Monsters Under The Bed

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.

Honk if you believe this!

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.

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

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.