Why you should vote for the Incumbents and not for the Challengers.

What follows is a direct submission from a reader of this blog.  This reader has anonymously contributed to this blog in the past, but has specifically asked to be identified here and to not have the text altered in any way to conceal their identity.  This is an unusual request but was granted for a number of reasons, one of which was the congruence with the editorial “staff’s” viewpoints, and another was that there was not much else to publish.  The post is technically not complete (see the end) but will be updated when the additional text is received.  Enjoy.

Why you should vote for the Incumbents and not for the Challengers.

By Peter De Hoff

The group of incumbents in the City Council and the Mayor’s office represent one of the most accomplished and successful groups of representatives in recent memory.  The challengers for the seats, by and large, represent a fringe viewpoint in Poway politics that is attempting to expand and capitalize on the perceived “South Poway” vs “North Poway” divide.

Let’s take a look at the opposition for a moment in detail.

The challengers have united around the “South Poway” narrative that essentially goes like this:

"Before time began, South Poway lacked representation on the City Council and has borne the brunt of the negative impacts of economic development while gaining none of its fruits."

Let’s examine that argument in detail.

First, what is “South Poway?”  

This has long been an elusive term bandied about by various challengers across elections over time.  However, according to Chris Cruse, a longtime critic of the Poway City Council and self styled organizer of the South Poway First movement (Link to Facebook Group), South Poway encompasses all properties south of Twin Peaks and some RS7 properties to the north of it.  Quite a large territory to be “underrepresented” and ruled from afar by the dastardly Northerners.

But is “South Poway” truly “underrepresented on the City Council?”  To answer this pertinent question, we first have to understand how elections take place in Poway.  Poway is split into 4 districts of approximately equal population size.  These districts were delineated in 2017 for implementation in this election of 2018 and in 2020.  They were chosen from a series of map submitted by the public, the City Council, and the Mayor.

Each of the four districts vote for a single City Councilperson and the Mayor is elected “at large” throughout the city.  As such, the Mayor (currently Steve Vaus) had no “horse in the race” in terms of where the district boundaries would be drawn.  In the end, the final map was chosen such that each of the four districts had a significant portion of it on the Poway Road corridor, to help ensure that the area of economic development, and burden, had as much of a voice in city decision making as possible.  There were several equivalent maps submitted that met this criteria submitted, and the one chosen by unanimous consent, had been submitted by Steve Vaus.

Now how about “South Poway” representation on the Council?  Let’s break it down by how much of the population in each District is within “South Poway?”

District 1: 100%
District 2: ~10%
District 3: ~70%
District 4: 100%

How is this possible?  How could the claims of “gerrymandering” being used to disenfranchise the “South Poway” vote be true if 3 of the 4 Council seats are held by supermajority of “South Poway” residents, and two of those seats are at at 100%?

The simple answer is:  It’s not.  

There was no gerrymandering.  There is no disenfranchisement of “South Poway.”  In fact, if anyone has been disenfranchised, it’s “North Poway,” whatever that is supposed to mean.

But what about the Mayor?  Who elects the Mayor?  EVERYONE.  All for 1 vote on the council.

In short, the Challengers, or the Opposition, or the “South Poway” malcontents, don’t want you to look into the details surrounding their arguments.  They want you to listen about how they think they should have been appointed to the council and were not.  Or about imaginary misdeeds of the council, or about a whole host of things that, like their arguments concerning disenfranchisement, fall apart upon the simplest of inspection.

But voting for someone, even an incumbent, should be because they have performed well, not because the opposition is so clearly inferior.  What has this City Council and Mayor actually done?

The following achievements are discussed in more detail below.  It is unlikely that you will have time to read it all.

Poway Road Specific Plan (PRSP)

Smart growth business and housing development project to renovate the Poway Road Corridor and make it a destination location throughout San Diego.  Brought about through a massive public engagement/input process, planning, and adoption. 

Espola Road Improvement Project:

After enormous public input from stakeholders adopted a plan that will bring major safety and aesthetic improvements to a previously neglected and heavily used transportation corridor.  An accomplishment not successfully achieved by any prior council.  Still under budget, even after discovering a city-side contract specification problem.

Poway City Pool Renovation:

Brought about needed major renovation to significant city run recreational facility on budget and to quality specifications.  Took a political hit to ensure that substandard work was not accepted at the cost of delay in the completion time.

Senior Center Replacement Project:

Took lessons from prior City Public Pool piecemeal renovations to heart and opted for a rebuild of the Senior Center.  Large public engagement to assess the needs of the users of the facility.  Made adjustments to the budget and expenditures to help facilitate the process through increasing city reserves.  Searched for potential outside partners to develop the property.  

Budgetary Surpluses:

Kept a close watch on expenditures, and made efficient use of available properties that resulted in a ~$4.9 million budget surplus.

Public Safety Improvements:

Continued close association with the County Sheriff resulted in Poway being ranked the safest city in San Diego County, and in the top 50 in California.

Each City Council member and the Mayor plays a role in each of these accomplishments and more.  They have easily earned my vote.  And they deserve yours.  

Vote to Keep Poway on the Right Path.

Reelect the Poway Incumbents

Poway Road Specific Plan (PRSP):

For more than 10 years, the Poway Road Corridor has been recognized as needing significant improvement.  Large portions of the area are run down and/or have vacant lots.  Efforts to improve the area have been piecemeal, although reasonably successful.  ie the new public health building next to the Salvation Army.

In order to more comprehensively revitalize this area, and to realize the needed revenue to maintain our public safety services, this area has been the subject of extensive public input and planning.  This process was jumpstarted by this City Council through their arrangement, over several years, of a series of public informative and interactive forums to gain input from the local residents and potential developers.

Through this interactive process of public input and practical planning options (from the City Planners), a final (more or less) plan for this region was prepared and approved by this City Council and Mayor.  Additionally, the Council and especially the Mayor have been active behind the efforts to recruit and sell the positive aspects of this Planning overlay to prospective tenants and developers.  One of the fruits of this labor is the upcoming Urge Gastropub development in Poway.

In time, and with continued effort, the Poway Road Corridor will become a destination location for San Diego.  In many ways, this is a win-win for everyone involved. 

This type of activity employs an enormous number of soft skills and hard negotiating that are simply lacking in any of the challengers for any of the seats.

Challenger Complaints:

They essentially boil down to a claim of insufficient public input in the process.  There are specific complaints of increased traffic and housing.

The first complaint is ludicrous on its face.  The amount of public input in this process is nearly unheard of in a city of this size.  What may be true, is that some of the ideas of some of the challengers, if they chose to actually participate, did not make it into the final package.  It is unclear if any of the challengers actually chose to participate, or if they simply boycotted the proceedings, as their names are not listed amongst the many notable participants of the plan.

The complaint about housing density is also patently false.  Prior plans for the area had overall more housing than the new plan.  That said, it is possible that some of this housing has been concentrated in certain areas rather than being spread throughout the area.  This is part and parcel with any smart growth planned development.  You cannot have walkable commercial areas without nearby housing.

The only viable complaint is about increased traffic.  This is partially mitigated through more developed mass transit locations, defined underground parking facilities and increased walking (as opposed to driving) pathways and commercial design.  In truth, there is no way to have increased commercial development without some increase in traffic.

Espola Road Improvement Project

The Espola road corridor from around High Valley to Twin Peaks is heavily impacted by road traffic, especially during peak use times around Poway High School and Twin Peaks Middle School entrance and dismissal times.  This stretch of road lacks basic sidewalk protections, sound barriers for local residents, and has dangerous overhead power lines that have been knocked over by trucks more than once.  Improvements to this stretch of road has bounced for 20 years or more between previous city councils, the public, the city staff.  This council was able to convene a final series of public workshops and hammer out a plan.  This plan was not perfect, but, instead of repeating this costly futile cycle, the council members decided to adopt the plan in its entirety and specify that some controversial parts be put off to a later date, or ignored.

The project was sent out to bid, however, after the bids were received, a city side contracting error was discovered and traced to a person in the employ of the city.  This person no longer works for Poway.  Rather than fix the contract and get a new round of bids (a fairly costly process), the city chose a contractor and had them adjust it to include the previously omitted work.  Even with this amendment, the project still came in under the original budget.  The work progresses and the residents will see both the benefits of the improvements, as well as a project under budget.

Challenger Complaints:

The primary issue brought up by the challengers surrounds the cost difference between the award for the under-specified contract and the final contract that meets the actual specifications.  

That is an apples to oranges comparison and is not reasonable.  The appropriate analysis would be to see that the Council followed the process, corrected an error in the process, and managed to negotiate a contract that was still under the original budget.  If the project had come in significantly over budget due to this specification error, then there would be some shred of an argument to make.  However, this is not the case and the challengers are trying to convince the voters that there is something behind the curtain.  There is nothing behind the curtain.

Poway City Pool Renovation

The Poway City Pool is a significant City-run recreational facility for Poway residents.  For many years, it has been undergoing minor renovations to keep it from falling apart.  However, these stopgap measures have really just forestalled the inevitable requirement for a major renovation, in part to bring the ancient facility up to modern safety codes.  This process was put out to bid, as by State law, the lowest bid of a capable contractor was chosen, and the work was performed.

A concrete subcontractor performed substandard work, which was found by the City when it performed the required inspections.  At the Council’s direction, the work product was rejected and the main contractor agreed to redo the work to specification at his cost, and wound up using a different concrete subcontractor for the work.  The Council knew that this would mean the facility would be effectively closed for the summer, but that it was the right thing to do.

If they had accepted the substandard work product, extensive and costly repairs would need to be performed within a short period of time, and at the City’s expense.  It is truly unfortunate that contractor was unable to perform on time and to specification, but it is the job of the Council, Mayor, and the City to take the long term view of City projects.  They are not flipping houses here.  Building for the long haul is responsible both financially and philosophically.  

Challenger Complaints:

That the pool was closed for the summer and that the contractor performed substandard work.

This is a vastly unfair criticism of the Council and Mayor’s work.  Their job is not to pour concrete.  Their hands are tied by law in terms of whom to pick for contracted projects.  These contracting laws are in place to prevent real corruption where a government agent doles out contracts to their friends, then OKs substandard work.  The Council did a fantastic supervisory job of the work product of the contractor and behaved ethically when they insisted on getting the job done right.  Although it would have been politically expedient to accept substandard work, it would have been ethically bankrupt.

Senior Center Replacement Project (will get to this later)

Budgetary Surpluses 

Background:
One of the reasons that Poway has remained a viable city, both to the envy of other municipalities and to the begrudging respect of the state, is fiscal conservatism.  Poway has remained focused on its core functions:  Public safety, reliable clean water, and a well maintained road system.  It is curious that it is this third point that is the thorn in the side of other local city governments.  It is these roads that serve as a constant reminder to the residents of these other local cities/regions of the inadequacies that arise within their own local governmental decisions in how to allocate their own resources.

All of these things require the constant focus of the City Council and Mayor to resist interest groups and their desire to siphon off city reserves for non-essential items.  Not surprisingly, the core of this fiscal conservatism resolves around reducing recurring expenditures, planning for the long term, and a sound investment strategy.  In coarse terms, Poway reduces recurring expenditures on several fronts.

First, it efficiently uses outside contractors for activities that are intermittent (ie building permitting, projects, road resurfacing), or lack the scale needed for efficient in-house operations (such as the police).  This choice allows it to avoid the costly overhead that comes from maintaining a large number of non-essential employees, particularly union employees.

Secondly, the when Poway undertakes a project it is for the long term.  This sometimes increases short term costs, but decreases long term ones.  These would be things like choosing to rebuild the Senior Center rather than renovate it.  The same holds true for the public pool facility.  It also has seeked to reign in retirement costs by bringing the program in house as opposed to keeping it at the state level, with the associated overhead inefficiencies.  This actually fits with the third point as well.  

Finally, Poway maintains a a 45% budgetary reserve for when the economy enters in a downturn.  For instance, Poway was able to weather the latest financial crisis, in part, because of this reserve and the ability to keep city functions funded while other cities needed to cut back.  This has the added benefit of of greatly aiding in the recovery phase of the downturn.

This year, because of this Council and Mayor's sound fiscal management, Poway had a budgetary surplus of about $4.9 million on a total budget of approximately $95 million.

Challenger Complaints:

Challengers like to point out that perhaps a little more than half of this surplus came from one term items, bringing the actual surplus to ~$2 million.

A $2 million budget surplus is a criticism?  Seems kind of odd, but there it is.  The City Council even publicly emphasized that one time budgetary gains are forbidden by practice (but not law) from being used to fund operational recurring expenses.  This is the right way to run the city.  

To be fair, some of this surplus is due to challenges in budget forecasting with at least one source coming from the state as a result of the dissolution of the redevelopment agency.  This source uses a complex formulary in determining how money is divided up amongst participating municipalities, and the factors influencing it are somewhat opaque.  In the end, it is far safer to assume that your revenues will not be as high as you want and your expenditures will be higher.  Having extra money in reserves is better than having less money.

Unfortunately, the challengers have promised anything under the sun to gain votes.  They are correct when they state that Poway has significant monetary reserves.  They will spend these long term reserves to pay off their short term supporters to the determinant of everyone in the Poway.  


Public Safety Improvements  (will get to this later)