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