Morning Report: L.A., Can You Spare $800 million?

Published: Thursday, November 5, 2009 3:33 AM PST

PRINT     E-MAIL STORY    SHARE

FACEBOOK

REDDIT

NEWSVINE

DIGG

DEL.ICIO.US

BLINKLIST

The city of Industry is a teeny town with gigantic ambitions: the L.A. suburb would like to build an $800 million stadium and attract a professional football team. Like, say, the Chargers.

But it will take a lot more than vision to bring this dream to life. Just like here, where proposals for a new football stadium have been floating around for seven years, financial hurdles are major roadblocks.

Our story examines the obstacles facing a billionaire developer has he tries to turn a new L.A.-area stadium into reality.

By the way, the city of Industry -- whose residents number in the dozens -- is a tight-knit place with what the L.A. Times called "a local governing culture that critics view as disturbingly insular." Among other things, "everyone who does business in the city of Industry is required to sign up with Mayor David Perez's company."

In other news:

• Earlier this week, we introduced you to Luigi Cannoni, who's created a botanical paradise in City Heights despite facing a variety of personal challenges. Today, we take a close look at Cannoni's leafy past -- his green thumb developed very early -- and his future.
• State legislators agreed yesterday on a major water deal. We've got details about how the legislation will affect us.



• In education, the San Diego school district has disclosed how it will freeze and cut spending: school sites will have to cut their budgets by 2.5 percent. But the district can still spend money on outside food for the school board or superintendent.
  
  Wait, can't the adults eat salisbury steak and tater tots like the kids do? Uh-oh, I'm dating myself. Schoolchildren these days can find salad bars and sushi in their cafeterias.



• The local housing rally continued in October, reports real-estate columnist Rich Toscano, and he says this is unusual: The boom isn't acting like the typical spring-through-summer price surges that occur when the market has a bad case of the vapors.

Elsewhere:

• The California Supreme Court "seemed poised to dismiss the criminal case brought against six former officials of the San Diego pension board charged with breaking the state conflict of interest law for voting on a city plan that put less money into the pension plan than required," the U-T reports.



• A courthouse media circus may be heading to San Diego if some lawyers in the Bay Area get their way. (LA Weekly)



• In the House, more than half of Republicans refused to support a bill to speed up new stricter rules on credit cards. But all local GOP reps voted yes, as did local Democrats, and the bill passed. 



• The Washington Post examines red-light cameras, which are widely reviled around the country. Three cities voted to dump them on Tuesday.

  One line caught my eye in this story: The writer says that if caught, "you can pay $40 now or $80 later."
  
  That's chump change. In the city of San Diego, red-light camera tickets run at least $436.

• Researchers spent eight years tracking great white sharks as they traveled the ocean between San Francisco and San Diego. They found, as the San Francisco Chronicle put it, that the sharks "hit the waters around Hawaii and take a yearly respite in a mysteriously alluring mid-ocean spot that researchers are calling the 'white shark cafe.'"
  
  The attraction to the spot, halfway between Baja California and Hawaii, may have something to do with sex. Maybe it should be called a "white shark singles bar."

-- RANDY DOTINGA