Uptown Partnership Seeks Community Involvement and Transparency in Parking Management
by David Harvey

Parking has been a hot issue in Uptown all summer long and it doesn’t seem to be cooling down for the winter months.

On Nov. 24, Uptown Partnership’s board of directors held a community meeting in Bankers Hill as part of their ongoing effort to increase community input and representation in parking project management.

During the meeting, Executive Director Carol Schultz and board member Jim Frost, a Bankers Hill resident, led discussion on two points: developing a method for selecting the partnership’s directors to ensure neighborhood representation as well as the necessary expertise, and a system for project selection that incorporates community-wide projects.

“We need local participation,” Frost said at the meeting. “We feel that would give us the possibility of organizing on a micro-scale to address the needs, requirements and wants of the individual communities that make up the entire Uptown district.”

Over the past few years, some community members have voiced concern that the partnership — established in 1997 by the city of San Diego to lighten the impact of growth on parking availability in Uptown — is not adequately meeting the needs of individual neighborhoods.

Since May, Schultz’s office and San Diego City Councilman Kevin Faulconer have corresponded about the need for more transparency, representation and outreach to neighborhoods as well as the wider Uptown community. “We’ve been in a dialogue with Kevin Faulconer’s office from Council District 2, and with Council District 3, for a number of months about issues that relate to (community involvement), so it’s really a continuing effort,” said Schultz.

Schultz presented many of the partnership’s changes to attendees at the Nov. 24 meeting. Among these are new term limit limits for board members (three-year terms with mandatory turnover after two consecutive appointments) and expansion of the board from nine to 12 members. Six spots on the board will be open in this year’s coming elections.

Group discussion at the meeting revealed conflicting opinions on whether there should be mandatory requirements for board representation of each neighborhood by number or percentage, and what levels of expertise in parking and city planning should be sought in candidates.

Though largely focused on discussing the board’s structure, attendees also brainstormed ways to improve community participation.

Faulconer’s office, in an effort to improve such participation, recently added the development of a Bankers Hill neighborhood community to the City Council agenda. According to a memo dated Oct. 5, the proposal will be up for ratification when City Council members vote on the Partnership’s 2011 budget.

In 2006, the FivePoints area established a neighborhood committee to work directly with the Partnership in managing its parking needs. Earlier this year a similar committee was established for Hillcrest.

While Faulconer proposed the Bankers Hill neighborhood committee in response to communication between his office and representatives in the community, Schultz said the partnership has had no direct feedback. “Despite two e-mail invitations from the partnership and verbal encouragement from Councilmember Faulconer’s office, none of the complainers attended the meeting,” said Schultz in an e-mail. “Nor have any of them ever attended a partnership board or committee meeting to make their voices heard.”

Frost said the board desires community input, but is focused on maintaining district-wide projects. “Each neighborhood has its own needs, and not only do they have their own needs, but they have a responsibility to recognize that there are certain overall Uptown parking district needs which have to be brought together for the entire district,” he said.

Uptown Partnership staff and board members will begin attending meetings organized by neighborhood committees in January, to flush out the needs and wants of the neighborhoods in Uptown, Schultz told attendees at the Nov. 24 meeting. “We don’t have a blank slate. There are projects already underway and not everything we propose in a year gets completed in a year, or is necessarily intended to be,” Schultz said. “So I think we’ll be asking for feedback as well as new ideas.”