Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliNative
1. Harbor Island?
2. Coronado (ferry depot)?
3. Coronado Nat. Monument on Pt. Loma?
4. somewhere else?
I like the view from Harbor Island best. For a view of the city & mountains, maybe Pt. Loma heights near the lighthouse.
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You've hit all the high points, but I'll add a few more.
1. Mr. A's in Banker's Hill. Second only to Harbor Island in my humble experience. The best views are on the outdoor patio, which you'll usually need to reserve in advance. They have a dress code which they do enforce (minimum of collared shirt and nice jeans, no t-shirts or flip-flips) and plates are $50-80 not including drinks.
2. Marston Point in Balboa Park. Just an fyi, it's directly under the flight path into Lindbergh so expect a fair bit of noise (of course, for some that's a bonus).
3. Palm St pedestrian overpass across the 5. Probably one of the best places to watch aircraft coming into Lindbergh.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SDfan
I think there is more political nuance to what Hasan is doing than some folks give him credit for.
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I can see many of your points, and ultimately we can never truly know what's going through Ikhrata's mind.
What I see, however, is Ikhrata attempting to apply his LA area strategies in SD without taking into account the major differences between the two regions, both political and physical.
First off, unlike SCAG, SANDAG collects taxes directly from its entire jurisdiction and builds most of the region's transportation infrastructure itself. That gives it a massive amount of power compared to its LA area counterpart, but that also subjects it to a comparatively larger amount of pressure from local governments. In LA, Imperial County can ignore SCAG's vision if it chooses to and put its taxes into freeways instead. Cities and unincorporated communities in SD don't have that right, and so naturally they're going to exert a heck of a lot more pressure on SANDAG to determine what gets built.
So it might less informative to think of Ikhrata as moving from an agency that plans for 20m people to one that plans for 3m, but rather from an agency that has a $50m annual budget to one that has a $1.3b annual budget. He's not making paper plans anymore, Hasan Ikhrata effectively has total control what transportation infrastructures does (and doesn't) get built in SD county. That's a level of power and political influence exponentially greater than what he had at SCAG, and he really seems to be enjoying the level of attention from the press this gives him.
And that ties into his other big issue, which is that he also seems to discount the sometimes very personal nature of SD politics. Ikhrata said (to the press, mind you) that he was annoyed with Supervisor Desmond continually asking him about expanding the 78, which he characterized as pushy and uninformed. That's just on the high side of slander against the only elected official in all of NE County, and one with a great deal of influence over the only other countywide body in SD. I'm not saying I support the way Desmond reacted by then burying Ikhrata's plan with negative press coverage before it was even released (and believe me, Desmond is the real leader of this three ring circus. Gaspar is just trying to hitch a ride to reelection), but anyone familiar with SD politics would've known what was going to happen.
I can tell you from personal experience the transition from the LA to to the SD political sphere can be a rough one. There are far, far less players and you're constantly dealing with the same people over and over again. Political decorum and maintaining relationships are extremely important. That's why I post my more controversial opinions online anonymously rather than send them to the press, when I don't even have a fraction of the importance or political attention Ikhrata does...
As for transit vs freeways, Desmond and Gaspar were already not against totally transit. They were going to be against taxes, especially large ones dedicated for transit, but if Ikhrata hadn't moved towards deleting the 2004 ballot projects they wouldn't be getting nearly the same press coverage they are now. That's a pretty big problem because it's going to be hard enough to sell a major transit push in SD as it is. SD county is roughly the same size as LA county but only has 1/3rd the population, population density, and GDP. To gain the same ridership percentages as LA you are going to need to raise a proportionally higher amount of revenue, aka taxes will probably need to be higher on a per person basis than LA. Considering LA's Measure S barely squeaked through in 2017, that doesn't bode well for an even larger tax increase in historically conservative SD. I like a lot of Ikhrata's thoughts, but I have trouble seeing how he'll come up with something that's really workable in SD.
Also, you're awesome mello never change
