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Mayor Pro Tem Glenn Duncan |
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Questions Why don't we use our reserve to hire Police Officers or add parks? While it may, on the surface sound like a good idea, it would be fiscally irresponsible. First, we are hiring Police Officers as quickly as we can to meet the needs that we have identified. We actually authorized additional officers above the number requested. The problem is hiring them. The problem with using reserves is that you are using one time money to create continuing expenses. If you hire an employee using reserves for this years salary and expenses, where does the money come for next year? The problem with parks, is not only money, but the question of who's land do you want to take? We buy our house or a piece of land to either live there or even as an investment to fund our retirement goals. If the City comes in and decides that we want your house or land, is that fair to you? We certainly have the power to do this if the public need is identified but we would only do this as a last resort. We have far too much respect for the rights of our citizens. | ||||
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Questions When the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) identifies problems, why do you move ahead with the project? Every major project that comes to the City usually requires an EIR. Odds are before your home was built, an EIR was prepared for the project and impacts were identified. The key here is the mitigation that is required. Most people stop reading the report at the problem. College Park, for example, will impact Police, Fire, Traffice, Public Works, etc. However it is important to note that, as a part of the project, the developer must provide funding to offset all of these impacts. In addition, the City has built in fees in the Community Facility District that will actually provide additional funding for public services that are normally paid for out of your sales taxes and property taxes. This project should actually allow the City and Fire District to improve their level of service to other parts of the City. As a City Council, we must look at both as well as the benefits to the community. Our goal is a balanced community with homes, jobs, shopping, cultural and entertainment, and recreation. For this reason, we have focused on bringing jobs and commercial development up to meet our residential. Over the past 10 years, our population is up 16% and our jobs are up by 200%. Our commercial development is also up by well over 200%. Major improvements have also been made in the cultural and educational areas. This is all evidence that our EIR's are being followed and have been successful. | ||||
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Questions Why don't you require builders to build more single story houses? While we have stongly suggested to builders that we would like them to include more single story homes in their developments, they claim the high price of land apparently makes this difficult. We have, however, passed an ordinance that prevents them from building a two story home next to an existing single story home. We are fortunate in Chino that many of our homes were built before the current multi story trend took hold. More than 50% of the houses in Chino are single story homes. There are many beautiful single story neighborhoods in Chino. We will continue to work with the building community to encourage them to build new single story homes. | ||||
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Questions Why do we allow smaller lot homes? We are governed by laws at the State level that require us to provide housing to fit the needs of the community. We must provide homes for different income levels. While many of us would prefer larger lot homes, we still must obey the laws passed in the State. The Dutra legislation made it illegal for any local government to reduce the number of housing units defined in their approved housing plan. If we violate this law, the remedy is Court directed development that none of us would like. Besides the law, the Council wants to provide diverse housing to fit all family sizes and incomes. You expect us to control the speeds that drivers travel on our City streets so we pass speed laws. If we ignore the laws of the State or Federal Government because we don't like them, how can we expect people to obey the laws that we pass? What we can do, is to hold builders to the highest standards that we can and make sure that the product that they build will promote a healthy neighborhood. In addition, we must make sure they pay their fair share of any impacts so that the existing residents don't have to shoulder any of the burden. This is why the new developments have Community Facility Districts. These pay for the needed improvements to the infrastructure and also provide funds for additional service demands. Future residents of these new developments will pay much higher property taxes than existing residents due to these factors. Based on these economic factors, buyers may need to be more financially stable to qualify to purchase these homes and this should encourage them to maintain high quality neighborhoods. | ||||
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Questions What about Redevelopment and College Park? When we were first looking at ways to reduce the density in College Park, I suggested that we use Redevelopment funds to make up shortfalls in park fees and infrastructure. This is being done in the plan that was adopted. We must remember, however, that these revenues only come in after the homes are built. Estimates that we will recieve big amounts early are inaccurate. The real problem, however, was the postion of the State that the number of units could not go below 2200. Another important issue is the proper legal use of Redevelopment funds. These are to be used for removing blight and creating economic opportunities that will remove blighted areas. We have major needs in some of our older areas and if we don't effectively deal with them, they will affect the rest of the City. College park may give us the ability to resolve many issues that previous City Councils felt were somewhat hopeless. Our focus must not be limited to our own back yard but to the City as a whole. | ||||
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Questions Why didn't the City Council plan fewer homes for College Park? The Memoradum of Understanding (MOU) that College Park is based on was negotiated by the City, Chaffey College, and The State of California. The State of California owns the land so they desired the most from the sale that they could realize. The City negotiated for the 140 acres of park land and Chaffey for the 100 acres for the new campus. The State has taken the position that it needed 2200 to 2500 housing units to justify the transfer of $73 million in land at no cost to the City and Chaffey. The successful bidder was Sun Cal. We met with Sun Cal and reduced the number to 2200, the lowest acceptable number for the State. After concerns continued to be raised, I flew to Sacramento and met with the General Services Division to see if there was any room for negotiation. They stated that the State of California feels that if the number goes below 2200, their position is that the deal will be off. Further, the State of California has said that there will be no future deals where land is given away to local communities. Comments have been made that if this deal goes away, a better deal can be negotiated since land has gone up in value. The problem with this kind of logic is if you don't honor your MOU, who is going to ever trust you to negotiate in good faith in the future? It's been said that an MOU is not a legal contract. It is exactly the same kind of agreement that we negotiate with our employees. Can you imagine what the reaction would be if we went to our Police Officers and told them that we were going to disregard our MOU because we didn't feel it was a good agreement? Remember, there will always be someone who says an agreement could have been better. We work hard to get the best deals we can for the City that we love. Based on our success compared to surrounding communities, I feel we do a really good job in this area. | ||||
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Questions What is Chino doing to build more parks? In 1987, the City adopted a Master Park Plan. We have followed that plan as the East Chino Specific Plan developed by requiring builders to pay park fees and to designate plots of land for the parks. In addition, Ayala Park has been expanded and is planned for a future expansion to 140 acres as part of the College Park development. We have also made improvements to Monte Vista Park and Villa Park. Unfortunately, most of North and West Chino were built before the park plan was adopted. It is difficult to build parks in existing neighborhoods because somebody already owns the land and the City would have to purchase many individual parcels at fair market value, assuning the owners even wanted to sell. Much of the open land you see in this area is in the unincorporated County area and not part of the City of Chino. We will continue to look for opportunities but feel our best use of the park funds that are available is to improve parks where needed and to expand existing sites. A new park is going to be built soon on Chino Ave. east of San Antonio. | ||||
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Question Are we still going to have an equestrian park in Chino? We are planning to use the 5 acres at the corner of Edison and Mountian for a future equestrian center. We have funding included in the College Park Development agreement to construct the center. | ||||
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Questions What is Chino doing to solve traffic problems? We have been stressing traffic concerns for some time. The accident to citation ratio is the measure that the State uses to measure success in this area. We have improved from below average to excellent over the past few years. In addition, we have removed the truck route from Central Ave., Mountain Ave., and parts of Schaefer and we are aggressively enforcing this restriction. Signals have been added to regulate and improve flow and safety. Most of all, this continues to be a major focus of the Council, the Police Department, and our Public Works Department. | ||||
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Questions How will Chaffey College benefit our community? Virtually all economists believe that the availability of educational facilities is one of the most important factors that will detirmine the success of communities in the 21st century. They understand that our younger generations will change not only jobs but careers many times. The ability to prepare and train the work force is critical to the economic development of Chino. Without this, we will be unable to attract many good businesses that could offer our residents superior job opportunites as well as generate revenues that support the City services that our citizens desire. Our Chaffey College Facility is the most successful of the three that they operate. They are working on a plan to expand the facility with a technology center. In addition, their internal studies show that many of the students actually walk to classes from adjoining neighborhoods. It would be difficult to imagine a more successful addition to our community. | ||||
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Questions Why doesn’t the City of Chino build retail in East Chino? The City of Chino does not build projects. We zone the land usage to achieve the highest and best use of the land. The actual development of the projects including the building, timing, and tenants is primarily up to the developer. The City does work to attract new development using various methods, but the final decision is up to the developer. With the coming of the Chaffey College campus, new opportunites for retail will come as well. The plan shows a retail element near the college entrance and the increased population and traffic should encourage other retail as well. | ||||
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Questions What is the City doing to improve technology? For the past twelve years, the Mayor and I have served on the Information Technology Subcommittee. Since it's formation, this Subcommittee has helped direct resources to the highest priority projects for the City. Our current focus is the City's interactive web site that provides up to the minute information to our residents and businesses. In our current budget, we recommended the replacement of mobile data computers in our Police cars to provide a higher level of public safety to the community. We are also looking at other Police related technology enhancements to keep our City safe. In City Hall, we are currently implementing an automated building/construction permitting system that will issue permits and track inspections for construction projects in the City. Automated phone systems and a Citywide network provide our employees and the public with a higher level of customer service. We are providing more documents electronically through our document imaging system, which now can be accessed from hte City web site. As technology continues to change, we are committed to keeping up with the electronic tools to keep us at maximum efficiency while serving the public with the highest levels of customer service. | ||||
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Is it true that they are going to build low income apartments in East Chino? There are no "low income apartments" in any of the plans currently under consideration. I understand that there are those who would have you believe this to create the fear of reduced property values, etc. Currently, the Crystal Lane development and the Reserve are being built. The Reserve homes are 4.5/Acre and sell for up to the $600,000's. The Crystal Lane was scheduled for multi family housing and is now a combination of townhouses and single family detached on smaller lots. These now start at the mid $200,000's. In addition, their property taxes including the Community Facility District fees are about 2% and they have a neighborhood association and a master association. Their monthly payment probably is considerably higher than most of the surrounding homes. I do not know of any plans to build low income apartments anywhere in Chino. The only apartments that I know are on any plan are the ones that would be adjacent to the Chaffey College campus. These would probably be rented by students attending the college. These would not be anywhere near any of the existing homes in Chino. It would be adjacent to the prison, the college, and other College Park homes. | ||||
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Is it true that you are selling your house because of the future growth that is going to take place in East Chino? This is absolutely false. We made the personal decision to sell our home for various reasons, none of which included future growth concerns. We currently have a home that is 3890 sq ft with a pool and spa that we don't remember the last time we used. We have no children at home to use the pool. We decided we would like a one story house due to not only our increasing age but concerns about our grandchildren when they visit. Our first choice was actually the College Park future development. I actually met with Larry Lazar from Sun Cal in early 2004 to look at the plans for the 1/2 acre lot homes. Our decision to buy elsewhere was purely timing because we chose not to wait. The College Park homes are probably at least 5 years away. The house we are buying is currently under construction in NW Chino. We would have preferred it be in East Chino. We have lived in East Chino for 15 years and love the area. | ||||
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What is the City doing to avoid deterioration of our older shopping centers? We are working closely with these centers to attract new tenants when existing stores close or relocate. In addition, we are encouraging owners to upgrade and maintain these centers to keep them viable. We have assigned Council committees to work on economic development including these centers. I serve on the committees for the West Chino/Spectrum area as well as the North Chino/60 Freeway area. The latter is of great concern to us because of some major vacancies. As you have seen, the center on the SE corner of Central and Philadelphia has improved greatly with the addition of Starbucks, the 99 Cent Only Store, and Smart and Final. Across the street, the center was sold and the new owners attracted the new Gigante Supermarket and the surrounding stores are filling up fast. Bakers Square has decided to close but Washington Mutual will fill that location. The Country Fair Center with Albertson's and Staples is now the home of a new Kaiser Medical Office building where the Auto Club formerly was located. As for the Chino Town Square, I have met regularly with Pan Pacific, the owner of the center. The center is for sale and a successful operator is in negotiations to purchase the center. We continue to watch this situation and are trying to do whatever we can to facilitate the renovation of this important retail center. | ||||
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Why are there still trucks on Central and Schaefer Avenues? While we removed the truck route from portions of these streets some time ago, we still have some trucks that ignore the warnings and take these routes. We have been giving numerous citations to trucks that are found on these routes and hope that this will eventually discourage violators. | ||||
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What is the City doing to fix the streets? In the past seven years, we have spent over $14 million on street improvements. While there is still a lot of work to do, we have tried to prioritize the work by scheduling projects according to need and impact on circulation. We have completed major work on Edison Ave, Central Ave, Riverside Dr, Chino Ave, and Schaefer Ave. In addition, we have completed the reconstruction of Magnolia, one of the worst streets in our City. This included the installation of a storm drain as well as completely rebuilding the street. We are also doing large sections of City streets with our overlay projects. Our plan includes maintenance of all streets on a rotating basis. | ||||
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Questions If Chino is a great City, why is it not listed when some magazines list their top Cities? Every list published uses it's own criteria for ranking of the cities. They usually use crime figures, per capita income, and housing prices. Crime figures will vary, based on the reporting of the police agency involved. Chino, with it's outstanding police department, will generally identify more crime than a city that contracts with the sheriff like Chino Hills, Diamond Bar, or Rancho Cucamonga. Chino is about the same size as Chino Hills but we should rarely have less than 8 cars patrolling our City while Chino Hills would rarely have more than 4 cars at any given time. Obviously, the better patrolled city will identify more crime but by dealing with this in a timely manner will actually keep our city safer. There is also a diffence in how different agencies rank crimes for reporting reasons. As far as the other criteria, we have a city that is almost 100 years old with a mixture of new and old housing. This does not compare equally with a newer city if you choose to only look at a set of numbers. I would suggest that a better gage would be the quality of life in the city. If we were to look at services offered, responsiveness of the city, and the fiscal strength of the city that will enable it to continue to serve it's citizens, Chino would be near the top of the list. In addition, Chino is a balanced community with not only residential, but educational, industrial and commercial offering good job opportunities. You don't pick a car by looking only at the advertisements. You test drive it. I am convinced that if the same writers who rank Chino Hills above Chino in some lists actually spent some time in each, Chino would rank far above. Chino provides far more services for seniors, children, and families. | ||||
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