South San Francisco, CA October 30, 2023
The much anticipated grand opening of the newly constructed Civic Center in South San Francisco took place this past weekend allowing the public to view the 83,000 sf 3-story building that now houses the Council Chambers, Parks and Recreation Department, and the new Public Library which replaces the ‘Orange Park’ building.
In the early morning with the sun rising from the East, South City neighbor Evangelina Saldana captured a few photos showcasing the light reflecting on the glass building.
Photo credit: Evangelina Saldana
Photo Credit: Evangelina Saldana
The new Civic Center is home to SSF Library, P&R Dept, and Council Chambers. Photo Credit: Evangelina Saldana
The project was financed through voter-approved Measure W which calls for a 30-year one-half percent (0.5%) transactions and use tax. More info on that Measure HERE
Photo Credit: Senator Kevin Mullin
Photo Credit: Cinfonie Bayone
Jackie Speier, a former South City resident and politician, and a good friend to the City, was also part of the ribbon cutting.
Pictured here with Cinfonie Bayone
Photo credit: Cinfonie Bayone
A plague honoring Jackie Speier’s dedication to SSF is on display
Photo Credit: Cinfonie Bayone
the last 3 on the right are family members, all related. Nepotism alive and well, one large “happy” family.
Dare criticize, you’re excluded, you know, democracy SSF style.
Do they even live in South City? Bet not.
Out of the horse’s mouth, Greg is not related to Sharon — for the record.
Did anyone see the list of Donors that was electronically displayed?
If not mistaken, Buenaflor Nicolas was in the $100,000 donor category.
In best interests of citizens, Council refrain from participating in discussions and voting where there is a conflict of interest. However, if understanding current policy, there appears to be a loophole where owning biotech stock and gaining self wealth is not considered a conflict of interest. Biotech is the driver of all of the major changes in SSF, where there is very little to no real concrete benefit to citizens, neighboring downtown and ECR. Wondering if this hefty donation came at expense of citizens?
Changing topics.
How could Measure DD have been turned down by voters and Measure T passed, where 51% of our property taxes already go to schools?
The priority should always be on questioning District’s administration salaries that they themselves set and overseeing their spending, where very little goes towards students. Instead, children are always being used as a reason to keep increasing our taxes (most recently, Meas T & Prop 19). A great start is attending each of the school’s Site Council meetings and questioning all of the expenditures on agendas.
We already live in a county/state that is not affordable and people are struggling, many family/friends who have already moved. Rents will most certainly be on the rise again now that landlords have received their tax bill.
As presented, Measure DD was geared to taxing biotech corporations and would have provided education that as a society, we all benefit from and our children deserve it.
We can’t rely on our current State’s educational system! Besides, what has biotech given us for overtaking SSF that is beneficial to community at large? Being mindful and respectful of all of the developments in medicine and the benefits to those in need, there’s also a holistic approach to ailments, instead of pills for everything.
A full-ride annual scholarship to 3 lucky students is not benefitting students outside of STEM or students at large. Message being sent is that my child is not important or deserving of a higher education outside of STEM.
Measure DD was a great measure that would have benefitted SSF as a whole.
Sadly, the pamphlets that were paid by biotech managed to defeat us as a society and our advancements through the power of education.
I can’t afford another Measure W or a Measure T !!!!!
New taxes have a trickle effect that burden middle income who struggle day by day, checks spent before arriving, and also very much felt by lower income residents.
Education improves our chances as a society to read between the fine lines on whom are the first real benefactors of new taxes and anything that is left over is received by the intended (students).
Per District, there’s very little left for students, even with the 51% received from each property owner, and majority goes to management salaries.
Guess, salary raises are never enough and the reason why District keeps asking for more and more, where there’s never enough.
Excellent, comprehensive comments on how our city officials operate. Conflicts of interest and servitude to their benefactors. A reminder that three of our five council members, Nagales, Nicolas, and Addiego, came out in opposition to Measure DD. I have the beautiful, heavy stock fliers right in front of me. Our city officials also managed to throw their “considerable” weight behind Measure AA which they passed by concealing the fact that their own city financed study revealed $47,000,000 to $85,000,000 in unfunded liabilities for just 150 units of this government owned, low-cost housing. The shortfalls will be on the resident/taxpayer’s dime. To say the “fix” is in is an understatement.
Daily Journal’s article today by educator, Mr. Bill Conrad, titled “When we fail Education, we fail Democracy” arrived at perfect timing and very enlightening.
It reads: “Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choices are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of our democracy, therefore, is education.””
Meas AA:
How anyone could continue to vote for district rep who allows deplorable living conditions at Willow Gardens is mind boggling, besides unsanitary conditions of from the garbage/junk being dumped on sidewalk and along the apartments. It’s a very different perspective living there or as a pedestrian, than selective eyes from outside society and drivers.
There is a much higher price tag to pay for the intended recipients of Meas AA and society than the $47 -$85 million (unfunded ?!!!!!), if Meas AA is indeed about segregation, as currently exists at Willow Gardens area.
Tonight’s State of the City the Mayor, didn’t mention the bio-life science building explosion in SSF.
The City goes out of its way to court them to come here and set-up shop at conferences, even overseas in China.
Meas. DD was a sell-out by the kind mayor and stockholders with million dollar portfolios on the city council. They went against families and FOR bio-life-science interests. It was a citizen initiative, and the council lies to the community when they say they are a family oriented city; by the looks of the attendees’ at the State of the City, the mayor’s delivery on the quality of life for families isn’t in South City.
About the Meas. W and T. In 2024, another citizen initiative will come on the ballot that ALL funding requests coming to the voters has to have a supermajority of 2/3 for passage, not the 55% that both these measures slid though. It is currently under an injunction by the governor, but when it comes to the voters vote your wallet.
Just wait, you haven’t seen anything yet — biotech in our neighborhoods, but no affordable housing near their campuses, Lindenville with a skateboard park that meetings were flooded by San Francisco skateboarders, Produce Market development will have over 3,000 parking spaces although it’s near the BART station by Tanforan and a shuttle could transport workers — but, the Civic Community Campus has half the parking we were promised (220 parking spaces no longer) and visitors are told to find street parking (while competing with the 408 apartments units nearby — and we’re not even talking about the development of the 847 units at the PUC site behind the campus, SSF PD parking in Safeway’s parking lot, visitors being told to park at the MSB or find street parking. SAVE THE MSB! The residents (remember us? We’re the ones that pay everyone’s salaries, pay for all the ill-conceived developments, and are the last ever being considered) have asked and want the MSB to be preserved as a senior/multi-use community center.
What fun! All those smiling faces reveling in their successful deception of the South San Francisco resident/taxpayers. The “landlocked Titanic” they created was a capital improvement funded by Tax Measure W that inadvertently did not mention that the collected monies would be used for a grand new Civic Center because the residents might not have supported such a huge expenditure of money. Police services, gang suppression, senior services and potholes were all a distraction. Now granted, the City enlisted advice of counsel to draft the ballot language that would declare that the monies would find their way into the general fund where it could be used at our city officials’ discretion. Remember, the Impartial Analysis is written by the City Attorney who serves at the pleasure of our city government. They asked, and the majority did, trust those words as displayed in the ballot measure language. I would never accuse anybody of deception by omission but it does strain the meaning of the words “impartial analysis.” Doesn’t matter, the deception is all legal. They will maintain there was citizen oversight of the spending of Measure W funds but do yourself a favor and see how many oversight meetings were actually held. Some residents were just fine with the existing Municipal Services Buildings and Library that have satisfied resident needs for decades, especially after having spent a small fortune on renovations. I would love to share with you a more detailed accounting of renovation expenditures but it seems that Public Records requests that satisfy resident requests are just not readily available but information to distract us from that goal certainly is. Anyway, the MSB is not the topic, the new Civic Center is, and on October 23 I made a public records request for disclosure of the amount of outstanding debt, duration of that debt service, and any city properties used to secure that debt for the project. Should they satisfy this request, by a resident in standing, I look forward to sharing that information with residents who might just be surprised how much of that building is not paid for. On the plus side, a thirty year tax measure will give resident/taxpayers plenty of time to rifle through their pocket change to pay for our city officials,’ secretive “pet project.” Sure hope no icebergs come floating down Chestnut because the debt will remain.
As promised, here is the result of my requests for information regarding the financial obligations relative to our new Civic Center. Let me qualify the fact that I am not an accountant but have spent my life avoiding reckless debt while balancing my checkbook. Can’t say the same for SSF city government.
I will rely on the one-page summary provided to me and not the almost 700 pages that accompanied my request on PDF.
Approximately $82,000,000 in bonds are outstanding for the facility. Annual debt service is approximately $5,500,000 with a maturity date of 6/1/2046.
Here’s the scary part.
Several city properties were used to secure the bonds for both the construction of the new Civic Center and the new Police Station ($41,000,000 in bonds outstanding, $2,800,000 in annual debt service and a 6/1/2046 maturity date). At least the police station was not concealed in the push to pass Measure W.
Properties include:
*Orange Memorial Park,
*Miller Parking Garage,
*City Hall,
*Westborough Park
*Fire Station #64,
*Public Works Corporation Yard,
*Fire Station #61,
*City Senior Center (Magnolia Center)
*Community Civic Campus-Phase 1 and Phase 2.
Now while I acknowledge having a simple mind when it comes to finances, does this mean that our city officials used all these properties as collateral to get their grandiose projects built?
You think the city looks different now, if we default on those bonds, City Hall on Grand will be home to a mixed use, biotech/life science, tenement housing project. Replica of Independence Hall be gone.
Hope the new Civic Center was worth it. Take heart, regardless of the lies being told, it wasn’t the residents’ idea.
Nor did we have a say in it like when you pay for something and actually have input in the finished product. Blunder after blunder 8 years later, we got a huge library in a glass menagerie, left to us by a city manager, drive-by style and is long gone.
We already paid for the remodeling of the Orange Library AND the Grand Avenue Library.
The banks made the City use collateral for 3 reasons: (1)the 1/2 ct sales tax on measure W was used to fund a capital project
(2) that didn’t get 2/3 of the vote as required by law. Here is where the deception is uncovered. The ballot language did not mention clearly that the sales tax would be used to fund a library or police station,bypassing the General Fund, and would of had its “own sheet”, only used for that purpose, as it is, they hide behind “any government purpose” phrase to use it for anything they want, salaries, pension debt, etc.
(3) had it received the 2/3 of the vote, the banks would have issued the cheaper General Obligation Bonds (GO),instead, the taxpayer is on the hook with more expensive Lease Revenue Bonds (LR)
-and- compelled SSF to form the Community Funding Authority to approve projects using the same scheme, If they held public regular oversight meetings as promised to the voters, your information would be public instead of having to make a public record request.
We’re doomed. We need people on council and the planning commission that think about what’s going on, not spend frivolously with taxpayer money, not begin capital and other projects with a stipend and have the taxpayer pay for these inane projects and not have sights on higher political ambitions…if you’re interested in serving the city, don’t mind that salaried employees make over $200,000 – $500,000 a year and you get a pittance for serving, then we need you to save our city.