It’s getting so you can’t tell the players without a … family tree.
San Diego Councilman Ben Hueso wants to become an assemblyman, so he’s not running to retain his seat this year. Instead, another Hueso and an Inzunza — from another storied political South Bay family — are vying for the seat, along with five other candidates who aren’t so well known.
For the first time in many elections in District 8, an Inzunza or a Hueso (or both) will lose. Our story takes a look at the candidates and examines the complicated histories of the Inzunza and Hueso dynasties.
In other news:
- A vote by the Metropolitan Water District board yesterday means that water supplies are still going to be tight in Southern California. For San Diego, that means more conservation — either mandatory or voluntary.
Also: Local water rates are going to keep going up and up and up.
- You might think that job-interviewing is fairly simple process. You know, ask where do you want to be in five years, what’s your greatest weakness and so on. (Best answers: “Still making your company bigger and better” and “I’m so dedicated that I often work too darned hard.”)
The San Diego school district didn’t think. It spent $23,000 to learn how to use a new interview strategy on principal wannabes. Now it’s out, as the great unraveling of the legacy of the previous superintendent continues.
- Also in education: San Diego schools are “under pressure from California and the federal government to make dramatic changes at its lowest performing schools. The carrot is up to $4 million for each of its three eligible schools. The stick is — well, there is no stick.
“But the school district has decided that it won’t bite at that carrot. Instead, it will set forth its own plans for the schools, whether or not they meet the government guidelines.”
- Last week, the U-T reported that the port district appraised the Convention Center’s expansion site “at $4.7 million for its current use as a parking lot.”
A guest from the North County Times on KPBS’s Editor’s Roundtable repeated it while dismissing the appraisal. But was it true?
- The Fact Check blog examined the newspaper’s claim. This is important because there’s dispute over whether the convention center managed to get into a bad deal in a complicated land transaction.
- Our Fact Check post has more, including a response from the U-T reporter and a clarification about a blunder of our own, turned up by a fact check of the Fact Check post.
- What shadows lurk in the heart of a UCSD corridor? The Photo of the Day knows.
Elsewhere:
- The City Council approved a $284,000 settlement in the lawsuit filed by homeowners against the city regarding the 2007 landslides on Mt. Soledad, the U-T reports. The city could have lost $100 million if it hadn’t won a court verdict last fall. But it still had to pay $6 million to outside lawyers to defend itself.
- Also in the U-T: “A Camp Pendleton Marine is running smack up against the limits of what uniform-wearing Americans are allowed to say about their government after his Facebook page for ‘Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots’ sparked concern among his superiors Tuesday.”
- You may recall that City Council candidate Lorie Zapf got in hot water a few weeks ago over a 2006 email in which she wrote that she wanted to keep gays out of public office and, for good measure, added that her three gay cousins ” all are very unhappy people and had horrible childhoods as well.” (The family Christmas cards this year are really going to be a treat. But I digress.)
Anyway, CityBeat, which broke that story, reports that Zapf supposedly has been going around saying she was quoted out of context, although it’s not quite clear what other context there might be other than the obvious one.
So CityBeat decided to post the whole email, saying it wanted to let readers decide if she was correct or spouting a sleazy excuse. Meanwhile, Councilman Todd Gloria, who’s gay, responded with a tweet: “For the record, I’m very happy and had a great childhood.”
So he’s not a cousin of Zapf, then?
- Here’s a yummy recipe, and health(ish) too! Start with 60 pounds of ground beef, 70 pounds of ground lean turkey, 120 pounds of chopped onions. . .
- Wait, whom is this recipe for? An army? No, just 4,500 people who don’t have much choice about cuisine.
- This recipe is from a delectableCityBeat story about local jail food.
- Two of the subjects of a lawsuit faced a Vista jury, the NCT reports: “the svelte, dark-haired ‘Yvette’ wearing a form-fitting black dress, and the auburn-haired ‘Michele’ wearing an off-white blouse, black vest and black skirt, sitting provocatively to her right, flanking two nameless models from abroad.”
Since it isn’t 1965 or so, when newspaper reporters could comment with abandon on the attractiveness of women, you may be able to figure out where this is going: These ladies aren’t quite real. In fact, they’re “love dolls,” designed for … well, you know.
And they’re not the cheapie blow-up kind (that I’ve only read about) either: These lovely lasses are made of silicon, metal and plastic. Just like the real thing, except not really.
The lawsuit — you almost forgot about that, didn’t you? — pits “love doll” entrepreneurs against each other.
The trial is expected to last for two weeks. After that, gentlemen, Yvette and Michele should be free to be squired around town in the manner to which they’re accustomed.