Editorial: Why you need to take the Senior Affairs Advisory Board survey
By William Kelly
San Diego’s adult older population is a rapidly increasing percentage of the city’s residents.
Recent professional studies at the city, county, state and national level duplicate the warnings of a looming national aging crisis that cannot be ignored.
The older adult population is increasing fastest in the western U.S., and lacking proper planning, shortfalls in available, accessible and affordable housing, health care, transportation and underfunded social safety nets will soon negatively impact the quality of life in every age group and neighborhood.
San Diego’s Paul Downey, a widely recognized authority on aging, reported that one out of four homeless San Diegans is aged 60 or greater and the number of San Diegans over the age of 60 will double by 2030 to one in four residents.
The Elder Index also tells us that two out of five [40 percent] seniors lack enough money to meet their housing, food, health care and transportation needs.
Other sources show one out of every four adult San Diegans is currently caring for one or more senior relatives and that one out of four homeless persons is a veteran.
Our mayor and City Council are ultimately responsible for city policies, ordinances, laws, projects and budgets impacting all San Diegans. The City of San Diego Senior Affairs Advisory Board (SAAB) was given the responsibility of informing and advising them of the needs of older adults as they carry out that responsibility. Recognizing both the diversity and commonality of each City Council district, SAAB is visiting each district and conducting an anonymous 10-15 minute voluntary survey of adults aged 49 or greater.
The geographic, economic, financial, cultural, social, physical and mental health, family and other factors of San Diego’s diverse population are what determines the priority levels of concern for each of us, younger and older alike. Accordingly, there are no one-size-fits-all strategies to address the challenges before us.
The information being collected will underscore older adult priority concerns down to the neighborhood level. Mapping the results and overlaying that map with one of existing transportation, shopping, medical care facilities, services, programs, recreation/entertainment facilities, and housing inventory and costs will highlight deficiencies by neighborhood and district.
As a result, your participation in the survey is critical to achieving viable San Diego solutions that identify and address the challenges.
San Diego can and is attempting to head off a potential human disaster; but government, nonprofits, businesses, community organizations and SAAB member volunteers cannot do the job without the valuable information you provide by completing the survey.
Help us help you and each other. Take the survey.
Remember: The alternative to working together as a community now to heed the warning signs, is waiting until we reach crisis levels, and far more drastic steps — at even greater cost and negative impact on the lives of every San Diegan — will be then necessary.
Thank you for your participation.
For cost and time efficiency, please take the SAAB survey online at:
English version: surveymonkey.com/s/SeniorAffairs
Spanish version: surveymonkey.com/s/SAABenEspanol
For a paper copy, call 619-236-6362 or mail a request to:
Attn: Senior Survey
San Diego Office of ADA Compliance
1200 Third Avenue, Suite 924
San Diego, CA 92101
For more information about SAAB, visit their website at sandiego.gov/saab.
—William Kelly can be reached at [email protected]. Please do not forward the surveys to him, since it will only delay the time it takes to get to the right people.
Editorial: Keeping kids safe around the water this summer
By Michael Murphy
Kids love pools. But a swimming pool can be a dangerous place for children and tragedy can strike in an instant. With summer on the way, now’s the perfect time to remember some basic guidelines for keeping your loved ones safe around the water.
First, make a habit of doing the following:
— Learn how to swim and teach your children how to swim. It’s not just a skill you can use to have fun and stay fit, it will help keep you and your children safe.
— Never take your eyes off a child around a pool, not even for an instant. And if a child is missing, check the pool first. Every second you save could be the difference between life and death.
— Make sure someone is assigned the task of watching the children during poolside gatherings. Don’t assume you will hear a child in trouble in the pool. Rarely does a child splash around before drowning – he or she simply sinks silently under water.
— If you’re leaving a babysitter in charge of the kids, make sure the babysitter understands the critical importance of constant supervision around the pool.
— If you’re taking the kids to a public pool or spa, make sure it complies with all local, state and federal safety regulations.
You can also take a number of proactive steps to make sure your loved ones stay safe:
You should install a 5-foot-high fence around your pool, one with a self-closing and self-latching gate. And never prop open the gate. Make a point of installing alarms on any doors or windows that open to a pool area. And avoid keeping any furniture next to the fence that a child might use to climb over the fence.
You should make sure your pool has an anti-entrapment drain cover that complies with all regulations. Each year dozens of children are injured or killed when an outdated pool drain sucks them down.
Last but not least, everyone in the family should learn CPR, especially if you have a pool in your backyard. Kids should learn it, too. Not long ago, two 13-year-old boys in National City used CPR to save the life of a 6-year-old boy who was spotted at the bottom of a pool at an apartment complex. The boy would not have survived had the two teens not been trained in CPR.
By following these basic guidelines, you and your family can enjoy a fun, safe and relaxing summer by the pool or at the beach.
—Michael Murphy is general manager of American Medical Response in San Diego.
Open letter to Charter Review Committee about Balboa Park
By David Lundin
(Editor’s note: This open letter was sent to San Diego City Council president Sherri Lightner and members of the Charter Review Committee by David Lundin, president of the newly formed Balboa Park Heritage Association, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation.)
San Diego has a limited number of parkland, an ever-growing population, and some political and business forces motivated by greed or good intentions, which seek to privatize these precious public lands. We believe parkland should be protected and remain as public parkland.
Parkland is a scarce and precious public resource in any city, particularly in one expanding and becoming increasingly urbanized. Parkland will always be under pressure to be used for other purposes, to be sold or leased, or to be developed in part for non-park purposes. We believe to best preserve parkland for the next several generations of San Diego residents and visitors, existing City Charter protections of parkland should be both maintained and strengthened.
As president of the newly formed Balboa Park Heritage Association, we both [1] strongly oppose any weakening of the existing parkland’s protective language in the City Charter and [2] will propose new, more explicit protective language as amendments to the City Charter as part of the current comprehensive Charter Review process. We hope you will support these efforts to protect our parkland.
We propose clear, explicit and easily understood language as a Charter amendment to achieve this purpose. Absent strengthened protections, our parkland will be subject to intense uses incompatible with the look, feel, atmosphere and objective of public parkland.
Only last month a San Diego charter school operator proposed locating a newly created “educational complex” for their campus in Balboa Park. To make this permissible, the proponents suggested new Charter language to permit “educational use” of parkland, including Balboa Park.
This proposed amendment could lead to the development of open public Balboa Park lands for privately controlled school buildings, fenced school recreational facilities and grounds, and additional development incompatible with the public recreational use of precious Balboa Park lands and assets.
The sole proponent of this proposal is the operator of a Bankers Hill charter school having designs on acquisition of a favorable leasehold or purchased lands in Balboa Park and development of a school campus. This proponent states its proposal is “a possibility for a small change that could open up a big idea.” It suggests that revenues from such a “public-private partnership” could be a partial solution to the millions of dollars in unfunded “deferred maintenance” liabilities facing Balboa Park.
That “big idea” is a prescription for disaster for both the public and Balboa Park. It is the city’s moral and legal obligation to properly maintain Balboa Park. This duty is non-delegable. Breaching this duty should never be used as justification to surrender parts of Balboa Park to non-park uses. Balboa Park could be converted to a commercial mall and revenue-producing site for multiple charter schools. Generating revenues is not the purpose for San Diego’s public parks.
We have urged the City Council to reject this proposal as wholly incompatible with both the critically important Charter protections now applicable to Balboa Park and other parkland, and to the moral and legal duty of this Committee, the City Council and the mayor’s office to maintain, protect and defend this precious and unique public property from unneeded and unnecessary encroachment.
Existing park protective language in the Charter reads as follows at Article V, Section 55 of the current Charter:
“All real property owned in fee by the City heretofore or hereafter formally dedicated inperpetuity [sic] by ordinance of the Council or by statute of the State Legislature for park, recreation or cemetery purposes shall not be used for any but park, recreation or cemetery purposes without such changed use or purpose having been first authorized or later ratified by a vote of two-thirds of the qualified electors of the City voting at an election for such purpose. However, real property which has been heretofore or which may hereafter be set aside without the formality of an ordinance or statute dedicating such lands for park, recreation or cemetery purposes may be used for any public purpose deemed necessary by the Council.
Whenever the City Manager recommends it, and the City Council finds that the public interest demands it, the City Council may, without a vote of the people, authorize the opening and maintenance of streets and highways over, through and across City fee-owned land which has heretofore or hereafter been formally dedicated in perpetuity by ordinance or statute for park, recreation and cemetery purposes.”
We have proposed this language be amended, clarified and strengthened to read as follows:
“All real property owned in fee by the City heretofore or hereafter formally dedicated in perpetuity by ordinance of the Council or by statute of the State Legislature for park, recreation or cemetery purposes and real property which has been heretofore or which may hereafter be set aside without the formality of an ordinance or statute dedicating such lands for park, recreation or cemetery purposes [hereinafter “parkland”] shall not be used for any but park, recreation or cemetery purposes without such changed use or purpose having been first authorized or later ratified by a vote of two-thirds of the qualified electors of the City voting at an election for such purpose.
The proponent of any non-park, recreation or cemetery use of parkland shall have the burden of first demonstrating by a preponderance of the evidence that such proposed use of parkland will affirmatively enhance and not diminish the free public park and recreational use and enjoyment of parkland, before such proposal may be authorized or later ratified by a vote of two-thirds of the qualified electors of the City voting at an election for such purpose. This predicate determination shall be made by the City Council, and shall be subject to de novo review by any Court having jurisdiction over parkland and subject matter.
The City Council may authorize the opening and maintenance of streets and highways over, through and across parkland [hereinafter “Streets and Highways Use”], provided the City Council shall have the burden of first making an affirmative finding supported by a preponderance of the evidence that such proposed Streets and Highways Use of Parkland will affirmatively enhance and not diminish the free public park and recreational use and enjoyment of Park Lands. This predicate determination shall be made by the City Council, and shall be subject to de novo review by any Court having jurisdiction over parkland and subject matter.”
This proposed amendment does the following to clarify, enhance and strengthen protections of park lands:
- The definition of “parkland” is made inclusive of both properties formally dedicated in perpetuity by ordinance of the Council or by statute of the state legislature for park, recreation or cemetery purposes and real property which has been heretofore or which may hereafter be set aside without the formality of an ordinance or statute dedicating such lands for park, recreation or cemetery purposes;
- Any proponent of any non-park, recreation or cemetery use of parkland would have the burden of first demonstrating by a preponderance of the evidence that such proposed non-compliant use of parkland will affirmatively enhance and not diminish the free public park and recreational use and enjoyment of parkland; and
- Use of parkland for street and highway uses would be fully subject to this same standard, protecting park lands from de facto condemnation for street and highway uses regardless of the impact on use and enjoyment of parkland.
We understand the Charter Review is a process, involving all elements of city government and the public.
We hope these suggestions will assist in a process that ultimately will be successful to best preserve parkland for the next several generations of San Diego residents and visitors by both maintaining and strengthening existing Charter protections of scarce and increasingly precious parkland.
Please join us un this important effort. Contact us at [email protected].
David Lundin
President, Balboa Park Heritage Association
Historic Michels-Carey House demolished in blow to LGBT community
The historic Michels-Carey house at the corner of Florida Street and El Cajon Boulevard in North Park was demolished May 29 by HG Fenton, the developer.
Seems that the city issued the demolition permit around 1:30 p.m. May 29 and a few hours later at around 5 p.m. the Saltbox house was demolished. The city sent a fax stating the demolition permit “may” have been issued in error. But by the time it was sent/received, the house was gone.
It seems odd that the news that the house was to be considered by the California Office of Historic Preservation announced a few days before the demolition was subsequently followed by the developer’s action. The developer was aware of the state process since late in 2014 and commented on the house to the state when the first draft of the nomination was distributed to Fenton.
The architects for the project, Foundation for Form, are community members and expressed no interest along with the developer in saving the house.
This is a tragedy for San Diego’s LGBTQ history of place. Lambda Archives of San Diego and Saving Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO) were uniformed and taken by surprise of this action. Both are researching how this happened, given that there were assurance by city staff that if a demolition permit was requested there would be a review of the permit by Historic Resources staff.
The building was going to be reviewed for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in August by the State Historic Resources Commission.
Lambda and SOHO will be evaluating their options.
Chuck Kaminski
Lambda Archives of San Diego board of directors
