Things have gotten weird lately. Congressional candidate Carl DeMaio, already a magnet for peculiar allegations, is now facing one that could be the most damaging of his career: He’s accused of sexual harassment by a former staffer.
But that’s just the beginning. There’s also a campaign office break-in, a plagiarized report about double-dipping politicians, an allegedly purloined playbook that ended up in the hands of his opponent’s staff and more. It’s a lot to keep track of in this he-said, he-unsaid, he-said story, now made even more complicated by what they said: The district attorney and police chief announced this week that they’re not prosecuting anybody.
VOSD’s Scott Lewis has created a timeline of events and breaks out the questions raised by all the explanations and non-explanations. It all comes down to a seeming certainty: Somebody (or maybe more than one somebody) is lying.
• The influential blog Jezebel has picked up on the latest DeMaio flap, which CityBeat uncovered this week. This has to do with an alleged internal campaign email.
• The U-T editorial board has weighed in with an airily dismissive tone: “Throughout this flap, DeMaio has seemed far more credible than former aide Todd Bosnich.”
Who Boosts What in the S.D. Business World
Quiz time! What do CONNECT and CommNexus do? How about the San Diego Regional Chamber Of Commerce and the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation? Or MIT Enterprise Forum San Diego, San Diego Venture Group and San Diego Tourism Authority?
This isn’t actually a quiz. We don’t expect anyone to know what all these organizations do, plus several more that serve as business boosters locally. That’s why we’ve put together a handy guide to the “myriad organizations, councils and industry associations throughout San Diego that try to foster a good atmosphere for businesses.”
• Like the tide, the battle over UCSD’s leftie, music-playing Ché Cafe has no end. The latest news: A court wants it out, but there’s still hope for fans. (U-T)
Oh (Ugly) Baby! Council Ties Up Loose Ends
• The grand ugly-baby compromise over an affordable housing fee — the “linkage fee,” if you’re jargony — is now official. Check our previous coverage to get insight into how it all came together and why we’re being so rude to ugly babies as to compare them to this agreement.
• The Council has also made new strict water rules official. Among other things, residents and businesses will only water their lawns briefly three days a week, and ornamental fountains — yes, like the grand one at Balboa Park — must be shut off even if they use recirculated water. They can only be turned on for maintenance. (U-T)
We reported earlier about complaints by environmentalists that the city rules were letting water users off the hook.
• Speaking of water, the L.A. Times reports: “In a state where three-quarters of the water use is by agriculture, powerful farm districts … play an outsized role in the rough-and-tumble world of water politics.”
Culture Report: Tijuana on the Mind, and the Mend
VOSD’s weekly Culture Report continues to preview today’s Meeting of the Minds event, which focuses on our neighbors to the south. That’s where “the violence that drove people away led local artists, promoters and tastemakers to rebuild Tijuana’s cultural landscape almost from scratch,” writes event host and Culture Report scribe Alex Zaragoza.
Also in the round-up: Links to stories about murals galore, a progress report on the San Diego Opera, a new Grinch and a rap-tastic get-out-the-vote effort.
Quick News Hits: Park-and-Train
• The L.A. Times examines a conundrum in the nation’s second-largest city that’s also an issue here: People want to take public transit but they can’t find parking. “Studies from several U.S. cities show a direct link between parking and ridership, suggesting that full lots discourage some people from riding the train.”
• L.A. has no football team, but there’s been talk for years that it might get one — maybe the Chargers. Now, the NFL is officially studying how much Los Angelenos actually want a team and what kind of stadium they’d need. (L.A. Times)
• San Diego has made it to yet another Top 10 list, but not necessarily one that the Chamber of Commerce is going to tout. Our Black’s Beach is on a global list of the world’s top nude beaches, noted as the largest and most famous in the U.S. As we’ve revealed, nudity at Black’s Beach isn’t legal (although it was for a while in the 1970s), but it’s tolerated. Hundreds of people in the buff can be found there on summer days.
Conde Nast Traveler has a new etiquette guide about visiting a nude beaches. (Tip: Sunscreen and more sunscreen.) Unfortunately, there’s no advice on when it’s appropriate to exclaim, “Hey! My eyes are up here!”
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.