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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda Packet 2002/01/29 ?e VIS e-:D - CITY OF CHULA VISTA ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL AGENDA JANUARY 29,2002 COUNCIL CONFERENCE ROOM 4:00 P.M. CITY HALL 276 FOURTH AVENUE CALL TO ORDER ROLL CALL: Councilmembers Davis, Padilla, Rindone, Salas, and Mayor Horton I. INTERVIEWS TO FILL ONE VACANCY ON THE BOARD OF PORT COMMISSIONERS 4:00 COUNCIL DISCUSSION 6:30 Leonard Moore 4:15 Jaime (Raul) Bomstein 6:45 Carl Nelson 4:30 Jan Buddingh, Jr. 7:00 Paul Nieto 4:45 Curtis Dowds 7:15 Gary Nordstrom 5:00 Gerald Gorman 7:30 Michael Kevin O'Neill 5:15 William Hall 7:45 Rudy Ramirez 5:30 Dan Horn 8:00 Alfred Salganick 5:45 DINNER BREAK 8:15 Jerrold Siegel 6:15 John Jolliffe ORAL COMMUNICATIONS ADJOURNMENT to the Regular Meeting of February 5, 2002 at 4:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers. PORT COMMISSION APPLICANTS INTERVIEW SCHEDULE JANUARY 29, 2002 4:00 COUNCIL DISCUSSION 4:15 Jaime Bomstein 4:30 Jan Buddingh, Jr. 4:45 Curtis Dowds ~,. ,ç~~,.requ.e~,tQcwi~\Vbi.aþptiCation'(O1l29!O2) . ,,"5;QQs,~Wilij_Håll' 'top.IS ..*~~.., 5:30 DINNER BREAK 6:15 John Jolliffe 6:30 Leonard Moore 6:45 Carl Nelson 7:00 Paul Nieto 7:15 Gary Nordstrom 7:30 Michael Kevin O'Neill 7:45 Rudy Ramirez 8:00 Alfred Salganick 8:15 Jerrold Siegel *Interviews moved up 15 minutes. William Hall and Dan Horn have confirmed their interview time changes. January 29th, 2002 MEMO TO: The Honorable Mayor & City Council FROM: Patty Wesp SUBJECT: PORT COMMISSION SUPPORT Virgil Pina contacted our offices this afternoon expressing his support of RUDY RAMIREZ for appointment to the Board of Port Commissioners. Thank You. Encls. Cc: City Clerk Armando Buelna April 19, 2000 Ms. Tina Vasquez Building Industry Association 6336 Greenwich Drive, Suite A San Diego, CA 92122 Re: Membership Dear Ms. Vasquez: Thank you for your recent membership package. I look forward to joining your group. Presently, due to my position on the Planning Commission for the City ofChula Vista, I have some concerns about potential conflict of interest, real or perceived. As you may be aware, I have been a strong supporter of well-planned, quality development that husbands our resources and adds to the quality of life in Chula Vista. The future, particularly in regard to traffic issues promises to be more of a challenge. I enjoy a strong voice and reputation as a pragmatist within the community. I would not like that voice to be muted by the perception that I am in the "Developers' Camp". I will discuss the membership issue with the City Attorney. Thank you for your consideration. Cordially, M. Kevin O'Neill President MKO;co January 14, 2002 To whom it may concern; Until recently, I was deeply involved in the development ofthe Port ofEnsenada. In my former position as vice-president and general manager1I was in charge of the cargo terminal, cruiser berths, marina, commercial center, hotel and condos. My responsibilities ranged from engineering to operations, including legal and environmental, contractual and promotional duties, as well as relationships with tenants, government/city officials, etc. This expertise can be put to good use by the city. As a Chula Vista resident, I believe that much can be done to improve the quality of our waterfront and offer my services for this purpose. Further information and references are available upon request. Raul Bornstein STATEMENT CONCERNING EXPERIENCE AND VISION Cunis M. Dowds, Ph.D. Newspaper reports describing this position highlighted two contradictory assertions. First, an interested party was quoted as saying, the new member should be experienced in land-use issues. Second, Councilperson Padilla suggested, the city should take this opportunity to appoint "a ITesh voice" to the position. Unfortunately, the latter excludes the' former ITom my perspective. One of the problems historically with the San Diego Port Commission - as with San Diego's regional evolution and growth generally - has been an over-emphasis on analyzing choices ITom a land-use planning perspective, often at the expense of any significant consideration of more fundamental economic development issues. In San Diego for many years when we haven't left decisions about our economic life outright to developers we've left them to land-use planners. It is very hard to see that it has gotten us where we need to go or could have gone. For many years planning around the bay and the other properties which the port controls has viewed those properties in isolation as space that needed a building, as essentially a real estate development problem, while the world went on without us. Any planning function involves some kind of land-use planning, to be sure. Economic activities have to go somewhere and it only makes sense to consider what goes best where. We need land-use planning. However, far more important ITom this applicant's perspective is the what. What kind of activities are we going to put where? Answering this question requires a vision that has largely been lacking in the region and at the port. What should we in Chula Vista want ITom the port? I would propose three imperatives. First, we need to link ourselves much better to global commerce. Los Angeles has profited immensely ITom understanding the importance of the global trade flow out of Asia into the U.S. Los Angeles as a region took what was little better than marshland and turned it into the world's largest commercial port system, something immensely powerful economically, with great jobs and a huge income infusion, created virtually out of nothing. Perhaps most importantly, many of the jobs this multi- modal transportation system generates in Los Angeles are jobs for populations that San Diego is leaving behind. We in San Diego are terribly late to the global commerce table but it's time to take our place. The under-developed bay properties in Chula Vista should be part of that arriving, as should the modernization of other port properties. Obviously, there are those who find any industrial use of the bay problematic and to the extent their concerns are environmental they must be satisfied. However, my question to those "clean bay" advocates is what future do you have in mind for the working middle class without advanced educations which is as much as 70 percent of us in the region? After many years of listening to the proponents of high tech and tourism in San Diego, I've yet to hear an economic development strategy that includes all of us. It shouldn't go unobserved that South County is home to many of those who don't fit into the high tech and tourism strategy of institutions like the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation and to a lesser extent SANDAG. This is not an argument """imt tl,o ¡,.", "' " ,(",,;et "nc1 ,-"uk! :",vu done a tàr better development job than we've done). It is definitely an argument against the extreme historical prejudice in favor of those uses of the bay. Second, we must look south at Baja California, another global relationship, and understand our comparative advantage. As an economist who did his Ph.D. dissertation looking at local entrepreneurs in Tijuana, I've followed closely the evolution of the Baja California economy for more than twenty years. What's clear to anyone who cared to look is that in many areas where San Diego could compete it has chosen not to, mostly through a refusal to inform itself and invest. There are many, many reasons for this failure. One of them is historical and to some extent cultural. Any student of the border will tell you that nowhere along the U.S.-Mexican border has there been less dialogue and understanding than here. In recent years these failures of communication and misunderstandings have lessened significantly, owing to changes on both sides of the border. What's still lacking, however, is a willingness on the part of many San Diego businesses and San Diegans generally to look south for opportunities. In Chula Vista especially, we need to think about capturing opportunities that link us to Baja California, just as we also look north to Los Angeles. Doing business in Baja California isn't a simple matter, for sure. Almost any activity where labor is less skilled can be done more cheaply and often just as well south of the border. We can't produce just anything here for sale there (a consequence of ITee trade that we would do well to consider as a nation). However, there are many inputs into Baja California manufacturing and other economic undertakings that require advanced skills where we can compete and where we could create good jobs here if we set our sights on it. I believe port planners and economic developers in Chula Vista should target these supra-regional linkages, as well as facilitate the many inftastructural improvements that this commerce requires. Lastly, there is the Navy and NASSCO and building on the substantial opportunities these facilities present, especially in terms of good jobs for average San Diegans. Navy vessels like cruise ships are floating communities which consume huge quantities of goods and services. We need to know better what these communities require to sustain themselves and make sure that the San Diego region (and Chula. Vista, in particular) is working as hard as possible to supply these communities ITom our local economy. In earlier work at San Diego Dialogue, this applicant researched inputs at NASSCO and the smaller yards to see what we supplied ITom the region. NASSCO's supplier book stood almost a foot tall of fan-fold paper but (if my memory serves me several years later) less than 2 percent ofthe volume came ITom local efforts. Some of this weak performance was due to military supply systems that locked us out. But I came away convinced that much of it was due to lack of awareness of the opportunities presented. I doubt much has changed since that work was done. We need to do better to supply these systems. Clearly, there are land-use planning issues involved in many of the decisions that would be necessary to enact the economic development agenda that the three initiatives above define. However, the problem in San Diego has been and still remains a lack of vision, an unwillingness to look broadly at the future and grab a long list of opportunities that are there. Historically, economic development has been viewed as a real estate project and land-use planners unfortunately have too often shared that perspective. To some extent that very mistaken and destructive idea continues to hold sway today in the downtown development project built around the ballpark which the port has supported enthusiasticallyl However, in recent years major players in the region have also understood that real estate projects in themselves don't create sustainable jobs, industries and firms do. Unfortunately, much of the work done around an industries perspective in San Diego has been unacceptably elitist in its cast, targeting "high tech" jobs, often for North County, where the ITontline opportunities created required extensive education. All other opportunities would presumably trickle down ITom these elites but often didn't that anyone can see. What has been missing in San Diego - and many other regions of the country, one must acknowledge - has been even a semblance of balance in terms of the outcomes sought and the benefits received. Imagination has also heen in short surlOl" We'"e ""ffererl frnm "I",('s! "hjec: conformity to the "new economy" buzz that has swept many of our institutions, including our financial markets, without working to develop any deeper understanding concerning what "high tech" might really mean. We can do much better than we've done in San Diego and in planning the Chula Vista of the future if we return to basics and concentrate on what's unique about where we are in the world and what that gives us. I believe I have the experience and the skills to bring that vision to this position. I This should not be interpreted as a blanket rejection ofthe downtown revival which I support strongly. Robust tourism and convcntioneering plus a revitalized downtown are unquestionably regional assets. However, I have very serious reservations concerning the management of the fiscal issues involved and I believe the controversy around the ballpark financing and related real estate development has, once again. distracted the region ITom looking more broadly at its opportunities.