Where are the Facts?

Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006| Rachel Laing’s comments as the mouth-piece of the chamber deserve a wider airing. Any good reporter checks facts before they write so I think she made a wise decision to change jobs and become a PR flack.

Even opinion pieces are supposed to be informed but facts did not stand in Rachel’s way as she hosted Café San Diego today.

Let me use one egregious example of how she ignores facts that stand in the way of her thesis.

She claims that the opposition to the Manchester redevelopment of the Broadway complex is motivated by the greed, insanity or dishonesty of publicity-seeking agitators yet she has clearly never read the two City Council appeals against the environmental findings giving the project the go-ahead. Both appeals are based on CEQA law and public documents and are quite rational. She doesn’t realize that public meetings have to be properly noticed and that the Navy has tried to keep this project under the public radar for the past year.

Actually, the Navy brass have been transformed into real estate agents while young men and women are put into harm’s way so Admirals can retire early to Coronado to play golf.

The Navy doesn’t just want a building they want an equity share of the land leased to the developer-15 percent to be precise.

But that doesn’t bother Rachel or the chamber because that is just another inconvenient fact.