The Morning Report
Get the news and information you need to take on the day.
After much political wrangling, voters overwhelmingly nixed a new community plan for Barrio Logan that would have begun to separate industrial and residential uses. They were apparently convinced that shipbuilding jobs would be threatened. Now what?
“There’s no clear next step in the process of giving the neighborhood a reasonable chance to pass a new plan,” writes VOSD reporter Andrew Keatts in a new story. “The basic dynamics between the two sides are unchanged.”
• VOSD contributing photographer Sam Hodgson zipped around the city and captured the subdued nature of democracy in quasi-action. Check his photos here.
Leave it to Hodgson to include a picture of a cockroach in his photo essay. (Note: The cockroach in this case is a bona fide insect, not a politician or member of the media.)
More Election News: Gloating Galore
• Former Councilman Carl DeMaio easily dispensed with his Republican opponents in Tuesday’s primary in the 52nd congressional district and will face incumbent Rep. Scott Peters in November.
“National GOP groups were crowing Wednesday that the combined vote for the Republican candidates far outpaced support for the lone Democrat,” the U-T reports. “Peters’ backers said he outperformed expectations given that he spent little heading into Tuesday’s primary.”
Peters wants five debates with DeMaio.
None of the other House congressional races in the county look to be even the slightest bit competitive, with the incumbents each shellacking their nearest opponents (whom they’ll still face in November).
S.D.-Area Cops and Drones: Not a Match (Yet)
Police in other cities are experimenting with the use of drones as tools to watch people and gather evidence, but five of our region’s biggest law enforcement agencies tell us that they haven’t caught a ride on the drone train. That’s not to say, however, that they all haven’t looked into the idea.
Grand Jury ‘Whitewashes’ Jail Deaths and Abuse
CityBeat, which has exposed a pattern of dozens of recent deaths in the San Diego County jail system, finds that the county grand jury has ignored reality in favor of slapping a happy face sticker on local government.
The grand jury’s latest report “reads more like a press release than a watchdog report, patting the Sheriff’s and Probation departments on the back despite serious questions regarding deaths in custody and the use of pepper spray on juveniles,” says a new CityBeat story. “The report glosses over concerns raised by detention experts and uses inaccurate numbers to support its conclusions.”
Quick News Hits
• “The city has rejected a claim filed by City Auditor Eduardo Luna, who last week sought $60,000 for legal fees he incurred during a review of his response to a workplace injury at his office,” the U-T reports.
A city attorney’s official says: “Our office provides legal representation to city officials in their official capacities, not personal or disciplinary.”
• We’ve been reporting on Cory Briggs, the local environmental attorney who drives local cities and developers around the bend. The Reader has an update on his tangles with the office of City Attorney Jan Goldsmith: “In a May 30 filing in a case over illegal assessments, an investigator for Goldsmith accuses Briggs of embellishing the nonprofits he runs, making it appear as if there are others besides him behind the lawsuits.”
• Some environmentalists are miffed at Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, a local assemblywoman, for supporting an energy-related bill along with other local assemblymembers. CityBeat explains.
• “There must be a way” to close Balboa Park’s Cabrillo Bridge to cars, CityBeat editor Dave Rolland writes.
• San Diego has likely already lost its bid for the 2024 Olympics. The U-T’s Mark Ziegler explains the dynamics.
• An El Niño is coming!
• KPBS reports that the military has improvised explosive device-sniffing dogs.
They’re improvising dogs now? Oh wait, I didn’t read that correctly. The news is that about 50 retired bomb-sniffing dogs need to be adopted. Marine Corps handlers get pick of the litter, but there may be other dogs who need new homes, possibly including the utterly adorable critter whose photo appears in the KPBS story.
• Speaking of photos: I’m a sucker for old ones. No, not my high-school yearbook photo, which another Chula Vista native — a former mayoral spokesman — posted on Twitter the other day. (Look away!)
No, I prefer the really old ones from decades and decades ago. Like this nifty photo of a couple of beachgoers doing the “King Tut” in the 1920s, long before Steve Martin showed us how to do it.
However, the caption seems to be wrong. That doesn’t look like Coronado. Could it be La Jolla? Let me know if you can figure out where the photo was taken. Meanwhile, I’ll ponder how King You-Know-Who was “born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia.” Disco Tut!
Randy Dotinga is a freelance contributor to Voice of San Diego and president-elect of the American Society of Journalists & Authors. Please contact him directly at randydotinga@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/rdotinga.
Voice of San Diego is a nonprofit that depends on you, our readers. Please donate to keep the service strong. Click here to find out more about our supporters and how we operate independently.