As Council president, Jen Campbell sets the agenda for the City Council. And now she has scheduled her own proposed “compromise” on short-term vacation rentals to be heard by the full City Council for Tuesday, February 23.
Campbell’s compromise is more of a sell-out to the vacation rental industry.
Her office announced that the proposal will be on the council’s docket on in about two weeks.
On December 3, the mayor-appointed City Planning Commission voted 7-0 for Campbell’s proposal. The proposal covers licensing them, capping their numbers, and penalizing violators, while creating a City office to administer the new program while making it subject to annual review. Commissioners also agreed to a “carve out” for Mission Beach, the community with the highest percentage of short-term rentals citywide.
Campbell’s sell-out plan is one of the reasons there’s a recall movement against her.
Recall backers have until June 3 to collect 14,421 signatures from registered voters in District 2, 15% of its 96,140 registered voters. The district consists of Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, Point Loma, Mission Beach and part of Clairemont.
Campbell and her supporters continue to describe the campaign as a waste of time and money, as “selfish and irresponsible.” Campbell also continues to obscure the fact that the recall effort has massive District 2 support by calling those who are organizing it as a “small group of individuals.”
If the recall supporters collect enough verified signatures, the City Council would be required to schedule a special election within six months on whether Campbell should be recalled and if so, who should replace her.
Supporters of the recall effort said they have lost faith in Campbell, a Democrat. The San Diego City Council, like all local government bodies in California, is officially nonpartisan.
“Councilmember Campbell has betrayed the voters and is unfit for office. Having no other recourse, we the residents of District 2, together with concerned residents throughout the city, have come together to take this action,” the notice reads.
The recall notice appeared last week in the San Diego Daily Transcript, a legal newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
Many of the complaints against Campbell are as a result of what critics describe as a too-lenient attitude toward vacation rentals and her support for a ballot measure allowing developers to exceed a long-standing 30-foot height limit in the Midway neighborhood. In the November election, Campbell’s ballot proposal Measure E lost in the Midway District as well as across District 2.
The brave leaders of the campaign include five prominent civic leaders from each neighborhood in Campbell’s district: Kevin Hastings, vice chair of the Ocean Beach Planning Board; Cathie Umemoto, a director on the Pacific Beach Town Council Board of Directors; Mandy Havlik, board member and secretary of the Peninsula Community Planning Board; Erin Cullen, board member of the Clairemont Community Planning Group; and Gary Wonacott, former president of Mission Beach Town Council.
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