The Agenda: Today’s A.M. Political Roundup

Good morning from Hillcrest.

• First off, let me apologize for the lack of an Agenda yesterday. I had an all-day television assignment for our next installment of San Diego Explained. I’ll be talking about the city of San Diego’s outsourcing program Tuesday at 6 p.m. on NBC. Today’s Agenda will have some stories we missed from yesterday.
• The city of San Diego has a new budget deficit: between $40 million and $60 million, and not much time to fix it. No one seems to have concrete ideas at this point for what to do.
• A prominent local developer is gearing up for a $4 billion (yes that’s a “b”) mixed-use project in Otay Ranch.
• The temporary closure of city fire stations could affect home insurance rates, KPBS reports.
• Council President Ben Hueso was wrong when he said 200 city employees lost their jobs because of the city’s December budget cuts. The real number, our Fact Check blog finds, is 23.
• Opponents of a mega-development in North County want to postpone a hearing on the project, pending a county-wide fire safety report.
• A dispute between San Diego’s City Attorney Office and a local restaurateur over the restaurant’s automatic service charge gets front-page play in the U-T.
• It will take four years (yes that’s “years”) to repair shower stalls at a city homeless day center.
• The Reader reports on a lawsuit filed by an ousted city official with complaints about a Little Italy special district and district proponent Marco Li Mandri.
• The Reader also has a rundown on campaign spending in a ballot proposition to make the city’s strong mayor system of government permanent.
• And Sanders’ office may be boycotting The Reader, but the newspaper is allowed to follow the city on Twitter.
• Adding to the trouble of Poway Councilwoman Betty Rexford, a neighbor is suing her for harassment. Rexford faces a recall vote in June.
• Project Labor Agreements, or pro-union pre-hire agreements for public works contracts, are the Fact Check gift that keeps on giving. An anti-PLA advocate is given a “huckster propaganda” for saying that PLAs require union labor. The same advocate gets a “misleading” for trying to spin one of our earlier Fact Checks.
• And in case you’ve been living in a political cave the last few days, San Diego Councilwoman Donna Frye will not be running for county supervisor.

— LIAM DILLON