By Lu Rehling
What does the “Community” in “Community Planning Group” (CPG) mean when corporate interests govern? And why is the Midway-Pacific Highway Community Planning Group (“the Group”) so invested in the current plan for Midway Rising, despite urgent environmental and infrastructure concerns that have been raised by the CPGs that are the Group’s geographical neighbors?
The answer is that while those other CPGs, like most in our city, have primarily residents on their boards, the Group’s board members are almost entirely owners and representatives of businesses and business-use properties. And the Group operates in ways that suggest it intends to keep things that way, at least well past the time for major Midway Rising decisions.
In fact, right now the Group is gearing up to fill the 5 vacant seats on its 15-member board with mostly reps of business and non-resident property owners, even though there already are more of those kinds of members and way fewer of residents than its city-approved operating procedures require. (In fact, there’s only one single resident board member now!)
How can the Midway District planning group get away with that? By loving a loophole: the Group’s city-approved operating procedures allow it to fill, by appointment, resident board seats for the completion of full 3-year terms with other types of members. Conveniently, the Group reports having only one potential resident candidate on deck for its consideration, along with multiple non-residents.
And since the Group has committed to filling its empty member seats quickly, it’s reasonable to guess that the non-resident majority on the board will look favorably upon their own kind and appoint accordingly.
Notably, those same operating procedures also require that the Midway planners first make “diligent efforts” to recruit resident members, but that ain’t been happening. Despite detailed “strategies for community involvement” listed in the city-mandated “participation and representation” plan included with its operating procedures, the Group has not deployed most (if any) of these methods of outreach for either its membership or its meetings. Likely as a consequence of its under-the-radar operations, only 15 people voted in the Group’s board member election this year – a sign that probably few besides insiders even knew that election was happening.
When it comes to outreach, the Group’s Chair states that messages go out, but only to those who request them using a form on the Group’s website (which consists mostly of outdated
info). Even that limited means has been very quiet, with no ongoing recruitment. The Chair further states that the Times of San Diego is another venue for its comms, but that outlet
does not publish the Group’s notices. It does sometimes mention the Group in news coverage, as, for example, when they endorsed Midway Rising.
Times of San Diego’s circulation of the Group’s opinions probably is much-appreciated attention enjoyed by the (again, almost entirely non-resident) members of the current board. But that’s obviously not an intentional or effective method for encouraging well-rounded community decision-making. Another disincentive to more inclusive engagement is that the Group’s board meetings are scheduled for weekday afternoons, most convenient for business and property owners/reps, less so for resident community members with different kinds of jobs.
Further discouraging resident participation is the fact that a substantial proportion of the Midway District planning area’s almost 8000 residents are in the military, and therefore may be both less consistently available to volunteer for CPG service and possibly less committed to long term residency. The Chair has said that resident seats have been reserved on the board with future increases in the number of residents in mind. That smells like dreams of Midway Rising.
All of this clearly justifies why the voices of residents in areas adjoining and directly affected by Midway-Pacific Heights developments need to have influence. Because such local citizens do not stand to profit from development deals and are more likely to have a more objective understanding of extended regional impacts. Urban neighborhoods are by definition not
isolated from each other, especially when they share boundaries, roads, utilities, safety risks, etc.
So, what can anyone do about this state of affairs?
For sure, encourage actual and residents of the Midway-Pacific Heights community who are available to participate to apply for a seat on the board asap. Then they could see whether the
current non-resident members might appoint them to the longest available terms. Assuming that were to happen, in future even minority opinions could undercut the self-righteous and
misleading “we speak for Midway-Pacific Heights” rhetoric of the Group’s present non-resident leadership.
Most importantly, it’s time to discredit the Midway area planners as anything like a voice of the “community” as most folks (including possibly some of our elected representatives?) understand a community to be. Businesses and non-resident property owners should be represented, of course. But they should not be legitimized as mouthpieces for those who actually live in an area. After all, those residents aren’t likely to reap any of the economic benefits that unchecked development (and currying favor with the present-day city powers-that-be) might bring to the Group’s current board members.
Bottom line with respect to Midway Rising: When MPH-CPG speaks out, the public and our elected representatives should be aware of who’s really doing the talking. And that’s up to all of
us and our local media, too. May other San Diego voices be respected for what they know that the Midway area CPG doesn’t want to talk about.
