No On Kettner and Vine
No on Kettner and Vine wishes to issue the following statement regarding the Monday, July 22 City Council meeting and Kettner and Vine proposed lease agreement.
We appreciate the no votes of council members Kent Lee and Vivian Moreno and appreciate the significant concerns voiced by council members Marni von Wilpert, Henry L. Foster III, Raul Campillo as well as Council President Sean Elo-Rivera. However, our representative Stephen Whitburn was pushing to call a vote in favor, Monday night and then again for July 30 without ever meeting with and listening to his constituents’ concerns.
How can the council members allow this level of deception? They were being asked to commit the City to a 30 year lease where they do not have all the facts and for a project that will cost in excess of $30.7M annually and has no known funding source with an initial outlay of well in excess of $18M. As Council President Sean Elo-Rivera stated “It feels we are relying more on hope than on a reality based estimate” when referring to the costs for Kettner & Vine.
It is remarkable Council learned they were not provided all the facts and then were being asked to vote on such a significant and lengthy financial commitment. The process for the project was neither independent nor competitive. The City Attorney and Independent Budget Analyst have by their own admission been rushed to complete reviews. Regarding having this ready for the Tuesday, July 30 meeting the City Attorney stated it was not possible.
Henry Foster III stated they did not have a complete agreement, and he is looking to mitigate risk. He wanted to know why it was being “shoved in” to be done by the 30th and thought it was not an inappropriate request for the City Attorney to have appropriate time for their review. The terms and definitions of the lease agreement have not even been completed, yet it is being pushed onto the City Council for approval.
Council member Kent Lee was absolutely right calling for the immediate rejection of this lease after eight months of negotiations in closed session.
Kettner and Vine is located at the 5 south freeway exit for the airport. SANDAG reports show 20-25,000 cars a day drive Kettner Blvd., and past this site. Most vehicles are traveling in excess of 55 miles per hour as they exit the freeway and approach this site. Residents, whose homes are 200 feet from this site, who travel this road everyday say there will be fatalities if this location is approved. Vine Street was shut down to traffic many years ago because of accidents and fatalities at this intersection.
The landlord, Doug Hamm according to the City Attorney’s report is a “commercial real estate investor with no apparent tract record of any high-profile transactions or any transactions with a public agency.” Mr. Hamm now wants the city to rehab his building and pay him above market rent for 30 years in a triple net lease. “The city is the best possible tenant a landlord could have,” Council Member Raul Campillo stated.
This coming September, council will now meet “without public testimony” and decide if the lease is acceptable enough to approve. The City Attorney’s office said they could not negotiate, draft and analyze the lease agreement in the one-week timeline that was initially proposed. We ask the council to just stop this disastrous deal. The unprofessional way this was brought to the City Council to rubber stamp an approval was appalling.
We are grateful to council members Lee, Moreno, von Wilpert, Foster, Campillo and Elo-Rivera for more information and urge them to vote NO on the lease for Kettner and Vine.
To learn more about this issue, visit Kettnerandvine.com.
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