Like Graham, Minus the Lies

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Thursday afternoon, the Centre City Development Corp. sent out a press release to remind the public that it was going to be seeking input on how it should go about selecting a successor to former President Nancy Graham, whose changing story about her relationship with a couple of downtown developers has thrown into question a bevy of plans for the future of the city's urban core.

It reminded me that a reader had forwarded me an e-mail Jennifer LeSar, a member of CCDC's board, had sent to friends of the agency. LeSar is in charge of the effort to replace Graham. In her message, she reminded her associates that there were a couple of public hearings in coming days.

And she had a few suggestions about how she'd like things to go.

This snippet, in particular, made me chuckle:

Having your general concurrence that we have been trending in the right direction, and that may (sic) of Nancy’s traits (excluding failure to disclose conflicts) continue to be valued would be useful.

Yes, let's exclude those traits shall we? LeSar's saying, in other words, CCDC was "trending" well, and they need someone like Graham, only who doesn't have trouble with that whole telling-the-truth thing, to keep that trending going.

LeSar is tired of the other trend emerging.

We need some balance to the nay sayers that think CCDC should be shut down and that the board members are all corrupt!

One thing about the naysayers who want to shut down CCDC: They didn't like the direction in which the agency was "trending" before. Hard to see how finding the same type of leader as Graham (minus, well, you know) will "balance" that.

CCDC leaders, if they want to save the agency, need to dramatically recast it. To pretend that the criticisms only stem from the scandal is short-sighted. The scandal may have brought the criticism of the agency to a tipping point. But it was growing. Downtown's condo towers are built. What it lacks are schools, fire stations, parks and infrastructure -- aside from Little Italy, it lacks community. If CCDC wants to survive it will have to recast its effort as one solely focused on those issues. But then, naysayers will rightly wonder why you need a separate agency to do that at all.

And they'll have a good point.

I called LeSar to get some perspective and haven't yet heard back.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Friday, September 5 -- 2:24 pm

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Only Four Things to Watch

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In case you missed it, here's my column this week on the five things to watch now that the city attorney's race is revving up.

But there is a post script. One of my "things to watch" was whether the union of local unions, the Labor Council, would endorse either of the city attorney contests.

No need to look very hard. The group quietly made it known last week that they had decided not to decide who they would prefer to be the city attorney. The group did the same, you remember, with the mayor's race several months ago after flirting with one-time Republican darling Steve Francis.

Here's their explanation of the decision to stay out of the city attorney's race.

So what does that mean? A non-endorsement is a win for Goldsmith. The conservative Republican had little chance to get the endorsement. But if Aguirre is trying to make this a partisan, Democrats vs. Republicans, race, he just lost a big opportunity to bolster his Dem credentials.

On the other hand, he could revert to his long-held stance that unions and the Labor Council are part of an establishment he is continuing to challenge. Not sure if that's a winning argument, but it's definitely his type of argument.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Thursday, September 4 -- 4:53 pm

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More Lame Campaigns

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A Republican strategist sent me a note of response to this last post looking at the city of San Diego political scene through the goggles the presidential candidates' great war is providing us.

This Republican had a message of humility about the party's local prowess:

The 'lame' column was pretty good._

Remember, though, our side ran a shitload of lame campaigns in the city for a_long time. For years, in the 90s, we should have held the old 78th and the_overlapping senate seat. We also managed to lose control of the council by_losing safe GOP seats. We lost control of Oceanside, a GOP bastion, for_several years._And we ran a totally lame campaign for governor with Lungren.

All true. I never wanted to communicate that local Republicans were all unfailing geniuses. But this reinforces the point: They did have some trouble in the 90s and they learned from it all.

Local Democrats aren't even putting themselves in a position to learn in many cases.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Saturday, August 30 -- 12:01 pm

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McCain, Obama and San Diego

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If you're like me, you're eating up the news from the national political scene as if it were the biggest, juiciest brain pie you've ever had. I love watching the presidential campaign proceed.

What we're watching is the equivalent of two teams of chess grandmasters squaring off. The maneuvering; the back and forth; the messaging -- a good part of it has been genius. The rest has been very competent. But what can it tell us about San Diego politicians?

Well, let's look at what's happened so far nationally. Whatever you think about the politics of the Democrats, you have to admit they could not have hoped that the convention would go any better than that. What an unbelievable show. For all the worries about the logistics of Barack Obama's speech in the stadium, it seemed to come off magnificently.

But then we wake up today and what do we see? McCain all over the news.

McCain is pretty clearly behind in this game. He's like a football team going into the fourth quarter down by a touchdown. He's got plenty of time to turn things around, but he's behind. He can just keep playing, steady and safely and hope for a mistake from the other team. If he had chosen this route, he would have picked Gov. Tim Pawlenty from Minnesota or former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts to run as his choice for vice president. Both would have been safe choices, poised to help McCain take advantage of a slip-up on Obama's side.

But then he changes the game and goes for something big bringing aboard Gov. Sarah Palin from Alaska. Whatever you think of it, you know it's bold and impressive to take a risk like that. It has the potential to attract people to McCain's campaign who might not have come aboard. The risk and surprise also brings hours and hours of analysis and attention that wouldn't have come to such an extent. But the risk is just that: a risk. It has a downside and could prove costly in the way, say, Pawlenty wouldn't have.

So what's my point? My point is we're being set up to watch an historic, titanic, exulting political joust. The best minds in American politics are facing off. This hasn't happened in my experience watching this. It hasn't happened in the experience even of what I've studied.

Go back to 1972 (I'm a Nixon-studying freak this days). George McGovern's campaign was lame compared to the Richard Nixon machine, however illegal and repugnant we learned it was.

In 1976, because of the excesses of the Nixon machine, Gerald Ford's operation was rendered lame. The Democrats had the wind at their back when Jimmy Carter led them to a major victory.

In 1980, Carter's effort was lame compared to the passion and organization of the Reagan revolution.

In 1984, Mondale's campaign was lame and no match for the incumbent.

In 1988, Dukakis was lame and overmatched -- unable to deflect criticism or cast his opponent in the way he might have liked.

In 1992, the sitting president, George H.W. Bush couldn't avoid an attack from the right and the left -- lame.

1996 -- Dole: way lame. This is when I started to gain consciousness. Even I knew he had no shot.

2000 -- A good matchup but the Democrats just went through the whole exercise thinking that people would just recognize how much smarter they were than the other team. Even during the Florida recount debacle, they just assumed that they could take rational positions and everyone would realize they were right. They didn't fight, maneuver and strive for the win. That's lame.

2004 -- Kerry. Taking on an incumbent means you're going into it lame. He gave it a good shot.

Now. I think we're set for an epic and interesting battle.

So, how does this apply to city of San Diego politics? One thing that's clear about this place is that it's always easy to recognize the lame campaigns -- the ones that are weak and unable or unwilling to make the moves necessary to win.

Look back at the June Primary election:

• Mayor: Incumbent Jerry Sanders ran a smart, efficient campaign and blew out the lame organization Steve Francis spent so much to build. Francis did make bold moves but they were oddly calculated and ultimately ineffective locally. His strategy came from some kind of text book unfamiliar with San Diego nuances. This was not a battle of titanic political minds. It was, essentially, a blow out.
  
  
• City Attorney: No contest. Incumbent Mike Aguirre didn't even run a campaign. That instantly means his campaign was lame. His main opponent, Jan Goldsmith, ran an excellent campaign that was much more shrewd than Councilmen Brian Maienschein or Scott Peters put together. Now, the question is, will Aguirre have the money and support to match it for the final?
  
  
• City Council District 1: Good campaigning from all three candidates. No lame. This will be one to watch. It's no Obama/McCain, but there are shrewd people on both Sherri Lightner's team and Phil Thalheimer's. And they both have access to resources.



• City Council District 3: Same thing here. This is even a better local battle similar to what I'm talking about with Obama/McCain. Stephen Whitburn and Todd Gloria are both eloquent, principled and very shrewd. They are engaged in an epic battle in the community setting in the race for endorsements, resources and sheer enthusiasm. It's a dynamic race that has already displayed some great decision making and maneuvering. But look at the news this week: Whitburn and Gloria shared a joint endorsement from the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council in the primary, and now the union of unions has decided to fully back Gloria and snub Whitburn. On the other hand, Whitburn deftly secured the endorsement of the Democratic Party (and the money that came with it in the primary). It's a fascinating battle.



• City Council District 5: This doesn't even deserve a paragraph: Carl DeMaio's organization, campaign and strategy was astonishing and uncontestable. His opponent was propped up by people who wanted to talk bad about DeMaio. It was lame and it wasn't even pretending not to be.



• City Council District 7: Marti Emerald's team once touted a poll that showed her trouncing her opponent, April Boling. Boling came out ahead in the primary. Emerald fired her consultant. I think by her own measurement, Emerald's campaign was totally lame.

What's the common thread in the races? If there was a lame campaign, it was coming from the left side of the political spectrum.

What this city needs is some more game. One of the most telling parts of this David Washburn profile from months ago about the local Democratic Party are the quotes of explanation from party leaders excusing themselves and explaining their lack of long-term building. They, for instance, explain the lack of a Democrat running for mayor as natural and to be expected, even in a Democratic-leaning town, because, hey, what were they going to do? Run against an incumbent?

This is important, and let's bring it back to McCain/Obama. Local Democrats may have dozens of articulate reasons why not running a competitive and well-funded Democrat for mayor was a natural evolution of their "growth" as a local party.

But the minds behind this amazing struggle between Obama and McCain didn't just show up for the game. The candidates and the people working with them fought and lost tough campaigns. This fighting and losing taught them what to do and they have learned over time. If it wanted to take over the local political scene, the local Democratic Party should be running young ambitious politicians for all seats not just the ones they think they can win, but all the races so that they can build the experience and expertise to win in the future.

The party, though, doesn't do this. It doesn't learn. The Republicans did. And that's why there will be one lame campaign and one well-run campaign defining San Diego elections for the time being.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Friday, August 29 -- 6:18 pm

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Chargers Stadium Feedback

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I got two bits of feedback from readers about my Chargers' stadium post I thought were worth sharing. Remember, the post was basically my jaw dropping at the statistics compiled in a New York Times piece about the Jets-Giants football stadium being built in New Jersey. I asserted the football teams appeared to be paying for the stadium themselves and not taking taxpayer dollars.

Reader VK wrote in with some perspective;

My brief review of Wikipedia suggests that the stadium is not privately financed: they're getting the land for free, and New Jersey has agreed to assume the repayment of the debt for the old stadium.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised whether there was other bribes, like a property tax abatement or exemption, etc.

Interesting. Government subsidies, we should know by now, come in many forms.

Also, the reader had a point about my argument that a new tax in San Diego would be almost impossible to pass because of the need for a two-thirds majority approval:

you wouldn't necessarily need a vote. If they did revenue bonds (i.e. future tax increment to be generated by the project was pledged as collateral for the bonds), they could do it without a vote. This is Gaylord model.

Anyone who has read me knows my feelings on revenue bonds not put up for a public vote. I'm not going there now, suffice to say that if they successfully loaded more than $500 million of revenue bonds on local government backs without increasing a fee or tax on something, they'd be handing a town like Chula Vista a one-way ticket to bankruptcy land.

Another reader had a San Diego angle worthy of exploration. Remember, the Jets and Giants are paying for this new facility largely by charging their fans thousands in "personal seat licenses" -- fees charged just so fans can maintain the right to purchase season tickets in the new stadium.

In case you didn't know the PADRES sold PSLs for a bunch (but not all) of the seats at Petco. Everything in the loge area in the luxury area and (little unsure) I THINK for lower deck seats between the bases.

Now if I had the time to be an enterprising reporter for an electronic news source I would go find out how things have gone both in the "resale" market for those AND in respect to the Padres remarketing those PSLs which were returned to the club because of a weak resale market. That might help put the Chargers stuff in perspective.

Us enterprising reporters from electronic news sources are pretty busy but the reader is right. Any Padres ticket holders out there who remember? Anyone else have some facts to fill in this perspective?

The point again, is simple. It's getting to the point -- because of inflation, the weak dollar, construction costs, and similar efforts around the country -- where building a new stadium in San Diego would probably cost well more than $1.5 billion. I pegged it at $2 billion if things are delayed as much as three more years. This is an immense amount of money. Even if we somehow held the cost at $1.5 billion (less than the Jets-Giants stadium already under construction) that would be well more than twice the cost estimated only a couple years ago when that effort didn't pencil out for investors.

Send me your own thoughts.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Wednesday, August 27 -- 10:13 am

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New Charger Stadium? Ain't Happening

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Jeepers.

If you are at all interested in the issue of whether the Chargers will ever have a new stadium in the San Diego area at all, you should read this story in yesterday's New York Times.

There are some jaw-dropping numbers in this piece.

The story centers around the ticket prices fans of the Yankees, Jets, Giants and Mets will have to pay to watch their teams in their various new facilities. Try to ingest this paragraph.:

The teams are confident market research supports the increases, but season-ticket holders say the price they are being asked to pay in the new stadiums -- the Mets’ $800 million Citi Field, the $1.3 billion Yankee Stadium and the $1.6 billion (and climbing) Jets-Giants stadium -- is turning them into something other than fans. Instead, interviews with two dozen fans indicated, they are starting to feel like unwitting bankers.

Whoa. $1.6 billion for a new Jets-Giants stadium? And the price tag is climbing!!??

The latest figures from Dallas claim the new stadium there is going to cost a total of $1.1 billion. It had the advantage of going through earlier than the New York project. The Dallas facility is incredible: Look at this place.

OK, take a second to process this. A San Diego discussion continues among those hoping to build the Chargers a new stadium to compete with these big beasts of the sports world in Texas and on the East Coast. The conversation left off in Chula Vista -- a city dealing with brutal internal politics, a major fiscal crisis and a much more pronounced desire to build a convention center on the bay front than a stadium. That city, however big of football fans its residents may be, is kind of shrugging its shoulders at the idea of a stadium.

Also, let's remember that there's a huge power plant right where any stadium would go on the Chula Vista bay front.

So if it costs $1.6 billion to build a stadium in New York -- and $1.1 billion to build one a few years earlier in Texas, where there's almost as much land as air -- how much can we imagine a Chula Vista bay front stadium costing in a few years? I mean, they can't even start building until the power plant is gone. And it's not even being taken down yet.

So here it is: With the dollar collapsing, construction costs and inflation soaring, is there any way in the world that a new stadium on bay-front land could cost anything less than $2 billion?

Wrap your mind around that figure for a second. The Chargers had a proposal to build a new stadium at Qualcomm for maybe $600 million at most. And it wouldn't pencil out for investors. That much, a measly $600 million, wouldn't work out for the housing developers who were supposedly going to build it in exchange for the chance to build some condos.

That's $600 million. Imagine this region trying to finance a $1.5 billion-to-$2 billion dollar construction project.

No way. It ain't happening.

Look at the Giants-Jets proposal. It's being done without government funding. Hurray, right? It can be done.

But look at it: These are two teams partnering up to build the thing. Both teams are taking on $650 million in debt each. How are they going to pay the debt off? They're passing the costs to season-ticket holders who will have to pay $1,000 to $20,000 just to keep their rights to their tickets.

Again, these are two NFL teams that will play twice as many games at their home stadium than the Chargers would. And both teams each have arguably bigger fan bases that the Chargers (no question the Giants have a bigger following. The Jets? It's probably a close call).

So unless San Diego gets another football team, (the Escondido Wildfires anyone?) it will have to close the funding gap with something else.

What? Taxpayer dollars.

OK, the fact is, whatever public funding the Chargers are able to squeeze out of local government would have to be immense just to make the project possible. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of millions. And yet, unlike Dallas or Denver or Phoenix, it is virtually impossible in San Diego to pass a special tax to finance a new stadium. In those places, you merely ask people to vote and see if you can get a majority. In San Diego, you'd have to get a super majority of two-thirds support.

Ain't happening.

So the Chargers would have to finance it. Look at this news out of New York, Charger fans, you want a stadium, you're going to have to pony up: at least double what fans in New York are going to cough up. Are you prepared to pay $2,000 to $40,000 just to maintain your right to purchase Charger season tickets (which themselves would cost double)?

If so, maybe we can work something out.

But the wildly inflating prices of new stadiums in this country, and San Diego's inability to pass a special tax to subsidize it, make it almost certain that there's going to be no deal. Heck, even if the local governments, as the result of some kind of unexpected Kumbaya moment and were able to throw in as much as $500 million to the project, the Chargers and their fans would still have to come up with well more than $1 billion.

Both these things happening are equally unlikely. Without a dramatic and unimaginable shift in local fortunes, the Chargers will not be getting a new stadium in the next decade. If this fact means the team will leave, that's something the fans should get used to.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Tuesday, August 26 -- 12:36 pm

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The Ballpark Village Nightmare

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In case you missed it, here was my column from Friday. I'm back, slowly but surely, into the writing thing. The column's theme was pretty simple: The very existence of CCDC -- the taxpayer-funded nonprofit that directs redevelopment activities downtown -- is in question and was before the scandal regarding its president emerged. Now, the scandal could very well be the bowling ball that breaks this camel's back.

But I hadn't had a chance to digest Thursday's news that the Ballpark Village development may be caught up in this mess now that it's been revealed that the former president, Nancy Graham, and one of the main partners in the Village -- Lennar -- had an ongoing financial relationship as she was negotiating the Village.

This is huge. You cannot overstate just how big of a deal the Ballpark Village is. It is 7.1 acres of proposed housing, office, retail and a hotel. Actually, not just "a hotel," a 1,900-room megotel. It's touted as the largest Marriott Hotel on the West Coast. And as the U-T noted before this latest furor, it displays pretty underwhelming architecture as well.

But dial back and remember this deal. In 2005, as this project was getting its first approval. An angry controversy had arisen between community groups, labor and the developers of the project. And then, poof! The acrimony was gone after a series of secret meetings.

So now the question becomes: If Graham's conflict of interest was enough to scuttle or delay the development of one condo project on 7th and Market Streets, how would an equally offensive conflict with one of the developers of the Ballpark Village not endanger that project as well?

As reporter Rob Davis revealed last week, Graham's involvement in the Ballpark Village negotiations is undisputed:

While at CCDC, Graham was extensively involved in a process to modify the Ballpark Village project, which was originally approved shortly before she took office in 2005. Her personal calendars show numerous meetings with the project's developers, a team that includes JMI Realty, a development company controlled by Padres owner John Moores. Steve Peace, a Moores advisor, said Graham had been "totally involved" in the modifications to include a large Marriott hotel.

Peace, special advisor to Moores, said JMI Realty was unaware of any Ballpark Village-related contracts with CCDC during Graham's tenure. However, he said some may exist and called on CCDC to act quickly to redo anything that Graham may have influenced so the project could advance on schedule. The City Council is set in October to consider modifications to the project, Peace said, which is planning to add a 1,929-room Marriott hotel, slated to be the largest on the West Coast.

"We want them to take an abundance of caution," he said. "Obviously, we don't want to go forward with a contract that's potentially challengeable downstream."

Obviously. There are a lot of people very worried that Graham's little penchant for non-disclosure will somehow sabotage this project. If they're not, they should be.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Monday, August 25 -- 3:41 pm

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The Pam Anderson 'Web Page'

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Given my previous expressed support for the straight-talking Chula Vista city manager, David Garcia, a couple of readers this morning inquired about my thoughts on this story in the Union-Tribune today about Garcia's use of the internet at work.

The story has all sorts of innuendo about the supposedly "inappropriate" things Garcia was doing on the computer. Considered among the stream of news briefs about this or that teacher or public official downloading pornography at work, it's not a light charge.

But the story and Garcia's accusers never shared exactly what it was that he was inappropriately viewing. There's an allusion by City Councilman Steve Castenada that Garcia spent "an inordinate amount of time viewing the Pamela Anderson Web page."

This is rather comical, first for the awkward way it's presented. It's the way you might imagine John McCain saying it: I tell you he was lookin' at the Pamela Anderson Web page. As if there is one said page among various "Web pages" floating around that Internet thing.

I went trolling for "the Pamela Anderson Web page" -- shhh, don't tell the board -- and couldn't find anything named that. I settled on her "official site" the pamelachannel.com.

And I was immediately intrigued:

To say that Pamela Anderson is enjoying a full life would clearly be an understatement; the most recognizable icon of the new millennium has hit her stride again in so many different fields.

Wow. Who knew? I hadn't realized she was the "most recognizable icon of the new millennium."

The other allusion to wrongdoing in the Chula Vista City Manager's Office was the admission that Garcia was looking at vacation photos in his office. The horror.

In the news climate that exists right now, if you're going to accuse someone in the newspaper of downloading inappropriate content, you better come with something a bit sexier than vacation photos and an "inordinate amount of time" spent on a page described as merely the Pam Anderson page. I mean, what was he doing with the Pamela Anderson Web page? Is he reading about the "most recognizable icon of the new millennium" or projecting her images onto the wall in his office next to his vacation photos?

It's difficult to care about it right now, but if the U-T and his critics want us to, they need to bring the details.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Tuesday, August 19 -- 6:38 pm

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The Mayor Makes His Move

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So the moral is, if a city board or commission you care about is not functioning well and its board members' terms have expired, all you have to do to get the mayor to care about it is uncover a massive scandal.

That's all.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Tuesday, August 19 -- 3:34 pm

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New Comments System

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OK, as many of you have noticed, we have reformatted the reader comments system a bit.

Underneath our commentary posts and letters, etc., you can now reply not only to the story, but also to specific comments so that back and forth discussions between two readers are a bit easier to distinguish.

Secondly, and more importantly, there's now an Editor's Choice section for comments of value. Reader comments that are respectful, intelligent and that genuinely add to the discussion will be promoted to the Editor's Choice section regardless of their point of view on the issue. It's a way for us to encourage the kind of constructive dialogue that the commenting system can enable if it's not dominated by some of the more vitriolic posters.

Also, there's a different style and font. A few concerns have already been raised about the font size. Others have just loved the new look. Redesigns, I've noticed before, are generally met with immediate resistance and then embraced over time. Please give it a few days and if you still don't like any particular attribute of it, let us know.

But the goal is simple: We're going to continue to try to raise the quality of our online discussions.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Tuesday, August 19 -- 4:17 am

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Tenuous Connection

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Sorry for the slow posting lately. We're in the middle of a number of different projects. Some of them you'll see the result of soon, I hope.

I'm actually traveling right now, but as I sat in the airport here in Atlanta, I wanted to make a point about something:

If you didn't get a chance to read Kelly Bennett's excellent story the other day about the now-approved Grantville area and the bizarre legal settlement between the city and county of San Diego, you should. It was very well told.

Basically, the story goes like this. The Grantville area is not so nice. I think most people agree it could use a facelift, some infrastructure and -- most importantly -- a cogent plan that outlines how it can reach its potential.

So, City Councilman Jim Madaffer and others want to turn it into a redevelopment zone. This would allow it to retain and reinvest new tax dollars that may come in as the area improves. But this means that those tax dollars won't go to the state, the county and other parts of the city.

So the county sued -- it doesn't want to lose that revenue.

The county and city argued and then came to a settlement. The county would allow Grantville to become a redevelopment area, if the city sent some of the funds to its downtown redevelopment agency, CCDC, to be used to help the county build that beautiful park they're planning near Little Italy along the harbor.

How could redevelopment money set aside for Grantville be used to build a park downtown?

Well that's the beauty of Bennett's story. She really explains it well. It's simple. Grantville -- that area far to the northeast of downtown is really actually downtown because the trolley line connects it. That's the reasoning the city and county lawyers are using.

If that's true, then, is Los Angeles actually San Diego because we're connected by the Amtrak train?

Now, here's the point I wanted to make. I am a fan of the plans to turn those huge parking lots on either side of the county building into a nice bayside park. I think it's a fantastic idea -- the kind that's so good that it's probably never going to happen.

But never mind my pessimism. The plan to build it has been stalled. You might remember that county Supervisor Ron Roberts wanted to give some county land nearby to a developer in exchange for the developer building a parking garage to house all the cars that would be displaced by removal of the parking lots along the harbor.

We can follow that up later.

When I heard that the city had done this deal, I was confused, as were other fans of the harborside park. Why? Well, we want the park. But this deal was just bizarre.

Now, it's clear. This is not good for the park.

If this is the only way that the county can afford to build the park, the park's in trouble. And if rightful opposition arises to this ridiculous deal, and it succeeds in killing it, do we also somehow kill this park?

That's just dumb.

And on the other side, some argue this was the only way to get Grantville its money.

That's just dumb too. If the idea of Grantville being a redevelopment area is so shaky you have to basically bribe the county with bizarre reasoning like that, we're going to have to figure something else out.

I'm going to check in with the county and see what they're thinking about regarding funding for the downtown park. It shouldn't be with Grantville money.

Grantville is no more a part of downtown than LA is a part of San Diego.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Friday, August 15 -- 4:52 pm

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Like Mike

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I have a feeling a lot of people will be talking about this morning's debate so I won't harp on the obvious absurdities of the exchanges.

But there was one point that bothered me. Incumbent City Attorney Mike Aguirre kept accusing his rival, Jan Goldsmith, of doing this or that simply to curry favor with the people who were endorsing him.

It was an incessant repetition. Aguirre kept thinking he had pinned Goldsmith down on the questions about who endorsed the former judge and who he was beholden too. This was kind of weak.

After all, Aguirre was the one with all the endorsements in 2004. It was Aguirre who pleaded with reporters to attend his big press conference when he announced the endorsement of the firefighters and police officers. Yet today, support from those groups was a bludgeon Aguirre's used to hit Goldsmith. Aguirre said support from unions was the only reason Goldsmith might criticize the city attorney's legacy pension lawsuit, for example.

But that's an old point.

One of the groups Aguirre was proud to receive the endorsement of in 2004 was the San Diego Association of Realtors.

Now, if I were him and I acted like he did today, I might make use of that little historical fact.

When Aguirre was explaining his foreclosure sanctuary lawsuit he had this to say (emphasis mine):

Foreclosures as a concept exist to collect when there's a legitimate debt but the state of Massachusetts, and our case here in San Diego, we've established a certain type of loan which was a subprime loan that was a predatory loan that had certain characteristics very specific characteristics that on their face was unfair.

What's happening is we need to stop those foreclosures stop the use of foreclosing for illegal loans so that we can try to help stabilize the market here in San Diego that's one of the functions that the city attorney's office performs -- a consumer function.

Whoa donkey! "Stabilize the market here in San Diego..." That's a clarion call to anxious homeowners all over the county who may not be facing foreclosure but are surely a bit freaked out about the plummeting value of their homes.

But perhaps not as freaked out about it as are local Realtors. Yes, the group who endorsed Aguirre four years ago spent every available minute of their time since then trying to convince people not to worry about those crazy loans that Aguirre now says are illegal. The housing market in San Diego would never go down, they claimed. Go ahead, get the weirdest loan you want and it won't matter because you'll be able to refinance or sell your home. Heck, you don't really want to live in that home longer than two years anyway, do you?

Now things have changed. Nobody wanted to "stabilize the market" when home prices were skyrocketing. Nobody cared about prudent residents who avoided the frenzy and temptation to get one of those loans. They found themselves priced out of the market.

Where's their city attorney?

Now, just as homes are becoming more affordable, Aguirre says it's time to stabilize the market. Who would that benefit? Most of the really struggling people trapped the worst loans would probably be better off foreclosing and moving to a rental than desperately trying to pay even a restructured mortgage.

The people who would undoubtedly benefit from a stabilized market are Realtors. Their commissions would finally recover. They could start selling again with assurance that their empty promises about the market being stable are now backed by the public's top lawyer.

Why, if I were like Mike, I might insinuate that the only reason he's doing what he's doing is as part of a desire to lobby for the group who endorsed him -- the powerful Realtors group.

And I would be wrong.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Monday, August 11 -- 9:19 pm

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The Aguirre/Goldsmith 'Conversation'

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We posted this in TJI, but I thought you all might want to comment on it so I'm putting it up here.



Who won?

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Monday, August 11 -- 12:27 pm

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The R-Word

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Let's get something straight. I really like talking with Kelly Cunningham and always have since he was an economist at the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. In fact, that group hasn't done much of anything of any worth since Cunningham and others left it a few years ago.

Cunningham is a smart analyst and a resource to the community. And if Steve Francis' San Diego Institute for Policy Research has done anything right, it's provide Cunningham a regular forum.

That said, here was Kelly Cunningham in his "Economic Ledger" released in February:

Local blogs and electronic news sites daily point to the softened real estate market as a sign that the sky is falling and that we can brace for a significant downturn.

We take a contrarian view.

While the nation and state may be in or going into recession, San Diego’s employment numbers do not suggest the local region has or soon will go into recession.

Hmm... Electronic news sites? To whom could he have been referring I wonder? One thing about us electronic types, we know how to archive.

Now, Cunningham has changed his tune.

Here was his quote today in Kelly Bennett's story:

"San Diego went through the (national) recession of 2001 without actually going into recession -- we never had negative job growth," said Kelly Cunningham, economist at the San Diego Institute for Policy Research, a conservative think tank. "I was thinking maybe we could get through this similarly but this time it doesn't seem to be the case."

That Cunningham is now embracing the view that the real estate downturn is so severe that it will destroy jobs in industries to which it is only tenuously connected is not something necessarily to celebrate. Yes, it's what thinkers like Rich Toscano warned about starting years ago. But I would have preferred to be wrong.

If the housing market's implosion indeed is causing so many widespread economic problems that reverberate to all kinds of industries and employers, this is nothing to be happy about.

As Toscano and others ably demonstrate, the housing market still has a long way to go in this correction.

It will soon be time for everyone to recognize just how widespread the consequences of that might be.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Friday, August 8 -- 8:05 am

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Elsewhere?

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Note to self (and everyone, I suppose): If you're going to go to a beautiful country for some reason, go ahead and stay longer than six days. It's fun.

When I got back Monday, I meant to tell a little about the trip to Guatemala a few of us took. It was a wonderful place. Andrew Donohue's wedding could not have been better. But upon my arrival, I heard there was a bit of a change in District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis' indefatigable pursuit of public integrity so I just jumped back into the thick of things with that.

I'm still waiting on a call back. I'd like to know a bit more about why Patrick O'Toole was transferred away from Dumanis' public integrity unit and what that means for the great cause. Like I said before, his placement at the top of the unit was apparently worthy of a major public announcement. Now he's been removed and they're just clamming up. I suppose they'd rather just keep letting me put the whole thing into perspective alone.

So let's do that shall we? I need some help. Can anyone out there think of a district attorney somewhere who has a functioning public corruption investigation team? I'd like to look into some examples of DAs getting this done right -- with seasoned prosecutors bringing strong cases over many years and, most importantly, giving the entire community the sense that everyone needs to keep things straight or the DA will pounce. Perhaps there's just no one who has figured out how to do this well. Or maybe, San Diego is squeaky clean and has nothing to investigate and the district attorney has to move prosecutors out of the division after only 17 months just to keep them from dying of boredom.

That must be it. But if you do know of a good example of another community's prosecutor setting this kind of thing up right from whom we might learn, let's give it a look anyway.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Wednesday, August 6 -- 11:18 pm

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DA Transfers Corruption Guy

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After much fanfare and about 17 months on the job, Patrick O'Toole has been reassigned away from the high profile position he held as District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis' chief in charge of the public integrity unit. You'll remember Dumanis started the unit with a press conference in the spring of 2007. She touted the credentials of O'Toole and his colleague, Leon Schorr.

This was the press conference where Dumanis also announced she wouldn't be endorsing candidates for political office. She didn't want her office to be used as a "pawn" for politicians. The event was a bold stand for clean and accountable public officials. The decision not to endorse candidates was an honorable one meant to keep the stench of politics away from criminal investigations. And it stayed that way, of course, until she proceeded to endorse candidates in every single office where her opinion might matter.

That's another story.

It was O'Toole who handled the not-so-successful prosecution of Chula Vista City Councilman Steve Castaneda -- one of the two major springtime embarrassments for the district attorney. O'Toole failed to secure a conviction of Castaneda for supposedly lying when he said he did not want to buy a condo that the councilman never bought. O'Toole also briefly headed the San Diego city attorney's Public Integrity Unit.

In O'Toole's only case there, an aide to City Councilman Tony Young approached the city attorney and admitted to having asked constituents in Young's council district for loans. O'Toole nailed him with two misdemeanors before moving to the DA's office.

So why did Dumanis, who was so proud of her decision to form a Public Integrity Unit and recruit O'Toole to it, suddenly move him to another area?

I've so far been unable to get any comment from the District Attorney's Office. Apparently, though O'Toole's assignment to the unit was worth a press release and press conference, his reassignment out of it is not.

O'Toole said he couldn't talk about it until he'd been cleared by Dumanis' public information officers. He said only that people move around in that office all the time.

Hmm. So it's just a random reassignment? Perhaps they all get short terms in their divisions? A prosecutor brought on to take over an entire area of public corruption investigations needs, I would think, to be in that position longer than 17 months.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Tuesday, August 5 -- 3:42 pm

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Hasta Pronto

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Mi amigo, Señor Scott Lewis, left for Guatemala without saying adiós to all his loyal readers. So I'm saying it for him.

SLOP will return next week with all the commentary, wit and analysis you would expect from a well-vacationed writer. Hasta Pronto.

-- SAM HODGSON

Wednesday, July 30 -- 11:00 am

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Our Fault?

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If you haven't seen it yet, check out this letter from Jeff Jordon, a police officer. The theme of the letter is simple. Jordon says the city -- leaders, taxpayers, all of us -- is to blame as much if not more for the death of the dog I wrote a post about the other day.

Why? Because we make the police work too hard for too little.

The resources available and the continued demands placed on the San Diego Police Department in its current state made this tragedy fated.

This is an interesting argument for a policeman to make. I have no doubt that when they detain someone, they welcome such excuses.

A couple of observations: I have no doubt that the culture at the police department could have contributed to the death of the police dog. Perhaps officers are going to have trouble taking care of their canine partners if they work long hours. But they are paid more to take care of the dogs and, as I noted, many of them will receive a portion of that extra pay for the rest of their lives.

The letter's author, Jeff Jordon, a police officer, argues that too much overtime undoubtedly contributed to the dog's death after being left in a car for as long as seven hours. Yet Jordon says also he hasn't spoken to the officer about what happened to the dog.

Hmmm. Does he know that to be the cause of the incident or did he not talk to the officer?

Not everything that goes wrong at the police department can be blamed on pay, benefits and resources available. It's hard for me to believe the police, many of whom want citizens to accept personal responsibility for their actions, would so easily cast the blame for incidents like this on the city and society in general.

I mean I can't imagine a cop being very sympathetic to me if they catch me doing something wrong and I plead that it's my employer's fault for making me work too much. I would assume that police generally have little patience for that kind of excuse.

The officer involved may very well be torn up by the dog's death. He may be reeling. But his colleagues should wait for him to make excuses about why it happened. And he should make sure the excuses he does make are ones to which he would be sympathetic as well.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Tuesday, July 29 -- 11:16 am

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Bon Voyage, D-Cop

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What seems like a long time ago, I wrote a long profile about a media magnate, Dean Singleton, who was purchasing The Salt Lake Tribune. It's fair to say there was incredible consternation about what was going to happen to the paper. The paranoia was peppered with religious fears as the Tribune had always been the non-Mormon paper. But overall the concern was about journalism in Salt Lake City. Would it suffer if the paper was not allowed to go back to the family that once owned it and instead went to a corporation like Singleton's MediaNews?

The Tribune is a better paper now in my opinion. It focuses on local news. Its front page is filled with local, staff-written content -- not the wire stories from The New York Times and other services that are available in, say, The New York Times. However, Tribune is facing troubles just like the Union-Tribune here.

So it's based on that experience that I have to disagree with Point Loma Nazarene University's journalism professor, Dean Nelson, who recently was on the KPBS radio talking about the U-T's for sale sign. Nelson had some great insights, particularly when he talked about how great voiceofsandiego.org is and how we are a potential model for how communities can support journalism. I can't thank him enough for the recognition.

But I have to disagree with his statement that a corporate takeover of the Union-Tribune would definitely hurt the paper and the community. I don't know what publisher David Copley brings to the paper that's so special we have to worry about losing his influence. The paper is already shedding staff -- with rumors of more pain on the way -- and it's cutting what it offers readers. It's hard to imagine how it could contract any faster.

Besides that, though, new leadership could enforce a more local perspective on the Union-Tribune. New leadership might recognize that the paper should stop trying to be a news source for the country or the world -- because people can get national or international news from much better outlets than the random wire stories that the U-T regurgitates.

New leadership could bring ambition and passion to a paper that for some reason rarely publishes major Sunday investigations and has lost so many of it's talented local writers -- people who wrote with authority and context.

I could be wrong, but I've seen people worry about a family lose control of a local newspaper and, miraculously, I've seen that local newspaper suddenly write more local news. Let me be the first to eat crow if saying goodbye to David Copley somehow turns out to be a bad thing for San Diego journalism.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Monday, July 28 -- 7:08 pm

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Heatstroke

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You may have heard the tragic story about a police officer whose canine companion died inside a sweltering car in Alpine in 100-degree heat. The Union-Tribune reported the other day on a Department of Animal Services investigation that found the dog had been left in the car with the windows rolled up for "possibly as long as seven hours."

It was really a terrible story.

The U-T quoted Animal Services Director Dawn Danielson, who described it thusly:

"It's a horrific way to die," Danielson said. "He's panting hot air, his insides heat up, he bleeds internally. He's in a state of panic, trying desperately to get out."

The officer, Paul Hubka, may face charges for the neglect.

But there's a brutal irony. The dog's death occurred on June 20. As first reported in the Reader, Hubka and two other officers had just won a lawsuit against their employer -- the city of San Diego -- in which they demanded that their eventual retirement from the city include the extra compensation they got from taking care of the dogs.

In other words, when you retire from the city, your pension is calculated based on how high your salary is. Officers who take care of dogs and know how to work with them on the job get paid 3.5 hours of "premium" overtime every week for their trouble.

The city doesn't count overtime when calculating someone's pension. But the city somehow included canine overtime in a list of types of compensation to be used in the pension formula and the officers decided to press their case. They wanted the overtime to be calculated in their retirement checks. They made a good argument and they won. The city attorney appealed, spent hundreds of thousands on an outside law firm to fight it, and still lost.

The retirement system didn't have the exact number handy of how much of a pension boost this will be for the officers involved. Michael Conger, the attorney who handled the case, told me that the case will mean that each officer who took care of a canine partner between the years of 2000 and 2006 will receive about $1,000 or $2,000 dollars a year for the rest of their lives -- which adds up.

So the officer will now be paid for the rest of his life for taking care of the dogs he worked with, including the one who roasted in his car last month.

-- SCOTT LEWIS

Friday, July 25 -- 5:21 pm

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