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Jerry Sanders Seeking New Arts Advisor
It's hard to understand why the 15-member Commission for Arts and Culture can't do this. http://www.sandiego.gov/arts-culture/about/index.… The City pays six Commission staffers ("professional administrators") to support the 15 Commissioners. The Commission has utilized seven Advisory Committees, with members of the public sitting on Advisory Panels, to direct their processes and policies. Also, we have Councilmembers and their staffers, all of whom should be able to fulfill much of what the RFP describes. Most puzzling is the RFP statement that "A new policy must be created to direct the expenditure of this money." In Commissioner Chair Reed's background description it says that she "helped guide the development of a collections management mission..." (the money collected is the TOT, plus some funds from corporations or various people or groups. I would expect that the Commission could develop a collections expenditure mission on their own. Oh well. Something else is afoot.— December 13, 2011 1:22 p.m.
Layoffs at Voice of San Diego
In the Columbia Journalism Review (Feb 18 2011), Josh Kalven wrote that "If you’re mission-based and have a very clear idea of what you’re going to build, the infrastructure-intensive process of starting a nonprofit often makes sense." VoSD doesn't have an online banner link titled "Mission." However, in "the organization" dropdown menu there is an "about us," which generally describes what VoSD wants to try to do, i.e., their mission (without ever using that term). In my opinion, not much of the "about us" rings true. I've been reading VoSD since they first launched and have formed my own opinion about their mission, based on what they've written (or not written, as BSP said). I don't agree that they've "invest[ed their] time in tracking down the most meaningful San Diego stories and the stories that aren't being done." The Knight Digital Media Center reported in February 2011 that VoSD "sees its projected $1.2 million budget coming from a mix of foundations (27 percent), community partnerships and advertising (9 percent), syndication (4 percent) and individual giving, which includes memberships and foundation grants (59 percent),..." The $324,000 annual goal from foundations overlaps with the $708,000 annual goal from memberships and foundations. That type of budget depends far too much on not offending the wealthiest and most powerful locals. It is a budget designed to fail if your goal is to "bring you the stories that our leaders and powerful don't want to announce." And so, I wonder why VoSD is faltering? Because they haven't really done any hard coverage of our leaders and powerful. One of their online Twitter friends has suggested that CCDC or the City should kick in the money to save them....isn't that an amazing idea? So much for understanding independence, and walls between government and the Fourth Estate!— December 11, 2011 2:40 p.m.
Planning Commission Rejects Interim Height Ordinance
This has nothing to do with sprawl or poor transportation. It has only to do with the PC and the City wanting to allow developers the max profit possible from building. SD is a developer-owned city with a developer-owned government. Leave the propaganda to Fox and the U-T.— December 8, 2011 3:30 p.m.
Battle Over Tall Buildings Continues In Uptown
The developers behind this don't seem to want to identify themselves. There are no names of the people behind the Facebook page for IHNO, nor their alt-ego FB page, Great Streets San Diego (GSSD). On these FB pages, all of the usual developer entities are "liked," such as the SD Architectural Foundation and American Planning Assoc. They all want to build as high as the sky, and won't stop pushing to get rid of regulations until the City gives them the right to do it. There's more profit in height, though of course they sell height as "green" or "environmentally sound" or "necessary because of population growth and need for sustainability." Whatever it takes. A little googling yields one name, Walter S Chambers, as the Director at GSSD. He works for a major development-related contractor paid by the City of San Diego, KMA Architecture +Engineering. Surprise, surprise. Another "like," UrbDeZine San Diego, is a pro-development website featuring many CCDC links and Marco Li Mandri's photo on the top page. Although the developers don't want to identify themselves, you can, by signing the petition to extend the Interim Height Ordinance, here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/iho-extension/…— December 5, 2011 4:48 p.m.
Conservative Group New Majority Endorses Fletcher
Wonder if Hizzoner and sidekick DeMaio enjoy being called leaders (although I choke on applying the term to them) "tied to the polarization or status quo nature that defines City Hall,..." Maybe that's why they look so grim and constipated in their photo on the New Majority Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2839213916… Gosh, all the worst of the worst on NM FB! http://www.facebook.com/TheNewMajority?sk=photos— December 2, 2011 11:23 a.m.
Fletcher Scores An Endorsement From California Small Business Association
Well who ya gonna vote for? The new direction you outline sounds good! And the Fletch has already established his back-room credentials. Maybe you can at least vote for some one who has yet to earn them? Filner needs strong people like you on his team.— November 15, 2011 7:13 p.m.
Fletcher Scores An Endorsement From California Small Business Association
Wonder if they'll vote for the Fletch? From VoSD: "Two former top San Diego redevelopment officials each pleaded guilty today to one count of embezzling public funds, admitting to a charge stemming from a clandestine bonus scheme that rocked the agency three years ago." Please, San Diego, let's not support a man for mayor, Fletcher, who does backroom deals with Sanders and the Redevelopment Agency.— November 15, 2011 5:54 p.m.
Fletcher Scores An Endorsement From California Small Business Association
Fletcher is the hero of the Redevelopment sycophants. He is being courted by otherwise socially liberal (little "L") democrats (little "D"), i.e., the local coastal Republican types. What they want is infill and redevelopment, but mainly all that public money, to enable their careers. They imagine and describe themselves as the benefactors of the poor and needy, but, really, they are just people who chose the wrong career in the wrong decade in the wrong town, and they need to pay their bills, on the public dime. Nathan is their guy. Shame. Bob Filner is the only good choice to turn San Diego in a new direction.— November 15, 2011 5:31 p.m.
Council to Consider Kessler Settlement
[cont] Second, it is worth looking at what Li Mandri and Dumanis were doing during those years, and their interactions. Among other events, in Feb 2003 the Little Italy Association gave an "appreciation" dinner for the newly elected Dumanis. Next, ironically, Dumanis appeared at the LIA Board meeting in Sep 2004 and gave a presentation on white collar crime, check cashing fraud, County crime, and the priorities of her office. "The Board expressed their appreciation to the District Attorney for taking time from her busy schedule to return to the Community where she has had so much support over the past three years." Then, in June 2005, exactly when Kessler was talking to SDPD and the FBI about Li Mandri and Mannino, Dumanis gave another presentation to the LIA Board, as recorded in the LIA minutes: "District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis (new resident to Little Italy) spoke with the Board and gave an update on what they are currently working on in the DA’s office." My instincts tell me that Kessler saw the City in turmoil in 2005, and knew that it could be his chance to move into City government, after operating on the fringe of it for years, on boards and advisory groups. Kessler may thought that Li Mandri would again be a competitor, for the spot Kessler now envisioned as his. Kessler and Li Mandri had moved in the same circles for decades, yet Li Mandri was moving ever more into the big money and forming bigger connections, and Kessler was just plugging along, doing all the tedious, hard work. Why did Kessler wait four years to report a crime? Why is Li Mandri the last man standing, and how long will he continue standing?— November 14, 2011 9:16 p.m.
Council to Consider Kessler Settlement
I think that there is a big part of this sordid tale that is being overlooked, in at least two regards. First, the SDPD/FBI report states that in 2005 Kessler came to the SDPD to report that Li Mandri/Mannino had violated conflict of interest laws in 2000 and 2001. The report says that investigators interviewed Kessler about his allegations from April to Aug 2005. This was more than four years after the fraudulent actions that Kessler says he warned Li Mandri and Mannino about. Kessler's 2005 interviews with the SDPD/FBI took place more than a year prior to Kessler landing his job with the City, as Deputy Director of the Economic Development division, in late 2006. Did Kessler discuss Li Mandri and Mannino during his City job interview? If not, why not? The SDPD/FBI final report took two years to produce, and by the spring of 2007, when the City saw the report, Kessler had been in his City job a full year. What triggered Kessler to go to the cops in the spring of 2005, four long years after the fraudulent activity that he had observed? What was happening in San Diego then (other than the resignations of Hank Cunningham, Economic Development Director; Lamont Ewell, City Manager; and Dick Murphy, Mayor)? I think it is worth considering this, and worth looking at what Kessler, Li Mandri, and Mannino were doing separately and collectively during all of those years. The records of their official actions and interactions exist and are quite interesting. [cont]— November 14, 2011 9:15 p.m.