Gloria addresses community at Mission Hills Town Hall; discusses medical marijuana, new library and airport construction

By Dave Schwab | SDUN Reporter

San Diego’s financial situation is much improved, though significant challenges lie ahead. That was the upbeat message delivered by District Three Councilmember and new Council President Todd Gloria at the Mission Hills Town Council’s Jan. 10 Town Hall meeting.

“It looks like Washington, only without the dysfunction,” Gloria said, speaking to Mission Hills residents who packed Francis Parker School’s meeting room to hear the council president discuss his goals for the City in 2013.

Due in part to former-Council President Tony Young’s departure to become CEO of the local chapter of the Red Cross, Gloria was elected president Dec. 3, 2012 after inauguration for his second, four-year term on the council.

“I now have this role, which is really good for our district and means my calls get returned even faster now,” he said. “I work seven days a week. I love this job.”

The Council President said his top priority in the New Year would continue to be financial discipline.

“We are in much better shape now than four years ago,” Gloria said. “Our credit rating has actually improved, and we have healthy reserves. We now have to balance our budget while responsibly restoring, slow but sure, services over time.”

Gloria cited restoration of City library branch hours as one example of the fiscal turnaround, adding the new downtown central library branch is scheduled to open this summer with construction of other branch libraries to follow. New construction includes a library branch in Hillcrest at a temporary abandoned site on Washington Street, which will serve both neighborhoods.

The city will also be heavily invested in 2013 in improving roads and other infrastructure.

“What we’re trying to do now is manage, competently, our services so we can reduce costs while trying to streamline operations,” Gloria said, adding that infrastructure improvement is a “billion-dollar problem” and one that “won’t get solved overnight.”

Following his presentation, Gloria took questions from the audience.

Ask by a medical marijuana supporter about Gloria’s feelings on the issue, Gloria said it is a legal conundrum in that medical marijuana is legitimate at the state level, but illegal both locally and at the federal level. The Council president said he supports legitimate dispensaries, but added that laws governing where they can be located need to be revamped.

“The City previously had problems, with one building on Park [Boulevard] and Lincoln [Avenue] in Hillcrest that had four dispensaries. These were problematic,” Gloria said. “We need to have them not so close together with defined hours and signs, and other zoning restrictions.”

Utilities undergrounding also came up in discussion, with parts of Mission Hills already seeing progress in the citywide project. Gloria said some mistakes have been made in the process in other areas, which the City is trying to learn from so as not to repeat in Hillcrest, Normal Heights and North Park.

“I think the Mayor’s going to help us out by agreeing to have open meetings so we can begin amending our undergrounding program,” Gloria said, adding that the entire process is going to take decades to complete. “There’s no preferential treatment,” he said. “My home is not scheduled to be undergrounded until 2032.”

A San Diego County Airport Authority representative gave a slideshow presentation detailing ongoing, large-scale improvements to upgrade Lindbergh Field, including access to the airport at the Washington Street entrance. Construction at Lindbergh Field is currently being phased in now through 2015. Improvements include a new rental car center as well as improved shuttle bus service linking airport terminals.

A board member of both SANDAG and the Metropolitan Transit Service (MTS), Gloria, when asked if there would be a trolley stop at Lindbergh Field, said: “The answer lies in bringing the airport to the trolley, rather than the trolley to the airport.” He said there are significant technical and logistical problems with locating the trolley directly at the airport terminal, suggesting it is wiser to provide improved shuttle service by bringing trolley users from stations directly to the airport.

In other action at the Town Hall, the Mission Hills council thanked outgoing trustees Mark Fehlman, Richard Disraeli and Warren Shafer for their service, and Brooklyn Girl Eatery was honored with a Rose Award for business excellence. Brooklyn Girl opened mid-year 2012 and is located at 4033 Goldfinch St.