After the City Council approved boosting the minimum wage in San Diego, some folks aren’t happy, but it looks like they’ll have a hard time doing anything to stop this train.
It’s likely too late for opponents to gather petition signatures and force the issue to be put before voters at the November election.
The mayor, who opposed a minimum wage increase, could veto the ordinance. But the Council can override him with the same votes they used to pass it. Council President Todd Gloria said he chose to just do it, as opposed to sending it to a public vote, because he learned the Council could legally hike the wage on its own and his colleagues wanted to raise the wage without a vote.
• The mayor’s statement, as quoted here by KPBS, was not clear about whether he would at least symbolically veto the ordinance or try anything else have it reversed.
‘Hookup Culture’ Lacking in SD Biz World?
In a new post, Blair Giesen writes that San Diego lacks the commitment to personal connections that helps Silicon Valley thrive. While we’re home to major pet, fast-food, golf and flower companies, “some of the most well-known businesses don’t know how to work together. Many companies here use out-of-market technologies and don’t know that a similar product exists in San Diego — sometimes a better product,” he writes.
VOSD reader Kelly Abbott responded in a comment by claiming that “this may be true for the dot-com world, but largely false for Gov/DoD, Tourism, Beer, Biotech and Wireless spaces here. Plenty of those companies partner and incubate locally.”
Culture Report: Women and Folk Art in Focus
The VOSD weekly Culture Report notes that the Museum of Man has a female focus: It will hold a folk art festival this weekend featuring handmade wares from 10 female-run co-ops from around the world.
Also: a circus, the gay pride parade, a musician called “Swamp Dogg,” and oversharing by our scribe about the joys and horror of turning “dirty 30.”
DeMaio Offers New Zinger
The Associated Press checks in on the race in a local congressional district that pits a gay Republican against a Democratic incumbent. Carl DeMaio is the only one of three gay GOP congressional candidates who’s “managed to make political adversaries of both social conservative and gay rights organizations.”
The story isn’t especially revealing but does give DeMaio a chance to slam Democrats in his answer to a question about whether he ever considered being a part of that political party: “No, I’ve always believed in personal freedom.”
The National Journal, which earlier embarrassed DeMaio after accusing him of plagiarizing one of its reports, released a profile of DeMaio Tuesday with the headline “Yes, Carl DeMaio is a gay Republican. Now will everyone please stop asking him about it?” Uh. After you?
Report: Mutiny at Scripps Research Institute
“Faced with vehement opposition from faculty members, a prestigious independent research institute in California has abandoned a planned merger with a nearby university just weeks after the proposed deal became public,” science journal Nature reports.
The merger would have united San Diego’s Scripps Research Institute and USC. The story says there’s “a growing and perhaps insurmountable rift between Scripps faculty members and the institute’s president, Michael Marletta.”
Quick News Hits: A Fishy Ban Down South
• The Board of Governors of the San Diego Foundation chose Kathlyn Mead to be the new president and CEO of the Foundation. Mead served as the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the California Endowment.
• The Mexican government has banned bluefin tuna fishing of its shores, the U-T reports. There’s a debate among sportsfishers and environmentalists about whether the numbers of bluefin tuna are dangerously low.
• The drought is hurting cattle ranchers by forcing some to sell their cows because there’s no green pasture for them, KPBS reports. The drought is also boosting water costs for citrus and avocado growers.
Meanwhile, the LA Times estimates a $1 billion loss related to drought for growers this year. And now, California has approved new fines for water wasters. Merely asking people to stop hasn’t produced enough results.
• Remember the San Diego parents who got slammed all over the place after their family had to be expensively rescued from a boat in the Pacific due to a medical emergency? A VOSD commentary supporting them drew dozens of comments. Now the parents are suing a satellite phone company. They apparently lost service and couldn’t get medical advice for their baby. (U-T)
• Baseball’s All-Star Game was last night, and a bunch of team mascots got together for a group photo. You can see Swinging Friar, the Padres mascot, at the bottom left. He looks mighty cheery considering the wretched season the team’s had.
Very suspicious. Wait, check out Raymond, the Tampa Bay Rays mascot, just behind the friar. What’s he doing back there? Hey, Raymond! Hands where we can see them!
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.
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