We wanted to keep the conversation going.
Since our big Voice of the Year package is all about who kick-started important discussions this year, we decided to highlight a second round of people who readers and staff members thought should have made the cut.
Among the new group: Jason Roe and Revolvis, who wield tremendous power behind the scenes in Republican politics, Carl DeMaio, who stoked a nationwide conversation about what a gay political candidate might look like and Nicole Capretz, who led the team responsible for Todd Gloria’s aggressive Climate Action Plan. Check out who else got a second-round shoutout.
Local Legislators Are Getting the Jump on 2015
State lawmakers are already working on bills for the 2015-2016 legislative session by introducing new bills.
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez has gotten lots of attention for her bill that would double holiday pay for workers who clock in on Thanksgiving and Christmas. But plenty of other local legislators are getting in on the action, with bills that tackle cop cameras, drone regulations, vets returning to work from active duty and more. Brian Joseph has details in this week’s Sacramento Report.
• Earlier this week, Joseph looked back at the year of history-making and headline-making in Sacramento.
2014, We Knew Ye Pretty Well
We’ve been re-examining the past year in lots of different ways this week. Here’s a look back at our look-back.
• Scott Lewis and Randy Dotinga narrowed down the heroes and goats of the year in the final podcast of 2014.
• Distortions, omissions and declarations, oh my! Lisa Halverstadt breaks down the most notorious Fact Checks from 2014.
• With trademark Dotingan flourish, Dotinga pulls out the most memorable quotes of the year.
• Liam Dillon examined the year in police misconduct scandals, and breaks down what’s still ahead in the Justice Department’s examination of SDPD policies.
• Our staff members each reminisced on their favorite Voice of San Diego stories from the past year, with some updates on the latest developments.
Next week, we’ll look back at how San Diegans fared in the first year of Covered California, how San Diego rejected the urbanism promises it made to itself and we’ll start looking forward to what’s on deck in 2015.
Quick News Hits
• Looks like state lawmakers celebrated Christmas all year long last year: They received “$844,000 worth of gifts and travel in 2013, quite a leap from the $216,000 reported in 2012,” reports the U-T.
• San Marcos residents think the Sheriff’s Department could do a much better job communicating with residents than by broadcasting messages from a helicopter overhead. (KPBS)
• San Diego State professor Joshua Chanin is featured prominently in this great Pacific Standard piece on new research about the effectiveness of sanctioning police departments.
Quote of the Week
“Because we have limited curb front, we restrict the number of commercial providers permitted to pick up passengers at the airport to avoid chaos.”
— Rebecca Bloomfield, San Diego International Airport spokeswoman on why the airport does not allow Uber and Lyft to pick up passengers.