This was originally posted January 4, 2024
by Larry Turner, Kate Callen and Terry Hoskins
For more than a half-century, San Diego’s community planning groups have been acclaimed as a national model of local democracy. As the city’s website states, these CPGs elected by their communities have been “formal mechanisms [that] provide citizens with an opportunity for involvement.”
This model of democracy is now under siege.
Mayor Todd Gloria, with the complicity of all nine City Councilmembers, is poised to remove elected CPG members and replace them with unelected members of his own choosing.
That is not democracy. That is autocracy, and it is exactly why we are running as challengers to Mayor Gloria, Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, and Councilmember Stephen Whitburn in the March 2024 primaries.
The rationale given by Gloria and his building industry allies for overturning the CPG elections is that the groups lack diversity. Some CPGs do need greater representation of renters, young people, and people of color. But diversity must be achieved by being inclusive, not by being exclusive.
We won’t have more diverse planning groups until we can persuade people from every demographic group to run for those seats. For years, all-volunteer CPG leaders have struggled to recruit underrepresented candidates. They have pleaded with City Hall for help in identifying and adopting “best practices” in diversity recruitment. The Mayor and the Council have ignored those pleas.
Disenfranchising people from serving in elected offices because they are the “wrong” age, ethnicity, and/or income group is completely unacceptable. If we are elected, we will fully support the autonomy of CPGs and their crucial role in local democracy.
Today, we call on Gloria, Elo-Rivera, and Whitburn to uphold the electoral process. Current planning groups were chosen by your constituents in communities you serve. As elected officials yourselves who are running to keep your seats, it is in your own best interests to embrace the work done by your planning groups. Please join our good-faith effort to foster their inclusivity and expand their impact.
The authors are candidates in the city of San Diego’s March 5 primary elections: Larry Turner for Mayor, Kate Callen for City Council District 3, and Terry Hoskins for City Council District 9.
just defeat them
Excellent! This is clearly being orchestrated by the Mayor and Council to bypass the will of residents and impose the wishes of developers.
Frank C., exactly! Uptown Planners already know of two groups that will be in the group applying for the long standing Community Planning Group, and their organizers are buddies with Todd Gloria. So it will not be a community based Planning Group, it will be a special interest group. When Faulconer and Ward ran Council Dist. 3 they became buddies with one of the instigators of removing parking spaces and installation of bike lanes on the busiest streets in a community is how North Park lost parking spaces, and gained dangerous bike lanes, causing 32 businesses to go out of business in the first year, parking had been removed. And there are pictures to prove what I say. It was all planned behind closed doors and the public became informed of the plan two days prior to the Mayor Memorandum to remove all parking spaces. The same this is going on with the dense infill housing in North Park with no parking required of the developers. And why does anyone think “affordable” housing is 286Sq. Ft., and rents for $2,200 a month and no parking. Could it be a payback for developer campaign donations???? It is not a democracy when a dictator appoints all his decision makers and ignores the residents…. home owners, businesses, and renters.
This perspective is exactly on point. Communities need to select their members. The most city elected official should do is provide them information about the ethnic and aged demographics of the planning area, nothing more. Far too much has been politicized in The City of San Diego to the detriment of citizens.
Incidentally, the San Diego County Taxpayers Association is an outstanding organization that looks out for the interests of taxpayers. They deserve your support. Check them out at sdcta.org.