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Maybe it'll get overwhelming support on the mail-in ballots
and it failed to get the two thirds majority needed to pass. Mesure c needed 66% but got 64%
An ambitious $455 million project that would have added more than 1,000 rooms to San Diego’s downtown bayfront was rejected Monday by port commissioners who were troubled by the enormity of the development and its impacts on public vistas.Proposed by longtime port tenants Ray Carpenter and Art Engel, the project envisioned a 44-story, 843-room hotel, plus a second five-story hotel with 220 rooms catering to budget-minded guests, located on the bay side of the San Diego convention center where city leaders have long wanted to expand the waterfront facility. In all, the development encompassed 18 acres, of which 13 are on the water where a 12-slip marina is situated.Before the development could have moved forward, it needed the Port of San Diego to certify the environmental impact report, an action the commissioners were unwilling Monday to take. The net effect of their vote to not approve the environmental analysis was to kill the project. Even if the port had agreed to advance the development, it would have still required the consent of the Coastal Commission, which places a high priority on public spaces and coastal access.The port action now leaves undeveloped a crucial site long coveted by the city for an enlarged convention center — a project that already has the blessing of the Coastal Commission. The expansion, though, remains in limbo because a ballot measure seeking to finance it with an increase in the city’s hotel room tax failed in March to garner the two-thirds majority support it needed for passage. Backers of the measure, however, remain encouraged because of a recent decision by the California Supreme Court to not hear an appeal of a lower court ruling in favor of the simple majority threshold.
Measure C, a March 2020 ballot measure that sought to fund upgrades to San Diego's waterfront convention center and other services, didn't get the two-thirds supermajority it needed to pass, but the San Diego City Council says post-election appellate court rulings have established the simple majority as the new threshold for similar ballot items and wants to declare Measure C approved.Measure C was put before San Diego voters in March, 2020. The citizens' initiative proposed an increase to taxes guests pay at San Diego hotels for the next 30 years. Revenue would have funded "convention center expansion, modernization, promotion and operations, homelessness services and programs, and street repairs," according to the city council.
The city of San Diego on Friday made good on its promise to ask a judge to confirm that last year’s ballot measure to fund an expanded convention center, homeless services and road repairs did indeed pass with a simple majority. In a lawsuit filed in Superior Court late in the day, City Attorney Mara Elliott’s office asked the court to determine that Measure C was lawfully enacted in March 2020 even though it fell short of the two-thirds majority voters at the time were told was needed for approval.That requirement, argues the city, is no longer valid in light of three appellate court decisions that have since come down, concluding that simple majority approval is adequate when a tax hike is placed on the ballot by citizens, which was the case with Measure C.
Apple had their event showing off all their new products, but the REAL news was that they included video from the new Rady Shell at Jacobs Park (where the symphony plays their outdoor shows by the bay). To say the venue looks stunning would be an understatement, and I hope SDCC will bring it into the fold as an official venue for panels moving forward. I cued up the video so you can see the shots of Rady as well as some pretty vistas of the convention center You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Loginyay!!tl:dr, a simple majority is looking more and more likely
I question if they even need an expansion now. I don't think Comic-Con will ever be as big as it once was. And conventions in general are shrinking and going away. A lot of money and work for a dim future.
Yes, the expansion was for Comic-Con. No other conventions needed the extra space. San Diego wasn't losing conventions after the last expansion. I think a lot of companies realized after the shutdowns that conventions aren't necessary. I think it sucks because I love going to conventions in many different fields.