You didn’t need a psychic to see this coming.
After weeks of bickering over which neighborhood should put up transients at night, the San Diego City Council decided yesterday to stick with the usual: the winter homeless shelter will once again be downtown.
The exact location is up in the air, but two councilmembers failed in their attempts to move it elsewhere.
Highlights of the City Hall debate included a warning of legal action (“there’s going to be a lawsuit, Kevin”), discussion of whether a downtown detox facility mainly serves the homeless (it doesn’t) and talk that the press hasn’t covered plans for a permanent homeless facility (we have).
- A correction: Yesterday’s Morning Report incorrectly said that a county office of education executive often recommends that her husband’s law firm be hired to handle cases.
In fact, as the story correctly reported, she doesn’t provide specific advice about which law firm to hire. Instead, she recommends whether she believes cases should be handled by outside attorneys. In almost all cases when she does that, the work goes to her husband’s firm.
I apologize for the error.
In other news:
- J. David Dominelli, the master pyramid-scheme swindler, left a legacy of ruin. A day after we learned of his death last summer, his victims told us about the lessons they learned a quarter century ago about trust, money and blame.
How bad was Dominelli’s scam? “We may never use the term ‘Ponzi scheme’ again. We may just hear people ask, ‘Is this another J. David scheme?’” said then-federal prosecutor Robert D. Rose at the time.
- Mayor Jerry Sanders has nominated a new fire chief: Assistant Fire Chief Javier Mainar.
If the City Council appoints him to the top job, Mainar will face pending budget cuts due to the city’s estimated $179 million deficit.
- In housing, home sales were up locally in September, and we’ve got more details about the status of the city’s plans for a permanent, one-stop homeless facility.
- In politics, there’s a very early endorsement for county supervisor, and a city attorney opinion sheds a legal perspective on what the city can do regarding “managed competition.”
- And on the education front, enrollment is down in San Diego schools, the school board took a stand against San Diego State’s enrollment policy, and a Virginia group is accusing San Diego schools, alleging its school-bond labor agreement “enriches union officials (and) punishes nonunion workers and employers.”
Elsewhere, there was a whole lot of news: Carlsbad’s desalinization plant may be delayed (NCT), San Diego City Hall departments are being told to draft cuts (U-T), and the Carlsbad self-help guru behind a deadly Arizona sweat-lodge ceremony is back on the motivational circuit (NCT).
Also: State officials have sidetracked plans for local railway improvements (U-T), our local state prison will no longer provide professional drug-abuse counseling for inmates (CityBeat) and county supervisors doled out the latest round of those grants (NCT) that we’ve covered extensively.
- Finally: Decades ago, schoolteachers produced worksheets by battling with messy ditto machines that they had to crank by hand. Now, copy machines take care of duplication. But worksheets, critics say, are still often full of rote problems that don’t inspire kids.
Have you seen an example of a really good or stupendously awful school worksheet? If so, get in touch and win a prize.
We promise there won’t be a test.