San Diego County, CA November 7, 2000 Election
Smart Voter

EL CORAZON

By Tom Brault

Candidate for City Council; City of Oceanside

This information is provided by the candidate
Questionable decisions / Wasted community input
{BACKGROUND ON THE EL CORAZON PROPERTY: The parcel of land which is known as "El Corazon" ("The Heart" of the City of Oceanside) is a former mining site located north of Oceanside Boulevard, east of El Camino Real, south of Mesa Drive and west of the proposed extension of Rancho del Oro Boulevard. The 445 acre site was given to the City by U.S. Silica in 1994, along with $1.2 million which was intended to help pay for the reclamation measures the land would require to be made developable. It soon became apparent to the City that the cost of environmental work needed for the land would be significantly higher, and that development of this property would not be in the cards for some time to come. Still, the City spent $75,000 to sponsor a series of workshops to discuss how the citizens of Oceanside would like to use this land if and when it could be developed. Subsequently, Manchester Resorts expressed an interest in developing a golf course on this property as part of their proposed Oceanside Beach Resort, and the City included the sale of the parcel to Manchester as part of the exclusive negotiating agreement, assigning a value of $3,531,500 to the property. That value would be applied toward the City's $15 million subsidy of the entire project. At their most recent extension of the exclusive negotiating agreement, the City Council agreed that even if the beach component of the project did not go forward, Manchester would still retain first rights to develop the El Corazon property as a golf course with a hotel onsite.}

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El Corazon is a classic case of how NOT to approach public policymaking. First the City took on a property that some considered to be an undevelopable "white elephant", and more of an environmental liability than an asset. Then the City engaged in a series of "blue sky" public workshops on the planning for the property, resulting in a community vision of a complex of parks and open space that was more of an exercise in dreaming than of planning. Clearly the City was not going to be in a position to implement any of those visions for many, many years, but the citizens who participated in this exercise, having invested their time and energy in crafting this vision, felt justifiably betrayed as all their hard work was jettisoned when Manchester came along with a desire to develop the land for a championship golf course or two on the property.

A case could be made (or equally easily refuted) about whether a golf course fits the citizens' vision of using El Corazon for open space and public recreation. That question is relatively moot right now, as it seems a practically "done deal" that Manchester will be given the right to develop at least one golf course on the site. The important points are the lessons we should learn from this experience:

1) The City must be cautious about the obligations it assumes. (Sometimes you should look a gift horse in the mouth. As a dentist, I know this to be true!)

2) Asking for the citizens' vision when you're not in a position to follow through is a setup for disappointment and a feeling of disenfranchisement.

3) If you need to make significant changes to the community's plan, do a better job of:

a) Acknowledging and appreciating the effort the public put into crafting the vision, and
b) Building consensus in the community that the new approach is indeed the better way to proceed instead of just appearing to unilaterally blow off the public input.

Clearly the people of Oceanside welcome the opportunity to be involved in the blueprint of our collective future, and I would seek to engage the citizens in the framing of that blueprint for our City as much as possible. Such community involvement is to be commended and respected, not devalued and ignored.

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