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San Diego homeless vets down, homeless in tents up
That "79 percent say they experienced homelessness for the first time while living in the county" point is really eye-opening. It's good that it refutes the 'snowbird migration' theory of homelessness, which assumes that those who can't afford shelter can afford to transport themselves and their belongings cross-country. But more importantly, it shows that most people stay near where they were living before they became homeless. Which is why the bulldozed lots in the East Village that used to hold affordable places to live now have tent cities all around them. Developers like to claim that any and all new building automatically creates affordable housing, in order to distract from how their destroying older housing stock in the process makes a bad problem even worse.— April 21, 2017 10:59 a.m.
Deep state GOP justice?
I predict right now that Bonnie will run for Ron Roberts' termed-out Fourth District seat on the Supes.— April 19, 2017 2:31 p.m.
Tax havens with funny names – Mauritius, Brunei, Niue, Vanuatu.
Even the $32 trillion figure might be a little low. Staggering as the extent of corruption revealed was, the Panama Papers only covered the dealings of [one of the top five][1] shell gamers in the world. That's just the tip of a very big and very dirty iceberg. [1]: https://news.vice.com/article/panama-papers-mossa…— April 19, 2017 10:11 a.m.
Real job, fake news
That sure is a lot of words just to say, "Be able to put a shine on a turd."— April 19, 2017 9:50 a.m.
Deep state GOP justice?
San Diego Dem leaders better not do for this office what they did the last mayoral election, and fail to support their own candidate as a favor for Jacobs money. If they do, they will have squandered an election that is theirs to lose and lose what little credibility they have left with their rank and file.— April 14, 2017 2:22 p.m.
Will East Hillcrest get special assessment to take care of homeless?
I knew we'd start seeing more MAD-money grabs like this after they changed all the rules last summer. Rather than fix the legal issues that allowed Cory Briggs to win against ill-formed "special assessment districts," the city doubled-down on them. Despite the resounding judgment of the Fourth Appellate Court that "[landowners and lessees are not 'qualified electors'....nor do they comprise a proper 'electorate'][1]," and that "[the approval of two-thirds of the 'qualified electors' [real flesh-and-blood voters] voting in an election on a special tax][2]" is required, our civic leaders think they can keep calling a jackass a thoroughbred and bet taxpayer money it can win. Now they're letting third-party nonprofits not just the landowners themselves initiate the process, by sending out a "survey" and getting permission from city staff to form a MAD *on behalf of property owners*. And the "election" is not just a private affair weighted by parcel value requiring two-thirds approval, but rigged as a **negative election**: it will take 50% +1 of those weighted votes polled *against* it in order for the extra property tax to *not* go through and possibly handed over to outside groups (like the Hillcrest Business Association). Mr. Briggs, if you're ever looking for any investors for your law firm, send me a message. Seems in San Diego there's no investment more secure than banking on municipal malfeasance. [1]: http://t.co/gYumIrETfL [2]: http://t.co/gYumIrETfL— April 13, 2017 noon
Second thoughts about Hillcrest 111 at Seventh and Robinson
The shill doth protest too much. Thinkered says he does "not work in real estate nor development," but he only comments on land use issues and always but *always* parrots a pro-developer line. That's a fine parsing of words that doesn't deny he is a beneficiary of the development industry in some other way, such as a planner with SANDAG or other government agency—or even management at [KPBS][1]. Always follow the money. Personally, I would wager thinkered is affiliated with one of San Diego's many pro-developer front groups, each ostensibly about environmental and social issues, but all significantly funded by developers. See [here][2], [here][3], [here][4], [here][5], [here][6], [here][7], and [here][8]. These private nonprofits provide astroturf for this new offensive against community self-determination by way of the green agenda, specifically [targeting community planning groups][9]. But how you say? Well, if we have "multimodal infrastructure," that is, streets with unused bike lanes, half-empty buses, and restricted vehicle mobility, then developers can claim [density bonuses that allow them to not provide parking][10] yet still charge market rates, pocketing the difference. And once the argument that people who are opposed to density are just selfish individuals falls apart, as people realize [density increases land value for developers][11], then thinkered and his fellow running dogs switch up and accuse the preyed-upon communities of "thinly veiled racism and classism." Once you know how to look, you start seeing the same lack of imagination and out-of-proportion viciousness in their anti-democratic comments. At bottom, every one of the pro-developer arguments is that no neighborhood (except the tony precincts where the developers themselves reside) should have any right or input into how they are allowed to grow. If you're not getting some kind of grift out of it, thinkered, you're not very convincing otherwise. [1]: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2016/nov/22/ti… [2]: http://www.circulatesd.org/circle_of_champions [3]: https://housingyoumatters.org/sponsors/ [4]: http://www.transitsandiego.org/ [5]: https://www.climateactioncampaign.org/members/ [6]: https://sdbikecoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/20… [7]: http://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Download.a… [8]: http://downtownsandiego.org/members/ [9]: http://www.circulatesd.org/community_planning_gro… [10]: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2016/sep/02/st… [11]: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2017/mar/14/st…— April 9, 2017 4:59 p.m.
Mission Valley planners scorn soccer end-run-around group
The arrogance and bovine excrement of these people is astounding. They're forcing a false urgency to this whole thing in an attempt to keep people from seeing that everything is being done exactly backwards. There needs to be a completely independent commission that genuinely takes in public input on the best uses for the redevelopment of this area. Then and only then you have different parties bid to develop specific projects in coordination under its supervision. But instead, we have a syndicate trying to force us to lease the whole thing for **$10,000 a year!** and refuses to commit to even its own plans! (*"What is locked is $40 million," said Nick Stone, from FS Investors. "What's not locked is how we spend it." Similarly, the commitment to housing is locked, he said, "What is not locked is where we put it."*) And the mayor and most of the Establishment are behind them? San Diego isn't just sunny—it's so blazingly corrupt you can see it from outer space.— April 7, 2017 10:57 a.m.
Second thoughts about Hillcrest 111 at Seventh and Robinson
Once again, thinkered is blinkered by his bias for his developer sponsors, who are the real culprits keeping working class San Diegans homeless by only building overpriced and oversized crap like this for outside investors. But sticking with the actual article the author wrote: 1) This project *is* out of scale for the neigborhood, and one-third higher than the adjacent face of the AT&T building—as this diagram from Atlantis Group's own proposal proves, http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2017/a… 2) This project will choke off one of the only two east-west arteries in Hillcrest with a pedestrian-hostile design. Robinson Avenue here is less than 30' wide, with only 8' total of sidewalk and right-of-way on the south side. Not having either the building setback from the property line or stepbacks on the upper floors will force anyone walking this block into high wind gusts and trashy exhaust in the best of weather; and between a 92' waterfall and filthy splashes from traffic when it rains. This is also a violation of the [Urban Design element][1] of the new Uptown Community Plan, http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2017/a… But since the Planning Commission is packed with appointees from the development industry and not representatives of society as a whole, this story shows that even when a community planning group is not wrong they're ignored. [1]: https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/4-ur…— April 6, 2017 3:01 p.m.
Embarcadero reimagined
Some proposals! "The presence of programming in parks, rather than the existence of parks *per se*, drives real estate value creation....Costs will be higher for a more ambitious and actively programmed park, but many programming elements can be monetized, including for sources of operating revenue." And they specifically use tourist trap Belmont Park as an example to emulate. This isn't about emphasizing "the waterfront as a pedestrian experience": it's about taking space that should be freely enjoyed by all and sanitizing it of the poor while increasing returns for developers. If the Port actually cared about the pedestrian experience of the waterfront, they wouldn't have approved "[a dock twice the size of the Anthony's dock that the commission's report said will be used exclusively by Brigantine customers.][1]" And anyone who has to do business at the County Administration Building will tell you there are already enough problems with finding parking both on the surface and in the new garage without competition from carny sideshows and paid spectacles. Limiting or eliminating vehicle access to it while relocating existing parking even farther away is punishing when so many tasks can only be done here and in person. [1]: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2017/mar/17/st…— March 30, 2017 2:41 p.m.