The Anatomy of a Botched Testimony
Voice of San Diego
February 1, 2011
by Liam Dillon
It was an idea without an author.
San Diego City Councilwoman Marti Emerald wanted to know who had gone around the council's back to breathe 20 more years of life into downtown redevelopment.
The guy at the Oct. 12 City Council meeting who had answers was Frank Alessi, the executive vice president and chief financial officer of the city's downtown redevelopment agency, the Centre City Development Corp.
Except Alessi wasn't saying much.
Here's a breakdown of Alessi's testimony to the council now that we have the benefit of three months of reporting and the context from newly released emails. It shows that not only did Alessi fail to respond to many of Emerald's questions, but that a key answer was false.
Emerald started her questioning by wondering if she could trust Alessi.
Emerald: If you were monitoring my comments from before you know how very upset I am about what I believe is a gross breach of trust. Going forward, I'm going to have a very difficult time believing anything that you and your staff have to tell us as a board.
Then she launched into him.
Emerald: Who actually hatched this idea?
Alessi: Well.
Emerald: Whose idea was it? To go behind this council's back and go to Sacramento?
Alessi: I don't have an answer to that. Other than (Assemblyman) Nathan Fletcher was the author of it.
Emerald: He just in the middle of the night came up with the idea? Who did he talk to about crafting this idea to bury it in the budget bill? Was it you? Was it the mayor?
Alessi: I can't speak for the mayor.
Alessi now is CCDC's highest ranking official following the resignation of former interim head Fred Maas in December. Alessi has been with the agency since 1979 and makes $176,800 a year. Ultimately the City Council, as the board of directors for the city's Redevelopment Agency, is his boss.
Emerald continued asking whose idea it was.
Emerald: Fred (Maas)? Who?
Alessi: Unfortunately, Fred, our chairman, is unavailable today. He's back East on personal matters. And he ...
Emerald: So who was involved, once the mystery person came up with the idea, who sat down and came up with the plan?
Alessi: There were several people involved. It's ...
Emerald: They were who?
Alessi: I defer, I would like to defer the answer to that question.
Emerald: Why?
Alessi didn't answer. He just stared straight ahead.
Emerald turned next to Alessi's personal involvement.
Emerald: C'mon I mean it's out here on the table here, you did this, you didn't talk to us, but at least let us know who was involved.
Alessi: Well, I personally was knowledgeable of the information.
Emerald: Were you involved in it?
Alessi: To a degree.
Emerald then began asking him how long he had been discussing the deal. His answer, the most significant he gave to any of Emerald's questions, was wrong.
Emerald: Can you tell us when this idea fell out of the sky or what?
Alessi: There was probably a week or, two weeks ago that was.
Emerald: Two weeks ago, you think?
Alessi: I'm guessing. I mean I can only tell you from my perspective.
Emerald: When did you first learn of it?
Alessi: I believe it's been about two weeks. I don't have ...
But that's not what emails we obtained through a public records request show. Alessi was involved as far back as August, six weeks earlier than when he said he was.
Alessi's answer to council fit the deal's official narrative at the time — that it was only weeks in the making. But that narrative fell apart a few days after Alessi's testimony. The deal's formation began in August, around the same time Alessi got involved...
Showing posts with label . Maas (CCDC's Fred Maas). Show all posts
Showing posts with label . Maas (CCDC's Fred Maas). Show all posts
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Monday, December 13, 2010
Mayor of Redevelopment No Longer?
Mayor of Redevelopment No Longer?
(Click on the link above to get all the links in the story.)
by Scott Lewis
Voice of San Diego
December 13, 2010
Redevelopment is the reason the city of San Diego can consider building a new Convention Center, football stadium and other enhancements downtown at a time when rec centers, libraries and swimming pools are in danger of closing elsewhere.
Cities all across the state use the mechanism for their blighted neighborhoods. But unlike most of them, San Diego does things differently. For one, it allows two nonprofits, fully funded by the city, to manage its redevelopment efforts downtown and in southeastern San Diego: CCDC and SEDC respectively.
And, also unlike other areas, San Diego made its elected mayor the executive director of the Redevelopment Agency -- the entity that oversees not only CCDC and SEDC but the other areas considered blighted in town.
Now, that may change. The City Council is considering ousting him as San Diego's redevelopment leader and hiring a professional manager wake of the mayor's efforts to extend the lifespan of downtown redevelopment without involving the public or City Council.
U-T: We Want Maas Redevelopment
The Union-Tribune made its case for downtown redevelopment this weekend featuring an editorial about, and a Q&A with, the outgoing chairman of CCDC, Fred Maas.
If that didn't give you enough Maas, the man himself penned an op-ed of his own with a now common claim that visionaries like him are only held back by shortsighted "small-town undertakers."
In the Q&A, Maas blasts the proposal supported now by five City Council members that the downtown redevelopment agency take over from the city's ailing general fund, the duty to pay back bonds on the last expansion of the Convention Center - a move that would free up $9.2 million a year.
"We run the risk of bankrupting ultimately over the next 20 years the redevelopment agency. This is not that different from underfunding pensions or from granting benefits without a way to pay for them by raiding our coffers to pay for things that were never contemplated."
Moral: If you don't like something that's happening in the city, compare it to the pension system! But question: Aren't redevelopment efforts eventually supposed to run out of money?
The new City Council president is considering your thoughts on those questions and others as he proposes a new ad hoc committee for redevelopment. And he has set up an email address to collect them: budgetandfinance@sandiego.gov.
Snow? Ha!
The U-T drew a direct line from the major snowfall and incredible collapse of the roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis to the Chargers search for a new stadium (did you see the video of the roof collapse?). Presumably, this adds urgency to the stadium debate there - the Minnesota Vikings are often mentioned in the same breath as the Chargers as possible teams that could relocate to Los Angeles.
Back in San Diego, it was a pretty nice day at the stadium yesterday, as Sam Hodgson's photos prove...
Sulking in San Diego
» Last week, we mentioned a video provoking guffaws across San Diego's political twitterati the last few days. It portrays San Diego as an insecure teenage girl uncomfortable that "the boys" keep making fun of her big pension. It's clearly trying to chide the media for begin so negative while making the case that we shouldn't worry so much about the city's problems, and we should support a new stadium and other projects championed by downtown redevelopment officials and the mayor.
As the U-T summarized, nobody wants to take credit for the flick.
I actually agree with another anonymous commenter, though, who said that the city is better represented by the mother figure in the video - always trying to convince people who are worried here that everything is fantastic. And she does that, even though she regularly admits (even trumpets) how bad things are going to get if we don't deal with our big pension.
(Click on the link above to get all the links in the story.)
by Scott Lewis
Voice of San Diego
December 13, 2010
Redevelopment is the reason the city of San Diego can consider building a new Convention Center, football stadium and other enhancements downtown at a time when rec centers, libraries and swimming pools are in danger of closing elsewhere.
Cities all across the state use the mechanism for their blighted neighborhoods. But unlike most of them, San Diego does things differently. For one, it allows two nonprofits, fully funded by the city, to manage its redevelopment efforts downtown and in southeastern San Diego: CCDC and SEDC respectively.
And, also unlike other areas, San Diego made its elected mayor the executive director of the Redevelopment Agency -- the entity that oversees not only CCDC and SEDC but the other areas considered blighted in town.
Now, that may change. The City Council is considering ousting him as San Diego's redevelopment leader and hiring a professional manager wake of the mayor's efforts to extend the lifespan of downtown redevelopment without involving the public or City Council.
U-T: We Want Maas Redevelopment
The Union-Tribune made its case for downtown redevelopment this weekend featuring an editorial about, and a Q&A with, the outgoing chairman of CCDC, Fred Maas.
If that didn't give you enough Maas, the man himself penned an op-ed of his own with a now common claim that visionaries like him are only held back by shortsighted "small-town undertakers."
In the Q&A, Maas blasts the proposal supported now by five City Council members that the downtown redevelopment agency take over from the city's ailing general fund, the duty to pay back bonds on the last expansion of the Convention Center - a move that would free up $9.2 million a year.
"We run the risk of bankrupting ultimately over the next 20 years the redevelopment agency. This is not that different from underfunding pensions or from granting benefits without a way to pay for them by raiding our coffers to pay for things that were never contemplated."
Moral: If you don't like something that's happening in the city, compare it to the pension system! But question: Aren't redevelopment efforts eventually supposed to run out of money?
The new City Council president is considering your thoughts on those questions and others as he proposes a new ad hoc committee for redevelopment. And he has set up an email address to collect them: budgetandfinance@sandiego.gov.
Snow? Ha!
The U-T drew a direct line from the major snowfall and incredible collapse of the roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis to the Chargers search for a new stadium (did you see the video of the roof collapse?). Presumably, this adds urgency to the stadium debate there - the Minnesota Vikings are often mentioned in the same breath as the Chargers as possible teams that could relocate to Los Angeles.
Back in San Diego, it was a pretty nice day at the stadium yesterday, as Sam Hodgson's photos prove...
Sulking in San Diego
» Last week, we mentioned a video provoking guffaws across San Diego's political twitterati the last few days. It portrays San Diego as an insecure teenage girl uncomfortable that "the boys" keep making fun of her big pension. It's clearly trying to chide the media for begin so negative while making the case that we shouldn't worry so much about the city's problems, and we should support a new stadium and other projects championed by downtown redevelopment officials and the mayor.
As the U-T summarized, nobody wants to take credit for the flick.
I actually agree with another anonymous commenter, though, who said that the city is better represented by the mother figure in the video - always trying to convince people who are worried here that everything is fantastic. And she does that, even though she regularly admits (even trumpets) how bad things are going to get if we don't deal with our big pension.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Out of the Loop, in a Snit
My question: why wasn't Fred Maas investigated at the same time Nancy Graham was investigated? How come she took all the blame for helping developers? Maybe Fred Maas will be investigated now. See video of Maas refusing to answer questions.
City Council members grilled outgoing CCDC leader Fred Maas on Monday about details of a deal that allows the agency to sequester $6 billion more in property taxes for downtown redevelopment.
Out of the Loop, in a Snit
by Randy Dotinga
Voice of San Diego
Nov. 16, 2010
When it comes to running the city, one might assume that the City Council wouldn't just be in the loop, it would be the loop. That would be a bad assumption, as the council learned last month when the city's downtown redevelopment agency worked out a deal with the state to sequester property tax money. The council had no idea what was going on.
The City Council, which thinks the agency went rogue, spent Monday trying to figure out what it didn't know and when it didn't know it. There was plenty of bipartisan agency-slamming and talk about whether the agency's head deserves to keep his job. It's a rather moot point: he's leaving.
Council, City Attorney Feast Again on Porkfest
November 15, 2010
by Liam Dillon
If the state Legislature is where the late-night downtown porkfest gets fattened up, San Diego's City Council is where it gets slaughtered.
For the second straight hearing, council members sliced and diced staff from the city's downtown redevelopment agency, the Centre City Development Corp., about secret negotiations that led to a last-minute state deal to eliminate limits on downtown redevelopment. The deal happened without the council's knowledge even though members were working on a plan to remove the limits themselves.
Last month, the council had requested a timeline of when key players knew about the deal, which allows the agency to collect $6 billion more in property taxes and potentially finance a new downtown stadium for the Chargers. Outgoing agency head Fred Maas, who had revealed previously that discussions about the deal began in August, attempted to do that Monday afternoon.
Maas said he spoke between five to 10 times with local Republican state Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, the provision's sponsor and he had briefed others on the deal.
But that — and a bland memo from Mayor Jerry Sanders' office also released Monday — wasn't enough. Councilman Carl DeMaio wanted to know about how the deal began, specifically contact between Maas and mayoral chief of staff Kris Michell. Maas refused to answer. DeMaio, in turn, openly wondered if he could fire Maas.
"I don't think I feel comfortable with Mr. Maas staying until the end of the year," DeMaio said.
Incidentally, Maas had just formalized his resignation effective at the end of the year, as the city is seeking to replace him with a permanent downtown redevelopment chief.
Had that not happened, Councilwoman Marti Emerald said, she might have sought Maas' removal sooner.
"I think there's probably some of what you're hearing too is that maybe it should be an immediate resignation," Emerald said. "No offense to the great volunteer work you've done, but this City Council is trying to repair the damage done by previous councils and mayors in doing deals behind closed doors that have gotten us into a lot of trouble."
City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, who also was kept in the dark about the deal, poked a hole in one of the main arguments made by its proponents. City Council, backers say, has the ultimate decision on how and if the city should spend the new money.
But there are restrictions to how that new money could be spent, Goldsmith pointed out. Had the deal not occurred, property tax dollars would have flowed directly to the city's day-to-day operating budget, meaning it could pay for police, fire and other city services. Now the money will be sequestered downtown, meaning it couldn't pay for those services...
City Council members grilled outgoing CCDC leader Fred Maas on Monday about details of a deal that allows the agency to sequester $6 billion more in property taxes for downtown redevelopment.
Out of the Loop, in a Snit
by Randy Dotinga
Voice of San Diego
Nov. 16, 2010
When it comes to running the city, one might assume that the City Council wouldn't just be in the loop, it would be the loop. That would be a bad assumption, as the council learned last month when the city's downtown redevelopment agency worked out a deal with the state to sequester property tax money. The council had no idea what was going on.
The City Council, which thinks the agency went rogue, spent Monday trying to figure out what it didn't know and when it didn't know it. There was plenty of bipartisan agency-slamming and talk about whether the agency's head deserves to keep his job. It's a rather moot point: he's leaving.
Council, City Attorney Feast Again on Porkfest
November 15, 2010
by Liam Dillon
If the state Legislature is where the late-night downtown porkfest gets fattened up, San Diego's City Council is where it gets slaughtered.
For the second straight hearing, council members sliced and diced staff from the city's downtown redevelopment agency, the Centre City Development Corp., about secret negotiations that led to a last-minute state deal to eliminate limits on downtown redevelopment. The deal happened without the council's knowledge even though members were working on a plan to remove the limits themselves.
Last month, the council had requested a timeline of when key players knew about the deal, which allows the agency to collect $6 billion more in property taxes and potentially finance a new downtown stadium for the Chargers. Outgoing agency head Fred Maas, who had revealed previously that discussions about the deal began in August, attempted to do that Monday afternoon.
Maas said he spoke between five to 10 times with local Republican state Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, the provision's sponsor and he had briefed others on the deal.
But that — and a bland memo from Mayor Jerry Sanders' office also released Monday — wasn't enough. Councilman Carl DeMaio wanted to know about how the deal began, specifically contact between Maas and mayoral chief of staff Kris Michell. Maas refused to answer. DeMaio, in turn, openly wondered if he could fire Maas.
"I don't think I feel comfortable with Mr. Maas staying until the end of the year," DeMaio said.
Incidentally, Maas had just formalized his resignation effective at the end of the year, as the city is seeking to replace him with a permanent downtown redevelopment chief.
Had that not happened, Councilwoman Marti Emerald said, she might have sought Maas' removal sooner.
"I think there's probably some of what you're hearing too is that maybe it should be an immediate resignation," Emerald said. "No offense to the great volunteer work you've done, but this City Council is trying to repair the damage done by previous councils and mayors in doing deals behind closed doors that have gotten us into a lot of trouble."
City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, who also was kept in the dark about the deal, poked a hole in one of the main arguments made by its proponents. City Council, backers say, has the ultimate decision on how and if the city should spend the new money.
But there are restrictions to how that new money could be spent, Goldsmith pointed out. Had the deal not occurred, property tax dollars would have flowed directly to the city's day-to-day operating budget, meaning it could pay for police, fire and other city services. Now the money will be sequestered downtown, meaning it couldn't pay for those services...
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