Good morning from Hillcrest.
- We’ll lead off with the U-T picking up the story on the Chargers and the city of San Diego working on a new downtown stadium site, something we wrote about at the end of last month.
The U-T’s piece discusses funding options, has reaction from local business and details on meetings between the team and the city. Recommended.
- The latest in San Diego’s budget saga is that there is no saga, I report. The mayor asked City Council to make budget cuts in each council office, council members refused and the mayor backed off. It’s a far cry from battles this time last year, but we’ll see if tactics change once cuts are proposed.
- San Diego County is considering using eminent domain for a 2,700-home development north of Escondido. Meantime, the North County Times editorializes against eminent domain for a project in Vista.
- A state initiative to cut pensions for new state and local government employees grew out of talks in San Diego County, the CalPensions blog reports.
- There could be a new private prison in Otay Mesa as soon as next year, CityBeat blogs.
- Our own Sam Hodgson reports on a San Diego City Council rule that regulates when photographers take pictures on the council floor of City Hall. Oil companies will pay the city $700,000 to settle a lawsuit over petroleum contamination in Barrio Logan. The city’s white-collar union is saying “no” to an outsourcing plan it had endorsed a couple years ago.
- In news from other cities around San Diego County, Escondido is seeking further cuts from its employees. A longtime Poway resident is running for City Council possibly for the seat now held by embattled Betty Rexford. Oceanside Councilman Rocky Chavez is leaving the city to take a state post.
- And finally because I love coming full circle, here’s a letter to us from a Malibu resident on our Chargers stadium coverage. The letter-writer calls San Diego an “inferiority-beset” city.