[Coronita]

[quote=FlyerInHi]Flu, plenty of people find the environment so oppressive that they have no choice but to fake it. Scaredy mentioned the crypto Jews.[/quote]

But we live in one of the most liberal states. Seriously, how do you find religion here oppressive to atheists such as yourself? I’m sure if you wanted to scratch off God from every dollar bill, I don’t think people would notice or care here.

We don’t say prayers in school. You’re not forced to go to church. You don’t need to marry in a church. And if you don’t like like what religious people say, you aren’t forced to listen to anything they have to say. In fact religious people are probably a minority anyway. What is wrong with just ignoring people? Yes, you might not like hearing all this religious stuff, but they have every right to practice what they believe as long as it doesn’t encroach on your right and doesn’t compromise someone(s) safety. That’s even the case if these folks want to act all self-righteous and condemn you to hell, or tell you what a horrible person you are. Whatever…..We are seeing the bashlash from these ridiculous religious freedom laws as a means for people to practice discrimination, and this happens as a result of democracy. So our system in a lot of ways is self correcting at both ends of the extreme. I hardly find things “oppressive”, especially in CA.

[Coronita]

[quote=FlyerInHi]Extremes, really?

I feel like there’s something very wrong when every politician has to end a speech with God bless the USA. I’d rather they wish me a good evening.

Plus believers think the one must find God for salvation. So even if they never talk about religion, they silently believe that God is the only answer and that excludes atheism. So why can’t atheists similarly exclude God?[/quote]

You can. In court, you don’t have to swear on a Bible. You can affirm, no?

Personally, I think if you were atheist, and were going to lie, it shouldn’t matter to you anyway whether you are asked to swear on a Bible or not.

Afterall, if you don’t believe, then the Bible is fiction to you and, hence, it would mean less to you to swear on it (and lie) than to affirm you will tell the truth with your word (and lie). Afterall, swearing on the Bible and lying has absolutely no “higher-level” consequences beyond the court of humans.

So hence, what I’m surprised is why more atheists don’t swear on the Bible versus just affirming, since they don’t believe it anyway, and rarely do people in court really end up telling 100% of the truth anyway. You might as well go all out and do everything that can possibly go against the grain of religion, since there absolutely aren’t any consequences 🙂

J/K (sort of)

[Coronita]

[quote=poorgradstudent]I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate here.

Your life insurance should not be expected to put your kids through college. That’s what student loans are for.

It’s nice if it can pay off your mortgage, but if your spouse works, realistically you only have to have your life insurance cover “your share” of the mortgage and bills. But if you’re gone and your kids are moving out of the house soon, your spouse may not want to stay in that house forever. A lot of folks eventually downsize when they become empty nesters.

Life insurance is like gambling at a casino tilted heavily in the house’s favor. They’ll always make sure the math for your odds of death vs the premiums you pay are in their favor, and then collect administrative fees on top of that.

Funeral expenses and 1-2 years of income is probably “enough” life insurance.[/quote]

You can always cancel the term life insurance if you no longer need it.

For example, let’s say a person gets a $1million 20 year term life because that person has a $300k mortgage, needs to put 2 kids through college etc.
10 years into the term, let’s say the person has a financial windfall (investments are good, kid doesn’t go to an expensive college, home is paid off), and there’s a sizeable nest egg. Person has the option on whether or not to continue the policy or just cancel it (probably around $800-1000/year for a male in the 40ies in relatively good health)

If one really wants to save on cost, you can get your half of that term life yourself, and half of the term life from your employer if you are w2. They employer generally ensures 2x-3x your salary, and then there’s an option to buy optional term life at a group rate without needed a doctor exam (usually up to an additional $250-300k). The only drawback is if you leave the firm, that supplemental life most likely won’t be portable. But it’s really cheap.

[Coronita]

[quote=AN][quote=flu]I don’t get the emphasis of affordable rental housing in Carmel Valley by Kilroy. Bow “affordable” can housing be if you’re stuck a tenant? I don’t see any of those “homes” being constructed by Kilroy’s plan ever being owner occupied. Look at all the rental properties corporate owned in Carmel Valley. Are they really “affordable” for your average worker bee?[/quote]I don’t know about the One Paseo’s plan for affordable housing, but there are affordable housing in Pacific Highland Ranch too. What they do is have a income limit, then the city dictate how much the developer can sell those units for and only those who qualify can buy those units. When they’re ready to sell, they can only sell for the price that the city dictate. So, it’s meant to be an affordable housing (owner occupied) option. OC have a lot of those too. It’s similar to rent control, except this is to allow people to purchase their home.[/quote]

And I don’t have a problem with that at all. Because that’s owner occupied.

[Coronita]

[quote=FlyerInHi]More housing supply can only be good for affordability.[/quote]

And I would challenge whether we need to solve the affordability “problem” all over the place. there are plenty of “affordable” places to live. I don’t see people trying to solve an affordability problem in rancho santa fe. If so, sign me up.

[Coronita]

[quote=lookingagain][quote=flu]

Not to mention that the bigger density of non-owner occupied, the less likely people that live there will ever donate money to the public schools extended studies programs. Just follow the money trail for the DMUSD extended studies programs, in which you have a small percentage of the families contributing to an optional program for which a big percentage of others don’t contribute jack and enjoy all the benefits of it.

This is a cash grab by kilroy. That’s why developers usually do. They dump a bunch of rental properties into a community, and then when the schools are overburdened, they don’t donate 1 penny to the public schools in that community. I might change my mind if Kilroy actually stepped up and committed to annual contributions to the DMUSD, San Dieguito school district for middle school, and high school for the next 10 years. But nope…I haven’t seen that mentioned.[/quote]

I don’t want to derail this thread, but flu you do realize that the ESC program is nothing but a giveaway to the Teachers Union (ironic given your handle).[/quote]

Yes, but happy teachers make happy students and happy schools.

[Coronita]

Get as much term insurance as you can while you are healthy.

[Coronita]

I don’t get the emphasis of affordable rental housing in Carmel Valley by Kilroy. Bow “affordable” can housing be if you’re stuck a tenant? I don’t see any of those “homes” being constructed by Kilroy’s plan ever being owner occupied. Look at all the rental properties corporate owned in Carmel Valley. Are they really “affordable” for your average worker bee?

It’s funny that Kilroy is complaining that this project might not be profitable if they aren’t able to build this project at the scale they want.Lol…Yes, Kilroy, I think you need to take a chance and take some risk..No different then every one of your decisions you made to build one of those many office buildings all along El Camino that remained empty with that “for lease” sign all these years. Kilroy is one of the entities that doesn’t seem to have a problem of building a bunch of empty office buildings!

[Coronita]

[quote=njtosd]Wait – isn’t this a democracy? Even if you’re happy with leaders making these decisions – they have to comply with city plans. They can’t go AWOL because it will add $100 to the city coffers. For example – I’m sure Kilroy would pay lots to build a high rise condo complex on Torrey pines beach – but is that what is best overall?[/quote]

Democracy is only necessary when laws/rules aren’t passed the way you wanted them to. But if rules/laws pass the way you want them to, democracy clearly is not needed.

[Coronita]

[quote=FlyerInHi]Well, if you win, you’ll end up with another blah 1980s type development.

Decisions should be made by leaders, not public referendum.[/quote]

I’m perfectly happy with the mall across the street (del mar highlands). My only complaint is when it gets busy, parking stinks. Oh wait. Maybe that’s the concern.

[Coronita]

It would also be nice of some of the members on the city council that voted yes on this without taking into consideration the credible objects get thrown out in the future.

[Coronita]

[quote=AN][I go back and forth about this. On one hand, I do want to voters to make the final decision. But on the other hand, I think most voters are not aware and informed about what their vote will affect 20-30 years from now. Which is why it’s actually important to have a holistic city plan. You can’t have a self sustaining public transit without density. But you can’t have density unless you change how SD is build. SD is almost built out with nothing more than suburban sprawl. So, public transit won’t have enough ridership to be self sustaining.
I bet most of the people who don’t like One Paseo would love One Paseo to be another strip mall just like the strip mall across the street. There’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s what you want. But then 20 years from now, SD will be exactly like LA. You can’t stop the city from growing. So, when you limit more density, builder will continue to build out instead of up. Then you’d have grid lock in all directions all the time.[/quote]

If developers actually commit to delivering on the parts that improve the schools, public transportation, etc, then I might believe that. But I don’t think, just based on Kilroy’s actions and handling all this, they really give a shit about the neighborhood, for most of the things I pointed out above. I’d say they are just like every other developer that once they get their permits, and start building their enormous commercial projects, who gives a shit about the public schools, public transportation, parks, traffic, etc.

[Coronita]

[quote=AN][quote=flu]Not to mention that the bigger density of non-owner occupied, the less likely people that live there will ever donate money to the public schools extended studies programs. Just follow the money trail for the DMUSD extended studies programs, in which you have a small percentage of the families contributing to an optional program for which a big percentage of others don’t contribute jack and enjoy all the benefits of it.

This is a cash grab by kilroy. That’s why developers usually do. They dump a bunch of rental properties into a community, and then when the schools are overburdened, they don’t donate 1 penny to the public schools in that community. I might change my mind if Kilroy actually stepped up and committed to annual contributions to the DMUSD, San Dieguito school district for middle school, and high school for the next 10 years. But nope…I haven’t seen that mentioned.[/quote]Does that mean you’re objecting to them building apartments but you’re ok if they build condos?[/quote]

I would be more open to housing that would be more owner occupied, yes. You have less of this “transitory” nature of people in the community.

My two main objections are
1) Concentration of apartments
and
2) Just the shear size of the thing.

I don’t think the housing they are proposing is owner occupied. I’m not saying it has to be 100% owner occupied either. But, renters don’t typically contribute to public school extended studies funds, at least not based on what we’ve seen. Probably because most people aren’t going to be staying for the long-haul..Or rent is too expensive in this area anyway for them to be able to afford rent + donate. So you really need a mix of both kind of families to make this optional system work in which part of the population pays for the optional programs that the other enjoy for free. Because if that percentage drops such that more people don’t donate and pay into that optional systems, pretty soon the ones with the financial means to pay into the system end up stop contributing, because they figure they can take the same amount of money and spend that same money sending their own kids into classes/enrichment for which their kids benefit 100%.

[Coronita]

[quote=FlyerInHi]More apartments and condos would work wonders for housing affordability in the region and for hiring of job applicants to relocate to San Diego. More density will mean more opportunities for businesses to increase sales in the region.

We want a growing San Diego, not a stagnant, expensive San Diego.[/quote]

I think the point is many people don’t want such a large footprint there 🙂

And no, more apartments will not make housing affordable in this area. they have put many new apartment complexes in Carmel Valley, and I wouldn’t call the housing affordable at all. $2400/month for a 2 bedroom. Almost $3k/month for 3.

Not to mention that the bigger density of non-owner occupied, the less likely people that live there will ever donate money to the public schools extended studies programs. Just follow the money trail for the DMUSD extended studies programs, in which you have a small percentage of the families contributing to an optional program for which a big percentage of others don’t contribute jack and enjoy all the benefits of it.

This is a cash grab by kilroy. That’s why developers usually do. They dump a bunch of rental properties into a community, and then when the schools are overburdened, they don’t donate 1 penny to the public schools in that community. I might change my mind if Kilroy actually stepped up and committed to annual contributions to the DMUSD, San Dieguito school district for middle school, and high school for the next 10 years. But nope…I haven’t seen that mentioned.

[Coronita]

I thought this was kinda funny that Kilroy managed to come up with 30,000 petition withdraw requests, but only 3200 of them turned out to be valid….

They submitted 61,235 signatures on March 25, far above the 33,224 required valid signatures — 5 percent of the city’s registered voters. Many submitted signatures, however, are always disqualified during the verification process for various reasons, such as the signer not being registered to vote in San Diego.

In addition, an aggressive campaign by Kilroy prompted about 30,000 people to request their names be removed from referendum petitions. Protect San Diego’s Neighborhoods said Friday that nearly 90 percent of those turned out to be invalid, primarily because many of the people submitting them didn’t actually sign referendum petitions.

I voted against it not because I’m against development completely, but I think this should be decided by the voters rather than just a city council, because obviously enough people object to it. This is how it should have been done anyway. Neighborhood decides and has an input, not some elitist developer and a few chosen city council people. I wouldn’t mind a scaled down version of One Paseo. And Kilroy has plenty of office space just vacant all along El Camino Real in Carmel Valley that has been unfilled for years.

[Author]

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