This week, your comments ranged from our Fact Checks on claims and cautions from San Diego’s past to Balboa Park’s history to the fate of local coyotes. Check out five we’re highlighting to give you a sample:
• Pati Carter-Nielsen on “The Case of the Disappearing Coyotes: The Wildlife Killers“:
The coyotes haven’t disappeared. They follow the food. We have lived on Tecolote Canyon for 38 years and we hadn’t seen coyotes for awhile. Then we started seeing large groups of rabbits. Sure enough the coyotes came back. We have at least 2 large packs now. They come up and walk along our back fence. We see them in the early evening and hear them constantly. What we haven’t seen in some time is opossums. They used to be all over.
• Dan Soderberg on “A Plan, and Money, for Balboa Park Fixes &mmdash; For a Time“:
Two points Vicki Estrada has made in the past that didn’t emerge from this article. 1. The bypass bridge proposal was drawn up, reviewed and rejected from the Balboa Park Master Plan.
2. In view of current best standards and practices, Balboa Park Master Planners today might not choose the Organ Pavilion parking lot for a parking structure.
Having said that, the Master Plan parking structure accomplished two goals. Removing both Plaza de Panama parking AND the Palisades parking. Jacobs plan falls far short of that superior goal.
• Oscar Ramos on “The Airport Authority’s Exaggerated Warning: Fact Check“:
I think you need a separate set of ratings for this type of fact check, which is measuring how accurate past predictions turned out to be. The “true” to “huckster propaganda” really measures how accurately a politician represents current information and takes into account willful misinformation. This other sort of fact check should maybe have a spectrum of ratings that go from “Totally accurate/Bullseye” on one end, to “Completely wrong/totally missed the mark” on the other. Then the analysis can focus on what assumptions they made that resulted in such an accurate prediction or otherwise, or what information they failed to take into consideration. I just don’t see “misleading” and “huckster propaganda” being very relevant ratings for this type of fact check. Otherwise, I love the fact that you’re fact checking past predictions. Politicians and pundits need to be held accountable for their predictions (could we develop a batting average for them?)
• Chris Brewster on “What Lobbyists and Campaign Donors Haven’t Gotten: Fact Check“:
I do not think it was anticipated at the time of the ballot that city workers would be so effective at underbidding the private sector (at least under the rules voters approved). I think that the prediction in the statement was that given the chance to select a private bidder, campaign contributors and political supporters would be more likely to prevail. Since city workers won the bids, the Council and Mayor didn’t have a chance to make a decision. In my view, the jury is out on this. We will see when/if private companies have the lower bid.
• Allen Hemphill on “Fact Checking Big Promises, Warnings“:
Here in North San Diego County, we have at least two examples of major projects supported by politicians, that have failed to meet projections of cost or usability: The Sprinter, and the California Center For the Arts in Escondido.
I would love to see an analysis of those two projects, naming names, which, like the Poway Unified school bond Prop. C so recently exposed, can serve as object lessons for future boondoggles.
Statements have been lightly edited to fix spelling errors and typos.
Want to contribute to discussion? Submit a suggestion to Fix San Diego.
Dagny Salas is the web editor at Voice of San Diego. You can contact her directly at dagny.salas@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5669.
Like VOSD on Facebook.