Council approves eastside redevelopment plan by a one-vote margin
An ambitious and controversial plan to redevelop a cluster of eastside apartments that some officials say are home to a host of troubles got the go-ahead Monday night.
The City Council, acting in its role to oversee the San Bernardino Economic Development Agency, voted 4 - 3 to OK a redevelopment plan that calls for the rehabilitation of several four-plex apartment buildings that have been foreclosed or abandoned.
Council members Dennis Baxter, Tobin Brinker, Fred Shorett and Rikke Van Johnson voted for the plan. Council members Esther Estrada, Chas Kelley and Wendy McCammack voted "no."
The council cast their votes after lengthy debate that included comments from about two dozen speakers, shouts from the audience, raised voices on the dais and a break to get news on the brush fire that burned during the meeting on Little Mountain.
The vote was a narrow victory for Mayor Pat Morris, who strongly favored the redevelopment plan which is set to focus on eastside apartments on Sunrise Way and 19th Street. The neighborhood in question is just southwest of the place once known as the "Arden Guthries."
Morris and EDA officials consider the plan a tool to bring life back to a troubled neighborhood, however, McCammack contended that the plan's immediate focus on apartments misses out on an opportunity to promote home ownership within the city.
The Arden Guthries were another group of distressed apartments where redevelopment officials have already pushed the reset buttion. Several apartments that comprised the Arden Guthries have already been demolished in a previous redevelopment effort that was intended to reduce crime and clear way for commercial development along Highland Avenue. Plans call for a Home Depot store to eventually go up in the location.
The new project is set to take advantage of about $8.4 million in federal dollars provided through Washngton D.C.'s Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which is intended to help the city deal with problems created by recent foreclosures.
But Uncle Sam's money also comes with a mandate that one-quarter of the funds be used to provide housing for low-income individuals.
The low-income requirement marked a dividing line for the issue. Although EDA housing director Carey Jenkins noted that the plan will reduce the number of apartments in the neighborhood, some of the speakers said that setting aside units for low income people amounts to an invitation to crime.
Another point of contention was the question of how shady the neighborhood really is. Jenkins showed photographs of dilapidated structures and observed that one building in the area recently burned down. He said that was the very building where he was recently quoted as saying he wouldn't be surprised if the building burnt down before it could be acquired.
However, several speakers who identified themselves as area residents objected to the characterization of their homes as a dangerous place, and that they considered the colloquial designation of the neighborhood as "Little Africa" to be an insult.
Another concern for residents is whether they will be forced to leave their apartments as redevelopment moves forward.
The EDA recommended that the council approve a deal to work with a San
Clemente-based nonprofit to acquire, fix-up and manage rehabilitated apartments for low-income tenants.
That nonprofit, San Clemente-based Mary Erickson Community Housing, promised to screen future tenants and Morris and other proponents have said the organization would provide a shield against absentee slumlords.
Susan McDevitt, Mary Erickson's executive director, acknowledged after the vote that an unspecified number of current tenants will likely have to move. She said the law requires those people to receive assistance and that it could be possible for them to return to the area if they pass tenant screenings.
City Attorney James F. Penman - who prefaced his remarks by digging up a set of old jury instructions that identified his office as a policy-making position - said he is not confident that the nonprofit will be more successful in managing the area than other property owners that sought to run the Arden Guthries when things in that area were much worse.
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I don't believe the city would give a contract to a San Clemente based non profit and overlook the non profits that have been serving this city faithfully.
The city needs to learn how to build on its own assets!
Good for Morris and the City Council: They did the right thing in approving this project. Doing nothing was not a option. This neighborhood is ugly and getting uglier. California law mandates that housing be made available for all income segments. There are many decent families who need affordable places to live. Well managed programs have been proven to be safe and successful. This project will provide much needed jobs and help stimulate the local economy.
Gary Moore:
The trouble with California and Federal Laws, you are getting sec 8s in neighborhoods they did not earn the right to live in, by earning a living and paying taxes and affording the mortgages therein. They are put in those single family homes and pay a pitance for rent, while the rest of us pay the balance.
Sure some are good, but when crime follows the rest of them into the neighborhood, it takes an act of congress to get them out (3 to 6 months)and they trash the home that was required to be made perfect before the renter moved in with the federal subsidized rent!
Now you will have a concentration of subsidized renters, who some are not going to follow the law and will have family or friends move in with them, who will cause more crime.
Single family homes, just means to some of them: "how many can we squeeze into the 4 walls and get away with it, or what can we get away with while we are here?"
How about , when a crime does happen, the police come; amazingly, NO one sees anything, cries of police intrusion and they defend the criminal by lying to the media! They lie what they see, and see or hear nothing of the truth. This is the nature of the beast( culture), high density low income housing.
Why don't you offer up your neighborhood's foreclosed homes? Go ahead and tell Morris and Marzullo where you live and invite the EDA NSP FUNDING THERE TOO!!!! OH, AND Let your neighbors ( who have worked their butts off to get where they are) know of your wishes, so they can support your "touchy feely" attitides, and lower their home values for the benefit of Morris and Marzullo and the criminals that the likes of Morris have put back on the street.
If you watched the council meeting, you heard how history repeated it self and will do so again. Neighborhoods age in a predictable direction, when you have this kind of concentrated living conditions. I am too old, to think I may be here to see this project age as I am sure it will by 2017-2020. But while it undergoes it's metamorphisis, it will pain many, who predicted it's repetition of Arden Guthrie history.
I hope I am wrong for those good souls out there, but I have seen too much in the time I have passed here in Berdoo. Our family has generations who have raised their young ones here and watched wonderful changes and very ugly changes as well. I and many of my still living freinds have marveled and now tear up over the passing of this wonderful valley to where it is today. There are soooo many good people here , but for the few who hurt and maim and raid the wealth of others and yes, now even Arson, is a culture here.
I hope for the future, something for the good happens for my grandchildrens' grandchildren. I will not ever know of that, but hope for yours and my off spring, it gets better. Optimism; is very hard to come by for Berdoo.
Politics and waste have created these feelings. Politics and the ugly side there of, have been historic in Berdoo. History is to repeat it self in all ways, if we don't learn from the past.
"I am done, good night David".
The strangest part is that the money can ONLY be used on foreclosed or abandoned properties; however, these homes aren't foreclosed upon OR abandoned...It's just going in, cleaning out the residents and tossing them into the street.
Morris is a monster! He just threw families on the street. Honor-roll students and all! He must be lying to the government to get these dollars, too...This area doesn't fit what the grant money is supposed to be used for. Vote out Morris: He hates poor people! He's mean to children by putting them in danger! He gets us into financial troubled with hair-brained scams that break the law! He's uppity and worthless to this community. All he is is a non-profit scam artist!
HAS HE EVEN APOLOGIZED FOR THOSE CHILDREN BEING MOLESTED AT HIS PROGRAM YET?
I'll bet not...Plus, I'll bet he won't apologize for this, either!
San Bernardino is a lost cause. Present politics lead it down the path it continue on today. Another term for Morris and the touchy feely (Baxter, Shorett, Brinker, and Van Johnson) will be the final nail that seals the coffin of this city. The voters get what they deserve. These individuals will continue to make every effort to attract the maggots and gaggots to this city in the name of compassion. Unlike S.T. I'm not planning on being around long enough to see this mess undergoe its inevitable metamorphisis. I'm ouuta here in 2011.
Can't this decision be overturned because it is illegal? If the places they want aren't foreclosed upon or abandoned, its fraud.
What kind of a man would spear-head an operation that puts honor-roll students and good, Christian mothers on the street?
Aren't we supposed to be getting rid of gangsters? Those people didn't come off as the type to me. What's going on, here? Why is Morris et al allowed to stomp on the good folks to bring in potentially bad ones?
This is fraud and we, the taxpayers of San Bernardino, will have to pay this money back because it is illegal. Isn't there anything we can do?
I mean, besides vote out Morris and his gang of cronies...That's already a given. Can't we have him punnished for this crime? It was heartbreaking.
Baxter should've stepped down for this vote. He's affiliated with the lady from that "charity" organization. He had no right.
Thank God for Joe Arnett. He'll soon be replacing Shorett. Joe isn't perfect, but at least he genuinely cares what the citizens want! Shorett seems to have tripped and fallen into Morris' pocket. He didn't hear a word that was said from the people. He had his mind made up before he ever entered that room.
At least Brinker seemed to have second thoughts (I'm assuming this because he kept looking at Morris for a change of heart) before he threw innocent familes on the streets.
San Bernarino: never forget that this has happened! These people refused to vote for what the citizens wanted! They ignored this place for so long in regards to code enforcement to get the property value to drop and then tossed out the few remaining families for their own gain, regardless of what the citizens wanted.
Do you realize that not having code enforcement do their jobs has led to children being bitten by bedbugs (disgusting creatures), violence to persist and for the area to fall so low that they named it "Little Africa" as if it weren't even part of our country? These are human beings! I hope to God there is a better solution to all of this.
FYI: Sir Isaac Lindsay actually helped truck the people from that neighborhood to City Hall for this. He wanted them to be heard and Morris flat refused to allow them to be heard properly. Each one filled out 3 slips and they only got to speak once. He did not even care what they were going to say because he already had his plans set for the area. Sir Isaac Lindsay had his own ideas on how to help the people, but what was most important to him was what they wanted and the real truth at the heart of the matter. He had nothing to gain from either side. He just hoped that the city council would hear the pleas from the citizens who actually lived there.
Can you remember when the Arden Guthrie housing development was one of the best or finest places to live in San Bernardino? I can! You must ask what happened? Was it a great storm, a big earthquake or what? What, or better, who caused this entire area to sink into the state it has been in for years? These buildings did not just get to their current state by them selves. It is NOT the landlords or owners, they don’t live there. So often, the finest is taken and is GIVEN to those who can not, will not, nor care to have something nice. They refuse to do the simple things, pick up trash, stop the graffiti, mow the grass and weeds, water the yards, or…just give a hoot what it looks like. They know only how to turn what they have into slums, ghetto type neighborhoods where drugs and shootings command everything. Once they sink into an unrecoverable state, it becomes “oh whoa is me, look at HOW we must live”. Why don’t they keep and fix up what they have or was given like everyone else in the other city’s neighborhoods? Take pride in their home, their neighborhood. Get off their butts and work at it.
Now, here comes the City with its pickets full of my money to pour it into this area again and for what? How long will this last? This is called feel good politics. Once done for a short while, everyone feels good then the decay starts again and soon everything is back to the way it was. These residents of these areas WANT to live as they do. Why else would they destroy their homes so often? They claim they are not the ones who do it, but who lives there?
As long as our City Elected keep blindly following this pied piper (Mayor) we will keep pouring good money in after bad with no lasting gains. SB is destine to stay as you see it until someone with vision and leadership skills take charge and channels city improvements into the areas that want and appreciate help in fostering PRIDE in their communities. Someone who is not worried about the press nor having his picture made. Arden Guthrie is nowhere near a deserving community for these funds or programs just enacted nor has it been for a very long time. This is yet another example of the Mayor’s Phoenix programs. He may call this one fowl but a duck is a duck and with any luck, this election year things will finally start to change in SB if the citizens will just vote.
Lastly, I am just waiting for Mayor Morris to declare the mountain of junk metal (on G St) in the heart of downtown SB near the beautiful baseball Arrowhead Stadium and the 215 Freeway where millions of $$ are being poured into, a “historical work of art” that has graced our downtown for so many years that it should now be preserved. That would be much easier than having to deal with it. And besides, when traveling the revamped 215 Freeway, it sets off downtown so nicely and is only fitting for our city’s reputation anyway.
Disappointed Citizen:
You're a judgemental individual. There are other terms for people like you, but I'd rather not get edited out of the blog on this one. Homes degrade with time and pest control is a big issue. Not having water is NOT caused by the people living there. Roaches is a problem that can be faultless on the tennants and bedbugs can come from ANYWHERE...At any rate, you blame things that don't exist there on the people who live there because they complained about OTHER issues. You are not too bright. I'm against the project and hate Morris, too; however, you really need to get your facts straight.
D C: "IT IS NO SECRET"
You mean homes degrade in time like: holes kicked the walls, bath tubs used for toilets, trash left on stoops instead of trash bins, windows break on their own,doors kicked in for lack of using a door knob or keys, and of course, landlords who plant roaches and bed bugs just to irritate renters?? I see what you mean about aging.
Not in defense of "slum Lords", but how about threats to landord or maintenace workers when they do show up or need police escort to repair the problems. So when these threats stall the repairs, anger at the land lords increase, damage increases, and the spiral begins all over again. More normal aging I am sure.
Pest control people will tell you how the pests get there. It is no secret. Pests are as transient as humans are. Bed bugs are touring the USA right now on a fever pitch. Hotels and motels are scurrying to rid them. Roaches are going to be everywhere, but the environmentalist seek to have us use weaker and weaker defenses on pests and renters cant just leave for several days to rid the pests, so you deal with both populations at the same address at the same time, and hope they are not re-nested after ward. Trash and filth are there invitation to stay.
It is like a car. The more "non-owner drivers" you have, the more damage the car will recieve. Rentals get the same treatment from "non-woners".
It is no secret!
For "ST"...
I see your point and I also remember the SBFD (that is Fire Department for "REAL" to understand) had to have and wear flack jackets and a police escort to inter the Arden Guthrie housing development during emergency calls. The residents would call for help and then shoot at the fire trucks when they arrived. But that is no fault of the residents of the area either. They are just the victims of not being understood.
Oh..gotta go, need to chase that roach, he is carring 3 bedbugs towards my bedroom where I left the 1/2 eaten pizza under the bed. Remember, these are just things that happen as my home gets older. Afterwards, gotta figure out if I paid the water bill.
I hate being so political correct and not being able to tell it like it really is today. Got to remember those feelings.
D C:
You are understood?? Sooo Sorry!
Lets see. You want to be able to call the Cops and Fire for help and shoot them down when they get there so the rest of us can understand inner feelings, your frustrations and your motives.
Ok, How about they just send in robot targets so you can "GET OFF" your frustrations on non-human objects, and when you are done explaining your silly stupid, misunderstood feelings on the targets, then maybe the PD or FD can do their job.
I saw that same misunderstood logic in WATTS 3 times in the last 40+ years. The govt has put over $1.5 trillion into the Watts area over the decades, and it has not improved one Iota.
Why should we drain the coffers for your misunderstood feelings.
Put your misdirected anger away, guns away, drugs away, and see then how your community can improve. But no... Gotta have your "victim attitude " on full high gear drive, and hate the establishment. That is soooo 60s and beyond.
Give it a break, try an adult civil approach and be responsible and clean up that which you pay rent for on your own.
Misunderstood ...That is so B arbara S triesand!