It is interesting to see the McMillin P3 candidate slate for the Peninsula Community Planning Board. It came as no surprise after listening to the candidates [forum] on March 13. It is obvious that, rather than a democratically balanced board, there is a Realtor/developer consortium that wants to ramrod through any and all projects that come before the Peninsula Community Planning Board.
Mark Hoppe (a newer PCPB board member and Realtor) at the recent plan review meeting gave the impression that the PCPB Project Review Committee should just rubber-stamp projects rather than questioning pertinent aspects of a project.
Sadly, we may have to go through a period of community destructive development before the public becomes aroused and boycotts the offending developments, businesses and Realtors.
There are good architects, Realtors and developers. Unfortunately today, there are too many that thumb their noses at the public good and place the almighty dollar ahead of everything else.
There are those that look at the former NTC [Naval Training Center, now Liberty Station], and say what a wonderful change. What is overlooked is how the public and the city coffers (taxpayer dollars) were raped in the process.
Are there any that could not have scraped up $8 and a bundle of broken promises in return for the NTC giveaway valued at $300-plus million? Oh, the plus sign stands for the additional $8.5 million Councilmember [Jim] Madaffer motioned to give [Corky] McMillin [Cos.] in return for the $14,000 in campaign contributions McMillin passed through their employees and subcontractors to him.
The ironic part is that McMillin even duped their incoming homebuyers by creating their version of passing the tab, referred to as a "Mello-Screws" District. This enabled "McMillion" to duck the cost of the park they were obligated to create by causing the Liberty Station homebuyers to indirectly reimburse McMillin by paying off the bonds that the city has to issue to reimburse McMillin.
McMillin then created P3 as its Joseph Goebbels (propaganda minister for Nazi Germany) to attack Save our NTC and the then-PCPB board because both parties were trying to look after the public interest ” including non-McMillin employee homebuyers at Liberty Station.
One day the sleeping giant will again awaken. The giant did awaken last year in La Jolla and this year in Kensington when they threw out the developer-leaning majority planning board members.
Meanwhile, the voters should vote [today] March 20 at the [Hervey/Point Loma Branch] library to return the current board members Geoff Page, Patti Rank and Mignon Scherer, plus airport watchdogs Lance Murphy and Harris Steiner, to their seats. All five have already demonstrated their commitment of placing neighborhoods and the public first.