OB Rag

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner / February 11, 2020

Alternative facts — they’re the latest rage.  Even here at home, presumably responsible voices are echoing half-truths, distortion, and misinformation about a number of big-ticket items that face San Diego.

Let’s take the subject of housing, for starters.  We all talk about the housing crisis in San Diego.  So what makes it a crisis?

For some it’s about sky-high rents.  Others say it’s a matter of supply–there aren’t enough houses and apartments to go around.  Still others point to the near-million it takes nowadays to buy even a little bungalow…

Do the innumerable, uncountable people living on the streets constitute a crisis?  And what about the families being pushed out of their gentrifying neighborhoods?

As for the causes of this crisis, everyone’s got a different take–too many regulations? building fees? zoning restrictions? government roadblocks? parking requirements? environmental protections?

Well then, what should be done?  How about the commonsensical-sounding solution bouncing around newspaper editorials and City Hall and County meetings… planning forums and urban studies classrooms… union halls and the hallowed Chamber of Commerce… the one that says: Yes we can!  Yes we must BUILD our way out of our housing crisis!

YIMBYs (Yes In My Back Yard crusaders) on both sides of the political aisle–Democrats and Republicans alike– have jumped on this alternative-facts bandwagon urging us to build-build-build our way out.

The YIMBY message is paraded out by Mayor Kevin Faulconer.  By California Senator Scott Wiener.  By HUD Secretary Ben Carson.  And yes, by executive order from our very own President Donald Trump.

Their marching orders are clear: Slash government regulations.  Reduce building restrictions.  Require greater development and density (preferably but not necessarily in transit-available, jobs-rich urban areas).  Intensify growth.  And get yourselves out of the way of the market!

YIMBYs may be new to the game but their build-build-build message is just another twist to an old script written and directed by San Diego’s longtime lord and master–the Growth Machine.

The Growth Machine can be described this way: it’s a broad coalition of local folk (individuals, organizations, interest groups) who share two basic traits: 1) all its members directly profit from urban growth and development; and 2) all its members tend to have an outsized influence on local political decisions.

You’ve met them before: our hotels, banks, convention center, newspapers, shopping centers, sports stadiums, labor unions, realtor’s associations, tech companies, builders, big developers….

And they have a third thing in common: a shared philosophy about the function of the land beneath our feet.

For the Growth Machine “land” is not a social good, it’s a commodity—a financial vehicle to be purchased, sold, invested in, or traded.  Who can dispute that ownership and control over land is synonymous with wealth and power?  With land valued as a commodity rather than a social good, speculation can reap huge rewards.

Now tell me, who has the Midas touch to transform the resale value of land owned by  investors/speculators/developers into pure gold?  None other than our elected officials on the City Council and County Board of Supervisors.

And who are the people most susceptible to pressure from lobbyists, campaign donors, unions, and business elites?  Who can turn the city itself into a well-greased Growth Machine? See above.

Think about it: when local politicians act in their official capacity to extend the city’s water and sewer lines… build new roads… amend a community or general plan… upzone to higher building heights and densities… bestow tax subsidies… relax building and parking requirements… a modest piece of property can be instantly transformed into a goldmine.

You might ask: won’t increasing land values and tax revenues also be beneficial to the city by enabling our elected officials to enhance amenities and the quality of life for regular people and neighborhoods?

Not necessarily.  The priorities of land speculators and developers involve intensifying land use to accommodate more, and then more, growth and development.   Attention to your sidewalks/storm drains/schools/parks/potholes/municipal service is buried somewhere in San Diego’s decades-old backlog of unattended neighborhood infrastructure repairs and upgrades–now at a whopping $2billion deficit.

Back to the subject of housing.  Regular people recognize that the housing crisis is actually an unaffordability crisis.

Most regular people know that the remedy for an unaffordability crisis is NOT denser/ high-priced/ luxury/ upper-end apartments, condominiums, and mini-mansions.  Most don’t fall for the myth that higher housing densities and generous developer “incentives” will bring prices down to a reasonable level.

Most of us aren’t fooled about the difference between housing “abundance” and housing “affordability.”  Most intuitively understand that–in the real world–supply and demand trickle-down economic theories don’t cut it for mid/moderate/lower income residents.  Does anyone honestly believe that unleashing the power of the market will bring housing prices down?

So how can we explain the blind enthusiasm of people who brand themselves YIMBYs and declare that high density market-rate residential development is the magic bullet for ensuring that anyone who wishes to reside in our neighborhoods/ cities/ counties can have an affordable roof over their heads?

Is the seductive allure of a powerful, wily, and wealthy Growth Machine too hard to resist?

For a clue, take a look at the organization called California YIMBY.  California YIMBY was created with a million-dollar advance from Bay Area high-tech executives as a lobbying tool for pro-development legislation in Sacramento.  Its purpose is to organize empower, and coordinate with YIMBY groups throughout the state to reduce environmental and regulatory restraints that stand in the way of high density building and growth.

The California YIMBY Victory Fund is its moneyed arm–a political action committee (PAC) that doles out generous contributions to Democratic clubs, civic associations, other political PACs, and of course to state and local politicians and candidates (local YIMBY cheerleaders Todd Gloria, Toni Atkins, and Nathan Fletcher  included).

San Diego has always competed with other cities to entice vacationers, conventioneers, and tourists to choose us over all others.  Lately, city boosters have been inviting newcomers to not only visit but to stay.  They’re also ratcheting up incentives for new businesses and tech workers to come on over and relocate in San Diego.  With YIMBYs at their beck and call, the sky is the limit for the Growth Machine.

Let me state this for the record: growth is not a dirty word.  But growth–the quantity, quality, rate, impacts, losers, and beneficiaries–comes laden with enormous challenges.  There are no quick and easy answers.  That’s a real fact.

The only dirty words in this debate are the alternative facts promoted by the powerful growth coalition and parroted by YIMBY acolytes.  Upzoning and slashed regulations do NOT increase affordability, reduce auto congestion, mitigate severe climate/environmental impacts, or make a dent in the plight of the homeless.   In fact, accelerated rates of growth increase these critical problems.

A real fact is that San Diego doesn’t have to follow in the YIMBY footsteps.  Our city doesn’t have to go the way of San Francisco or San Jose or Los Angeles.   We can choose an urban future that manages growth to meet the broadest range of human and environmental necessities.   If we want, we can start right now to remedy our housing unaffordability crisis.

Why not:

• protect tenants from price gouging and unwarranted evictions?
• regulate international speculation and land acquisition?
• preserve, upgrade, and promote adaptive reuse of existing affordable housing?
• put the screws on corporate landlords?

Why not:

• encourage union-sponsored housing?
• curtail windfall profits exacted by landowners?
• slap a luxury tax on investment dwellings?
• initiate mixed-income public-sponsored housing?
• lobby for a state bank and public co-ops?

And why not:

• support bond measures focused exclusively on housing and let San Diego’s hotel/tourism industry pay for an expanded convention center?

Did you see who Trump is placing in charge of the Hunt for Anonymous? San Diego’s own Peter Navarro. Yup, that’s right.

According to Yahoo News:

Officially, assistant to the president Peter Navarro is Trump’s point-man on trade policy. But Navarro has also taken it upon himself in recent weeks to uncover the identity of the person known simply as “Anonymous,” the senior Trump administration official who has railed against the president in the New York Times opinion pages and, most recently, in a bestselling book titled A Warning, and whose actual identity has so far confounded White House leak hunters.

Since at least the time of the impeachment process against Trump, Navarro — whom the president affectionately calls “my Peter”— began conducting his own private investigation into the identity of Anonymous, according to three sources with knowledge of Navarro’s efforts.

One of those sources described Navarro’s investigative efforts as partially an in-depth analysis of the language and phrases used in Anonymous’ book and other public writings.

Maybe while searching for Anonymous, Navarro can hunt down the fictional character he quoted in his books on China. He had – it turned out, invented an “expert” and quoted him – but it was himself. Last October, it was revealed by the New York Times:

Washington learned about the mysterious anti-China voice that has long whispered in Mr. Navarro’s ear: Ron Vara.

Ron Vara has appeared as a cryptic voice of economic wisdom more than a dozen times in five of Mr. Navarro’s 13 books, dispensing musings like “You’ve got to be nuts to eat Chinese food” and “Only the Chinese can turn a leather sofa into an acid bath, a baby crib into a lethal weapon and a cellphone battery into heart-piercing shrapnel.”

But Ron Vara, it turns out, does not exist. At least not in corporeal form. He is apparently a figment of Mr. Navarro’s imagination — an anagram of Mr. Navarro’s surname that the trade adviser created as a Hitchcockian writing device and stuck with as something of an inside joke with himself.

For those not in the know, Peter Navarro had a long history in San Diego as a well-known “slow-growth” advocate. He also ran for political office, three, four times here – and lost every race. Here’s what we said of Navarro back in 2018:

Peter Navarro was well known in San Diego and Ocean Beach back in the 1990s as a type of environmentalist activist and populist politician. He said he used to surf OB. He was an in-your-face, slow-growth advocate – and a Democrat. He led a group called PLAN, Prevent Los Angelization Now. He ran for local office 5 times – and I’m certain I voted for him at least once – but lost each time, although a couple were close.

After being a lecturer at USD and UCSD in the 1980s, his first electoral campaign was in 1992. He ran in a crowded mayoral primary and received the most votes (38%), but in the general election, he lost to Republican Susan Golding, 52% to 48%.

A year later in 1993, Navarro ran for city council in District 1 – and lost by a hair (277 votes) to Harry Mathis. Then in 1994, he was narrowly defeated again (3,265 votes) this time by Ron Roberts in a race for the 4th District of the county Board of Supervisors.

In 1996, Navarro tried an upset of Congressman Brian Bilbray California’s 49th District and big name Democrats campaigned for him (Hillary Clinton and then US Congressman – later Mayor Bob Filner) – but to no avail. He lost again. His last San Diego campaign was for the city council again – this time for District 6. He didn’t make it. San Diego Union-Tribune

Finally, Navarro gave up on San Diego, moved to Orange County and UC Irvine, where he became a professor and author of a dozen economic books.

UC Irvine is where Navarro changed. He went from a Democrat populist to a hard-line critic of China and an strong advocate of right-wing politics and economics. Today he sits as the Assistant to the President, Director of Trade and Industrial Policy, and the Director of the White House National Trade Council, – fancy titles for a sycophant – where he he fuels Trump’s anti-China tirades. And yes, he campaigned viciously for Trump.

So, Navarro has joined a select club of former San Diego politicians, who once all had a populist type of politics, but changed into having racist and/ or right-wing views; we’re talking Pete Wilson, former mayor and governor and we’re talking Roger “Light ’em up” Hedgecock, also former mayor, and now racist radio talkshow host.  Congrats, Peter.

Yet, generally, Navarro’s views are considered significantly outside the mainstream of economic thought; a strong proponent of reducing U.S. trade deficits; a critic of Germany and China for so-called currency manipulation; he wants high tariffs for the US, and is against both NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

In an interview with the Guardian a couple of years ago, Navarro claimed his harsh critiques on China have nothing to do with race or ethnicity. He said:

“It’s about a brutal, authoritarian communist government that’s engaged in mercantilist enterprise, and is allowed to get away with it.”

The Guardian then reported:

In documentaries and books – the latest is Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World – Navarro has depicted China as an insatiable menace which systematically bullies, lies and cheats, especially on trade rules through currency manipulation, illegal export subsidies, intellectual property theft and polluting sweatshops. “China uses these weapons of job destruction to unfairly tilt the playing field.”

Bill Clinton let the chicken into the hen house by paving China’s entry to the World Trade Organization in 2001, said Navarro, enabling the Asian giant to siphon US jobs, industry and growth, which in turn funded Chinese military expansion. “This is the essence of Trump’s campaign. He understands this problem.”

The Guardian

Amidst all the electioneering this season, it’s easy to overlook that there’s other local San Diego issues of keen interest to city residents out there. One of them is San Diego’s use of so-called “smart street lights.”

These, of course, are the specialized street lights – 3,200 of which have been installed around the city – which include sensors equipped with cameras, microphones and other tech elements. A variety of info and data is captured by the sensors, like for instance, pedestrian and vehicle movements, parking availability, temperature and humidity. And San Diego police have access to the images under department-imposed guidelines.

The issue of smart street lights has swung back into the open just recently, when UC San Diego students pushed back against the use of smart street lights in the San Diego area. Last week some of the students addressed a San Diego city council committee and called upon the city to hold a town hall meeting for residents to discuss the lights.

A student spokeswoman said they were “baffled by the lack of information” for the public and requested other reforms, such as creating an independent commission to review the program and giving the public notice whenever law enforcement officers use data from the street lights.

The students are joining a chorus of politicians and community members who wish to apply brakes to the use of the technology. Late last month, the City Council’s Public Safety & Livable Neighborhoods Committee rejected a staff recommendation for a policy on the use of the data and instead raised their collective voice for stronger and more broad regulations, particularly policy that addresses public concerns that have been raised over this last year and half.

Representing UCSD’s student government, student Alisha Saxena addressed the city council members:

“We’ve been following the issue of smart street lights and we’re baffled. We’re baffled by the lack of information which the public has received on this potentially far-reaching program, we’re baffled that members of this City Council, as reported by the Union-Tribune, were seemingly unaware of law enforcement’s access to this data — access which was not included in the original proposal, which the public approved.”

Saxena continued:

“We will not stand to be baffled any longer, and as a result we have come up with some requests for the City Council to consider and act upon.”

She then listed the recommendations noted above. And said:

“The community was robbed of having a discussion with law enforcement about privacy concerns, discriminatory concerns and more.”

The students want the city council to host the town hall meeting no later than April. Fox5

Last month, when the the Public Safety & Livable Neighborhoods Committee met on this issue, Committee Chair Monica Montgomery expressed the important idea that the committee should know more about all the city’s surveillance tools before approving rules that would govern data from sensors on the street lights. Montgomery stated:

“Too many of these programs are moving forward without public conversation, careful consideration of the costs and benefits, or adequate polices in place to prevent misuse and protect rights. We cannot deny that we are here today because of the imbalance between what these technologies are capable of and people’s rightful expectation to privacy.”

Councilwoman Vivian Moreno, also on the committee, was quoted as saying confusion over the technical capabilities of the smart street lights was “caused by the city not being transparent from the outset.” She said the city “should be explicit about why we want the devices out there.” “If the main purpose is investigating crimes, we should just say so, plain and simple.”

Moving to apply the brakes to the whole installation gambit was music to the ears of those who have been raising red flags. One such vocal critic is Geneviéve Jones-Wright, who is with TRUST SD – and who also ran for DA two years ago –  issued a news release that called the committee decision to pursue an ordinance a “huge win,” which stated:

“The Councilmembers on the Public Safety & Livable Neighborhoods Committee should all be commended on their community-centered and common sense approach to the oversight of the surveillance technology that our City employs.”

Also an associate professor at UC San Diego, Lilly Irani, said:

“It looks like they understood they need a good process for evaluating and acquiring this technology more broadly than a Band-Aid for one type of technology.”

Irani specializes in the cultural politics in technology.

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune:

In 2016, the Smart Street Light Program was sold to the City Council and public as energy-saving LED lights that could save the city up to $125,000 a month.

It was revealed later that the light poles also included sensors and cameras equipped the gather data. In August 2018, police started accessing the camera footage to help solve serious crimes, such as murder.

The city’s failure to disclose sooner that the smart street lights allowed for electronic surveillance stoked fear among some members of the public that data from the sensors — including the video footage — might be misused against segments of the population, including communities of color. Critics demanded full transparency and better oversight of the program.

We should also undoubtedly note that besides the push-back against the reformers by SDPD – whose leadership is quick to reassure the public that their guidelines are sufficient – San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott has attacked the reformers, accusing them of lying and using “scare tactics.”

Last month Elliott held a news conference and praised the smart street lights, attempting to high-light their role in solving recent violent crimes, including the arrests of two men accused of killing an Alpha Project security guard. Elliott – who is of course running for re-election – then went on the offensive.

“To date, police have used streetlight recordings to help solve nearly 250 crimes, including murders, sexual assaults, kidnappings, carjackings, arson and hate crimes. Yet now a small group is telling a bunch of lies about smart streetlights to try and shut them down.

“I may be the only elected official in San Diego who is not intimidated by their scare tactics. I’m not going to turn my back on a powerful crime-solving tool that removes murders and rapists from our streets.”

But Genevieve Jones-Wright struck back at her own impromptu presser:

“This has never been about not allowing law enforcement to use the technology for a law enforcement effort. It’s been about transparency and responsible use.

“From the very beginning, we have asked for a moratorium on the use, acquisition and further installation of the smart streetlights unless and until we have an ordinance that provides for proper mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability.”

And of course, we would be remiss if we didn’t note the issue of smart street lights has entered the election campaigning, completing the cycle described at the start.  As the LA Times reported:

The battle over smart streetlights has become an election issue for Elliott and attorney Cory Briggs, who is running to take Elliott’s seat. That tension made its way into the dueling news conferences, and Jones-Wright said she believed Elliott’s decision to hold the news conference was politically motivated.

So if you’ve been baffled as well, perhaps it’s time to pay attention to all the electioneering.