Several people asked how I found out about Luigi Cannoni, the man who moved into a deteriorating house on 41st Street in City Heights six months ago and has transformed it into an oasis of green in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods.
I first heard about Luigi several weeks ago, when our education reporter, Emily Alpert, returned to the newsroom after a meeting with Cindy Marten, Central Elementary School's principal.
Emily was in Marten's office and noticed a bowl of cherry tomatoes sitting on her desk.
"I asked if she gardened," Emily told me. "And she said, 'No! There's this man!'" They were a gift from Luigi.
She told Emily a little about him, and when she returned to the newsroom, Emily said she thought she had a good story for me.
A couple of weeks later I called Marten for more details, and a few days later, showed up on Luigi's front porch.
Keep an eye out for future installments about Luigi, and thanks to Emily for asking about that bowl of tomatoes.
The city of San Diego has secured the use of a privately owned lot on 15th and J streets as the location for this year's temporary winter homeless shelter.
The site, owned by developer OliverMcMillan, was one of two sites selected by City Council to host the shelter this year at its Oct. 13 meeting. It remained unclear whether the site, which hosted the shelter last year, would be available because the owner said he had received federal stimulus funds to develop it.
The Mayor's Office met with developer Dene Oliver, who agreed to make the site available, according to San Diego CityBeat. Had the site not been available, the shelter would have been housed in an empty city-owned warehouse nearby.
The shelter, CityBeat reports, will be open by Thanksgiving, several days earlier than the previously anticipated Dec. 2 opening.
Click here for background and links to our previous coverage on this issue.
Ken Jones, founder of KPBS, the first radio station licensed to a California State University campus in 1960, died Friday at the age of 90, the station announced today.
Jones was a speech communications professor at what in the 1950s was called San Diego State College. In September of 1960, he launched KEBS, a five-days-a-week educational radio station that broadcast for two-and-a-half hours a day.
Born in 1919 in Pittsburgh, Jones was initiated into the world of the airwaves as an Army radio officer during World War II. He studied at Northwestern University, and received a master's degree from Stanford University before moving to San Diego in 1948, according to a KPBS press release.
Jones is survived by his wife, Marian, four sons and four grandchildren.
From my hotel window I can see the border fence with Ciudad Juarez, and a residential neighborhood that starts shortly behind it and ascends the slope of a mountain. On the side of the mountain are painted, in big white letters and in Spanish, the words: "Ciudad Juarez. The Bible is the truth. Read it."
The words are a bit disconcerting, considering that beneath them sprawls the city that holds the inglorious distinction of being Mexico's murder capital. Drug violence has been the cause of more than 3,000 deaths there since the start of last year.
And there's the fence itself. This is the first border town I've visited outside of San Diego. I flew a long way to get here, and the desert was vast. Looking out the window it's baffling that the rusted fence I see is the same one I wrote about a couple of months ago in San Diego, more than 700 miles away.
So there are those images, which are certainly powerful and unsettling ones, and which have come to define the perception of the borderlands in San Diego and the rest of the Southwest for many Americans.
But then there are the ones that I heard so eloquently expressed today, during the first day of the conference that has convened leaders of civil society both in the United States and Mexico's border regions. They are trying to promote opportunity for trans-border exchanges of language, community, commerce, ideas, and innovation.
I have met people from California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas who believe in the words “hopeful,” “culture” and “beauty,” and who think you have to believe in those words if you are to create good out of a region often feared, and convince skeptics that it's possible.
There are grant makers, community health promoters, education advocates, housing providers, and even a few journalists who want to dwell on the border's untold stories. I'm coming away with some interesting future story ideas of my own.
What are your thoughts on the untold stories of San Diego's border? What should I be asking about while I'm here, among people who believe there's more to the border than a rusted fence meant to keep weapons, drugs, and people out?
The New York Times has a story today with plenty of parallels to San Diego's annual winter shelter ordeal.
Residents of Hillsborough County, Fla., were up in arms (literally) over a proposal to erect tents that would serve 250 homeless people. Below are some highlights.
About the proposal, one resident said:
I’m not opposed to helping homeless people. It’s just this is no place for that.
Said one of the County Commissioners to vote on the plan:
In these tough financial times, someone has stepped forward and has been willing to reach out a hand of generosity. That’s what this country has been founded on.
Then he introduced a motion to deny the plan. Commissioners rejected it by a 4-3 vote.
Linda Hinson, 61, a retiree in East Lake, said defeat of the camp plan meant “I don’t have to go out and get a gun.” She declared that there were already enough shelters.
“No there’s not,” interjected Tom Atchison, director of a social service agency with 120 long-term beds for the homeless.
Mr. Atchison told Ms. Hinson there was a six-month wait for a bed, but she ignored his comment. She kept talking about crime as she pushed an elderly neighbor in a wheelchair toward the parking lot.
The City Council decided on two sites for this year's winter homeless shelter. The primary site, at 15th Street and Island Avenue, was the site of last year's winter shelter. Council had previously been told the site, which the city spent $140,000 to prepare for the shelter last year, would be unavailable this year.
The site's owner, OliverMcMillan, said the site had received federal stimulus funds that had to be expended on the property.
If that site remains unavailable, the shelter will be placed in an empty warehouse at the corner of 13th Street and F Street. City Council voted 6 to 2 on the sites, with Council President Ben Hueso and Councilman Kevin Faulconer voting no.
Rosemary Johnston, the legislative chairwoman of the county's Regional Continuum of Care Council, which addresses homelessness countywide, on Tuesday sent a letter to City Council members urging them to select a downtown location for the temporary winter homeless shelter at their Oct. 13 meeting.
Citing the Jan. 30 homeless count conducted by the Regional Taskforce on Homelessness, Johnston said it made no logical sense to move the shelter outside of downtown. District 2, which includes downtown, was home to 1,098 homeless people, according to the count.
District 3, with the second highest concentration of homeless people, was home to only 455. Here's the complete breakdown, according to Johnston:
District 1 - 48 District 2 - 1,098 District 3 - 455 District 4 - 3 District 5 - 66 District 6 - 111 District 7 - 11 District 8 - 115
But District 2 Councilman Kevin Faulconer has opposed the temporary shelter being placed in his district. In recent months, he has supported his stance by arguing that homelessness is a regional problem that requires regional solutions.
According to Johnston, while that may be true, the greatest need remains downtown.
Because the street population is not distributed evenly throughout the city, it is not logical, efficient, or effective to place shelters or services in districts with a very low homeless population. The issue of access to services is very important and compounded by the lack of convenient access to public transportation throughout the city.
The Mayor's Office released a new list of potential sites for this year's winter homeless shelter on Sept. 28. It includes 27 sites, spread across the 8 council districts. Only 10 are suitable to accommodate the tent and the services it will provide, according to a staff report.
The list of potential sites was the second the Mayor's Office has provided to the council. Last month, council members rejected a list of proposals that contained only downtown locations. They asked the city to expand its search beyond downtown, but they all refused to propose possible sites within their own districts, as the mayor had requested.
The council will take up the issue at their next meeting on Oct. 13.
I received a thought-provoking letter from reader Barbara Graham, a Grant Hill resident. She chimed in about my story on the calls to have Barrio Logan activist Rachael Ortiz removed from the stakeholder committee updating the neighborhood's community plan.
I can well understand Ms. Ortiz' concern about the neighborhoods of Barrio Logan. Grant Hill is just north of Imperial and Commercial streets. Like Barrio Logan, it is a mix of homes and businesses.
I have seen fires in the wrecking yards, and one gasoline explosion that rattled my windows.
Fumes from various industries amongst the homes would waft toxic gases throughout the neighborhood, making it smell like a meth lab.
The neighborhood is largely Latino, and many people work to keep their houses and yards attractive, which makes the industrial blight even more glaring.
When it rains, there is nothing to stop toxic runoff from flowing into the streets; runoff from auto junkyards, recycling lots, and industrial poisons. This is a hazard for the residents who live there. This "patchwork" neighborhood plan was a bad one to begin with.
Regarding gentrification, all one need do is look at the area to realize it could have an attraction for developers of luxury accommodations. Proximity to downtown, views of the bridge and the bay in some cases, and easy access to most major freeways are desirable features.
So the dilemma as I see it involves the removal of industrial businesses in the Barrio Logan neighborhood, as well as proposed usage of the properties they vacate, together with a desire by the locals to maintain the character of their neighborhood.
Yes, a lot of Barrio Logan is lower income, with small, older houses. Yes, the neighborhood is predominantly Latino and African American. Some of the best little restaurants in San Diego are down there.
I believe this "racial issue" is merely a smokescreen thrown up by people who have an interest in redeveloping this desirable area of San Diego.
Observing that upscale development and gentrification will impact ethnic neighborhoods is not racist. The fact is, what demographic group is likely to move into gentrified, overpriced properties? Hint: they burn if left out in the sun too long.
It stands to reason that this "stakeholder committee" would want to oust Ortiz. However, she, too has a stake in that community. The voice she brings is not the voice of developers, industry and commercial business. Her voice is the voice of the "little people" who have to pay taxes, and yet have their voices repeatedly ignored by city planners who have other interests in mind.
I think it is time the city planners start listening to the residents of Barrio Logan. What are their wishes? Which direction would they like their neighborhood community to go? That area has been abused for too long. The sort of "city planning" that has run rampant there would never be tolerated in Clairemont, La Jolla, Hillcrest.
This should be the rule of thumb; if you can't do it in middle income white neighborhoods, don't do it in Barrio Logan. They do want to maintain the ethnic character of their community. Establishing little conclaves of yuppies who don't mingle and don't participate in community issues or activities would not contribute to the ambiance of Barrio Logan. It could be seen as analogous to the American walled off communities in Saudi Arabia where there is little mingling or effort to understand other cultures. While my Latino neighbors are welcoming and friendly, such compounds would not be well received.
Incidentally, I don't see bike lanes as the intrusion of gentrification that Ortiz does. There are a lot of people riding bicycles in my neighborhood; from kids to adults who actually use them for transportation. Since there are no bike lanes, everyone rides in the street. It isn't safe, particularly for inexperienced youngsters. I have to disagree with Ms. Ortiz on this one. Bike lanes benefit communities. It doesn't mean there will be a sudden influx of spandex wearing, skinny tire import riding yuppies! It means a safer environment for residents.
I'd like to offer a bit of background on my reporting of yesterday's story about Barrio Logan's community plan update.
I've received a couple of e-mails from readers in which they address the controversial comments made by neighborhood activist Rachael Ortiz, a member of the stakeholder committee.
Reader O.P. said:
As to the actual content of the article, if Ms. Ortiz said the things she is quoted as saying, she should be removed. This is always a big "if", but it doesn't appear that she is denying the comments, just their racist nature.
There is not any question as to whether Ortiz made the comments I attributed to her.
Something I should have mentioned in the story, but did not, is that I got the quote directly from an audio recording of the Sept. 9 stakeholder committee meeting. The audio recording is a public record, available from the city's Planning Department upon request.
I just got an e-mail from Manjeet Ranu, the vice chairman of the Carmel Valley Community Planning Board.
He has been pushing to get the city to build the first neighborhood park in his community, Pacific Highlands Ranch. We wrote about it a couple of weeks ago, highlighting how city budget troubles have affected the construction of public facilities in new developments that have been expecting them, and already paid construction costs.
The mayor's 5-year financial outlook through 2015, released Thursday, listed the public facilities scheduled to come on-line over the next five years.
Gonzales Canyon Neighborhood Park was not among them, though the community's facilities financing plan scheduled construction to begin this fiscal year.
He wrote Park Department director Stacey LoMedico to ask if it had been listed under another name.
She responded:
We have partial (operations) funding allocated in FY15 as the project is anticipated to come on line mid-year. The balance would be requested in FY16.
"This is not acceptable to the community," Ranu wrote.
San Diego City Councilman Tony Young has proposed another alternative to the winter homeless shelter that is still seeking a home.
In a memo to Chief Operating Officer Jay Goldstone, Young asked the mayor's office to explore the possibility of funding additional beds at existing homeless shelters in order to "prevent us from scrambling around each year to find a place to erect tents."
The City Council is expected to select a site for the temporary shelter Oct. 13.
Perhaps you and staff can convene a meeting with the main shelter providers ... and ask them if the City were to provide them with the approximately $500,000 for temporary winter shelter beds, could they individually or collectively provide an additional 225 beds for 120 days.
Young, who represents District 4, has said that he would oppose not only the winter homeless shelter in his district, but in any district. In a Sept. 21 letter to the mayor's office, he proposed the possibility of providing homeless people with motel vouchers on especially cold days.
You might remember a mention I made in my story a couple of weeks ago about the budding prospects for grocery options in the Greater Logan Heights area, where those options are few.
A local grocer with a downtown produce store called Market 32 had opened a little produce mart in the big pink Farmers Market building on 22nd Street and Imperial Avenue, which was mostly empty.
Two weeks ago a makeshift produce mart opened in the building's main parcel.
Mark Rillos, who was tending the register and looking over the small selection of fruit and vegetables, said the owner was waiting to determine whether there was enough of a market to expand. Though business was good, he said, he reduced the quantity of produce from the first week's stock because they hadn't sold it fast enough to keep it from rotting.
"People are still hearing about us," he said.
I was driving by the building yesterday afternoon and saw a couple of people loading up a small pickup truck. I got a glance of the building's inside and noticed the shelves were empty.
I pulled into the parking lot and asked the two men if they were affiliated with the store.
One of them, Matt Amoia, was the owner. He'd decided to close shop.
I enjoyed my stint as The People's Reporter today. You sent me some really newsworthy tips, many a little too complex to clear up over the course of an afternoon of reporting. But they've beefed up my repository of future story ideas, and I hope you'll keep sending me your thoughts about issues affecting your communities, at adrian.florido@voiceofsandiego.org.
Keep an eye out for our next installment of The People's Reporter, which will once again be a regular feature here at voiceofsandiego.org.
In fact, we've reserved a People's Reporter Twitter account, which we plan to get up and running soon.
And on that note, I'll leave you with something I found pretty amusing today.
I have been thoroughly enjoying San Diego MTS's Twitter Feed.
It looks like the administrator just keeps an eye out for tweets about or referring to San Diego's bus and trolley system, and responds to them.
Here are some examples:
@artdirectorjake said:
I think I just put a non English speaking couple on the wrong trolley.. hope they enjoy Tijuana.. #oops #fb
@sdmts responds:
@artdirectorjake well, the best way to see San Diego is to see all of it right? ;)
@sphinxsphere:
On trolley to sdff! awesome :)
@sdmts:
Have fun!
@jfamolare
Feeling under the weather today so took the bus. I miss my bike but it was a wise decision Nice morning today
@sdmts
Get better soon!
@fahnando:
What a nice 150-to-downtown bus driver, whose bus number is 1008 by the way, @sdmts
Reader Larry Little wants to know about the trolley system:
Are there still plans to extend the Green line from Santee all the way to downtown and eliminate the forced transfer at Old Town? It seems to me that the reason for the transfer at Old Town was that the older stations between Old Town and Downtown couldn't handle the newer type Trolley cars. The plans then were to eventually redo those stops. What happens when the older Trolley cars give out and are no longer available? It seems the transit people have forgotten about this. The transfer is inconvenient, adds 5 to 10 minutes to the trip and is very confusing for visitors.
MTS spokesman Rob Schupp told me just now that yes, the agency plans to eliminate the need for that transfer, and it's working on it as I write this.
You're right, Larry, that the problem up until now has been the Old Town Blue Line Station's incompatibility with the newer trolley cars that run on the Green Line.
MTS plans to raise the platform on older stations to accommodate the 57 new low-floor trolley cars it just approved funding for this month. The modifications will align the platform with the new cars' low floors and allow level boarding. This will ensure the system meets ADA accessibility regulations.
Schupp said that upgrades to the Old Town station will start in about six months and should be completed on all the downtown stations 18 months from now. That will allow the Green Line to continue along the current Blue Line route through downtown.
"It would go through the Santa Fe Depot station and then go around the bayside and terminate at Imperial Avenue and 12th Street," Schupp said.
What happened to the second ethics survey the city did? How were the results? Why weren't they publicized?
In 2006, Mayor Sanders commissioned the city's first ethics survey. The survey asked city employees about their perceptions of the city's ethical standards, whether managers were held to the same standards as other employees, and whether they'd perceived or reported ethics violations in their departments.
The results weren't pretty. They found that 41 percent of city employees surveyed had observed ethical misconduct at work, compared with 26 percent in a survey conducted nationwide.
E.W.'s suggestion that a second ethics survey had been commissioned was news to me. But I guess that's what it means to be a reporter.
I called the Mayor's Office to confirm, and it's true.
The mayor's Office of Ethics and Integrity commissioned a second survey last year, and according to spokeswoman Rachel Laing, the results were "off-the-charts good."
But the report was never released. Just when the results came back last November, City Hall was forced to make mid-year budget cuts. And, well, the Office of Ethics and Integrity, which conducts ethics training, got cut. It was costing the city more than $1 million a year, and the mayor decided to redistribute its duties to other departments, like Human Relations.
So the report never saw the light of day. It's sitting somewhere in the files of former Deputy Operating Officer JoAnne SawyerKnoll, who ran the department.
Laing said Chief Operating Officer Jay Goldstone was going to try and track it down. She's going to forward it to me when she gets a copy, so I'll keep you posted.
So to kick off a day of finding out what you want to know, I'll start with a pretty straightforward question from a reader who wanted to remain anonymous.
When is the City hiring a Fire Chief? When is the retired provisional Chief, Tracy Jarman, leaving?
The current chief, Tracy Jarman, retired at the end of June only to be re-hired on a provisional basis a couple of days later, as the city undertook its search to replace her.
I called the mayor's spokeswoman, Rachel Laing, who said the Mayor's Office had selected its final candidates, and would be interviewing for the position next week. An announcement of the new chief is expected early next month.
Jarman will continue serving until her replacement takes the helm, Laing said.
While I was on the phone, I couldn't help but notice my colleague, public safety reporter Keegan Kyle, perk up when he heard me talking about the fire chief from across the room.
He recently spoke with Jarman and offered a few more details.
The city has selected seven finalists, he says, and two are internal candidates. According to Jarman, the announcement could come as early as Oct. 1.
Keep the questions coming. I'll be away for the next couple of hours, but will be back before noon. Send me your questions at adrian.florido@voiceofsandiego.org.
So I'm pretty excited that Friday, we'll be reviving what I hear was once a proud voiceofsandiego.org tradition.
My elders around the newsroom tell me that before my day, we had an occasional interactive feature called The People's Reporter.
It was, I'm told, a chance for one of us VOSD reporters to humbly submit ourselves to the whims of you, our readers, for an entire day.
I've been tapped to bring it back. And though I'm not really a submissive type, I will, in the interest of your right to know, make an exception and become your personal reporter.
So you're my boss on Friday. Tell me what you want to know. I'll be sitting at my desk starting late morning, waiting for your questions about ... anything. Heard a rumor or have a sneaking suspicion you want confirmed? I'm on it.
Want me to come out and see something in your neighborhood that's of particular news value? Make me live up to my blog's name by dropping me a line.
Not a single City Council member complied with a request from the Mayor's Office seeking location recommendations for this year's winter homeless shelter.
Seven of the eight members responded to the letter from Chief Operating Officer Jay Goldstone, but none proposed sites within their own districts, as Goldstone had requested.
Council President Ben Hueso did not respond at all. "He's still evaluating how he's going to handle it," said Michelle Ganon, Hueso's spokeswoman.
Councilman Kevin Faulconer, who represents downtown and has opposed the shelter being placed there, reiterated his view that homelessness, as a regional issue, should involve regional participation to find more permanent housing and services solutions.
In their letters, the other members said their districts would be inappropriate for a shelter, given that homeless services needed to make the shelter successful were concentrated downtown. That was a point made by homeless services coordinator Amy Benjamin at last week's City Council meeting, when members asked her to expand the scope of the search to include potential locations outside downtown.
Carl DeMaio, Todd Gloria, and Sherri Lightner and Donna Frye all said a downtown site would be most appropriate, though DeMaio suggested a site near the Civic Center, which would serve as a "daily reminder to city officials for the need to take action on the permanent shelter."
"I am not opposed to the concept of sharing the solutions of homelessness across the eight council districts," Frye wrote, "but displacing people to locations where the services they rely on to survive are across town is inappropriate. It is important that we keep the health and welfare of our homeless community at the forefront of these conversations."
Tony Young floated the idea of a motel voucher program, saying District 4 had no feasible site for a shelter.
District 7 CouncilwomanMarti Emerald said her staff was evaluating three potential sites, but was not ready to release them because of her constituents' strong reaction to a shelter "in their backyard."
"They asked us to come back with citywide alternatives," said mayoral spokeswoman Rachel Laing. "We wanted them to have the opportunity to recommend what was in their districts."
Not having received those recommendations, Laing said, "We're going to recommend some sites citywide as asked. But it's their duty and authority to select a site and approve it."
The City Council is next scheduled to take up the issue Oct. 13.
Has your community been waiting for a capital project that you've already paid for?
My story this week looked at a stalled park in Pacific Highlands Ranch that highlights how City Hall is holding off on building fully financed public facilities because it can't afford to operate them. The construction money is collected from special assessments on developers, which are reflected in the purchase prices of new homes.
I'm looking for more examples from across the city, and have already received some good tips. I could use your help as I continue looking into this.
Starting today, KPBS will be rolling out a weeklong radio series on the after-effects of war on San Diego's community of active-duty and veteran residents. San Diego is home to more than 250,000 military veterans, and the county gets more Department of Defense dollars than any other in the United States.
On the way to the newsroom this morning, I caught part of an interview with Alison St John, the project's editor. It'll cover issues of post-traumatic stress, housing, homelessness, and the resources the city and county provide veterans trying to find normalcy in the aftermath of our two recent wars. It promises to be an important series.
Whether it's an interesting story from a neighborhood street corner or a moving obituary, Adrian Florido is out there every day pounding the pavement to bring home the story. This blog brings you all the observations, documents and details that he can bring back to the office (or transmit remotely) in a day's work.
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