NPPC 2022 Special Election Candidates

I would be honored and consider it a privilege to serve on the North Park Planning Committee. I am a 4th generation San Diegan, my family moved to our historical home in Morley Field in 1986. I am also the current co-owner and Director of the JA Cooley Museum on Park Blvd and a Real Estate Broker for 22 years. My family has operated our family business for 79 years in NorthPark/ University Heights Frank the Trainman.

There are many reasons I’m running; I have for many years fought for our community for property and business owners with my father. It was just recently that I have become outspoken and more aware of the serious issues that our community is facing. A City Council that refuses to listen to the people and avoid planning committees. I'd like to help this Board with new leadership and fresh ideas. I know the city wants to limit the City Planning Committees influence and I am here to protect our voices and ensure that we are heard and respected. a serious conversation about housing solutions that will actually work here in North Park and protect the integrity of our neighborhood with reasonable regulated development to help the housing shortage and affordability. Growing up with small business owners as parents I know first-hand the struggles of owning a business. As a Real Estate broker and coach, I know about marketing and business development and I'd like to help grow and strengthen the small businesses and be an advocate to bring more customers to support them. We need to keep them here in this community and help them survive. Most importantly, I want to keep working to create a coexistence and mutual respect for both sides in regards to transportation and land issues. We are all neighbors, and we need to treat one another with courtesy and respect. My experience on many boards of nonprofits in San Diego and also served as Chair of the Human Relations Commission for the City of La Mesa 2008-2011; I intend to find the solution that can unite our neighborhood.

Greetings, my name is Janine Rochelle and I would like to apply as a candidate for the North Park Planning Committee. This is something that I have often thought about doing yet never followed through on. Fortunately, I ran into a neighbor and they informed me of the upcoming special election.

I moved to San Diego in 1999 and was immediately drawn to the North Park area and promptly purchased a home here. Since then I have raised two wonderful children, been involved in the community schools, coached both North Park Little League and North Park Fastpitch, opened our office here in North Park and have designed both residences and commercial spaces in the area. North Park has changed tremendously in the past 23 years; some for the better, some maybe not. One thing is for sure we all care about North Park and I believe I would be a strong but fair candidate to hear all sides of any issues and try to assist North Park with growing forward.

I want to join the NPPC board to help dispel the myth the mayor and City Council are trying to sell us in their relentless drive to allow unregulated housing construction in North Park.

The myth is a neighborhood without cars, with happy workers walking or bicycling to their jobs just a few blocks away. It’s the myth of living, working, and prospering in the same

neighborhood. The reality is that the job picture in North Park is about the same as it was when I moved here in 1984, woefully short of well-paid jobs.

If city officials truly wanted to make their mythological neighborhood a reality, they wouldn’t try to cram it into North Park. They would build it in Otay Mesa, where there’s plenty of empty land for both high-density housing and centers of well-paid jobs. But that’s not their real goal. They just want to make it as easy as possible for developers to make a fast buck. We need to tell the mayor and City Council to quit over-crowding North Park and put new housing where the good jobs are, to prove to us that it’s not a myth.

I have owned my condo in North Park since 2014. My wife and I enjoy walking our bulldog, Hanks, throughout the neighborhood and at our many wonderful parks. I have attended several NPPC meetings since the start of the pandemic. I have seen plenty of great and bad developments in North Park over the last 8 years.

I am a licensed California Civil Engineer, and therefore have experience in land use compatibility, stormwater and environmental compliance, urban fill developments, and city permitting. I value the protection of our existing neighborhood diversity and creating an environment for small local business to thrive, while balancing a proper implementation of transit and housing initiatives to provide economic opportunities for all. I look forward to getting to the work of the North Park Planning Committee: reviewing and discussing development and land use issues in conformance with the Community Plan; and be done with a burdensome cycle of elections. One thing we seem to agree on most is confusion, frustration, and fear of the unknown from development projects. My top priority is increased community engagement and proactive communication from developers and capital projects staff.