Amid all the banter surrounding the possibility of a new Chargers stadium in Mission Valley, there is a small contingent of people who are thinking even bigger than just a stadium. Scott Lewis reports on how a subset of the group charged with proposing a stadium solution has started to discuss much larger changes to the Mission Valley area.
Fast-forward a few years and Mission Valley is going to be a much more crowded neighborhood. Six major developments currently moving forward will “about double” the 12,000 residences that currently sit in Mission Valley. Throw in some more shopping and the certain surge of daily traffic. Now add a stadium. “Without major infrastructure improvements, a redesign of the many portals in and out of the neighborhood and new amenities, it could make an already troubled place a chaotic mess,” Lewis writes.
But the city has a master plan for the community’s future and how to develop it, right? Nope. No community plan updates have been completed for Mission Valley since 1985.
• The city of San Diego and San Diego County will partner up to find a financing plan for a new Chargers stadium in Mission Valley. (NBC 7)
• NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell this week said the league is in “no rush to return” to Los Angeles. “We’re not focused on 2016,” he said. (New York Times)
• A proposed stadium in Inglewood may have cleared a critical hurdle Thursday when developers announced they had reached an agreement with labor groups, ending a month-long disagreement. (L.A. Times)
Learning Curve: Where’s the Music At?
Mario Koran has been taking your questions about San Diego schools and digging up answers. In his most recent installment of The Learning Curve, Koran looks into music programs inside schools and why more schools don’t have them.
The cost of programs is one factor, but some elementary schools are trying to work around that by creating programs that provide something, even if it isn’t a full program. “About 60 schools offer an ‘exploratory music’ program, where teachers rotate on a nine-week schedule,” Koran writes. Aside from money, the programs desperately need more musical instruments.
But you can keep your old recorder from your early school days, in Koran’s opinion. “It’s objectively true that the recorder is the world’s most annoying instrument,” he writes.
Tax Hawks: Pay for Your Trash Pickup
Recently the board of the San Diego Taxpayers Association, a group not known for cheering on more fees from the city, came forward and said we should end the fee-less trash pickup that many San Diegans enjoy. Traditional analysis has been that such a change would require San Diegans to vote themselves out of the free service, which could be a tough hurdle to clear. Our Scott Lewis joined NBC 7’s Catherine Garcia to review why we get free trash pickup and why the taxpayers group thinks we should throw it out in our most recent San Diego Explained.
Big Change on Sex Offender Enforcement
California’s state corrections department announced it will change its policy on enforcing where sex offenders can live in response to a recent state Supreme Court ruling. Previously, all convicted sex offenders were prohibited from living within 2,000 feet of schools or parks, a restriction the court found went too far. The new policy will be to only enforce the 2,000-foot restriction when a sex offender was convicted of an offense involving a child, or when a parole agent deems it necessary, the L.A. Times reports.
‘Yellow Alert’ Proposed for Hit-And-Runs
A new law making its way through the California Legislature could help crack the code on solving the state’s hit-and-run epidemic, according to NBC 7. Driver and car information taken from a hit-and-run scene would be published on freeway signs, similar to Amber Alerts that give details of abductions. Unlike Amber Alerts, the hit-and-run “Yellow Alerts” would not be sent to cell phones. We recently looked into how huge of a problem hit-and-runs are for San Diegans.
News Nibbles
• 10 News published a video of former Mayor Bob Filner giving a deposition where he admitted it wasn’t unusual for him to make comments with sexual innuendos while he was mayor.
• How many people live in San Diego County? That’d be 3.3 million as of July 2014, making us the fifth most populous county in the country. (KPBS)
• A judge has tentatively decided that San Diego is not responsible for the smell of animal feces at La Jolla Cove in a lawsuit filed by La Jolla businesses. (KPBS)
• 1940s actress Sally Forrest died on Thursday. (Times of San Diego)
• A larger panel of federal appellate court judges will re-hear arguments over whether rules on issuing concealed weapons permits in San Diego County should be loosened. (Reuters)
Cops and Doggies
When a San Diego Police Department officer responded to a home alarm recently, he was unknowingly walking into a situation that has drawn a lot of recent media attention. That’s because unbeknownst to Officer Tom Bostedt, the house wasn’t only guarded by an alarm. The resident’s 105-pound white dog Casper was also on duty, U-T San Diego reports. All turned out well in this case, though. In a note left for the residents, the officer explained he had intended to check the home’s windows in the backyard, but had been rebuffed by Casper. “On a side note, I can still run and jump a 6-foot fence as good as I could in the academy 28 years ago!” Bostedt wrote. “Nice doggy.”
The officer and the homeowners caught up with each other for a laugh on Twitter.
Seth Hall is a local writer and technologist. You can email him at voice@s3th.com or follow him on Twitter: @loteck.