Friday, by a 346-17 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives today gave a shout-out to the New York Yankees for winning the World Series. But the resolution -- H. Res. 893, to be precise -- struck out with a bipartisan duo of local congressmen: Duncan D. Hunter, a Republican, and Bob Filner, a Democrat, both voted no.
It's no surprise that a few representatives from Pennsylvania (home of the vanquished Philadelphia Phillies) and Massachusetts (home of the arch-rival Boston Red Sox) voted nay or didn't show.
But Hunter and Filner? Do they have something against the Yankees?
Not in Hunter's case. The San Diego native is a Padres loyalist at heart, spokesman Joe Kasper said. As for the Yankees, "it's just they're not the Padres."
Filner has more reason to be a Yankees fan: He grew up in New York City, according to his biography on the House of Representatives website. But he was born in Pittsburgh, which may mean he has some sympathy for the same-state Phillies.
That's unclear: His office wasn't immediately able to resolve the burning question of his seeming Yankees hate.
Today's Photo of the Day was taken in City Heights as the early afternoon light began to glint off the nearby buildings. Yes, I know, I'm a total light nerd.
Former City Councilman Michael Zucchet was named head of the city's white-collar union, the Municipal Employees Association, today.
Zucchet had been acting general manager of the union since May, when longtime leader Judie Italiano resigned amid an investigation into personal use of union credit cards.
Zucchet and the union scored a big win last week when City Council rejected a Mayor's Office proposal to impose outsourcing rules on white-collar workers. Zucchet presented on the union's behalf.
Zucchet was elected to the City Council in 2002. He served three years and then resigned following a pay to play scandal involving strip club owners trading political contributions for council votes. Zucchet was acquitted of seven corruption counts and granted a new trial on two others. An appeals court upheld that ruling in September.
The Municipal Employees Association is the largest union representing city employees with more than 4,000 members.
To round out our Chargers coverage from the last two weeks, our media partners at NBC posted a video of yesterday's story on Wonder Bread building owner Bob Sinclair. Sinclair's building is part a downtown San Diego site being considered by the Mayor's Office and the Chargers for a new stadium. The video is below.
Also because it's Friday, here's a link to a five-second Wonder Bread commercial from the 1950s. Enjoy!
It's time for Public Comment, our weekly take on the upcoming San Diego City Council agenda. We link to all the agendas, briefly highlight an issue and invite readers to weigh in with their thoughts.
Issues of Interest: Monday will be the resumption of negotiations with two of the city's labor unions on its outsourcing program. In closed session, City Council will direct negotiators on how to proceed per labor impasse rules.
An interesting sidebar to this whole process also plays out on Monday. In open session, City Council is scheduled to approve the city's team for contract negotiations with its labor unions next year. That team is made up of Mayor's Office representatives, but for the first time will include members of the Office of the Independent Budget Analyst as "observers." The change could indicate that council wants to play a more direct role in labor negotiations.
What else is good to follow at the meetings? Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks? Email me or tweet me.
We'll lead off this morning with a discussion on the pros and cons of the downtown schoobrary on KPBS yesterday. On the pro side, there was Mel Katz of the San Diego Public Library Foundation, on the con side, City Councilman Carl DeMaio.
The U-T is reporting that the South Bay Power Plant in Chula Vista could be closing next spring, citing from a San Diego Gas & Electric vice president. The power plant dominates Chula Vista's bayfront.
Under threat from credit rating agencies, Oceanside decided to raise its water and sewer rates. The typical monthly water and sewer bill will increase by $18. Also in Oceanside, there was a debate on the recall petition involving Councilman Jerry Kern.
I follow up my story about the Chargers stadium search with a few odds and ends. I break down how a former NBA executive calculated how the Chargers could make $40 million by moving to Los Angeles, discuss the power of the NFL team owners and link to a story by our NBC media partners on the possibility of a stadium in downtown San Diego.
The wife of National City's mayor accused him of abuse in separation papers , a charge he denies. Port Commissioner and former San Diego City Council President Scott Peters is back on the California Coastal Commission. And Escondido officials are discussing how to zone for more commercial and industrial development.
I'm taking a turn as Principal for a Day this morning! Here's hoping I don't wreak havoc on a functioning middle school. I'll be back to blog about it another day. Now for the newsblitz:
The Union-Tribune profiles Kelly Kovacic, the Preuss School teacher who is one of the five California Teachers of the Year and who will vie for the title of National Teacher of the Year. KPBS covers it too.
The California School Boards Association picked ... no one as their Legislator of the Year, the Los Angeles Times writes. Schools suffered so much from state cuts that no lawmaker got singled out for praise. In related news, our guest blogger Ashley Hermsmeier takes you through a day in her life as a teacher under budget cuts.
A new study found that most principals believe that teachers who joined the field through alternative routes after a first career are just as good or better than other beginning teachers, the Orange County Register reports.
Voters approved two parcel taxes for schools in the Bay Area this week, the Contra Costa Times writes. San Diego Unified will be eyeing those results closely as it weighs whether to float a parcel tax of its own.
Education Week blogs about how a Harvard University study in India reveals the creeping influence of class discrimination in grading tests. Intriguingly, teachers from the lowest social castes in India were most likely to discriminate, and they were most likely to discriminate against the most disadvantaged kids.
USA Today reports that more school districts are putting kids' grades online for parents using secure accounts.
Claus von Zastrow blogs that a Maryland elementary school has reaffirmed his belief in the difference schools can make, even though needs outside school must be addressed too.
The American Civil Liberties Union is suing schools in Palm Beach County, Florida for failing to provide an adequate education to kids, as evidenced by poor graduation rates.
The Chinese government is again paying to bring San Diego Unified officials to see Chinese schools. And San Diego Unified will still cover some of the trip's costs despite a just-imposed spending freeze at the district.
Last year, school board members John de Beck and Katherine Nakamura went along with a parent liaison; now board President Shelia Jackson is slated to go along with four other employees, including its directors of communications and language acquisition. The trip from Los Angeles to China is being paid for a nonprofit affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education.
Unfortunately, it still has a price tag for San Diego Unified: The school district has been cutting down on costs amid a spending freeze, but is asking the school board to approve $835 for registration and airfare for Jackson to Los Angeles, paid for out of the school board budget.
The Chinese nonprofit is only paying to get them from Los Angeles to China and covering their costs once they get there. It isn't clear how the traveling employees will pay the costs of registration and travel to L.A. or which budget string it would come from; I'm still tracking down the details on that.
Though the Fair Political Practices Commission, which clamped down on donated travel for public officials last year, school district attorney Mark Bresee said the trip is still permissible because it falls under an exemption for legislative or governmental travel that is provided by a foreign government or nonprofit.
Update: I heard back from Bernie Rhinerson, chief district relations officer for San Diego Unified and one of the four employees going to China. He said the only costs for San Diego Unified will be the expenses requested for Jackson; the other employees are either covering their costs or have a grant that will pay for them.
If you've ever had an infection like bronchitis, you probably know about those little antibiotic pills: Keep taking them even after you get better, you're told, because they need to keep working for a while longer.
But typically, you don't take the drugs forever. And there lies the rub: Antibiotics aren't a huge source of profit like, say, the cholesterol drugs that people take every day for years. So pharmaceutical companies aren't as eager to spend big bucks to develop them.
The problem: Ultra-powerful germs have learned how to evade existing antibiotics. Enter the San Diego biotechs that are trying to develop drugs that will both make a decent profit and kill superbugs dead.
We check on how the companies are doing and explore why superbugs are so darned nasty.
In other news:
The number of local borrowers who are behind on their mortgages jumped sharply in September compared to last year. Another local biotech is trying to turn love handles into lucre: Amylin Pharmaceuticals has struck a deal with a Japanese company to make and sell experimental obesity drugs. Two San Diego teachers are among the five California Teachers of the Year. And we tie up some loose ends regarding the Chargers, their search for a new stadium and one snappy-looking fedora.
In commentary, a Lakeside teacher describes the sorry conditions in her classroom, including hairballs and caked dirt, the byproduct of education budget cuts. And our cartoonist takes a wry look at what San Diego will be known for circa 2015.
Elsewhere:
The L.A. Times profiles Alan Bersin, former San Diego U.S. attorney and schools chief, who's now a big shot -- and potentially even a bigger one -- in the Border Patrol/customs world.
"The city of San Diego and U.S. Small Business Administration have signed a first-of-its-kind agreement to help small contractors bid on city projects," reports the U-T.
Reuters journalists have begun a cross-country trip exploring how the economy is affecting people. They're visiting Imperial County, just east of San Diego County, where they find the nation's highest unemployment rate (although there's some dispute about whether the numbers are accurate), rising domestic-violence cases, and big green-energy dreams.
A brawl in downtown San Diego on Halloween night was caught on video and became an Internet hit, but cops aren't pursuing anyone because nobody made a complaint, CityBeat reports.
Set your phasers on "mourn": More obituaries are remembering Shel Dorf, founder of San Diego's Comic-Con, who died earlier this week at the age of 76.
The L.A. Times recalls Dorf's career in a story today and has a great anecdote about how he surprised the creator of "Dick Tracy" by showing up on his doorstep back in 1949. Dorf was just a teenager.
Finally, a newspaper in Washington state takes a look at major free-speech fight that forced San Diego into the national spotlight in 1911 and 1912. The battle royale began, the story says, when the city banned speech-making on the street, including on "Soapbox Row" -- E Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues. It didn't take long for violence to break out as newspapers chose sides between union types, including those known as Wobblies, and vigilantes.
Soapbox Row, by the way, is now smack in the middle of the Gaslamp Quarter, where plenty of talking (among other things) still goes on.
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I spent much of the last two weeks talking with sports economists, consultants, professors and investment bankers related to the Chargers stadium search, particularly about what a proposal to build a stadium in Los Angeles could mean for the team.
The result was my story yesterday that shows some of the same financial problems the Chargers face in finding a stadium in San Diego also exist in Los Angeles.
(There was also the story about a new stadium proposal involving the Wonder Bread building in downtown San Diego. We're dubbing that effort "Wonderbread Stadium.")
My conversations with the sports economic experts focused on the deal that Los Angeles developer Ed Roski is proposing: Give me 40 percent of your team to move into my stadium. I wanted to know how that deal might pencil out for the Chargers. Among others, I spoke with Jim Kahler, executive director of Ohio University's Center for Sports Administration and a former senior vice president with the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers.
Kahler said I should focus on how much the Chargers revenues would increase by moving from San Diego, the 28th-largest television market, to Los Angeles, the second-largest market.
NFL teams share the league's television revenues so there's no more money to be made in television rights. But a larger television market means a larger audience and more money the team can charge for its stadium naming rights, signage within the stadium, local sponsorship revenues, etc.
Kahler thinks the Chargers could earn an additional $15 million a year in local sponsorship revenue, $10 million more a year with new luxury boxes and $12 million more a year from higher ticket prices. Kahler rounded down his estimate and said the Chargers could make $40 million more a year by moving to Los Angeles.
If Roski were willing to reduce the stake he wants in the team to 30 percent, Kahler called the decision a "no brainer."
One factor I only touched on in yesterday's story could make the financing question moot. The NFL's owners collectively will decide if a team returns to Los Angeles -- not any individual owner and certainly not a billionaire Los Angeles developer.
The league's bylaws say that a super-majority of the NFL's owners must approve a move if it's not considered in another owner's territory, explained Rodney Fort, a University of Michigan sports management professor. If it is considered in a team's territory, the vote must be unanimous.
"It is the league, not any individual owner, that decides where its teams are located," Fort said.
Last, I wanted to link to a story by our media partners at NBC, who followed up on our downtown stadium coverage. Let me point out the impressiveness of the red fedora worn by Bob Sinclair, owner of the Wonder Bread building.
You might remember several weeks ago we promised to bring you portraits of ordinary San Diegans in our Photo of the Day feature. Today's image is of Omar Qayyum, owner of the San Diego Tire & Wheel Outlet on El Cajon Boulevard.
Scott Peters, a Democrat and wearer of many local political hats, was appointed as an alternate today to the California Coastal Commission by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Peters is a current port commissioner, former San Diego City Council president and also former member of the Coastal Commission, the state agency that regulates land-use decisions affecting California's coastal region.
San Diego's Amylin Pharmaceuticals announced a deal this week with Japan-based Takeda Pharmaceuticals to develop and market experimental obesity drugs, making it the third San Diego-based biotech to make big news this year with potential weight loss therapies.
The deal calls for Amylin to get $75 million upfront, plus milestone payments based on whether the drugs make it through clinical trials and achieve certain revenues, according to Xconomy. It also gives the company a boost in its effort to keep up with San Diego-based Arena Pharmaceuticals and Orexigen Therapeutics, both of which are in late-stage clinical trials with their obesity drugs.
Here is what Xconomy had to say about the deal:
Amylin is betting it has found a way to breathe new life into one of the most overhyped biotech drugs of the 1990s -- Amgen’s leptin -- by packaging it in combination with its own pramlintide drug for diabetes. While the Amylin drug needs to be taken by injection and its rivals are oral pills, it has shown some strong promise that it can help people shed pounds in clinical trials, and the market has big potential. About two-thirds of people in the U.S. are considered overweight or obese, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More borrowers are getting behind on their mortgage payments in San Diego County.
More than 8 percent of the county's mortgages were at least 90 days past due in September, according to new numbers released today by First American CoreLogic, a California-based housing and finance information firm.
That delinquency rate rose sharply from the same month last year, when just 5.1 percent of county mortgages were at least 90 days delinquent.
The percentage includes all loans for which borrowers are at least 90 days behind on payments, including homes that are already in foreclosure and homes that banks have already repossessed.
California's delinquency rate reached 9.6 percent, up from 6.1 percent in September 2008.
I looked at delinquencies broken down by loan type for this story.
Here's something nifty to get your mind off budget cuts: Two San Diego County teachers were named among the five California Teachers of the Year today, and one will go forward as the California nominee for National Teacher of the Year. The press release from the California Department of Education includes some more details:
Kelly Kovacic teaches social studies at The Preuss School, an intensive college preparatory school (and a charter school) for low-income student populations that is located on the University of California San Diego (UCSD) campus in La Jolla (San Diego Unified School District). She also was selected as California’s nominee for the prestigious National Teacher of the Year competition.
Melanie Tolan teaches English-language arts, history, and physical education at the Sarah Anthony School in San Diego (Juvenile Court and Community Schools n San Diego County Office of Education).
O'Connell said, “I am delighted that Kelly Kovacic is representing California at the national level. Ms. Kovacic is an exceptionally knowledgeable and effective teacher. She demonstrates an unparalleled passion and commitment to her students and school community that extends beyond the school day and the school yard.”
Could we have more San Diego political news today?
We'll lead off with the state Legislature's passage of a $11.1 billion package to revamp California's water policies. Our own Rob Davisbreaks down what it means for San Diego and explains how certain local projects will benefit. The U-T has reaction from all sides and praises the deal in an editorial.
Capitol Weekly has a pair of interesting stories on the water package. The first says the deal was done with billions in earmarks. The second talks about the cost of the biggest water project, a canal that would shuttle water from the California Delta to the south, that isn't included in the deal.
Yesterday, the California Supreme Court heard an appeal of one of the criminal cases involved in the city of San Diego's pension underfunding scandal. It doesn't look good for prosecutors, the U-T reports. Pension uber-blogger Ed Mendel was at the hearing, too and writes that the decision could have wide ranging impact around the state.
My story yesterday was on Chargers stadium news and how the new, chic Los Angeles option is facing the same financial hurdles that the team has had for seven years in San Diego County.
CityBeat adds more detail to last week's San Diego City Council votes on the downtown schoobrary and outsourcing. The alt-weekly also reports on local U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray paying his wife to help with fundraising.
In our daily dose of medical marijuana news, CityBeat reports on the brief appearance of the San Diego Police Department to the city's medical marijuana task force. Conservative blog SDRostra.Comwrites that Encinitas' Chamber of Commerce has an advertisement for a medical marijuana dispensary in its official newsletter.
Continuing the avalanche of recent San Diego historic home preservation news, KPBS writes about efforts in Councilman Todd Gloria's district. CityBeat's Carl Luna reacts to the story by saying the city needs to balance public good with private property rights.
Guest blogger Ashley Hermsmeier is a teacher, runner and writer in her sixth year of teaching English at El Capitan High School in Lakeside. In her blog titled, "I Run Because I Teach" she discusses the two aspects of life that simultaneously mean the most and frustrate her the most (besides her husband)-- teaching and running.
These are her reflections and opinions, not mine, so if you have burning questions or comments, please contact Ashley via e-mail at amorrow@guhsd.net. Or post a comment here on the blog.
8:02 a.m. Second Period My students shuffle into the classroom turning off cell phones and stowing iPods in hoodie pockets. As they sit down and begin to unpack their things, I hear pieces of conversations and the occasional cough or sniffle. When I take roll I notice six students are absent. I usually have two empty desks, for a class size of 37, but today the room feels cavernous. I am reminded of the teacher down the hall who doesn’t have enough desks for all her 42 students; I feel lucky to have only 37 students.
I ask absentmindedly, “What’s up? Is it senior ditch day or something?” A chorus of “she’s sick," and "he’s sick” answers me. I look to the back of the room and see the empty tissue box glaring at me. With the budget cuts this year, my department could only afford to order a few boxes per teacher. That was my last box. Now, every time a sniffling student needs a tissue, he or she will have to leave class, walk down the hall to the bathroom, and thus miss important aspects of my lecture on the English Renaissance.
I look around the classroom and see dusty hairballs in every corner and dirt caked on the windowsills. Random scraps of paper, a broken mechanical pencil, and pieces of a dissected ballpoint pen are scattered under and between students’ feet. There is even a little pile of red dirt under a desk from a student who must have walked through mud on the way to school. They sit in filth most days of the week because our campus has only two custodians this year, as opposed to four last year and six the year before that. I make a mental note to sweep and dust the room after school (before I finish grading the 148 essays also glaring at me from the back of the room) and then buy tissues on my way home.
10:15 a.m. Prep Period I walk to the library to reserve it for a research project. Today the place is a tomb; not a single student is inside the library. Budget cuts have made it inaccessible and unwelcoming. Last year it was bustling with students who came at all times of the day to do work, take tests, finish typing essays, or check out a reading book. However, this year the hours fluctuate daily based on the schedule and contract hours of the one librarian left to run the whole facility. This means the two girls I saw trying to check out independent reading books for English class will not be able to get them until the library arbitrarily reopens. Hopefully they will be able to get the books at lunch, because after school is just as unreliable as the rest of the day. I think of the freshman girl yesterday who was talking on her cell phone outside the library 10 minutes after the final bell rang, panicking about needing to type an essay. This is in direct contrast to the efficient library of last year. I wonder why our campus is the only one in the district without an assistant librarian?
Dirty classrooms and an inaccessible library are only two examples of how budget cuts have directly affected the students, teachers and classified staff on our campus, and the cuts affect each site in different ways. I wonder how our district can afford to start new programs, yet can’t keep current programs such as auto shop running properly. For example, how can the new literacy program justify spending money on a wine and cheese social, yet won’t provide the money and resources necessary to keep a campus library open with regular hours? Wouldn’t improving a library’s accessibility be a step toward literacy? I’d like to know why the district feels its programs are more important than our English, science or math programs? What does the district get for creating (instead of maintaining) programs nearly every year?
I also wonder how a district that received a $10 million dollar savings off the backs of teachers and students last year (by increasing class sizes), can now ask teachers to accept a contract that includes two furlough days and a 2.9 percent pay cut? (Especially considering they had a surprising $32.6 million ending balance last year.) It seems that those on top are requiring more and more from all of us, yet they are providing fewer and fewer resources with which to do it. Now they’re expecting us to give up even more? I hate to say it, but our children are becoming left behind because our schools have been left behind.
We've got a guest blogger lined up for today. Check back after your Bright and Early for a take on budget cuts from one county teacher. Now for the newsblitz:
The UT also writes that two outside evaluators have given the green light to continue accrediting the College of Education at San Diego State, which turns out tons of local teachers.
And one more from the UT: Kids at Washington Elementary in Little Italy are learning Italian dance, language, art and history.
Dropping enrollment in Los Angeles Unified is exacerbating the budget crisis because funding is based on attendance, the Los Angeles Times reports. Some of the students left LAUSD for charter schools; others just left town.
The Sacramento Bee reports that California lawmakers have taken another step to make the state more competitive for a second round of school stimulus dollars: It calls for strategies to turn around the lowest-performing schools and lifts a statewide cap on the number of charter schools.
Education Week looks at how school issues factored into elections nationwide, from the re-election of the New York Mayor to the repeal of same-sex marriage in Maine.
More bad news about the economy: Foundation giving is expected to drop more than 10 percent this year, the Washington Post writes. This isn't good for schools that have increasingly been looking to grants and other private support to bulk up their coffers.
A report on how states can revamp how they recruit, prepare, evaluate and pay teachers has spurred an angry response from the American Federation of Teachers, which says it's disrespectful of the profession. Interestingly, the group that produced it includes former San Diego Unified Superintendent Carl Cohn.
Along the same lines, here's a Q & A with the author of a book comparing U.S. schools to those in Australia and Japan. She found that teacher quality, school safety and a sense of school community needed to change to keep U.S. schools up to pace. Linked from THE Journal.
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.
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."
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The benefits to San Diego of the water deal that state legislators struck today -- five bills most prominently included an $11.1 billion bond package headed to voters for approval next year -- can't necessarily be measured in dollars, the San Diego County Water Authority says. At least not yet.
San Diego stands to receive at least $227 million for water projects if voters approve the major bond package next November. The largest chunk, $100 million, would help pay for the dam raise underway at the San Vicente Reservoir, the authority's $568 million project to more than double storage capacity.
Dennis Cushman, the authority's assistant general manager, said the money -- if approved -- would help offset rate increases likely from other parts of the measure.
One of the bond's biggest beneficiaries locally would be the San Diego River Conservancy, which works to restore the river stretching from Ocean Beach to Julian. The bond package would provide it a $20 million grant. Another $107 million would be directed to as-yet unspecified supply projects in the region.
Cushman said the region would ultimately reap a greater benefit than the $227 million earmarked for San Diego when it competes for the billions in grants included in the bond package. "The ultimate dollar amount (to San Diego) is not going to be known for many years," he said.
The legislation will also require San Diego and other cities statewide to reduce consumption by 20 percent. They'll be given credit for conservation efforts to date.
The legislation's largest push is to address the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a major source of San Diego's water. Its ecosystem has suffered in recent years as more water has been sucked out and pumped south. The bills approved today would create a governing body to oversee the delta and decide on major projects that could move water around the delta instead of through it. The bond package would also send billions to the delta.
Mayor Jerry Sanders heralded the legislation in a midday press conference. "This is one of the most significant pieces of legislation we've seen in a long time," he said.
I hit the airwaves this afternoon for our weekly Survival in San Diego segment with Prof. Robert Shiller's sense that some housing markets in the country are poised for another bubble and the proposed extensions for the homebuyer tax credits. Here's the clip:
Luigi Cannoni, the man who rejuvenated a dilapidated property in City Heights by creating a magnificent garden, has a big heart -- there's simply no question about that.
He's one of those people who make the job of photojournalism really interesting. He's open, engaging and cares about the world. Both he and his property are infinitely visually interesting -- he for his animation and his home for all of its quirks, peculiarities and the beauty of his garden. This is an image I took while on assignment with Cannoni. It's shot from inside his house looking out, where he is watering his garden.
The state Legislature this morning approved an $11.1 billion package to address California's water reliability issues. Voters will have to approve the bond next November.
So what's in it for San Diego?
At least $227 million in grants and financing for various water projects, including storage. Those include:
$100 million for emergency storage projects.
$40 million in grants for the region; $20 million of that is earmarked for the San Diego River Conservancy, which works to restore the river that runs from Ocean Beach to Julian.
$87 million for other unspecified projects throughout the region.
I have a call into the San Diego County Water Authority to see what else is in the legislation and what plans it has for some of the money outlined above.
We'll start today with a departure. David Wescoe, who took over the city of San Diego's retirement system following the pension scandal, is taking a job as the pension administrator for the Motion Picture Industry. The U-T quotes Mayor Jerry Sanders praising Wescoe's transparency.
We've reported on a Chargers stadium target in downtown San Diego that includes the Wonder Bread building east of Petco Park. The owners of the building would like to remind the mayor and the Chargers that they exist.
A new Mayor's Office spokesman compared the Republican Party to an infamous San Diego County cult on his Twitter feed yesterday. He apologized and said his comments have nothing to do with his boss, who is a Republican. He's now deleted the post and subsequent apology from Twitter.
The Centre City Development Corp. is taking bids to clean up a city-owned property at 7th Avenue and Market Street. The site is where a $400 million-plus hotel was to be built before the redevelopment agency cancelled the project because of the conflict of interest issues surrounding its former president Nancy Graham.
A comparison of salaries shows that the city's independent auditor is well paid. A council committee will conduct a performance review of the auditor next week.
In other news around San Diego County, the County Board of Supervisors approved a building and land swap that would allow the state to build a 17-story courthouse in downtown San Diego. And the county is reforming a service program for the elderly.
Oceanside's council will again take up raising water and sewer rates after a credit agency put the city on watch.
Today's North County Times story on embattled Poway councilwoman Betty Rexford is about a fight between her and local Republican officials. Rexford left the party and the party called on her to resign as she faced recall.
Carlsbad received a key permit for a desalination plan aimed to help the area with its water woes. Environmental groups haven't given up fighting the project.
Vista's City Council is talking about eminent domain for a motel in the way of a redevelopment project.
Lisa Sanders, the daughter of San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, has started a group that promotes women in politics. The group will hold a meeting next Tuesday with San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore as its guest.
Finally, L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez brings us his second story about his time as a medical marijuana patient. And Capitol Weekly reports on a poll that shows most Californians want to keep marijuana against the law despite coming ballot measures that will push for its legalization.
I am informed that a school news item I picked up yesterday from Indiana was not, in fact, from Indianapolis but rather from the now famed town of Churubusco. Duly chastened, I return to give you another, geographically correct newsblitz:
We bring you the findings from a just-the-facts-ma'am report that looks at San Diego Unified from test scores to finances. It's meant to be the beginning of a conversation about how parents, philanthropists and business leaders can help improve schools. But the next steps are unclear. Researchers also found that two options floated to revamp schools, mayoral control and expanding the school board, would lead to battles at the ballot box.
Chula Vista Star News reporter Jon Campbell turned up an amazing story on how Sweetwater Superintendent Jesus Gandara failed to notify the school board and repeatedly denied publicly that he was seeking a job in Austin -- despite the fact that documents from Texas point to him being a candidate. If true, it would be grounds for his termination, the Star News reports. More will certainly come on this story.
KPBS reports that San Diego Unified could get as much as $74 million in federal loans to pay for solar energy projects at schools. The only problem is it has to pay it back -- and if it doesn't think it can reasonably do it, it can't accept all that money. The UT has also reported on this.
Two school parcel taxes were turned down by voters near San Jose yesterday, the Mercury News reports. This doesn't bode well for similar plans here in San Diego. I'm still looking for news on what happened to a similar proposal in Long Beach.
The Los Angeles Times editorializes that a bill designed to help California be more competitive for federal stimulus dollars for schools is poorly constructed and includes a hodgepodge of ideas, some not so great, that aren't really related to the stimulus.
Chino schools are considering whether to solicit corporate advertising in schools to help get more money amid the state budget crisis, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reports.
The Educated Guess blogs about a class size reduction program won by the California Teachers Association and its results, both good and bad. The union just issued data showing that it has had positive effects on school scores.
Jay Mathews at the Washington Post opines that the office of federal education secretary should be abolished, and Arne Duncan should be freed from the lecture circuit and sent back to local schools where he could do better work.
San Diego Unified released new details yesterday on how the spending freeze will work. It mandated that departments in the central office slim down their budgets by 3 percent and school sites cut theirs by 2.5 percent.
Travel has been suspended unless it is required by regulations, will benefit the school district financially or is deemed necessary for the school board or superintendent. Procurement cards, which are like credit cards for school district employees, have been suspended.
Also, field trips and overtime will be kept to a minimum. And schools aren't supposed to buy catered food unless it's for kids, with the possible exception of events for the school board or superintendent. (This exception was pointed out to me by an employee who found it more than a little annoying.)
I'm curious about how these rules pan out for schools. Notice something interesting? Shoot me an e-mail at emily.alpert@voiceofsandiego.org or leave a comment here.
A new report finds plenty of problems in the city's schools: teachers who are rarely fired, administrators whose numbers go up as the student population dips, and kids who aren't learning what they're supposed to.
Good to know, even if much of the report isn't surprising.
The reaction so far? In some parts, it can be summed up in one word: Meh. Part of the problem: It's not clear what needs to be done next to fix things. One option -- putting the mayor in charge of schools -- even made a spokeswoman burst out in laughter.
In other news:
You've read about people's identities being stolen. But you haven't seen a story like this one, about a sibling who allegedly went rogue -- for 30 years.
A man in Massachusetts says his name is William John Marley. And so, say authorities, did a Chula Vista man who's now in a local jail.
Only one of them -- the one on the East Coast -- is really named Marley. The (alleged) fake Marley (his real name is Richard Burbank) is the real Marley's half-brother, say authorities, who accuse him of stealing the real Marley's identity for a long time.
The big question: Why? It's not clear what benefits Burbank may have gotten from his alleged identity poaching.
For people who say they were left out of a very important loop, the folks who own the Wonder Bread building in downtown San Diego sure are being polite about it.
"Welcome to the neighborhood!" they cheerily write in an open letter to Mayor Jerry Sanders and Chargers team president Dean Spanos. Then they got down to business: "Imagine our surprise to find out the city's plans for our property in the newspaper!"
Today's lesson: Tweet in leisure, regret in haste.
Yesterday, a spokesman for Mayor Sanders -- perhaps the region's most prominent Republican -- posted a message on Twitter about the state of the GOP. He likened it to the Heaven's Gate cult, saying he's seeing "more and more similarities."
This did not go over well. An explanation and an apology promptly followed.
Also on our site today:
Downtown San Diego's redevelopment agency is moving forward with plans to remove contaminated soil from city-owned property that was to be the site of a big hotel/condo project until things went awry.
We explain how a school principal, a bowl of cherry tomatoes and an inquisitive reporter led us to the story of a City Heights man who's turned a decrepit house into a showcase for greenery.
Elsewhere:
County supervisors yesterday approved a deal that could lead to a new courthouse downtown. (NCT)
CityBeat looks at Congressman Brian Bilbray's habit of putting relatives -- his daughter and wife -- on the payroll.
Also on the congressional front, local Congressman Bob Filner was one of only 36 representatives to vote against condemning a U.N. report that "accuses Israeli forces and Palestinian militants of war crimes in the Gaza Strip last winter." Other local reps voted to condemn. (WaPo)
The North County public bus service offers trips for the disabled to local casinos, and critics are not pleased. (NCT)
Earlier this year, we examined the troubled efforts to bring more effective transportation services to disabled and elderly people in North County.
Finally, KFMB-TV takes a look at the FAA's letter to those two pilots who took Minneapolis-bound passengers on a ride 150 miles past their destination.
The letter says "you were on a frolic of your own."
It sounds like they will get to repent in leisure. Lots of leisure.
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The local housing market observers I talked with last week for this story were watching a couple of key topics to gauge the health of San Diego's market going forward:
the future of the Federal Housing Administration, the agency that requires low 3.5-percent down payments and has captured a hefty chunk of the loan business here lately, and
the looming deadline for the first-time homebuyer tax credit, set to expire Nov. 30
Both have big news coming this week.
Tomorrow, the FHA will announce the findings of its annual audit, which will show the agency's reserves have dipped below their mandated level. That's in large part because many of the loans they made to pick up the slack from the pummeled private sector have gone bad. Some economists eye the giant housing agency's health pessimistically, projecting the agency will need a taxpayer bailout. For tomorrow's paper, The Wall Street Journal's Nick Timiraos takes this excellent look at the agency's issues.
The tax break to incentivize home-buying may be extended until April 30, among other extensions reportedly close to passing. The OCRegister's housing blog has a good roundup of the pieces that might make it in the new program, including:
extending the tax break to all homebuyers, not just first-timers, until April 30. Move-up homebuyers would get a maximum of $6,500, compared to the $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers. (via UPI)
extending the income limits to $125,000 for individuals and $225,000 for couples (via BusinessWeek)
"We would help first-time home buyers, and we would also help homeowners looking to move up to a new home, but we would exclude from the credit speculators who may have recently purchased a home intending to flip it for a fast profit," said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the (Senate) Finance Committee.
Today's Photo of the Day was shot early in the morning with this newly-available daylight we're getting in the a.m. This is shot on the iPhone with the Magazine filter applied in the Camera Bag application.
David Wescoe, the administrator and chief executive officer of San Diego City Employees' Retirement System, is leaving the city to take the same job with the Motion Picture Industry's pension program.
Wescoe has been with SDCERS for more than three years and shepherded the system through the fallout from the city's pension accounting scandal. He also is known as not being shy to express his views.
Wescoe's resignation letter and two press releases are available on the SDCERS website. His last day with SDCERS will be Nov. 30.
-- LIAM DILLON
Tuesday, November 3 -- 4:17 pm
This Just In
The follow-ups, insights and shorter stories to emerge from a day of gathering the news.
Listen to voiceofsandiego.org's radio program on AM 600 KOGO: Latest Episode (October 18): Andrew Donohue and Scott Lewis talk in depth about the Chargers stadium search, municipal bankruptcy and whether residents are too dumb to vote on the City Hall project.
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