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Tony Young CallsPublished: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 2:35 PM PDT Monday morning, I wondered where Tony Young was as everyone started to deal with what was coming out about the Southeastern Economic Development Corp., which operates mostly in his City Council district. Young called later to say he was there, right in the thick of it. He just wasn't going to come to any judgments based on the news reports, he said. He sent a memo asking the City Council's independent budget analyst to find out the answers to questions similar to the ones Mayor Jerry Sanders asked SEDC directly the other day. I asked him why he had stayed out of the public spotlight while his colleagues and the mayor made demands and worked in sound bites about what they thought was going wrong and how they might fix it. He brought up the point that he had asked for an independent audit of SEDC a long time ago and that he would want to wait for the results of that before trying to decide what to do with the agency or making any proclamations about anything having gone wrong. It became a performance audit, not a financial one. The mayor, after our stories last week, asked the auditors to expand their probe to include the questions that came up. Young may not be willing to throw anyone under the bus right now. He may not be willing to cast aspersions or call for draconian reforms. But as this thing unravels, he should be everywhere he can be explaining his plan for the area and how he's dealing with the situation to ensure that's on track. While Young waits for his performance audit, after all, the mayor is shutting the place down. -- SCOTT LEWIS
21 Comments so far on this story...
Where is Councilmember Tony Young's leadership in all this unfolding drama at CCDC you ask? I think you have to start looking at who Tony Young's main backers have been. Was he a grassroots kind of guy? A 'shake-em-up' reformer type who campaigned on revitalizing / renewing the district? No. He was a hand-picked candidate promoted by the powerful few in District 8, who wanted their own kind of continuity of care. Trying not to be cynical about the politics, but it is tougher all the time. I find it heart-sickening that the people who have the least in our community are the most likely to be gamed and defrauded by the very ones supposed to bring hope. Two words: Catfish Club. Oops and sorry--I meant SEDC, when I mis-typed CCDC instead and of course, Tony Young is the council member from District 4. This is why we leave investigative journalism to the real pros...they check three times... Scott Lewis: Based on what you've reported in this dispatch, I'm not sure what the point was for Tony Young to even call you. Basically, he said he's going to do...nothing. Does he, then, disbelieve everything you and your colleagues have reported on the SEDC debacle in recent days? Whether he likes it or not, a lot of folks are watching him very closely to see how he handles this scandal, which is primarily unfolding in his district and his community. So why is he just standing back and letting others, like the mayor, do the work for him? What I see from him is not very encouraging. Maybe, in the end, we'll all be pleasantly surprised by his actions to help clean up the mess. Nothing so far, though, makes me think that's going to happen... While you are at it, I would suggest an audit of the San Diego Data Processing Corp. 2008 budget was 48.5 Million and who knows what it is for 2009 since the format of the budget has changed on our city's website! Are we getting the best bang for our buck here? How would we know? What are these execs raking in each year? In the absence of proactive management, we have a government of investigations, audits, public letters requesting information and public responses, press releases, councilmember pronouncements (who cares) and reactions to investigative journalism. It all makes for great press to read every day BUT we are all paying the price for lack of good management. The answer lies not with the city council but with the mayor under the relatively new strong mayor form of government. PLEASE, hire a strong and effective city manager, insulate him or her from the far too pervasive political environment and get our city back on track. I have had very strong doubts about Young's commitment to bettering the lives of the people ever since February 2008 when he proposed a raise for the Metropolitan transit official who had just drastically cut many of the routes leaving people without transportation. Gen Lee, Tony Young is doing nothing because, lacking leadership or any other qualifying skills to be even a back-bencher on the council, he is petrified to make any move at this time. Petrified? Yes, because he wants to be Council President. Crazy? Yes, in a perfect world, very crazy, but in the Alice in Wonderland world of San Diego city politics, where up is down and black is white, he probably stands a chance of being foisted upon the citizens in this role. Nevermind that he is unqualified to sit on the city council, let alone be its president. After all, Madaffer made it to the council, did he not? If you all really expect Tony Young to do anything think again, remember Tony young worked closely with the now deceased George Stevens who was extremely close with the Catfish Club George Walker Smith who's daughter is the severe crooked person here in the SEDC scandal. Tony's family is very close and growned up with the Smith Family so of course Tony Young is going to stand quiet as long as possible. Bottom line of this whole deal is the City leaders are the main culprits of allowing all of this to happen. Why do you think we have the pension problems and wall street scandals? City management is responsible for the whole thing cause there is no accountability in the Mayors office and there never will be. you voters are just enough to blame as well for voting these crooks in office It is unfortunate that some people (8 comments out of over 1.2 million people)read a brief news story and immediately want to blamt the Councilman who is taking a wise and prudent approach to looking into an issue that could impact the lives and communities of thousands of people. It is foolish and unhealth to read a brief news story and then immediatly bring out the tar and feathers without hearing all the facts that are gathered and presented by experts in auditing, redevelopment, budgeting and personnel practices. Tony Young is doing the right thing by waiting to get the results of his request for performance audits and Board members practices. Everyone deserves the right to hear the full story before blaming everyone under the sun including those like Tony Young who are acting in the best interest of the city. Stay the course Tony. The wise and prudent Councilmember is part of the City council that failed to monitor SEDC's activities before it got to the point of exploding on the web. Pardon me if I am underwhelmed by his discretion. i agree with Jayel. The conspircey theorist are out in full force.Now its famaily members who are to blame. When will these people learn to stop acting on raw an dill informed emotion and think clearly by just asking themselves. What do I want to happen if all of a sudden a newspaper reporter wrote a story about me and gave the impression I was doing all sorts of unethical things. Would I want to be fired on my job, arrested by police, and sentenced in court based solely on the reporte's story or would I want someone like a Tony Young to take a firm, deliberate approach to ensure all the information is gathered before anyone makes a decision to deprive me of my life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Come on bloggers, this is still America. Let the facts play out. I agree stay the Course Tony LMG-your comments are very enlightening. Today most levels of management regardless of being the City or private are lacking in accountability because the people hand picked for these upper level positions are unqualified and completely out of touch with the employee and process. Jayel--your comments are way too anticipated; if there wasn't something to all this the Mayor wouldn't be going after it--and I'm not a Sander's fan. Tony Young wise and prudent--don't make me laugh! Seen him too many times at Council catering to development and big money interests--I think its time to connect the dots with all these supposed public servants--its amazing how a scandal comes up and somehow all these people end up knowing each other from other venues. Jayel: Under better, more normal circumstances, I would agree with you insofar as waiting for things to sort themselves out, without overly politicizing the situation. But, as I've argued, the problem is this: The scandal at SEDC is a three or four year long problem, maybe longer. So, when you consider that City Council has oversight committee meetings just about every week throughout the year, the SEDC issue should have come up a long, long time ago. Somebody on Council should have been asking questions and digging deep years ago, especially, I believe, Tony Young, since SEDC primarily functions in his district! Jayel (and others), you can voluntarily agree to have your own tax dollars wasted all you want, but don't waste or abuse my hard-earned dollars! That's not what government is for, and in this instance, I think Tony Young should be even more outraged than others... LMG, I can't argue with a thing you say. Jayel, since he has been a city councilman and on the record, so to speak, I can't think of a single thing Mr. Young has done that would qualify as wise and prudent -- other than show up for council meetings. Well, even Madaffer does that. Let us hope this situation puts an end to any aspirations he might have to take the helm from Million Gallon Peters. I think it does make one think that something drastic has to be done to stop the three-ring circus now. Nothing else has worked, so how about a council without any pay, only reimbursement for documented and allowable expenses associated with city business? It wasn't that far back that council salary was $15k per year. For what the taxpayers get, even that seems excessive. Don't get personal folks. I agree that investigations should have been followed up on. Remember Tony Young asked for a performance audit sometime ago and the firm selected to do it is also doing the city's audit. It is what it is.If wrong doing has been taking place over a period of years it is now being uncovered and will be dealt with. The key point is that it is being dealt with on Tony Young's watch and not being pushed under a rug. I am sure the Administratiuon of SEDC will have their "day in court". I will venture to guess that executives all over this nation are under fire for everything from price fixing, mortagage scandals and let's not forget the biggest scandal going that is costing our soldiers their very lives..the lies, mistruths,and waste of billions of your tax dollars on a war in Iraq. Grow up! Though Voice chose not to publish it, I submitted a letter to the editor calling on Carolyn Smith and Chip Owen of SEDC to resign. I see now a "This Just In" dispatch that Councilmembers Young and Hueso, along with Mayor Sanders, are drafting a demand for Smith to resign. Smith, her financial guy, Dayacap, and board chairman, Owen, should all resign. Even then, given how much taxpayer money was brazenly snuck by Smith and Dayacap into their respective bank accounts, I hope the District Attorney or the state Attorney General's office launch criminal investigations into the knowing and willful misconduct at SEDC. As I've also said, this kind of mis- or malfeasance is exactly what prompted me to run for City Council, even if I did come up short in that endeavor. Enough already with these officials who are so cynically out of touch with taxpayers and citizens! You see, Gen Lee, I told you sometimes I stand by you and your comments. Well, your remarks at #17 fall into that category. You take a very reasoned, yet reasonable approach to this shameful incident. LMG's comments were a great revelation concerning the intertwined, incestuous connections of these people. All the more reason to question Tony Young's reticence to get on the record. Too little, too late, Tony. As for Jayel's odd remarks about not making this personal, the only ones to make it personal were Smith (for causing the problem in the first place) and Young (for not acting as a leader -- in fact, quite the opposite). If we no longer can citicize public officials, we might as well shut down the entire country. "The San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce released its 2006 Legislative Report Card that rates the performance of the San Diego City Council [...] CITY COUNCIL: Scott Peters, 90 percent; Kevin Faulconer, 100 percent; Toni Atkins, 80 percent; Tony Young, 90 percent; Brian Maienschein,100 percent; Donna Frye, 40 percent; Jim Madaffer, 80 percent; Ben Hueso, 63 percent....." Anyone want to guess what the 2005 and 2007 'Chamber of Commerce' report cards look like? My father once told me "Even dogs are smart enough not to bite the hand that feeds them." This article..., perhaps it should be called ‘Tony Young [re] Call,’ no? I wonder just how long it will be, before the 'community' stomps poor Mr. Tony for daring to ‘step out of line.’ Hey Jimmy, It may be that if Tony were to include the people, he once said he 'did not need,' perhaps there is a way to turn this into a win for him. 37% of the populations living in his district – those are numbers. They have been signing-up hand-over-fist because all the real Latino Orgs have endorsed and are supporting Obama for this next election. Perhaps if Tony were to include the Latinos at levels closer to the frequency they appear in the population of District 4 and SEDC's 'Sphere of Influence,' not only would he be the first (for no one else has done this) in District 4, but also it may help with the Election of Obama and gaining supporters for that effort. Not the old school sale-out politicos who have done nothing over the last 10 years or so, but young fresh new faces. Reader feedback
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