By Kate Callen
It’s no surprise Mayor Todd Gloria will not give up on his proposed 1,000-bed homeless shelter, not even after the idea was denounced at Monday’s long and contentious City Council meeting. He seems vexed that the Council has grown a collective spine. He is giving councilmembers one month to come to their senses.
In council chambers Monday, Gloria was defiant. He was the lead-off speaker on the Hope @Vine item. He sat in the front row during much of the public comment period. But was he listening to what people were telling him? Apparently not. The webcast showed Gloria looking at his phone, looking around the room, looking petulant.
In the weeks ahead, the mayor would be wise to spend time reviewing Monday’s archived video.
In seven hours of public testimony, Hope @ Vine was systematically demolished. Here are just four excerpts:
Independent Budget Analyst Charles Modica:
“The City would be making $72 million to $73 million in lease payments, not including additional maintenance and property taxes. We would be paying $13 million to $18 million for upfront tenant improvement costs. The present value of those amounts in today’s dollars total $47 million for leasing a building whose combined purchase and improvement costs total $31 million.”
Kevin Arnold, San Diego Neighborhood Coalition:
“Doug Hamm is going to make $900,000 a month just on rent. In 12 months, he’s going to make $10 million. But if a person gets injured on his property, he’s not going to cover it, the taxpayers are going to cover it. And we’re already on the hook for $200 million for Ash Street.”
Paul Krueger, Neighbors for a Better San Diego:
“You have told us that you learned from Ash Street. You have told us that you learned from the Navigation Center. You have told us that you learned from the construction of a fire station in Kearney Mesa in which a fire truck cannot fit. If you move today without reconsidering what you have learned at past meetings, you do not deserve to represent this city.”
Sandy Miskowski, Lived Experience Advisors:
“The Alpha section of the Convention Center shelter during COVID had three times the space that will be at the Kettner and Vine facility, and it housed 750 people. There is no amount of services, staff, or security to make the chaos of a mass shelter safe. I feel especially afraid for anyone who might be forced to live in this overly dense mass shelter. We need a better plan than this shelter.”
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Then this morning it was announced …
Mayor Todd Gloria announced Thursday that reconsideration will wait at least until September on his ambitious 30-year-lease proposal for a 65,000-square-foot commercial building and its potential transformation into a massive homeless shelter and resource campus.
Following Monday’s San Diego City Council meeting, when the council voted 7-2 to bring the topic back for discussion next week, Gloria spoke with his staff and came to the conclusion more time was necessary. Times of San Diego
….
They should turn the Mission Valley mall into a homeless housing and work/rehab campus. That place is a waste of space these days.
What’s ol Steveo Cushman making on this deal? And who’s paying that?
no wonder there is backlash. cities always seem to doing land deals with some flipper/broker who “just happened” to recently purchase the property.
this is like that stadium deal in baltimore where willard hackerman bought the property and flipped it for big bux. and, gosh… he happened to also be on the stadium site selection committee lol.
Four years ago, Barbra Bry and I ran for Mayor against Gloria.
Barbra and I requested City Council investigate both 101 Ash and 1401 Imperial. I especially was interested in the corrupt deal between Dave Malcolm (convicted felon) and Todd Gloria. Dave Malcolm made a 7 million dollar sale on a building that sits empty today.
The Todd thousand bed plan is more of the same level of smoke and mirrors that makes the developers who have financed his career rich, while attempting to mislead the voters into thinking he is doing something.
I am on record endorsing Larry Turner because Turner’s common-sense approach to the homeless problem will work. The creative use of the H Street property and not giving away City land and tax dollars to corporate donors is doable.
Where Gloria has only exacerbated the problem by failing to deliver on his promises for four years, Turner will solve it by common sense community-oriented solutions.
Don’t vote for a career politician who continues to over promise and under deliver, vote for a veteran who served his country by fighting for it.
In November vote for Larry Turner a leader for all of San Diego.