The Morning Report
Get the news and information you need to take on the day.
The Republican Party’s endorsement of Carl DeMaio for mayor, despite the presence of two other popular Republican candidates, marks the culmination of DeMaio and GOP Chairman Tony Krvaric’s push to move the party away from what they label the “establishment,” says our Scott Lewis.
That moderate Republican establishment included people like Dick Murphy, Jerry Sanders, Jim Madaffer and Brian Maienschein.
On Saturday, two-thirds of the voting members of the Republican Party’s local Central Committee voted to endorse DeMaio, the most conservative of the four major candidates for mayor. They turned away Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher and District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, the other high-profile Republican rivals for the job.
On Friday, Lewis explored the tension between DeMaio and Fletcher leading up to the vote. And in 2010 he looked at DeMaio and Krvaric vs. “the establishment.“
• VOSD Radio tackled the budding DeMaio-Fletcher rivalry and turmoil in the teachers union in its latest its latest episode. We also offered up two fact checks and the Hero and Goat of the Week.
• It’s Fletcher/DeMaio week! Fact Check TV looks at a claims by DeMaio about declines in library hours and another Fletcher about how many Latino students in the city school district are failing to read at grade level.
War on Stage: A Life Part Military, Part Theatre
Jamie Ruddy, a reservist serving in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps, bought his tickets for “How I Got That Story,” which we’ve been chronicling, while serving in Afghanistan.
He returned and saw the play, and that’s sparked him to think deep about the relationship between a new generation of veterans, our community and the stage.
“The story demonstrates how in life we start out with big ideals and then reality writes a different script for us…,” he writes. “It may be that it takes a village to raise a child; I am beginning to believe it take a society to bring home a warrior to be that positive productive influence and that process is sometimes ongoing and in some cases unending.”
‘Too Many Kids in Handcuffs’
A leading community advocate in City Heights says that our Sunday story questioning inner-city curfew sweeps raises questions about civil rights. Diana Ross, of the Mid-City CAN, called the curfew sweep program “at best unproven and at worst counterproductive.”
Check out the original story here.
In comments on the story, Vlad Kogan takes issue with the methodology behind our findings, while Susan Taylor asks “Isn’t anyone else concerned just a little about the profiling going on here?”
Reporter Keegan Kyle will appear on local radio and TV today to discuss his curfew story. You can find details here.
• In other letters, reader Brian Peterson figures out a way “to keep the redevelopment zombie dead.”
Examining Escondido’s Latino/DUI Controversy
KPBS reports that Escondido’s DUI checkpoints, long accused of being a way to snag undocumented immigrants, allow the city to make “an illegal profit off of every checkpoint tow.”
The checkpoints are “a way for the police department to make it so hard for them to live here that they will move somewhere else,” complains a retired assistant sheriff. The city’s police chief says the story is bunk.
Quick News Hits
• Our long national-capital nightmare may be over.
If you want to fly to Washington D.C. non-stop, you have no choice but to head to Dulles airport in Virginia and face a time-consuming trip to get into the city. But now, Alaska Airlines is pushing for a non-stop flight to the much more convenient National Airport from San Diego, the Seattle Times reports.
Flights could begin as soon as August.
• Earlier this month, local Border Patrol workers found a woman trying to cross the border while hidden in the side panel of a Dodge Caravan. Now they’ve discovered a man “concealed between the gas tank and undercarriage of a pickup truck” at a checkpoint near Jamul, Fox San Diego reports.
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like an Oppressive Law
A TV reporter in Northern California heard from an annoyed resident who’s sick and tired of having to look at Christmas lights next door when it’s March already, for cryin’ out loud.
The story notes that down here in San Diego, it’s illegal to leave Christmas lights out past Feb. 2.
The fine is $250, although “enforcing the law is not a top priority.”
Please contact Randy Dotinga directly at randydotinga@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/rdotinga.