How Would You Spend $300 Million?
By Tom Lemmon, Business Manager of the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council
If you’re driving south on the I-5 or along Broadway near E Street in the coming weeks, you might notice a billboard asking “How would you spend $300 million in public money?” Right now City Hall seems committed to giving this money to Gaylord Entertainment even though they refuse to commit to using local workers for the bayfront development. If you think public money should directly benefit the local economy instead of an out-of-state mega-developer, I hope you can take the time to cast your vote at www.LocalJobsFirst.org.
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The Legacy of a Leader
By Tom Lemmon
Business Manager of the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO
Tomorrow the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council will host a tribute luncheon to Jerry Butkiewicz at the San Diego Convention Center. There are guaranteed to be tons of great stories about how Jerry rose in the union ranks from a postal clerk to the president of the Labor Council and all the struggles in between, so we hope you can make it.
Frankly, it’s almost impossible to believe how much Jerry has accomplished since he took over the Labor Council in 1996. Not only has the Council’s annual budget grown more that 1,200 percent(!) and the staff from four full-time employees to 34, but Jerry earned labor a seat at the table for all major regional projects. Considering the strong anti-union sentiment among San Diego’s prominent Republican politicians and developers and in the media, this was no easy accomplishment. Before Jerry, San Diego business had its way without question; the working people were a secondary consideration for politicians.
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Bayfront Poll: Vast Majority of Chula Vistans Want Local Workers
By Nico Ferraro, UA Local 230
Six years ago, the Citizens Advisory Council – a group composed of real Chula Vistans, not just politicians and developers – proposed a great plan for the bayfront development. Their vision unified environmental and economic concerns and recognized the needs of the community. Too bad Mayor Cox chucked that plan out the window when she teamed up with Gaylord to ram their development down our throats.
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Debunking the ABC
By Al Shur
The anti-union Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) likes to toss around the word “freedom.” If you take a look at ABC’s Web site or listen to spokespeople like Eric Christen’s arguments about why unions are bad, they keep bringing up “freedom.”
Take a look at the facts, though, and you’ll probably be as disgusted as I am that they keep using this word — and even quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – to push their agenda. The only kind of freedom that the ABC is fighting for is the freedom for contractors to pay their workers poverty-level wages with no benefits.
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Giving Thanks to Labor’s Pioneers
By Al Shur, Jen Badgley & Tom Lemmon
This Thanksgiving, while we’re all hopefully reflecting on our many blessings, let’s not forget how we’ve all benefited from the struggles of organized labor. The way that modern labor disputes are covered by the media, many people must think that the only things unions do is negotiate pensions and benefit packages, but even a quick glimpse at labor’s rich history is astonishing in its scope and the significance of its accomplishments.
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The Writers’ Strike, Solidarity and the Bayfront
By Al Shur, IBEW Local 569
The Writers Guild of America strike is now well into week two. The stagehands’ strike that has shut down Broadway is in full force. CBS news writers are expected to authorize a strike later this week and the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America could also end up on the picket lines in 2008 when their contracts are up for renegotiation.
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What’s Wrong with San Diego’s Media?
By Jen Badgley
The San Diego Union-Tribune is losing readers faster than almost any other newspaper in the country. The newspaper industry’s latest circulation report reveals that the U-T has lost 8.5 percent of its daily print readership and 7.9 percent of its Sunday print readership. The most tragic thing about this turn of events, is that the U-T workers will bear the brunt of the financial down turn. It is the journalists and production workers who will be hit hardest by the inevitable cutbacks, not the executives at Copley Press. This is just par for the course since folks working for the U-T have never really been treated fairly by this anti-labor paper.
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Mayor Cox Needs to Admit Her Mistakes
By Al Shur, Business Manager, IBEW 569
This week’s City Council meeting was canceled, so we’re going to have to wait a few more days to find out if Mayor Cox still wants to close a fire station and lay off about 20 firefighters as part of her plan to deal with the budget crisis. She’s been quiet since the wildfires broke out, but I’m hoping that this tragedy has caused the Mayor to change her mind about trimming the fire department. Even though we disagree on many issues, if she’s willing to admit that proposal was a mistake, I’ll support her and give her credit for doing the right thing.
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Save Chula Vista’s Firefighters
By Tom Lemmon
The middle of a crisis like the one we’re facing right now is no time to point fingers. But we’d be crazy not to start thinking about how to protect ourselves in the future, to keep our families, our homes and our neighbors safe from another devastating round of wild fires.
In addition to smarter development planning and safer construction materials, Chula Vista needs to maintain a fully-staffed and well-equipped fire department. Now that the city is facing a $7.3 million budget shortfall, Mayor Cox is going to need to make some tough decisions about where to trim costs.
Unfortunately, her plan to lay off about 20 firefighters and maybe even close a fire station to save a few bucks is the kind of short-sighted decision-making that got Chula Vista into this financial squeeze in the first place.
Over the past few years we’ve seen more and more disasters that could have been prevented, or at least better handled, if our elected officials would have had the brains to recognize the warning signs and the guts to demand serious action. It was no secret that the levees in New Orleans weren’t fit to handle a hurricane, but the government didn’t make it a priority, and we all saw what happened. After the bridge collapse in Minneapolis last summer, word got out that there are bridges all over the country that are falling apart, but there’s supposedly no money to fix them.
As Southern Californians, we know that we’re living in an area that has a high fire risk… which is why I simply can’t believe that Mayor Cox is proposing to cut jobs from the fire department. Instead of giving a $300 million dollar handout to Gaylord Entertainment, maybe it’s finally time for Mayor Cox to reevaluate her priorities. Chula Vista deserves better.
Gaylord’s Hitman: Eric Christen’s Bizarre Road to Chula Vista
By Jen Badgley
Gaylord and its allies have tried to portray their labor and environmental opponents as out of step with the Chula Vista community. But who are the real outsiders here – the union members and environmentalists who are living and raising their families in the area? Or the Nashville developer with a track record of running roughshod over local communities all across America?
Let’s take a look at Eric Christen — the man who has become Gaylord’s public face in the community.
Christen’s official job title is Vice President of Government Affairs for the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) of San Diego, but he’s really just an attack dog-for-hire, and he’s definitely proven that he’s more than willing to fight dirty.
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The Mayor’s Backroom Buddies: Who is Cox Really Looking Out For?
By Jen Badgley
Anyone who’s been following the bayfront development knows that Mayor Cox has been on Gaylord’s side since day one. Even when Gaylord got caught lying to the Port Commission , she was quick to jump to the company’s defense. Why has the Mayor been such a devoted cheerleader for a disreputable, out-of-state developer whose shaky finances earned it an “F” grade from one financial rating service?
Mayor Cox claims that she supports Gaylord because its plan is the best for Chula Vista, but if you take a look at the facts—especially the money trail—it’s obvious whom she’s really looking out for.
Most Chula Vistans probably aren’t familiar with the Lincoln Club, an elite group of corporate executives and real estate moguls who fund campaigns for business-friendly politicians, but this group pumped almost $80,000 into Cox’s mayoral bid. The director of the Lincoln Club, Gordon Carrier, is also a principle at the architectural firm Carrier Johnson, which was retained by the City to work on the bayfront redevelopment, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Another Lincoln Club contributor is Phelps Development, which formed the Gaylord Phelps Development LLC partnership last year for the “sole purpose” of winning a contract to oversee the bayfront development, according to Gaylord spokesman Brain Abrahamson. The port district was about to hire Phelps to oversee the budget, development and environmental guidelines on the bayfront project until the Voice of San Diego exposed this classic “wolf guarding the henhouse” set-up.
This embarrassing stunt hasn’t stopped Cox and her real estate cronies from stacking the deck in Gaylord’s favor. How do you think Gaylord’s local representative got a seat on Chula Vista’s Real Estate Advisory Committee? And as long as we’re asking questions, here are a few more questions that the Mayor won’t answer:
- After years of public meetings, why is she ignoring the Citizens' Advisory Committee and giving free reign to Gaylord to build a development considered an eyesore and environmental disaster by many Chula Vistans?
- Considering Chula Vista’s burgeoning debt, why is she giving away $300 million to Gaylord, a company that is already carrying a debt load of more than half a billion dollars? And what about the hidden infrastructure expenses that will cost Chula Vista even more?
- Besides Gaylord’s convention center, what else do the Mayor and her Lincoln Club buddies have planned for the bayfront area? Why won’t she talk about the big picture for the future of Chula Vista?
Mayor Cox is supposed to represent the interests of all Chula Vistans, not just the wealthy developers who bankrolled her political career. But it’s clear whom she’s working for in City Hall. The Lincoln Club got its money’s worth when they helped elect Cheryl Cox.
Why I Take Gaylord’s Environmental Lie Personally
By Tom Lemmon
Business Manager of the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO
Gaylord and their allies have thrown around some pretty ugly accusations as the bayfront development dispute has heated up. I know that deception is common practice for Gaylord, but I can’t help but take one of their lies personally. They’ve been trying as hard as they can to make people believe that we, the local labor leaders and workers, don’t care about the environment.
When I first became an asbestos worker in 1982 after I finished my duty with the Marines, the only protection we got from the deadly dust was flimsy masks, not real respirators. I saw plenty of guys get sick and many died. A lot of workers would still be unprotected and uneducated about the dangers of asbestos if unions hadn’t stood up and fought for tougher environmental laws.
A Project Labor Agreement (PLA), which Gaylord refuses to sign for this deal, is an important protection, because it allows worker representatives to address environmental health concerns. Without that kind of protection, would you want to work for Gaylord at a site like the Chula Vista Bayfront, which has been used for many years as a toxic waste dumping ground?
Now Gaylord is saying that labor interests and environmentalists are always enemies. Gaylord executives are even claiming that we’re manipulating local environmental groups to get a sweeter deal from Gaylord.
I’m not going to pretend that organized labor and the environmental crowd have never butted heads, but I know that Chula Vista’s construction workers realize the importance of sustainable development in our city. We’re not willing to mortgage our economic futures for short-term employment. The fact is, union leaders have been working with environmentalists for years, long before Gaylord showed up in Chula Vista, to make the bayfront development as green as possible for many reasons. No one has a right to tell us we can’t participate in the public process just like anyone else.
We want the project to be built with green materials because we don’t like working with toxic substances. We want the project to incorporate solar power and other renewable energy technologies, because we recognize these green solutions can stimulate new job opportunities, in both construction and manufacturing. Like everyone else, we want less traffic, clean air and a bayfront we can be proud of.
I grew up in the South Bay. I have every right, even more than some Nashville company, to tell our local officials what is good for the bayfront and what is not.
Frankly, Gaylord is just throwing up a smokescreen so they can weasel out of complying with California’s environmental laws, and we’re not going to let them, or any other developer, get away with that. Their dishonest tactics are a slap in the face to all those who worked so hard through the Citizens Advisory Committee and public forums to shape a green vision for the bayfront.
As construction workers, we live and breathe these issues. We want to be around to watch our children grow up. And we want our children to live and play in a healthy environment. This is our home. That’s why I joined the Surfrider Foundation years ago, a group that fights against ocean pollution and environmentally destructive coastal development.
I wasn’t very environmentally conscious back when I went to Sweetwater High School, which is next to the estuary, but it always bothered me to see dumped cars and garbage filling up the bayfront. And it still does. Our bayfront deserves better than that and it deserves better than Gaylord.
Business as usual for Gaylord
Since Mayor Cox has been so eager to take Gaylord’s promises at face value, I decided to take a look at other agreements that Gaylord has made to woo community leaders. Gaylord’s track record for keeping promises turns out to be pretty ugly. To put it simply, it’s business as usual for Gaylord to make a deal that sounds great to everybody, then -- as soon as they get their foot in the door -- to do whatever it takes to change the original agreement to fit their agenda.
Take Osceola County, Florida for example. When Gaylord executive Jim Collins was negotiating to build an Opryland Hotel and Convention Center there, he said that no incentives would be requested by Gaylord or any individual involved with the development. Despite this assurance, Gaylord still worked out a deal where they would get up to $90 million in tax incentives over 30 years. Perhaps the Osceola County Commissioners decided to loosen up the public’s purse strings after getting showered with multiple $500 contribution checks from Gaylord and their development partner Xentury City?
Even after greasing the wheels, Gaylord was denied permission by the Osceola County Board to build a county-subsidized expansion on to the Convention Center. How did Gaylord respond? They went against the county’s ruling and built the expansion anyway.
Unfortunately, Gaylord’s lies, bullying and backroom deals in Osceola are typical behavior for this mega-developer. Just ask the people of Grapevine, Texas, or Prince George, Maryland what they think of Gaylord’s “promises.” Or maybe it’s Mayor Cox who should be asking these hit-and-run developers about what they really plan on doing to our bay front.
