Low-Income housing issue in San Bernardino

"Low-income housing tops Second Ward council race issues
10:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, October 14, 2009

By DARRELL R. SANTSCHI
The Press-Enterprise

SAN BERNARDINO - The city's plans for redeveloping a neighborhood along Sunrise Lane on the east side has become a major issue in the Nov. 3 election for the Second Ward City Council seat.

A plan supported by incumbent Dennis J. Baxter calls for demolishing 144 apartments and rebuilding 100 units as low-income housing.

Baxter said the apartments in the adjoining Seventh Ward are needed because San Bernardino lags 1,000 housing units behind a mandate to qualify for federal housing money.

His challenger, Jason Desjardins, contends the project is being pushed by Mayor Pat Morris and his supporters despite opposition from residents. He wants to see a home improvement store built there instead.

The Second Ward is in the central part of San Bernardino, generally east of Interstate 215 and south of Highway 210 and Highland Avenue. The winner will serve a four-year term on the seven-member council and will be paid $50 a month.

Baxter, 59, is a radio station general manager and San Bernardino native who has recruited 30 volunteers to help him campaign door-to-door. He plans to spend $30,000 on the race.

Desjardins, 35, owns the towing company Big Z Auto Works. He battled City Hall in July over plans for a city-owned vehicle impound lot that eventually were scrapped.

He plans to spend $15,000, including $1,200 out of his own pocket, on his campaign. His spending statement, covering the period through Sept. 19, includes a $5,000 contribution from the San Bernardino Association of Professional Firefighters.

Desjardins said the Sunrise project would attract crime that "would directly affect the nice neighborhoods in my ward.

"The people of the city don't want it," he said. "They (city officials) have done it before. They renovated those apartments, spent millions on them, and they had to buy them back and demolish them. Now they are going to do it again."

Baxter said the Sunrise neighborhood "is a degraded area that involves the old fourplex units that were built in the 1960s.

"It has become a source of gang activity, drugs, violence, murder," he said. "It needs to be totally torn down and transformed."

Rentals there would provide a means for people whose homes have been foreclosed to rebuild their lives, Baxter said. A nonprofit organization would screen prospective tenants, he said, countering arguments that apartments would draw parolees.

"Parolees don't come out of jail with a clean credit report," he said.

Baxter said his priority is attracting businesses that would create jobs.

"We have an issue here, not being business-friendly," he said. "What we are doing is putting together a one-stop shop, where they can come in and get their business license, their permits and they can even look into economic development programs like grants and low-interest loans."

The city needs to continue an aggressive anti-graffiti campaign so business owners and their employees will feel safe, he said.

Desjardins accused Baxter of being unresponsive to constituents, failing to return phone calls and, in the case of a neighborhood watch group seeking a vehicle for its Fourth of July parade, breaking promises to help.

Baxter denied the accusations.

"I have always reached out to people who contact me," he said. "If they don't contact me, how can I respond to them?"

He said he never had promised a vehicle to the neighborhood watch group, which he said had participated in the parade and later disbanded."



What do you guys think about this? Do you think giving the building a make-over will help make it safer? Do you think the people in San Bernardino want it?..I thought it was interesting it said that biz don't wanna start up in dino cuz the tagging makes them feel unsafe (my paraphraseing). Your opinion?

The first question is does this make any sense economically? So take into consideration the cost of demolishing the 144 units, clearing the rubble and reconstructing 100 new units. O.k., it seems to me that it would have made more sense to demand that the previous owner of the apartments take certain specific and positive steps toward establishing a safe community. Instead the city rewarded this person for being a slum lord by paying him for property he "or she," allowed to decline while shoving piles of "as often is the case, section 8," cash into "his or her," pocket. So it is the taxpayers who foot the bill not once but twice on deals like this.

Second question, if the city lacked 1,000 low income housing units to qualify for "federal housing money," how does eliminating 44 low income units in this so called revitalization process, improve the chances of receiving a grant or low interest loan," from the feds in this case?

Third question, who are the developers involved in this project and to which candidates have they donated or contributed campaign funds to?

Who owned the units prior to the city repurchase? This seems to be a trend and one land owner with $100,000,000 or so in assets in the city seems to benefit from these types of deals more often than not.

The same plans and the same results are proposed, passed and money continues to drain from the system into the pockets of private interests while the community decay gets blamed on the residents. That is the people footing the bill for these financial capers while shoulder all the blame.

The residents of that area are trying to fight it, only time will tell if they prevail. Unfortunately the same me can't be said for the Meridians, they have knocked down most of the apartment buildings in that area already.

Sir Issac Lindsay? His mom named him that, or he flew to England and was knighted?

good comments.

It does seem that there is many sides to this issue, pieces to the puzzle. I'm not sure that either canadates stance is 100% right. Hopefully though the people of dino will show up at the polls and get what they want.

MissL wrote:good comments.

It does seem that there is many sides to this issue, pieces to the puzzle. I'm not sure that either canadates stance is 100% right. Hopefully though the people of dino will show up at the polls and get what they want.

shut up missl...log off and never come back

lol

grow up huero

MissL wrote:grow up huero

True!!

NYTE RYDA wrote:

MissL wrote:grow up huero

True!!

shut up, you old piece of shit..