The Mission Bay Park Committee (MBPC) discussed the recent July Fourth celebration and future of Fiesta Island, and heard from Councilwoman Donna Frye and other city staff on leases at its Tuesday, July 11, meeting at the Hyatt Islandia Hotel.
This year’s Independence Day was the final phase of
The Mission Bay Park Committee (MBPC) discussed the recent July Fourth celebration and future of Fiesta Island, and heard from Councilwoman Donna Frye and other city staff on leases at its Tuesday, July 11, meeting at the Hyatt Islandia Hotel.
This year’s Independence Day was the final phase of the San Diego Police Department’s three-year plan to change the culture of the raucous celebration.
Though the trial phase has reached its conclusion, the debate on whether alcohol should be allowed on beaches during the holiday continues.
While many residents and community groups feel progress has been made, others feel too little change has come at too big a price.
The $1 million spent on additional police officers who patrol the beaches on the Fourth could instead be spent on hiring officers to serve the city year-round, argued Crown Point resident Al Strohlein in a letter read by Pacific Beach Community Planning Committee (PBCPC) representative Catherine Strohlein.
The city would have to spend that much money even if alcohol weren’t allowed on the beaches, said Karl Jaedtke, the committee’s Council District 2 representative.
“When you have that many people, you have to have the police there,” he said.
An estimated 1.5 million people visited San Diego’s beaches from July 1 through 4, according to Jake Orbin of the city’s Park and Recreation Department.
If local beaches didn’t allow alcohol, they wouldn’t attract such enormous crowds, Strohlein said. She believes that Pacific Beach’s problems started five years ago, when beaches in Del Mar and La Jolla banned alcohol, creating a concentration of drinkers in Pacific Beach, Mission Beach and Mission Bay.
“We were well prepared. We thought we had everything covered,” Orbin said. The additional 280 Porta-Potties and 120 boxes donated by FreePB.org helped handle the influx of people and trash, he said.
The Park and Recreation Department received no complaints of overflowing Porta-Potties, which have caused problems in past years, said Orbin. The roughly 200 tons of trash left behind by beachgoers were removed within six hours on July 5, he said.
Everyone agreed that parking was a problem, with most lots filling up before noon. Acting committee chairperson Bob Ottilie suggested satellite lots with shuttles to the beaches.
The committee will discuss that and other options as well as the future of the holiday on local beaches and bays at a later meeting when they have more complete information from the SDPD and the Park and Recreation Department, Ottilie said.
Turning its attention to Mission Bay Park leases, Ottilie said, “This park has more commercial uses than any park in the world.”
Currently, approximately 25 percent of the park is devoted to hotels, SeaWorld and other revenue-generating entities.
In a 20-page, four-section report, Ottilie states that one of the city’s reasons for devoting so much of the park’s land to commercial purposes was to fund capital improvements within the park. While revenues did go toward capital improvements for a time, much of Mission Bay Park, Fiesta Island and South Shores remain uncompleted ” and unfunded.
More than $300 million of the capital improvements outlined in the Mission Bay Park Master Plan lack necessary funding, Ottilie said.
Several years ago, the City Council adopted an ordinance requiring certain sums to be placed in a Mission Bay Park Fund every year. Until the most recent budget year, Council waived the ordinance and most of the $40 million in park lease revenue went into the city’s General Fund.
Even as the city struggles to regain its financial footing after the pension fund scandal, it’s failing to get maximum market value for its leases, contends Ottilie.
The issue came to a head last summer, when the MBPC voted not to approve the renegotiated lease for the Hyatt Islandia, arguing that the city could get more money if the site were opened to other bidders. Committee members also objected to the rushed time frame.
In August, City Attorney Mike Aguirre formed a lease task force to investigate the city’s leases. Incomplete inventories and mismanaged property prompted Councilmembers Donna Frye, Tony Young and Brian Maienschein to call for the resignation of Will Griffith, director of the City’s Real Estate Assets Department, who later stepped down.
“Whatever the past was, it is the past,” said Jim Waring, the city’s new deputy chief of land use. “We’ll assume responsibility for what happens from this point.”
Calling reports that the department doesn’t know where its assets are untrue, Waring said that the department is merely disorganized.
Assistant City Attorney Karen Heumann agrees that the department needs an organizational overhaul. Unclearly marked documentation and paper records make it difficult to assess the current status of leases, she said.
The department is working with a consultant to establish best management practices and begin “running Real Estate Assets like a business,” said Jim Barwick, the new head of the embattled department.
Some committee members believe the department’s failure doesn’t lie with people, but with failed processes.
“There’s no fairness in the [Request for Proposal] process as it exists to date,” said member-at-large Mike Pallamary.
Councilwoman Frye agreed: “All leaseholders are equal, but some are a lot more equal than others.”
She added, “A lot of this isn’t based on reason, but politics and who shows up to a City Council meeting.”
A transparent process that involves City Council and the public is critical, Barwick said.
Barwick and Waring agreed that a clearly defined Request for Proposal process and lease policy is also crucial to maximizing revenue.
During his tenure with San Diego Port Authority, Barwick helped create a procedure manual and rewrite lease policy.
Calling Mission Bay Park “the Rodney Dangerfield of public parks,” Frye said that the park has often bore the brunt of the city’s budgetary issues and “slippery” accounting.
For example, said Frye, when the use of Fiesta Island as a sludge bay was deemed illegal, the funds used to build a pipeline and legally comply with land-use requirements were counted toward park enhancements.
Frye is optimistic, though.
“I feel times are changing and I’m grateful for that,” she said.
Ottilie agreed.
“This is a great opportunity,” he said. “We ought to seize it.”
The creation of a Friends of Mission Bay group, a sales tax, enterprise fund and working with other parks are all possibilities, Ottilie said.
The committee also heard from several members of area boat and water ski teams who rely on the hidden anchorage area of Fiesta Island to participate in their sport. At its June meeting, the committee had raised the possibility of making the area available to swimmers.
A public workshop on how people use the island and what they would like to see there will be held Wednesday, Aug. 15, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Mission Valley Library, 2123 Fenton Parkway.
Jena Thornton of KenCal Management updated the committee on the remodeling of the Hyatt Islandia Hotel. New landscaping that “creates a sense of arrival,” three pools, cabanas, a wedding venue, sand pit for volleyball or bocce ball, a more open lobby area and renovated rooms are all planned, Thornton said. A balcony repair is in progress and the bulk of construction will begin in October. The goal is to be done by next summer, she said.
The MBPC will hold its next meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 1. The location has not been determined and will be announced. n San Diego Police Department’s three-year plan to change the culture of the raucous celebration.
Though the trial phase has reached its conclusion, the debate on whether alcohol should be allowed on beaches during the holiday continues.
While many residents and community groups feel progress has been made, others feel too little change has come at too big a price.
The $1 million spent on additional police officers who patrol the beaches on the Fourth could instead be spent on hiring officers to serve the city year-round, argued Crown Point resident Al Strohlein in a letter read by Pacific Beach Community Planning Committee (PBCPC) representative Catherine Strohlein.
The city would have to spend that much money even if alcohol weren’t allowed on the beaches, said Karl Jaedtke, the committee’s Council District 2 representative.
“When you have that many people, you have to have the police there,” he said.
An estimated 1.5 million people visited San Diego’s beaches from July 1 through 4, according to Jake Orbin of the city’s Park and Recreation Department.
If local beaches didn’t allow alcohol, they wouldn’t attract such enormous crowds, Strohlein said. She believes that Pacific Beach’s problems started five years ago, when beaches in Del Mar and La Jolla banned alcohol, creating a concentration of drinkers in Pacific Beach, Mission Beach and Mission Bay.
“We were well prepared. We thought we had everything covered,” Orbin said. The additional 280 Porta-Potties and 120 boxes donated by FreePB.org helped handle the influx of people and trash, he said.
The Park and Recreation Department received no complaints of overflowing Porta-Potties, which have caused problems in past years, said Orbin. The roughly 200 tons of trash left behind by beachgoers were removed within six hours on July 5, he said.
Everyone agreed that parking was a problem, with most lots filling up before noon. Acting committee chairperson Bob Ottilie suggested satellite lots with shuttles to the beaches.
The committee will discuss that and other options as well as the future of the holiday on local beaches and bays at a later meeting when they have more complete information from the SDPD and the Park and Recreation Department, Ottilie said.
Turning its attention to Mission Bay Park leases, Ottilie said, “This park has more commercial uses than any park in the world.”
Currently, approximately 25 percent of the park is devoted to hotels, SeaWorld and other revenue-generating entities.
In a 20-page, four-section report, Ottilie states that one of the city’s reasons for devoting so much of the park’s land to commercial purposes was to fund capital improvements within the park. While revenues did go toward capital improvements for a time, much of Mission Bay Park, Fiesta Island and South Shores remain uncompleted ” and unfunded.
More than $300 million of the capital improvements outlined in the Mission Bay Park Master Plan lack necessary funding, Ottilie said.
Several years ago, the City Council adopted an ordinance requiring certain sums to be placed in a Mission Bay Park Fund every year. Until the most recent budget year, Council waived the ordinance and most of the $40 million in park lease revenue went into the city’s General Fund.
Even as the city struggles to regain its financial footing after the pension fund scandal, it’s failing to get maximum market value for its leases, contends Ottilie.
The issue came to a head last summer, when the MBPC voted not to approve the renegotiated lease for the Hyatt Islandia, arguing that the city could get more money if the site were opened to other bidders. Committee members also objected to the rushed time frame.
In August, City Attorney Mike Aguirre formed a lease task force to investigate the city’s leases. Incomplete inventories and mismanaged property prompted Councilmembers Donna Frye, Tony Young and Brian Maienschein to call for the resignation of Will Griffith, director of the City’s Real Estate Assets Department, who later stepped down.
“Whatever the past was, it is the past,” said Jim Waring, the city’s new deputy chief of land use. “We’ll assume responsibility for what happens from this point.”
Calling reports that the department doesn’t know where its assets are untrue, Waring said that the department is merely disorganized.
Assistant City Attorney Karen Heumann agrees that the department needs an organizational overhaul. Unclearly marked documentation and paper records make it difficult to assess the current status of leases, she said.
The department is working with a consultant to establish best management practices and begin “running Real Estate Assets like a business,” said Jim Barwick, the new head of the embattled department.
Some committee members believe the department’s failure doesn’t lie with people, but with failed processes.
“There’s no fairness in the [Request for Proposal] process as it exists to date,” said member-at-large Mike Pallamary.
Councilwoman Frye agreed: “All leaseholders are equal, but some are a lot more equal than others.”
She added, “A lot of this isn’t based on reason, but politics and who shows up to a City Council meeting.”
A transparent process that involves City Council and the public is critical, Barwick said.
Barwick and Waring agreed that a clearly defined Request for Proposal process and lease policy is also crucial to maximizing revenue.
During his tenure with San Diego Port Authority, Barwick helped create a procedure manual and rewrite lease policy.
Calling Mission Bay Park “the Rodney Dangerfield of public parks,” Frye said that the park has often bore the brunt of the city’s budgetary issues and “slippery” accounting.
For example, said Frye, when the use of Fiesta Island as a sludge bay was deemed illegal, the funds used to build a pipeline and legally comply with land-use requirements were counted toward park enhancements.
Frye is optimistic, though.
“I feel times are changing and I’m grateful for that,” she said.
Ottilie agreed.
“This is a great opportunity,” he said. “We ought to seize it.”
The creation of a Friends of Mission Bay group, a sales tax, enterprise fund and working with other parks are all possibilities, Ottilie said.
The committee also heard from several members of area boat and water ski teams who rely on the hidden anchorage area of Fiesta Island to participate in their sport. At its June meeting, the committee had raised the possibility of making the area available to swimmers.
A public workshop on how people use the island and what they would like to see there will be held Wednesday, Aug. 15, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Mission Valley Library, 2123 Fenton Parkway.
Jena Thornton of KenCal Management updated the committee on the remodeling of the Hyatt Islandia Hotel. New landscaping that “creates a sense of arrival,” three pools, cabanas, a wedding venue, sand pit for volleyball or bocce ball, a more open lobby area and renovated rooms are all planned, Thornton said. A balcony repair is in progress and the bulk of construction will begin in October. The goal is to be done by next summer, she said.
The MBPC will hold its next meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 1. The location has not been determined and will be announced.