Friday, March 22, 2013

Disincorporation may fix Pacifica (forever)


Isn't the key to fixing Pacifica cooperation in an effort to solve outstanding city deficiencies?  Would county management improve that, or even render our communities less divided?

Don't bury Pacifica yet, John!
Pacifica Tribune, John Maybury, "Wandering and Wondering" column, 3/19/13. "Disincorporate Pacifica."  

"Sixty years ago, during the era of suburban sprawl, highway building, and bland homogenization, creating a new city out of a hodgepodge of disparate districts gave birth to Pacifica.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. But now that experiment has run its course and proven a failure. The cement that once bound this gaggle of beaches and valleys together has dried out and crumbled. Governance of this municipal mess is lax and ineffective.

The city constantly puts off important decisions, postpones hearings, wastes money on useless consultants to tell us things we already know, and generally fails to act decisively.

Photo
A crate for each faction
Photo
Overseen by sunflowers
So let's admit that we bit off more than we can chew. Our various neighborhoods are incompatible. We have no true center or core. Our demographics skew all over the map. We have no common cause or "language." The business and environmental communities are inexorably divided. Our shopping centers gouge tenants and settle for empty storefronts. Our small businesses wither and die on the vine. Our infrastructure is crumbling:

Have you tried driving up and down Linda Mar Boulevard lately? The only solution I can see is for the city to turn in the keys and walk away. This town has four flat tires, a dead battery, a cracked block, no engine, no direction known, and an empty tank. And I am out of gas and metaphors."   Read more. 

Note:  The carton and flower photographs are from Pacifica Gardens. The group shovel photograph is from Sanchez Dog Park opening, 3/30/12, possibe origin Pacifica Tribune. 

Posted by Kathy Meeh

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not touching this one. Uhuh, no way.

Steve Sinai said...

If the city hasn't been working, which everyone seems to agree is the case, it's only because the NIMBYs and nobies have kept anything from happening for several decades.

While the rest of the Bay Area rebuilds and renews, Pacifica has been tied up in a straitjacket.

When buildings start to rot and fall down; or roads and infrastructure fail because of lack of maintenance or ability to meet growth, they aren't allowed to be replaced or improved upon because the usual "Gang of No" complains that doing so will increase global warming, increase traffic jams, or God forbid, might allow someone to make a profit.

There's nothing inevitable about Pacifica's failure. All our problems are self-inflicted, which means we can do something about it.

Anonymous said...

When will you dips realize this is the plan and Maybury helped implement the plan. He is no friend to Pacifica.

Anonymous said...

Duh, the blog is Fix Pacifica.

Anonymous said...

What have they fixed?

Anonymous said...

@140 a better question is, what do they think they fixed? or what did they think they fixed and now wish they hadn't? oh just don't ask, ok?

Anonymous said...

I get the Pacifica in a straitjacket thing that Sinai talks about. Maybe community med distribution, uh uh by prescription please, would help.

Anonymous said...

disincorporation will be a failure of both nobies and "fix" pacifica. people have no idea what is in store for this city.

Anonymous said...

Of course it's a failure and so would be bankruptcy. What else should we expect? We've failed to actively address our problems. We have no money, no new sources of revenue in the pipeline, no one is going to bail us out, and it may be past the point where we can bail ourselves out through any of the usual methods which we have avoided, literally, at all costs-- things like real and drastic cuts, long term new taxes, much higher fees across the board, police outsourcing. We might buy time, but not enough to affect a turn around to self-reliance.

Meanwhile, how about a new library?
You see the problem? No one is serious yet.

Anonymous said...

The town doesn't work because the local government is being run outside of the view of the general public - meetings held with no notice, no or an agenda that is so non-specific it's a Brown Act violation, etc. People are fed up with this diet.