It turns out winning the Little League World Series is a lot like winning the big league one. Parades. VIP treatment. A trip to the White House.
And that’s not all. The Blue Bombers from Chula Vista’s Park View Little League are finding “the newfound celebrity may also help pave the way out of the local public school system and into one of the region’s private Catholic high schools, known for both their academic rigor and their reputations as athletic powerhouses,” our Adrian Florido writes.
It’s a sensitive topic because schools aren’t allowed to exert too much influence over a student’s school choice, but they can look at a child’s experiences when offering admission or financial help.
What else:
- First, something to watch for today: San Diegans could get the first look at how they’ll be asked to contribute to a downtown football stadium. A consultant will run down the latest in NFL financing deals at a meeting of the Centre City Development Corp. Check back with us for details, follow Liam Dillon at @dillonliam for live updates from the meeting and check out this video explainer to get up to speed.
- Questions of insolvency and fuzzy math have Councilman Tony Young changing his stance on the Southeastern Economic Development Corp.’s continued existence. After the public redevelopment agency’s 2008 scandals, Young dismissed the idea of dissolving the agency. Now, he just wants to make sure redevelopment gets done in his community.
- The Photos of the Day continue to be really cool.
- San Diego Unified is eschewing the traditional headhunter for its superintendent search, instead putting together a search panel of its trustees’ nominees. Why? To find a new type of leader after two straight quick exits.
- The district is also considering selling ads on its website and at schools to bring in more revenue.
- Emily Alpert also weighs in with her first contribution to our Fact Check blog. She finds school officials’ statement that San Diego could still get a sought-after piece of the stimulus pie to be Mostly True. While San Diego could get the cash, it still doesn’t appear to be likely.
- Housing prices recorded their first year-over-year increase since 2006.
Elsewhere:
- District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis is in another spat with a local judge. North County judge Harry M. Elias intimated that her prosecutors’ failure to follow evidence rules was “deliberate and intentional” and, the Union-Tribune states, the “stature of the office is plummeting.” Dumanis’ office is alleging bias and wants Elias off the case, similar to what it did with a downtown judge recently. Now’s a great time to catch up on more about Dumanis and her rise to power — check out our special report from earlier this month.
- The city of San Diego will lose $200,000 of its $450,000 investment for hosting a professional golf tournament at Torrey Pines this weekend for lost green fees, employee overtime and turf maintenance, the Union-Tribune reports.
- The quiet winner in all the buzz over Google’s Nexus One smartphone is San Diego’s own Qualcomm, Bloomberg BusinessWeek is reporting in its latest issue. And, the magazine says, Qualcomm’s challenging of chip maker Intel on its own turf — consumer electronics. Qualcomm is moving out of just cell phones and into netbooks, smartbooks and, potentially, into Apple products, at a time when Intel is moving into cell phones.
- Lastly, Metropolitan Transit Services will continue to forgo advertising on its new, slickly designed buses despite a money crunch that has it raising fares and cutting routes. The reason: Branding. MTS posits that, perhaps, the cool ad-free buses might have even raised ridership.
I’m sure those new riders are happy to pay more during the week and walk to work on Sundays. After all, they look pretty cool on the other days of the week.
— ANDREW DONOHUE