Thursday, October 11, 2012

Manipulating our city has caused sustainable dysfunction


"Last people in Pacifica, please turn out the lights."
"Editor: I have found out over the years when it's a win it's called that. This is how the system and democracy works. The system is in place to hear both sides, and make a decision. 

When it works for the opposite side, it's regress back to the third grade, stomp your feet, hold your breath, lock yourself in your room, threaten to run away.

The same core group in Pacifica has manipulated the general public and the voters. 

When Tramell Crow (the largest commercial property developer at the time) came to Pacifica to build out the quarry, people chased them out of town. When Peebles came to town, people chased him out because he was from out of town? Really? How has the lost revenue from the quarry, even half the size of the quarry, been helping the city? 

...................How bright is this?.....................
When a local builder wanted to build a project, the city council sent him to a neighborhood community organizer to get her approval first. Really?

The city is broken, broke and dysfunctional and needs a complete rebuild from top to the bottom. In fact, my friends from out of town call it "Dysfunction Junction."   

This core group could care less if the town lives or dies, files bankruptcy or gets taken over by the county. Their own self-centered cause is more important.  

Highway 1 is a perfect example. We don't like Caltrans' proposal and we start a new group.

I think I will rent the billboards that say "Pathetic." The last people in Pacifica, please turn out the lights." 

Posted by Kathy Meeh

63 comments:

Anonymous said...

so why isn't bj nathanson, heroine of the first amendment, jumping all over dejarnatt for talking back to publioc speakers and making snide comments during city council meetings?

Anonymous said...

Isn't she the lady who quit the planning commission?

Anonymous said...

Yeah she quit because colleagues were following their own idealogies in their decisions instead of city policies. To excess in her opinion.

Anonymous said...

@600 She probably agreed with him.
If you're referring to the Tod Show. Lot of people do.

Anonymous said...

To quote Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Batman.

This town needs an Emelia!

Anonymous said...

@734 Forget Emelia. This town needs an Enema!

Anonymous said...

what was mary ann babbling about wheh she mentioned the coastal commission made peebles take down signs on his property??

Anonymous said...

Enema. Damned I -phone.

Anonymous said...

@759 don't worry, she'll answer your question during the next council meeting

Anonymous said...

anon759 Probably she will, but that's a long time to wait for an answer. Peebles put up some sort of private property signs without getting permit from the Coastal Commish and some sly Pacifican knew right where to complain to get them removed. Dogs and dog walkers were thrilled. Local history says that included one well-known local debater.

Anonymous said...

Yet they wont make the brokers take down the 4 sale sign. We all know who called the coastal commission. The x mayor who lives in the area who also called the coastal commission on a prominent property owner.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the brokers got a permit or exception from the CCC or their sign is beyond the 1500 foot limit from the beach? The CCC is a fearsome beast. Especially when tipped off.

Anonymous said...

Nope they didn't

Anonymous said...

This guy nailed it in his LTE!

Anonymous said...

That's the problem with democracy.

Anonymous said...

Well we had a one man dictatorship. Look how well that worked out for us!

Anonymous said...

One man dictatorship and his puppet sneaky tar balls Pete

Anonymous said...

One man, one vote. The cozy little alliances before and after elections are the problem.

Anonymous said...

Hell city council used to have the real meeting at the rose room after the phonetic meeting

Anonymous said...

No need to get together elsewhere any more. It can all be done in closed session and they no longer have to inform the public. As an observer of over 20 years I've also seen how much more resourceful certain councilmembers are in their dealings with the city mngr. Those guys could write a book about how the city really operates.

Anonymous said...

Rose Room and Nick's.

Anonymous said...

I thought Todd B got Peebles' no trespassing signs in the quarry removed.

Those real estate signs along the hiway either drew no complaints or they are excetions under some Coastal Commission rule.

Anonymous said...

so the coastal commission gets their ear bent by loeb or curtis and they step in? no wonder the town is broke!

Anonymous said...

the coastal commission approved a grease refinery 100 yds from a school. we should trust their judgment.

Anonymous said...

Implicitly. They're on a holy mission, you pagan.

Anonymous said...

@854 school, shmull...those were only kids. Not a concern of the CA Coastal Commission. Don't they have parents?

Anonymous said...

I seem to remember a group of Pacifica's elite policy makers practically begging the CCC in person to approve the refinery. Songs were sung, spells were cast, politicians preened and, shazamm, you may build an oil refinery within the coastal zone and within scorching distance of an active elementary school. Oh, and a gas station! Where do these people come from?

Anonymous said...

The Coastal Act doesn't exclude refineries. The permit for the BioDeisel plant had 18 conditions of approval that had to be met before construction started. The COA killed the project.

todd bray said...

The For Sale real estate signs are different that the no trespassing signs. A property owner can advertise the sale of his/hers property. The No Trespassing signs required a Coastal Development Permit. Peebles could have sought one (CDP) for his no trespassing signs but chose instead to remove them.

Steve Sinai said...

"The COA killed the project."

I'd say the bad economy killed the project.

Anonymous said...

Sinai

Go back and read the minutes for the city council meeting. The fire department ordered the two guys out of the illegal trench. The workers were digging a trench without a permit and fire called building and ordered them to stop.
Cal Osha was called due to many violations and they shut them down also.

The price of Diesel going down was the excuse Jimmy Vreeland and Nancy Hall used to spin the project going bad.

BTW Sinai, if you truly wanted to fix Pacifica as you claim you would be outraged that the city blew $175,000 on this failed 6th grade science project.

When you post untruths, lies, fantasies, and Todd Bray delusions you lose credibility.

Steve Sinai said...

Whole Energy had lost interest in the project long before the trench incident. It hadn't returned calls from the city for months.

At that time the economy was tanking, as were fuel prices. What was once anticipated to be a profitable project became unprofitable. When something becomes unprofitable, you stop going forward with it. It was as simple as that.

Whole Energy would have gotten a California Air Resources Board grant if they were able to con CARB into thinking progress was being made. The deadline for that demonstration was quickly approaching, and digging the trench was a last-minute, dog-and-pony show attempt by Whole Energy to get the grant money.

I'm afraid the two peeps who always publicly pat themselves on the back for being the saviors of Pacifica can't claim credit for this one.

Anonymous said...

"Whole Energy would have gotten a California Air Resources Board grant if they were able to con CARB into thinking progress was being made. The deadline for that demonstration was quickly approaching, and digging the trench was a last-minute, dog-and-pony show attempt by Whole Energy to get the grant money."

so they dug the trench because they had no intention of building the refinery?? what would have happened if they were not stopped at that point?

Anonymous said...

todd bray please explain the difference between a for sale sign and a no trespassing sign in the eyes of the coastal commission, thank you.

Anonymous said...

It was no longer a profitable project? Makes perfect sense. Money talks. Well, everywhere but Pacifica.

Anonymous said...

Pacifica was saved??? Who knew?
For a town with so many Masters of the Universe we should be rich, rich, rich.

Anonymous said...

Jeez 243 What's it about with you? Why don't you ask the Coastal Commission? Or take yourself on a nice relaxing ride down the coast and count the broker's signs within the coastal zone. Don't go alone or you'll run out of fingers.

Anonymous said...

wow ask a simple question here and you get your head ripped off. Bray said there was a difference between the signs, I honestly did not know that was true. What's with the insults?

Anonymous said...

@401 Here, put your head back on. For a minute there I thought you weren't using it. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Steve Sinai said...

"so they dug the trench because they had no intention of building the refinery?? what would have happened if they were not stopped at that point?"

I suspect they would have still walked away from the project, but with some grant money.

If Whole Energy was serious about the project, they would have fixed the safety issues that were brought up, and then continued developing the project.

Anonymous said...

Walk away with grant money! Crafty little devils.
Happens all the time.

Anonymous said...

sounds like a clear cut case of fraud. why hasn't the DA been contacted?

Anonymous said...

so why was whole energy in san luis obispo shilling for the project just a few months before the illegal trench? were they scamming the city and carb even then?

Anonymous said...

@419 I am enjoying my day, but for the life of me I am curious what is the difference between a for sale sign and a no trespassing sign. bray said so, just wanted to know how he came to that knowledge.

Anonymous said...

correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Hall and Vreeland and the Whole Energy people say they already had the money lined up for the project? At what point was the con on?

Steve Sinai said...

"sounds like a clear cut case of fraud. why hasn't the DA been contacted?"

Because Whole Energy never got the grant money.

Anonymous said...

so . . . Whole Energy submitted a rfp response, got in bed with vreeland and hall and the city, designed a biodiesel refinery, petitioned the coastal commission for approval, then suddenly realized they weren't going to make any money so they tried to dig a ditch to get as much grant money as they could and skip town.

sounds like those saviors stopped a fraud before it could be perpetrated. good for them!

Anonymous said...

They received

the first round of grant money. They had to dig the trench in order to get round 2 of the money.

Money is given out in phases. Planning and ground breaking then the trench.

Did you also know they did some damage to the wiring and electrical system at the Waste Water Treatment plant.

The slab that the bio diesel plant was to be built on was proposed as a shed.

Also Cal Osha levied many fines against Whole Energy that the city ended up having to pay.

Anonymous said...

Ahh, good to know our transparency problems at city hall are nothing new. Tricks of the trade handed town like family heirlooms from council to council. Who knows what those little imps are really up to? I mean, really, who knows?

Anonymous said...

@firstanon526

Sounds more like you've been saved.

Anonymous said...

@506 He just knows, ok, because Bray is all knowing. And he's not the only one.

Anonymous said...

there are a lot of people in pacifica who say something and POOF, like magic it is true.

Anonymous said...

Thanks 657 I'll take it from here. The city is solvent, we finally have a SEVEN million dollar reserve, PremierOutlets is in the quarry, there are old people places all over town, Genentech/Roche bought Pacific Manor--all of it, Tesla bought Palmetto--all of it, Hiway 1 is improved, the schools are doing great, replaced council with a Ouija Board, the plovers moved to Venezuela and RoundTable Pizza has returned to Linda Mar...Poof!

Poof!

Poof?

Anonymous said...

POOF?

Anonymous said...

@657 I know what you mean. Is that fairy dust they use or are they disciples of Karl Rove?

Anonymous said...

I'm missing about 11 pounds of Round Table. Luigi's is very good but for us old Okie's it's RoundTable.

Anonymous said...

Genentech/Roche

Genentech only lets their employees sleep and stay in Pacifica.

Why would a world wide corporation set up shop or built an office in Pacifica?
They can send the CEO's in to talk to Pete and Sue.

Seriously, some of you need to get out of Pacifica more. Have you ever seen their campus in SSF, Vacaville or Oceanside?

Anonymous said...

The DA was involved but with most things Pacifica, they just laughed and said, well that's how things are done down there.

CARB was notified of the trench and the Cal Osha violations and they led us in a path of running around in circles. They gave us a line of crap like, well we thought it was a good project at the time. Basically its taxpayers money who cares.

Whole Energy never did a project like this. They were selling bio diesel out of traiers up in Washington and got shut down also.

Remember what happened the last time the city heard, "state of the art plant" was the Waste Water Treatment plant and that company went bankrupt right after bringing that state of the art plant up.

Gromm is the only guy there who knows how to operate that plant and he was smart enough to figure the whole thing by on the job training.

Whole Energy also acted like the general contractor on that project without a valid contractors license.

They never had all the money lined up and Vreeland told them go ahead and start and I am pretty sure he gave them the ok to start digging the trench and told them, if shit hits the fan I will make it all go away.

Jimmy V and Nancy went down to the coastal commission and that was a cluster fk just like the council meetings. They didn't know who was the applicant and Vreeland kept saying I am Jim Vreeland mayor of Pacifica. Way to go Pacifica, way to represent.

They also wanted to remove one of the safety fire walls so they could save $800k on building cost. This was cause Nancy Hall read a book about bio diesel and laughed and mocked the citizens fears about this project. She would mock people by saying oh yes its going to melt the faces off the children at the school.

It was widely rumored that Nancy was making bio diesel at her house in Vallemar and was trying to sell the bio diesel at Pedro Point Shopping Center, without a permit. Nice running a gas station in a residential neighborhood with zero concern of public safety.

This shows you how blatant disregard for rules Vreeland had with his buddies secret pet projects.


Anonymous said...

goodness gracious! sleezy company, working around safety precautions, a big waste of city funds . . . who in their right mind supported this project??

Anonymous said...

@832 goodness gracious? great balls of fire?
Vreeland and Nancy Hall supported it and that was enough at the time.
Given Vreeland's real abilities to persuade and manipulate we should be greatful the city didn't bankroll the whole thing.

Anonymous said...

@543 Clearly time for you to get your Poof on.

Take a break from your world travels and play.

Poof!

Anonymous said...

Is Nancy still selling bio-diesel from her house? I need to buy some.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a job for a fire inspector. $150 please and thanks.