The Morning Report
Get the news and information you need to take on the day.
When you take into account how much it costs to live in San Diego and how much government support goes to low-income households, any household pulling in under $31,307 a year is living in poverty.
And that means 22.7 percent of San Diego County households are there, nearly one in four.
• In related news, NBC reports that San Diego has been ranked among the least affordable housing markets.
• U-T San Diego editorial writer Chris Reed has been pushing journalists to consider the state’s poverty rates when talking about its supposed economic recovery. Here he was writing in CalWatchdog.com.
Affordable Housing Fee Debate Peaking
You’ve hopefully seen all the work we’ve been doing on the affordable housing fee, a sharp increase to which the City Council is considering very soon. Here’s Andrew Keatts’ explanation of how it’s assessed (put your big brain on) and here’s the study behind it all.
It became a hot question in the mayoral race.
Friday, the city’s independent budget analyst Andrea Tevlin threw some water on the proposed hike. In a new report, she called the increase excessive, wants to phase it in and exempt industrial properties.
Also, the U-T has posted dueling op-eds from business leaders and interim Mayor Todd Gloria.
The U-T Will Own the La Jolla Light (and More)
The U-T San Diego has purchased Mainstreet Communications and its portfolio of community newspapers, including the La Jolla Light. The U-T report says that the paper will continue operating the eight community newspapers.
After the U-T bought the North County Times, that paper ended up dissolving as a standalone outlet.
The papers included in the deal are: the La Jolla Light, Del Mar Times and Poway News Chieftan, the Rancho Bernardo & 4S Ranch News Journal, the Solana Beach Sun, the Carmel Valley News, the Rancho Santa Fe Review and the Ramona Sentinel.
Sports
Here’s why sports writer John Gennaro thinks you should root for the Los Angeles Clippers and here’s everything else he thinks you should care about in sports this week.
News Bits
• The city of San Diego did not make the list of the top three most walkable cities in the region.
• Xconomy reports that Qualcomm may establish a new robotics institute at UC San Diego.
• A county supervisor is warning San Diegans to never walk by parked vans after he was threatened by a fork and then knife-wielding unstable individual who has been arrested. (Fox 5) Also, beware of unstable individuals waving knives around threateningly.
• Mexican lawmakers approved a bill that increases sales taxes in Baja border regions by 45 percent, no longer giving these areas a break based on fears shoppers will cross over and spend their money in the United States. This has provoked a meek secessionist movement.
• Two teachers were suspended without pay for two days for dressing up as Jamaican bobsledders and painting their faces brown for Halloween. NBC and L.A. Times.
Mayor of Commentary City
We’ve had some great commentary from readers this week.
• Former Mayor Jerry Sanders famously did not like email or computers in general. But entrepreneur and software man Benjamin Katz says the next mayor should be technologically literate. He says the mayor should know the difference between agile and waterfall development models. Do you know the difference? Read, it’s great.
• Here’s everything you should care about in the mayor’s race for the week.
• Kelly Abbott says the mortgage is too damn high in San Diego. It’s time for a big solution.
• Assemblywoman Toni Atkins wrote that David Alvarez should be mayor. And businessman Yehudi Gaffen, or Gaf, explained why he quit the Lincoln Club.
What We Learned This Week
• Civic San Diego, the tadpole that survived the evisceration of the frogs of redevelopment (it’s been a long week), is trying to survive and thinks it has found a way in micro-planning efforts that will spur development and make building things easier to do.
• New schools superintendent Cindy Marten gave a state of the district speech with lots of props and lots of hope but little in the way of details.
• Here’s a look into the turnover Marten has overseen in the district’s top leadership.
• The city will stick with its outsourcing of ambulance services, to the chagrin of some City Council members and the firefighters union.
• Nathan Fletcher told people that he didn’t know what else could be done to city employees to control the city’s pension problem, after all, today they have 401(k)s and no social security. That’s not true.
Quote of the Week
“The end result was a reactive organization lacking proper oversight to ensure that taxpayer dollars were being appropriately and effectively managed.”
— Scott Chadwick, city of San Diego’s new COO on the city’s reduction of senior management positions in 2009