this way:

* Roughly 40% of TOT revenues to tourism promotion and marketing
* Roughly 50% of annual revenues for general governmental purposes
* Roughly 10% to a reserve fund, used at city council discretion
* Set-asides from above categories for administrative costs

Here are a few specific examples of where TOT funds have gone: Balboa Park/Mission Bay improvements, the trolley extension, safety at Qualcomm Stadium and Petco Park, arts festivals, cultural institutions, business groups, the Super Bowl, redevelopment at the Naval Training Center, bond payments for the downtown ballpark, special events like the Republican National Convention, the San Diego Convention Center, the Chargers Stadium ticket guarantee, the Regional Economic Development Corporation, and very briefly the Housing Trust Fund.

The city’s system for managing TOTs is convoluted and in need of better public review.  One glaring flaw is that there are no independent audits of the TOT program.  The City Treasurer collects TOTs and reviews, administers, implements, and enforces all things TOT.  Independent oversight is absent.

A simple remedy: San Diego’s independent City Auditor should perform regular audits of the huge and lucrative TOT program.

2) “The Citizens’ Plan for the Responsible Management of Major Tourism and Entertainment Resources” ballot initiative changes city laws governing TOTs.  

It also changes city laws governing environmental, development, land ownership, and planning policies in the city, mainly in Mission Valley and downtown San Diego.  

There are innumerable moving parts to keep track of, as follows:

THE “CITIZEN’S PLAN” ASKS SAN DIEGO VOTERS TO:

• Increase the TOT rate from 10.5% to 14-15.5% (depending on hotel size)
• Do away with the original TOT formula for funding tourism promotion and marketing
• Deposit TOT revenues into the General Fund (from which they can be removed and transferred by the City Council at will)
• Repeal the Tourism Marketing District, which now permits hoteliers to collect a 2% surcharge over and above the usual 10.5% TOTs
• Set up two “voluntary programs that encourage hoteliers to self-assess.”   Hoteliers could choose to keep 4% of TOT remittances if they agree to certain conditions, including financing a convention annex separate from the existing Convention Center and assuming responsibility for promoting the city
• Prohibit the expansion of the Convention Center at its existing location
• Authorize (but not require) private management to oversee and maintain the Convention Center by a private contractor under supervision of an appointed governing board
• Suspend the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review for any proposal to construct a new multi-purpose sports stadium in Mission Valley to replace Qualcomm Stadium
• Authorize (but not require) the city to sell the Chargers Stadium site in Mission Valley if the Chargers leave San Diego or build a new stadium downtown
• Require the vacated Qualcomm Stadium site to be sold to specified public agencies and redeveloped for “low impact” purposes, which might include student/ faculty housing and classrooms, administrative buildings, commercial buildings, research and development facilities, environmental preservation, recreation, and other undefined uses

DON”T STOP YET, THERE’S MORE TO COME:

• Allow for public financing of a new Mission Valley or downtown Chargers Stadium, to be determined by a separate vote of the people
• Permit the city auditor to audit TOT accounts (hooray for this provision!  But the city can make this happen without a public vote.  And while they’re at it, the city should reinstate TOT funding for the Housing Trust Fund)
• Substitute public-private partnership incentives for city subsidies to gain open space/park access in Mission Valley and on the San Diego bay waterfront
• Update the Municipal Code to enhance tourism goals via planning, management, and tourism/entertainment facility improvements
• Create an unlimited number of TOT-financed private “improvement districts.”  These would be governed by appointed owner-association boards to oversee construction of unspecified structures, facilities, and/or infrastructure and be able to increase assessments to pay for incurred debt and financial loans.  Convention-related facilities or entertainment/ professional sports facilities would not be permitted in this category
• Require the initial improvement district to be a “Downtown Tourism-Financed Infrastructure District”
• Require the second improvement district to be a citywide “Suburban Tourism-financed Infrastructure District”
• Require ministerial (automatic) approval of  these private, TOT-financed improvement districts.  Infrastructure districts would not require a city council vote or public hearings

JUST A FEW MORE TO GO:

• Create a Downtown Convention and Entertainment Overlay Zone
• Authorize development of a convention center, an unlimited range of sports facilities, or a combination of these two.  See “convadium”…
• Suspend the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for all projects in the above referenced Downtown Convention and Entertainment Overlay Zone, limiting public disclosure of potential environmental impacts
• Require Port District coordination and Port matching funds for certain public uses on downtown waterfront property and for mitigation of stadium and/or convention-related development impacts.  Allow bonded indebtedness where necessary
• Protect the parking rights of the San Diego Padres at Tailgate Park
• Tap TOTs to reimburse hotel operators for a portion of their assessments paid to tourism marketing

How’s that for a transparent, open, and understandable ballot initiative?  Any questions?

FINAL COMMENT:
If you’ve come this far you deserve a reward.  Click on this classic Abbott and Costello skit.  It’s a dead ringer for “The Citizens’ Plan” – except that Abbott and Costello make more sense.  You might even end up thanking me for leaving you laughing instead of crying.

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.

San Diego – the silly city

San Diego can be such a silly city.  For proof, consider the oddly loopy hubbub that surrounds this year's annual City Council ritual of choosing a council president.  

[political maneuvering, roman style]

People (many of whom should know better) have been turning themselves inside out over the roaring-hot question: will Todd Gloria be awarded a third term as council president or will another council member (presumably Sherri Lightner) get a turn to be the council's presiding officer?    

In case you’ve forgotten, every since San Diego switched over to a “strong mayor” form of government (it's been almost a decade) council members have selected one of their own to run council meetings and set the council agenda.  First there was Scott Peters (2005-’06-‘07), then Ben Hueso ('08-’09), then Tony Young ('10- ’11), and then Todd Gloria ('12-’14).

At Monday’s City Council meeting the matter of when to select next year’s council president was considered.   The decision was made by the council to take care of the matter this coming Wednesday.

At the same council meeting, the matter of the mayor’s 5-year financial outlook was also considered.  The harsh contrast between the mayor’s rosy financial outlook and the reality of San Diego’s fiscal crisis was startling.  Even more startling was observing how smoothly the City Council tuned out the bad news.  

But never fear, we’ll be returning to this much-neglected subject in the near future. Meantime, back to our silly city.

A group called Support Todd Gloria for Council President is soliciting hundreds of people to come down to City Hall this Wednesday... NOT to mark the swearing-in ceremony for newly-elected council members Lorie Zapf (District 2) and Chris Cate (District 6)... and NOT to protest the mayor's or council's nonchalance over unfunded community needs, decaying infrastructure, and depressed levels of city services...  

No, they’ll be there to cheer and/or jeer the selection of next year’s council president.  They’ve already signed petitions.  They’ve already received instructions to wear the color purple (wasn’t purple the signature color of the former movie star Kim Novac?  Apparently now it belongs to councilman Todd Gloria).   

Think about this: protests in our city and in cities across the country demanding economic, racial, and social justice elicit barely a stir in the political consciousness of the San Diego establishment.  Local-level fraud, chicanery, malfeasance, inaction, and double-dealing raise nary an eyebrow.  

So isn't it peculiar that an annual formality to select a council president would rouse the ranks to storm City Hall?  To be generous, I'd say it's pretty silly...