Issue 1: Land Deals For The New Police Station (Safety Center)

By John A. Martes

How can you trust our Mayor and Council when they disregard the citizens of El Cajon and Squander their Assets.

Eighteen years ago, the prior city council acquired 5.85 acres of land behind the court house on East Park Avenue, Ballantyne Street and Wells Avenue. At the time of acquisition, the council had a professional appraisal company set the value for the property at 3.25 million dollars. That council placed the land in the general plan for the new Police Safety Center which included overflow parking for the court and plenty of parking for the police. They had an estimated build cost of 25 million dollars.

Three years ago, this city council sold that same land to one of their buddies, Priest Construction, for 2.5 million dollars. In all the time I have lived in El Cajon, I have never experienced land values going down in a fifteen year period.

One year later, in 2006, this same city council put proposition "O" on the ballot for a half cent sales tax increase for 10 years to build the New Police Safety Center. They didn't have any land for this Safety Center. So they had the police call everyone to tell them that they would lose their jobs if we didn't vote in favor of proposition "O".

Shortly after proposition "O" was approved, the city notified the property owners on Magnolia and Wells Avenues that the city wanted their land. One property owner refused and he was eminent domain out by the city's Redevelopment Agency. The City acquired 2.4 acres for 7.6 million dollars. They also acquired 9/10th of an acre on Rea Street for 3.5 million dollars. So the total land acquired amounts to 3.3 acres for 11 million dollars. What a deal! How can you trust them?

Now the city is going to build a Safety Center mostly in the existing city parking area, with a three story parking structure to accommodate all the police and city vehicles. But, there is no public parking included in this plan. This will cost between 70 to 75 million dollars.

Proposition "O" has netted the city 8.5 million dollars for the last two years. So over a ten year period, considering some minor fluctuation in sales tax collection, you could estimate that the city will collect 85 million dollars of your hard earned money.