The Morning Report
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I’ve got a couple of announcements to make but first I wanted to add a point to Tim Sullivan’s column in the Union-Tribune today about a new Mission Valley stadium proposal for the Chargers.
Nearly everyone — from Sullivan even to the Chargers themselves — expressed a healthy dose of skepticism on the plan.
One more point: The development plan, Sullivan writes, would rely on getting the stadium area turned into a redevelopment zone.
That would allow the city to capture a much greater share of the taxes there instead of having them passed on to the county or state. But to do that, you have to be able to prove that the area is blighted.
And that’s the problem.
The Chargers first proposed the redevelopment idea when they offered their original stadium proposal back in 2003. Shortly thereafter, everyone pretty much agreed that it’d be near impossible to get that redevelopment designation, so the idea was scrapped.
I’m not sure that the area is anymore blighted than it was back then.
Let me know if anything’s changed since then that I should know about.
Now, on to a few announcements:
- We’re going to be doing obits regularly. Our first foray was one that I’m proud of — this in-depth look at the contradictions of Jeromiah Paul Davis’ life by freelance writer Khari Johnson.
To make this the best it can be, we’ll need your help. Please let me know at andrew.donohue@voiceofsandiego.org when a friend, family member or a San Diegan with an interesting story or life has passed away. We’re always going to be on the lookout for new obits and will be relying on you for helping us find those stories.
We see them as an important public service and a source of local history and fascinating stories.
- Emily Alpert has a cool new feature she’s doing in Schooled. Every morning, in her Bright and Early post, she’ll be compiling all the important local and national education stories from publications all around. It’s a great place for education junkies to get their morning fix all in one spot. I’m hoping we move this feature into our other blogs soon, too.
- Partnerships. We’ve been big on them for a long time, as you can tell by our coalitions with NBC, Cox Channel 4 and KOGO. We’re also probably going to be working more with other nonprofit news organizations to share stories, documents and resources right now and, hopefully, even more in the future.
The first fruits of these labors appeared in today’s Will Carless story that compared the stimulus to the oversight problems with the homeland security grants after 9/11. Much of that story was based on audits shared with us by the Berkeley-based Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit reporting outfit that’s been around for more than three decades.