By Lisa Mortensen
Hello Councilmembers:
While you were in council session yesterday, a fire broke out in Mission Valley temporarily closing the 15 freeway. It has become evidently clear that the numerous homeless encampments on city and state property as well as our drought conditions will very likely create a dangerous cocktail of wildfires that will become normalized. So, my question for all of you is What is your Disaster Preparedness Plan for citizens in all communities?
I called my council member’s office (Steve Whitburn) yesterday to notify the office of the fire. All the receptionist could tell me was “go on social media and the Fire Department’s website” to learn about emergency preparedness. Oh, ok, I said. So, if I must evacuate and I pack my things, how will I get out and where will I go? Again, he answered, “go on social media and the website”. So basically, city hall is telling its citizens that “You’re on your own, good luck!”
Meanwhile, the city council is moving swiftly forward with massive development with limited or no onsite parking available in all districts with no consideration for evacuation. Let’s not forget, these developments can be built as far as one mile from public transportation which most likely will not be in service in an evacuation area. This rapid development is profit generated and has done nothing to provide affordable housing.
In addition, state and local statistics do not support this need for housing demand due to stable population count projects through 2050 or possible reduction due to outmigration (as a result of the high cost of living in this city which you have not addressed). Hillcrest, for example, is expected to build an additional 50,000 units, narrow its streets to push people to use non-vehicular options such as public transportation or bicycles.
Sadly, this long-term planning goal will create a fire trap for those who will not be able to get out of their homes due to the fact, public transportation will not be available and it will be doubtful that people will safely and adequately evacuate by bicycle. In addition, once people pack their cars, how will they get out with gridlock on our main streets that have reduced lanes to allow for separate bike corridors?
Since few of you on our city council are invested in our city because you do not own your homes (including our Mayor who is also a renter), you will be headed to Sacramento to advance your political careers and will most likely forget these disastrous decisions you have been making these past few years and have continued to make to shred our land use policies as well as jeopardize our health and safety standards for the benefit of your donors in the construction trade and well-financed lobbyists such as Circulate San Diego.
As our elected officials, I believe it is time that you conduct public town halls providing information on a citywide preparedness for citizens in all districts as it relates:
- to fire preventive procedures such as eliminating combustible foliage along highways and freeways by the city, state and individual property owner,
- city must show that resources are and will be in place should a fire break out, and
- disaster preparedness procedures and drills to provide the public.
Let’s not forget, the city has failed to provide affordable housing for those who have been tossed out on the street due to development of new construction. A major natural disaster like the floods in multiple districts last year and the major threat of wildfires, this will only have our homeless population explode.
So please, schedule these disaster preparedness meetings with the first responders. As the Council President, Mr. LaCava, I expect you to take the lead on this public outreach so I have included your scheduler in the cc column.
With the tragic loss from the LA fires, we need to change our priorities and get back into public safety as the top priority. Stop the grift and do your jobs as public servants to promote public health and safety for all citizens.
Very sincerely, Lisa
“Since few of you on our city council are invested in our city because you do not own your homes” I’m sorry but this is completely out of line Lisa. DO my kids who can’t afford a home here but rent not invested in our city? Are the people working minimum wage jobs not invested in our city? I would kindly ask you to rethinkg this kind of rhetoric, it makes us who want responsible development look like EXACTLY the kind of people the YIMBYs always say we are – homeowners who got ours and there fore screw everyone else. Frank you should consider how these words reflect on the OB Rag too.
I agree that that sentence is out of line. But what about, Will, where Lisa is right-on? You cherry-pick one phrase out of her letter and condemn her, the Rag and the rest of us. Cheese and rice!
What about this statement from Lisa’s letter:
“Meanwhile, the city council is moving swiftly forward with massive development with limited or no onsite parking available in all districts with no consideration for evacuation. Let’s not forget, these developments can be built as far as one mile from public transportation which most likely will not be in service in an evacuation area. This rapid development is profit generated and has done nothing to provide affordable housing.
“In addition, state and local statistics do not support this need for housing demand due to stable population count projects through 2050 or possible reduction due to outmigration (as a result of the high cost of living in this city which you have not addressed).”
Do you also disagree with the rest of this? If so, that reflects on you Will.
Jeez Frank you really jump down people’s throats when they slightly disagree with you! Do you think renters contribute to this community? DO my KIDS contribute to this community even though they can’t afford to live here? ANd I’d also point out that this website has consistently been against the Famosa Canyon Project which IS affordable housing – half as much in rent as anything else o nthe entire peninsula – so yea I’ve got a problem with that too. ANd yea I’ve got a problem with the fact that we’re not building REAL affordable housing but no one here seems to support specific projects, just the blanket idea of more of it.
Frank if we don’t have renters then what kind of community will we have? Just a bunch of old farts like us waiting in long lines for basic services like a cup of coffee or groceries because no one can afford to live here except us because we bought in when this place was affordable? Maybe take a minute to actually consider other points of view. We’re in agreement in so many ways but if we’re not in lock step that Renters are Bad/Specific Projects are Bad/ALl Electes are Bad then you get the boot from your sandbox. WHy don’t you facilitate a conversation, we’d all benefit.
I said I disagreed with that phrase. I’ve been a renter most of my life so I know damn well what renters can contribute to a community. OB residents are over 70% of OBceans and look at what OB has done over the decades. I just think you’re too quick to find fault in our posts (this is not the first time). Okay, we’re already agreed to disagree over Famosa Canyon but you can’t let it rest. There’s conversations on the Rag every day. You’re constantly jumping down the throat of Rag posts, so don’t be a hypocrite Will, will ya.
My apolgoies I didn’t see you had said you disagreed but are you going to ask her to remove it? And I’d say there’s a difference between pointing out someone being incorrect and jumping down someone’s throat. You just all talk about affordable housing all the time and yet when a great porject comes along you’re all talking about lawusits and natural affordable housing. That’s the kind of project you should be down at city hall standing up for! Letting those councilmembers know you’re not just “NO” to everything. But I guess not, it’s too bad.
The problem with Famosa Canyon is that it was deeded to this city to be park land by Collier. It was illegally sold off by the city. It was bad enough that Nimitz Blvd., the Greencliff Apartments, and the Correia Middle School took big chunks out of the bequest. Fighting for Formosa is just part of a decades long fight to keep what Collier gave the public. It is not about affordable housing.
Lisa is not a paid staff person; we posted her letter as a kind of op-ed. She has a multi-thousand email list that she periodically uses to get her messages out, like a personal Nextdoor. If we agree with 9 things she says, but not with one of them, we’re supposed to ask her to remove it? Perhaps you’re new to social media but that’s not how it works.
Anyhow, I’m sure you and I could agree on a number of issues, but you seem to constantly pick out something in our posts you disagree with and then “jump down our throats”! Like here.
If you knew the area around Famosa Canyon and its history like I do, perhaps you’d understand my passion about saving open space in this part of northern Point Loma. Over the last 40 to 50 years or so, since high school, I’ve passively watched every square foot of a once-open area be developed until this small patch of dirt is all that’s left. It’s not about affordable housing, no matter how you and others scream, because there’s plenty of affordable housing in the immediate area. (You and I keep coming back to this, and I’m over it.)
Okay, then you claim we don’t support any affordable housing in reality — which is not true, and is close to a complete misrepresentation of our stance here at the Rag. We are the lone voices who have been advocating for more affordable housing with the Midway Rising redevelopment project, plus we are some of the few proponents of affordable housing in the redevelopment of the Navy’s NAVWAR properties. If you had bothered to do any research on these projects here, you would have found such statements from us.
And don’t worry, I’ve been down to plenty of projects before the city council. Have you? What exactly have you done, Will? Or are you an armchair general fighting for your kids’ right to own property?
More housing, more infill, cut the green spaces, raise carbon and the planet temp while fires burn your house down. But we are trying to stop seaworld fireworks. Humans are interesting.
Chris, infill housing is by definition not cutting down green spaces. It’s putting up homes where there’s already development. Nowit has done right, all affordable, fits the neighborhood character but building houses out in Rainbow or Ramona is increasing carbon and cutting green spaces.
Hmmm, changing a SFR with landscaping to a multi unit property with no set backs and concrete walkways isn’t cutting down greenery? Putting up homes where there’s already development? Don’t get that statement.
SP Will, I will apologize for the miscommunication but to be clear, our city hall is made up of politicians who are not invested in this city. Todd Gloria has been a career politician for well over 15 years who makes a very good salary, lived in San Diego pretty much his whole life (47 years) and could have afforded to buy a home, but he chose not to, why?
Instead, Todd has approved real estate transactions that have hurt us financially. Case in point, Todd had one of his ardent supporters and donors, Steve Cushman, negotiate the lease on the failed Kettner and Vine Mega Shelter. An important point is the fact that Mr. Cushman is negotiating a real estate lease without a real estate license. But don’t worry, Todd will protect him by paying for Mr. Cushman’s professional liability insurance.
Todd Gloria has waived development fees and other perks that benefit the developer’s profit margin but does not add any affordable housing. Our homeless crisis is worse than ever.
We have a juvenile staff at city hall who are well-paid individuals choosing to promote rental housing owned by corporate investment companies over opportunities for first time homebuyers to purchase a home.
The city has ignored our suggestion to maintain existing housing and add units to existing structures. This would not only preserve existing affordable housing but also add a few living units blended in. If you want to learn more about this, you can google Natural Occurring Affordable Housing. It’s a concept that most communities support.
Under the current city hall, they are promoting new high-rise structures. To build new construction is vastly more expensive because of fire hardening requirements. In addition, for every story you add to a building, you must reinforce the foundation and support beams in order to fortify the structure. After completion, these buildings would not provide the needed affordable housing. This is the direct reason why we continue to see more people falling into homelessness than are being housed.
We need to stop the grift at city hall and make policies with direct incentives for the buyer or renter to afford. The city’s policies have and are continuing in the wrong direction for increase affordability.
All the city can do is have us be divided and carp at one another. I chose not to participate in name calling and these arguments of us against them because then city hall wins and we are left divided.
Let’s come together and speak out against the injustice caused by our city’s policies. That we hopefully can agree on.
Wow! We need to repost this, Lisa, as an article.
Okay, Will, no more carping at you. Let’s get together on neutral territory — North Park? and have a beer and figure out where we AGREE.
I remember years ago when I was working for the Coastal Commission, P. A. “Dusty” Rhodes requested a meeting to discuss emergency evacuation measures. To those of you who don’t remember, Dusty was a tireless community volunteer and the namesake for Dusty Rhodes Park.
Dusty was a very sensible man in most respects and one that I had come to admire, but he shocked me when he explained why he wanted to meet. He became very, very concerned over emergency egress from OB in particular and the Peninsula, in general, after watching the traffic jam following the 4th of July fireworks at the pier (I guess we don’t have to worry about that anymore). His solution, pave a new road through Famosa Slough!
While I couldn’t endorse or help him in any effort to fill a coastal wetland for a new road, I realized that he had a valid point and it has worried me ever since. Our road network, such as it is, relies on roads that are mainly (with the exception of Nimitz) one lane in either direction. We don’t have a robust network of collector streets feeding major arterial roads like much of the city. Sunset Cliffs, W. Point Loma, Voltaire and Narragansett are our main connections to the rest of the city. Much of Catalina has four lanes but reduces to two as you come down the hill toward Voltaire. Yes, Nimitz has four lanes for much of its length and W. Point Loma expands to four lanes after crossing Nimitz, but we’ve added choke points on both of those roads that could result in dangerous bottlenecks if we needed to evacuate in the event of an emergency. Our roads are simply not designed to deal with the kind of volumes they would see in an emergency.
Now, I’m not saying that we should take out the bike lanes on W. Point Loma and Nimitz (I’m not going to die on that hill!), but we need to take a hard look at just how we would evacuate in an emergency. Some years ago I was trained in the Federal integrated emergency management response and it opened my eyes to how things should function in an emergency. The training was not what to do in an emergency, but rather how to organize the response in an integrated manner that can be scaled up or down to reflect the nature of the emergency. To this end, key players at all levels of federal agencies and other state and local agencies that interface with federal agencies are identified, trained and assigned specific roles to play in a comprehensive and organized system.
As Lisa points out, our elected leaders do not have any kind of plan, nor, I suspect, have they given any thought to this issue. I’m sure that police and fire departments plans, but what about the rest of us?
My recent post on Kate’s article is more relevant here. A repost here if the powers agree.
Another sad oddity was the recent community plan meeting for the college area. Mind you the city is trying to make the main arteries of Montezuma, College, and El Cajon Blvd more dense, more walk able, more transit and bike lanes, and basically less cars, catering to SDSU. The western end of the college area is more canyon space, prone more to wildfires, accessible by mainly Montezuma Rd. So when you bottleneck the main thoroughfares , you increase the inability to evacuate. Traffic during the Montezuma fire was at a stand still, as Montezuma was shut down, and the other 2 ways out for 300+ homes in college view estates went through SDSU. On top of all this, SDSU wants to add 4500 more student beds in the future. Montezuma will become the main traffic thoroughfare for all events at Viejas once the arteries/ streets are gummed up. These are your Gloria city planners at work screwing it all up. Density in the area is using old numbers and not accounting for all the city tweaks of bonus density, and ADU’s that have been built mainly for college students.
Another comical aspect during the fire (which started about 1:30pm and the brunt was fairly under control about 4:30), was SDG&E cutting our underground power from about 4:30 to 8:30.
What? Where do you live?
I have a house in college view estates.
We can’t accommodate everyone that wants to live here because it’s a great place to live with outstanding weather. It’s expensive and that’s why. Hey, I want to live in La Jolla or even Del Mar – can the government please do something to make that possible for me?
A very big thanks to the heroic Lisa Mortensen for staying on top of City Hall’s disastrous land use policies and keeping us informed about them. Saturation density has already given us more clogged traffic (particularly on surface streets) and dirtier air. Now, as we watch the apocalypse just 120 miles to the north, we’re waking up to the risks that urban infill poses if residents have to evacuate in a disaster.
Re: Lisa’s comment about “well-paid” city employees — Gloria’s “Meet the Staff” webpage lists 26 aides. I found salaries for 23 (couldn’t find salary for Chief of Staff Paola Avila). The annual payroll for the Mayor’s immediate staff is $2.68 million. That doesn’t include benefits and pensions. I wouldn’t wish for anyone to be unemployed. But does Gloria need that many aides averaging six-figure salaries? In this budget crisis? What do they all do?
Since the tax measure didn’t go through, Elo-Rivera, at Toad’s city budget address, wants to go after tourists, saying they don’t pay enough. These guys go from pocket to pocket except for the market rate developers. I would only allow those breaks for 100% affordable unit builders.
Does that also include the 12 “bike lane monitors” who make 6 figures?
Frank, those 12 positions remain a mystery. They popped up on page 13 of the Mayor’s FY22 May Revision to the Proposed Budget (link is below). Here’s the item:
Transportation
Safe & Sustainable Transportation All Ages & Abilities Team (STAT)
Addition of 12.00 FTE positions in the amount of $828,616 and associated reimbursable revenue for a new team to install safe and sustainable transportation improvements. This team will be responsible for the design and installation of approximately nine miles of new or upgraded bicycle facilities throughout the City per year. Planned work includes quick-build projects, detectors and other signal enhancements, and layout and installation of bicycle and pedestrian facilities which could include additional striping, bollards, legends, and signage. Expenditures associated with this program will be supported with TransNet funding.
Anyone familiar with the “STAT Team”?
https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/fy22-mayors-may-revision-to-the-proposed-budget.pdf
You may be on to something. Kate. I could not find Paola Avila’s salary either. The 2025 budget lists the mayor’s staff positions and salaries but there is no listing for “Chief of Staff.” There is someone denoted as Mayor’s Representative 2 at $235k, almost as much as the mayor’s salary. I think a PRR is in order to find out.
I found a Paolo A Gorostiza in the budget as part of the city’s Operating Office. The salary was $223K. It is very odd that we can’t find her anywhere unless this is her and her salary is hidden this way.
I put in a Public Records Request for this information.
All through my time living in Point Loma in the 1950s-1960s, there were signs on the traffic routes, “Nuclear Evacuation Route” that gave me family a secure sense that in a crisis, the United States Department of Defense and City of San Diego had our best interests at heart. But then in 1970, when working for California State Highways, I came to realize the routes went nowhere and millions of people were to be dumped out into Imperial County with no shelter, water, or food. Today, we would hope the City of San Diego has had time to improve and develop (55-years) an emergency evacuation plan for fire and water disasters that protect everyone. The underlying problem is that no one in Mayor Todd Gloria’s office or any City Council office is trained in disaster relief planning and no such plan exists. Are we back to dumping people in Imperial County?
Lisa and Kate. Spot on. There’s far too much money wasted by and for the Mayor’s office and a person would think with alllll those assistants, they could come up with some good, well thought out plans, but as said, they’re juveniles. Little or no real life experiences, so they can’t think outside the boxes and have failed time and again with the ability to foresee issues/problems. The old saying is “the proof is in the pudding”. Well said ladies.