October 16, 1998
The Board of Directors of La Prensa San Diego, after due consideration of the various Proposals makes, the following recommendation to our readers.
PROP C: The "SHALL we build a baseball stadium at public expense for multi-million dollar Padre Owner John Moores and his shareholders and thereby in-debt the taxpayers for millions of dollars for the next 30 years?"
Comment: Don't be emotionalized by the multi-million dollar publicity campaign paid for by corporate moguls and others of the same ilk. This has nothing to do about supporting baseball, in particular PADRE baseball. Some of us have been supporting PADRE baseball since they played in Lane Field. Don't insult the real PADRE fans.
This is all about corporate greed! The owners and shareholders of the franchise have and are making millions upon millions from the franchise. And it is not all just from ticket sales. But that is not enough for them. The owners and their friends, that continue to make profits out of the PADRES, have gotten so greedy that they want YOU -the folks who work for a living to support the greed of these multi-millionaires. Isn't it strange that the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, whose membership is every major corporation, business, and professional in the city is beating the drum for YOU THE TAXPAYER to pick up the tab for them even though they already take the lions share of all the money that is made in San Diego (and pay little taxes)? The Chamber is so cheap that they come to the City every year and receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from the poorest of the poor, the working-class American, to support and maintain the Chamber, the private club for the wealthy and rich. This is the kind of greed that is killing our country.
Lets make it clear, La Prensa San Diego is not against the PADRES. La Prensa San Diego is not against a BASEBALL STADIUM! The Padre ownership, it's stockholders the Chamber of Commerce, and all its members, can build all the stadiums they want.
La Prensa San Diego is against the poor, the working class, Joe Lunch Bucket, having to PAY for a stadium when those that will benefit the most financially, are unwilling to pay for it THEMSELVES! We call this being "afraid to put their money where their mouth is at!"
PROPOSITION D: Will give Seaworld a blank check to build facilities higher than the 30-foot limitation now in place.
Comment: What is disconcerting about this "little give away" is that Anheuser-Busch
Is unwilling to say what he wants to build in our nice little Seaworld Park. They are asking for authority to be able to construct buildings that could reach up to our seacoast skyline up to 160 feet up in the air. Let's see how many 16 story hotel towers could be placed in the property area??? Or worse, how many more carnival rides could they build in that area. The problem is that the Beer Company doesn't trust us or is afraid to tell us the truth as to why they want this change in the coastal zone.
The Board of Directors of La Prensa San Diego says we need more than vague promises from the Beer Company. It's our coastal area they are talking about for all we know they might put up a tower in the coastal zone to advertise a beer brand!
PROP E: "The city may not enter into the agreements necessary for financing, developing, and construction of a major public project that confers a significant private benefit, unless that project is submitted to a vote, at a municipal election and a majority of those voting in that election approve the project!"
This is the "Closing the barn door Proposal" after the city along with the Charger team owner entered into a secret agreement to finance the reconstructed Charger Stadium without a vote of the people
Comment: This should prevent any more secret deals by the city and private owners that want baseball parks, football parks, basketball stadiums, to be built at public expense without a vote of the people.
PROP F: Should the City Charter be amended to permit the award of public works contracts to the same entity which furnishes both design and construction services?
Comment: The problem is that the unintended consequences will be to limit the ability of small to medium size companies to bid on public work contracts. As a general rule small to medium size contractors do not have design services along with their construction services. Minority contractors are already shut out from bidding on city contracts due to the Association of Contractors which pressured the city to eliminate Special set asides that would provide them with an opportunity to gain work for their firms and the minority communities.The destruction of affirmative action outreach by the state further worked to eliminate small, and minority firms from getting an equal opportunity. In the end, it will be the major contractors who will hog the lions share of city contracts.
PROPOSITION G: Shall public works contracts be awarded on a unit cost basis?
Comment: Cost factoring public work contracts by unit cost basis will open up the ability for small, medium size companies, including minority firms to bid on partial parts of a contract. Rather than having to sub bid on a major contract held by a large contractor , a small company can bid on a unit of work at a price they believe the can do the job rather than be forced to take the price the contractor will offer him.
PROPOSITION H: Shall surety bonds for Public Work contracts be required on contracts exceeding $100,000 instead of those that exceed $25,000?
Comment: Once again. the lowering of the threshold where surety bonding is required on public contracts opens the door for small and medium size companies to compete with the big boys. Surety bonding has been the toughest nut for small companies to crack when bidding on city contracts.
PROPOSITION J: Shall the city establish a bond reimbursement program to reimburse contractors for all or portion of the premium paid for surety bonds required by the city?
Comment: A surety bond, paid by a contractor, ensures the performance of a contract. The amounts vary. Currently if you bid for contract you're are required to provide a 10% bid bond, a 100% performance bond and a 50-100% payment bond. One has to wonder whether this is not designed to eliminate the small contractors from bidding in on city contracts. Passage of this proposal will go a long way to lowering the threshold of money that a small emerging business has to up-front to do business with the city. Some of the barriers will be lowered that keep small and medium size contractors from doing business with the city with the passage of Prop J.
PROPOSITION K: will open up 1,410 acres of land in the North County to the developers who want to build 1,500 new homes on the land. Currently they are allowed to build from 400 to 4,000 homes all to be located in the Black Mountain Ranch area.
Comment: It seems that the Home Construction Industry is turning a blind-eye to the massive parking lot that I-15 turns into with the overbuilding that already exists. It is necessary to build the highways necessary to carry the carload from the northern part of the county to the Mexican border before authority to built any more homes are built.
PROPOSITION N: would exchange 30.0 acres of pueblo lands located in the University City area, west of I-805 and north of Noble Drive for 47.7 acres of land in the San Dieguito area. The area would be used to build manufacturing, research centers, and other associated High-tech infrastructure.
Comment: Perhaps other folks won't mind, but I am sure all the citizens living in the University City area will not be to happy to see their open space changed into a partial industrial area. There are no roads in that area to carry the traffic out of that area except Genesse Ave and I-805. This a residential area.
Prop M: A strange marriage between the "treehuggers" and the "build on every piece of land in sight from San Diego to Los Angeles types."
Comment: Let's see if I get this... Lets' take a whole lot of open countryside with nothing on it but natural landscape, wild life, open spaces and lets turn it over to the "quick buck" developers, to build more ticky-tacky box homes from here to Los Angeles. Lets then get it approved by the Tree Huggers such as the SIERRA CLUB and lets call it "Preserving our way of life." Then the dumb voters will vote YES. Dahhhhhhh, you folks just don't get the picture. We don't want to become the nations most overpopulated county! IF YOU DON'T BUILD THEY WON'T COME! You just can't depend on the SIERRA CLUB ANYMORE to provide guidance not since they expanded their role to trying to keep out Latinos, Mexicans and all other brown people from migrating to the U.S. They speak with fork tongue. On the one hand its ok to destroy all the environment in order to build high-end homes in the pristine areas of the county where the wealthy elite's from all over the nation can migrate and over populate the state and they will be the only ones that will be able to buy them… But its not Ok to allow migration into American from Latin America as the Sierra Club wanted to do with their desire to impose population control. So excuse me if I just don't buy that this is the best deal in town. By the way how many Chicanos were involved in the discussions? You know the AGC doesn't allow any minorities in their ranks. How many minorities in the Sierra club?
PROPOSAL MM: Proposed Bond Proposition for the San Diego Unified School District to improve classroom health, safety, and instruction at a cost of $1,510 billion plus financing costs of another $1,510 billion.
Comment: It would have been better to name this "The bond issue to pay the cost of class room reduction. Deferred maintenance, continued high cost of teachers, administrators and superintendents."
When the educational and political establishment decided to convince the voters that reduction of the number of students per class room to 20 or less, they forgot that if you reduce class of 40 students to 20 you were going to have to double the number of teachers you would need. Not only don't we have them. We don't have the money to pay them. Ergo take the money from the operating budget and hire Aides and non-credential teachers. Did education improve? Think not.
No one remembered, you reduce the number of students in a classroom... Guess what... You need to double the number of classrooms or build new schools. Again no rooms no money and here is the result PROP MM... YET THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT REDUCING CLASS SIZE HAS IMPROVED THE OUTCOME!!!
Problem TWO: No politician, school board member, Teacher or Administrators UNION, HAS EVER SUGGESTED THAT PERHAPS WE NEED TO GIVE THE HOMEOWNER A BREAK. Why should only they bear the burden of supporting the public schools? Having an educated populace is everyone's business.
LA PRENSA SAN DIEGO WILL BE BOLD ENOUGH TO SAY ` VOTE NO ON EVERY SCHOOL BOND PROPOSITION, be it state, local, county, etc. Then establish a corporate, business, property tax to fund public education. Spread the burden equally. Corporations make their billions here, and use our people to do their business. They have a vested interest in the public schools.
La Prensa further suggests reduce class size only in the K-3rd grade where it might have a beneficial effect. This alone will reduce the need for billions and billions of dollars for the educationl system.
We must change the way we finance our public school system!
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