"The position of City Council Member is not a rubber stamp to do what Mayor Vaus wants, We need to hold each member responsible for this"
In general, I am not a fan of appointments as I believe the elected officials should be elected. In this specific case, with the retirement of Jim Cunningham, the council decided that they needed to appoint someone until the election. They also could have made the election in district instead of at large as district 4 is unrepresented, but they kept the election at large which I feel is to the incumbents advantage.
The council decided that they would appoint someone and conducted short interviews.
There were several very qualified candidates, many who had been residents for several years with varied experience and included several people that had run in the 2016 election.
Instead the council chose a newcomer who had only moved to Poway 3 months before the date of the appointment. She knew the Mayor from SANDAG, a regional planning agency that I believe all the current city council have been members of with both Councilmember Mullin and Mayor Vaus currently as representatives. Several of the council said that she was their only choice. The vote was unanimous.
She is an adviser to Superviser Bill Horn and the daugher of Christy Guerin, prior Mayor of Encinitas and Brian Bilbray adviser, SANDAG board member and Director at the San Diego County Water Board Authority. Ms Guerin is also very good friends with Kristin Gaspar who happened to announce Ms. Frank as the new Poway council member during a fundraiser about 5 days before the appointment interviews were even scheduled.
Several Poway residents have written very eloquent descriptions of what the appointment of Ms. Frank was and I cannot describe it any better than they did, but it was probably one of the worst examples of an appointment to public office I have ever witnessed. I do not think it passes any sniff test.
Also, the day she was appointed, she drew papers to run in the election. The appointment gives her significant advantage over other potential candidates which is why I believe the council rushed thru her appointment when there was no urgent need for a 5th vote. Please remember the vote was 4-0, all incumbents voted to assign Ms. Frank to the council.
One has to ask the question, water is one of the most critical parts of our life and it is the one thing that most Poway homeowners have to pay for with the city. Does anyone really think that Ms. Frank will represent the interests of Poway where she has lived for only 3 months before her appointment or side with her mother and thus with the San Diego County Water Authority.
More than once I have heard current councilmembers lament the regional water authorities and their control over Poway's water situation. With the appointment of Ms. Frank, it seems we have made that worse!
Recently, we have seen that the appointment was only for political purposes. The next meeting has so little on the agenda the council is considering canceled it.
To see the video please click: Caylin Frank announcement at Gaspar Fundraiser
About Ms. Frank's mother: Christy Guerin as Mayor
Recent Criticism of the Appointment of Ms. Frank: Ryan and others confront Council
The Mayor's out of order statement: Mayor talks conspiracy theories
Last week the Mayor addressed the room after public comment in what I feel was a violation of public meeting protocol at best and could be considered a Brown act violation, because his statement was not on the agenda and the public was not allowed to respond.
You can view the video at the link above.
However, the Mayor started out with a comment that the public have been proposing Wild Conspiracy theories with no basis in fact.
Here are some of the facts.
1. The Mayor and the council unanimously voted for the appointment of a 3 month resident. There were no deliberations or even any questions for any other candidate and I believe 2 of the members, did not even chose to whittle down the group to 3.
2. A video was found basically now refernced as "The Gaspar video" see link above where that same appointment is announced almost a week prior to the appointment hearing. Kristin Gaspar introduces Mayor Vaus and the 3 month resident as the new councilmember, again this was 5 days before the vote.
3. The potential purchase of land of metate against stated wishes of the residents for what can be seen as a political stunt.
4. The mayors statement was itself an abuse of power in conducting a 5 minute diatribe regarding the challengers against the meeting rules.
5. After the council meeting, there was a late night meeting in the parking lot behind mainstream that has been reported to the City as another potential violation of the Brown act. I believe this was about 11:30pm after those area businesses are closed.....What's next? More info is available here:Parking lot meeting
I have asked specifically for Mayor Vaus and the council to explain the Gaspar video but we have heard nothing. Perhaps they will answer in the future. If you have the time, please come to the council and ask them any questions you see fit.
As someone who lives in south Poway, I understand the many issues with Poway Road. I want a revitalized Poway road with minimal impact to traffic and design that enhances the feel of our community.
A specialized team spent over a year working on the PRCP and we thank those residents for working hard on the plan. I know some committee members were not happy with the final product because of the increases in density and potential decreases in parking.
Being in the real estate industry, I do not agree with the current council that the only way to get development done on Poway Road is to increase the density beyond our current requirements. There are developers looking for good land to develop and part of the city’s job is looking to the future to make the road maintain the character, but bring us more restaurants and facilities we can all use.
By allowing the option to reduce parking by as much as 20% over the current standard, the plan sets up a situation where the new residents do not have enough space to park, so they end up parking in the surrounding neighborhoods and causing more traffic and struggles for the homeowners that have been here for years to find places to park their cars.
You only have to drive or walk down Robison or Oak Knoll Roads to see how not having enough parking is a huge problem.
Because I live in Heritage Hills, I often drive down one and when I go to the park, I walk down the other one and see the parking problems. Carriage street south also has major issues.
These are planning decisions made in the past that affect us today. Limiting parking for new development in the hopes that more people will take the bus or bike just does not work out in reality and we end up with lots of cars parked around several apartments or condos because we have not enough parking in those developments.
If I am elected, there is time to change this increased density and limited parking and I strongly feel that is what we should do.
I am in the city parks daily and all over Poway you can notice that they are not as nice or well maintained as they were in the past.
The parks and trails are overall not close to the level they were 4 years ago. Weeds are growing along the sides of several parks, trash cans are not emptied and in essence the city waits until a park gets in terrible condition and then spends a bunch of money to renovate the area at significant expense or asks for volunteers to fix pitch in and clean up. Prior management were good at keeping up on routine maintenance. It is much more expensive to let maintenance slip and then spend significant capital to fix the problems that come up with deferred maintenance, instead of just keeping it nice the first time around.
As a councilmember, bringing our parks back to their prior level is one of my major management goals.
Do you think the district elections are a positive or negative thing for Poway voters? Please explain your thinking.
Yes, as a Heritage Hills resident I believe districts are a positive for Poway as they allow local representation and specifically to Poway, allow better representation for those in the southern part of Poway that is typically smaller houses and increased density with lower incomes than the northern part of Poway, which is typically larger houses, less dense neighborhoods and has higher overall income. Due to geography and roadways, those in North Poway might tend to only drive on Espola/Racho Bernardo and shop/spend time more in Rancho Bernardo and might not even spend much time in South Poway at all so traffic, parking and density on Poway Rd might not concern a N Poway resident much, while they are huge issues for South Poway. Likewise South Poway might mostly drive Poway Road with the traffic and parking issues in the neighborhoods that do not have enough parking spaces for apartments overflowing into the the neighborhoods or the problems with putting thousands of new homes onto an already extremely busy road. South Poway residents might not care much about the issues with Stoneridge, but for North Poway, it is an eyesore and the lack of something like tennis courts and other facilities is a big issue. While district representatives will ultimately make decisions for all Poway, it is good to have people who actually live in the neighborhoods and can feel the pain of a new apartment building with too little parking (as was just approved by the new Poway Corridor Plan) that then have the extra cars parked in front of their homes and that should not be there, but in the apartment complexes as part of the building and planning process. One of the main reasons I am running is because I believe that historically South Poway has not been represented as well as the North, and as a result, we are moving away from the “City in the Country”, not preserving it and planning for more developments. more density and less “Country”. We all Need more restaurants, but we don’t want More Traffic! We need to plan to keep Poway the City in the Country, not the City.
Would you support a 4 district citizen’s commission to redraw/rebalance the district boundaries after the 2020 census or would you prefer that the council members do it? Again, please explain your thinking.
Because we are using the mayor’s map for the district and with recent events including the council voting unanimously for a 3 month resident to be made Councilmember over several other long term Poway residents, everything that has been done is suspect. If nothing else, an independent commission with residents from all of the Poway areas, should at least take a look at what was done and decide if they agree with it. I would recommend more than just 4 district reps though as this is a case where more eyes are probably better. There is a problem going forward in that if there is a change to the districts, it has knock on effects for future elections and even for voters in this election, so as with so many things in government, undoing what could be a bad or preferential decision may take much more effort and time to retract and fix, then if it had been done differently the first time around. Again, the council used the Mayor’s map, and then the lawsuit is based on the Mayor’s map and the council chose to keep the replacement of member Cunningham at large because in my opinion it works more for their agenda. I would have supported an in district election for District 4, instead of keeping the seat at large, and as a result of that decision by council, it could continue to remain unrepresented by a resident until at least 2020.
Do you think the city is transferring too many general fund expenses to our water, sewer, trash, LMD bills?
Accounting shenanigans aside, generally, we should be paying less. Whichever way the city accounts for revenue or increased fees/taxes, I do not feel like the current representation are good stewards of our money.
We often see them moving money around to cover shortfalls and just this year we have had millions of dollars in errors and overruns. I do not like to get bogged down in what they are doing wrong, more in the general scope that we are not getting the best value for our money. To have us overpay for water to fund other projects is wrong, just as it is to use proceeds from other projects to pay for water. The council and management do not work on being efficient and definitely do not work on preventing massive errors that cost the residents and bill payers money. In 4 or so years we have had several quite frankly ridiculous errors that never result in the city having more money, but in loss to the city.
The shell game of what goes in what bucket and what comes across from another bucket needs to end and an easily understandable budget needs to be put forth. Just eliminating management errors would have saved us millions of dollars over the last few years. LMDs should be paid for by those who benefit and going forward we should not approve these types of projects in the future because the regulations are not in favor of the city or the taxpayers. HOAs are generally used to pay for landscaping and that is a much better way to handle these types of situations going on in the future instead of LMDs that do not benefit those who are not in the impact zone of the LMDs. We certainly already have city wide maintenance for landscaping so we do not need to allocate the cost of those who live in say Arbolitos with the taxes and fees of those who live in Garden Road who see no benefit from the Twin Peaks road increased landscape and no property value increase. How much money have we already wasted trying to adjust LMDs this year alone? I will research it, but the costs we have done for surveys and polling and all that might well be over what additional costs the city was facing.
Said another way, does it make much sense to spend $350,000 to fix a $200,000 problem? Because you have taken a 200K problem and turned it into a 550K problem. That is not sound financial management. We need a complete rework of our accounting and to hold management responsible for losses. In private industry you almost never see a project that overruns it's initial budget by almost 100% as Espola Road has done and if you do, the person or people responsible do not get significant raises and increases to pension.
According to transparent California, our city managers total pay plus benefits in 2016 was approximately 322K and in 2017 it was 379K. Her salary and benefits this year will be even higher. We are paying significantly more for a manager who has been there and part of all of these errors, going back to the water billing errors, the contract billing errors, the pool closure and additional cost fiasco and the Espola road planning. By her pay, it seems we are rewarding screw-ups and I think that needs to change now!
Please feel free to contact me with any issues you might have!
Paid for by Ryan for Poway Council 2018 #1408573