Daily Business Report-Aug. 14, 2013
Jack in the Box Circumvents the City Council
In It’s ‘Rebuild’ of North Park Restaurant
“Like many North Park residents, I am offended by the current Jack in the Box project at 2959 Upas St.,” said City Council President Todd Gloria in his latest newsletter. “The project is not only inconsistent with the Greater North Park Community Plan, but also fails to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to implement good planning principles at a prime location.”
The San Diego-based restaurant chain has undertaken what amounts to a “complete rebuilt” at its restaurant in North Park, according to Gloria, despite formal objections from his office, the San Diego Planning Commission and the North Park Planning Committee.
“When the original proposal, which sought deviations from the Greater North Park Community Plan, was presented, the North Park Planning Committee rightly opposed the project,” said Gloria. “ I informed company representatives at that time that I would not support their proposal unless they satisfied the community’s concerns. The Planning Commission also recommended that the project be denied.
Instead of heeding the suggestions of the community and the Planning Commission, Jack in the Box chose to resubmit their project through the City’s Development Services Department as a “remodel” under Section 12.7.1 of the Land Development Code, even though the project, to all appearances, is a complete rebuild, according to Gloria. He said this allowed the project to be permitted without any review or approval by the City Council.
“The Land Development Code must be changed so that this scenario cannot be repeated,” says Gloria. “I have requested via memorandum that city staff research potential changes to the law to prevent this from happening again. I expect staff to solicit input from the Community Planners Committee and other stakeholders and report back to the City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee this fall with suggested changes.”
“Even though efforts through the mayor and city attorney have not resulted in work being stopped at 2959 Upas Street, I continue to advocate for changes to the Land Development Code to stop this from happening in the future,” Gloria added.
Filner Responds to Recall Effort
Embattled San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is touting his accomplishments in office over the past eight months in response to a recall effort seeking to strip him of his job. Filner’s comments are part of a formal response he filed with the City Clerk’s Office late Monday night, City News Service reports. The one-page response makes no mention of the sexual harassment allegations against the mayor or the accusations that he has shaken down developers for donations. “Now is not the time to go backwards — back to the time when middle- class jobs and neighborhood infrastructure were sacrificed to downtown special interest,” Filner wrote. “We need to continue to move forward!”
This week, recall organizers launched recallbobfilner.com. The new website was created after a group of area political consultants joined the recall effort, which previously had been run by land use consultant Mike Pallamary, homemaker Elisa Brent and newspaper publisher Stampp Corbin. The new site has three pages — a home page, a page for donations and one for volunteer information. Pallamary said thousands of dollars of donations have come in over the past few days, averaging around $150.
Plenty of Foils Could Trip Up a FilnerRecall
KPBS — Never in San Diego’s history has a mayoral recall seemed more possible. Yet experts say it will still be an extremely daunting feat. Even if the 101,597 signatures needed to put the recall of Mayor Bob Filner on the ballot can be gathered in 39 days, archaic city laws could help Filner or his supporters challenge the recall in court. And for a recall to make it to the ballot, thousands of volunteers need to be recruited and hundreds of thousands of dollars need to be raised, all under the backdrop of what seems to be, until recently, a disorganized
Still, recall organizers said the ill will toward Filner is so strong that they can pull it off. “The notion that he was willing to violate women under his control, I think at a very deep level affects all of us, and we just want to see him gone,” said April Boling, the recall campaign’s treasurer. “Men like that should not be awarded by being able to stay where they want to be.” San Diego Mesa College political professor Carl Luna said recall is the only way to remove Filner from office, short of criminal indictment. With Filner refusing to resign, “this is probably the best chance you’ve had for mayoral recall since Dick Murphy was mayor,” Luna said. Murphy resigned in 2005 under the threat of recall.
Life Care Center of Escondido Announces New Executive Director
Life Care Center of Escondido, a skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility, has a new executive director. Sam Magtanong, who has served as administrator at two health care centers in San Diego, is a Rancho Bernardo resident who has been an administrator since 2008. He earned his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Southern California and went on to serve in the U.S. Army for 10 years, becoming an infantry captain. Life Care Center of Escondido, located at 1980 Felicita Road, is one of 11 skilled nursing and rehabilitation facilities in California operated or managed by Life Care Centers of America.
Kaiser Permanente Opens New Medical Office Building
Kaiser Permanente’s new medical office building in San Diego was to officially open today at 3851 Shaw Ridge Road. The 50,000-square-foot, two-story building will offer care to more than 157,000 residents in La Jolla, Carmel Valley and coastal communities, hospital officials said. The new facility houses 20 primary care offices and 10 specialty care services including cardiology, dermatology, radiology and neurology. A full pharmacy, lab, and diagnostic services will be available. The opening will also feature Kaiser Permanente’s first comprehensive Women’s Center in Southern California, which has been developed to provide a variety of services to meet individual medical and health care needs for women in a private setting. The full service Women’s Center will offer cosmetic procedures, a women’s specialty store, lactation rooms and consultation, mammography, obstetrics gynecology and more.
Ruth Maldonado Promoted to Sales Manager at Kimton’s Hotel La Jolla
Kimpton’s Hotel La Jolla has promoted Ruth Maldonado to sales manager, responsible for group and event sales for the 110-room coastal boutique hotel. Maldonado first started with Hotel La Jolla as an interim sales coordinator in November 2012. In January 2013 she was offered a position of front office manager on duty, which she was working prior to her promotion as sales manager. Maldonado started her hospitality career in 2008 with Virgin America Airlines as a guest service agent until 2012. The hotel reopened in August 2012 following a $4 million renovation.
Chancellor of Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District Honored
Cindy Miles, chancellor of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, has been chosen as the top chief executive officer for two-year colleges in the nine-state Pacific region by the Association of Community College Trustees. She joins four other regional winners of the annual award from the ACCT, a Washington D.C.-based organization representing trustees at more than 1,200 community colleges nationwide. As the Pacific region’s pick, Miles is automatically in contention for the national CEO honor to be awarded Oct. 4 at the 44th Annual ACCT Leadership Congress in Seattle, Wash.
Miles was the recipient of the Women in Leadership award for education from the San Diego East County Chamber of Commerce in 2012. In the course of 20 years, Miles has served a variety of roles, from faculty member, program director, fund-raiser and researcher to senior administrator at large and small institutions.
EarthRisk Technologies Unveils New Tool for Weather Prediction
San Diego-based EarthRisk Technologies, a company involved in the research, analysis and visualization of extreme temperatures and weather patterns, has released a new graphical tool for quantifying the likelihood of extreme temperature events. EarthRisk’s newest product, ForecastRisk, combines the output of its TempRisk Forecast Model with conventional ensemble output from numerical weather prediction models. “Our customers need to make informed decisions about the weather very quickly,” said EarthRisk CEO John Plavan. “We specifically developed ForecastRisk to mirror how our users think about and intuitively compare the various data models available to them. Now we’ve put that data into a single graphical representation, making the process of assessing weather forecast uncertainty much faster, more concrete and repeatable.”
Green Build Expansion at Lindbergh Field Opens
The Green Build expansion at San Diego International Airport opened to passengers on Tuesday, marking the completion of the largest project in the airport’s history. The Green Build was completed on schedule and is expected to be $45 million under budget.
Key features of The Green Build include:
• 10 new gates to reduce terminal congestion and provide expanded, more comfortable passenger waiting areas; highlights include new seating equipped with built-in cup holders, electrical outlets and USB ports.
• Dual-level roadway to relieve curb-front traffic congestion by separating arriving and departing passengers.
• Enhanced curbside check-in, allowing passengers to print boarding passes, check baggage and view gate information at one of 27 easy-to-use curbside kiosks or 32 airline/Skycap counter check-in positions before entering the terminal.
• New security checkpoint with more security lanes to improve flow of passengers through the terminal, keeping lines and security wait times down; up to 12 lanes can be opened during peak travel periods, as needed, increased from six.
• New 25,000 square-foot ticket lobby, with 32 airline counter check-in positions and 10 self-service kiosks.
• Expanded, 9,200 square-foot concessions area called Sunset Cove, where passengers can relax before their flights and take in views of the airfield and Point Loma.
• More dining and shopping options, including Saffron, Bubbles Seafood & Wine Bar, Seaside Stack Shack, Qdoba, Red Mango and Tommy V’s Pizzeria, located in Sunset Cove. Other shops and restaurants in the terminal expansion include Warwick’s of La Jolla, Pannikin Coffee & Tea, Brooks Brothers, Swarovski, PGA Tour Shops, Stone Brewing Co. and Phil’s BBQ.
NAIOP Raises More Than $250,000 for Marines Foundation
NAIOP San Diego, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, raised more than $250,000 for the Marine Special Operations Command Foundation at a July fundraising event — The Suitcase Party — held at McClellan-Palomar Airport’s Premier Jet hangar. Kool & the Gang performed at the sold-out event, which attracted a crowd of 350. NAIOP has a seven-year history of supporting the 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion at Camp Pendleton. NAIOP’s association with the battalion began in 2006 with the launch of NAIOP’s Adopt a Platoon program.
