San Diego’s police officers union has said each San Diego cop who takes a job elsewhere costs the city $190,000, amounting to some $50 million that the city has lost investing in officers who skip town. Two City Council candidates in District 6 both recently used the statistic.
As we’ve noted in the past and point out again now, the numbers are misleading.
• In other City Hall news, that big water main break in Kearny Mesa flooded several residential garages and will cost the city at least $160,000. (NBC 7)
Teacher Tenure Won’t Vanish Immediately
Congressional candidate Carl DeMaio recently reacted to a judge’s stunning ruling that teacher tenure rules harms kids’ civil rights by making it extremely difficult to fire bad teachers and staff poor schools with experienced teachers.
He told a TV audience that he wants to fill the gap left by the demise of teacher tenure with “measurable performance standards — not dictated by the federal government, but developed locally, by school boards, teachers and parents.”
It will be a challenge for him to accomplish any of this as a congressman instead of a state legislator or school board member. But that’s not all. In a new story, we explain how any opportunities for reform post-teacher-tenure will have to wait at least until higher courts figure out what to do with the ruling of a single judge. That’s likely to take years.
“That means the void that DeMaio is talking about isn’t as immediate as he’s describing,” VOSD reporter Mario Koran writes. “To DeMaio’s broader point, however, the current system for evaluating teachers isn’t much more than a formality.”
• In other politics news, the U-T talks to political scientists who think the race between DeMaio and Rep. Scott Peters could boost support for Carol Kim, a Democrat in that sole City Council race in November.
She’ll need it: Observers don’t expect Kim to win against Chris Cate, a Republican. The GOP tends to do better in non-presidential-year elections, and the race has been nearly buzz-free, meaning that Democrats might not get motivated enough to bother to vote.
Commentary: Higher Wages Benefit Veterans
In a VOSD commentary, Navy veteran and corporate security specialist Shawn VanDiver writes about how veterans should be part of the debate over the minimum wage: “I personally know several veterans earning the minimum wage, some of whom even work for vocal opponents of the ordinance in question. These men and woman served their country, were shot at, bled in foreign lands and then returned home to transition into school or new careers. These are not veterans with pensions. Those only come after 20 or more years of service.”
Review Board: Deputies Lied in Inmate Death
“A law-enforcement oversight board has found that San Diego County Sheriff’s deputies lied and omitted information in the investigation of the death of a 28-year-old African-American man who’d swallowed a baggie of meth before being booked into custody,” CityBeat reports.
According to the paper, a review board explains how “negligence and a failure to follow policies by deputies and medical staff” led to the death of a prisoner in 2012. As CityBeat has reported in a series of stories, the county jail system is plagued by an extraordinarily high level of inmate deaths. Politicians and county officials have shown no public interest in the issue.
Quick News Hits: Hueso Faces Charges
• Authorities in Sacramento have filed two misdemeanor charges against local state Senator Ben Hueso, who’s accused of driving while intoxicated. His arraignment is Sept. 18. (U-T)
• Sara Libby, the managing editor of VOSD, appears in the online magazine Slate with a story about how state legislature made major strides for women in its just-ended session: “California offers a rare glimmer of hope that victory for women at the state level doesn’t just mean successfully beating back efforts to curb freedoms, it means actually expanding them.”
• Now here’s a lopsided race: KPBS says foes of a ballot measure allowing the state to regulate health insurance have raised almost $38 million while supporters haven’t reached $200,000. The underdog may still win.
• The LA Times has a lengthy piece about that bizarre story you may have heard regarding a Carmel Valley couple’s alleged harassment at the hands of a woman who wanted their home.
Some of the alleged harassment was more aggravating than dangerous: “the mail arrived in torrents: thousands of dollars of magazines and books that someone had ordered without their permission and junk mail addressed to Jacques Arse.” But then things allegedly took a potentially violent turn. The accused harasser now faces a prison term.
• The Morning Report often likes to fancy itself as a 1940s dandy, so it appreciates lingo that has a certain mid-century flavor. You know, words like kerfuffle, brouhaha and hullabaloo.
Now, the Eater blog has declared these words to be verboten, along with a whole bunch of others like anyhoo, snarky, adorbs, and ’nuff said.
Oh boy. This is gonna be a donnybrook. Come and get me, word coppers!
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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