Huntington Beach City Council election issue: Senior Center

Based on information taken from a variety of sources, including the H.B. City Council Candidates Forum held on Sept. 18, as well as from Voice news stories, interviews and from campaign literature provided by the candidates.

Q. How would you speed up construction of the new senior center on 5-acres of land in Central Park?

Pacific City present time. Photo by John Earl

Issue background: Makar, the developer that agreed to build the senior center in Central Park in lieu of providing park space in its downtown mixed-use development, Pacific City, is behind schedule in construction of the $22 million structure, according to the city’s interpretation (opa-correspondence1)of the Owner Participation Agreement (OPA). The $22 million construction amount (or fee if the developer backs out) is based on an appraisal of the Fair Market Value the Pacific City site, located downtown at PCH and 1st. The city appraised the land for about twice that amount, but a court ruled that its appraiser was under qualified and Makar’s appraisal technique was more accurate (makar-park-fee-arbitration-award2).

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Interview: Dan Kalmick for Congress

By John Earl
OC Voice Editor

Dan Kalmick of Seal Beach is the other Democratic Party Primary candidate seeking to unseat Republican Dana Rohrabacher and represent the 46^th Congressional District in the House of Representatives. Kalmick is a technology consultant for small and medium size businesses in Orange County and a member of the Orange County Fire Authority. At 25-years-old, he is relatively young for politics, and with little funding or name recognition outside of his home town he seems an unlikely victor. But he sees himself as the more moderate candidate who appeals to voters across the political spectrum by offering real solutions to the problems they care most about. He was interviewed in downtown Huntington Beach recently by the OC Voice. The following questions and answers are excerpts from that interview. For more information about Dan Kalmick go to his web site: www.kalmick2008.com.

The other two Democratic Primary candidates withdrew and supported you and you all said that Debbie Cook would be too liberal and to divisive [to win].

Right.

How are you less divisive than her?

Debbie Cook has a history of environmental activism. I don’t think Republicans and moderate decline-to-states are going to vote for her. She has a history of [putting] the environment over people. And in this district, 20,000 Republicans have to step across and vote for a Democrat [to win].

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