Hopes and Dreams

Here are some of the first questions I’m usually asked:

  • What is your agenda?
  • What is your platform?
  • What are you going to fix?

Once past those, it’s usually:

  • How can I help?
  • How can I donate to your campaign?

Let’s start in reverse order:

You can help by spreading the word to your friends. Share this and the others that will follow with them. No widespread distributions please, keep it to the people you know, and only if they express an interest in our City. Your neighbors certainly, especially if you find them talking about the issues in Poway. Please provide it to them.

Campaign Donations

The City of Poway allows up to $200 TOTAL before I have to complete a bunch more paperwork. When it goes over $200, I have to have a campaign “organization”, a bank account, a Campaign Manager. I want NONE OF THAT, and since I have already come close to the $200 – no donations please at this point. (PS the ~$200 has been spent on paper and ink jet cartridges for my printer.) Now granted this might change between now and the end of October – but for now let’s keep this “grass-roots” and neighborly.

AGENDA PLATFORM WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO FIX?

If you read my introduction you already know that; I have no “Agenda” and I have “no baggage”. I am not biased by any of my own personal desires. I don’t have any committee or work group influence (or bias). While I have crashed a meeting or two in my time here in Poway – I found them to be productive and focused, and not needing my assistance. I am running to be the City Council Representative for the residents of District 1. I will work with ALL the Representatives to bring your desires for our city to fruition.

That being said, I do have a focus for the first half of my term. I hope to; by example, get District Representation up and running. So it will be ready for the full implementation when the election of 2020 takes place. Districts 2 and 4 will have their representatives elected in that election. Every citizen of Poway will have their “Go-to Person”, who will vote with their needs in mind.

So how am I going to do this?

Currently the largest and immediate issues in town lie along Poway Road. I want to address the long standing feeling that “Those North Poway people don’t care about South Poway”. District representation can address that. Districts 1, 3 and 4 share Poway Road – it’s a boundary road of the electorate. Prior to my 22 years in District 1, I was a resident of District 4 at the east end (10 years), and west end (6 years) – I can help the District 3 (east end) and hopefully the “At Large” District 4 (west end) winners, work towards cross-road cooperation in the implementation of the Poway Road Specific Plan. Each of us working in the best interests of our neighbors within our respective districts, we can work towards a better Poway Road. Simultaneously, the District 3 winner and I will work on the LMD issues of Twin Peaks and Community.

Well there you have it. My initial hopes and plans, I’m sure others will come along once I hear from you. I hope that this will appeal to you sufficiently and inspire you to get in touch with me and then vote for me on Nov. 6th.

 

Sincerely,

Peter J. Neild

pete4d1poway@gmail.com

12648 Butterwood Court – Palisades – Ground zero for the Christmas time “Candy Cane Lanes”.

Getting Along

In my last article “Hopes and Dreams”, I said I would work with ALL the Representatives of ALL the Districts, but specifically 3 and 4. This brings up the question:

How do you know you will get along with them?

I served in the US Navy for 9 years. Three of those years were spent submerged in Submarines. I was not permanent “ship’s company”. I was a “rider”. I was on board the boat (both Diesel and Nuclear) for 3 or more months at a time. Ship’s company didn’t much care for me, because when I came on-board it usually meant they were going to be going on an extended deployment; away from their family and friends – off the face of the earth entirely. I represented real bad news. Not only that, but I was going to sleep in one of their beds, eat their food, and breath their air. I was a necessary evil.

I walked into that environment and thrived. I made good friends with whom I have stayed in contact with over the years. Later in life several of them were even room-mates of mine, when we were not forced to be (known to sub sailors in the extreme as Hot-racking).

But more importantly – every mission we went on was successful. We worked as a team, some of the best teams I have ever worked on, because our lives depended on it. When confronted with “issues” that seemed at face value to be HUGE; we worked through them and created memories that have lasted a lifetime. I’m pretty sure with that back-ground; I can do the same for Poway.

Population

The Facebook Group Administrator, of South Poway Votes recently asked a question of the people running for office in the “Mid-Terms” election this November. The question was with regards to the Poway Road Corridor Specific Plan and the impact of the projected population growth facilitated by that plan. The count that was used in their “Question 3”, was 3,456, let’s call it 3,500.

As I have mentioned this election is the first “District” election in Poway where District 1 (my district) and District 3 will be decided; with District 2 and 4 decided in the 2020 election. Now true with the recent goings on in Poway City Council positions – the last “At-Large” (old method of selecting City Council seats) is really coming down to the seat for District 4, with a two year term. Or District 2 – but that is a stretch.

So – Question 3 and its population impact comes down to how this race works out. District 1 and 3 have Poway Road as the their southern limit, and District 4 has Poway Road as its northern limit with the exception of the road that is East of Sunrise Ranch Road where District 4 and District 2 share, until District 2 takes over in its entirety east of Espola. BUT, when you look at the Poway Road Corridor Specific Plan’s Figure 1-1, the only section of Poway Road that is addressed terminates in the west, at just past the Oak Know Road intersection, and the east, to just past the Garden Road intersection. That means that the Poway Road Plan is an issue for District 1, 3 and 4 with District 4 having the entire south side. District 1, 3 and 4 will have to work together to get anything done. Please note that I have been criticized for too much focus on my race for District 1. I’m told that this is an “all Poway” issue. So let me clarify. District 1 will be ONE vote of the three that is required; 3 and 4 would be the other two, to provide the THREE needed to do anything. What remains is what to do about it; and that is why I’m seeking input – please provide that to me by email.

Now then without getting into the dozen or so issues that I see with the Plan itself, let’s focus on this “Note” on my FB page dealing with population, keeping in mind my overall feeling that Poway is “Built-out”. BUT before I depart from the plan, let me first point out that the developments currently brought to light in the plan and in actuality –the biggest impact is in District 4, without question. OK one “question” and that being about 1/4th of the space in almost immediate consideration being in District 1. (Sorry for rambling on about District 1, but that is who is going to vote for me – hence my focus.)

Poway’s Population growth

When I first visited Poway in 1970 the population according to the Google search I just did was about 10,000. By the time I had served my nine years in the Navy, it was over 30,000, and rumors were that it was becoming its own City to get away from the “rabid growth of San Diego”. So I moved here. Two different places in what is now District 4, specifically Hill Country Dr. and Golden Way. I fought the South Poway Industrial park, lost some factors and won some – at least for the most part you can’t see it from Poway Road. You can still see the hills.

Around the time it was hovering around 40,000, and having reached the point where the dreams I had had for the acre on Golden Way were going no-where – I started to look to move again. I had fought with several City Council Persons to allow me to do what I wanted with the acre, without any success. I finally moved to District 1; and the population had pretty much plateaued at around 47,000 = but that was in 1996.

Since then it has added about 3,000, bringing it to the 50,077 in 2016 (20 years) as the graph from Google shows, go ahead type “Poway Population” in the Google search engine and see what you get when you hit the “enter” (“return”) key. Now they are talking about adding 3,500 in the already dense areas? When the population line is damn near flat for the last 20 years!! That’s half the time we have been a City. Do we really need a sudden 3,500 up-tick, after it took 20 years to do the same amount of growth?

A second issue with population is the impact on the balance of the Districtization. You will note here that the total population that was used for the approved “Plan 133” is 47,311. But that does not jive with the population graphs that I just shared with you. Hmmmm.

 

Screen capture from Plan 133 Demographics

Please pay attention to the “Deviation from ideal”. Note that District 2 is already below the ideal by 3.61% where District 1 and 3 are over by nearly the same percentage. And District 4 is nearly on par, only short by 0.23%. Pay attention to the # of people. If you add in 3,500 people to the areas that are already “over”, (or damn near right-on); and you add in the 2,200 difference from the Plan 133 numbers to the estimate for 2018 that’s a difference of nearly 10% – can RE-Districtization be far away? Is that conjecture on my part on how District 2 people are going to feel about that – Hmmm maybe I do have an “ALL Poway” viewpoint.

 

Again, I would love to hear from you. My only agenda is to listen to you. There are LOTS of other factors, and don’t forget the “population” is us. So please send me an email so we can talk about how I can represent you: pete4d1poway@gmail.com

Service

I would like to provide you with a clarification regarding my viewpoint of the City Council Seat that I am seeking in District 1. That position to me is to be of service to the City of Poway, and especially from the vantage point of the people who live in District 1.

 

Some people are thinking that the City Council consists of “Officials”; I don’t believe that is the way it should be. I see the role as being the final overall vote of all the people within District 1, and that representative will vote in accordance with the desires of the people that are concerned about the issue at hand. Very simply if you don’t care one way or the other about any particular issue, you don’t have to contact the representative. But if you have a viewpoint – and I am elected; I highly encourage you to let me know what that viewpoint is. Otherwise I will vote in accordance with three factors:

 

1. The majority of concerned people within District 1. (The people who let me know how they feel.)
2. What makes sense for the community from the perspective of the Districts immediately affected by the issue itself.

3. What makes sense for the CITY as a whole.

So, with those three points of view it comes down to “Service”. The service I will provide works in the same tiered level:

1. District 1 Issues, where I will ask District 3 and 4 Council members for assistance.
2. District 3 and 4 Issues – where I will provide the Council members with District 1 perspectives.
3. District 2 Issues – where I will work with the other Council members and their perspectives.

 

The final aspect of “Service”; is my experience. As a teen-ager, I was an Alter Boy in my Father’s Church (St. Luke’s in Rhode Island – my father was the Rector). I provided a service to the congregation. Transitioning from a teen-ager to my late twenties, I served in the U.S. Navy; where I served the people of this nation to the best of my ability – The Cold War (the one where minimal lives were lost). After the service I worked as an electronics technician in a Customer Service Department. I later became the Supervisor of that department, and those were the days before the internet. We as a department worked to be of service to our company’s customers at NO CHARGE. The only money ever expected was when they returned our products for Calibration or repair that was beyond their ability to accomplish. Following on after my time in Customer Service, I worked as an Applications Engineer, where I would assist customers in the utilization of the company’s equipment to address their specific needs. Again, a SERVICE at no charge; the only compensation was when additional options were required to meet the task at hand.

 

Half my life has been spent in roles of providing service. I can do the job, and now I have the time to dedicate to the City that I have lived in for the latter part of my life. The City that has been fairly good to me, although somewhat constrained by the former method of government where “South Poway was felt to be under-represented”. Now that, that form of government has changed from “At Large” to “District” – I truly feel I can be of service again.

 

Let me know your issues and your thoughts. Email me at pete4d1poway@gmail.com