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San Diego County, CA November 2, 2010 Election
Smart Voter

No Expansion of Las Colinas

By Rob McNelis

Candidate for Council Member; City of Santee

This information is provided by the candidate
It is not that we do not want it in our back yard (it is already here); we just do not want it moved to our front yard!
The County of San Diego has been holding the city of Santee in a choke hold on any proposed project in the River View re-development area because the City of Santee has been fighting the proposed threefold expansion of Las Colinas Jail for the last three years and communication between the County and the City of Santee has stopped. Why you may ask? Well because the County does not want to hear about alternate site studies, or talk about higher property tax base revenue uses for this land. Instead they have decided that they are just going to do what ever they want and do not want to hear any further input from the city. When I went down to the County Supervisors meeting to testify in opposition to the jail, I was told that the residents of Santee are just a bunch of "NIBY's" (Not In My Back Yard), and that there are jails in Downtown San Diego, Vista, El Cajon and Escondido, and those communities are not suffering any economic loss. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to rebut that statement. The jails that were described by the County Supervisor do not look like "Jails", they look like any other building you see in a typical downtown area. The problem is, that is not what is being proposed to be built in our downtown area. The County Supervisors want to build a sprawling compound that will better resemble an old military stockade than a "Downtown Building". We are talking about multiple single story buildings on 45 acres of land surrounded by 20' high chain-link fencing with razor wire on top. If that is not bad enough, how about the `Stadium' style lighting that will illuminate the compound all night long. This is not a design plan that any city in the county would welcome in its burgeoning downtown area, and it must be changed! That is what I intend to do.

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ca/sd Created from information supplied by the candidate: September 17, 2010 19:50
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