City officials say they want smart growth that provides more housing and encourages people to get around without driving their cars. But does the controversial development in Carmel Valley called One Paseo even qualify?
We examine the issue in a new story. As VOSD reporter Andrew Keatts puts it, “isn’t clear whether One Paseo — a 23-acre, $650 million project in Carmel Valley by Kilroy Realty — counts as a clear-cut win” for the city’s supposed priorities.
Indeed, some advocates for urban living — think downtown instead of Poway — aren’t digging One Paseo’s pitch. A cycling advocate doesn’t like it because it emphasizes cars: “auto-centric projects are by default bicycle-unfriendly.” (Are bicycle-friendly projects then by default hostile to cars?)
A final decision by the City Council awaits.
Cyclists Will Pay Big to Rent a Bike Here
Our reporting has discovered that San Diego’s long-delayed but finally upcoming bike-share program will be more expensive than similar programs in other big cities. For example, an annual membership that allows 30 minutes of free bike use on a regular basis will be $125 here, compared to a $65 annual rate in Minneapolis and less than $100 in Chicago, Washington D.C., San Francisco, New York and Denver.
What’s the deal? It all has to do with taxpayers and their lack of involvement. The rent-a-bike program here is privately funded. And unlike in New York City, where “CitiBikes” are all over the place, there’s no sponsor yet for the bike program in San Diego.
VOSD Radio: Fixing San Ysidro
San Ysidro’s high hopes date back a century to the days when utopian visionaries created a commune there and tried to change the world. They failed. Now, San Ysidro residents seek much less than utopia: Simply getting a sidewalk built to protect schoolchildren would be nice. But even that goal’s been endlessly elusive.
But they’re still working toward a better life in San Diego’s southernmost neighborhood. The latest edition of the VOSD podcast features guest David Flores, an official with the Casa Familiar organization, which is trying to boost affordable housing in San Ysidro. He talks about the sidewalk effort and other challenges facing his community.
SD’s Catholic Bishop Dies at 66
Bishop Cirilo Flores, the leader of Catholics in San Diego and Imperial counties, died of cancer on Saturday at the age of 66, the U-T reports. In 2013, he replaced the previous bishop, Robert Brom, whose term was been plagued by a sprawling sex abuse scandal within the diocese.
In a lengthy story published shortly before his death, the U-T noted that Flores was an advocate for Catholic schools — he promised not to close any and never did — and “a champion of the downtrodden, especially immigrants.”
Flores himself was the son of an immigrant from Mexico. He worked as an attorney before entering a seminary in 1986.
Quick News Hits: Whale City USA
• Our most popular article last week was a commentary warning that a Ferguson-style uprising could happen here. For the rest of our Top 10 stories, click here.
• Gov. Brown has rejected clemency for the man who killed a San Diego police officer in 1978. The killer has refused to admit that he murdered officer Archie Buggs. (LA Times)
• The U-T finds that more than 500 local teachers earned more than $100,000 in 2013. That’s not including pension and other benefits. In some cases, the salaries rose into the six figures because teachers took on more work.
• “A new analysis suggests that there are as many blue whales living off the coast of California as there were before humans started hunting them to near extinction 110 years ago,” the LA Times reports. “Today, there are roughly 2,200 blue whales who range from Mexico in the south to Alaska in the north. In the 1930s, that number was closer to 750.”
As we reported in July, it’s been a banner year for whales off the coast of San Diego.
Pro Football Stinks. Go Team!
This year’s football season has spawned an unusual amount of hand-writing by fans who are deeply appalled by the serious flaws within the sport. But few are boycotting the game despite the concussions, the coddling of players who do bad things and those perennial wealth-reducing ticket prices.
But one fan says enough is, at long last, enough. As the New Yorker reports, writer Steve Almond is out with a new book titled “Against Football”: ““I happen to believe that our allegiance to football legitimizes and even fosters within us a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia.”
And, in his case, a tolerance for being a fan of — urg — a team-that-should-not-be-named like Almond is. “If the Raiders were really good, I might not have written the book,” he admits to the magazine.
Raiders fan? Maybe it’s time to boycott Steve Almond.
Randy Dotinga is a freelance contributor to Voice of San Diego and president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Please contact him directly at randydotinga@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/rdotinga.
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