Poway Blog

Geo-Politics 3

2012-02-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

Current Councilmembers

Wow, it has been about 15 months since this last election in Poway. We are way overdue for a geopolitical update.

(Note: click on any of the maps on this page to make them larger. The maps are divided into 3 parts: orange for north Poway, blue for south Poway and green for east Poway.)

In Nov., 2010 Dave Grosch was elected to his first term on the council. John Mullin was re-elected to the council position, and Don Higginson was re-elected to the mayor position. That made the geo-political map very interesting. Both Boyack and Grosch live in the same Rancho Arbolitos neighborhood; Higginson and Cunningham live in the same north Poway neighborhood. Mullin lives in the Del Poniente neighborhood. It's nice to see two councilmembers hail from south Poway, which traditional enjoys less representation than north Poway. Of course, Grosch and Boyack live pretty much on the northern edge of south Poway. In fact, the geo-political picture is pretty edgy, all the way around, except for Mullin. He is the only council member that does not live close to Pomerado Rd. and the western boundary of Poway.

What will the geo-political map look like after the elections later this year?

Announced Candidates and Councilmembers not up for re-election

It is pretty early in the year for folks to announce that they are running for council in November. Traditionally, Poway councilmembers don't announce whether or not they plan to run again until summer. This year is not so tradition. Merrilee Boyack has announced that she has no plans to run for re-election. She has endorsed Steve Vaus, who has announced his intentions to run for council. Jim Cunningham has already announced that he is running for re-election. Former PUSD school board member, Jeff Mangum, has also thrown his hat in the ring. It's very early. But I decided to look at the geo-political possibilities among those who have announced their intentions to run. Currently, there are 3 contenders (Vaus, Cunningham and Mangum) for two spots on the council. If Vaus and Cunningham win, Poway will have 3/5 of their council living within a block or two of each other in the same neighborhood. And 4/5 of the council would be from north Poway again, no matter which 2 of the 3 contenders wins.

All Poway council members

It seems that our council always tilts towards over-representation from north Poway and under-representation of the south end of town. So, I decided to look at where all of our past council members have lived. Eight council members have come from south Poway and ten have come from north Poway. Not too lopsided. But then I looked at the number of years those from each area have served on the council. The north Poway council members logged 96.5 yrs and the south Poway council members served for 53.5yrs. Now, that's a bit more like I remember it.

There is a lot more than location to choosing a council member or being represented by one. And it should be noted that some of the south Poway council members lived in the less dense parts of south Poway that share rural residential zoning with most of north and east Poway.

It should be noted that many, many of the land use decision that affect the majority of Powegians living in south Poway were made by people who don't really have to experience the consequences of those decisions in their day-to-day life.

Note: Map edited to correct location of Mangum's current home, Cunningham's years of service.

What Killed Redevelopment?

2012-02-01T21:50:00.000-08:00

Alternately titled: It's the math, stupid!

It's official. All 400+ redevelopment agencies in California are dissolved as of today, February 1, 2012. A last minute court case to keep redevelopment alive fizzled. The pleas and threats from the redevelopment crowd did not convince the state legislature to keep redevelopment on life support for a few more months, so they could figure out a way around the eventual demise.

In the last few weeks, the pro-redevelopment faction tried their best to talk it up, point to their successes and to blame the state for "grabbing their money". If I could have $100 from every reporter or politician who claimed, in a news article, that redevelopment money was now going "to be sent to Sacramento", I think I could afford to buy some distressed ex-redevelopment property at fire sale prices. The real reason redevelopment had to end, wasn't, as Bob Emery said, because our "dysfunctional state government finds it necessary to dismantle an institution that works, and creates jobs, to try to stop the financial hemorrhaging of their own making." The real reasons redevelopment had to die is because of voter-passed propositions, the nature of exponential growth, and greed.

Redevelopment agencies first got their start in California in 1945. The whole idea was to give cities and counties a tool to tackle urban blight in the post war years. In 1952, new legislation allowed redevelopment agencies to finance projects with tax increment. Tax increment is the increase in property taxes from the tax value on the day a redevelopment agency is created. Suppose the property tax for a vacant parcel of land was $100 in 1983 when Poway created their redevelopment agency. Some time later, if someone built a million dollar home on that parcel, the new property tax would then be around $10,000/yr. When the owner of the parcel paid his/her $10,000 property tax to the county, the county would send $100 of their tax to the schools, cities and county and send the $9,900 tax increment($10,000-$100) to Poway's redevelopment agency. The school district would have gotten a little less than half of that $100.

There weren't very many redevelopment agencies in California until the voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978. Prop 13 put a lid on soaring property taxes in the state. After Prop 13, cities looked everywhere and anywhere for a new revenue stream. Tax increment money started to look very attractive.

Once cities jumped on the redevelopment bandwagon, the abuses began. Poway's redevelopment area was created in 1983. It was comprised of 8200 acres of so called "blighted" land, 75% of which was undeveloped. It doesn't take a math whiz to realize that the tax increment on vacant land is going to jump after something is built on it. Poway's redevelopment acreage wasn't urban and it wasn't blighted, but it did provide a revenue stream for the fledgling city.

Post Prop 13, redevelopment agencies popped up everywhere. As the tax increment started rolling in, the impact was noticeable, particularly for schools. Since most of the growth was in the redevelopment area, most of the new taxes went to the redevelopment agency. In Poway, new homes were built in Rancho Arbolitos, Old Coach, Bridlewood, and other areas within the redevelopment area. The students who moved into those homes went to PUSD schools, but most of the property taxes their parents paid went to the redevelopment agency. When the industrial park was built, those new property taxes also went to the redevelopment agency and the schools were left with many new students but no increase in revenue to pay for them. Although Poway was perhaps among the more brazen with the amount of acreage, particularly undeveloped acreage that they put in their redevelopment area, they were by no means the only redevelopment area to capitalize on diverting property taxes that would normally go to the schools.

By 1988, the schools were really feeling the pinch. The California voters passed Prop 98, which required that the state backfill the funds that redevelopment was taking from the schools. Talk about unfunded mandates! There was nothing in Prop 98 that explained where the state was supposed to get this money, save for a little bit of lottery funds. The backfill money to fund the schools came from the state's general fund , which is derived from things like income tax and sales tax revenue.

Last year, redevelopment agencies were diverting 15% of all property taxes in California. Here is where the exponential growth comes in. Don't bail, I promise I will make it easy. Look at the "graph". The thing to notice about the graph is that the red line starts slowly climbing uphill, then it seems to curve and shoot upwards. That graph is the classic exponential growth graph. This graph represents the growth of a population over time, but a graph of how much tax increment the redevelopment agencies diverted from the schools (and other local taxing entities) over time would look similar. It starts out slow, but once it gets rolling along, it zooms upward. Redevelopment agencies currently divert 15% of all the property taxes in the state. In Poway, it is 50%. Eventually, redevelopment agencies would consume almost all of the property taxes in the state. The system would collapse way before that, in fact, it is collapsing now. There is no way that the state could continue to backfill that kind of money. Where would the state get that kind of revenue? They can't print it. It is irresponsible for public officials to be so blind to the reality of how impossible it would be for the state to come up with the billions of dollars that redevelopment sucks up.

The state tried to be reasonable and demanded that redevelopment agencies give back to the schools some of the diverted tax increment. Here is where the greed comes in. The cities wanted no part of it. They wanted it all. The redevelopment agencies helped to fund Prop 22, a voter measure advertised as "keeping local money local". When they approved Prop 22 in 2010, most voters had no idea that Prop 22 meant that the redevelopment agencies would continue to take a larger and larger share of property taxes, leaving the schools dependent upon the state to replace larger and larger amounts of diverted funds.

The state really had no choice. They had to discontinue the redevelopment program because it was sucking up all of the property tax money. The only option was to allow the redevelopment agencies to continue if they voluntarily agreed to cough up $1.7 billion for schools. The California Redevelopment Agencies sued the state. The California Supreme Court decided that the state could discontinue the redevelopment program but that they could not ask the redevelopment agencies for voluntary payments that were really not voluntary. The voluntary payments violated Prop 22. In the end, it was the redevelopment agencies own proposition, Prop 22, and their greedy brinkmanship that did them in.

There are so-o-o-o-o many lessons to learn from this redevelopment saga. If and when somebody comes up with some new tools for cities to use to spur economic development, I certainly hope that we don't have to make the same mistakes all over again.The sad thing is that we the people are the city, we are the state, we are the school district. We pay taxes so we can provide for common services. The people who represent us on the city level failed to care that funding for our schools was impossible with Prop 22. They didn't care about us, they cared about getting the biggest share of revenue they could get. They were incapable of looking at the big picture. And they failed to understand the math.

Happy New Year

2012-01-17T22:37:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012!

New year, same ol' shit????

Nope. Not this year. Because of a California Supreme Court decision, redevelopment agencies will cease to exist on February 1, 2012. That will mean some big, big changes for Poway and hundreds of other California cities. You can be sure I will have lots to say about it soon, but here is a little hint: It's all about the $$$$$$$$$$$$$. Every redevelopment agency was required to work up an EOP (enforceable obligation payment schedule) of all their bond debt, contracts and other obligations for payment. Poway's total on the Oct 1, 2010 document? It's $1,398,802,316.43. Almost 1.4 billion taxpayer dollars diverted from schools and core government services. In little ol' Poway. To clean up our urban blight. They are crying a river over losing that money stream.

(note: Poway revised their EOP after the supreme court decision. The new EOP (1/17/2012) total: $0.4 billion. That's a billion dollars less that they will be spending now that redevelopment agencies will cease to be. Half that billion dollars will go to our local schools. They other half will mostly go to the county and come back to the city's own general fund for core services.)

Unfortunately for Poway sewer customers, it is the same ol' shit for 2012. On December 20th, the council voted to reduce the sewer consumption charge by 7%. Note that the word is charge, not rate. Poway doesn't charge for sewer use by the unit, the way they do for water (and the way other cities do for both water and sewer). They use an archaic tiered fee structure. It is an adaption from the days when everyone just paid a flat sewer fee and no separate consumption fee. Now, we all pay a flat service fee AND a consumption fee, but the consumption fee in Poway is not a rate as it is in other cities. Poway, charges a consumption charge of $40.98 to sewer customers who use between 6-12 units. That means that the customer who uses 6 units pays twice as much per unit ($6.83) as the customer who uses 12 units ($3.41 per unit). Poway gives an even bigger price break to the biggest sewer users. Customers who use 50 units of sewer flow pay only $1.83/unit. Is that fair? Or even logical?

Poway can afford to cut the sewer rates because they have a big surplus in the sewer fund. They have been overcharging customers for years, and, in particular, overcharging smaller users. What's amazing is how the city continues to use the sewer slush fund for non-sewer related expenses. Last year they completed a sewer project on Oak Knoll Rd that was paid for with redevelopment funds. But since they needed $3 million dollars to move Toyota across the street and shoehorn a Lowes in Toyota's old location, they took $3 million from the sewer fund and put it into the redevelopment fund to "backfill" the Oak Knoll project and then they moved it into a fund to buy property for Toyota.

The sewer fund is also tapped to pay the bonds on the new city hall. Most of the water/sewer services are run out of the city's operations center building near Lake Poway. So why are water/sewer customers paying for city hall? I guess we have to pay for the administrative staff who dream up new ways to soak us unfairly. Some of the council members who voted to make the sewer customers pay for the new city hall are on septic systems and don't help pay for those bonds themselves.

Remember the old water/sewer building on Poway Rd., right across from the library? That building was paid for by water/sewer customers, too. After it was no longer needed for the water/sewer department use, it was "quit claimed" to the city. The water/sewer ratepayers paid for the building, but we got nothing for it. Now the city leases it out. Does the lease money end up in the sewer fund? Nope. If the city sells the old building, will the sewer customers see the assets returned to the fund that paid for the building? Not likely.

Redevelopment owes the sewer fund a big bunch of money too. In 1983, Poway sewer customers forked over $5.5 million to jump start the newly formed Poway Redevelopment Agency. How did the sewer fund have an extra $5.5 million in it to lend to redevelopment? If I remember correctly, our rates were hiked up to minimize the stress of potential future rate hikes. I am not sure we will ever get all of that money back from the soon-to-be-defunct redevelopment agency. Does that make you feel de-stressed or distressed?

But that isn't all. The lush sewer funds are being used to pay the legal bills for a 5-yr long saga of negligence, irresponsibility and retribution. I'm talking about the Tartre/Armstrong case. Five years ago, the city hired a company to clear some trees on a sewer easement. They oopsied. They were supposed to cut down a total of 25 mature trees on 9 properties, but they took out way more than that. Of the 41 trees they removed from the Armstrong's and the Tartre's backyards, only 1 was in the sewer easement. The city admitted that they messed up and said that they used a map with the easement marked incorrectly on it.

The Tartres and Armstrongs wanted the city or (West Coast Arborist), the company that the city hired, to replant mature trees, fix the creek that they damaged and leave them alone. They filed a claim with the city. The City retaliated by citing (resolution 08-004)the Tartres and Armstrong with some PMC (Poway Municipal Code) and FEMA violations on their property. The City claimed that their fences were in a special flood hazard area and that they had to remove them or get a special permit that required a $30,000 flood study. Instead of working to make things right, the City puffed up their chest and said, "You take what we offer or we will make your life hell." And then the City proceeded to make their lives hell.

After the City refused to fix their properties, the Tartres and Armstrongs filed a lawsuit over the property damages. In a tit for tat, the The City sued the Tartres and Armstrongs over the PMC and FEMA violations. It didn't matter if the Tartres and Armstrongs won their lawsuits or if the judge noted that the City's case "smacked of retaliation", the City was (and still is) hell bent on sending a message: "Cross us and we will make your life miserable." And why not? Those excess sewer funds were just sitting there waiting to be raided to pay for the City's bullying.

Five years of hell. And it is not over yet.

Here is a summary of where things stand.

There are two main cases:

1)Appellate Court Case No. D056319

underlying case 37-2008-0076297-CU-NP-CTL

This is the Tartres/Armstrongs suit against the city and their contractor West Coast Arborists for damages to their property, emotional distress, and civil rights violations.

In June, 2009, a jury decided that Poway had been negligent and awarded the Tartres and Armstrongs damages for negligence and emotional distress ($119,810 for the Tartres and $67,462 for the Armstrongs). In Dec, 2009, Judge Link denied the City's request to undo the jury's decision and awarded the Tartres and Armstrongs $479,000 for attorney fees and legal costs. The Tartres and Armstrong were also required to pay the legal fees for West Coast Arborist.

Neither side was totally satisfied with this result. The City of Poway is appealing the civil rights violation portion of the decision. If the City wins, they won't have to pay the $479,000 in attorney fees; if they lose they will owe an additional 10% interest. The Tartres and Armstrongs are claiming civil rights violations and also that the arborist the City hired was responsible, in part for a portion of the damages. If they win, they won't have to pay the arborist's fees. If they lose against the City, they may have to pay the City's attorney and legal fees. The Tartres and Armstrongs final brief is due on Jan 20th, then oral arguments will be heard. The court will decide the case between April and June of this year (2012).

2) Appellate Court Case No. D055225

underlying case: 37-2008-00081870-CU-WM-CTL

This is the Tartre/Armstrong Writ against the city council after the city hit them up with PMC (Poway Municipal Code) and FEMA violations.

This case is almost concluded.

Judge Lisa Foster ruled that Poway messed up, didn't follow their own municipal code, got the FEMA thingee wrong and that Poway needed to take back their resolution (#08-004), ~~harrassing~~ demanding that the Tartre and Armstrongs pay for an expensive flood study and get permits for their fence, which the city claims is in a FEMA floodplain. The judge made that ruling almost 4 months ago. The council still has taken no action to comply with one part of the court order, the requirement that the Poway City Council rescind resolution 08-004.

Hmmm, I remember another case when the City Council allowed some residents to build a private gate across a public road. One of the people who lived on the road sued, and won his case in court, at great expense to himself. The city took their sweet time complying with that court order too. They didn't rescind their approval of the gate and demand it's removal for weeks after the court's decision. Respect for the courts much? I don't think so.

The Tartres and Armstrongs have to drag the City's sorry ass back to court and let the judge slap them upside of the head to make them comply. Last week the judge ordered the City to comply with her order or explain themselves at yet another hearing on April 6, 2012. The City knows that they have lost, but they have one last opportunity to taunt their own residents. And why not? It's not their money that is paying for it.

The City is paying for their attorneys and legal fees out of the sewer slush funds. I don't know why. The cause of the problem was bad maps (so said the City) and a bad attitude (so said the judge). I'm not sure which city department is responsible for mapping expertise, but whichever one it is, I think that department and the City administration owe a reimbursement to the sewer fund. The City's attorney costs were $354, 461 (as of June, 2011) for the first case and $83,553.36 for the second case (as of Jan 3, 2012).

If I was a member of the Poway City Council or staff, you know what I would do? I'd make some new year resolutions. First, I'd make 2012 the year Poway gets its act together and charges fair sewer rates. And secondly, I'd make a huge attempt to reform what seems to be a retaliatory bullying habit. It's nasty. It's embarrassing. It benefits nobody except the lawyers. It makes the city look like it is poorly run. In fact, it makes it look like it is run by a crime family, rather than a government that works for its own people.

2012 is going to be a big year of changes. Is it too much to hope that the changes will make Poway a better place to live?

Redevelopment Update

2011-11-17T16:18:00.000-08:00

Poway Blog has been on a bit of a hiatus while I attended to some family matters. But that doesn't mean that nothing has been going on during the last few months or that I haven't been paying attention.

One of my special areas of concern has been, and continues to be, redevelopment. As many of you may know, redevelopment plays a major role in many land use and budget decisions in Poway. It also has a huge impact on school financing and the state budget. Last January, newly elected Gov. Jerry Brown proposed eliminating redevelopment agencies in California. This kind of blew me away. I had been a critic of redevelopment for many years. I even wrote a letter to Arnold and sent it to him and all of the state legislators in June, 2009, suggesting that Arnold grab some money from the magical redevelopment agencies to balance the state budget. But I never dreamt that anyone would call for the demise of the goose that kept laying those golden redevelopment eggs.

Brown's plan to snuff out redevelopment agencies met a lot of resistance. With a few rare exceptions, GOP legislators were opposed, although technically. redevelopment doesn't line up with their supposed "values". Redevelopment is big government, intrusive government, secret government, with the power of eminent domain and, um, did I mention the excessive borrowing aka deficit spending ? There were also a few Democrats who couldn't really sign off on ending redevelopment, so the California legislature devised a way for redevelopment agencies to rise from the ashes and continue to borrow money and spend it on development projects. The catch was that they had to give billions of dollars to the local schools and local agencies, like fire departments, that are funded with property taxes. Considering that redevelopment agencies have ~~stolen~~ diverted billions of property tax dollars from schools for years, it seemed a pretty reasonable compromise. But the redevelopment agencies wanted it all. They went for broke. They sued the state.

Both the redevelopment agencies and the state agreed to have the case go directly to the state's supreme court. The court has agreed to decide the case before January 15th, when the first batch of payments from the redevelopment agencies are due to be turned over to a local authority that will distribute the money to local schools and special districts.

On October 10th, the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case which is named CRA v Matosantos. The amicus briefs for each side are posted on the CRA's website. The ones that support the redevelopment agencies, claiming that the state cannot dissolve them or reconstitute them for a ransom, are: Association of California Cities, Orange County; City of Irvine; Long Beach; Public Interest Law Western Center, San Bernardino County, Southern California Coalition, CRA/LA, Riverside County and ABAG (Association of Bay Area Governments). With the exception of the Public Interest Law Western Center, each of these is, has, or represents a redevelopment agency.

The groups that filed amicus briefs in support of the state's position are: Affordable Housing Advocates (a San Diego group that advocates for affordable housing); California Professional Firefighters; Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence (an Orange County group from Chapman Univ School of Law); California Teachers Association; Los Angeles USD; MORR- Chris Norby, and Santa Clara USD. The groups supporting the state's position represent school districts, firefighters, affordable housing advocates, the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence (a conservative group concerned about the abuse of eminent domain) and MORR (Municipal Officials for Redevelopment Reform).

The redevelopment agencies sued the state , claiming that both ABx-26 which dissolved redevelopment agencies and ABx-27, which allowed for the new alternative redevelopment agencies that voluntarily paid a ransom to the local schools, were unconstitutional. They claimed that the voters passed Prop 22, which forbids the state from grabbing any of their redevelopment money. From the comments at the supreme court hearing, it appears that the justices seem to lean toward the position that the state has the right to abolish redevelopment agencies, that ABx-26 is constitutional.

The question then becomes, "Is ABx-27 constitutional - can the state make the redevelopment agencies give a share of their diverted property taxes to the schools in order to continue to exist?" If the answer is yes, then the redevelopment agencies lose and the state wins the case. But what if the courts find ABx27 unconstitutional? This is where it gets really interesting.

Justice Joyce L. Kennard suggested that the agencies' challenge of both laws could backfire. She said the court could find the abolition constitutional but the revenue-sharing law invalid, a prospect that an attorney for redevelopment agencies called the worst possible outcome.

If the court finds ABx-27 unconstitutional, then everything would revert back to ABx-26 and the redevelopment agencies would all be dissolved. Redevelopment in California would be no more. And it would be because of this court case and Prop 22, a sneaky voter initiative that redevelopment agencies pushed to get on the ballot and passed in 2010.

Justice Marvin R. Baxter observed that it would be ironic if Proposition 22, which redevelopment agencies had promoted, ended up requiring the court to overturn the compromise and cut the lifeline that the revenue-sharing law provided. Baxter also appeared dubious that the proposition gave the agencies "perpetual existence."

Deputy Atty. Gen. Ross C. Moody, representing the state, agreed that the agencies may have miscalculated in suing to overturn both measures.

"The redevelopment agencies took a gamble on this lawsuit," Moody said

Remember, the redevelopment agencies did not have to file this lawsuit. They chose to. They are not accepting the lose, lose position. Redevelopment agencies are now arguing that ABx-26 and ABx-27 cannot be considered separately, that they are intricately woven together.

The back-and-forth in the San Francisco courtroom seemed to hint that the justices are grappling less with whether the Legislature has the power to abolish RDAs -- a power that the Court seems poised to uphold -- and more with whether the budget provisions that dissolve and then reconstitute RDAs are, as the attorney for the locals argued, "joined at the hip."

The redevelopment agencies are now arguing that comments from some legislators indicated that they only voted for ABx-26 because there was also an ABx-27. Therefore, if either one is unconstitutional, they both are. But that argument seems particularly weak, since the laws actually say that they are separate.

Legislators wrote language stating the two are separable -- a point raised in a pointed exchange led by Justice Goodwin Liu. "How could it be any clearer?" said Liu after reading the relevant passage from the legislation.

This is all good news, hopeful news, for redevelopment watchers. The sad part is that the taxpayers are paying for both sides of this court case. The sadder part is that all 5 of Poway's council members strongly support the redevelopment agencies' case and the diversion of property tax funds from PUSD and special districts.

The California Supreme Court expects to rule on the constitutionality of ABx26 and ABx27 by mid-January 2012.

Next Up: Lowe's

2011-09-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

I don't think anyone ever envisioned warehouse stores being built on Poway Rd when we incorporated back in 1980. In fact, when the General Plan was approved in 1983, it didn't say anything about giant big box stores or warehouse stores. The General Plan has been amended a couple of times per year since then, with most of the changes adversely affecting south Poway, but there are still no development standards for warehouse stores on Poway Rd. in our plan or our municipal code.

Nevertheless, the council just approved expanding Wal-Mart into a superstore and next Tuesday, the council will approve the Lowe's warehouse building on Poway Rd. There might be a few residents yammering away about nightmare traffic and noise, but it won't matter. It is a done deal. Was a done deal before anyone even heard about it.

Even after blowing off noise and traffic as nonexistent "monsters under the bed", there are still some glaring nonconformance issues that have to be addressed. Sort of. There will have to be some tweaking of the rules . The building height limit is 35 feet in Poway. Thirty-five feet or 2-stories, whichever is less. The General Plan was amended in the last few years to provide 2 exceptions. One was to allow a 3-story hotel in the business park. And another was to allow 3 stories for affordable housing projects. Commercial buildings don't have an exception. Except for something called an "architectural feature".

Look at the picture of Lowes in the drawing at the top of the blog. See that extra roof that looks like a doghouse or an outpost in a stockade? The staff suggests giving Lowes almost 10 extra feet for that. They are calling it an "architectural feature". Now look at the picture again. Visually remove the architectural feature. Guess what, the building is still over 35 feet high. Click on the enhanced picture from the staff report below. The blue line is at approximately 35 ft. Both of the roofs above the word "Lowes" exceed the city's 35 ft limit, as do the other 2 peaked roofs. I always thought of architectural features as something like a church steeples. I guess you can build over 35 ft. in Poway now if you have a peaked roof.

That's not the only cheating on our standards that the staff had to do for Lowe's. Lowe's proposed signs are too big for our codes. So, they came up with a newfangled way to measure the size of the sign. They are going to only measure the space in the letters in the word Lowe's and not count the white space around the letters. With this little adjustment, they will be just under the limit.

Oh, and Poway's sign ordinance limits the height of the signs to 8 ft, but the city is going to let Lowe's have theirs go to 15 ft because ~~Walmart has one~~ there will be so much traffic in the area, it might obscure a lower sign. This is a special exemption, just for Lowe's, because there is no traffic going into any other commercial businesses, right?

As you might expect, the Lowe's project is actually going to improve traffic in the area, according to the staff report. Yeah, I want some of what they're smoking, too. The report says that the traffic at Poway and Gate Dr is now LOS "F". After installing a new traffic light at Gate Dr and the extension of the left turn lane at Poway & Community Rd, the LOS at Poway &Gate Dr will improve to LOS "C" by 2030, even with all of the new Wal-Mart and Lowe's traffic. Don't forget, the city is now using new traffic LOS designations. What was once considered a failing grade, is now a passing grade.

The staff report also says that the Lowe's building "has been designed to comply with the Poway Road Specific Plan standards". Unlike our traffic standards, the Poway Road Specific Plan hasn't been dumbed down as far as I know. It didn't take me anymore than a minute or two of skimming through the Poway Road Specific Plan (PRSP) to question whether Lowe's plans are compliant.

Chapter 5 of the PRSP list some design guidelines. Some of them are kind of squishy. For example, under Architecture, the PRSP says:

Building mass, height and pad elevation should be comparable to and complement that of surrounding structures.

"Comparable" and "complement" allow a lot of wiggle room for interpretation. I don't think a humongous warehouse is comparable to or complements any of the other businesses on Poway Rd. But that's just me. Other guidelines are less subjective:

Rear and side facades should be designed to be consistent with the architectural style of the building and the design of the primary facade.

Lowe's rear and sides are not consistent with the front. It is a basic butt-ugly warehouse in the back and sides. Even before clicking on the picture below, you can see that Lowe's back isn't anything like their front which is pictured above.

Here's another design guideline from the PRSP:

The parking lot should not be the dominant feature of the site. Large expansive paved areas located between the street and buildings are to be avoided.

Hmmm...did our planners read the PRSP before submitting this? But to be fair, Lowe's is going to sell stuff from the parking lot. Kind of break up the expanse with lumber and plants and seasonal stuff and whatnot. I am sure it will have the look and feel of an open market.

And another:

The first parking stall which is perpendicular to a driveway or first aisle juncture should be at least 40 feet back from the public street curb. With larger centers, significantly more setback areas may be required for vehicle stacking and the ability to create secondary accessways with adjoining properties.

The Lowe's project will have a 20 foot-wide landscaped setback along Poway Rd. The rest of it will be packed with cars, both parallel and perpendicular to entrance driveways, aisle junctures and each other.

The PRSP was written in 1996. There are 91 pages in the plan and the word "warehouse" appears "0" times. The PRSP mentions a lot of nice things for Poway Rd, like bicycle and pedestrian friendly access and covered walkways and open space and "gathering places" and a "town center". So, how did we end up with a Super Wal-Mart and a Lowe's?

Last week, Bob Emery, who sat on the council for over a quarter of a century, voiced his opinions about the Wal-Mart expansion approval process and the opponent's concerns.

Most of the hullabaloo from the opposition concerned traffic and impacts on businesses. "It will hurt other local markets in the area." Excuse me? If detractors are worried about "little Vons," which is part of the safeway empire of nearly 2,000 stores, let's be realistic. We live under a free enterprise system based on competition and some make it and some don't. As for traffic, I would rather see our streets jammed with shoppers spending money in Poway so we can pave streets, maintain our parks, fight fires and crime and provide other essential community services. .....

Finally, just across town, the Target store is adding several thousand square feet to its store so it can also go into the grocery business but there hasn't been a peep out of anyone. Target practices the same dubious hirting practices and right-wing bullying as Walmart but no one seems to care. What about the impact on that "ma and pa" store next door called Albertsons? Go figure.

I want to remind people that Prop FF was Bob Emery's baby. Prop FF was the 1988 ballot initiative that makes it mandatory to get voter approval to increase the density or to build a single store on any land zoned rural residential in Poway. After Emery got the quality of life in his neighborhood protected, he pretty much didn't give a damn what happened to folks in south Poway.

I am going to spell it out for him and others who don't understand. Not that they will "get it". But it is important to set the record straight. I've lived in Poway for over 35 years. People have been complaining about traffic on Poway Rd. for most of that time. For years and years, councilmembers and the city manager complained about all the folks from Ramona driving up and down Poway Rd. The city's redevelopment agency spent lots of money (that I do not believe is paid off yet) to build Scripps Poway Parkway in the undeveloped hills of south Poway, so we could have some employment opportunities and to get the damn Ramonans off of Poway Rd.

And now the city is getting a super big-box store and a warehouse store, two ventures that will bring a great deal of regional traffic to Poway Road. Poway Rd is a miles-long commercial corridor that is also the access point for many residential neighborhoods. It ends in what is essentially a cul-de-sac, with an offshoot to the nearby community of Ramona. It doesn't take a PhD in planning to know that the best place to site regional shopping ventures is on the periphery of the community, as close to freeway offramps as possible. So the reason people are not complaining about Target expanding and selling food is because the Target center was better located and designed to handle the traffic and noise and truck deliveries.

Poway Rd commercial properties don't have the depth that the Target center has. Many butt right up next to residential areas. There are no apartment houses that face Target. It is amazing that the same people who found it incompatible to have even a neighborhood shopping center anywhere near their homes would be so supportive of a 24-hr regional shopping center and warehouse store adjacent to or across the street from someone else's. Yes, we need sales tax to support needed services. But the people who approved the Wal-Mart expansion and will approve Lowe's are not sacrificing their quality of life; they are taking someone else's.

And about that free enterprise stuff. I'm not buying it. The city gave Wal-Mart almost a million dollars to locate in Poway. And they just robbed our sewer fund of $3 million to move Toyota across the street so that Lowe's could fit into Toyota's old spot. It wasn't done out in the open or by selling the property to the highest bidder. It was all planned and executed behind closed doors with an exclusive negotiated agreement. That is not how a free enterprise system based on competition works.

The expanded Wal-Mart has been approved. Lowe's will be approved. I'm sure they will bring in some sales tax dollars. Not that Poway isn't already capturing more than their share of per capita sales taxes revenue compared to other California cities. But it is never enough, is it?

Monsters Under The Bed

2011-08-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

h/t to Joe and MaryLou St Lucas for the Poway Monsters Under The Bed Video

Last Tuesday night, the Poway City Council met to approve the Wal-Mart expansion. We arrived a bit late but didn't really have to worry about parking, 'cause we knew there would be plenty of room at the empty Dixieline shopping center.

The meeting was crowded. All of the seats in the main chamber were taken. One side of the chamber seemed to be filled with Wal-Mart employees. Made me wonder if they would lose their job if they didn't show up. The lobby was also full; standing room only. We found some outside seats in front of 2 TV screens on the side of the building. Might have been the best seats available. We got to see the speakers as the council saw them, instead of from their backs. And we got some fresh air instead of the stench of divisiveness.

There were some articulate, thoughtful speakers from the "No We" group who presented their concerns about traffic, parking, aesthetics and noise, especially nighttime noise from delivery trucks. There were also a couple of passionate out-of-towners who begged the council to approve the Wal-Mart expansion so they could one-stop shop at Wal-Mart. They promised that the benefits of one-stop shopping at Wal-Mart would ripple through the business community. Another pro-expansion guy got up and complained because Joe St. Lucas, president of the 800 member No-We group, spoke for 5 minutes (with permission). He then proceeded to single out each anti-expansion speaker and say they were wrong. He droned on and on and Mayor Higginson was so captivated he forgot to remind him that his 3 minutes were up a long time ago.

After the speakers "had their say", the council members weighed in. Dave Grosch expressed his concerns about how the traffic and noise would affect the residents. For John Mullin, it was simple. Wal-mart is a commercial use. The land is zoned commercial. Voila, the decision is easy-peasy. But inconsistent. Just a couple of weeks ago, John Mullin voted for an emergency ordinance to keep another commercial venture from locating in a commercial zone because it might have an adverse effect on the neighborhood. Mullin wasn't interested in any adverse effects from Wal-Mart. And neither were Boyack, Cunningham or Higginson. In fact, Higginson went so far as to say that the concerns were "monsters under the bed."

"All I've heard tonight are monsters under the bed...there are no monsters under the bed," says Higginson.

Classic Higginson. This certainly is not the first time he has belittled or denigrated residents who have come to council meetings to express their concerns. But this is probably the first time he has done so to an 800 member organization at a taped meeting. It was pretty obvious throughout the whole meeting that finally allowing the residents to "have their say" was an exercise in futility. As one speaker so aptly said, "Thanks for nothing."

It wasn't always like this in Poway. During the early days, after incorporation, there was a decided effort among the elected leaders to make developers listen to residents. I can remember a developer showing up at council one evening and residents voicing complaints. Councilmember Bob Emery growled at the developers, "You go talk to the residents and work it out with them and THEN come back and ask for approval." Things changed when the city formed a redevelopment agency and that redevelopment agency became the biggest developer in town. Projects were shaped behind closed doors between developers and staff. Things became "done deals" long before they went to council for approval. Residents "having their say" conformed to the laws, but otherwise, the exercise was meaningless.

The Wal-Mart expansion is an example of how the city plans to develop in the future. The residents concerns will be ignored.The Wal-Mart neighborhood meetings were a harbinger of that we-don't-have-to-listen-to-you attitude. Wal-Mart simply set up tables and displayed their plans for the neighbors to see. A one-way meeting. No opportunity for the residents to voice their concerns. So, so different than the neighborhood meetings about north Poway developments or the amphitheater. Those days are definitely over.

Another example of the city's willingness to blow off resident's concerns is the feebleness of the EIR (environmental impact report). It's a joke. For example, consider the traffic information. The Wal-Mart EIR says that the level of service (LOS) at Poway/Community Rd is level C. But for the last 14 yrs, the city has been saying that it is level "D" or level "E". In the upcoming staff report for Lowes, the LOS of the Poway/Community Rd intersection is level "D". How did it go from level "C" to level "D" in a week? Especially since the EIR claimed that expanding Wal-Mart would improve traffic in the area. Do people just make stuff up to fit whatever conclusion is needed?

Every year since 1997, the Poway council has made an annual declaration that traffic sucks so bad in Poway, they qualify for an exemption from state law. Every year since 1997, the traffic monsters were real, and Higginson signed his name to it. This year, for the first year since 1997, the city council has not made their annual declaration about where you cannot have a granny flat because traffic sucks so bad. So, if you are thinking about building one, hurry and get your permits. I am afraid that as soon as Lowe's is approved, the council will look under the bed and tell the state that those monsters are really, really real. And so scary.

CatchAll

2011-07-31T22:58:00.000-07:00

Redevelopment Update: Poway opted in to the "alternate" redevelopment agency. They are paying their "extortion fees" and hoping that the California Redevelopment Agency (CRA) wins their lawsuit against the state. The state's response to CRA's lawsuit: We made redevelopment, we can do away with it. CRA: Waaaahhhh!, we need that money, give it to us. The people said to give it to us. Who will build golf courses, new Charger stadiums, shopping centers and car dealerships if you don't give it to us? Next up: the California Supreme Court will decide to fast track the case or send it to the lower courts where it will take forever and an eon to be heard.
Poway's reason for an emergency council meeting to keep medical marijuana collectives out of Poway: We can't let our neighborhoods deteriorate. Ha! Ha! You know what that reminds me of? The reason the city gave for pulling the Wal-Mart property out of the Poway Road Specific Plan and forming a new Wal-Mart Specific Plan: to limit uses which might bring increased traffic volume, flow and noise that would be incompatible with the nearby commercial and residential areas. Ha! Ha! Ha! Joe St Lucas has a few comments about the city looking out for our quality of life over at his blog too.
It's been a year since the Poway City council voted to chuck the multi-tier water rates because it "wasn't fair" that some people were paying more for their water than other people. It's been a year since the city has done nothing about the sewer rates which charge higher rates to those who use the least water.
The Poway Term Limits group is gathering signatures. I support term limits for Poway councilmembers and mayor. After hearing all 5 council members whine because the state is giving local property tax dollars back to the local schools to be spent on local public services instead of letting redevelopment agencies spend it on their favorite private enterprises, well, I'm beginning to think that even 2 terms is too long.
Mark your calendars. August 23 will be a hearing for the Wal-Mart expansion environmental impact report. I'm betting that the staff recommendation will be that the neighborhood adjacent to Wal-Mart will be greatly improved by the increased traffic and noise. Unloading trucks in the wee hours will be just like white noise lulling your baby to sleep. But a store like that, heck, ANY store would be so uber incompatible in north Poway.
The Arbolitos sports field lights are going in soon. The gnatcatchers didn't stop it and neither did 2 council members living nearby. It is going to be more costly than expected. The city engineer estimated it would cost $600,000 - $610,000 for the lights and field renovation, but the lowest bid came in at $781,645.50. Total appropriation, including legal fees is $950,000. PYSL kicked in $60,000.
I've saved the best for last. I won't be getting robocalls from Duncan Hunter, June-Eyore, much longer. The bi-partisan California Citizen's Redistricting Commission approved new maps for California Senate and Assembly seats and Congressional seats. Poway won't be in Duncan Hunter's district after the 2012 election. Poway will be in a Congressional district that includes much of the City of San Diego that lies between Poway and Ocean Beach. This district leans a lot more to the left than Poway's current Congressional district. I'm sure it will be an interesting election year, and all, but isn't it amazing that the bi-partisan California Citizen's Redistricting Commission actually agreed to something? Without much fuss, too. Hmmm, next time, could they be in charge of raising the debt limit?

The New Redevelopment: Up For Grabs

2011-07-06T17:49:00.000-07:00

Last week the legislature passed a new California Budget. There were 2 redevelopment bills attached to the budget bill that will mean some big changes for any city with a redevelopment agency.

Here is the Cliff Notes version of this post:

1. Redevelopment Agencies "grabbed" 5 billion dollars of property tax in California this year.

2. About half of that grab was from property taxes that would otherwise go to schools.

3. The state has been "filling in" revenue for school districts that lost property tax to redevelopment agencies.

4. The state has a $26 billion deficit and can't do that anymore.

5. The state eliminated redevelopment agencies when they passed the new state budget.

6. The state let cities and counties by-pass their demise of their redevelopment agency if they promised (in writing) to give some (not all, but a lot) of the property taxes back to local schools.

7. Poway plans to do #6. But not without whining and suing the state.

OK, now for the longer version.

In January, Jerry Brown become governor of California and surprised a lot of people (including me) by proposing to eliminate redevelopment agencies. I never saw that coming and I pretty much have had my fingers crossed since then, wondering if it would come true. It did. The legislature passed a bill eliminating redevelopment. In a compromise with his own party, Brown also signed a second bill allowing redevelopment agencies to continue if the city or county those agencies were in agreed to several state demands, mainly to give back most of the property taxes that they had grabbed from local schools.

Before I get down to the nitty gritty, I want to mention that 5 Republican state legislators voted in favor of eliminating redevelopment. None were from San Diego county. You would think that Republicans, who often spout rhetoric decrying big government, deficit spending, and loss of private property rights, would be on the front line of any campaign to eliminate redevelopment. But you would be wrong. Even with right wing blog sites like Stop The Money Pit and the more moderate Cal Watchdog pleading for their demise, most Republican state legislators refused to vote to eliminate them.

AB1x-26 is the bill that ends redevelopment agencies and AB1x-27 is the bill that revives them, if certain conditions are met. Currently, all redevelopment agencies are prohibited from doing much besides making regular debt payments. They cannot make any new agreements or buy or sell property. They can't hire more people unless they are replacing someone. Some of the agreements they made to hide their assets are invalidated. On Oct 1st,2011, the redevelopment agencies are officially dissolved and a new successor agency takes over. The successor agency can sell the assets and pay off the debt of the agency. They have to chip in to a fund that returns property tax money to schools and other taxing agencies. Eventually, after many years, the redevelopment debts of the dissolved agencies will all be paid off and all of the property taxes will once again flow to the schools, and local tax districts.

If a city or county wants to hang on to their redevelopment agency, they can opt in for the new alternative. But it will cost them. They must agree, in writing, to the provisions laid out in AB1x-27:

1) Notify the county auditor-controller by Nov 1, 2011 that they want to go for the alternative redevelopment plan.

2) Enact an ordinance promising to comply with all of the provisions of AB 1x-27

3) Send some money for FY 2011-2012 (their share of $1.7 billion) to the county auditor-controller to be deposited into a Special District Allocation Fund and to an Educational Augmentation Revenue Fund. (Note: The redevelopment agency has to give the money to the city and the city must send the money to the county for deposit into these 2 funds.

4) Send some more money for FY 2012-2013 and every year thereafter to the county auditor-controller to be deposited into the Special District Allocation Fund and the Educational Augmentation Revenue Fund. The exact amount will be a proportionate share of $400 million although the amount may change.

5) Agree to give the schools 80% of their usual share of property tax on all new redevelopment agency debt payments. Suppose a redevelopment agency issued new bonds and the debt payment on those bonds was $1 million per year. The school's normally get about half of all the property tax. 80% of half a million is $400,000. A redevelopment agency would have to give the schools $400,000 for every million dollars of new debt repayment. The schools in the Poway Redevelopment Agency area are PUSD, the county office of education and Palomar Community College District. Each would get the same proportionate share of the tax monies that are returned by redevelopment agencies as they now get from regular property tax payments.

6) The alternate redevelopment agencies are still required to put 20% of the tax increment into a low and moderate housing fund. For the FY 2011-2012 only, they can skip this allocation if they do not have enough money to meet their other obligations, including their share of the $1.7 billion payment to the county auditor-controller.

Poway has opted for door number 2, the alternative redevelopment plan. At their July 5th meeting, the council approved an ordinance to comply with AB1x-27. The second reading of the ordinance is scheduled for July 19th. Poway's share of the $1.7 billion in property taxes that will be diverted back to schools and special districts in FY 2011-2012 is reported to be around $10.3 million. Poway's share for FY 2012-2013 will be around $3.3 million. In return, Poway will get to keep their redevelopment agency and the $41 million in annual tax increment, which they can use to pay off their debt, pay their employees, and plan new projects. AB1x-27 lets cities keep their redevelopment agency and their tax increment money, as long as they give back some of the property tax money that was taken from local schools.

As expected, the people who are addicted to redevelopment money, are not giving it up without a lot of moaning and groaning. And lies. Or at least, misrepresentations of the truth. I transcribed a statement made by Councilmember Jim Cunningman from the July 5th meeting. (Hat tip to Joe St Lucas for sending me the recording).

Just a comment. It's very clear that, and its been oftentimes said, that local dollars are best spent locally, and especially for a city like Poway. And the notion really is that this was supposed to be helping the school district on a local basis as well. Which again doesn't meet the formula because this city always has been a great partner. When Don was the mayor last time, they built the Performing Arts center, and the baseball stadium, and constantly make .... The parks, the gymnasiums, and the meeting centers, we've been a very, very, good partner of the school district. My concern is that we deliver, and we should deliver as council, we should hand deliver these checks, that the 10 million dollars, by the time it whittles down to the school, will be almost nothing. Whereas the 10 million dollars allocated by this city towards 10 million dollars of projects, we get Solera, and we get Brighton, we get brick and mortar differences, which certainly is not gonna happen, in a sense, on this 10 million dollars of our money, our taxpayers' monies, are given to the county with the notion that it goes to the city (sic) just like the notion of the lottery was gonna save all the schools. Well, that money was gonna come back that. The administration costs as we know was 85%.

Cunningham gets it wrong in so many ways. First of all, the redevelopment funds will have to be deposited into a fund overseen by the San Diego county auditor. That same county auditor who currently handles all of our property tax payments and distribution. The county auditor sends property tax payments to the local schools every year from non-redevelopment area properties without those taxes "whittling down to nothing". The auditor also manages to send Poway's Redevelopment Agency their money every year without an 85% overhead. So what evidence or reason does Cunningham have to suggest this might happen to the funds set up for redistribution to local schools? AB 1x-27 does say the auditor-controller can charge the city or county "a fee that does not exceed the reasonable costs of auditor-controller to implement the provisions of this part."

Second, Cunningham seems to think that the redevelopment agency does a better job of using the schools' property taxes than the schools do. His proof? They have some nice brick and mortar projects to show for it. Schools on the other hand, invest in something less visible, less tangible than sports stadiums and gymnasiums; they invest in the students themselves. AB1x-27 will force redevelopment agencies to give the schools most of their share of property taxes to be used for teacher's salaries or whatever the educational professionals determine is the best use of the money.

Third. Did you really think the lottery was going to produce a lot of money for schools? Sheesh.

And fourth, when the local property taxes are returned to the schools, our local dollars will still be spent locally. Almost all of the $10 million that Poway has to give to the county fund, will go to PUSD and Palomar College.

The California Redevelopment Association (CRA) plans to sue the state over the elimination of redevelopment agencies and the so called "extortion" payments required to keep the agencies alive. They claim that the new laws violates Prop 22, which was passed last November. Prop 22 prohibited the state from taking funds from redevelopment, although the word redevelopment was pretty scarce on that referendum.

CRA is the group of cities and counties that have redevelopment agencies. Poway will likely join the suit. If CRA and Poway sue the state, we the taxpayers will end up suing ourselves. Now, if you want to see our tax money get whittled down, how about a court case where we are paying for both sides?

The state's argument is that they created redevelopment agencies and they can eliminate them. They also wrote the classic provision in the bills, that if any part is declared illegal, the rest still stands. Wouldn't it be weird if the courts struck down AB1x-27 but let AB 1x-26 stand? Redevelopment agencies that sued to avoid giving back the property tax to the schools would then get eliminated.

My personal, non-lawyer opinion is that AB 1x-26 is pretty sound and will likely not be struck down. Suppose a court did find the elimination of redevelopment to be illegal. It would be like saying that redevelopment agencies could continue to grow and divert as many billions of property taxes as they wanted. The state of California does not have enough revenue to backfill the lost property tax for the schools. Constitutionally, states cannot declare bankruptcy. If the courts rule that redevelopment cannot be shut down, then the state would have bills to pay but they have no money to pay them. It would be a Catch-22. I don't think the courts will do that, especially since the courts are funded by the state and have taken a huge hit this year in the all-cuts budget. Likely, their sympathies will not be with the redevelopment agencies who are sucking up all of the revenue for development projects and depriving other government entities from providing basic services. But that is just my opinion. What's yours?

What Goes Around Comes Around

2011-07-04T08:31:00.000-07:00

I love me some Governor Moonbeam. And not just because one of those "job killing" government regulations he imposed during his first stint as governor is keeping me cooler this hot July morning. Brown made home builders put insulation in the attic. It seems a sane thing now, doesn't it?

I also love Governor Brown for having the guts and strength to eliminate redevelopment agencies. It is the sane thing to do. I am going to summarize all the redevelopment developments and how they affect Poway, but first I want to tell you a funny little story.

This year was a tough year for state legislators because California had a $26 billion deficit to fix. Plus, the taxes that were passed under the former governorator were due to expire at the end of June. So the state was in a deeper hole and had less revenue coming in. Jerry Brown wanted to deal with the deficit, half with cuts and half with revenue from extending Arnold's taxes. But all of the republican legislators stood firm and refused to put the tax extensions on the ballot for voters to decide. So, in the end, Brown had to settle for an all cuts budget that defers some of the deficit 'til next year.

That's not the funny story. That's a sad story. I didn't get to the funny part yet. Hang in here for a little bit, I'll get there. While the republicans were crowing about standing firm and not approving the tax extension ballot measure, unbeknown to them, something they did (or didn't do) was going to have a consequence that hurt them. One of the budget trailer bills, senate bill 89, cut the $130 million in vehicle license fees (VHF) revenues that used to be given directly to cities and counties down to about $75 million. The $75 million wouldn't go directly to cities' general funds, it would be given to cities through specific grants for law enforcement.

This change affected all cities and counties in California. But a couple of cities and at least one county really felt the impact. Orange County had been getting a bigger chunk of money from that fund to help finance their way out of bankruptcy. Since they had refinanced their bonds to pay off the bankruptcy, their funds were cut. They plan to sue to try to get it back.

Wildomar, Menifee, Eastvale and Jurapa Valley are four new cities with not a lot of money in their general funds. They VHF revenue they were planning on was about 25% of their total budgets. And now, it is gone. Ouch! That's going to hurt.

For some reason, they did not think that an "all cuts" budget would or should impact them. Local officials and Republican legislators from the area signed a letter to Governor Brown begging him to send SB89 back to the legislature and have them throw in $15 million more for them. (Note: Swanson is mayor of Wildomar.)

In her letter to the governor, Swanson wrote that the reduction to her city's budget would be "effectively forcing fiscal insolvency."
Wildomar and Menifee officials said they did not believe legislators approving the measure understood the implications for the new cities.
"At this point, I'm assuming they missed something when they rushed to put this together because of the unfairness to the four new cities," Swanson said.

School children, college students, seniors, the poor, the disabled, and, yes, newly incorporated cities, are all going to suffer from this budget. It certainly didn't have to be this painful, but Republicans refused to even let the voters decide if they wanted to soften the pain by extending taxes that were already in place. And now local Republican leaders want the budget changed just for these 4 cities and to hell with everyone else?

The irony of the request for more car tax money for 4 cities whose republican leaders refused to put the car tax extensions on the ballot was not lost on Gov. Brown. He would have loved to have an extra $15 million to help them, and millions more to help many others who are going to be hit very hard by this new budget. But he could not get 4 Republicans to give a damn about the implications to college students, the elderly, the schools, the poor and disabled or even, the courts. This budget sucks and the people who could have done something about it, only cared about themselves. Brown signed SB 89 without making any changes.

So now, the Republicans are saying Brown swiped the money from the 4 new cities in a Republican area just to spite them for not voting to put the tax extensions on the ballot. And here is where the story gets a little wacko. Jeff Stone, Riverside county supervisor, has proposed that Riverside, Imperial, San Diego, Orange, San bernardino, Kings, Kern, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo, Madera, Mariposa and Mono counties secede and form a new state, the 51st state to be named "Southern California".

Stone's Southern California would do away with term limits and have part-time legislators who get paid $600 a month and few benefits. The state would focus on enforcing border laws and do away with environmental regulations that protect air and water. Taxes would be minimal. Southern California, eh? Throw in a Sheriff Joe Arpaio and this could be West Arizona.

Brown's spokesman, Gil Duran, wasn't too worried about Stone's well publicized ploy. He told the Press-Enterprise, "A secessionist movement? What is this 1860?"

I must admit that I thought Jeff Stone's proposal was really wacko, an attempt to get Stone a lot of political attention among the crazy. Little did I know that there have been some secessionists around since the beginning of California statehood. According to Wikipedia, there have been 27 attempts to split up the state since 1850. The last proposal in 1992 advocated a 3-way split. None of these proposals came close to succeeding. I doubt that Stone's will get very far. But then I looked at his map. Stone's Southern Cal (not sure if I am taking liberties calling it that) wouldn't have too many liberals. But it also wouldn't have water, most of the coast, Hollywood or Silicon Valley. Most of California's wealth is in the northern half and Los Angeles. As contentious as the recent budget debate has been, I would be hesitant to show Stone's proposal to too many northern legislators. They may just find some common ground.

What if Wal-Mart Leaves Poway?

2011-06-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

We moved to Poway in 1976. That was 35 yrs ago. During that time there have been many grocery stores, restaurants and little shops in Poway that have come and gone.

The first grocery store we shopped at was the Alpha Beta on Poway and Pomerado Rd. It was located about where Michael's is now. Back in those days, we almost never ran to the store without running into someone we knew. I think I spent as much time chatting outside in front of the store as I did shopping inside.

The next grocery store I remember shopping at was the Big Bear store, which was located where the empty Dixieline is now. The store's roof leaked in the rainy season and we had to walk around buckets and pails. They were always going to move and build at Poway and Silverlake, but they never did. Big Bear moved out and sold the land they owned. Eventually a Lucky was built there.

The first Vons in Poway was located where Henry's is. Later Vons moved to their current location on Poway and Community Rd. I can still remember their grand opening. I won a $100 shopping spree. I had something like 3 minutes to fill a shopping cart and I could keep anything as long as it didn't exceed $100 total value. There were real sweet about it and let me pick out some meat ahead of time. Then I had to make a spectacle of myself and dash down the aisle and grab the meat I had picked out.

Vons built a much larger store on Poway Rd near Pomerado, where CVS and Pic N Save are. I guess the town wasn't really big enough for 2 Vons, so the bigger one was shut down.

The point is, stores open and stores close. Same with lumber stores, nurseries, restaurants, car dealerships and any number of other retail venues. What is here today might not be here tomorrow.

What will happen if Wal-Mart moves out? Let me rephrase that. What will happen when Wal-Mart moves out? Wal-Mart is the biggest store in dowtown Poway. The Wal-Mart expansion is going to add about another big grocery store's worth of square footage to the current Wal-Mart. That will be one h-u-u-u-u-g-e store. What could possible move into that much space in downtown Poway?

It's not unlikely that Wal-Mart will move out at some time. That's just part of retailing. Wal-Mart's business practices make it even more likely that it will happen. Wal-Mart likes to saturate an area, then when the competition has moved out, they thin out their own stores. Once Wal-Mart gets a bigger toe-hold in San Diego, they could locate their stores closer to the freeways and leave the Poway store vacant.

And when they do move out, what will happen to the old store? Poway's Wal-Mart was built in 1992. Just before it was built, K-Mart closed. It took 2 years to get that building leased. And even then, the building had to be divided into smaller stores to get tenants. The current Wal-Mart is much larger than the old K-Mart, and the expanded Wal-Mart will be even larger. It could be a real problem getting it leased if Wal-Mart closes the Poway store.

According to Sprawl Busters, Wal-Mart had about 350- 400 "dark stores" in 41 states for sale or lease in 2005. That is up from 333 empty stores in 31 states in 1999. I do not have exact current figures, but Wal-Mart lists 103 sites for lease and 40 vacant building and 623 properties for sale on Walmart Realty. The 623 properties are land in a planned or current Wal-mart shopping center. Wonder which one they are pushing more, land sales next to future Wal-Marts are old vacant buildings?

Sometimes Wal-Mart will build a bigger store very close to another Wal-Mart in a town. When the old store closes, Wal-Mart may have ownership or leaseholder rights to prevent a competitor from moving in. Many Wal-Marts sit empty, attractive only to vagrants and vandals.

What can Poway do to prevent Wal-Mart from leaving a blighted big-box store in the center of town? One thing would be for Poway to adopt a store cap size. Our community is better off with buildings that are sized right for Poway, and can be leased when a tenant leaves.

Even if we missed the chance for a store size cap, Poway can take some steps (from newrules.org) to prevent getting stuck with a "dark store". Poway could

1) Require developers to post a demolition bond that can be used by the city to demolish the structure and maintain the site should the store become vacant.

2) Adopt a dark store ordinance that mandates that property owners market empty buildings as soon as they become vacant and voids any clauses in the retailer's lease that constrains the owner from leasing the property to another retailer.

The Poway Wal-Mart site is owned by Wal-Mart, but the ordinance should be crafted to cover any leased or owned big box store that may become vacant. Because large corporations have their own teams of self-serving lawyers, great care should be taken to make sure the ordinance is clear, specific and enforceable.

Davenport, Iowa had a dark-store agreement. Wal-Mart planned a larger store and vacated their original store. The agreement Davenport had with Wal-Mart required that Wal-Mart make "reasonable best efforts" to sell the store. Whatever that means. And Wal-Mart could reject offers that were below "book value " for it. Guess who determines the "book value" of the property?

Davenport staff forgot to specify in the agreement that Wal-Mart could not refuse offers that were above book value. After 2 years of no sales, the city has the option to buy the property or find another buyer. And the cost of demolishing the building, if necessary, would be paid by the new owner, not Wal-Mart.

Poway needs a dark store ordinance if they allow big box stores in the downtown area. And they need to make sure their ordinance is written better than the one Wal-Mart snookered Davenport with.

Ma & Pa Kettle Math, Poway Edition

2011-06-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

It's been a really frustrating day. This post is a bit of a rant. You might not make it through the whole thing. So, I'm going to post this reminder at the top: If you or anyone you know has some thoughts on the Poway Wal-Mart expansion, either pro or con, NOW is the time to send them off to the council. If you like, you can comment on anything in the DEIR (draft EIR), or you can just email a note to the councilmembers telling them why you do or do not want the Wal-Mart expansion.

Send the emails to:

dhigginson@ci.poway.ca.us

jcunningham@ci.poway.ca.us

dgrosch@ci.poway.ca.us

jmullin@ci.poway.ca.us

mboyack@ci.poway.ca.us

Note: Near the bottom of this post, there is a link to an interesting blog written by Joe St Lucas. And don't worry, there's no heavy math terms in his post, although the number 30 will figure in. Be sure to click on the link and check it out.

And now to my whining.

If I haven't mentioned it lately, let me mention it again. I believe in government. I like having roads and schools and hospitals and cops to round up the bad guys. I like a little advance warning when a tornado is coming and a little help afterwards when our community is devastated by fire. Heck, I like medicare and social security too. I hate thinking about old people eating cat food to survive. I'm not one of those "shrink government down and drown it in a bathtub" people. But today, I am frustrated. Really frustrated. If some crazy wacko tea-partier goes on a bender about how government is the problem, I'm not going to interrupt. Not today.

I'm frustrated because the people running my local government seem to be saying and writing a lot of nonsensical things. For example, for 15 years the city has been saying that traffic sucked so bad on Poway and Community and Midland Rd., that they were exempt from the state law which requires that they permit granny flats to be built. Now that Wal-Mart wants to build a bigger store that brings in more traffic, the City decided to use a completely different method for evaluating traffic that concluded traffic doesn't suck anymore. It is a piece of cake to get through town, as long as you don't mind waiting through a couple of rotations of the traffic lights.

So I was already POd about that. Then, on next Tuesday's Poway council agenda, there is an item called "the draft Urban Water Management Plan(UWMP)" that really set me off. Poway (and all the other cities) are required by the state to prepare an UWMP. The data that is submitted is supposed to help the state plan for future water needs and also to set some water conservation goals for each jurisdiction. Part of the data that must be included in this document is the gallons per capita per day(GPCD) used by Powegians. To calculate GPCD, the total amount of water used in Poway over a certain period of time is divided by the population (using city water) and also divided by the number of days in the time period. For their calculations, Poway is using old Sandag data which estimated that the population of Poway was 52,056 in 2010. The numbers from the 2010 census are in and Poway's official population in 2010 is 47,811. So Sandag got it wrong, they overestimated by 4,245 people. But why is Poway using known faulty data in their UWMP? Could it be because dividing by a large population makes it look like Poway is using less water per capita than we really are? What value is this data when it is so far from being accurate?

I have another bone to pick with the City over the UWMP. It is an old one, which I have harped on before. In the report, there is a copy of a form Poway has to submit to the California Urban Water Conservation Council (CUWCC). On that form, Poway declares that they use conservation pricing for both their water and sewer pricing structure. Poway's 2-tier water rate structure is barely conservation priced. The only people who are given any incentive to conserve are the folks who use 200 or more units in a billing cycle. 200 units equals 149,600 gallons of water. There are only a handful of people who ever use that much water in Poway, so I guess you could say we have a very "elite" water conservation plan. For the vast majority of us, there is no conservation incentive at all.

So maybe they can bluff their way through calling the water rates "conservation priced", but, no way, no how, can anyone of a reasonable, minimally educated mind, declare that Poway's wastewater (sewer) fees are conservation priced. For one thing, CUWCC actually defines conservation pricing and Poway's sewer fees don't meet the criteria. Nevertheless, the City is claiming that they use an "increasing block rate" structure for billing for sewer.

CUWCC defines an "increasing block rate" as one "in which the unit rate increases as the quantity of units purchased increases". Poway's sewer rate structure is just the opposite. The more the customer uses, the cheaper the unit price is. It costs $12.49/unit for 2 units of wastewater and it costs $4.41/unit for 10 units and $2.64/unit for 20 units. The more one buys, the cheaper it gets, per unit. So how does that incentivize someone to conserve?

Today I have been going round and round with Kristen Crane, the Poway Utilities Administrator, who filled out that CUWCC form. She is insisting that Poway's wastewater pricing is an increasing block rate structure. It is so frustrating. Rates are taught in grammar school. You'd think somebody making $100,000 or so (courtesy of the ~~taxpayers~~ sewer customers) would know what a rate is!

I am sounding like those tea-stained loonies. Time to take a deep breath and think. Maybe Ms Crane isn't paid big bucks because she has a firm grasp of math and good comprehension skills. Maybe it is because she is willing and able to obfuscate. Otherwise, why would she so obstinately insist that Poway's sewer pricing structure is an "increasing block rate"?

It's been one of those days, when the people who "work for me" seem to be highly paid pencil pushers. Is government bloated with civil servants who spend their days filling out meaningless forms with bogus data? Why bother?

Like I said, I am very frustrated.

And now, as promised, here is the link to Joe's blog. I don't want to give the whole thing away, but let me give you a little hint. Would you say that a council member who sweeps aside a city rule, for the benefit of his sons and their friends, is acting ethically?

Honk if you believe this!

2011-05-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

When my husband Larry was in grammar school, there was at least one reporting period when he was, shall we say, not the most stellar of scholars. Not wanting to upset his parents, or trigger some foreseen consequence, he handled the situation by grabbing a pen and changing that "F" to an "A".

My husband's childhood shenanigan was the first thing I thought of when I looked at the Wal-Mart Draft Environmental Impact Report(DEIP). Local traffic is graded on an A-F scale based on something called "LOS" or "level of service". "A" is the best grade and "F" is the worst. In the Wal-Mart DEIR, the traffic report card shows that the current condition of all major south Poway intersections are at LOS of "A", "B" or "C" with one exception. The intersection of Stowe and Community got a "D" for the afternoon peak hours.

This is a pretty amazing traffic report card. Remarkably amazing. Especially since, every year since 1996, Poway staff have produced a traffic map showing that the roads around Wal-Mart were LOS "D" or "E".

California state law requires cities to allow second dwelling units (think "granny flats") to be built unless that city has some overriding infrastructure or traffic problems. Every year since 1996, Poway has claimed that north Poway's water and sewer, and south Poway's traffic are too clogged up to handle any second dwelling units in any area of the city except the extreme fringes. To support their claims, the staff report has included a traffic map showing the LOS of the major roadways from the previous year. Here is the first LOS traffic map from the 1996 declaration(with 1995 LOS traffic map). Note that every road is level "D" or "E" or "F". (Click on map to enlarge.)

From 1996 until last year, the city insisted that traffic was level "D" and "E" on all south Poway Rds near Wal-Mart. Those same roads that are now marked with a current LOS of "A", "B" and "C" on the Wal-Mart DEIR. I've posted copies of the traffic maps for each year on scribd. Here are the links if you want to look at them.

Here is the most recent Poway traffic map from the 2010 resolution on second dwelling units:

So how did the roads go from LOS "D" and "E" to "A", "B" and "C" in one year? Wal-Mart didn't take a pen and change an "F" to a "B", but they might as well have. What they did do was to redefine each grade.

For example, consider LOS "C". Here is the original method of defining it:

Level of Service C describes with delay in the range of 15.1 to 25.0 sec per vehicle. These higher delays may result from fair progression and/or longer cycle lengths. Individual cycle failures may begin to appear in this level. The number of vehicles stopping is significant at this level, although many still pass through the intersection without stopping.

What they are saying, is that at LOS "C", some cars might have to stop for the traffic light and be stopped for 15 to 25 seconds.

Here how LOS "C" is described in the Wal-Mart DEIR:

This level still represents stable operating conditions. Occassionally drivers may have to wait through more than one red signal indication, and backups may develop behind turning vehicles. Most drivers feel somewhat restricted, but not objectionably so.

Really? Most drivers don't object to sitting in traffic for a couple of rotations of the light? Who are they kidding? There are a lot of drivers out there who seem ready to plow through my vehicle if I stop at a red light, and you want me to believe they are only mildly vexed at having to sit through a couple of rotations of the light? I don't believe it.

There seems to be a huge difference between the old Level "C" and the new, Wal-Mart revised, level "C". But, hey, descriptions and their interpretation can be subjective. To get a more precise and unbiased look at how LOS definitions have changed, we can look at the numerical data used for the old traffic report cards and compare it to the numerical data used in the Wal-Mart DEIR.

Criteria for LOS of Signalized Intersections

Do you see what I see? I see some pretty serious grade inflation. In the good old days, if most of the cars had to wait 30 seconds to get through an intersection, that intersection would have been graded "D". In the Wal-Mart DEIR, that roadway is graded "C". Just last year, if the average wait at an intersection was 55 sec, that intersection was graded "E", and very nearly graded "F". The Wal-Mart DEIR says that intersection gets a "D" grade.

According to Poway's General Plan, the LOS is an important consideration in the approval of any planned project. The 2nd strategy under land use and transportation says:

2. Prohibit development which will result in Level of Service E or F at any intersection unless no feasible alternatives exist and overriding public need can be demonstrated.

All of the major intersections near Wal-Mart were identified as LOS "D" and "E" on city maps for the last 15 yrs. The increased traffic from the Wal-Mart expansion would have downgraded them to LOS "E" and "F". Thus, the need for the new grading system which I am naming "The Wal-Mart Curve".

The Wal-Mart curve is a bit unsettling. Our council members are not young grammar school kids. They are adults. Supposedly, reasonable adults. What does it say about how they govern if they use one set of rules for 15 yrs, then adjust the rules to get the desired outcome for a proposed project that can't pass under the old rules? If the council accepts the Wal-Mart DEIR as it is, then our General Plan is a completely meaningless jumble of words, subject to arbitrary interpretation and implementation.

How Homeowners in PQ, Carmel Mtn Rnch, Sabre Sprgs and RB Get Dinged for Poway's WalMart

2011-04-28T13:18:00.000-07:00

Wal-Mart has proposed expanding the Poway store into a super-store. The DEIR (draft environmental impact report) is available online. I've only scanned it. But the parts I have read seem kind of ridiculous. For example, the report says that the noise from increased traffic will have no significant impact because people can't hear that when they are outside. Uh...right. And the diversion of sales from other retailers and groceries in the area? Wal-Mart doesn't see any significant impact from that either because they are only going to sell a small amount of food. So they say in the DEIR.

One area the Wal-Mart DEIR did not touch on is the impact to PUSD school funding. The biggest chunk of school funding comes from property tax. Because Wal-Mart is in Poway's redevelopment area, almost all of the property tax from Wal-Mart's current store and all of the new property tax from Wal-Mart's expansion will go to Poway's redevelopment agency. Almost none of that property tax goes to PUSD.

Compare that to the property tax on the adjacent parcel on the corner of Poway & Community Rd, the shopping center with Vons on it. That parcel is not in the Poway Redevelopment Agency area. About 40% of the property taxes from that parcel go to PUSD. When the residential, commercial and industrial property owners in Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Penasquitos, Carmel Mountain Ranch, Sabre Springs and 4S Ranch pay their property taxes, about 40% of their taxes goes to PUSD. When Wal-Mart and Costco (in Poway) and Home Depot (in Poway) and every industrial park owner pay their property tax, almost nothing goes to PUSD. When the home owners of Old Coach, Bridlewood and Rancho Arbolitos developments pay their property tax, almost nothing goes to PUSD.

PRA (Poway Redevelopment Agency) diverts about $39 million in property taxes every year. About $16 million of that would have gone to PUSD if PRA didn't exist. That amounts to almost $1700 for every student in a PUSD school located in Poway. So, who makes up for that $1700/student shortfall in funding? Partially, that funding is made up from property owners in RB, PQ, Carmel Mtn Ranch, Sabre Springs and 4S Ranch. In 2009, PUSD got about $97,252,000 from San Diego properties within the district and only $17,3000,000 from Poway properties. 85% of the property tax PUSD gets is from San Diego, 15% is from Poway. The rest of the funding is made up by the state.

One of the big ironies of this funding scheme is that PRA gives little (and big) gifts to PUSD. Gifts which enhance the Poway PUSD schools. Like the Performing Arts Center, multipurpose rooms and gyms and various other athletic facilities. PUSD does not get these "gifts" from the City of San Diego, because San Diego does not have a redevelopment area in PUSD boundaries. So, the non-Poway side of PUSD gets screwed twice. First, they pay a greater share of property tax funding to PUSD. And, their schools don't get gifted by any redevelopment agency.

Jerry Brown has proposed eliminating redevelopment agencies. It cannot happen too soon. Since his proposal was made in January, redevelopment agencies went out and spent about $800 billion. $800 billion with interest is at least $1.5 trillion dollars. That translates into almost $750 billion dollars robbed from school districts. In just the first 4 months of this year. How can the state make up that kind of money to the schools?

Brown needed Republican votes to pass an urgency measure to dissolve redevelopment agencies. He only got one. There is still a chance that a bill to end redevelopment will be passed as an urgency measure. But if the bill is passed by a simple majority, it may not go into effect until January 2012, although it could possibly be implemented sooner if it is part of the whole budget package.

Once the state ends the redevelopment program, the redevelopment agencies will cease to exist. They will be replaced with successor agencies. The successor agencies will be tasked with paying off the redevelopment debt. PRA has about $250 million in redevelopment debt. So, some of the property tax from Poway properties will be diverted to pay off that debt. The schools will likely not get their full share until that debt is paid off. It remains to be seen how much the state will subsidize PUSD and the other schools while that debt (which is still accruing) is being paid off.

Don't worry. PUSD has a plan. They have endorsed legislation that would lower the percent needed to pass a parcel tax from 66 2/3 % to 55%. A parcel tax is a tax that is uniform for every parcel in the district. That means the owner of a 2-bedroom condo with carport in RB will pay the exact same amount as a 10 bedroom Poway mansion with 6-car garage. The parcel tax can be used to pay for teacher salaries and operating expenses.

For years, PUSD has benefitted from redevelopment. They have gotten the state to make up the money they lost to PRA, while getting gifts bought with the money PRA diverted. It was almost too good to be true. Apparently they never stopped to think about what would happen when the state could no longer make up the millions and trillions of dollars that redevelopment agencies have diverted from schools. Or how much redevelopment debt is borrowed debt that encumbers future school funding. The state can't print money. If the burden becomes to big, the state cannot fill in the funding for the schools. We are already there and there are still billions and trillions to pay off. That means RB, PQ, Carmel Mtn Ranch and 4S Ranch are going to have to continue to pay a disproportionate share of PUSD school funding and they may end up paying an additional regressive parcel tax just so Poway Redevelopment Agency could keep the property tax from Wal-Mart, Home Depot and the north Poway mansions.

An Open Letter to PUSD School Board

2011-04-14T21:31:00.000-07:00

Dear PUSD Board Members: Todd Gutschow, Penny Rantfle, Linda Vanderveen, Andy Patapaw, and Marc Davis,

Times are tough. Teachers and other non-teaching staff have taken pay cuts and furloughs. Programs have been cut. The classrooms are getting more crowded. As if this wasn't enough, the governor is planning to defer funds that are owed to the school district. You are planning to take out a loan to cover the costs until the deferred funds finally arrive.

I certainly can sympathize with School Board President Penny Ranftle when she complained that the new governor's budget "wasn't good enough". Certainly, the budget shortchanges schools and everything else. But what is Jerry Brown supposed to do? He can't print money like the feds.

The primary method of funding schools has been through property taxes. For the last 28 yrs or so, property taxes collected in Poway have been diverted from the schools. And yet, I have never heard Mrs. Rantfle or any other PUSD school board member complain about that.

Redevelopment is the program that diverts property taxes from the schools and local governments. Redevelopment is a state program that was meant to revitalize poor, blighted urban areas. The state allowed cities and counties to form a redevelopment agency to "clean up urban blight". The redevelopment agencies get to keep any new property taxes from new developments in the agency area. There are now about 420 redevelopment agencies in the state of California and they suck up 12% of all property taxes collected in the state.

In San Diego County, redevelopment agencies are diverting about $400 million in property taxes each year. About half of that would be going to the schools if there were no redevelopment agencies. San Diego County redevelopment agencies divert just under 11% of all property taxes, a little bit less than the statewide average. Poway's Redevelopment Agency manages to divert about 50% of all property taxes. How did Poway manage to do this? In 1983, when they formed their redevelopment agency, Poway put an astounding 8200 acres of mostly undeveloped land in their agency area. When developments like Old Coach Estates, Bridlewood, Rancho Arbolitos, and the entire Industrial Park were built, the new property taxes went to the Poway Redevelopment Agency instead of to schools and local services.* I estimated that the schools are currently losing about $19 million/yr from the diversion of property tax to Poway's Redevelopment Agency.

It is true that Poway uses some redevelopment money to spiffy up the schools. The Performing Arts Center, various sports fields, and multipurpose rooms have been built with redevelopment funds. Getting new athletic facilities is nice, but it isn't equivalent to PUSD getting $19 million/yr to spend as they see fit for academic programs like reading, mathematics, and science.

As part of his budget, Governor Jerry Brown plans to eliminate the redevelopment agencies and pay off their debts and return funding to the schools. Of course all of the cities with redevelopment agencies complained quite loudly. Not unexpected. They can borrow millions and billions of dollars every year without voter approval to build shopping centers, stadiums, golf courses, and car dealerships. They can pay it back over the next 25-40 years with all the property tax that they steal from the schools.

Perhaps you don't really understand the enormity of the brewing disaster. Do you remember that "doubling a penny"exercise? The first day you give someone a penny, the second day you give him 2 pennies, the third day you give him 4 pennies, the fourth day you give him 8 pennies, etc. In 30 days, you will have given him over $10 million dollars. That's a great exercise to explore the concept of exponential growth. Redevelopment agencies property tax grab is also growing exponentially. It isn't doubling every day like the pennies, but it is growing exponentially. In 1970, only 2% of all property taxes were diverted to redevelopment agencies, By 1980, the percentage doubled to 4%. By 1995, it doubled again to 8%. Currently, redevelopment agencies are grabbing 12% of all the property tax. That's unsustainable. No governor is going be able to make up an ever increasing diversion of property tax funds from the schools.

I haven't heard a single peep out of any PUSD official in support of Brown's plan to eliminate redevelopment agencies and return the property tax money to the schools and local government. I am wondering why the cat has got your tongues. I did notice that you all are supporting a lower threshold to get a parcel tax measure passed. Really? Parcel taxes are regressive. A parcel tax levies the same fee on a mansion with 6-car garage as it does on a 2-bedroom condo with carport. I would not be able to support a taxation system which diverts property taxes to help build car dealerships and shopping centers and then makes up the money with new taxes that affect the little guy way more than the richer folks.

If redevelopment agencies are axed, I would begrudgingly support a 5-yr extension of taxes that are set to expire. I don't like having to do that to make up for shoveling tax money to rich developers over the last couple of decades, but at least the tax extensions are only for 5 yrs (unlike a new parcel tax). The Republicans have refused to put the tax extensions on the ballot, unless their long list of demands were met. Have you seen this list? Some of the items would affect the teachers you employ. In particular, the Republicans want pension reforms that would affect current and future employees. They want to increase the health and pension costs that teachers pay and to decrease or delay pension benefits. They want voters to get to vote on any pension increases. (Uh, so they are for voters to decide pension issues, but not tax issues????) They want the pension based on the highest 5 yr average, and to be capped. They also want to reform teacher seniority rules allowing layoffs based on performance instead of seniority. Where does PUSD stand on these issues? Do they support them? Did anyone from the PUSD board lobby any legislator to get the tax extensions on the ballot with or without this list of demands being met?

I am pleased to hear that a local chapter of Service Employees International Union ( SEIU ) will be marching at a May 13th rally to "bring not just education but the government back to the people." Will anyone from the PUSD board be marching with them? It is kind of late, but at least it would be a start at advocating "for the kids".

Sincerely,

Chris Cruse

* Property owners in these developments do pay for school bond issues. In this article I am not referring to bond issues that add additional tax to the regular 1% property tax bill.

"It's mine...my own...my precious"

2011-03-24T22:04:00.000-07:00

In January, Gov. Brown announced his intention to get rid of redevelopment agencies as part of his plan to balance the state budget. Brown planned (and still plans) to dissolve the agencies, pay off their debt, and redirect local property tax back to schools, safety services and other local entities that have been "robbed" by the redevelopment agencies.

Fears that the goose-that-lays-golden-eggs will soon be gone has redevelopment agencies taking actions to horde their assets and commit to spending future assets. In less than 3 months, California redevelopment agencies have issued over $770 million in new bonds, and committed billions to new development projects. Meanwhile, 19,000 California teachers got pink slips last week. The number of laid off teachers could grow higher. Much higher.

California's deficit is $26.6 billion dollars. Brown wants to make up the deficit, half with cuts and half with extensions of the temporary taxes that were enacted under Schwarzenegger, but he needs the votes of 4 GOP state legislators to get the tax extensions on the ballot. He is unlikely to get their votes. They keep expanding what they want for those votes. I think the GOP legislators are just messing with Brown. I don't think they have any intention of negotiating in good faith or voting to put the extensions on the ballot so people can choose between them or more cuts. They just want to see him fail, and if that means thousands of teachers lose their job, so be it.

Brown also needs to dissolve redevelopment agencies to get the budget balanced. What does redevelopment have to do with teacher's pink slips? Redevelopment grabs property taxes that normally would go to schools. The state has been giving extra money to schools to make up for the loss, but they can no longer afford to do that.

The chart below is from the County of San Diego's website and it shows how property taxes will be apportioned in FY 2010-2011. Click on the graph to make it larger.

Redevelopment agencies are taking $400 million of local property taxes in San Diego county. That is 10.7% of all property taxes in the county. That is a bit less than the statewide average of 12%. The percentage of property taxes that has been going to redevelopment agencies is increasing steadily. In 1970, only 2% of all property tax in California went to redevelopment agencies. By 1980, the percentage doubled to 4%. By 1995, it doubled again to 8%. And now we are at 12% statewide. It is possible that redevelopment could consume more than half of all property taxes, even more. The bonds that the redevelopment agencies sell have to be paid back with future property taxes.

After redevelopment agencies are dissolved, Brown plans to use some of the money to pay off their debt. The rest of the money will be distributed among the other local agencies. Eventually, after the debt is paid off, all of our local property taxes would be distributed to provide local services. If the money that is diverted to redevelopment agencies were proportionately redistributed to all other entities, here is what the distribution would look like for FY 2010-2011:

Schools would receive 5.3% more of the county's property taxes, in the 2010-2011 FY just in San Diego county. The school's share of that diverted $400 million is almost $200 million this year.

Poway's redevelopment agency took almost $40 million in diverted property tax last year. Almost half of that would have gone to the school district if Poway did not have a redevelopment agency. And while Poway does have an agreement with the school district to spend money on the performing arts center and some joint use sports fields, the amount of money Poway redevelopment agency has given the school district is NOWHERE near $19 million a year. That $19 million could be used for teacher's salaries instead of the $5 million or so that went for artificial grass and bond payments on the performing arts center.

Redevelopment agencies are taking money from more than schools; they are also taking from libraries, the county, special districts and the cities' own general funds. General fund money is what pays for police and fire and city workerbees. The City of San Diego just approved $4.1 billion in redevelopment spending, and that doesn't even include an estimated $800 million they want to spend for a new Charger's stadium. But San Diego also plans to cut back on city services because their general fund is hurting pretty bad. They can't even man all of their fire stations. The choice is clear. We can use our tax money for schools and safety services and local needs or we can use it to fund development projects, like stadiums, shopping centers and luxury golf courses.

It is kind of surprising that school districts and teacher's unions, and other city worker's unions and safety services unions haven't said "Boo!" while cities have gone on this gluttonous rampage, selling bonds and grabbing assets and moving them around to keep them from being used by the state to pay off the redevelopment agency's debts. Why so silent?Poway didn't run out and sell bonds, but they did have a special meeting last Friday at 7:30 A.M. They transferred 75 properties owned by their redevelopment agency to the city and to a new entity they created, a housing authority.

No kidding, a public housing authority?

Yes, Poway created a public housing authority. The same Poway that has supported legislation to allow cities like Poway to pay some other city to build our low income housing. The same Poway that tried to get Sandag to let Poway pay National City to build our fair share of low income apartments in the last housing distribution cycle. The same Poway that sold all of their mobile home parks because they wanted OUT of the affordable housing business. The same Poway that built retaining walls instead of using 20% of their redevelopment money to build low income apartments and got sued by the Legal Aid Society and lost. The same Poway that makes an annual declaration that they need an exemption to state law that requires them to allow granny flats to increase the supply of affordable housing. That same Poway decided they had to have a housing authority to replace the slums of Poway.

In order to create the Housing Authority, Poway first they had to declare by resolution, that there was a need for an authority to function in Poway. According to the California health and safety code 34242 and 34243

34242
The governing body may adopt a resolution declaring that there is need for a housing authority if it finds either of the following:
(a) That insanitary or unsafe inhabited dwelling accommodations exist in the county or city.

(b) That there is a shortage of safe or sanitary dwelling accommodations in such county or city available to persons of low income at rentals they can afford.

34243
In determining whether dwelling accommodations are unsafe or insanitary the governing body may take into consideration:

(a) The degree of overcrowding.
(b) The percentage of land coverage.
(c) The light, air, space, and access available to the inhabitants of such dwelling accommodations.
(d) The size and arrangement of the rooms.
(e) The sanitary facilities.
(f) The extent to which conditions exist in such buildings which endanger life or property by fire or other causes.

When Poway created their redevelopment agency in 1983, the council made a finding that 8200 acres of mostly undeveloped land was so badly blighted, that private enterprise alone could not successfully make a go of any development on it. The city used a program that was meant to help poor, urban communities spiffy themselves up while providing housing and jobs for poor people. Here we are, twenty eight years later and the city has done such a bang up job of creating housing and jobs for poor people that they now need to create a housing authority so poor people don't have to live in slum-like conditions.

To be fair, nobody in the city has really pretended that this housing authority is anything more than a greedy grab for as big a chunk of the taxpayer's pie as they think they can get. The dishonesty is in blaming the state for "stealing" local money. In fact, the real choice is about what our local property taxes should be used for. Should it be used for safety services, local municipal services,libraries and schools? Or should it be used for development projects that enrich the likes of the Spanoses, Moores and Waltons?

Redevelopment: Going...Going...

2011-02-24T14:36:00.000-08:00

Click on the map to enlarge it.

This is a map of Poway's Redevelopment Agency Area.

Most of the property taxes from the blue areas

goes to the redevelopment agency.

Remember Prop 22? It was a proposition on last November's ballot. The official title was the "Local Taxpayer, Public Safety, and Transportation Protection Act of 2010." Unofficially, it was referred to as the measure that would "tell the state to keep their hands off of our local tax money." Prop 22 was sponsored by the League of California Cities, of which Poway is a member. Poway's city manager, Penny Riley, was outspoken in support of the measure.

Prop 22 passed with over 60% voter approval. And why not? According to the official arguments in favor of Prop 22 in the voter guide, Prop 22 would keep the state from swiping money that was needed for for local police, fire and emergency services, libraries, road repairs and public transportation. Nowhere in the arguments for, or the rebuttal to arguments against Prop 22, did the proponents mention that Prop 22 would also prevent the state from taking back redevelopment funds.

Redevelopment is a state program that was set up 60 some years ago to wipe out urban blight and create affordable housing. Here's how it works: A city, like Poway, declares that an area is "blighted". Then they form a redevelopment area comprised of all the blighted properties.

Poway formed their redevelopment area in 1983. They identified 8200 acres within the city that were blighted, 75% of them were undeveloped land. At the time, Poway's redevelopment area was larger than San Diego's. One of the reasons Poway gave for such large swaths of undeveloped land being blighted was that they didn't have enough traffic signals on them.

Today, some of the most expensive real estate in Poway is located in the redevelopment area.

One of the reasons Poway wanted undeveloped land in their agency area is because Poway would get to keep any new property taxes that resulted from an increase of value to the land or from any developments built on that land. Instead of going to schools or to the state, that "tax increment" was and still is diverted to the redevelopment agency. For the fiscal year 2008-2009, Poway Redevelopment Agency got $38.9 million dollars in diverted property tax. There are over 400 redevelopment agencies in the state of California. The amount of property taxes diverted to redevelopment agencies is now 12 % of all the property taxes that are collected in the state.

Redevelopment agencies borrow lots of money to finance their blight-busting projects like car dealerships, Wal-Marts and other shopping centers, hotels and sports stadiums. They use the tax increment money to pay off the bonds and to pay the salaries of the city staff that double as redevelopment staff. The state has been forced to fund the schools because so much of the property tax has been diverted to these redevelopment agencies. Last year, the state just couldn't make ends meet, even with smoke and mirrors, so Arnold "stole" some redevelopment taxes to shore up the state coffers. That pissed off the cities and they retaliated by putting Prop 22 on the ballot.

In addition to approving Prop 22, the voters also elected Jerry Brown last November. The first thing Gov Brown did was make a new budget plan. In a surprise move, Brown announced that he planned to eliminate the 400+ redevelopment agencies and use the billions of dollars that redevelopment has been using (or abusing) to fund essential services, particularly for schools.

If you are a reader of my blog, you might remember that last year I sent a letter to Arnold (and every state legislator) suggesting some changes he might make to redevelopment agencies. I thought my ideas were pretty good, but dissolving the redevelopment agencies was something I never dreamed could happen. Brown's plan is way better than mine.

Brown may have been forced to go that route because Prop 22 doesn't give any wiggle room for wheeling and dealing with redevelopment agencies. The state can't take any redevelopment funds. Period. Just last week, the mayors of several cities got together and proposed a futile plan to try to save their redevelopment agencies. They want the state to sell $1.7 billion in new bonds and then the redevelopment agencies will chip in $200 million and 5 percent of their revenue each year to help pay off the bonds. That's a nonstarter because of the way they slipped redevelopment funds into Prop 22. It would take a public vote to undo it. Now Brown is forced to eliminate redevelopment agencies altogether. Sweet schadenfreude!

Brown's plan to shutter the redevelopment agencies isn't a done deal, but it is getting close to the finish line. The state and assembly budget committees are working on the final measure. Brown's plan for dissolving the redevelopment agencies was posted on the California Department of Finance's website yesterday (Feb 23).

In the meantime, cities have gone on a greedy multi-billion dollar spending spree, trying to beat Brown's March 1st deadline and lock up as much redevelopment cash and assets for their own jurisdictions. Recession, what recession? These guys will build a stadium and new town center in every city if you let them. But Brown is on to them. He plans to give the state a 3-year window to examine any redevelopment agency spending or activities from Jan 1st on. They better have followed all the rules and the proper procedures, dotted every "i" and crossed every "t", if they don't want to see their actions rescinded.

So, what does all this mean for Poway? If redevelopment agencies get axed, there will be big changes for Poway.

In FY 2009, income from regular property tax was $8.7 million v $37 million for redevelopment tax increment. 81% of Poway's property tax income was from redevelopment. Poway won't get that $37 million any more, although a portion of the tax increment (about 20%) will come back to the city's general fund as regular property tax. Ironically, redevelopment money cannot be used for fire, police and regular city services. But the portion of property tax that will come back to the general fund after Brown dissolves the redevelopment agencies can be used for those services.

According to the 2009/2010 Poway Redevelopment Agency Annual Report, the Poway Redevelopment Agency has $176 million in assets and $286 million in liabilities. Note: California cities are required to balance their budgets, but redevelopment agencies don't have to. In fact, they are required to go into debt. Brown's plan is to create a successor agency to the redevelopment agency that will pay off the debt in 3 yrs. I imagine that the successor agency will also sell off property and other assets to pay off the agency's debt.

Redevelopment supports about 9+ positions in the city. Redevelopment also sucks up city employees' time. Expect some staff cutbacks. With the staff freed up from planning shopping malls and moving car dealers around, maybe they can look into those lopsided sewer rates.

Poway redevelopment agency owns a lot of land that the city plans on using for affordable housing and/or commercial ventures, like the town center. On March 1 the city plans on forming a housing authority. After years of saying they want out of the affordable housing business, the city will now attempt to jump in in a very big way. Will it pass the Brown smell test? I don't know. Will the city be able to keep all of the land they bought by transferring it to the housing authority? I don't know.

If the city does form a housing authority, will it have to abide by state law that says affordable housing cannot be located in an area that is already over-saturated with such housing? Or will the housing authority be able to hide behind private developers to avoid that law?

What will happen to the agreement with Toyota? As a contractual agreement that was signed before Jan 1, it will likely be a valid agreement, but who will be the owner of the property that is leased to Toyota as the successor agency disposes of redevelopment property?

What about the Performing Arts Center? Is that still owned by the redevelopment agency? What will happen to agency owned property where there is a joint use?

Is McMillan still getting redevelopment tax increment? What happens with that deal?

Will the sewer fund ever get back all the money that was stolen from it and given to the redevelopment agency?

What will happen to all the bond sellers in Newport Beach without the billions they got from refinancing redevelopment debt?

The answers to these and many more questions are still unknown. Stay tuned in.

What did the November Election Mean?

2011-02-17T17:44:00.000-08:00

Poway politics is all about land use. Our city council makes no decisions about gay marriage, abortion, "death panels", gun control or "obamacare". They do make decisions about who gets variances, where apartments and affordable housing will be located, just how big of a Wal-Mart can be fit into our "downtown" and who gets to have an auto repair shop right next to their backyard.

Poway council positions are nonpartisan. But if they were, traditional parties like Democrat or Republican or even "Tea Party" wouldn't really fit. Poway political divisions are geographic: North v South and zonal: "large lot" v "small lot".

Poway really isn't the "city in the country", despite that being our motto. Poway is a suburb in the San Diego metropolitan area. We are not "country" in the sense that people living on rural acreage have farms or agriculture related entities as their primary business. Some do, but most do not. Most commute to a job in another city and they also shop and play somewhere besides Poway.

The "city" part of Poway is not the traditional urban area either. What city has such long blocks or sidewalks that abruptly end at entrances to retail establishments? The multifamily housing that is being built in Poway's urban area doesn't quite fit with the shallow commercial corridor that was designed from behind the steering wheel of a car. The "highest and best possible use" of the urban areas is to increase the revenue stream of Poway, not to enhance the quality of life of the people who live there. Quality of life is for north Poway.

Poway politics did not start out as North v South (or "big lot" people v. "small lot" people). Originally, it was us v the county. We incorporated to get control of our own destiny, especially to keep developers from foisting something crappy down our throats and near to our backyards. The first couple of years, we were all in the game together, at least, in my opinion.

Then three things happened. The first was that Poway formed a redevelopment agency in 1983. The second thing is that Don Higginson and Linda Brannon were elected to council in 1986, defeating incumbents Linda Oravec and Mary Shepardson. Higginsons and Brannon's election meant that the door was open for developers and that the entire Poway city council was from north Poway.

The third thing that happened was that North Poway got Prop FF passed. Prop FF was a very trickily worded proposition that primarily prevents any density increases, commercial or industrial development or any affordable apartments from being built in north Poway. We were no longer "in this together". South Poway has struggled to get a fair shake ever since. Most of the decisions about land use in south Poway are made by people who live in north Poway and do not have to deal with the consequences of their decisions.

People in south Poway do not feel well represented. The November 2010 election results clearly demonstrate that the results in both the council and mayoral elections correlate with both the north/south divisions and big lot/small lot divisions. Click on the map to make it larger.

In the race for mayor, incumbent Don Higginson won with 54%. Nick Stavros, the challenger got 46% of the vote. Those results are the closest results ever for a mayoral re-election in Poway. Last time Higginson won by a landslide. Not so this time. Stavros, like Higginson, is a north Powegian. But he tapped into the angst and dissatisfaction that is more predominate in south Poway. When I graphed the results on a precinct map, I found that the results were very zonal and correlate to the land use. Precincts that are predominately zoned for large lots went for Higginson in a strong way, especially in the northern part of the city. On the other hand, Stavros' support was strongest in small lot/ south Poway, particularly in the areas near to Poway Rd.,Community and Midland Rds. The only part of South Poway that Higginson did particularly well in was part of Rancho Arbolitos.

The same pattern shows up in the council race. Click on the map to make it larger.

Incumbents John Mullin and Carl Kruse both did far better in north Poway than in south Poway. Challengers Dave Grosch and Pete Babich were just the opposite. Their strength was in south Poway. The precincts that were most unhappy with the incumbents were the precincts near to the Arbolitos Sports Field and the precincts near to Poway, Community and Midland Rd.

John Mullin did the best of all the candidates. He did particularly well in the big lot areas of north Poway. He came through and got their water rates reduced. Advantage to the big lots. He is their guy.

Carl Kruse also voted to restructure the water rates, but Carl didn't even bother campaigning. I would also like to point out that Carl Kruse has never once even responded to my emails about the unfair sewer rates.

Pete Babich and Dave Grosch's results are similar, although Grosch's numbers are stronger. Grosch's election is an upset. It is only the second election in Poway history where an incumbent lost. This time, an incumbent north Powegian lost and was replaced by a south Powegian.

So what does it all mean?

Does Poway need term limits? District elections?

Is the south now ascending?

My best guess is that south Poway will still be under-represented for a long time. This election was unique because the death of Mickey Cafagna and the recall of Betty Rexford got rid of some oldies from the council and opened the door to some newbies. Well, at least one newbie. Mullin has been around for awhile, but Grosch is a new face. Term limits and/or district elections would be a useful way of shaking things up every once in a while and possibly getting someone in who listens to the folks in south Poway, as well as to the folks in north Poway. The real problem with electing the same people over and over again is that they become tone deaf to all but their base, and they quit even pretending to care about the rest of us.

Term limits will be discussed at the council this Tuesday. If you support or oppose term limits, please send an email to the council and share your thoughts with them. There is a chance that the new guy just might listen.

"Tis The Season...to Save on Your Sewer Bill

2010-12-04T21:20:00.000-08:00

We don't have sewer meters in Poway.

Yet, on every bill we get charged a "sewer commodity charge".

Sometimes the sewer fees and sewer commodity charge make up more than half our bills.

Since we do not have sewer meters, how does the city know how much to charge us?

They guess.

The guess is based entirely on a customer's water use during a 2-month period in the wintertime. Water use during the rest of the year doesn't affect your sewer bills at all. To lower your sewer bill, you need to lower consumption during your special 2-month lowest winter water period.

Note: The City of Poway uses an entirely different method to calculate sewer consumption for apartments and condos. This post only refers to sewer fee calculations and hints for single family homes.

The exact methodology the city uses involves averaging the lowest wintertime water use from the last 3 years and then multiplying that average times 85%. So, if your lowest winter water use in the last 3 yrs was 18 units, 10 units and 15 units, the average would be 14.3 units. Multiply that times 85% = 12.2 units. 12.2 units puts a customer just into Tier 3 of sewer billing, which currently costs $76.25 each billing cycle. If this same customer reduced his/her water consumption by just 1 unit during that time, his/her average would drop him/her to Tier 2 which costs just $50.65 each billing period. That's $153.60/yr less, just for reducing water consumption a little bit during a 2-month period in the wintertime.

Lower sewer fees will go into effect in January, but the pricing between the lower tiers is still pretty steep and makes it worthwhile to reduce water consumption for a limited period to get in, or stay in a lower sewer tier.

How do you know when your special 2-month lowest wintertime use is? For almost everyone, it will be in Dec & Jan or Jan & Feb. I get my water bills in Jan/Mar/May/July?Sept/Nov.

My lowest water use is always in the March bill, which covers the 2-month period in January and February. People who get their bills in Feb/April/June/Aug/Oct/Dec will likely find that Dec/Jan is their special 2-month period when it will pay to reduce water consumption.

To determine the exact day the special period starts, you have to know when the meter reader reads your bill. I called the city and gave them the first 3 digits of my account number. They told me what week the meter reader will come, but if I want to know the exact day, I think I will have to employ some of the same strategies I used to keep an eye on my liquor bottle(s) when I had teenagers around. I will need something bigger than a hair laid across the meter cover. Maybe a stick will work, or a piece of tape across the hole in the cover. Barring that, I may just have to count on the whole week being in the conservation period.

Below are some Poway Blog hints for reducing water consumption during the 2-month period:

1. The Garden. Turn off all irrigation. Don't turn it on unless you really need to. Autumn rains have been really helpful so far, but if late December looks like a long dry spell, I will water my landscaping before my 2-month low-water-use period starts. That way, I will be able to coast as long as possible without irrigating. Keep an eye on potted plants. They may need hand watering.

If you are going to plant new plants or a new lawn area, wait until after your 2-month period is over. Then you will be able to keep them watered in a dry spell.

2. Don't change your pool water. At lot of my water-wise hints are really about timing. If you need to empty and fill the pool, do it before or after your 2-month low winter-water use period.

3. Showers. Take shorter showers or less frequent showers. Shower at the club, school, wherever else you can. Promise your teenager that if they take short, quick showers during this 2-month period, you won't nag them about long showers for the rest of the year. Those long showers might cost a buck or two more here or there, but getting bumped up from tier 2 to tier 3 costs $150 more per yr for the next 3 yrs. in sewer fees.

4. Laundry. Don't change the sheets as often. Let the laundry pile up at the end of the 2-month low winter water period until your meter has been read.

5. Recycle. I'm not a big fan of carrying water out of the bathroom in buckets to use in the yard. Maybe it is because I don't have an enormous amount of room in the bathroom to share with a bunch of buckets and pails. Large buckets of water can also be deadly with small children around. But I will stick an empty trash can under a gutter leak. If it rains a lot, the can will swell and look like it is going to explode, so I transfer some of the water into some empty containers. I'm not going to leave water stagnating for months to attract mosquitos, but for a short period, I will save it for use elsewhere in the yard, especially for potted plants.

6. Kitchen. Throw potato peelings and other kitchen food waste into the trash instead of running the disposal. Yeah, it fills up the landfills sooner, but guess what they do with all the green waste that is collected? They throw it on top of the other trash in the landfill. Kitchen scraps will decompose just as readily as green waste, so if nobody is worried about the green waste, they better not cry about kitchen scraps in the garbage.

7. Vacations. Plan your vacation so you will be out-of-town during this 2-mo period. And be sure to take a shower that last morning in a hotel or at a friend's house.

Try to get relatives to come to visit at another time. Ha! Ha! We actually don't do this ourselves. We seem to have company at this time every year, so I do the best I can to get the sheets and linens washed and ready to put up before the 2-month period. One or two showers by our guest won't throw us off that much.

These are our favorite strategies for keeping our water use low during the sewer calculation period. What strategies do you use?

We'll Play on Your Grass But We Won't Sleep in Your Hotels

2010-12-02T10:36:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I talked about the years we spent coaching a youth soccer team. Our team was a "recreational" team. All of our players lived in Poway. All of our games were in Poway until the kids got older. When the kids got older, they played against teams from nearby cities, but all of the kids on the Poway teams were from Poway . Our season was from August 'til early December. We could sign up for tournaments during Thanksgiving break or after the regular season. We did that once or twice.

Some Poway parents wanted a more competitive experience for their kids. They formed a club called the "Vaqueros", which became the competitive branch of the Poway Youth Soccer League (PYSL). Back then, there were only a few teams. Today, the Vaqueros have over 25 teams of youth players. The Vaqueros teams are further subdivided into green teams and white teams, the green teams being the more skilled. The teams have professional, paid coaches. Here is what the Vaqueros website says about the green teams:

Green Teams: Green teams are comprised of the top talent in each of the specific age groups. A professionally trained and licensed coach is assigned to the team to provide education and training at the highest level and must meet certain requirements relating to their soccer background. Green team players are selected based on their desire to commit to the team for an entire season, which could be anywhere from 7 to 10 months, and will involve participation in local, and out of town tournaments, including regional and state competitions. Participation on a Green team is a serious physical, emotional, and financial commitment.

The white teams also have professional coaches and play for a "7 month season". The hope is that their skills will improve enough to make it on to a green team. Many of the kids who play on the green and white Vaqueros teams are not local Poway kids. They are kids from nearby communities who want (or whose parents want them) to have some serious soccer training. The intensity of this training means that these kids spend a lot of time on the soccer field, and a lot of soccer fields are necessary to meet the needs of the kids who are accepted into the Vaquero program.

Poway's General Plan was written back in the days when we had a recreational youth soccer club in town, where Poway players played for a 4 month season against other Poway players. The General Plan doesn't provide for enough park space for a semi-professional sports league that trains kids from a regional area almost year round. Poway Youth Soccer League (PYSL) is well organized and has used their organizational ability to pressure the Poway City Council to light several fields, including Arbolitos, to accommodate their interests. Lighting Arbolitos has hit a snag because the people who bought homes overlooking what was originally designated open space weren't too happy about having the sports fields there. And they are even madder now that the city has reneged on their promise to never light the fields. One resident, Peter De Hoff, filed a suit against the city. De Hoff claims that the city did not follow the correct procedure in making the decision to light the fields. What? We pay our city manager and staff top dollar and they don't bother to follow some basic legal procedures?

I'm gonna leave it up to the court to tell the city whether they needed to do a biological study before they made the decision to light the fields, although that one seems like a "no-brainer," as a certain member of our council is fond of saying. I want to focus on a different aspect of the Arbolitos lighting controversy.

In an Oct 21, 2010 letter to the editor in the Poway News Chieftain, Laura Van Tyne contends that Poway neighborhoods should give up their parks and open space for a sports business that caters to out-of-towners because it helps the Poway economy.
The PYSL has less than 1,400 members. It’s true that there are a number of non-Poway players. However,I would like to point out that most attend PUSD schools.

When parents drop off their child at practice many spend the hour shopping, doing errands, and then eating in restaurants within the city of Poway. This generates revenue for our local businesses that would otherwise go to businesses out of Poway.

I don't think this argument has any merits. First of all, what does it matter if the non-Poway kids are from PUSD? Their parents aren't paying for the upkeep of our parks if they don't live in Poway. Second, let me note that these lighted sports field are not located in north Poway neighborhoods. If you are a regular reader of Poway Blog, you might notice one of my recurring memes: land use in north Poway is for quality of life; in south Poway, it is for revenue generation. I take offense to the idea that south Poway should give up their open space and parks to kids from north Poway and non-Poway communities because their parents might shop in Poway and produce revenue for the city while doing so.

Outsiders shouldn't own our parks on the pretense that they will shop in our stores. I don't even believe that they shop in our stores. Most of north Poway doesn't even shop in Poway. And you want me to believe that these soccer moms and dads are shopping in Poway and not heading off to Carmel Mtn Ranch or RB after they drop off the kids?

I have evidence that the Poway Youth Soccer Club doesn't even think about promoting Poway businesses. Last weekend, the Poway Youth Soccer Club hosted a tournament called "Poway Country Shootout". Teams had to pay $300- $350 to play in the tournament. All of the games were played at Arbolitos, Meadowbrook and Valley School fields, fields in south Poway where the City of Poway has spent millions of dollars to install artificial turf, lights and/or to maintain the fields. Although most of the teams that entered the tournament were from nearby communities, out-of-the-area teams were invited too. On their web page, the Poway Youth Soccer League suggested that these teams stay at hotels in Rancho Bernardo and Scripps Ranch. Not a single one of the three Poway hotels was on their list, even though they were closer to the sports fields where the tournament was held.

Shop Poway? Naahhhh, not PYSL.

What's A Park For?

2010-11-10T16:49:00.000-08:00

Part 1: Our Soccer Years

Note: This is the first part of a 3-part series.

Before we moved to Poway in 1976, our family lived in an apartment in San Diego. The only "open space" in the apartment complex was a communal concrete patio. Fortunately, we lived within walking distance of a park, and biking distance of the bay and ocean. On weekends, we enjoyed visiting the zoo, museums and the aquarium. We missed those amenities when we moved to Poway, but we loved our quiet neighborhood and all of the open space.

Our house was a brand new house. The yard was bare dirt. During our first year, we spent an enormous amount of time planting a few trees and a garden and a lawn so our kids would have somewhere to play. We also built a "play structure" in the backyard to entertain the kids. Our friendly mailman, Kent Miller, told us about the Poway Soccer Club. My husband and I signed up our 5 yr. old son and soon found ourselves coaching his team, the Spirits. For the next 14 yrs., our life from August through early December revolved around soccer. Twice a week practice, Saturday games.

Saturday Morning, circa 1977

Big brother in his soccer gear.

Little sister with a bag of "goodies" to keep her entertained.

Mostly we practiced at Valley School. The playground was lined by huge shade trees that are gone now. We would warm-up in their cool canopy and hope a breeze would kick up before we started drills. As the kids got older, the practice field got more crowded. There were more kids playing. And lots of them were younger kids who might get hurt if one of my players let loose with a full strength kick. So we moved our practices to a field at Meadowbrook School.

The Meadwbrook field was in terrible shape. There were divits and gopher holes everywhere. But it had one big attraction. The only other team practicing there on the same days we were, was a girls team. Of about the same age.

It became our "tradition" to scrimmage the girls on rainy days, instead of calling off practice. The boys would phone me to make sure I extended an invitation to the girls, and they would never forget to remind me to ask the girls to wear white T-shirts. You know, so we didn't have to do "shirts and skins". Uh, right.....

Rainy Tournament, 1985

Were we crazy or what?

The first time my boys team scrimmaged the girls I was worried that someone might get hurt. The girls were just as quick and wily, but the guys could really slam that ball pretty hard. And they could take each other down pretty aggressively. My worries were unnecessary. Without any instruction from me, the boys all took some edge off their game. The only slide tackling was done by the girls. This afforded the girls a much better opportunity to improve their game than it did for my guys, but it never seemed to diminish the guys hopes that it would rain on our practice days.

Championship Tournament, 1989

We silkscreened and airbrushed our own "away" shirt

We thought it was s-o-o-o cool.

The referee was not impressed.

A couple of times we managed to get the opportunity to play in the sports arena during halftime of a Sockers game. One time, the boys decided to invite the girl's team as their opponents. After a few minutes of play, everyone realized something was off. So, they juggled the teams. Half the boys switched to the girls team and half the girls came over to our side. Both sides figured out their own substitutions. The coaches and the referee had nothing to do but chat with each other. The kids had a ball. Literally and figuratively. We all went out to pizza afterwards. I was so proud of them. My boys (and I think the girls team also) were quite skilled and had won their division from time to time. We played hard and well and won more than our share of the games. Yet, as a youth coach, I had no illusion that my role was to prepare these kids to be professional soccer players. One of my goals for my team was that the players would have a lifelong love for the game and be able to play with people of different skill levels and genders on a recreational level. I felt like I accomplished that.

The Spirits, 1989

From time to time, my husband and I run into one of the boys we coached. Most of them are almost 40 yrs old now and have kids of their own. They tell us that they have fond memories of those years. We do too. There were a few sad moments too, like the time nobody came to pick up one of the players after practice and we had to drive him to a bar on Poway Rd. to find his mother. But for the most part, coaching was a lot of work and a lot of fun.

It's been almost 20 yrs since we last coached a soccer game. Today, more kids are playing soccer. And they aren't just playing during the August- Dec season like we did. Lots of them are playing year round. In addition to the recreational teams, the Poway Soccer Club has several diffrent levels of competitive teams. Our boys team played in the competitive circuit because they had won their recreational division. But in those days we did not have paid professional coaches, as the kids do today. The competitive teams are looking for the very best players, so kids who live outside of Poway also try out for and become players on those teams. There weren't enough practice fields when we played and there certainly aren't enough now that playing soccer has become practically a full time occupation for some kids and with the number of kids from outside of Poway who are playing on Poway teams.

The number of kids playing baseball and softball has also grown, not to mention that there are newer sports leagues in town: rugby and lacrosse. It all adds up to a lot of needed fields.

They start them pretty young nowadays.

Diaper changes at half time?

Poway has also changed too. In the last 20 yrs., almost all of the new housing has been what I would refer to as housing extremes: McMansions in the north or low income, subsidized "affordable" apartments in south Poway.

Many of the McMansions have ample space on their lot for their own personal park. Heck, some people have enough room for their own personal ball field on their lot. And there is so much land up there, that the neighbors can barely see it. How cool is that?

People who live in the affordable apartments of South Poway don't have a backyard of their own. The common grounds areas are small and don't provide much of a place to play. If the kids kick or throw a ball on the grounds, their family can be kicked out. Their families need to go to public, communal parks in order for the kids to let off some steam. The also need public park space for all the other things that people use a backyard for: birthday parties, picnics, family gatherings, neighborhood shindigs and just to hang out in the fresh air.

Kids in apartment houses aren't the only ones who need parks. People who live in trailers and small lots have a need for a public park in lieu of having a backyard or a children's play area of their own. And even people in McMansions can appreciate having public parks for "play dates" and for neighborhood interaction.

There is not enough park space in Poway to serve the needs of the sports community and there are not enough parks to fill the needs of the people who do not have a big backyard, or maybe even any backyard. Our community leaders, most of whom live on very large lots themselves, haven't really planned for enough park space. In the next decade, Poway will still be required to build apartment houses because Poway has opted to form a redevelopment agency. Where will the kids play? Where will the families hang out on a summer's evening? Even if the sports teams light every single practice field in every single neighborhood park, there still will not be enough park space for the sports teams and there will be no space for the people who do not have a backyard of their own.

One of the biggest mistakes our leaders made was not to require the developers of Old Coach Estates to build a large public park. In fact, the Old Coach developers didn't even have to pay the required "in lieu" fees instead of providing a park. Don Higginson suggested that they provide a few public tee times instead as their contribution to the recreation needs of the community, and the rest of the council agreed. Those tee times serve the needs of only a few privileged people and leave the rest of the community wanting. We need leaders who have the best interest of the whole community at heart.

Ginger Couvrette is the Poway Youth Soccer League program administrator. I've never met her. I am sure she is a very fine person and spends a lot of time trying to provide sports opportunities for kids in the area. Ms. Couvrette is on the City of Poway Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee. She advocates for more playing fields. Every year, the city formally assesses how much field space the sports teams need, and Ms. Couvrette assists with that. Mrs. Couvrette speaks for the sports community.

Ms Couvrette probably has little need of a park, other than for sports use. The front of her house faces a golf course. The back of her house also faces open space. Her backyard is ample enough for family gatherings and kid's activities. She certainly doesn't represent everyone in this community on the Parks and Rec council. Who does represents the apartment dwellers? Who assesses their needs? Anybody? Whose idea was it to give voice to the sports community and no voice at all to other park users? And whose idea was it to make these two groups fight it out with each other? And why do the sports people always want to take over neighborhood parks and open space in south Poway to meet their needs? We are the ones who most need our own open space and neighborhood parks for other purposes.

Daddy and Baby Hanging Out Together at Mission Bay Park, 1972

I've lived in an apartment and I've been an enthusiastic youth team coach. I can sympathize with both groups. We shouldn't be pitted one against the other. The park space conflict in Poway is the result of terrible planning. And some misguided city policies. If there are any solutions to our park problems, it won't be found by dressing up the kiddos in their soccer shirts and having them scream at council meetings. People are going to have to actually listen to each other and work together to pressure our community's leaders to work for both sports groups and non-sports park users.

In part 2 of this series, I hope to illustrate some of the ongoing pain-in-the-ass adventures our neighborhood has endured trying to keep Starridge Park a neighborhood park and not allow it to be turned into a sports park. In part 3, I plan to review the city's general plan, and some of the ordinances and policies that pertain to parks and show what a discordant mess they are. If you are along for the ride, don't feel shy about speaking up and added your comments to the dialogue.

Strange Bedfellows

2010-10-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

Bruce Tarzy is supporting John Mullin, Don Higginson, and Carl Kruse for Poway City Council.

Who'd of thunk it?

Tarzy, Mullin, Higginson and Kruse go way back in Poway politics. Tarzy was elected to the first council 30 yrs ago. Kruse was appointed 2 yrs later to fill the term of Clyde Rexrode, who died the day before he was re-elected. Mullin served on a committtee to advise the council whether Poway should form a redevelopment agency in 1983, and was chairman of the first official Redevelopment Advisory Committee in 1985. Higginson's was first elected nearly a quarter of a century ago. Their voices are not new voices in Poway politics. What is new is seeing old political foes regroup.

It is no surprise that Tarzy is supporting his longtime friend, Carl Kruse. They both served as officers of the Green Valley Civic Association (GVCA) and they even vacation together. Some people have said that Carl Kruse is Bruce Tarzy's personal council member.

It is surprising that Tarzy is supporting Higginson and Mullin. Back in the mid-1980s, one of the chief political issues was how Poway should grow. Tarzy (and Kruse) were on the side of slow, controlled growth. Mullin and Higginson were pushing for more development. In 1988, the 2 sides lined up behind competing ballot propositions, Prop FF (slow growth) and Prop GG (the developer's alternative). Prop FF was sponsored by a group called "Poway Citizens for Limited Growth". Bruce Tarzy, Jerry Hargarten and Bob Emery were key architects of Prop FF. The competing proposition, Prop GG, the "quality of life initiative" was written by council member Linda Brannon. Higginson and Mullin favored Prop GG.

Before I get into the Prop FF-GG contest, I want to paint a little picture of what Poway was like in those days. There was no industrial park in the hills of south Poway. There was no Old Coach development or Maderas gold course. Scripps Poway Parkway, known as "alternate this" or "alternate that", was only a pencil mark on a map. The houses in the Arbolitos development were just starting to show up on the horizon. A brand spanking new shopping center, anchored by a Target store just opened. There was no Wal-Mart. Our original "town center", Creekside, was a grazing area for cows. There was nothing between the Poway city limits and the freeway except open space.

When Poway incorporated in 1980, one of the first things the council did was to impose a building moratorium until a new development plan was approved. The first council was dedicated to keeping Poway rural and controlling growth.

In the 1986 election, Don Higginson and Linda Brannon defeated Linda Oravec and Mary Shepardson, two of the original Poway councilmembers. This was the only election that any incumbent Poway council member ever lost. The moment marked a major shift in Poway politics. Higginson and Brannon were both considered "pro-growth" in a community that had incorporated, largely to control their own growth.

In the 1988 election, Bruce Tarzy (who had decided not to run for re-election) and Bob Emery (who was running for re-election) teamed up to write and support a proposition that was later named Prop FF on the ballot. Tarzy and Emery hoped to prevent future councils, ones with the likes of, ummm, say a Brannon or Higginson, from being able to ruin their vision of what Poway should look like.

As a competing measure, Brannon wrote Prop GG, the "quality of life" initiative, the kind of thing developers love. Higginson and Mullin supported Prop GG.

Prop GG qualified for the ballot after paid signature gatherers obtained the necessary number of signatures. The council passed resolution 88-085 on August 2, 1988, thereby putting Prop FF on the ballot.

A few days before the election, a group of five Poway residents delivered a letter to City of Poway special counsel complaining about some campaign hanky panky between Bob Emery's election committee and Poway Citizens for Limited Growth, the committee that was formed to get Prop FF passed by the voters. Specifically, the group claimed that Bob Emery's campaign committee was controlling the Prop FF committee (Poway Citizens for Limited Growth) and that they were sharing campaign expenses.

(The Tribune. San Diego, Calif.: Nov 3, 1988. pg. B.8)

The seven-page letter contends that Emery's committee controls the FF committee and has violated Poway's campaign-finance laws by collecting contributions above the $100 amount allowed for controlled committees.
...snip....
The complaint given to Knoepp contends that Poway Citizens for Limited Growth became a "controlled committee" Sept. 24, when two airplane banners touting Emery and Proposition FF flew over Poway during the city's Poway Days celebration.
...snip...
The difference in the shared cost indicates that the Emery committee controls the Proposition FF committee's financing, the five said.
When a committee is considered "controlled," under Poway's campaign ordinance, a contributor can give no more than $100 to each campaign.
According to campaign disclosure statements filed with the Poway city clerk, nine contributors have given $100 or more to the Emery re-election committee and $100 or more to the committee for Proposition FF, which would require voter approval to increase density in rural residential areas. Three people, including Councilman Bruce Tarzy, have given the $100 maximum to Emery and $500 or more to Poway Citizens for Limited Growth.

Hmmmm. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? It is a classic campaign maneuver. Just before the election, one or several of a candidate's supporters file a letter of complaint against their candidate's opponent. The complaints get some press, and it goes to a special counsel who holds off on looking at the complaint until after the election and then he/she dismisses it.

One of the 5 people who signed the letter of complaint against Emery and the Prop FF committee was John Mullin. Mullin's complaints against Emery and the Prop FF committee were found to be without merit. But for the record, special counsels appointed to oversee election complaints generally dismiss all of the complaints. Serious complainers must file a signed grievance with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). During that same 1988 election, somebody did send a couple of complaints to the FPPC that resulted in stipulations and fines. One was against Emery's opponent, Larry Valente and the other was against developer Kuebler. Valente was fined $1500 for sending a late campaign mailer titled "The Republican Update"which did not identify Valente's committee as the true source of the piece. Richard Kuebler, a Poway developer, was fined for $17,500 for not disclosing campaign donations in Escondido and for failing to identify himself as the source of two "hit piece" mailers against Bob Emery.

Prop FF beat Prop GG 2-1 in the election. The rest is history.

Fast forward to 2010. Why is a slow growth guy like Tarzy supporting his old pro-development enemy, John Mullin? Mullin has made no secret that he wants to make development easier in Poway. He has proposed a "streamlining process" as a first step. The streamlining will allow staff to approve projects that now require public notice and council approval.

John Mullin is also a member of CALPASC, (California Professional Association of Specialty Contractors). In fact, Mullin is on Government Affairs Committee of CALPASC. When Poway Patch's Margie Palmer queried Mullin about his involvement in this group, Mullin didn't see the inherent conflict of interest.

"My being a member of Cal-PAC is no different than me being a member of the Chamber of Commerce," Mullin said. "It's a trade association. And people who continue to propose that having some sort of significance with regard to my role on the council are incorrect."

Uhmmm, no. CALPASC is not simply a trade association like the local Chamber of Commerce. Now if Mullin was referring to the US Chamber which spend buckets of money, some of it from foreign entities, to influence legislation in the US that is advantageous for businessfolk and disadvantageous for workers, well he may have a point. While the local Poway Chamber does advocate for their members, they don't bring it to the level that CALPASC does. Check out their CALPASC's webpage. They have paid lobbyists who help write and push for certain legislation, de-regulation and judicial remedies. Our local chamber is doing street fairs, not filing "amicus briefs" in court on behalf of contractors.

According to Cal-Access, the California Secretary of State's database, CALPASC has hired 2 firms to lobby for them: Government Strategies, Inc, (2003-2009) and California Strategies & Advocacy, LLC (2009-2010). CALPASC spent just under $300,000 lobbying in 2007-2008 and have reported over $73,000 spent so far in 2009-2010.

It is pretty unethical to be on a legislative body, even a local legislative body and to belong to a group that is lobbying for legislative remedies at the same time.

So why is Bruce Tarzy supporting John Mullin for council? I've got a theory, but I'll save that for a future blog. What's your theory?

John Mullin's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea*

2010-10-13T20:22:00.000-07:00

Mina De Oro Gate

It's already started.

John Mullin, who replaced Betty Rexford in the June, 2010 recall election, is a man on a mission and he isn't wasting any time. Mullin is a developer and a developer's best friend. His goal is to grease the skids for developers, so they can do what they want without any governmental body telling them they have to do it this way or that way.

In the agenda for the October 19, 2010 Poway City Council meeting, there is a memorandum initiated by Councilmember Mullin proposing a "streamlining process." Mullin is proposing that city staff be given the authority to approve certain decisions that currently require council approval. Yes, this would speed the approval process for a development project, but it is a really terrible, horrible, no good, very bad* idea for several reasons.

First, many of the Poway city staff are "at will" employees. They can be hired or fired "at will." So, when a project proposed by an influential friend of a council member or city boffo comes up, there can be a lot of pressure on the staff. Are they gonna go with strict compliance to the rules or do they want to keep their job?

Second, these issues can and do cause a lot of neighborhood conflict, ill will and court suits. Not to mention staff turnover. Decisions that are not made through a public process are easily perceived to be (and often are) biased. Council members or other high level city staff will be tempted to throw their weight around to benefit their friends without the public being aware.

You think it doesn't happen?

Have you forgotten the recall stories? Remember that fire truck story? Supposedly, Betty Rexford got her own fire truck while someone else's house burned down. If that was true, (and I didn't see any proof that it was) then the fire department was easily coerced into providing a favor to a councilmember who wasn't even all that powerful. Poway has refused to clear the air about this incident, or to publicly address whether the incident did or did not take place or to discuss what steps to take to prevent something like that from happening in the future.

The trigger for the Rexford recall was a court suit filed by Rexford's neighbors. The neighbors

claimed that Rexford used city staff to harass them and interfere with their building projects.

Rexford claims she didn't. The city settled out-of-court. Several of the planners that were involved in the case are no longer working for the city. Mullin wants to put more pressure on the staff to make decisions without public notice or council oversight. That's a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad* idea.

While I have immense sympathy for the first time remodeler (I've been there) or someone who has great business plans but is totally confounded by the rules and regulations of getting set up in Poway, I have no soft spots in my heart for developers. I am sure that there are some ethical ones, but more often than not, they use every sneaky trick in the book to get around the rules.

Consider our former mayor, who was a developer. He bought a piece of property that was real cheap because it had some environmental constraints on it. It had protected vernal pools on it. Someone from his company managed to get a City of San Diego staff person to give them a grading permit one day and Cafagna destroyed those vernal pools.

In December 1999, owners of a protected vernal pool site off Arjons Drive, north of downtown San Diego in Mira Mesa, bulldozed a significant portion of the parcel, scrapping off native vegetation and filling in fragile pool basins. Destruction of a protected vernal pool site is a violation of state and federal Endangered Species Acts and would ordinarily be a clear signal for prosecution. However, in this situation, the City of San Diego issued a grading permit without first checking their files and completing a proper investigation. In response, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game coauthored a letter informing the city it violated state and federal regulations in addition to San Diego’s own municipal code for issuing permits. The pools were protected in the 1980’s by an agreement approved by the Fish and Wildlife Service with the land’s former owner and that information was communicated during the sale via a signed letter from both real estate brokers involved. Responsible parties claimed ignorance and Michael Cafagna, co-owner of the property, denied any wrongdoing. In late 2002, San Diego County prosecutors quietly dropped the case.

This is the "oopsie" method of getting around the rules. "Oops, did I just grade vernal pools? Oh, sorry, but since they are all wrecked, can I have a building permit?" Cafagna didn't get his building permit that time, but the "oops" trick has been quite successful in Poway.

Whether it is building a garage in the front setback (because it doesn't otherwise fit) and then declaring that someone "mis-measured" and it would be too expensive to rip it down or chopping down heritage trees early one morning on a weekend when code compliance officiers were not available, well, it is all good in Poway. And Mullin wants to make it even better.

In 1993, Bruce Tabb, developer of Old Coach, was ticked off because he thought the Old Coach property was identified as "high quality vegetation" on Sandag maps. With Councilmember Higginson in his office, Tabb called up Poway city planner, Jim Nessel, and "lambasted" him for "not acting in his best interest or appropriately representing him as a property owner in Poway." Tabb even put Higginson on the phone (quasi-judiciality not concerning him here?) to pressure the staff member.

Nessel was POd enough about the experience to write a memo to City Manager Bowersox. A little note at the end also suggested that Tabb had cleared his property 3 times, but staff had only been aware of 2 clearings. Likely he was not permitted for the third clearing.

Higginson and Tabb Harass Staff

Sometimes developers employ sneaky tricks themselves; other times, they hire someone to do it for them. Someone like John Fitch, the former asst city manager, who left that job under not-so-favorable circumstances. After his employment with the city ended, Fitch represented several clients from time-to-time in their bids to get the council to bend the rules in their favor. In 2004, John Fitch represented some property owners living on Eucalyptus Heights Rd and Mina de Oro Rd. who wanted the city to allow them to build a gate across Mina de Oro Rd. They cited security and trash problems as the reason for wanting the gate, although data from the sherif's department did not substantiate that any problem existed.

One of the property owners on Mina de Oro , Menachem Shoval, did not want the gate. He complained that his neighbors had sometimes blocked the road with rocks and debris to prevent him and his guest from reaching his property. Also disputed was whether or not Mina de Oro was a public or private road, even though the city had designated the road as access to the public trail system. On Jan 18, 2005, the council voted on the gate request. Councilmembers Rexford and Boyack voted in favor of the gate, Higginson, Emery and Cafagna were opposed. Fitch was persistent and got the matter brought back before the council on March 22, 2005. This time the gate was unanimously approved.

The Shovals were not happy. They sued and won their case in Superior Court in 2007. In her tentative ruling against the City of Poway, the Judge Lewis ruled that Mina de Oro was a public road and that (bold added for emphasis)

the Court believes the City's approval of the resolution was arbitrary, capricious, and entirely lacking in evidentiary support. Moreover, even if this were a CCP 1094.5, et. seq., writ petition, the Court finds that in the absence of any findings concerning the public nature of the road or the effect of its gating on the public, there is a lack of substantial evidence to support the City's passage of the Resolution.

The city was required to rescind approval of the gate. But first, they considered a work-around of the decree. They considered vacating the road, thereby making it a private road. And the City refused to cite neighbors who were still obstructing the road so that the Shovals could not reach their property.

A little gift from the neighbors blocking access to the Shoval property

The Mina de Oro gate fiasco was not a staff decision, it was approved by the entire council in public session. Imagine what will happen if a staff member is allowed to make such decisions without any public vetting. My next example will do that, and one of the special features is that some of the very same characters that were involved in the Shoval gate case pop up in the Victorian switcheroo.

When the L family moved into their Old Poway home, most of the windows faced a small, vacant lot. The lot was "substandard" under the city's code and general plan, so it was difficult to build on that lot. The lot was once part of a adjacent parcel that had a small house on it. The owner of the small house still owned both parcels and wanted to build a larger house on her lot. She met resistance at the city and gave up. She sold her lot for $50,000 to a Harry Rogers in 2004. Four months later Harry Rogers sold the parcel to his neighbor Dennis Keena for $200,000. Rogers and Keena both lived on Mina de Oro- they were 2 of the people who asked the city to give them a permit for the gate across the road. John Fitch is going to be in this story too. Fitch represented Keena in his request for a variance so that he could build a house on the substandard lot. He needed a variance because the house he had planned was going to spill over into the front, rear and side yard setbacks. Keena would sell the lot for a cool $300,000 after his buddy John Fitch got the variance.

Mrs L reviewed the city documents for the proposed house. She knew the house was going to be much closer to her house than what the city codes allowed. What she didn't know, was that John Fitch was going to ask the council to give his client a "variance envelope" so that they could come back later and substitute a different house with only staff approval, if the house fit within the "variance envelope" for the first house.

The documents that Mrs. L reviewed at the city showed plans for this house - a 2,172 sq ft house with attached 655 sq ft garage:

Imagine her surprise when they started building this house- a 2,850 sq ft house with attached 566 sq ft garage- next door to her:

The Poway code requires an applicant to return to the council for a 2nd approval if they decide to change the design of a proposed project. John Fitch got around that by requesting and receiving approval for a "variance envelope" with approval by a staff member for changes if the changes fit in the variance envelope. The planned switcheroo took place, and a Poway staff member approved the Victorian instead of the first house. Without any oversight, there was nobody who carefully checked to see if the Victorian did indeed fit into the variance envelope. It didn't. When Mrs L complained, the city issued a stop work order. A new variance was needed before work could resume.

Mrs L, Joe St Lucas from SPRA and I met with city manager Rod Gould and city planner Patti Brindle on the Friday before the new "oops" variance would go before the council for approval. Gould profusely apologized to Mrs L for the many staff mistakes. He reminded me of those CEOs telling folks how sorry they were that their faulty tires killed so many people. It was a good act, but I don't think he was sincere because of what happened next. When we asked Gould what the staff recommendation would be for the new variance, he said he would recommend approval. He didn't want the homebuilder to have to incur a lot of additional costs because of all the mistakes. Then Gould said something which stunned me. He said that there would only be 3 council members at the meeting, and the variance would only need 2 votes for approval. He was wrong. I told him he was wrong and he later confirmed with me that he would indeed need 3 votes. What kind of jerk would admit that his staff made mistakes, lots of mistakes and then not give the aggrieved party a fair hearing? Or a least pretend to give the aggrieved party a fair hearing? This was my first meeting with Gould, and I left that meeting with a really bad impression of what kind of person he was.

During the remainder of our meeting, I argued with planner Patti Brindle over her various interpretations of the city code. For example, the code explicitly states how far a porch can protrude into a setback. Ms Brindle insisted that the porch which wrapped on 3 sides of the Victorian house was a patio cover that was "open on three sides" and not a porch. I am not an architect or city planner, but I know the difference between a porch and a patio cover and I was really peeved to see how vociferously she insisted on her screwy interpretation. Mullin wants the staff to be allowed to approve things like this without anyone else getting a peek at what they are doing.

In the end, Brindle amended the variance request again to cover the porch. And the council dutifully approved the oops variance. The total variances given to the project were 13 ft into the front yard setback, 1.5 ft and 6.75 ft into the side yard setbacks, and a whopping 29 feet into the backyard setback. The Victorian house pictured above was built almost 30 feet closer to Mrs L's house than is allowed by our Poway code.

Letting the staff approve projects like this leads to many intentional and unintentional errors. And a lot of anger and tension between prospective neighbors. The city is also at risk for additional court cases. It is a really terrible, horrible, no good, very bad* idea. No doubt John Mullin's supporters are in favor of it. I got a piece of campaign literature from him the other day. It was no surprise to see that John Fitch and his buddies had endorsed John Mullin, the developer's best friend.

* My apologies to Judith Viorst for stealing part of the title of her book, " Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

Protest

2010-09-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

Protest Poway Sewer/ Water Rates

I have been on a mission for the last 18 months or so, trying to get the city to change the sewer

fees to a uniform unit rate. Currently, the sewer fees are structured so that those who use the

least pay the most. The sewer fee structure also has these screwy irregularities in it that could

result in a single drink of watercosting a customer $150 more over the next year.

Every one of the current council members has been deaf to my pleas. So I found it very

interesting to watch GVCA leaders and the large lot owners hyperventilating one summer

evening in the council chambers, proclaiming that it wasn't fair that the folks who used the

most water would have to pay more for it. They even said it was illegal, because if some people

were paying more for water, then they were "subsidizing" the people who were paying less per

unit. Now you have to remember that some of these folks were getting a "discount" on their

large volume water purchases just a year or two ago.

Hmmm, when they get cheaper rates, it isn't illegal or a "subsidy," it's a "discount."

Nevertheless, with their shrill sense of unfairness and injustice, I figured that at least a few of

them would want to join my efforts for uniform sewer rates. I figured wrong. The GVCA has not

asked the council to do diddly about the sewer rates. They are not interested in fairness or

justice; they are only interested in their own advantage.

There was a letter to the editor in this week's Poway News Chieftain. A certain Sylvia Ginsberg

responded to Marijo Van Dyke's previous letter complaining about the city abandoning

conservation water rates at the request of the GVCA.

A homeowner with a larger family or lot uses more water no matter how much they conserve. The five- tier system is unfair and a detriment to the conservation efforts. Tier 1 doesn’t even cover what Poway pays to buy the water. Apartment dwellers and businesses are charged the Tier 1 rate, no matter how much water they use. Homeowners are billed according to the five-tier system: if you use 15 units or less you’re billed at Tier 1 — once again, less than the cost of the water. How does this encourage conservation?

The five-tier system not only penalizes high water usage, but also subsidizes Tier 1 users. Are you charged a higher price for gas because of the vehicle you drive and the gas mileage it gets? Same thing here.

Ms Ginsberg seems to be really worried that she might be paying more for water than an

apartment dweller or a businessman. What if the shoe was on the other foot? Would she want

it changed? Probably not. Oh wait! The shoe is on the other foot. Ms. Ginsberg is wrong.

Apartments, condos and businesses were never, ever in tier 1. The tiers were only for single

family ratepayers. Condos, apartments and businesses all were assigned a rate equal to the rate

in Tier 3. The new rates, which will kick in in January, will be $4.10 per unit of water for condo,

apartment and business users. For the water gluttons in north Poway? They will be

charged $4.02 for their first 199 units of water.

OMG!!!!!! The water hogs are being subsidized.

And it isn't just their water rates. Large lot owners have the lowest sewer rates in town.

For using 50 units of winter water, they will be charged less than $2.00 a unit, which is less than it

costs to have that sewage processed at Pt Loma. Single family homeowners who use 12 units

will pay $3.67/unit. Condo owners, apartment dwellers and businesses will pay $3.40/unit.

OMG!!!!!! They are really, really being subsidized.

And, by the way, when you buy gas, you pay a tax proportional to the total amount of gas you

buy. Buy water in Poway and you pay a tax called a "fixed fee". But it isn't proportional. The

same fee is charged to the person buying 15 units as to the person buying 200 units. How is that

fair?

What can we do?

1. Click on the fullscreen link above the letter to make it larger. Print it, fill it in and mail it to

the city.Email a link to this blog to your friends so they can protest too.

2. Do not vote for any of the incumbents in the next election. If we don't elect some other

people, we will get stuck paying subsidies to the large lot people from the GVCA forever.

In Defense of Tiered Water Rates

2010-08-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

Last month I attended the water/sewer rates workshop. (You can read my initial reaction here.) Poway is now in the process of revising their tiered water rates to a simple 2-tier system for single family home water customers. Everyone who uses 0-199 units of water will pay $4.08/unit and folks who use 200+ units will pay $5.74/ per unit for any units over 199 units. So, for all practical purposes, Poway will have a flat rate for water, with the exception of a few extra gigantic water hogs.

I didn't speak about the water rates at the hearing. I addressed the inequities and abominations in the current tiered sewer fee structure. The staff told the council that they didn't have time to address the sewer issues. But because the sewer fund is overfunded, they recommended dropping fees 13% across the board. It speaks volumes about our city that the council has addressed and adjusted the water rates multiple times in one year, but cannot find time to fix the sewer rate structure.

Here is what the current and new sewer fees for single family residential look like:

The sewer fees (the chart says "rates" but it is incorrect) are lower, but all of the anomalies and inconsistencies remain. See the jump from Tier 2 ($44.07)to Tier 3 ($66.34)? That's still a 50% increase. A single glass of water from a customer who normally uses 12 units could push them into Tier 3 where they would have to pay an extra $133.62 ($22.27 x 6) per year.

And the rate is still lower for the big users. Someone who uses 44 units pays $2.23 per sewer unit and someone who uses 9 units pays $4.90 per unit. Why? Because the council is catering to the big winter water hogs.

There were few interesting or unexpected happenings at the workshop. Mayor Don Higginson cut off speakers he disagreed with with an abrupt, "Your time is up," and then let speakers he agreed with ramble on and on, and even allowed George Andreos to jump up out of his chair and speak even though he hadn't filled out a speaker's slip. Not unexpected.

There was one unexpected moment. Council member Jim Cunningham asked the consultant how many other cities and water agencies were reverting back to a uniform unit rate for water. The consultant indicated that not a single one has. Almost all still have tiered water rates. So Poway will be the first. Technically, Poway still has tiered rates, but the second tier starts at the extreme water hog level of 200 units, so it only affects a very small percent of users, and only after their water use exceeds 199 units.

I'm in favor of tiered water rates. I know a lot of people were aghast that somebody would be charged more than someone else for their water. What's funny is that some of these same people were, until very recently, getting a discount rate for their water. They seem to have a huge sense of entitlement. When they are being subsidized, that's OK, but when the reverse happens, it is the end of the world as they know it.

While some people call the old rates a "subsidy" to low water users, I prefer to call it an "incentive" for conserving. We have had incentives for buying water saving devices like low-flow showerheads and toilets. Tiered rates are another incentive for conserving water. Our SDG&E gas and electricity rates are structured the same way as our tiered water rates. I know that when I get my bill, I look to see if I have exceeded the baseline amounts. If I have, it is a reminder to renew my conservation efforts. This system provides benefits to the conservers and also to those who need the available resources to keep their businesses and industries humming. The same principles can be applied to our water rate structure. If conservation is incentivized, more water is available for those who need large amounts of it. Poway's return to uniform water rates eliminates the incentive for conserving.

The new rates will require a Prop 218 vote. One more than half of us would have to send in a written protest. That's unlikely to happen, but the city has to pay to send out the notice anyway. In the notice that I received, there is an example of how the new rates will affect someone who uses 25 units of water and is in Tier 3 for sewer. I decided to take a more in-depth look to see what the new rates will mean. Because I have water records (from Apr/May 09 to Feb/Mar 2010) for the city council members I decided to use that data and compare what they would have paid under our current rate structure and what they will pay under the new rate structure.

The only problem is that none of our current council members live on small RS-7 sized lots like the ones in south Poway. So, I used the data I had from some south Poway council candidates for the June election, just so people could see how the rates will affect people who live in south Poway too.

Percentage-wise, new water rates will hit small water users particularly hard. The increase in rates is about 25-28%. Large water users will see rates go up about 14-16%.

The fixed water fee will also increase from $26.00 to $28.00 per bi-monthly billing cycle. This fixed fee is the same for every user. It is like a "flat tax". Supposedly, it is to pay for some items which are not a function of how much water each customer uses. There is no such category in the Poway budget. There is no list or accounting of items that go into the fixed fee. In fact, all the money collected on our water bills for water go into the same pot and from that pot, all water related expenditures are subtracted. There are some items on that list which are not exactly consumption related, like, paying off the bonds for city hall, or paying the salaries and pensions of the city managers office. These items are traditionally paid for from property tax revenue, but have been shifted more and more to our water and sewer bills lately. We don't pay the same amount on our property tax bill for these items, so I am not impressed with the argument that we should all pay the same for them on our water/sewer bill. And to the argument that the fixed fees are an "access" fee, well, if we all pay the same access fee, then we should all have access to the same amount of water. And the right to sell that access to someone else if we aren't using our fair share of access.

As a reminder to how much the fixed fee affects the cost per unit of water, I have added the fixed fee in and divided by the total number of units to find the true per unit cost of water for each council member or candidate listed above. Here are the results:

The true cost of water is $4.41/unit for the highest volume user, Jim Cunningham (434 units). The guy who used the least amount of water, Roger Willoughby, pays $5.58/unit. That's more than a dollar more per unit than Cunningham pays. Another reason I favor the tiered rates is because it helped to mitigate the impact the fixed water fee has on the low volume users. Now that the tiers are gone (rates effective in January 2011), the low volume users will be paying more per unit for their water again. Until we see some change in the council makeup, the low volume users are going to continue to pay an unfair share of the costs for their water and sewer.

Two Birds, One Stone

2010-08-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

Remember that Don't -Talk-About-Wal-Mart letter the city attorney sent to the council members and city council candidates? She warned them not to talk to the people who would have to live with these projects, because their input might taint the approval process. The council is supposed to be so unbiased when they make land use decisions that they are not supposed hear or talk about a project until it is up for approval. Then they are supposed to listen to all the sides and make a "quasi judicial" decision after hearing all the evidence. Ha! What a joke. Apparently this quasi mumbo jumbo stuff only applies to Wal-Mart and nothing else.

Seriously. First of all, the council members are also the redevelopment agency board. And the redevelopment agency is the chief developer in town. Right now, the redevelopment agency (literally, the city staff) has been meeting sub rosa (latin for secretly) with Lowe's and Poway Toyota and working out a little deal where they move Poway Toyota over to the empty car dealerships on the other side of the street. Then, there will be room for Lowe's on the north side of Poway Rd after the council cuts them some slack on the required setbacks. How is the council supposed to be unbiased when they review a project that their own agency has been working on for months? There is absolutely nothing any member of the public can say that is going to turn this project back, because the deal has already been decided.

I haven't read all the details, but here is the gist of it: We are going to pay Toyota some $3 million in incentives to move across the street. You might wonder where that $3 million is going to come from since the governor got his hands on the city's redevelopment money. No problem. Remember the sewer slush fund? Turns out the city skimmed $3 million from that to "backfill" Redevelopment for a sewer project on Oak Knoll Rd that the Redevelopment Agency had already paid for. No wonder the staff doesn't want to talk about the sewer fees. Where would they get money to play auto-dealer musical chairs with if they couldn't fleece us on our sewer bills?

The city is insisting that Toyota add a auto-body shop when they move across the street. Auto-body shops are notorious air polluters. And this one will be adjacent to residential property. So, in addition to a car wash that will exceed residential noise levels, the resident's will have to get used to a plethora of carcinogens wafting around. These residents should keep in mind that when they get cancer, it is all for the common good because the city can get lots of sales tax money to support the bloated salaries and pensions of the staff and to keep the quality of life humming in north Poway.

And speaking of north Powegians...Dick Lyles posted some pro-WalMart cheerleading on the Poway Unslanted blog:

Time and again, it has been demonstrated that when a Walmart with groceries enters a community, consumer prices drop throughout the market, sales tax revenues increase and local business grows. Bringing groceries to the Poway Walmart store will allow families to save money on their grocery bill and stimulate Poway’s economy.

The WalMart expansion will not change the city’s general plan. The only question is whether we want a good WalMart at that location or a better one.

That's so sweet of Dick to care about helping families save money on their grocery bills. Dick, here's some empathy coming right back at ya'. I know you live about as far from Wal-Mart as someone can live and still reside within the Poway city limits. You not only live far from Wal-Mart (and all of of its impacts), you live far away from any shopping opportunities. You live in blighted, store-free north Poway.

For many decades now, north Powegians have heroically (and without complaint) traveled to Rancho Bernardo to buy the basic necessities. That is a waste of time and gas, and it means San Diego is getting a big chunk of our sales tax dollars. I propose we remedy that. I have figured out a way to bring retail opportunities (and sales tax generation) to north Poway. The city should buy Maderas Golf Course and put in a regional shopping mecca. It would solve a couple of big problems all at once.

First, north Poway is golf course rich and shopping center poor. Taking out an excess golf course and putting in a shopping center will be a real win-win. Think of all the water we will save. The golf courses use 4% of all of the water sold in Poway. And they pay about half of what the rest of us pay. The city could get a lot more money selling that water to someone else.

It really wouldn't be too difficult. The roads are in. Espola Rd is capable of carrying just as much traffic as Poway Rd. There shouldn't be too many environmental constraints since they already wiped out the vernal pools and most of the sensitive habitat when they built Maderas. Not many people would be impacted by the noise 'cause most of the nearby residents have an acre or two as buffer.

One little problem is that the golf course provided a public benefit. In lieu of paying the required park fees, the city council, at Don Higginson's suggestion, allowed Maderas to substitute a few public tee times instead. So, to compensate for this great public benefit that will be wiped out if a regional shopping center is built here, I suggest we alot some space for a couple of sports fields. There is plenty of room, and plenty of water and parking, so it should work out fine.

I think a regional shopping center smack dab in the center of north Poway is really the best and highest possible use for that land. And if San Diego ups their sales tax rate, folks from Rancho Bernardo would be flocking to Poway to shop. Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching, I can hear the money dropping in our sales tax coffers now. It's like killing two...three...maybe even four birds with one stone: more sales tax revenue, more water available, more playing fields and Dick Lyles can shop in his own neighborhood. Who wouldn't be in favor of such a brilliant idea?

Geo-Politics 2

2010-08-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

(click on map to make it larger)

The June recall election in Poway shifted geo-political power to the north. Literally and figuratively. Betty Rexford, who lived on the southern border of Poway was recalled and replaced by John Mullin who lives on Del Poniente in north Poway. The entire council now hails from the north, except for Boyack, who lives but a hop, skip and jump south of the Twin Peaks boundary. The change had an impact immediately. The council decided to raise water rates 33% for the lowest water users in order to give a break to the highest water users. For all practical purposes, the tiered water rates will disappear in January and everyone except the most extreme high water users will pay the same flat water rate. But the fixed water fees that disproportionately tax low water users will increase and the sewer charges that are skewed so that the lowest users pay more per unit than the largest users will stay that way until, oh, maybe, Jan 2012...if they have time for it. It is a win for the greedy large water users, and their new guy, John Mullin, was right with them all the way.

None of the current councilmembers lives anywhere near Wal-Mart, or the proposed Lowe's. With the exception of Boyack, none of the current council members lives anywhere near a retail store or commercially zoned property. Most of them probably shop in Rancho Bernardo, which is closer to them than the retail stores on Poway Rd.

None of the current council members have traffic from the industrial park or a car dealership winding through their neighborhood. There are no affordable housing projects in their neighborhoods. It wouldn't "fit", as they say. There are no shopping carts littering their streets. No lights from the industrial park spill into their backyards. None are threatened with a proposed automobile paint shop just feet from their living rooms. Or a noisy car wash. Or a late night deliveries of a Wal-Mart truck.

For the most part, the current city councilmembers live in neighborhoods that have a different quality of life than the "urban" part of Poway. They seem blind to quality of life issues in south Poway neighborhoods. They easily vote to sacrifice our quality for revenue generation but they would be aghast at a proposal to put some of the same type of revenue generators anywhere near their homes.

For the upcoming November election, the map looks much the same. At least physically. Three candidates will challenge the incumbents: Nick Stavros, Pete Babich and Dave Grosch. Stavros lives in north Poway, as does Babich, although the Babich family lived near Valley School for many years when his sons were growing up. Grosch lives in south Poway, just a hop, skip and a jump further south than Boyack.

I'm not going to say that these 3 guys have hearts of gold or the vision of Ghandi or anything like that. Politics is too tricky and people seem to change after they are elected. But I can say that all 3 have shown that they care about other people's neighborhoods in Poway and not just their own.

Dave Grosch has led the NO WE group which opposes the Wal-Mart expansion in its present location. Interestingly, Grosch owns Wal-Mart stock. It is in his own interest to see Wal-Mart grow and expand. So chalk one up for Dave for being able to set aside his own best interest to look out for the interest of the community.

Dave's campaign against a monolithic Wal-Mart isn't even his best stuff. In his professional life, Dave was a financial manager, advising a couple of defense firms. He's retired now and has his eyes set on reducing the huge salaries and publicly-paid pension benefits of some city employees that are becoming more and more unsustainable. He wants to change that before we need to build a big box store or two every year just to keep up with it. Go Dave!

Nick Stavros has a long history of civic activism in Poway. Some of his issues are primarily north Poway issues and some are primarily south Poway issues. Nick led the fight against development in east Poway. He has also taken a deep interest in the widening of Espola Rd. issues.

Nick certainly cares about his own back yard, but he manages to care about other people's backyards, too. Nick has long supported finding a spot in Poway for public athletic fields that are not adjacent to someone's backyard. He opposed the Girl's Softball Park in its current location because the noise and traffic had such a negative impact on that neighborhood. Nick supports the expansion of the green spaces in Community park and increasing the passive park space (park space that is free to use and not signed out to sports teams or commercial entities) in south Poway neighborhoods. It is one thing to fight against something like a noisy park that affects YOUR own backyard, but it is a whole different kind of person who will also fight to protect quality of life in someone else's backyard. Yay Nick!

I first met Pete Babich when our son started playing soccer. We coached our son's team for, oh let's see, from age 6 to age 19, so about 13 yrs. Pete was one of the people that kept the Poway Soccer Club going from week to week and from season to season. This was back in the day when people had land lines for phone service. And you couldn't just turn them off. Even back in those days, people took their wins and loses and bad refs calls a little too seriously, so I know Pete's phone must've rung about a billion times with complaints. Hmmm, perfect preparation for being a city council person, don'tcha think?

I don't remember calling Pete very often. At least not with complaints. But what I do remember is that Pete gave me some coaching advice. He told me to take a chair and sit in it. And I did. It helped prevent me from running up and down the sidelines trying to scream directions at my players. It was the best advice. Good for my players and good for me. That's one of Pete's fortes- analyzing things and figuring out what really works and what doesn't. Pete refereed our games sometimes, especially when the boys got older and into the upper divisions. I never heard them complain about his calls. They knew how he would ref, and he was consistent. He got control of the game early by calling the first flagrant foul he saw and giving the player a yellow card. Then everyone knew what the limit was and would settle down.

After our soccer years were over, I kindof lost contact with Pete. I knew he moved up to north Poway and was running a successful consulting business. I knew he had gotten involved with Poway Dem Club and was also protesting against the War in Iraq. I was thrilled to hear that he was running for city council. Not because he had a long history of community involvement outside of the billions of hours he put into soccer, but because he seemed to have a real innate sense of fairness and a lot of competence. And I don't think it hurts that Pete recognized and protested against the the tragic human and financial waste that was the War in Iraq. Thanks, Pete.

So, for the November elections, all of our choices live in or near to North Poway. The incumbents have shown that if they have to chose between quality of life in south Poway or revenue generation, they will chose revenue generation every time. But they would staunchly oppose any revenue generators in their neighborhoods. The mere thought would make them go apoplectic! The challengers, Stavros, Grosch and Babich, are untested as Poway decision makers, but they are south Poway's only chance for a council member that would give a damn about our quality of life too.

Bidness As Usual

2010-07-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

irrigation water in the gutter in Arbolitos

Last (Tuesday) night, I wasted a few hours attending the workshop on the proposed water and sewer rates. There were mostly large-lot folks from north Poway at the meeting and they got what they wanted. The city is going to bail on the 5-tier conservation water rate structure and go with a 2-tier system. Everybody will pay $4.02/unit for their first 199 units in a billing period. The 200th unit on up will cost $5.74/unit. 200 units in one billing cycle is an ENORMOUS amount of water. It is way more water than the Cruse household uses in an entire year. Hardly anyone in Poway uses that much water, so for all practical purposes, we are back to a flat rate for most everyone.

Those of us who use less than 125 units in a billing cycle will see the water consumption part of our bill jump about 20%. The large-lot people who consume between 125-200 units in a billing cycle will see their water consumption bills jump about 10%.

The city will have to spend thousands of dollars to send out mailers (required by Prop 218) and give everyone notice of the changes and an opportunity to fruitlessly protest. Then in October, the council will lock in the new rates with a vote and they will become effective in January, 2011.

Last night's meeting went pretty much as I expected. A consultant presented several water and sewer rate options. Well, really just one sewer rate option and four water rate options. The four water rate options offered a choice between a 5, 3, 2 or no tier(s) structure. The first public speaker was Bruce Tarzy from the GVCA. Tarzy had already had a meeting with staff where he presented his 2-tier plan. For months now, I have been hearing about how unfair it is that some people pay a different water rate than others, that some pay less than the cost to provide the service and are subsidized by others. So, why a 2-tier plan instead of a uniform unit rate? I'm not totally sure I get this, but from what I was hearing, it goes something like this: Everybody should pay the same rate. Except the people who use more than 200 units. Because they really need to learn to conserve. So, they have to pay more. As a result, the large-lot people are gonna get subsidized by the handful of super-large-lot people. And they seem OK with that. Advantage is relative.

After the people had their say, the council weighed in. Newbie John Mullin seemed to still be fond of a uniform unit rate. Jim Cunningham went next. If Cunningham had to be succinct to save his life, he'd be a goner. You can watch the replay, or if you want, but my analysis is that Cunningham's verbage amounted to: "What Tarzy said." Same with Carl Kruse. Next up was Merrilee Boyack. She wanted Don Higginson to go first, but he insisted that she state her position next. Boyack asked a few questions, but went with the Tarzy plan. Ditto the mayor.

I requested to speak during the public comment period. I wanted to address the sewer rates, or fees, as they are more appropriately called. I pointed out that we were all paying different rates. I even gave some examples of anomalies caused by the crazy tiered sewer fee structure:

1.) Even when someone uses no water at all, they have to pay a minimum of $45.00 for not using the sewer.

2.) The jumps between tiers are irregular. A single extra shower or load of wash taken during the winter months could jump a user’s bill from $304 to $458 per year. That’s a $154 shower or load of wash or drink of water.

3.) The person who uses 6 units of water pays the same total amount as the person who uses 12 units of water. How can this be conservation pricing when someone gets twice as much for the same price? The person who uses 6 units pays twice the rate of the person who uses 12 units.

4.) In general, the per unit cost for the sewer decreases as sewer use increases.

Well, I found out that the large-lot people and the council's passion for equity applies to water rates, but not to sewer fees, especially sewer fees that are tilted to their advantage. Mayor Higginson, who interrupted me twice to hurry up with my comments, did not address my concerns. Neither did Boyack or Kruse. I am not sure if I heard correctly, but I think Mullin may have said something about looking into the sewer rates. To his credit, Jim Cunningham asked the staff about the sewer rates; staff told him there wasn't time for it this year, not enough time to get something sent out to the voters and ready for the October vote, it would have to wait.

So, there you have it. Yep, I took the time to attend the water and sewer rate workshop. I stood up and spoke in front of a roomful of people who were seething with the injustice of unfair rates. I addressed a council that I had pre-sensitized for months with a barrage of emails and copies of my blogs. I'd even met with the staff and was the one who pointed out to them that there was quite a surplus in that sewer fund. And the response? There isn't time to fix the sewer rate structure.

Like I said, I wasted a couple of hours last night.

Did the Candidates Shop Poway?

2010-06-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

We still do not know 100% for sure who won the special election for Poway city councilmember. The top 2 candidates, Steve Vaus and John Mullin are within 78 votes of each other a week after the election, and there are still more votes to be counted. So, I decided to ponder the question, "Who is the real winner in the election?" I mean, financially. Is it Poway? Did the candidates spend a lot of money locally? Did they "Shop Poway"?

I looked at all of the campaign disclosure statements that were on file in the Poway City Clerks office as of Jun. 11, 2010. Here is a summary of where the candidates spent their money.

Pete Babich spent a campaign total of $2875. He (and every other candidate) bought signs from an out-of-town company. Babich spent $1186 for signs from International Marketing Services (IMS) in El Cajon. All the rest of Babich's expenditures were from Poway: $50 filing fee, $26 for flower seeds from Wal-Mart, $501 for printing at JRC, $1012 for postage and $100 for a booth at the Poway Chamber street fair.

Howard Collins spent $50 for the filing fee. He had no other expenditures for the campaign.

Chuck Cross spent a campaign total of $2037.96. Other than the filing fee, Cross spent only $5 in Poway, for checks from US Bank. He also reimbursed Mary Cross $81.93 for stuff bought at Costco, but which Costco location was not indicated on his forms. Cross' out-of-town expenditures were $800 for a web site, $21.40 for paypal, $100 to a Texas firm for bumper stickers, $297 to IMS for yard signs, $100 to Cafe Merlot for hired help, $500 to a Long Beach firm for slate cards, another $247 to a Los Angeles firm for more slate cards, $168.72 to an Arizona firm called Dr. Don Buttons, and $113.91 from Overnite Prints, an Irvine, CA firm.

Dave Grosch spent a campaign total of $1252. Besides the $50 filing fee, Dave spent $51 in Poway for t-shirts from Express Me. Like many of the other candidates, Grosch bought yard signs ($594 worth) from IMS in El Cajon. Grosch spent $100 for bumper stickers from a Texas company, $19 on checks and bank fees from a San Diego bank, and $438 from Staples, San Marcos for flyers.

John Mullin was the biggest spender. He reported spending $15,419.44. (I tallied a figure $50 lower.) Liked the other candidates, Mullin forked over $50 for the filing fee and he had a booth at the Chamber Street Fair ($150).

One of Mullin's biggest items were for ads in the Poway News Chieftain ($2381). He also spent some serious postage money in Poway ($1617.68 at the post office and $132 at Office Depot) ) and had some small printing jobs done in Poway-RB Printing ($135.94) but Mullin also had printing done out-of town: $3488.55 at Streeter Printing in San Diego, $154.80 for street fair handouts from Sanzo Specialties of New York, $341.61 from Select Mailing in Kearney Mesa, and $43.36 from the Xpedx paper Store on Aero Drive. Mullin also spent big on slate mailers and campaign literature, all from Laguna Niguel firms: SD Co RLVG ($570); Rep Wmns Voice ($400); SBAC ($520); Save Prop 13 ($400) and NTLC News ($560)

Mullin also reimbursed his wife for $3670.00 for buying signs and stamps and whatnot, most likely not in Poway. He spent $122.92 for window decals at the El Cajon firm where most everyone else bought signs.

Mullin paid $220 for renting something from David Calvert. My best guess is that Mullin paid Calvert for allowing him to put his campaign sign over the old Pomerado Publishing sign at the Chieftain's old building on Poway Rd.

David Radcliff spent a total of $1382.64. His filing fee ($50), chamber booth ($150) and Chieftain ad ($412) were his only Poway expenditures. He bought signs from a Florida firm ($340.64), and literature ($430) from a San Diego firm.

Steve Vaus spent a total of $9,753. He paid the $50 filing fee, spent $150 for a booth at the Poway Chamber Street Fair and $560 for postage at the Poway post office. Other than that, the only other expenditure Vaus made in Poway was $3028 for ads in the Poway Chieftain. Vaus spent $65 at the Carmel Mtn Ranch Staples and $151 at the Carmel Mtn Ranch Home Depot.

Vaus, also spent some money on webservices: $566 to a TN firm (Carl Miner Idea Group) he also uses with his business (Steve Vaus Productions), $98.05 to paypal and $50 to a Florida firm called Political Technologies LLC.

Vaus did not specify an expenditure explicitly for signs, but he paid $1501 to a Pennsylvania firm for "campaign paraphernalia" that could be for his signs, and he paid $626.28 to Overnght Prints in Irvine. Vaus did not have any printing done at Poway shops. He spent $53 form Rubber Stamp Champ in San Marcos and he paid a Torrance, CA firm $950 for a slate mailer.

Vaus did reimburse a supporter $245 for some items bought at Costco and Albertsons, but which Costco and which Albertsons was not specified.

Roger Willoughby spent $781.69 on his campaign. Willoughby paid the requisite $50 filing fee to the City of Poway and he also paid the city $20.60 for copies from records requests. Willoughby spent $225 for his booth at the Chamber street fair. He bought signs from an Iowa firm ($355.57) and printing ($126.55) from JRC in Poway.

The only big winners among Poway merchants this campaign season were the Chamber of Commerce and Pomerado Publishing. (Hmmm- could that be the reason that the Poway Chieftain was so in love with the recall?) Other local merchants were out of the loop. In fact, only 3 of the candidates had any printing done in Poway. Mullin had a small amount of printing done in Poway, whereas Pete Babich and Roger Willoughby had all their printing done locally. Dave Grosch bought some t-shirts in Poway. Babich bought some flower seeds at the local Wal-Mart. Other than that, save for postage and mailing expenses, no money was specified as spent at Poway locations.

My guess is that one of the reasons that the candidates did not "Shop Poway" is because they can find a better deal elsewhere. Same reason many of us might chose to buy something somewhere else. But it is a little disconcerting to see the candidates talk about the need to support local business and then see them not support local business with their campaign dollars. For goodness sake, you can't get a better price at the Carmel Mtn Ranch Home Depot than you can get at the Poway Home Depot, can you? So, what's up with the candidates talking the talk, but not walking the walk, when it comes to supporting Poway businesses?

Note: I have uploaded copies of each candidates campaign reports. If you want to take a closer look at a particlular candidate's expenditures and contributions, click on his name below.

Pete Babich
Howard Collins
Chuck Cross
Dave Grosch
John Mullin
David Radcliff
Steve Vaus
Roger Willoughby

Poway's Sewer Slush Fund

2010-05-24T23:04:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I tried to explain some of the anomalies and inequities in the way Poway charges single family home ratepayers for using the sewer. In this post, I am going to show that Poway has collected way more money than it needs in sewer fees and not all of that money even goes to pay for sewer-related expenses.
To get an idea of how much money goes into and out of the Poway sewer utilities fund, I looked at the most recent budget documents. (note: Staff is currently working on the next budget. Until they release it, this is the most current document.)

Sewer Utilities Fund 2006-2010

The budget documents cover the years from 2006-2010. Although the last years are not yet in their "actual" form, the proposed numbers should be pretty close to what the actual numbers will be. In each of the budget years, you can compare the total operating expense (red box) to the revenues (green box). Notice that in every year, the revenues are 1-2 million more than the expenditures. Even when the capital projects are added in, the total expenditures were less than the total revenues in every year except the year 2006-7. The result of the sewer fund taking in more money than it was paying out is that the sewer fund has about $11.861 million extra dollars in it.

The main costs that are charged to the sewer fund will always be "public works" and any capital improvement projects. Public works includes the charges Poway has to pay to have the sewage treated and the costs for Poway employees who work on our sewer system. This FY (fiscal year), the public works costs are expected to be $6.43 million. An additional $1.237 million goes for administrative,legislative and development services and something called "indirect cost allocation". Those administrative/legislative/development/ (and whatever indirect cost allocations are) tally up to almost 20% of the public works cost. That is a lot of administrative overhead. But for the moment, let's assume that the City can justify dinging the sewer fund for money to pay the costs of running the city manager's office other administrative offices.

The sewer fund is pretty flush, with $11.861 182 in excess funds. But there is more.
More? How? See the line that says "TOTAL TRANSFERS/LOANS"? In 2009-10, the sewer fund is expected to transfer out almost a million bucks- $861,460, to be exact.(BLUE CIRCLE)
Transfer Loans Sewer Fund
$111,460 of that was to go for paying off "city debt service"(pay off bonds for the new city hall) and $750,000 was to be a loan to the Water Fund. A loan to the water fund? The city just raised water rates, but deferred raising the rates on the higher tiers because the fund was flush with money. Let's hope they are so flush, that the water fund doesn't need that loan from the sewer fund after all.

You know what's really weird about the sewer fund loaning money to the water fund? Well, besides the fact that the staff said that they don't need to raise the higher tier rates because they have enough money in the water fund? Well, the water fund has a loan to the redevelopment fund on the books. Yeah, really. The water fund was gonna borrow from the sewer fund, and all the while they have millions loaned out to the redevelopment fund and the redevelopment fund hasn't paid it back yet. Instead of the water fund going to the redevelopment fund and getting their loan money back, they go begging to the sewer fund for a loan. The sewer fund is the "go to" fund. Sweet, isn't it? Especially since not everybody pays into the sewer fund, and the rates are constructed so that those who use the least, pay more per unit.

If you look in the blue box in the document above, you can see that every year the city takes some money from the sewer fund to help pay for the new city hall (city debt service fund). In 2009-2010, they expect to take $111,460. The city also takes some money from the water fund to pay off city hall. I would have expected that property taxes would be the main source for funds to pay off a new city hall, but a lot of property taxes in Poway are diverted into the redevelopment agency, so I suppose it was one of those "no brainer" things to raise water and sewer rates to pay off the new city hall. Not everybody is on the sewer or pays sewer fees. In fact, several of our councilmembers are not on the sewer, but they approved the new city hall and hiked up water and sewer fees so that those on city water and sewer can pay for it.

Before Poway incorporated, we had a water and sewer dept. The city currently owns the old water dept building on Poway Rd (across from the library.) Recently, Tina White, asst city manager, mentioned that the City intends to sell that building. I'm not totally positive, but I expect that building was paid for by bonds which were paid off by Poway water and sewer ratepayers. If I am correct then I think that when the building is sold, the profits from the sale of that building should be returned to the water/sewer ratepayers. That seems only fair since we paid for it.

The blue box (in the document above) also shows that the sewer fund has loaned money to at least 4 other funds- redevelopment, CFD 88-1 (bonds to build the industrial park), the water fund and the
drainage fund.

Certainly it does make budgetary sense to transfer money between funds, especially on a short term basis. If something unexpected comes up, a loan from another fund can mean that the city saves the costs of borrowing new funds. For example, the sewer fund loaned some money to the drainage fund in 2005-2006, which it repaid in the following year. But not all the loans were short term.

According to Peter Moote, Asst Dir of Administrative Services, Poway, there are 3 loans from the sewer fund that have not yet been paid off.

$5.5 million remains of the loan to the redevelopment agency. This loan was made in 1983 or 1984.
$1 million balance on the loan to community facilities district (CFD) 88-1 (to pay off bonds for the industrial park). This loan was made in 1994.
$214,500 still owed on the Street Development loan from 1993.

Water/Sewer Loan to Redevelopment

I don't know why the loan to CFD 88-1 wasn't paid off already. I know the sewer fund lent money to them because the redevelopment agency was going to default on the bonds when all the developers in the industrial park were going bankrupt, in the early 90s. But I thought that Poway brought in McMillan and worked out a deal with McMillan, where McMillan paid off the bonds in return for future tax increment of properties in the industrial park. So, how is it that the sewer fund didn't get paid off?

Poway's redevelopment fund owes money to both the water and the sewer fund. According to city manager Penny Riley, the $13.7 million that Poway had to give back to the state, was only about a third of this years redevelopment income. If Poway has $40 million coming in from redevelopment every year, why can't redevelopment pay back the sewer fund? And the water fund? Sheesh, those loans go back to 1983.

Poway made such a big deal about having to send that $13.7 million check to the state. $13.7 million is a lot of money. But it isn't even close to the amount the city has over-collected from sewer ratepayers. The sewer fund has a total of $6.7 million in loans on the books, $7.45 million, if you count the pending loan to the water fund. Add to that the surplus $11.86 million in the sewer fund and the grand total of excess money collected on our sewer bills is $19.31 million.

19.31 million dollars. That is quite a slush fund. Remember, not everyone in Poway pays into the sewer fund. Many people are on septic. Several of the councilmembers (Higginson, Emery, Rexford) who approved the sewer fee structure and the recent sewer fee increases do not pay these fees because they are on septic systems. They do not share the honor of loaning money to the street fund or the water fund or the redevelopment agency or to the community facilities district 88-1 to pay off bonds to build the industrial park. Those on septic do not share the privilege of paying off the bonds for the new city hall to the same degree as those on the sewer do. (Both the water fund and sewer fund pay equally for the debt service on city hall). Sewer fee increases will be on the agenda again in a few months. I suggest we remind our council members of how very thankful we are for the honors and privilege of keeping the city afloat with our sewer fees.

Why Gisela was billed $71.00 for 0 units of water

2010-05-19T20:27:00.000-07:00

Did you catch the letter from Gisela Koestner in the April 15th edition of the Poway News Chieftain? The one where she complained because she was billed $71 from the City of Poway for using 0 units of water?

I just found out that there’s absolutely no incentive to conserve water. During the past two months I had 0 units water consumption, yet my water bill is $71. I understand the $28 basic water service, but dinging me for $45 for sewer is outrageous! As I see it, I’m a fool to be so conscientious and I will let our City Council and manager know that.

GISELA KOESTNER

Poway

I have been complaining about Poway's unfair sewer rates for about a year now, and to tell the truth, I was somewhat relieved to see that I am not the only one who finds the sewer rates "outrageous" and who is speaking out about it.

Why was Gisela charged $71 for using 0 units of water? There are 4 separate charges on each water/sewer bill. There is a basic water service fee and a basic sewer service fee, a water commodity charge and a sewer commodity charge. Everybody has to pay the $28.00 basic water fee and $16.35 basic sewer fee whether they use any water or not. Gisela was not charged a commodity use fee for water because she didn't use any water, but she was charged a $28.71 commodity use fee for using the sewer, even though she didn't actually use the sewer during that billing period. Believe it or not, Powegians can be charged up to $123.80 for using the sewer, even if they don't use it.

So how did that happen? How did it happen that Poway charges a sewer use fee even for people who don't use the sewer? Part of the reason is because Poway doesn't meter for sewer use. They guesstimate it by averaging the previous 3 winters lowest water use and then multiplying the average by 85%.

Sure hope I didn't lose too many readers there.

The other reason Gisela had to pay for using the sewer (even though she didn't) is because of the way Poway structures their sewer fees. Its an abomination. I've blogged about it here and here.
I looked at my old water/sewer bills (I saved them since 1998- the year I started "conserving") to see if I could figure it out when the sewer fees got so out of whack. The first bill that showed up with the tiered sewer fees was Mar, 1998. Prior to that we had a flat sewer fee- every residential customer with a 3/4 in pipe paid the same amount for basic service but we did not pay a use charge.

The idea behind the tiers was to have those who used more of the sewer, pay more of the costs. Fair enough! Well, not really, but fairer than the old billing system. But since the tiers were first introduced 12 yrs ago, the sewer fees have increased even more dramatically than the water rates and that is causing problems. And it is making anomalies within the tier system more glaring.

Click on graph to make larger.

I've pointed out in other posts that Poway's sewer tiers are not constructed in even steps of equal rise or run. The jump between Tier 2 and Tier 3 is particularly huge. The sewer charge in Tier 2 is $50.65. In Tier 3 it is $76.25, a very dramatic 50% increase. It is possible that taking a single shower could bump someone into Tier 3 and cost them an extra $153.00/yr in sewer fees.

To show just how much the sewer charges have jumped over time, I am going to compare my family's Mar 1998 water/sewer bill with our most recent bill from Mar/2010.

In Mar 1998, we used 9 units of water. Our total bill was for $61.86. Total water charges were 30.28

Total sewer charges were 31.58. Sewer was just a little over half my bill.

In Mar, 2010 we again used 9 units of water. Our total bill was for $145.96. The water portion of our bill was $53.36. Our total sewer portion was $92.60. Sewer charges were 63% of my bill.

Results: 136% increase in total bill, 76% increase in water portion, and a whoppin' 206% increase in sewer portion.

The city goofed on my Mar 2010 bill. I was really supposed to be reassigned to Tier 2. Normally I am in Tier 2. I only get bumped into Tier 3 after extremely dry winters. We had some extremely dry winters in 2005 and 2006. There was no 2-month period when I could turn off my irrigation completely. We also had taken delivery of 10 new trees from the SDG&E free tree program. I had to water the new trees to keep them alive. But I paid for it in higher sewer bills for the next few years. In 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10, my winter water use was 8 units, 10 units and 9 units respectively. But I had to wait until Mar 2010 to get back into Tier 2. Here is a comparison to my corrected bill:

We used 9 units of water. Our total bill $120.36. The water portion of our bill was $53.36

The sewer portion was $67.00.

Our total bill increased 95% from 1998. The total water portion increased 76% and the sewer portion increased 112%. The sewer increases still beat out the water increases!

Why are the sewer fees so high? There are a couple of reasons. In my next post I am going to show that the city is over-collecting sewer funds. And they aren't necessarily spending those funds on just the sewer.

It is probably useful to point out that not everyone in Poway pays sewer fees. Some people are on a septic system and do not pay any sewer fees. In fact, several of the council members who have approved our sewer fees don't pay them. Higginson is on septic, as are Emery and Rexford. They are the deciders but they don't really have any experience with how the sewer fees impact people who only use small amounts of water and get huge bills.

In October, 2006, the council again increased sewer fees. There were some complaints about the fees, so they commissioned a study to look at the tiered rate structure and to evaluate alternative rate structures.
The consultant, Raftelis Financial Consultants, Inc. (RFC) looked at 3 rate structures: a flat-rate, the current tiered structure and a uniform unit rate structure. I've posted their entire report, titled, "Sewer Rate Structure Study, Final Report March 9, 2007" here.

The consultant noticed some of the same issues I have noted with the tiered structure, in particular, that the rates varied from tier to tier and that within a tier, users who used different amounts would be billed the same charge.

...the City may have to address customer questions and improve upon the existing rate structure. First, if we look at the rate paid for the average use within each tier, the amount per hcf decreases significantly. For example, tier 1 customers pay, on average, $5.84 per hcf of sewer usage, while tier 7 customers pay $2.01 per hcf. Second, customers may be confused by a seven tier system that generates an identical bill for usage at 27 hcf and 37 hcf (the range of usage defined as tier 5).

RFC believes that the City may be able to address these opportunities by considering changes to the residential sewer rate structure. RFC did not find inherent deficiencies in the existing rate structure that would necessitate any change at this time. State law requires that charges be proportionate to system usage and the existing structure meets that requirement. The question is whether the City believes the current structure best approximates system usage. If the City chooses to redefine how it approximates a customer’s system usage, it must also revise its rate structure to match the new definition.

I disagree with RFC that the tiered rate structure did not have "inherent deficiencies...that would necessitate any changes at this time". I think nobody clued in RFC that Poway was a member of California Urban Water Conservation Council (CUWCC) and had signed an memorandum of understanding with CUWCC agreeing to implement the conservation-based BMPs of CUWCC.

The flat rate structure violates those BMPs so it was kind of a waste of time to even consider it. The current tiered rate structure also violates the CUWCC BMPs. I've discussed this with people from CUWCC and they have agreed with me on this point. Poway city officials disagree. I've blogged about that here.

I also disagree with the consultant's assertion that the tiered structure meets the requirements of State law that requires charges to be proportionate to system use. Poway doesn't have sewer meters, so they are just guessing how much of the water we purchase ends up in the sewer. Poway charges lower sewer rates for high volume water users under the assumption that the extra water doesn't make it's way into the sewer. Here is what is wrong with that assumption. Someone who uses, say 50 units of water, during a winter period, might be using it for landscaping, or to fill up their jacuzzi or to wash a lot of clothes. Someone who uses only 20 units may actually be using half of it for landscaping, but the tiered rates don't reflect that. In the dry winters of 2005 and 2006, I used 20 units in the winter months. I used it for landscaping, but I did not get the discount that the large water users get. Instead I got a 50% increase in my sewer fee.

Here is a graph of the last 3 winter water use for each of the candidates and councilmembers. The last 3 winters were wet enough to turn off irrigation. Maybe some people didn't, but the point I am trying to make is that wintertime water use (without irrigation) can vary widely.

With the exception of Vaus, the wintertime use of these 13 people varied from 3 units to 33 units in 2010, when the city was heavily promoting water conservation and turning off irrigation systems. Let's assume, for a moment, that everyone was a model citizen and did turn off their irrigation. And that they could maintain that same winter water use for 3 yrs and that rates were the same in 3 yrs as they are today. Here is a graph showing how much each person would pay for each unit of sewage:

Boyack would pay the highest sewer rates- $11.26/unit. Vaus would pay the least, $1. 60 per unit. (Vaus is actually on septic and pays no sewer fees) Even people who had fairly close usage would pay different rates because of the oddities of the tiered structure. Assuming everyone (except Vaus) was using the water mostly for indoor use and that 85% of the water they used ended up in the sewer system, why should they be paying different rates?

The third alternative that RFC looked at was the uniform unit rate. This structure would charge everyone the same rate per unit. Under this structure, every column in the graph above would be the same height. I'm guessing, but I think the rate would be around $4/unit.

Here is what RFC had to say about uniform unit rate:

Implementation of a uniform rate structure more closely follows cost of service principles in that it charges the same rate for each unit of usage. This type of structure is widely used in the U.S. and gaining acceptance in California since it also sends a strong resource conservation message with reduction in use resulting in a lower bill. Approximately two-thirds of existing customers would receive a lower bill under a uniform rate structure. However, failure to control usage could result in a much higher bill under this structure. Finally, a uniform structure may be easier for customers to understand. The uniform rate structure is a good alternative if the City believes metered water use is the best available approximation of sewer system use, and resource conservation is a high priority. Representative customer impacts under a uniform rate are shown in Exhibit 4.

If the city adopted this pricing structure, the average customers in Tiers 1, 2 and 3 would see reductions of 22 to 44% on their sewer use portion of their bill.

The consultant also suggested a possible sewer cap modification. If the city used this pricing structure and lowered the sewer cap, the average customers in Tiers 1, 2 and 3 would see reductions of 18 to 42%

Sewer Cap Modification

The City may choose to modify the existing sewer cap under the existing rate structure or under a uniform rate structure. Since the 1997 Rate Study, the City has increased the sewer cap from 40 hcf to 51 hcf (on a bi-monthly basis). The sewer cap is intended to set a boundary above which residential water usage is assumed to be outdoor usage. The cap concept is based on an industry-wide assumption that each person contributes approximately 75 gallons of sewer flow per day. It is more common to have a lower sewer cap, typically around 40 hcf. Exhibit 4 shows rate impacts under a uniform rate structure with a 40 hcf sewer cap.

What would happen to Gisela's bill? If the city adopted uniform unit rates, Gisela would still have to pay a sewer use fee unless her 3-yr winter average was less than 0.5 unit. It is possible to override the winter average if the usage was less. Some cities do that, but even if Poway didn't, Gisella's sewer usage bill would drop from $28.71 to about $4 times her winter average. My guess is that her sewer usage bill would at least be cut in half.

The consultant study conclusions:

The City Council must ultimately determine how well a rate structure meets the needs of utility customers and the City, as a whole. However, RFC has drawn some conclusions as a result of our analysis and industry experience, as to which options may best fit the City’s needs.

The City should consider residential rate structure alternatives if the existing structure no longer satisfies its pricing objectives; there is no pressing need to change the rate structure. RFC believes that the City should consider the equity advantages of a uniform rate structure with a sewer cap reduction. Implementation of these options provides equity based on system use as determined by metered water flow and also encourages resource conservation. RFC does not believe the City should consider return to a flat rate. due to the disincentive for conservation, the equity disconnect between customer bills and system usage, and the customer impacts for low volume users. In addition, the advantage of averaging climate fluctuations and resulting customer rate stability suggests that the City should continue its current practice of averaging three years of winter usage.

And what happened after the city looked at the consultant's study? The council decided to keep their tiered sewer charge structure. Remember, 3 of the then councilmembers were not even sewer customers.

It is time to take another look at Poway's sewer rate structure. State law requires that charges be proportionate to system use. I do not think they are. I recently asked the City for data on how many sewer units Poway bills for. I wanted to compare it to the number of sewage units Poway gets billed for from sending their sewage to Pt Loma and the Miramar reclamation plant. The City told me that the number could not be generated. Now, if the city doesn't even know if they are billing for more units or less units than they get billed for, how in the sam hill do they figure our current system (which is not even metered) is accurate or that the charges are proportionate to system use?

The sewer rate structure also must include conservation as a pricing objective. That is one of the requirements of CUWCC. The current system cannot distinguish between landscape use that does not end up in the sewer and profligate use of indoor water which does end up in the sewer. Our current sewer pricing favors the largest, most profligate water users. It is time to consider a uniform unit rate.

I've been trying to get some attention from our current council members on this issue but with the exception of Betty Rexford (who arranged a recent meeting for me with the staff about the sewer rate structure) I can't get anyone to show any interest. The staff are not the ones to bring this back, it will depend on 3 council members to vote to change the sewer rate structure. I am pleased that some of the candidates are showing some interest.

Note: In my next post, I hope to show where some of this sewer money is going. You might be surprised to find out that Poway has been over-collecting on the sewer fund for years and that there is a pretty big wad of money sitting around in that fund. Another reason why Gisela had to pay so much for so little.

Leadership

2010-05-17T20:15:00.000-07:00

Leadership. I've been hearing that word a lot lately. Which is fitting because we have an election right around the corner. Leadership does matter when we pick our leaders. So, I wanted to take a look at one of the biggest issues- Water Conservation- and see how the candidates (and current councilmembers) are doing on water conservation. Are they just telling us to use less water or are they leading by example? I requested the water use data from all of the current councilmembers and candidates for the last 2 yrs. Candidates were under no requirement to release that information, but EVERY ONE of THEM did. Kudos to the candidates. I used the water use data to compare water conservation efforts from candidates and current councilmembers.

First, a word about the data. Everybody is not on the same billing cycle. Some people get their bills in Jan/Mar/May/July/Sept/Nov and others get them in Feb/April/June/August/Oct/Dec. For purposes of comparing data, I aligned Jan bills with Feb bills, and Mar bills with April bills, etc. Also note that the data is for the billing date. The billing date will indicate the water use in the 2 previous months. For example, a March billing date will indicate how much water was used in the previous January and February.

There were also 2 instances where the customer had more than one reading in a billing cycle (probably indicating a new meter was installed) and one huge anomaly (probably indicating a water pipe break). Dave Grosch had 2 meter readings for Jan, 2010. I added the readings together. I did the same for Carl Kruse who had 2 readings in Jun/July 2009. Betty Rexford, who has the lowest water use among the group had a 129 unit reading in Aug 2009. No other reading was more than 11 units, so I substituted 11 units for the August 2009 reading.

First, I wanted to compare the total water use during the period from Feb/Mar 2008 until Mar/April 2010.

Here are the results (click on each graph to make it larger):

The biggest water consumers during this period were Steve Vaus, Jim Cunningham and Don Higginson. Which is kind of interesting. Because they all live in the same neighborhood. I'm not saying they would vote the same way on everything. But how weird would it be to have the council majority be 3 people who live about a block from each other and are big water users to boot? Would we all feel represented under such a scenario?

The next biggest water user is Grosch (who used less than half the water Vaus used), followed by Boyack, Mullin, Collins and Babich. At the bottom of the pack were Kruse, Cross, Willoughby, and Radcliff, all of whom live on smaller acreage than the other councilmembers and candidates. The smallest water user is Rexford, who, I believe, has a well.

Because some of the councilmembers and candidates live on larger parcels than others, I decided to compare winter water use. During the 2010 winter, folks should have been able to turn off their outside irrigation for an entire 2 month period. Especially if they were leading by example. Ahem....

The following graph shows the number of units billed in Feb. or Mar for each of the last 3 winters, 2008, 2009, and 2010. The data from 2010 is in yellow.

The largest winter water user, by far, is Steve Vaus. His total use during Dec/Jan for the last 3 years is almost 300 units. And he used 65% more water during this period in 2010 than he did during this period in 2009. Jim Cunningham is the next largest wintertime water user; he used just a little over half of what Vaus used. With the exception of Vaus, almost everyone cut their wintertime use in 2010 or kept it pretty close to what they used in 2009.

With the city promoting turning off irrigation this winter, I would have expected to see the 2010 data (in yellow) be fairly close for everyone, despite their lot size. But it isn't. Boyack's use is the lowest- just 3 units. Collins is next lowest at 4, followed by Willoughby, Rexford and Grosch, who are all in single digit use. Way to lead by example!

Mullin, Kruse, Radcliff and Cross used under 15 units. Higginson clocked in at 19 (less than half what he used the previous winter), Babich came in at 20, followed by Cunningham at 33, and in the very last spot, Vaus with 91 units. 91 units is way out there!

The next thing I wanted to look at was whether the candidates and councilmembers had cut back their use since the previous year. So I compared the total number of water unit used during the last 12 months to the 12 months before that.

The following information is useful in comparing and analyzing the data:

Vaus, Higginson and Babich all have lots between 32,000-37,000 s.f.

Cunningham, Rexford and Mullin have lots in the 22,000- 27,00 s.f range.

Boyack's lot is about 14,500 s.f

Radcliff, Wiilloughby and Cross have lots between 6,600-7500 s.f.

The size of Grosch, Collins and Kruse's lot is unavailable on the Poway or Sandag's GIS site or zillow.

Grosch lives in Rancho Arbolitos in a lot zoned PC-2. Collins lives in North Poway on a lot zoned RS-2 and Kruse also lives in North Poway on a lot zoned RS-4.

Once again, some people have been conserving for years and their recent use might not show much improvement. But look at that graph! Everybody, except Radcliff, cut their water use in the past year. I'm going to give Radcliff a pass on this because his water use was, and still is, pretty low.

The graph shows that, in general, people who have larger lots use more water. No surprise there. But there is still a lot of spread between the larger water consumers. Vaus, Higginson and Babich have lots that are relatively close in size, yet Vaus uses way more water than Higginson and more than twice as much water as Babich. So, there is still lots of room for improvement and leadership. And probably pool covers.

Note: All of the candidates do not have the same philosophy when it comes to how the city should structure water rates and promote conservation. Please visit each candidate's website to learn more about their view on water conservation and water rates:

Dave Grosch

Chuck Cross

Roger Willoughby (could not find a website for Willoughby)

A Nostalgic Look Back

2010-04-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

Before we were a city, we were a community. And like all communities, we would gather and celebrate from time to time. One of our favorite traditions was the annual Easter egg hunt at Lake Poway.

The day before the egg hunt, volunteers would hard boil and dye hundreds, maybe thousands of eggs. On the morning of the hunt, they hid them. They really hid them. They tucked them in and around the chapperal growing on the hillside next to the lake.

Mind you, this was not a dress-in-your-Easter-finery-and-new-patent-leather-shoes-and-make-a-mad-dash-for-plastic-eggs-that-someone-throws-out-on-a-circle-of-grass kind of egg hunt. Those are fun, too. But the Poway egg hunts were special. The kids really had to look hard for these eggs. And likely they had to do it on their own, because most of the parents were content to watch from the base of the hill.

I did worry about the kids finding a rattlesnake or two hiding among the eggs. But a friend of mine assured me that no self-respecting rattler would venture out when the fury started. And, as far as I know, no one was ever bit.

Looking at these old pictures also reminds me that even in seasonless Southern California, we did have variable Easter weather. Looks like that cold Easter was a drought year, too.

Cold, hot, dry, or drizzly, the egg hunts were always fun. After the hunt, we would return home and make egg salad sandwiches for lunch. To all of the people who made these memories happen, thank you so much. We really loved them.

Drip, Drip, Drip

2010-03-18T21:08:00.000-07:00

It's like water torture. Poway style.
To be more specific, Poway water-and-sewer-rate torture.

On Monday I got my latest water bill. $145.96 for 9 units of water! Nine lousy units of water.
That is an average of $16.22 per unit of water. That's just ridiculous.
Last March, my bill was $136.19 for 10 units of water. I'm using 10% less water than last year and paying 19% more for it. It just sucks.

What's really bad is that only $27.36 of my bill is for my water consumption. $118.60 is for fixed fees and sewer consumption. For 9 lousy units of water and even fewer units down the drain.

I was really PO'd because my sewer use should have back in Tier 2 instead of Tier 3. But there on my bill was a fee $76.25 fee for Tier 3 sewage use. It took several phone calls over 4 days, but I finally got Donna Goldsmith to call me back and explain that the computer didn't calculate my sewer use correctly. Mine and lots of other people's. So, yeah, I'm back in Tier 2 now. And I can deduct $25.60 from my bill.

What's really crazy is the huge jump in rates from Tier 2 to Tier 3. Somebody using 12 units of water is in Tier 2 and pays $50.65. If they have company and let them take showers, that could bump them into Tier 3. That will cost them $76.25. That is a 50% increase over Tier 2 and it will cost them $25.60 more for each of the next 6 water/sewer bills. Who made up these crazy rates? And who approved them?

I've asked all 5 councilmembers to take another look at these insane sewer rates, but so far, not one council member has done anything about them. They have, however, voted to roll back planned water rate increases for high end users. That tells a lot about their priorities.

I did some furious googling during one of my sewer rate rage episodes and I came across a previously unknown website called California Urban Water Conservation Council. According to their website,

CUWCC is a partnership of water suppliers, environmental groups, and others interested in conserving California’s greatest natural resource - WATER.

The California Urban Water Conservation Council was created to increase efficient water use statewide through partnerships among urban water agencies, public interest organizations, and private entities. The Council's goal is to integrate urban water conservation Best Management Practices into the planning and management of California's water resources.

A historic Memorandum of Understanding was signed by nearly 100 urban water agencies and environmental groups in December, 1991. Since then the Council has grown to 389 members. Those signing the MOU pledge to develop and implement fourteen comprehensive conservation Best Management Practices (BMPs).

I was surprised to find out that Poway was a member of CUWCC. I mean, Poway's sewer rates are an abomination. They aren't even structured as rates. The difference between Tier 2 and Tier 3 is a ridiculous 50% increase, but the increase in the the higher tiers is a lot more gentle. Poway's sewer rates are designed to extract the greatest return from low end users, not to foster any kind of conservation. In fact, when Poway's sewer fees are converted to rates, the top tier pay less than it cost the city to have their sewage treated at Point Loma. The lower tier rates are many times higher than the rate of the higher volume users.

All the members of CUWCC signed a memorandum of understanding. They agreed to implement some BMPs (best management practices). One bmp details how members are supposed to charge for sewer service:

Part II- Retail Wastewater Rates A. Implementation

This section applies to Water Agencies that provide retail sewer service. Water Agencies that do not provide retail sewer service shall make good faith efforts to work with sewer agencies so that those sewer agencies adopt conservation pricing for sewer service.

Conservation pricing of sewer service is also characterized by one or more of the following components: rates in which the unit rate is the same across all units of service (uniform rates);

rates in which the unit rate increases as the quantity of units purchased increases (increasing block rates); rates in which the unit rate is based upon the ong-run marginal cost or the cost of adding the next unit of capacity to the sewer system. Rates that charge customers a fixed amount per billing cycle for sewer service regardless of the units of service consumed do not satisfy the definition of conservation pricing of sewer service. Rates in which the typical bill is determined by high fixed charges and low commodity charges also do not satisfy the definition of conservation pricing of sewer service.

As I stated before, Poway does not charge for sewer service in unit rates, so I had to convert their tier fee structure to unit rates before considering if Poway was implementing the bmps. It is pretty obvious that Poway doesn't have uniform rates, nor does the unit rate increase as the quantity of units purchased increases. In fact, the unit rate tends to decrease as the number of units purchased increases. Poway's rate structure gives a discount to people who use more sewage water.

I asked Steve Didier, Director of Administrative Services, whether or not Poway's sewer fees were in compliance with CUWCC bmps. Mr. Didier said that Poway complies because it uses the third criteria:

rates in which the unit rate is based upon the long-run marginal cost or the cost of adding the next unit of capacity to the sewer system.

I went googling for a definition of "long-run marginal cost".
Here's one from wikipedia:

Long run marginal cost (LRMC) refers to the cost of providing an additional unit of service or commodity under assumption that this requires investment in capacity expansion. LRMC pricing is appropriate for best resource allocation, but may lead to a mismatch between operating costs and revenues.

In long run equilibrium, the LRMC=Long run average total cost (LRATC) at minimum LRATC.

LRMC is the minimum increase in total cost associated with a change in one unit of output when all inputs are variable and when input combinations are optimal before and after the change.^[1] LRMC is the slope of the LR total cost function. The shape of the LRMC curve is determined by economies of scale. SRMC = LRMC at the long run cost minimizing level of output.

That sounds like a lot of economics mumbo jumbo. Here is a definition from WaterUK that is a little easier to understand:

long run marginal cost (LRMC)

The additional cost of meeting extra demand for water (or sewerage). In the long run this will include both operating and capital costs. Companies have estimated figures for water both on a steady demand basis and a peak demand basis, and these are published by Ofwat in their annual tariffs report. Ofwat's view is that companies need to refer to LRMC in setting tariffs and charges for bulk supplies.

Long run marginal costs include the cost for treating the sewage now, and any costs for new capital outlays. Suppose Pt. Loma had to build a new plant because it couldn't handle the amount of sewage going through it now, that would be a capital cost that would likely be transferred to the ratepayers. And if they charged different rates for flushing at different times of the day, I suppose that would be a "peak demand" event. But I don't see how we could even measure that because we don't even have sewer meters in the first place.

So, armed with a lot of economic buzz words, I took a fresh look at Poway's sewer rates. Poway Ordinance 666 (oh- it surely is a beast) lays out the water and sewer fees and charges. The paragraph on the sewer charges is titled "commodity rate", but there are no rates listed in the ordinance, only fees/charges.

I converted the fees/charges to a "rate" by dividing the charge by the number of units used. For example, the charge for Tier 2 (6-12 HCF) (note: HCF=unit) is $50.65. That means, someone who (by the city's guesstimate) uses 6 units pays a $50.65 commodity fee and someone who uses 12 units (twice as much) also pays $50.65. To find the rate for each, I divided $50.65 by the number of units used. The 6-unit user is paying $8.44 per unit and the 12-unit user is paying $4.22 per unit, half as much as the 6 unit user. In this example, the user who uses twice as much pays half as much as the frugal user. The CUWCC bmps are supposed to promote conservation. Can you figure out how charging the person who uses 12 units half as much per unit as the person who uses 6-units encourages conservation? I sure can't. And why give the person who uses 12 units such a discount when the rate for the person who uses 13 units jumps back up to $5.87 per unit.
The rates are just crazy. Here is a graph:

I don't think Poway's sewer fees comply with the CUWCC bmps. Even if Poway re-calibrated the rates to smooth out the crazy jumps, the trend is to charge less per unit for the people who use more sewer water. The long-run marginal cost actually has a tendency to raise the costs for additional units of production, or in this case, of sewage being treated. So how does Poway justify lower rates for big users and higher rates for the frugal users? I asked Steve Didier that question in an email:

Steve, the sewer commodity charge are not listed as unit rates. They are tiered fees. Convert them to rates and they are out of compliance with the bmps. The unit rate of the lower tiers is higher than the unit rate of the higher tiers. Does Poway get a discount for adding more sewage to the system?

Chris

Steve's response:

No, we don’t. But remember we’re the middleman in the equation and we do recover our costs from various customer types in different ways. For example, we charge higher sewer rates to certain commercial customers, like laundromats or drycleaners, considering a higher sewer treatment cost based on the type of business.

For residential customers, the increased cost at each sewer tier is based on the long-run marginal cost of adding the next unit of capacity to the sewer system. Our sewer rate model recognizes that as water usage goes up, less of that additional water use is returned to the sewer. This is controlled in our rate model with the sewer cap, which is what creates the lower per unit cost to which you are referring from tier to tier. Beyond 51 units of water use (tier 7) customers are not charged any more for sewer service because it recognizes that anything over that is likely not being returned to the sewer at all (i.e., landscape use). But at each higher tier to that point they are paying more, which meets the criteria of the CUWCC BMPs by charging for the marginal cost for adding the next unit to the system.

The City conducted a study in 2007 that validated our sewer rate methodology, which was vetted in an open council meeting and approved by the City Council. If you would like a copy of that report please request a copy from the City Clerk as a public records request. Take care.

STEVE DIDIER

Director of Administrative Services

City of Poway

858-668-4413

I don't buy it. If I run my shower longer, does less water end up in the sewer? The sewer commodity charge is based on winter water use. In a wet winter, wouldn't everyone have their irrigation off? And re-calculating how much ends up in the sewer is not a long-run marginal cost. It is a re-calculation of the winter water use. Not that I don't have issues with that too.

I'm usually in Tier 2 unless we have a very dry winter. Then the extra irrigation bumps me up to a Tier 3 which costs about $150 more per year than being in Tier 2. My own experience is that your sewer rate methodology sucks. It is not valid in my case. My last 3 lowest winter water use were 8 units (2007-2008); 10 units (2008-2009) and 9 units (2009-2010). Yet for the last couple of years I have been assigned to Tier 3. The averaging method makes a dry winter carry over for the next 3 yrs or so. The methodology supposedly compensates for that, but it sure doesn't in my case. The last last couple of years, I have paid for putting more water into the sewer than I received coming in to the house as fresh water. Poway's sewer fees are structured to extract as much revenue as possible from smaller users. There is no conservation incentive in the rate structure at all.