Comments from Steve Maher for meeting on 8/22

Well, I'll make it brief: We lost.

I'm very sorry to say. The 350-person audience section was maybe 4/5 full, and more than half were from our group. Our folks made some GREAT presentations. They had their facts well lined up, and were as convincing as I could ever believe they could be. I was certainly sold.

Some folks from Scripps Ranch showed up, a few dozen I think. They were not happy with us, and that's certainly understandable - they don't want to get broken up any more than we do. But DAMMIT, I thought we had this one won.

Then all the public-comment time was over, and it was the Commissioners' turn to speak.

Their comments threw a lot of cold water on us. The 5000+ petition signatures were basically brushed aside, regarded as "conflicting testimony" against other things they had been told for the last 6 months. (Guess who did most of that "telling" - our friends at APAC.)

The commissioners seemed to feel that their choice was between cutting up Penasquitos, and cutting up Scripps Ranch. Their present proposed map (the one we put on our flyers) shows Penasquitos getting split, as you know. There was another map they were considering (from us), showing Penasquitos united in D5 and Scripps Ranch divided. Unfortunately, the way Scripps Ranch was divided, was pretty messy. Dividing lines ran down the middle of residential streets with houses on either side, putting neighbors 50 feet apart, in differing districts.

A few of the commissioners said straight out that, though they knew neither neighborhood wanted to be divided, they felt the way Scripps Ranch was proposed to be divided was worse than the way PQ was proposed to be divided. So they favored the map showing us being divided.

Then there was APAC and Dr. Chan. They were there, but did not speak. I had a little talk with Dr. Chan myself before the beginning of the meeting, can describe it if anyone wants, but it's not germane here. But the commissioners basically said (I thought, please would the rest of you who were there, fill in details and anything I've missed or gotten wrong here?) that they had been hearing testimony of various kinds, and getting emails and reports, from "others" for many months now. It had all been pretty consistent, and most of the commissioners had formed their opinions over a long time, from that. I get the impression that most of those earlier emails and reports, came from APAC.

Now we showed up just in the last week, saying very different things from what they have heard previously. They simply regarded that as "conflicting testimony", and were trying to give each side equal weight and consideration. The idea that maybe one side had told them a bunch of (I'll be charitable here) "inaccurate information" while the other side told the truth, apparently didn't register with the commissioners. I suppose they were not in a position to tell which was which. 

How they were able to brush aside more than 5,000 signatures pleading for PQ to be kept together, is not clear to me. But they basically did. And they also mostly ignored the 1600+ signatures from Aisans saying that APAC did NOT speak for them, maybe this was what they (mistakenly) called "conflicting testimony".

The Scripps Ranch folks complained about what they called "eleventh hour maps" and "last-minuted changes". Unfortunately somewhat accurate, I don't know how much impact that had. (Scripps Ranch has sent the commissioners 400 emails asking for SR to be kept together, they said).

Anyway, when the discusion was over, the chair sounded out several commissioners, who said they did not want to change the map they had (the one on our flyer). And the other commissioners, whom we had hoped would agree with us, just sat there with glum expressions on their faces. None of them even made a motion to consider the maps that we wanted (showing PQ united in District 5). The Chair asked if that was the Comission's general feeling, and they nodded.

That was it. They moved on to discuss other neighborhoods.

They have not taken a formal vote to accept the present map splitting PQ, but that will be done Thursday, Aug. 25. They do not intend to entertain any changes on that day. So if they stick to that intention, that's the ball game.

SUMMARY:

We didn't get into the discussion with the Commissioners early enough. APAC did, and they persuaded them that their view was "the" view. When we finally showed up at the last moment, it certainly wasn't too little (it was HUGE), but it was too late. The commissioners' minds were fairly set, and we did not change them.

And, nobody gave the Commissioners a proposal that made an acceptable division of Scripps Ranch (acceptable to the Commissioners, that is). So they felt they had to choose between a bad plan to divide PQ, or a worse plan to divide Scripps Ranch.

There are important pointers here, for what we must do to win the next time. But that will be ten years from now (correction: NINE AND A HALF, we ***must *** start earlier).

But right now, it doesn't look good for us.

But your effort was nothing short of magnificent. And your RESULTS are absolutely outstanding, commission inertia notwithstanding. 5,700 signatures, and alerting and educating a whole community that didn't know a thing about it at first, all in a span of a few days, with little leadership (the people who stepped in and took responsibility did terrifically, but there was just no time and patchy communications, preparation was impossible even for supermen) and fewer resources... was a feat I have never seen done in all my years. I still stand astonished at what you all did.

I'm proud to have worked with you all, more than I can say. And I hope I can join you again, and soon.

Steve Maher

P.S. This is only my own impression of what went on at the meeting. I have likely made lots of mistakes and left out a lot. The rest of you who were there, can you please "Reply to All" and fill in what you heard and saw?