When Centre City Development Corp. President Nancy Graham resigned today, she cited her desire to be with her ill mother, who has Parkinson's disease and dementia.
In 2004, when she left a similar redevelopment post in West Palm Beach, Fla., she cited a similar reasoning.
This is from the website of ABC affiliate WPBF:
When she speaks, former West Palm Beach Mayor Nancy Graham's passion about the city of West Palm Beach is obvious.
For the past year, Graham's home away from home has been her office at the Downtown Development Authority, but that's all about to change.
Graham announced Tuesday she is stepping down as executive director to spend more time with her 80-year-old mother who is very ill.
"With an aging parent, I join the millions in America that are taking a more active role in taking care of their elderly parents," she said.
There's another similarity as well: Both here and in West Palm Beach, Graham was involved in developments that had become controversial because of her business connections to subsidiaries of the same development firm, The Related Companies.
Thursday, July 24 -- 7:15 pm
Centre City Development Corp. head Nancy Graham wrote her board chairman, Fred Maas, an e-mail today at 12:19 p.m. to inform him of her resignation.
Here's a snippet from that e-mail:
Things don't seem to be improving sufficient for me to consider leaving my mother safely. Based on these circumstances, I do not feel it is fair to you, the Board, the Staff, the City and others for me to continue to try and operate CCDC from Nashville... I think my responsibilities to my mother is the greatest at the present time accordingly, i feel it appropriate for me to resign effective immediately as President of CCDC. This is one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make.
Thursday, July 24 -- 4:53 pm
The Mayor's Office plans to order performance audits of the Centre City Development Corp., the San Diego Data Processing Corp. and the San Diego Convention Center Corp. in addition to an ongoing performance audit currently underway at the Southeastern Economic Development Corp., mayoral spokesman Fred Sainz said.
"From time to time, it's good to take a look at the performance of these operations. Given all the questions surrounding these agencies, while the mayor believes the individual structures are sound, he wants to have an independent group of qualified individuals attest to that," Sainz said.
Last night, the president of SEDC Carolyn Y. Smith was ousted by her board of directors. And we just got word that CCDC President and COO Nancy Graham has resigned effective immediately.
Both officials have recently been the subject of controversy as the result of stories broken by voiceofsandiego.org. Smith has been embroiled in a scandal over hundreds of thousands of dollars she paid herself and her staff in hidden bonuses and extra compensation, while Graham has been under fire for changing her story about her involvement in a deal involving a developer with whom she once had a business relationship.
CCDC oversees redevelopment in downtown San Diego, the SDDPC provides information technology services to the city and the SDCCC manages the city's convention center.
Thursday, July 24 -- 4:47 pm
There continues to be some remaining questions surrounding the details of Southeastern Economic Development Corp. President Carolyn Y. Smith's firing yesterday.
It's unclear when she actually leaves the redevelopment agency and how the severance was agreed upon. The board stated that it has invoked the 90-day clause in Smith's contract, but not explained further. Smith's contract states that she can be fired for any reason with 90 days' notice and she will be paid a severance.
Her contract also states that she can be fired for cause without severance.
The Mayor's Office said it has put in a call to SEDC Chairman Artie M. "Chip" Owen asking for the terms of her termination and how her $100,350 severance was agreed upon. My calls and e-mail into SEDC with similar questions haven't been returned.
Also, mayoral spokesman Fred Sainz said the mayor doesn't want the current SEDC board to choose Smith's successor considering the agency's recent troubles.
"It would be inappropriate for the current board to have anything to do with the appointment of a new president," he said.
Mayor Jerry Sanders is asking for nominations from council members to fill all eight expired terms on the board. The mayor hopes to announce the new nominees in September, Sainz said.
Update: I don't think my original post was completely clear: The mayor wants a new board to select the next SEDC president. He doesn't plan on making the selection himself.
Thursday, July 24 -- 4:30 pm Matt Spathas, a proponent of San Diego Unified's new facilities bond, has unveiled a nifty new mapping tool that lets users find what repairs are needed at individual schools, and what the new bond would provide them.
Spathas is a member of Education and Children First, a committee not run by the school district that will actively promote the bond. An external committee exists because California public employees and consultants are prohibited from campaigning with the help of state funds.
Only a few schools are visible now, but Spathas told the school board that the map should be complete next week. Click Pacific Beach Middle School as an example of what the map will eventually show for all San Diego Unified schools.
Thursday, July 24 -- 3:00 pm Jan Goldsmith called today to weigh in on San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre's lawsuit against Bank of America's Countrywide subsidiary.
The Republican Goldsmith, who is opposing Aguirre in the November election, said the suit is "just a lot of puff to get his name in the headlines."
Aguirre announced yesterday that he is suing Countrywide, which was bought by Bank of America earlier this year, under state law that allows the city attorneys of large cities to sue companies that engage in unfair, unlawful or fraudulent business practices.
Aguirre says Countrywide did one or all of those things when it issued subprime loans to borrowers who didn't have the means to take on such debt.
Goldsmith, a judge, said Aguirre is essentially putting the city in the expensive position of providing free legal representation to a slew of individual borrowers, many of whom may have lied about their assets to get mortgage loans.
"I have seen no precedent for this," Goldsmith said.
Thursday, July 24 -- 3:06 pm The San Diego Union-Tribune is reporting that it could be up for sale. The paper says that its parent company, The Copley Press Inc., has hired an investment banker to explore a possible sale.
My colleague Rob Davis has done a good job covering the newspaper's recent financial troubles.
Here are some links to those stories to give you some background:
(Jan. 16, 2008) The San Diego Union-Tribune lays off 27 employees, including at least five newsroom staffers, the latest cut in a company that has reduced its workforce by 10 percent in the past month.
(Dec. 4, 2007) The newspaper aims to cut 43 employees in a newsroom of approximately 360 people, a 12 percent reduction in reporters, editors and photographers. Forty employees from other departments are also being targeted in a company of 1,422.
(Dec. 19, 2007) Forty-five veteran employees of the newspaper accepted voluntary early retirement offers, as the newspaper cuts payroll costs to cope with an industrywide trend of declining circulation.
Thursday, July 24 -- 2:56 pm
Karen Huff-Willis, chairwoman of the Black Historical Society of San Diego, is calling for an investigation by City Attorney Mike Aguirre into the Centre City Development Corp.'s development deal at 7th Avenue and Market Street downtown. Alternately, she requested a legal opinion about whether CCDC should consider voiding the development contract there.
Huff-Willis cites the involvement of CCDC President Nancy Graham in the negotiations of the deal with the developer, Related of California. Graham, a former business partner with a sister company of Related, met with the company during the deal's negotiation process, despite saying she was not involved.
Thursday, July 24 -- 12:09 pm
Our media partner, NBC 7/39, has been covering the SEDC story closely since reporter Will Carless first broke the story two weeks ago.
Last night, they sent reporters down to the SEDC board room to cover the meeting that led to President Carolyn Y. Smith's termination.
Here's the clip:
An interesting note: The woman who speaks at the end of the video and says that "the City Council and the mayor can go to hell" is Angela Harris, an SEDC consultant who was featured prominently in the first story we wrote about the agency. Despite receiving up to $50,000 a year in consulting contracts from SEDC, the agency awarded Harris one of its coveted for-sale affordable homes.
Thursday, July 24 -- 12:07 pm Lee Enterprises, the Iowa-based company that owns the North County Times, posted an 87 percent drop in third-quarter profit today, as well as a drop in online advertising -- a segment that had been growing.
A year ago, its third-quarter profit was $22.5 million. This year, it scraped together $2.8 million in third-quarter profit. The company's stock has dropped more than 90 percent of its value in the last four years. Alan Mutter, who writes the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, offers this perspective on how far the company's value has fallen:
Lee Enterprises (is) worth $145 million, down 93% from $2 billion on Dec. 31, 2004.
An Associated Press story says the company is planning several cost-cutting measures:
The company says it is planning rigorous cost reductions through staff reorganizations, narrower page widths, other newsprint conservation programs and other measures.
Lee has already made one round of cuts locally. Sixteen newsroom employees at The North County Times accepted the newspaper's buyout offer in February, reducing the editorial staff by approximately 12 percent.
Thursday, July 24 -- 11:32 am
So, why the ballot measure -- can't San Diego City Council just make permanent the temporary beach booze ban already in place?
That question was posed minutes after San Diego City Councilman Kevin Faulconer and City Council President Scott Peters announced their intentions Tuesday to put a permanent ban on the November ballot.
It’s a good question. A ballot measure will cost more than $300,000, and instituting such a ban is perfectly within City Council's purview.
Peters' answer is twofold: First, because it is such an emotionally charged issue he thinks its best left up to voters. Secondly, it is quite possible that opponents of the ban could get enough signatures for a special election, which would cost the city upwards of $3 million.
"There is a lot of talk among alcohol sellers that they're going to do a referendum, and run a big campaign against this," Peters said. "And that creates a real budget threat."
In other words, spend $300,000 now to avoid the possibility of a $3 million tab down the road.
But how likely is it that opponents would be able to mount a successful signature drive? Didn't they try and fail to do just that earlier this year?
Thursday, July 24 -- 10:56 am
I just spoke with Michael Radford, attorney for Rick Reynolds. Reynolds is Mayor Jerry Sanders' former assistant chief operating officer who sued the city for wrongful termination.
Radford said he and Reynolds are currently evaluating their options after a judge threw out their case based on governmental immunity, but allowed them to bring the suit again if it is amended. (Click here for a story I did earlier this year on governmental immunity.) The primary option, he said, is to amend the suit to allege facts or legal theories that address the issue of governmental immunity.
"I don't know whether we will or not," Radford said. However, like his client, he also stated that "the case is not over."
I had reported earlier this week that the case had been thrown out, based on information from the Mayor's Office. However, I didn't have the nuance in there that Radford and Reynolds could try to rewrite their original complaint.
Wednesday, July 23 -- 5:45 pm
The city's Water Department said today it is considering charging developers a fee for exceeding their allotted water demand at new construction sites.
The city maintains extensive projections for future water demand across San Diego. When a large development is proposed that exceeds that planned-for demand, the city is requiring developers to offset their added burden.
That's a recent step. Water Department officials say they want to offer developers the chance to pay a fee that the city would use to develop new water sources. Instead of the developer making changes on site, the city could use the money itself to increase conservation and efficiency efforts elsewhere. (This is sometimes called an "in-lieu fee" and has been used in the city's attempts to spur the development of affordable housing.)
The idea met with skepticism at a City Council committee meeting today. Councilwoman Toni Atkins said the city should put incentives in place to encourage developers to build efficiently -- not rely on the city to make improvements elsewhere.
"The whole concept of in lieu fees will just be another thing that developers have a problem with," she said.
I called Craig Benedetto, a spokesman for the San Diego Building Owners and Managers Association and other developers, and asked him whether he has a problem with the idea.
He said he doesn't.
"We're realistic about this," he said.
Benedetto said the fee would be one way to more efficiently mitigate a development's increased demand. Since new development is oftentimes already more efficient, he said better savings can be gained off-site.
Wednesday, July 23 -- 5:23 pm
San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre said today he has filed suit against Bank of America, and plans to do the same against a handful of other mammoth mortgage lenders, in an attempt to stop subprime foreclosures in San Diego.
Aguirre says he has the authority to sue Bank of America -- specifically its subsidiary Countrywide -- under state law that allows the city attorneys of large cities to sue companies that engage in unfair, unlawful or fraudulent business practices.
There is more than ample evidence, Aguirre says, that Countrywide and other lenders were engaged in one or all of those things in issuing subprime loans to borrowers who didn't have the means to take on such debt.
"Foreclosure is an equitable remedy for bonafide debt," Aguirre said. "But if the debt is not bonafide, then there is historic precedent to stop foreclosures."
Aguirre said he will file similar suits against Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo and Wachovia. He said he is following the lead of city attorneys in Cleveland, Buffalo and Baltimore, who this year have sued mortgage companies and investment banks to, among other things, recover tax revenue lost because of foreclosures.
He said his ultimate goal is to get the companies to agree to a large-scale workout of the terms of subprime loans taken out by San Diego residents.
"This is a classic market failure," Aguirre said. "And consumer law exists to provide these kinds of remedies."
Wednesday, July 23 -- 4:03 pm
I reported earlier this week that a former top mayoral aide's wrongful termination suit against the city of San Diego had been tossed out of court by a judge. That was based on information from mayoral spokesman Fred Sainz.
I've since gotten a few calls clarifying that the case wasn't totally thrown out. Apparently, the former employee, Rickie Reynolds, still has the opportunity to take a second crack at presenting the suit.
Essentially, the court found the first suit to be defective, but said Reynolds could amend it and try again.
I've put in a call to Reynolds' attorney and will report back as soon as I can. My apologies for any confusion.
Update: I just spoke with Reynolds, and he referred questions to his attorney. However, he did say this: "This thing is not over."
Wednesday, July 23 -- 2:24 pm
Our media partner, NBC 7/39, has this report last night about the pension accord reached yesterday by the city and three of its labor unions:
For background of the story, check out David Washburn's report from yesterday.
Wednesday, July 23 -- 1:42 pm A City Council committee this afternoon will get an update from the city's Water Department about the steps it has taken to require large new developments to offset their increased demand for water.
The Water Department is requiring Westfield, the developers of the $900 million University Towne Center mall expansion, to keep the project's water demand neutral, a step that will require the developer to save between 21 million and 43 million gallons of water annually.
One paragraph in our May story about the issue caught the eye of City Councilwoman Donna Frye, who scheduled today's discussion:
For now, the policy is informal, hasn't received City Council support and has no violation penalty.
Jim Barrett, the city's public utilities director, said in May that he believes offsets are a way to address a state law requiring an assessment of large developments' water supplies. The 6-year-old law, designed to ensure that supplies keep pace with growth, mandates that cities provide what is termed a "water supply assessment" for large developments. The assessment must verify the city has a sufficient supply planned to accommodate the growth.
The council's Natural Resources and Culture committee meets today at 2 p.m. in City Hall's 12th floor committee room.
Wednesday, July 23 -- 11:58 am
Karen Huff-Willis, chairwoman of the Black Historical Society of San Diego, is calling for the Centre City Development Corp. to toss out and re-bid a developer's project at 7th Avenue and Market Street downtown.
Huff-Willis cites the involvement of CCDC President Nancy Graham in the negotiations of the deal with the developer, Related of California. Graham, a former business partner with a sister company of Related, had meetings with the company during the deal's negotiation process, despite saying she was not involved.
In a letter to CCDC's attorney, Helen Holmes Peak, Huff-Willis writes:
We believe Ms. Graham continues to be less than candid as to the extent to which she may have influenced the decision to award the 7th and Market Street Project to her former business partner, Related. The public trust in the process must be restored and we believe only a full and open investigation into the matter can resolve pressing and unanswered questions over what may have motivated CCDC's top executive to initially deny all involvement in the process, only to backtrack as the evidence continues to mount that she may have greatly influenced the awarding of the contract.
The society has worked to secure a historic designation for the Clermont Hotel, which occupies one corner of the otherwise-empty city block at 7th and Market.
Wednesday, July 23 -- 11:44 am The San Diego Unified school board voted unanimously today to put a $2.1 billion facilities bond on the November ballot, despite some members' concerns that the list of proposed bond projects was still "imperfect."
Trustee Luis Acle said the bond prioritized politically popular ideas over other necessities, such as renovating the school district offices on Normal Street. Such a renovation has not been included in the bond list. Yet Acle ultimately voted for the proposal, saying he would not deny voters their say on the bond.
Early opposition has surfaced from the California Charter Schools Association, whose attorney, Greg Moser, complained that the list didn't provide enough money for charter schools. Charter schools in district buildings are receiving some improvements, and like all San Diego Unified schools, charters will receive $150 per student to spend on facilities as they wish.
Moser said that the funding for charters should correspond to the percentage of San Diego Unified children enrolled in charter schools -- roughly 10 percent -- and pointed to today's Los Angeles Times editorial criticizing the share that district is planning for its charter schools in their proposed bond.
"You've turned your back on the charter community, and we're sorry about that," Moser said.
Another resident, City Heights attorney John Stump, is drafting an opposition statement to the bond. He complained that plans to merge Central Elementary into Wilson Middle School as a K-8 school hadn’t been discussed publicly, and asked why the school district is talking about a new school downtown and not in City Heights, where new elementary schools and efforts to stop dropouts could later mean swelling ranks in the high schools. The problem is transparency, Stump said.
"These guys have definite plans for definite sites which have not been vetted by the public," Stump said Monday.
Though the bond list was heavily debated, the list isn't set in stone, district staff said.
For instance, the list includes plans to renovate underenrolled elementary schools such as Rolando Park Elementary. Such schools are relatively expensive to operate. Trustee Mitz Lee asked how San Diego Unified would juggle those plans with discussion of closing under-enrolled schools or replacing them with small high schools, a project touted by Superintendent Terry Grier.
Grier said the projects could be altered, and that the school district would determine its plans for closing or remaking under-enrolled schools before undertaking any renovations at those sites.
Wednesday, July 23 -- 10:42 am Alex Trebek of "Jeopardy" fame will be presenting the game show's contestants with questions -- or answers, rather -- about the research and people of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Birch Aquarium at Scripps tomorrow night.
In San Diego, the show airs at 7:30 p.m. on NBC affiliate and voiceofsandiego.org media partner KNSD 7/39.
The Scripps category will focus on earth and ocean science and is scheduled to appear in the first round of the show. A Scripps-led research project is also set to be the subject of a "Spotlight" segment typically shown just after commercial breaks.
Scripps staffers who filmed answers and promos at several locations on campus and at the aquarium in March are contractually sworn to secrecy about the specific nature of the topics, Scripps representatives said.
Scripps isn’t the first institution to receive its own category. "Jeopardy" -- a quiz game show first created in the early 1960s -- recently featured categories devoted to NASA, the United Nations, "Star Wars," and Dr. Seuss on the 50th anniversary of the children’s classic book, "The Cat in the Hat."
Wednesday, July 23 -- 9:31 am
Declaring the trial beach alcohol ban a success, City Councilman Kevin Faulconer and City Council President Scott Peters today announced a proposal to put a permanent ban on the November ballot.
The two guys in suits made their announcement surrounded by a bunch of cheering beachgoers at the foot of Reed Street in Pacific Beach.
"People have had a chance to come down to the beach and see the results," Faulconer said of the one-year trial ban that is set to expire in November. "Now it is time to allow the voters to have the final word on this."
The voters have had final word before, and opted against banning beach booze. Proposition G, which would have imposed a ban in Mission Beach and Pacific Beach, failed by a slim margin in 2002.
Nonetheless, both Peters and Faulconer, who himself has wavered on the issue, say San Diegans have overwhelmingly supported this year's trial ban.
City Council will vote next week on whether to put the permanent ban on the ballot, Peters said.
Tuesday, July 22 -- 6:15 pm Dropout rates could figure in San Diego Unified's decision on whether to continue operating its small high schools as funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation peters out.
The smaller schools were created by dividing three large high schools, Crawford, Kearny and San Diego High, into clusters of smaller schools with their own principals that share a campus. Lincoln High was opened under a similar model in 2007.
School board members reviewed dropout rates, test scores and other data today in a workshop that covered a range of topics, including small high schools.
The data reveal that many of the small high schools have the highest dropout rates in the school district: Crawford School of Law and Business reported a 42.5 percent dropout rate over a four-year period, followed by San Diego School of Media, Visual and Performing Arts, where 41.9 percent of students dropped out, and San Diego School of Business, where 38.4 percent dropped out.
Those rates outstrip large high schools such as Morse and Hoover, which both have a 29.6 percent dropout rate. Yet other small high schools reported dramatically lower dropouts: Kearny's Stanley E. Foster Construction Tech Academy, for example, has a 3.9 percent dropout rate.
And it is unclear whether dropout rates have risen or dropped at the small high schools since their formation from the larger schools, because California recently changed the way it calculated the rates.
Nonetheless, the double-digit rates worried trustee Mitz Lee, who said that reducing dropouts was one of the key reasons that San Diego Unified decided to try dividing up Crawford, Kearny and San Diego High. And other members seemed worried as well.
"Are we wedded to the idea of keeping the small schools that are not succeeding as small schools?" trustee Luis Acle asked.
"I'm not wedded to keeping anything that's not working," Superintendent Terry Grier replied.
Tuesday, July 22 -- 5:21 pm
The scene was the stuff of fiction just a few days ago -- San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and the heads of three city unions standing side-by-side announcing an agreement on pension reform.
But that was indeed what transpired this afternoon at a news conference in the City Hall breezeway. One after another, Sanders, City Council members and the union chiefs thanked each other for the hard work at the negotiating table and seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief that pension reform was not going on the November ballot.
It ended months of on-again, off-again negotiations among Sanders and the city's non-public safety unions: the white-collar Municipal Employees Association; AFSCME Local 127, which represents blue-collar employees; and the Deputy City Attorneys Association.
Just last week, Sanders had declared impasse with Local 127 and it seemed just a matter of time before City Council voted to authorize a pension-reform ballot measure.
"When I left Friday, I had no inkling we were even talking anymore," Sanders said. "Then I got a call Friday, and we met Saturday, then again on Sunday and Monday."
Despite their public stances, neither side wanted this aspect of pension reform to go before voters. The unions because they figured they would lose, and it would create bad precedent; and the city because a ballot measure would cost as much as $300,000 and create bad blood between management and workers.
"We had to figure out how to keep this from going to the ballot," said MEA General Manager Judie Italiano. "We don't want to start a whole process where everything goes to the people -- raises, healthcare, everything."
The deal, as I reported earlier, is very similar to the June compromise struck by Sanders and City Council President Scott Peters.
The key differences are as follows:
The Sanders/Peters compromise increased the minimum employee retirement age to 60 from 55. Today's deal with the unions keeps 55 as the minimum retirement age, but employees hired after July 1, 2009 who retire at 55 will have a pension that is more than 60 percent smaller than 55-year-olds in the current system.
Today's deal reduces the city's annual payment to the 401(k)-like "defined contribution" portion of an employee's retirement savings to 1 percent of an employee's annual salary, versus 1.25 percent in the Sanders/Peters compromise. The .25 percent will instead be put in a fund set aside for retiree medical costs, which the pension system will not cover for the new employees.
An employee's pension, under today's deal, will be based on an employee's highest three years of annual pay. The Sanders/Peters compromise based it on an employee's final three years of pay.
Joan Raymond, president of Local 127, said it was especially important to members of her union that the minimum retirement age stay at 55, even if the pension amount is significantly smaller.
The city's blue collar employees endure similar physical demands, she said, as firefighters and police officers who were exempted from pension reform and can retire with a generous pension at 55.
"At least it gives our people something between 55 and 60," she said.
Tuesday, July 22 -- 5:15 pm
We've arrived at an exciting moment here at voiceofsandiego.org.
At a time when news organizations around the country are shrinking and the news they produce declines in quality, we're growing in size and beefing up our coverage. We recently added a new reporter position, expanding our coverage into San Diego's all-important science and technology community.
We've also added less-visible but equally important help in the last month, bringing in employees to aid us with our website and our fundraising.
 It's a far cry from where we were in February 2005 when we first launched. Then, we had two reporters trying to sift through City Hall's dirt. Now, we have a group of nine professional journalists who bring you expert coverage and analysis on some of San Diego's most important quality-of-life issues: politics, housing and jobs, education, environment, public safety and science and technology.
We've done it all because of readers like you. And we've done it all quite efficiently on a shoestring budget.
But it's not free to produce. And we want to keep growing and keep expanding into new areas, bringing voiceofsandiego.org's style of original and investigative reporting to brand new corners of San Diego life.
So help us out, if you can. We've been able to expand our reach and journalism because of the generous financial and moral support of readers like you and the generosity of caring local philanthropists and foundations.
Our readers and supporters, like many others around the country, are beginning to understand that journalism at its core is a public-service institution.
With newspapers shrinking, civic-minded citizens are realizing that the important journalism that informs us about our neighborhoods, holds those in power accountable and tells this region's stories, needs donations to survive just like the symphony, homeless shelter, food drive or museums. The financial model for newspapers is crumbling, and they can't leave journalism up to the whims of its old and dying model.
We're a nonprofit organization. We don't charge for access, nobody's getting rich, and we rely on donations from readers like you to keep delivering some of San Diego's best journalism. It's all done online, so it's amazingly efficient (no costs for paper, ink and the gas it takes to deliver all those papers) and it's environmentally friendly.
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Two weeks ago, our running two-year investigation into a city of San Diego redevelopment department dropped a bombshell: employees at the agency had been giving themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in hidden bonuses.
The story spread like wildfire, forcing the rest of the San Diego media to chase the follow-up, and spurring an investigation by the mayor, a freeze in the agency's funding and the call for the president to resign.
No one would know about any of the agency's questionable dealings had it not been for voiceofsandiego.org. We were created to produce this kind of important journalism.
But it's not free. And it's the exactly the kind of journalism that newspapers are cutting back on as they turn to tabloid-like stories to drum up attention and readership.
It took two years and plenty of resources to finally get the attention of the city's residents, politicians and the rest of the media that this redevelopment agency needed to be examined.
There's plenty more here that's new on this site that I'm tremendously proud of and have you readers and donors to thank for, such as our award-winning education coverage, our examination of local politicians' water bills, our look at the thinning gray whale, the often-prescient coverage of the housing market, and our monthly peek inside the workaday life of our fellow San Diegans.
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Wednesday, July 23 -- 7:27 am Officials at the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. have completely misunderstood the intentions of Mayor Jerry Sanders if they believe the appointment of a senior level financial officer at the agency will placate concerns the mayor has about the agency, mayoral spokesman Fred Sainz just told me.
The mayor has not changed his mind on the tenure of SEDC President Carolyn Y. Smith, Sainz said.
"This is not a question of if, it's a question of how and when Ms. Smith is no longer going to be employed at that organization," Sainz said. "Nobody should underestimate how strongly the mayor feels on this issue."
At an SEDC committee meeting this afternoon, Chairman Artie M. "Chip" Owen said the agency had been in discussions with the Mayor's Office and that it had been decided that the city should appoint a senior financial official to liaise with SEDC on budgetary issues.
Owen and Smith said they had yet to finalize details of such an appointment, but the committee voted to recommend such an appointment to the full SEDC board, which meets tomorrow.
Sainz said SEDC has ignored the fact that the appointment of a financial officer would be merely one step in a far greater reorganization of SEDC's leadership sought by the mayor. The mayor wants nothing less than the replacement of Smith, Owen and eight of the nine SEDC board members, Sainz said, and if SEDC officials think otherwise then they are mistaken.
"That's a complete and total mischaracterization of the conversation we've been having with Mr. Owen," Sainz said.
Sainz said the mayor plans first to terminate Smith's employment, then to install an interim president to run SEDC, and that only then would the city consider installing a senior-level financial official at the agency.
"To misconstrue that the solution to this entire problem is simply to install a city finance officer to oversee the city's finances and no other reforms need to take place would be a complete and total perversion of the mayor's position on this issue," Sainz said.
Tuesday, July 22 -- 4:25 pm A committee of the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. board met this afternoon but did not discuss two of the four items on its agenda, both of which dealt with the agency's pay practices.
The agency's Personnel and Budget Committee was due to discuss a staff report on historical employee compensation policies, but SEDC President Carolyn Y. Smith said the report has not yet been complete. The item was continued at her request.
Compensation at the agency is currently a hot topic after it was revealed that the agency has paid out $1 million in staff bonuses and extra compensation in the last five years. Members of the SEDC board and the City Council said they were unaware of the bonuses.
When that item will actually be heard is uncertain. The committee is supposed to meet quarterly, but none of the three SEDC board members I spoke with at the meeting knew when it had last met or when it will meet next.
The second item, detailed on the meeting's agenda as "Presentation Regarding Executive Compensation Tax Regulations Applicable to Governmental Entities by Gary Brownell, CPA," didn't happen either. Brownell was at the meeting, but he looked pretty flustered and only said that he did not yet know the answers to SEDC's questions.
Brownell was evidently researching how compensation tax regulations apply to SEDC, an issue my colleague, Andrew Donohue, wrote about in this story. The accountant said he hasn't figured that out yet.
"This is a very specialized area of law," he said. "It's going to take another week."
The meeting's third item was simple: The committee was asked to make a recommendation to the full board regarding the mayor's decision last week to slash funding to SEDC to the bare minimum needed to pay employees' base salaries. The committee voted unanimously to make a recommendation to the full board that SEDC implement the mayor's request immediately.
Lastly, the committee voted on a personnel issue. Committee and SEDC board Chairman Artie M. "Chip" Owen presented to the committee that SEDC staff has been discussing with the Mayor's Office the possibility of installing a city official within SEDC to monitor SEDC's finances and to aid the agency with its budgetary procedures.
SEDC's current finance director, Dante Dayacap, is embroiled in the bonus scandal, having received more in extra compensation than anyone else at the agency except Smith.
The Mayor's Office has asked that the agency appoint the new financial officer on at least a temporary basis, but Smith and Owen said the details of the appointment have not been finalized. The committee voted unanimously to recommend the appointment for presentation at tomorrow's board meeting.
After the meeting, Owen and Smith sped for the back door of the meeting room, pursued by three journalists and two photographers. Both declined to answer questions.
At tomorrow's meeting of the full board, the board will meet in closed session to discuss the termination of Smith. Smith has been called upon to resign by the mayor and three members of the City Council. She has given no indication yet that she intends to step down but she could be forced out by SEDC's board. If Smith is terminated, she could collect between $200,000 and $300,000 as part of a golden parachute written into her contract.
Tomorrow's meeting is at 5 p.m. at SEDC's headquarters, 4393 Imperial Avenue, Suite 200.
Tuesday, July 22 -- 2:45 pm If you're looking for the Centre City Development Corp.'s website today, you won't have any luck. It was hit by a virus and has been knocked out, said Derek Danziger, a CCDC spokesman.
Danziger said the downtown redevelopment agency hopes to have its site back up within 24 hours, in time to unveil a set of proposals for revamping City Hall and its surrounds on Wednesday. If the site isn't back up, he said CCDC would work to establish a temporary site to distribute the documents.
Update: After falling victim to an SQL injection worm earlier today, the Centre City Development Corp.'s website is back up.
Tuesday, July 22 -- 3:42 pm
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and the city's three non-public safety unions have come to an agreement on pension reform that will keep the issue off the November ballot.
The agreement is yet another iteration of a proposal Sanders has been pushing for months, with a couple important differences from a compromise proposal he reached with City Council President Scott Peters last month.
The unions seem to be agreeing to less lucrative pension formulas and the elimination of a supplemental savings program that was run outside the pension system in exchange for an earlier retirement age.
Under the newest compromise, employees hired after July 1, 2009 will still be able to retire at 55, albeit with a significantly smaller pension than current employees. The Sanders/Peters compromise had increased the minimum retirement age to 60.
Also, the compromise eliminates the Supplemental Pension Savings Program, a 401(k)-like "defined contribution" plan, for new employees. Instead, the defined contribution portion of an employee's retirement savings will be administered under the same umbrella as his or her standard, or "defined benefit," pension.
This is important because it allows Sanders and mayors after him to, over time, move pension dollars from the defined benefit plan to the less-costly defined contribution plan.
Finally, the newest compromise proposal cuts the city's mandatory contribution to the defined contribution plan from 1.25 percent to 1 percent of an employee's salary. The other .25 percent will be paid into a retiree medical trust so health costs will eventually be paid via a separate revenue source.
Sanders and the unions have a press conference scheduled for 1 p.m. today. I'll have more when I get back.
Tuesday, July 22 -- 11:39 am
City Attorney Mike Aguirre was completely flabbergasted when I told him Friday that he's using more water at home than he has in the past. Aguirre has been one of the most vocal city officials on water issues and was long ago arguing for mandatory restrictions on water consumption across the city. (Steps such as prohibiting lawn watering during certain times of the day.)
While we were talking Monday, he threw out this excuse. It didn't make it into my story, but it's worth passing along. Aguirre's water use spiked in April and May. He said those were campaign months leading up to the June primary election. He continued:
Maybe I was taking more showers for the campaign. That's a joke, dude! In all seriousness, I have no idea. We can't figure it out.
Tuesday, July 22 -- 10:54 am
The San Diego Unified school board delayed voting on a potential facilities bond for the November ballot tonight. With several trustees pressing for more details on the projects the $2.1 billion bond would pay for, it appeared that the bond wouldn't be approved unanimously.
Board member Luis Acle was vocal about his concerns, saying that the list was not "a finished product" and compared it to a blank check. The board president, Katherine Nakamura, said she wanted more time to review the list in detail, having only received it an hour before the meeting.
It is the second time that school board members have rebuked staff about the project list, after initial complaints that the list lacked vision and was thin on specifics. Acle said the list was an improvement, but still inadequate.
"We owe it to the taxpayers to give them all the information we have," Acle said.
Board unity could be an important selling point as the bond goes before voters in November, said Superintendent Terry Grier. But Grier was confused about what information Acle lacked, and board member John de Beck suggested that Acle was nitpicking at the project list merely to delay the decision.
"What do you need that you don't have?" Grier asked rhetorically after the meeting. "We didn't hear much of a response."
The board will revisit the facilities bond on Wednesday, and could vote to approve it at that time.
Monday, July 21 -- 7:03 pm
This Just In Archives: Advanced Search
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Her exit from a redevelopment post in West Palm Beach similar.
Thursday, July 24 -- 7:15 pm
Nancy Graham explains her resignation.
Thursday, July 24 -- 4:53 pm
In addition to auditing SEDC, the city will also look at three other city agencies.
Thursday, July 24 -- 4:47 pm
SURVIVAL IN SAN DIEGO
She's getting some deserved vacation, but will be back soon.
Wednesday, July 23 -- 4:13 pm
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Aguirre shows them who's boss.
Thursday, July 24 -- 4:18 pm
CAFÉ SAN DIEGO
Thirty years after Blackout Pete implemented his redevelopment model for San Diego, it's time for a major overhaul.
Thursday, July 24 -- 7:56 pm
COMMENTARY: SLOP
This isn't a job. It's a mission. And we're eating up every moment of it. Join us.
Wednesday, July 23 -- 3:57 pm
COMMENTARY: RICH TOSCANO
June made for another record-setting month in San Diego foreclosure activity.
Tuesday, July 22 -- 12:34 pm
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