Candidate Wants to Chase Out 'Unfunded Overpromises'
San Diego planning commissioner running for the vacant District 2 City Council seat challenged her competitors to pledge to not support any development that does not identify how infrastructure related to the project will be funded.
Carolyn Chase, who is among the 17 candidates vying to fill Michael Zucchet's council seat, said the city government has, for a long time, been approving projects and programs without finding a funding source to pay for them.
She likened the recently proposed downtown community plan update to the city's ongoing pension troubles, saying the underfunding associated with both are examples of the "Enron-by-the-Sea syndrome" that has crippled the city's finances.
The plan update, which is expected to be heard by the City Council on Nov. 15, proposes to add 38,600 new residential units and nearly 29 million square feet of office space without including the necessary infrastructure and mitigation to support the growth in the environmental impact report, Chase said.
Likewise, the city's pension plan has a funding shortfall of at least $1.37 billion and is the subject of several federal and local probes into the municipal government's books.
Chase was joined by three of her competitors for the District 2 seat: graphic communication business owner Kathy Blavatt, real estate agent Phil Meinhardt and retired Salk Institute professor Ian Trowbridge. The three other candidates said they decided to sign a pledge promising "to intervene and repair the gap between planning for growth and the underfunding of infrastructure during the land use development process."
The four candidates offered solutions to the underfunding of infrastructure, saying that the city should demand that the developers pay their fair share in impact fees to pay for parking and that redevelopment projects should be scaled back to ensure that the city isn't cut out of the windfall of higher property values because of tax-increment financing.
They also urged the council to postpone the downtown community plan update until the vacant offices of the mayor and council Districts 2 and 8 – which both encompass downtown neighborhoods –are filled.
Small businessman David Diehl, attorney Tim Rutherford and public relations executive Kevin Faulconer also signed the pledge, Chase said, although none attended Chase's news conference Wednesday afternoon.
– EVAN McLAUGHLIN
