Blog: Is Jerry Kern Being Honest?

Every time I go to a Oceanside community gathering where Jerry Kern proudly claims “millions of dollars in savings because of the Oceanside Charter." The cities of San Diego and Oceanside state that construction costs have dropped 30% as a result of the economic downturn.  Where are those big savings for the tax payers?

Do the facts support Kern statements as being true or has he been spouting gross exaggerations? It’s important to look at his words and the projects and figure out what the facts are.  He’s campaigning for Mayor and is a sitting councilman running from a safe seat with two years remaining.

We’d all like to know whether or not our elected local decision makers in Oceanside are telling the public the real story.

Over the last year, community members and the non-profit Smart Cities Prevail have been analyzing the claims about savings the City has supposedly received.  The savings are supposed to be there because the City didn’t have to pay prevailing wages which sometimes may be higher than regular wages.

I was at the Harbor a few days ago for Harbor Days and saw this big building and these fancy bathrooms and wondered how much they cost taxpayers.

Costs for the gold-plated half-million dollar bathrooms and the harbor storage facility were studied. The facility was supposed to include public meeting rooms but those mysteriously disappeared from the final project. So what you have sitting at the harbor in a very stylish, very expensive taxpayer built project to protect some construction equipment from the elements.

Related: Read the Smart Cities report

You might also notice the landscaping and parking lot for this building aren’t completed yet. The City says the ground is too ‘salty’ to plant or pave.  Hmm...Pacific Ocean, harbor, salty ground. You’d think they’d figure that out ahead of time.

This project was reduced by almost half and now includes NO public space at all.  Not only that but it’s still not finished!  The total estimated savings were about $75,000. Shouldn’t the savings have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in light of the City’s and San Diego’s own studies showing reduced construction costs of thirty percent?

In addition, nineteen city projects show an estimated savings of $400,000 for $9Million spent.  

I am wondering how Kern can come up with his huge numbers. While saving $400,000 is significant, it certainly isn’t anywhere near the millions of dollars Kern keeps talking about.  Taxpayers demand more accountability and truth from Jerry Kern. We also need to know where the public part of the harbor building went. We taxpayers paid for it and we’ve got nothing to show but an illusion.