Renewal Reminder
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March 28 Meeting – Short Term Rentals & Quality of Life
- 3:30PM Social time and check-in
- 4:00OM Meeting
- Zoom registration
Agenda
- Introduction of electeds, representatives, candidates
- Main program – STRs and Quality of Life
- Letter on Deaths in San Diego County Jails (see below)
- Officer reports
- Announcements
Short Term Rentals & Quality of Life
How many STRs are there in San Diego? How do we measure quality of life in our beach communities? Do we have a measure of housing stock and affordability?
Join a group of local panelists to discuss and suggest amendments to the ordinance under consideration by the City Council.Items to consider:
- Stock of Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing, or NOAH
- Cost of general housing
- Public school enrollments
- Increase on rents both commercial and residential
- STVR-related nuisance calls to the police and code enforcement
- Transient Occupancy Tax, or TOT, revenue from STVRs
- Increase in trash pick-up
- Frequency of updates to city ordinance
Panelists
John Thickstun is a clubmember, and has been a practising attorney for over 35 years, handling a broad range of civil litigation matters throughout California including, mass torts, personal injury, wrongful death, sexual harassment, construction defect, business litigation, contract disputes and class actions. He is also a trained mediator, having completed the National Conflict Resolution Center training. John has a BA in History from UCSD, and his JD from California Western School of Law.
John leads Save San Diego Neighborhoods, to fight for enforcement of the law and against the ongoing illegal conversion of San Diego homes to short term vacation rentals. Save San Diego Neighborhoods has over 3000 members.
Mandy Havlik is a clubmember, and proud military spouse and mother of two young children who attend Ocean Beach Elementary School. She has been volunteering as the Ocean Beach Elementary Garden Coordinator for the last three years where she worked with parent volunteers and school staff to teach children about gardening and help them grow organic produce that is sampled by the school children in the classroom and in the school cafeteria.
She is a concerned parent and is passionate about ensuring that our streets and neighborhoods are family friendly and safe for children throughout the peninsula. She is currently working for additional traffic and pedestrian safety mitigations around Ocean Beach Elementary School.
Mandy was recently re-elected to the Peninsular Community Planning Board.
Kevin Hastings was born and raised in California, from the beach to inland Los Angeles, and in the small mountain town of Tehachapi. He graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo with a mechanical engineering degree and has worked in the profession for 15 years, gaining experience with design and construction of high-rises, single family homes, and commercial projects. Kevin has lived in San Diego since 2004 and Ocean Beach since 2014. He has been active in the community, cleaning trash and graffiti from our beaches, volunteering his time at Town Council events, and fighting for OB’s interests at city hall. In his free time you might find him hiking our cliffs or at the dog park. Kevin and his wife Micki are raising their new family here and are committed to Ocean Beach for the long haul.
Kevin serves as the vice-chair of the OB Planning Board.
The club reached out to Teddy Martinez, Senior Policy and Strategy Manager for City Councilmember Jennifer Campbell, but he replied that he was unavailable at this time.
Deaths in San Diego County Jails
Following last month’s meeting Dave Myers proffered a letter the club could send to our Assemblymember Chris Ward, and State Senator Toni Atkins. We’ve asked members to review and suggest changes by emailing info@pointlomadem.org, and we will vote on the letter at the meeting:
Dear (Assemblymember/Senator)
As the President of the Point Loma & Ocean Beach Dems I’m writing on behalf of members to express concerns over the high rates of deaths in custody in San Diego County jails.
Club members voted at our March 28, 2021 meeting to ask that your legislative office request an investigation by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC) to determine if these deaths are excessive compared to other large counties in California, and if future deaths could be prevented with changes to training and procedures.
San Diego County is the second largest in California. Under Sheriff Bill Gore, 158 men and women have died while in custody. The local Community Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) has reported and investigated many of these deaths.
However, a few years ago, there were so many deaths being reviewed that the CLERB staff could not complete their work under legal timelines, and had to dismiss 22 cases without findings.
Even though the CLERB does not provide racial or ethnicity data in their annual report, it appears 82% of the people who have died in custody were from BIPOC communities, raising additional concerns about racial disparities in San Diego’s criminal justice system. One young Latina who died was pregnant, and failed to receive proper medical care at the time of her death.
In addition, 80% of the people who have died in county jails were awaiting trial. They had not been convicted of a crime when they died.
Finally, the survivors and family members of many of these men and women have successfully sued San Diego in wrongful death cases. Large settlements- paid by taxpayers- are costing us millions of dollars each year, as well as requiring related staff hours and costs to defend the Sheriff’s Department in court, file appeals, etc.
For all these reasons, we ask that you submit a request to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, requesting an investigation to determine if the number of deaths in custody and related legal liabilities and settlements are disproportionately high in San Diego County, and if there is a pattern of racial discrimination in these deaths.
On behalf of the Club I look forward to hearing back from your office, and will be happy to provide additional information if needed.
Sincerely,
proposed letter to be approved by members
Officer Reports
- Secretary, Kip Eischen
- Treasurer, Angela Hawkins
- VP, Diane Mosely
- President, John Loughlin
POINT LOMA & OB DEMS 