Without the checks and balances provided by investigative reporting, democracy simply won't survive at any level.
-- Kathryn Waer, San Carlos

This Just In

Out of Reach: A Roundup of the Conversation

There are lots of conversations happening on the various pieces of our special report into San Diego County's social welfare safety net. We'd love it if you'd chime in with your thoughts. Here's a quick roundup:

 

  • Make sure to read socalgal's account of her experience applying for aid. Here's how it starts:

    Your report of the gaps in the County's programs for the needy is one that has needed to be told for a very long time. I am also a person who sought assistance, one of the many who was denied benefits at a time when I had nothing else. Although my health problems have not yet reached the magnitude of those experienced by Michele Quemuel, I believe it is only a matter of time before my lack of medical/dental care has a profound and irreversible impact on my life.
  • Reader zollner responded to the county's anti-fraud measures:

    Seems this program in San Diego goes along with the food stamp program in that the public officials make it very difficult for needy families to get the help they need. The pols in this county are more worried about getting ripped off then concern about hungry children.
  • In response to pieces from our lengthy interviews with the county supervisors, reader dylanmann said:

    Kudos to the Supervisors for their candid and honest answers. Now I know who to vote against.
  • obLane responded to this story:

    these politicians are so brazen - so open - about how little compassion they have, that its disgusting. Yeah, the idea is to get people off the program and you can't measure success by how many people are signed up. But you can measure failure by how many people aren't signed up, and how many more people are in need now than have been over the entire history of social welfare. We are in a recession, and more people are going to need some temporary help than before.
  • Reader paulflorez's thoughts about whether or not the county's poorest residents have a choice to get the help they need:

    They choose to forgo healthcare just like I choose to forgo buying a multi-million dollar mansion.
  • Readers in the comments on this post brought in some of the larger, national debate about healthcare costs, but reader slyone adds this thought:

    I would be willing to pay higher taxes to have better public health in San Diego County because I believe healthcare is a basic human right.


  • The reality is that a family working at current state minimum wage standards and living in San Diego County needs to work 140 hours per week per household to just make rent and utilities. The FACT of the matter is that these people are not the free-loaders conservative Republicans make them out to be to the cheers of their elitist supporters."
  • Reader Mateo asked:

    why should anyone be surprised that San Diego County has no safety net for the less fortunate of its residents?

    This philosophy goes back decades and is perpetuated by the incumbent Supervisors.

 

Please, chime in. Add your voice to these conversations, or drop me a line at kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org.

-- KELLY BENNETT

 

Posted in Survival, This just in, County on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 11:00 am. icon Comments (0)

Do You Care About Other Cities' Budget Problems?

If you follow me on Twitter, you'll notice that I'm talking more and more about the budget problems facing other cities in California. I'm interested in the ideas coming from different places and how their governments are handling $100-million plus deficits, similar to the ones we have here.

Just this morning, we learned San Francisco is trying to save $50 million by reducing the work weeks of city employees, credit rating agencies were warning Los Angeles about the city's indecisiveness on budget cuts and Los Angeles' mayor is targeting council members' off-the-book accounts to close the city's operating deficit.

I have two questions: How relevant is this information to San Diego's situation? And, how much do you care?

There are two schools of thought. One, promoted often by the Mayor's Office, is that all California cities are in the same boat because of the economy and San Diego is no worse. This opinion forms the genesis of the idea -- central to the mayor's State of the City address -- that San Diego is a model for other cities because it has made budget cuts already and reduced some of its retirement benefits for city workers. Therefore comparisons to other cities make sense, though sometimes they need to be checked.

The other school of thought says that just because other cities have budget problems it doesn't mean San Diego has to have them, too. Further, this school argues that because of the pension scandal San Diego had a six-year head start on pension reform. In short, San Diego has had what's called a "structural budget deficit" -- it has long spent more money than it collected -- so comparisons to other cities are of limited value.

What are your thoughts? Would you like to see more links to other cities' budget fixes in my morning Agenda? Should I talk about other cities more in my day-to-day reporting? Comment box is open and you can always e-mail or tweet me.

-- LIAM DILLON

Posted in Thehall, This just in on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 10:20 am. icon Comments (0)

The Agenda: Today's A.M. Political Roundup

Good morning from Point Loma.

  • Council President Ben Hueso wants to study cutting back the duties of redevelopment agency, Southeastern Economic Development Corp. including folding the four neighborhoods it controls into the citywide redevelopment system. Councilman Tony Young, taking a stronger stance than he had recently, says the corporation should keep its independence.
  • Meantime, two anti-poverty groups are slamming the county's handling of the food stamp program.
  • The new chairman of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce writes in an op-ed that he'll be fighting for water infrastructure, strong mayor, small business and big buildings.
  • Last, state Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, has some issues with the latest proposal to expand Del Mar Fairgrounds.

-- LIAM DILLON

Posted in Thehall, This just in on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 10:15 am. Updated: 10:18 am. icon Comments (0)

Grading County Performance

San Diego County will release its own report card on the health and well-being of children and families who live here during the Board of Supervisors' regular meeting at 9 a.m. today.

The report, produced in conjunction with the county by a local nonprofit called The Children's Initiative, grades the county on 26 indicators measured over time. They include trends on topics like:

  • Mothers receiving prenatal care
  • Children living in poverty
  • School attendance rates
  • Obesity
  • Youth DUI arrests

The meeting will be in Room 310 at 1600 Pacific Highway. We'll have more from the report after the meeting.

-- KELLY BENNETT

 

Posted in Survival, This just in on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 8:50 am. icon Comments (0)

Morning Report: Postdoc and Pre-Job

School. And more school. And even more school. Some postdoctoral researchers spend more than two decades in the classroom altogether, and they'd like to get nice jobs when they get finally out.

Good luck. As our story puts it, "even those who are smart, skilled and supremely qualified can have a tough time finding a job where their expertise can make a difference."

We explain what happened (it hasn't always been this way), why lack of business experience is a hindrance for local postdocs and what universities are doing.

In other news:

 

  • A San Diego councilman is interested in exploring whether the redevelopment agency that serves southeastern San Diego could be folded into another city agency.

    This may be a sticky wicket. Our reporter Liam Dillon says talk about yanking the agency's authority or eliminating it all together "has run into roadblocks from those who say it does a better job managing redevelopment in its neighborhoods than the city would."
  • On national TV, Mayor Jerry Sanders bashed the state government and declared that the city has outsourced its information technology services. We ran this last claim through the truth-o-meter at the San Diego Fact Check Blog. Is it true? You'll have to click through to the story to get the answer, but here's a hint: BZZZZZZ!
  • We fact-checked another statement: a claim made last November in the U-T by the Watchdog Institute, its nonprofit investigative partner that "More than 70 percent of registered sex offenders in San Diego County are violating a state law by living too close to schools and parks."

    The verdict?? Misleading.
  • Remember the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers went there last August, and they're now reporting that they found tiny bits of plastic -- some as little as a grain of sand -- in 5-10 percent of fish they gathered.
  • The Photo of the Day paints a placid picture of life at UCSD.
  • We know that it can be hard to read multiple stories on the web, especially when you have a limited attention span. Ooo, look, something shiny! Um, now where was I?

    Oh yes. We've created a PDF of our Out of Reach series about the gaps in the county's safety net for the poor. You can read it in one sitting or print it out and digest it over time.

 

Elsewhere:

 

  • The internal politics of the local and state Republican Party are getting nasty.

    The Sacramento Bee takes a closer look at some long-circulated rumors and says a "long-simmering controversy about the private life of California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring has erupted into a divisive public conflict within the political organization."

    The story is rooted in San Diego and includes allegations from an ex-girlfriend of Nehring who claims he abused her. Nehring formerly served as the San Diego County leader of the GOP, and Michael Crimmins, a member of the local party's central committee, is facing potential expulsion "in part for sending an e-mail to state party leaders raising concerns about behavior by Nehring and Krvaric."
  • Local foreclosures and defaults dropped considerably last month, according to the North County Times.
  • There's a bizarre story out of a town in Northern California's Gold Country: A politician is in hot water because he took a brain-damaged woman to San Diego and left her here after she apparently went missing. She was found after a three-day search.
  • The U-T's Logan Jenkins tackled local Rep. Duncan D. Hunter's now-infamous clumsy comment on NPR about "hermaphrodites and transgenders" serving in the military, as did TV's Stephen Colbert.
  • Also: San Diego's curfew law has been struck down by a state court, but an appeal is possible.
  • Finally, a panel of San Diegans (along with people from Virginia) watched Super Bowl commercials for USA Today and ranked them. Among the losers: a terrible U.S. Census ad that cost $2.5 million. The winner: a very funny Snickers ad featuring Abe Vigoda and Betty White.

It seems that San Diegans think watching old people get tackled is awesome. My own personal Fact Check analysis: They're absolutely right, as long as no actual old people were harmed during filming.

 

-- RANDY DOTINGA

 

Posted in This just in on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 7:10 am. Updated: 7:20 am. icon Comments (0)

Are All Sex Offenders Subject to Jessica's Law?

Statement: "More than 70 percent of registered sex offenders in San Diego County are violating a state law by living too close to schools and parks," the Watchdog Institute reported in The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Image: Misleading

Determination: Misleading

Analysis: In November, this statement spurred a debate between San Diego CityBeat and the Watchdog Institute, a new nonprofit investigative reporting group connected to The San Diego Union-Tribune. We hope to get to the bottom of it.

The debate focused on the Watchdog Institute's story about Jessica's Law, a voter initiative passed in 2006 that bans sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of parks and schools. Throughout much of the story, the Watchdog Institute flatly asserted that any registered sex offender living within the restricted zone is "violating state law." It used that language in the lead sentence, throughout the story and in every accompanying graphic.

Here's the dilemma: The Watchdog Institute's assertion is an opinion, not a fact.

It built its story around this interpretation of the law: that all registered sex offenders are banned from living within the restricted 2,000-foot zone, regardless of when they were convicted or become registered.

In the November story, the Watchdog Institute quoted people who reaffirmed its interpretation but it ignored contrary positions.

By only reading the Watchdog Institute's report, you would never know that the state attorney general, some state legislators, at least one federal judge and decades of court rulings support the position that Jessica's Law does not apply to every registered sex offender, and therefore, every person in the restricted zone is not violating state law.

For example, the state attorney general supports an interpretation of the law that bans any registered sex offender from moving into the restricted zone after the law became effective Nov. 8, 2006. If a sex offender lived within the zone before Nov. 8, 2006, he would not be required to move and not be violating the law. But if the sex offender wanted to move across town today, he could only move to a place outside the restricted zone.

Compared to other opinions about Jessica's Law, the Watchdog Institute asserted what's called the literal interpretation of the law. In other words, it interpreted the law based strictly on the words used in the state statute. The statute says "any person" required to register as a sex offender must follow the residency restrictions.

To be clear, we are not saying that using a literal interpretation for Jessica's Law is right or wrong. It's an opinion at this point, so we'll let attorneys and the courts weigh how the law may be applied.

Our purpose is showing how the Watchdog Institute's story misled people by failing to identify its interpretation as an opinion and failing to further explain the debate surrounding Jessica's Law. It's not a minor point either: Much of the legal discussion about the law has specifically focused on who the law applies to and whether it's retroactive punishment for people convicted before 2006.

For starters, another California law prohibits any new punishment from being retroactive. That 1872 statute, confirmed repeatedly by the State Supreme Court, literally says, "No part of (the state's criminal code) is retroactive, unless expressly so declared."

When the law fails to make an explicit declaration, the state Supreme Court has previously said the law's literal construction "should not be followed blindly in complete disregard of factors that may give a clue to the legislative intent." It's disputed, in this instance though, what voters intended for the law when they approved it in 2006.

The Watchdog Institute has defended its report, because it accurately reflected the literal meaning of the statute and its story said "the law doesn't specify whether residence restrictions apply to all convicted sex offenders or only to those who were convicted or paroled after it passed."

For all intents and purposes, though, that sentence was presented as an asterisk in a report that repeatedly asserted the literal interpretation of Jessica's Law. In no way could that single-sentence caveat counterbalance how the rest of the story and accompanying graphics used language like "violate state law."

Moreover, the Watchdog Institute's report highlighted a recent state Supreme Court case that officials hoped would bring some clarity to the residency restrictions. It didn't.

The Supreme Court announced its decision Feb. 1, but it steered away from the big questions about the law's application to all registered sex offenders, its punishment and its constitutionality. It focused narrowly on the appeal of four parolees and sent their cases back to trial courts to address lacking evidence.

"The further question whether [Jessica's Law] also created a separate new misdemeanor offense applicable to all sex offenders subject to the registration requirement ..., irrespective of their parole status, is not before us," the court wrote in its majority opinion.

-- KEEGAN KYLE

 

Posted in Fact, This just in on Monday, February 8, 2010 5:05 pm. Updated: 5:22 pm. icon Comments (0)

Mayor Gets Ahead of Himself on Outsourcing

Statement: "We've been able to make those cuts without dramatically cutting services. We've done that by competing out some of the functions like our IT function. Received about a 55 percent reduction in costs by doing that," Mayor Jerry Sanders Feb. 8, 2010 on Fox Business Network describing how the city has closed past budget deficits.

Image: False

Determination: False

Analysis: The city hasn't outsourced information technology services.

Sanders has proposed that the city outsource a portion of its IT services, but the City Council hasn't seen the contract to do that yet.

The city has closed the greatest portion of its previous budget gaps by slashing positions and using one-time solutions like tapping reserves. But the ability to outsource most city services, approved by voters more than three years ago, remains stuck in labor negotiations.

So in short, Sanders got a little ahead of himself.

Sanders' spokeswoman Rachel Laing said the mayor was speaking about the overall streamlining of city government, but that he wishes he had this one back.

"I think he would have stopped himself and gone back if he wasn't on live TV," Laing said.

Here's the video. The comment starts at about the 55-second mark.

-- LIAM DILLON

 

Posted in Fact, This just in on Monday, February 8, 2010 4:55 pm. Updated: 5:26 pm. icon Comments (3)

Taking 'Out of Reach' to the Airwaves

 

I had a busy Friday making the media rounds to talk about our Out of Reach series, which detailed the significant gaps in San Diego County's safety net.

I hung out with Gloria Penner and Barbara Bry on San Diego Week:

Before that, I chatted with them and David Rolland on Editors Roundtable. Here's a transcript and the audio from KPBS' site.

And Scott Lewis and I also rapped about it on our weekly VOSD Radio on KOGO, which airs at noon on Sundays.

 

 

-- ANDREW DONOHUE

Posted in Clipboard, Survival, This just in on Monday, February 8, 2010 4:35 pm. Updated: 5:12 pm. icon Comments (0)

Photo of the Day: Campus Life One image

I was up at UCSD this afternoon shooting some portraits and spent a little while afterward taking pictures around the campus. It's a beautiful place and I'm always amazed at the amount of different languages I hear spoken as I walk across the university's grounds.

This afternoon, I was at the top of a staircase shooting pictures of students traveling across the campus. When I got back to the office and looked at the images, this one stood out as having a very collegiate feel to it.

-- SAM HODGSON

 

Posted in Credentialed, This just in on Monday, February 8, 2010 3:55 pm. Updated: 3:59 pm. icon Comments (0)

Nat'l TV: Mayor Doesn't Trust Sacramento

Fox Business Network should open a bureau in San Diego.

Days after hosting City Councilman Carl DeMaio to dismiss municipal bankruptcy, the national television network had Mayor Jerry Sanders on to chat about the city.

Sanders spent much of his time beating up on the state government. Asked if he trusted Sacramento, Sanders replied. "No, I don't. Not at all. I like a lot of the people there, but when they have problems they simply come after cities and counties instead of solving their own."

Here's the full video. I enjoyed the anchor at the end saying San Diego's "perpetual springtime" is the city's biggest selling point.

-- LIAM DILLON

Posted in Thehall, This just in on Monday, February 8, 2010 2:05 pm. Updated: 2:18 pm. icon Comments (4)

This Just In

The follow-ups, insights and shorter stories to emerge from a day of gathering the news.

E-mail tips and feedback to andrew.donohue@voiceofsandiego.org

Do You Care About Other Cities' Budget Problems?

The value in comparing San Diego to other struggling cities. And the problem with it.

  • icon » February 09

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