Breaking news came in last night, first from NBC 7 San Diego: Todd Bosnich, the campaign staffer who accused congressional candidate Carl DeMaio of sexual harassment, was arrested Tuesday after allegedly assaulting his mother. The incident apparently happened Friday. Here’s the KPBS version.
It came at a time DeMaio appears to be more open to addressing the claims against him. He believes he lost because of them. The U-T and NBC got a judge to cough up police reports regarding a very strange break-in at DeMaio’s campaign office, shedding new light on the role played by the campaign of Rep. Scott Peters, the Democrat who won.
Someone fabricated an amazing and vicious tale in this whole mess and Scott Lewis can’t let it sit without trying to help figure out who. As a first step, he took a look at the Peters’ role in perpetuating the scandal and put together a new timeline.
Feds: Don’t Stick Poor Kids with Bad Teachers
The Obama Administration has a message for states: Make sure public schools aren’t sticking poor and minority children with less-experienced teachers or teachers who are unqualified. At the face of it, this order sounds like a giant headache for San Diego Unified schools. For a variety of reasons, kids in poorer neighborhoods here tend to have less-experienced teachers than kids in richer neighborhoods.
VOSD’s Catherine Green examines what the district may have to do to meet the federal mandate and why teachers — at least the teachers union — might not like it one bit.
Cyclists Who Don’t Cycle to Work
The city held a big cycling event over the weekend, and our intern Matthew Hose dropped by to ask folks if they bike to work. In a lot of cases, they don’t. This matters because the city wants to many more people to commute by bike. Yet these cyclists, whom you’d think would be in the vanguard, say there are many obstacles in their way.
Culture Report: New Home for Brewery Artwork
VOSD’s weekly Culture Report has good news for mural lovers: the nifty renovated murals from the 1940s-era Aztec Brewing Company have found a permanent new home, but not in a brewery. Plus: News about the late architect Irving Gill (who put San Diego architecture on the map), the Old Globe on the move (performing at a homeless center, among other places), the history of Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery (we’ve looked at the tragic story behind a prominent monument) and a symphony that actually wants listeners to fiddle with their cell phones during a performance.
Quick News Hits: Monumental New Fees
• Balboa Park is going to get a massive investment and 20 events for its centennial. (NBC)
• “A jury determined… that the county will have to pay $3 million to the parents of a heroin-addicted man who died of an asthma attack while detoxing in county jail,” the U-T reports. CityBeat has been tracking the county’s horrific record of inmate deaths and the county’s lack of interest in doing anything about it.
• Wait times at the border are shrinking finally, “creating hope for more jobs, increased tourism and greater educational and cultural exchanges.” (U-T)
• Pioneer surfer Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz has died at the age of 93. We profiled him back in 2008, where he intrigued our reporter with this: “We’ll start with my getting kicked out of Point Loma High School, and we’ll go from there.”
• Whoa: It might cost $15 instead of $5 to visit the Cabrillo National Monument by car if the National Park Service gets its way. (City News Service)
Great News for Procrastinators
Waiting until Election Day to deal with your mail ballot is a pain. Don’t ask how I know this. Let’s just say it’s a minor hassle to go to the polls to drop it off and a major hassle if you misplace your ballot and have to vote provisionally.
Maybe certain people should have been more organized. Fine. And maybe certain more-organized people shouldn’t bring this fact up. But I digress. The good news: As of Jan. 1, a new state law says voters will be able to mail their ballots on Election Day. As long as it’s postmarked on Election Day and gets in within three days, it’ll count.
Great! Now I can return to happily whining about the hassle of having to buy a stamp when you hardly ever need a stamp anymore.
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.