San Diego City Councilwoman Lorie Zapf claimed recently that her district had gotten the most pothole repairs from the city.
Liam Dillon wanted to fact check that. It passed. District 6 had 6,750 pothole repairs in 2013, more than any other district. Pothole repairs were complaint driven. Zapf says her district staff proactively searches for and reports them rather than waiting on residents.
It’s changing, Dillon wrote. Pothole repair crews now drive to different neighborhoods in the city and fix the ones they see. You can check online when repair crews will be in your ‘hood.
Bike Share Snubs City Heights
San Diego’s oft-delayed bike sharing program (which doesn’t appear to have an official name) will eventually get bikes underneath riders and get them moving. But it won’t be moving anyone in the City Heights neighborhood any time soon, Megan Burks reported. The “first stations will open downtown, Old Town and beach locations,” Burks wrote.
There are no plans to put them in City Heights even though a large number of residents there do not own cars.
Wants Vs. Needs
Catherine Green has been adding context to all the city rankings and surveys that rate San Diego next to cities around the country. Her latest centers on a survey that found that young people want to move to San Diego.
That’s a bit in conflict with other surveys that say young people want better transportation options and walkability. San Diego doesn’t rank so high on studies about those amenities.
Police Woes Beyond Public Trust
Wednesday, with the help of SDSU’s Joshua Chanin, we ranked the San Diego Police Department on its transparency and it didn’t come out looking so good.
But then the city’s communication system failed for about five minutes. And that provoked a fascinating exchange between Chanin and Jeff Jordon, from the police officers union. Jordon thinks we should fix problems like that before trying to upgrade transparency.
And there seems to be some confusion over how often this kind of failure happens. “As far as we know, an incident like this has not happened in the past two decades,” SDPD spokesman Kevin Mayer told Green.
“Yesterday, was a complete radio system failure, we had a similar incident last year,” Jordan wrote.
Oddly Similar Budgets: San Diego Explained
If you’ve seen one budget, you’ve seen them all, or at least that’s very nearly true in the case of Mayor Faulconer’s budget when compared with his predecessor’s. Like baked goods, most budgets are made up of the same stuff. Lisa Halverstadt joined NBC San Diego’s Catherine Garcia and a couple of cupcakes to break down how San Diego’s budget is made, and why this new one is a little sweeter, in the most recent San Diego Explained.
Daily Dumanis Dose
The spotlight continues to shine on District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis as she faces complaints that she accepted free meals and had failed to report them as gifts. U-T San Diego compared it to the public disclosure violations Dumanis has herself prosecuted as bribes.
A supporter of Dumanis’ opponent, Robert Brewer, filed another ethics complaint on Wednesday claiming that Dumanis hasn’t returned over $10,000 her campaign illegally received from foreign nationals during her 2012 campaign for mayor. But on Thursday, the San Diego Ethics Commission dismissed the claim as “unfounded and inappropriate.”
News Nibbles
• The New York Times looks into the top contending bids for the 2024 Summer Olympics: Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Washington, Philadelphia and Boston have so far made the cut. San Diego would need to build a large track and field stadium, though. Our fact check imagines we need a lot more than just one stadium.
• A drug and alcohol recovery program associated with the Rock Church in San Diego has been accused of sexual battery and harassment by a group of women who had participated in the program.
• President Obama stepped out in San Diego today, and protesters stepped out with him.
• Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the Court, was also in town. She spoke at the Lawyers Club of San Diego’s annual dinner. The Lawyers Club’s mission is to advance the status of women in law and society. O’Connor joked that the mission resonated with her before lamenting that civics education — instruction on how our governments work — had become an afterthought in schools.
• Watch a T-rex throw the opening pitch at a recent Padres game.
• Meb Keflezighi, the San Diegan who won the Boston Marathon in April, will be given the key to the city on Saturday.
Panda Breeding On Pause
One of San Diego Zoo’s panda bears, 24-year-old Gao Gao, is recovering from surgery after he was diagnosed with a tumor in one testicle, which had to be removed. He’s recovering in seclusion at the panda exhibit. But the surgery may throw the zoo’s entire panda exhibit into question, NBC San Diego reported. Nevertheless, the San Diego Zoo was celebrating as it received a $6 million donation, it’s largest donation ever.
No word yet if Gao Gao might be a good candidate for Neuticles.
Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified SDSU professor Joshua Chanin. We regret the error.
Seth Hall is a local writer and technologist. You can reach him at voice@s3th.com or follow him on Twitter: @loteck.