End of Year Report, Southwest Chula Vista Civic Association 2007

All Year

1. We printed out and gave away 100's of copies of Redevelopment, The Unknown Government and information about specific areas of the southwest from the General Plan Update-most in English and Spanish.

2. We hosted 28 presentations by city employees and others to inform members and guests about various development projects, infrastructure, redevelopment, the budget, the Chargers, various initiatives and petitions, the Bayfront, Mobile Home Parks, the basics of Planning, the schools, petitions, and Initiatives.

3. We mailed or e-mailed 10 newsletters with information about current events and meetings.

4. The president represented the organization at numerous meetings and circulated three petitions.

5. We helped with and provide translator for a successful Mobile Home residents rally.

6. We have a website with information about our organization at www.swcvca.org.

7. Our meetings were translated so Spanish speakers could learn important information from city officials.

8. We had 819 hours of time donated to us by members and city staff.

9. We had $10,000 worth of materials and money donated to us.

10. We gained 118 official members.

11. We had meeting space valued at $2,725 donated to us.

12. We had 524 people sign in at meetings and probably another 120 who did not sign in attend.

13. An informational website www.chulavistaissues.org was started for community education.

14. Members participated in four group actions on behalf of residents: Home Depot, Peaker Plant, Palomar Gateway, Mobile Home Park Ordinance

15. We had a successful Yard Sale Fund raiser and made 1,100 dollars.

2008 On going Issues

1. Infrastructure upgrades need a source of funding. The city has several small grants based upon safe routes to school. They will be holding meetings at elementary schools and going over infrastructure needs within a half-mile of the schools. Around Harborside, Otay and Rice a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of repairs will be done. The city still has some money left from the 9.4 million HUD loan. They will finish the Emerson drainage project and with the help of one or more assessment districts use this money to put in some sidewalks and do repairs in Castle Park area.

2. Bay Vista Walk. The Olsen Company temporarily withdrew in October. We hope that they will make it permanent so that we can focus on getting the community involved in writing its own plan for the area.

3. Mobile Home Closure Ordinance. At some point the city will come back with another proposal for this ordinance. We need to stay organized and be ready to challenge it again if it is inadequate.

4. Peaker Plant. We now have the support of the local businesses in fighting the enlargement of this plant. The state will be down for another meeting second or third week in January. We need help at a rally we are planning. Ideally the existing plant will be torn down and we will be able to convince SDGE to move the substation at the corner of Main and Albany to the lot the peaker is on. This would free up a very prime corner for some higher and better use.

5. The searches of property ordered by Code Enforcement in the Castle Park neighborhood. Obviously we need to protest this and support the residents in their efforts to get it officially terminated.

6. A new Bayfront EIR is due out in the Spring. We commented on the last one and will need to study the new one as well. This will be extremely time consuming, but very important.

7. The Salt Works. There is a special study being done about ponds 50-54. Even though they are technically in San Diego this is a critical part of West Fairfield. We will need to be involved in this. The county got funds for a study of what will happen to the Salt Works building after salt production stops. We need to stay informed and comment on this as well.

8. Southwest Strengthening Strategies: The city is holding non-noticed, non-public meetings. They plan to spend $50,000 on a consultant. They insist upon saying that the consultant was chosen by the community. This is untrue. I was the only southwest resident at a meeting with three staff and a representative of a group that works closely with the city when the consultant was chosen. Staff insisted upon the same consultant as for the GPU. They obviously want to do another dog and pony show and look like they are involving the public without focusing on gaining the community's trust. They don't understand the importance of honesty and trust.

9. We need to increase our membership by showing people that together we have more power and will be listened to by the city. We ended 2007 with 118 members. If we had 1,000 members, our voice would be strong enough we could get some action on our requests with a lot less effort.

January:

In January 2007 we had our first annual meeting and elected a board of directors. We incorporated on 12/27/06 thanks to Ned Ardagna.

The members voted to support writing a letter supporting the residents on Moss and Fourth Avenue in their desire to make sure a new Home Depot operated in a manner that would protect their health and quality of life, and to have the board write a letter of support to be submitted to the decision makers for the Los Vecinos Affordable Housing project where the old Tower Motel now is on Broadway.

Theresa Acerro, Ester Arguello, Penny Bollinger, Guillermo Briseno, Kenn Clocauture, Olga Durazo, Jim Hunt, Earl Jentz, Bettie Lupi, Marica Morris, Steve Palma, Karen Ratliff, Norberto Salazar were elected to the Board of Directors. Marcia Morris was named Treasurer, Olga Durazo secretary and Theresa Acerro president. The Bylaws were officially adopted.

February:

We continued talking to people and Home Depot about their project. Several members met with John Ziebarth, Architect and Home Depot representative at the library to discuss alternatives. He came to our February meeting. They agreed to put in a truck turn around to reduce the number of trucks passing the residences behind the store. They agreed to a 24-hour complaint number, and the police required them to agree to 24-hour security for the parking lot. They got final approval in March. In December they told the city they were withdrawing because they financially could not build a store in Chula Vista at this time. Unfortunately they still have the lease on this property and still don't want Lowe's to build a store, which rumor has it was there entire reason for initiating the process for a new store. Ralph's kept its building empty for several years because it would not allow Vons to sublease the building.

We discussed the conceptual plan for the Palomar Gateway District and how much density it showed.

Rodolfo Nunez of Georgina Trailer Park asked for SWCVCA support for residents. They fear future eviction without adequate compensation or relocation help, because this has happened at several parks in S.D.

The members voted that SWCVCA should support dissolving the CVRC. We voted on position that upgrading the infrastructure in the southwest to the level of the rest of the city must be a prerequisite to denser development in order to prevent infrastructure failures. The membership wanted to make it clear that we are not against development. We are for good development.

March:

The membership moved to support the residents of all mobile home and trailer parks by forming a Committee that will attend and comment at all meetings held by the city and strive to keep the residents informed and advocate for their security. An education committee was formed with Norberto as Chairperson.

Planners John Schmitz and Ed Batchelder gave a PowerPoint explaining the planning process.

April

Russell Coronado and Ed Herrera gave a presentation about District School Board elections and passed around a petition.

City Engineer Leah Browder gave a Power Point presentation about pavement and drainage problems in the city. She said that the focus of the Pavement Management System is on preservation not worst first. Staff has documented a $339 million dollar deficiency in sidewalks, streets and drainage. This is evidence that increased density is not appropriate in the Southwest at this time.

John Schmitz finished his presentation on planning basics, and a developer showed the plans for a new office/commercial building at the corner of Palomar and Third, which people liked.

May

Bill Perno from the Concerned Parents Group discussed the Cheese Sandwich situation in the schools and passed around a petition.

The peaker plant owner declined to come to our meeting. Last month's presentation on Infrastructure was reviewed and ways to complain were discussed.

Ed Batchelder discussed the Palomar Gateway and West Fairfield areas and answered questions.

June

Two representatives of the Olsen Company presented a partial report about their proposed project on Palomar-Bay Vista Walk. Members were very negative about traffic and parking problems the project would make worse. (They did not mention the second phase of their project, which would bring the density up to 30 per acre.)

City Manager David Garcia spoke. He said that he was here to listen and to help the community solve the problems in the Southwest. He told us that he has a background in Redevelopment and has signed many letters for eminent domain. Since then he has indicated that the city is not going to challenge Proposition C. He is now insisting that they can do redevelopment without eminent domain.

Eric Crockett did a presentation on Redevelopment that was less than satisfactory, since it was more an attempt to make everything look great than an attempt to explain the real situation.

July

The members asked that the organization send a letter supporting the Mobile Home Park residents who were protesting the city's proposed changes to the Mobile Home Park Closure Ordinance. Many of our members were very active in the protests involving this ordinance, and we succeeded in getting the city to back down for at least the time being. The fight is not over since we need to eventually get the city to adopt an ordinance that will guarantee fair market value and adequate long-term relocation help to any residents whose park closes.

The members also approved a letter requesting a seat on the Redevelopment Advisory Committee for SWCVCA. This issue still has not been resolved but the city manager promised that it would be dealt with early in 2008.

Jackie gave a presentation for Lets Vote Chula Vista and the members voted to support both petitions.

Laura Hunter and Georgette Gomez did a presentation about a Community Benefits Agreement that Pacifica had agreed in principle to sign. Pacifica wants to build 1500 condominiums on the Bayfront. Preliminary plans are at www.chulavistaissues.org. They also answered questions on the Power Plant. This has been a successful campaign by EHC. The port and the city have both made it clear they don't want the power plant and the request to build a new plant has been withdrawn. The must run status is still delaying the tearing down of the old plant.

Earl and Theresa gave a demonstration about Redevelopment to add information and clarify points that Eric Crockett had brought up at the last meeting. They made it clear that in 17 years only $800,000 of worth of tax increment in the southwest has been invested in improvements in the southwest.

August

$1,100 was made at the yard sale fundraiser. Penny, Loretta, Carolyn, Olga, Diana, Karen, Steve, Angie, Sandy, and Terry volunteered their time and energy to this successful event.

We had two presentations. We showed the DVD on how residents could buy their own mobile home park and Ken Grimes of CPI discussed redevelopment problems and possible solutions. We were fortunate to have City Manager David Garcia present and participating in the lively discussion about redevelopment. He insisted that currently redevelopment is dysfunctional, but he would fix it.

Congressman Filner presented Earl Jentz with a citizen of the month award and answered questions. He followed up on his promise to try to help the mobile home park residents by having a meeting with several of us and getting the two people from the state who are in charge of mobile home park issues to come down to meet with representatives from the parks. He also has started planning a bill to help Mobile Home park residents receive section 8 assistance, and agreed to write a letter to the city complaining about their practices.

September

Councilman Ramirez gave a report on his first six months in office where he has stood up for the people and been the dissenter on a number of issues. He also answered many questions. The audience was most concerned about infrastructure problems and the fact that the city had no money to deal with them.

Councilman Ramirez and two representatives from SWCVCA-Norberto Salazar and Steve Palma went to a conference in Indianapolis sponsored by the League of Cities. They gave a report about what they had learned. Steve Palma expressed great enthusiasm for the city's plans. Norberto Salazar remained skeptical and suggested we get involved and see how things turn out.

The Palomar Gateway Project, Bay Vista Walk, was mentioned by Theresa as an example of how the city can not be trusted since John Schmitz and Ed Batchelder had come to our meetings for three months insisting that the conceptual plan was not a specific plan for the area, but now staff was asking for zone changes to conform to this plan for Bay Vista Walk. The problem with the five precise plans written by staff in this area is that no resident participation has been allowed, and it is parcel-by-parcel planning.

October

We got 260 signatures and informed the residents about the peaker plant meeting the state was holding in November. The owners of the plant again declined to come. We discussed the peaker and the problems with it being only 350 feet from people's homes and 1200 feet from a school. It also is a mere 24 feet from several businesses with numerous employees. Most people signed the petition asking that the peaker be located further away from homes and schools.

We talked to several dozen businesses about the Enterprise Zone and its advantages for businesses.

We also discussed Bay Vista Walk and how it was not only seeking a zone change but variances from several ordinances. Most people signed the petition urging the city council to reject this project and start on a specific plan for the Palomar Gateway area instead of allowing precise plans to change existing zoning without the participation of the residents.

Ed Van Eenoo, Budget Director, and David Garcia, City Manager, gave a presentation about the 14 million dollar budget deficit and the 195 cuts the city manager was recommending the council make. The bottom line is that the city has developed too fast to a size well beyond what its dependable income can support. More development will just bring more ongoing expenses, so this is not the solution. The council unfortunately is avoiding dealing with a longterm solution and having difficulty with a short term one.

The council got to a couple of million of what was required and then left it up to the city manager to switch money around (rob Peter to pay Paul) to take care of the rest. The city needs to get serious about changing its fiscal policies, which does not seem to be on the agenda.

November

Thanks to Ned Ardagna we got our letter from the IRS telling us our 501c3 status was approved and valid from 12/26/06. Members voted to support the residents living within a mile of the peaker plant in demanding that it be located further away from homes and schools. They also voted to support the residents of Palomar Gateway in insisting upon a building moratorium until such time as a specific plan is written with the involvement of the residents, businesses and property owners of the area.

Mark Fabiani and Councilman McCann of the Chargers spoke and answered questions about the Chargers. They have decided the Bayfront is the best place for the stadium and the city should let the Chargers develop the 300 acres the city owns in the east to pay for it. They said there will be a binding vote on this.

Join us to discuss our accomplishments and to set goals for next year.

Monday January 28 at 6:45PM at the MAAC Charter School

1385 Third Ave.

Bring a dish to share. It will be a Potluck. Renew your Membership. Meet your Neighbors. Water and soda will be provided.