Morning Report: The $810,000 Oopsy Daisy

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Here’s a word to the wise: Don’t buy an $810,000 house “as is,” without all those boring disclosure documents.

Because, as we report,  you may end up with one very big and very expensive surprise. (Since the home is in the surfer’s paradise of Encinitas, we’ll add “very gnarly” to that list.)

“You’re making me sick. I’m so sick to my stomach. I feel like I’m going to throw up,” the home’s buyer, who paid cash, told a Realtor who had some bad news for him.

So what’s wrong with the house? You’ll have to read the story to find out, but it’s a doozy.

In other news:

• Let’s recap the makeup of the county board of supervisors for at least the past 15 years: white Republican times five.

  Well, that was easy.

  But four Democrats are trying to make it hard for Ron Roberts to remain one of them.

  Their weapon: Diversity. The foursome includes two women, one African-American, one Latino and one gay man.

• The county is supposed to process food-stamp applications within 30 days, but it’s had a very hard time reaching that standard. In January 2009, it blew past the federal requirement almost 53 percent of the time.

  Now, things have changed: the number fell to about 22 percent in October. A county official said several factors could account for the improved number.

• In education: “San Diego Unified is in danger of slipping behind on school repairs if it doesn’t find a steady source of funding for fixes, the overseers of the district’s $2.1 billion renovation bond told the school board. The school district was supposed to do that years ago. It hasn’t.”

  The district’s campuses, overseers warn, will be in poor or only mediocre shape if it can’t find $23 million a year to pay for school repairs by 2013.

• Also in education, a school board member is miffed about what she calls “a big glass Taj Mahal in the middle of these economic times” — a $21.4 million data center that will back up the district’s data, which is currently all in one place. (But what happens if disaster strikes the whole city?)
• Finally, we have this in education: ” A coalition of black teachers and community leaders is seeking changes to boost the academic achievement of black children in San Diego County schools, from training school staff in race relations to offering more optional classes on African American history.”
• The report says schoolkids “are experiencing on a daily basis a mental/educational death.”
• The county DA’s office is “withholding public records from voiceofsandiego.org unless we pay a $1,354 bill that open government advocates call outside the law.”

  “They just want you to go away,” says an open-government advocate. We’ll see about that.

• Lani Lutar, the CEO of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, has become one of the most quoted people in the local political world, showing up again and again in news stories about topics from pension reform to civic projects. In a Q&A feature with Scott Lewis, she discusses why she’s the “skunk at the garden party,” says she’s not interested in running for office (at the moment, at least) and has an unexpected choice for most promising local leader.

  Lutar also describes herself as “socially progressive and fiscally conservative.” I’m waiting for someone to admit they’re “fiscally liberal.” That’ll probably happen when a reporter describes a neighborhood as “loud” instead of “quiet.” But I digress.

• The Fact Check takes a look at a county supervisor’s claim that rural firefighters are doing a faster job of responding to fires.
• And we fact check a claim that Southeastern San Diego schools have a 50 percent dropout rate.
• Columnist Rich Toscano takes a look at local job numbers from 2009 and finds that two segments of the economy actually gained jobs. Can you guess what they are? (“Chart Production Director for Rich Toscano” is not a job category.)
• Snip, snip, said the Photo of the Day.

Elsewhere:

• It’s been a mystery: Why did county authorities refuse to identify a body found near Lake Hodges as that of missing teenager Chelsea King even as a suspect faced accusations of murdering her? Yesterday, before an Escondido Rotary Club meeting, Sheriff Bill Gore finally confirmed that the body is hers. (NCT)
• In another development, the young woman who may have been attacked last December by the suspect in King’s murder went on “Larry King Live” last night and said she thought she’d be raped. The U-T says this contradicts the police report about the incident.
• A local medical marijuana dispensary owner facing drug charges made a unique argument: that he made his decisions based on what a guy named Barack Obama said about medi-pot enforcement during his campaign for president. A judge didn’t go for it, the U-T reports. (And by the way, yes, “medi-pot” is a term. It’s hip and trendy and, as you know, that’s the way we roll at the Morning Report. )
• An abandoned Golden Hill house and property is still a neighborhood nuisance more than two years after a 14-year-old girl was stabbed and beaten to death there, CityBeat reports. 
• Finally, there’s bad news for fans of words: As of March 20, all San Diego branch libraries will be closed on Mondays, and only three will be open on Sundays. Meanwhile, the downtown central library will shut down on Saturdays.

You know what this means: Stay off the streets on Mondays. Bookworms will be running amok, breaking into houses in search of things to read. “Brains,” they’ll say. “We must feed our brains!”

It’ll be just like “Zombieland,” but with a lot more pocket protectors.

— RANDY DOTINGA