July 19, 2008

Voter’s hopes dashed

By Danielle Seckler

   On Friday, July 11, the San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Joseph Brisco dashed the Big Bear Lake voter’s hopes. His ruling regarding the Private Home Rental (PHR) voter initiated initiative for the November ballot was that the signature pages did not comply with a technicality of the State law; each page did not have the full description on top. This has infuriated all those people who have tried for years to work with the City to regulate the PHR industry. On the other hand Michael Perry, former general manager of the City and now consultant for Citizens Protecting the Rights of Property Owners (CPRPRO), who brought the lawsuit, is elated.

   A couple of years ago, Jim Mc Lean of Apples, with many others, got enough signatures for the initiative to be placed on the ballot. City Clerk, Kathy Jeffries is the official person from the City whose responsibility is to lead any citizen’s group through the process and then to certify the petitions submitted. Jeffries specifically told the Mc Lean group how the signature petitions should be printed, giving hand written lists to the group to follow before she would accept the signatures. The petitions had over 600 signatures originally and after the Registrar of Voters (ROV) confirmed the signatures there were only about 300 left. The Mc Lean group had a CD with the ROV’s list of registered voters and compared those who had signed the petition to the CD, so after the ROV had removed so many signatures they requested to find out how and why so many signatures were removed. They were told that once the signatures were given to the City for certification, the names of the petition become private. However, when CPRPRO filed their lawsuit to stop the initiative, Perry used copies of two pages from the petitions handed over to City Clerk Jeffries as examples of falsely printed petitions. This has Mc Lean scratching his head wondering why the rules are different for one group and who is behind it all. To those who signed the petition, they feel like the deck was stacked against them from the get go.

   To this observer, Jeffries failed miserably at her official duties as City Clerk. It doesn’t matter if she was incompetent or untrained it was the City’s responsibility to be neutral on the initiative and to make sure that the State law was followed to the letter. The City attorney could have checked the petition before it was released for voters to sign. The City was legally required to do an economic impact study, which was inaccurate to say the least; however the conclusion was doom and gloom for the City’s economy. The simplest inaccuracy was check by us on the number of rooms available in the valley in commercial lodging. They stated that there were only about 600 rooms available and the PHR rooms were needed to fill the gap. Within one hour, using the local telephone book, we found over 1500 available rooms in commercial lodging; leaving many to wonder if the staff or City Council asked the consultant company to come up with the result they reported.

   Even before the petitions were submitted, then Mayor Bill Jahn and Council member Liz Harris wrote to Mc Lean, asking him not to submit the petitions and to wait for the Chamber of Commerce Task Force to move forward on resolving the issues that residents and lodging had to the PHR. Click here to see the letter, which states that a legal challenge will be ‘likely’. It took about a year and Phase I was completed, which puts a complaint system into effect. Phase II, the complaints that the lodging industry has been pushed back, with no timetable in sight; stating that everyone should let the current ordinance proved that the problems of residents is resolved. The problem is that the residents do not trust those who are doing enforcing the PHR ordinance and they don’t call much; fearing City retribution. We personally have multiple people contact us, stating that they called and their complaints are not being logged or reported to the City Council.

   This fiasco has cost money and time; all being wasted and throws another log on the fire of the resident’s distrust of their City, both the City Council members and the staff. Those who signed the petition just say that the City is corrupt and there is no alternative than to get another initiative placed on the ballot that will prohibit all PHR within the City’s limits.

   At the last City Council meeting someone brought up a recreation tax and our current leaders repeated their usual mantra; the ski resorts will move their ticket booths on Federal land or the marinas will move to the shoreline. Yeah, the MWD is going to ok that, I’m sure; they don’t even want a boardwalk along the shoreline. The Feds would be so much better; how long has the zoo been waiting for one environmental impact report? If the City needs more money and the Day-trippers are the culprit, then make a parking pass, like the Feds did. All these recreational visitors don’t walk here, they drive. Put the tax on the cars or the parking. The marinas and the ski resorts can’t move their parking. Yet, our wonderful civic leaders always come to the same troth; the taxpayer or the resident.

   Perception is everything and the City is viewed as the enemy of the people and in the pocket of the real estate industry and Dick Kun. People believe that the tourists cost our hospital in uncollected debt, the wear and tear on the side roads where PHRs are lead to instead of commercial lodging on the main road that Caltrans takes care of. It may not be fair, but there will be no way to get around these perceptions.

   People are fed up out there by City leaders saying one thing and doing another. The City Council and staff do not seem be impartial to a great many people and in an election year where voters are expected to come out in droves, their wrath will be felt. It will be a nasty fight, for sure; but that is how elections are done in America. The guy with the least mud on at the end of the fight wins. Don’t you just love it?

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