San Diego County may seem to have plenty of open land, but it’s not just sitting there waiting for manufacturers to move in. Much of it isn’t available for various reasons, or it’s not in places where companies want to move.
VOSD reporter Lisa Halverstadt takes a look at what this means for the dreams of local business boosters: “The lack of space and the high cost of the supply in desirable central locations might have been a factor in some companies’ decisions to expand elsewhere but it’s not clear the shortage is hurting the businesses already here — yet.”
Election Roundup: Listen to DeMaio’s Accuser
• You can now listen to the never-broadcast radio interview with Todd Bosnich, the former campaign staffer who claims that he was sexually harassed by congressional candidate Carl DeMaio. CityBeat obtained a copy. The interview was recorded the day before the June primary.
• The Most Emotionally Disturbing Ad of the Election award looks like a lock for Republican governor candidate Neel Kashkari, who let loose with a depiction of a child drowning yesterday.
Commentary: Airport’s High-Flying Global Outreach
In a VOSD commentary, airport board member Jim Desmond responds to our story about how Lindbergh Field is a bottleneck for the region’s global aspirations: “The grumbles about our airport’s limitations are old. There are a few things in the works and already in place to quiet those complaints.”
Among other things, nonstop service to China is a possibility. “It would be nice to have more runways, no curfew and more international nonstop service,” Desmond writes. “But in the real world, we continue to provide what the region needs to have in air service.”
San Diego’s Reputation, for Better and Worse
• Biotech is leading San Diego’s “rebound,” the Sacramento public radio station reports.
• A government study says we’re one of the most expensive places in the country for average “housing-related costs,” ranking on a short list of metropolitan areas below only Washington D.C., San Francisco and New York City. We pay less for “utilities, fuels and public services” than many other places. But, of course, we’re way up there on “shelter.”
This past summer, we fact-checked a councilwoman’s claim that San Diego is the second-most expensive city to live in in the country. That’s not true.
Quick News Hits
• The strike by elementary school teachers in San Ysidro is over. (KPBS and 10 News)
• The U-T says that the giant bond indebtedness we helped surface is now dominating Poway’s school district elections.
• A U-T columnist is out with a story about philanthropist Malin Burnham, who’s been talking about creating a nonprofit to buy the U-T. Burnham says he’s recruited a team of “Bill Geppert of East County, retired head of Cox Communications San Diego; Bill Roper of La Jolla, retired CFO of SAIC; Pat Shea, a San Diego attorney; and Mark Stephens of Rancho Santa Fe, a retired partner of Ernst & Young.”
• The city is paying $225,000 to a woman who says the police took her newborn daughter away without justification in 2008. “The system did fail her in every way that she could have been failed,” her attorney says. (NBC 7)
• The City Council may have to give citizens more time to speak. (Reader)
• “A former teacher’s aide who was busted at the border with more than $500,000 worth of cocaine and methamphetamine was sentenced Friday to 37 months in federal prison and three years supervised release,” NBC 7 reports. The aide kept working with the San Diego school district, which wasn’t aware of his arrest, for almost a year until NBC 7 alerted it to his situation.
• The massive proposed NFL concussion settlement seems to have smooth sailing ahead, with many retired players saying they’re OK with the deal. The family of the late Chargers player Junior Seau, however, had planned to opt out. (ESPN)
• Killer whales have accents, San Diego-based research finds, and they can even pick up the dialects of dolphins that they hang out with.
Oh man. Make sure they don’t get to close to the beach. The last thing we need is a bunch of killer whales telling each other to “chillax, broseph!”
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.