One growth forecast is at the heart of every major local planning, transportation, housing and infrastructure decisions: the SANDAG population projection, which is redone every few years. It’s the backbone of all controversial arguments about how much we should be building to support our burgeoning ranks.
Our Andrew Keatts decided to check out how the projections of growth have played out against reality. The answer: Not so well.
San Diego has grown and will grow more. But the rates projected by SANDAG haven’t been close.
One Paseo Pact
Now here’s something you don’t see in San Diego politics every day (week, month, year): A compromise on a major issue. Representatives of the two sides battling over the One Paseo project in the Carmel Valley, the one that prompted a successful referendum effort, have reached an agreement to allow a project that generates far less traffic.
“The agreement would shrink the office and retail components of the project and could discourage developers around the region from proposing similarly dense projects in the future,” the U-T says. The City Council is already paving the way for the new proposal. The project’s developer says traffic should be cut by about half.
With the news of the compromise, the City Council officially rescinded the approval of the project that had gone through.
Supervisor Scandal Gets Weird
Staffers for Supervisor Dave Roberts, facing major allegations of inappropriate behavior and a reported district attorney investigation, rebutted allegations yesterday. (NBC 7)
In response to claims hinting at wrongdoing, a staffer says he is straight and has not engaged in inappropriate conduct with Roberts, a gay married man. A spokesman says Roberts didn’t misuse county funds on personalized Roberts baseball cards and denies a hostile work environment at the Roberts office, which has had tremendous turnover.
U-T Sale Final; Paper Regains Name
Goodbye, U-T San Diego. Hello, The San Diego Union-Tribune, a new owner (Tribune Publishing) and a new publisher. The sale of the paper is official. The editor and the editorial/opinion editor are sticking around in their jobs.
SD Explained: El Cajon vs. Booze
San Diego Explained, our video series with NBC 7, takes a look at El Cajon’s strict laws regarding alcohol sales to minors and a bid to make them even tougher.
Learning Curve: How Charters Serve Special Needs
Our Learning Curve series tackles a big question in education: How do charter schools handle kids with special needs?
Opinion: Get It Together, Poway
In a commentary, Poway resident Tom Moore calls upon the Poway school district’s board to stop “inappropriate” contract deals.
• Yesterday’s Morning Report misstated the salary of the Poway school superintendent.
The Country’s Stake in Calif. Food
“The average American consumes more than 300 gallons of California water each week by eating food that was produced there,” the NY Times reports.
Court Keeps Private Water Data Private
A water district in Riverside County that serves the water-guzzling golf courses and fountains in the Palm Springs area can keep on hiding the identities of people and businesses who use the most water, a judge has ruled.
That’s bunk, says the executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, which supports open access to government data: “The notion a public records act is supposed to protect the privacy of large corporate customers, especially during a drought, is just nuts.”
SDPD Explains Rape Kit Gap
We now have more information about that new report that says the San Diego Police Department has 2,800 untested “rape kits” — evidence take after alleged sexual assaults. According to a police official, NBC 7 reports, “there are various reasons why some rape kits don’t get forwarded to their laboratory for testing. Some of those reasons include the witness does not want an investigation, detectives determined no crime was committed or there wasn’t enough evidence for detectives to legally enter the information in a DNA database.”
There’s dispute, however, about whether the cops could or should test the evidence, which apparently might still be useful.
Quick News Hits: Barley Legal
• In football news, L.A. is big on the NFL (even though the reverse isn’t true, yet), and our reporting gets some national exposure.
• The Morning Report is distracted by the retirement of David Letterman, a tremendous influence over our humor (or “humor” with air quotes, depending your point of view). If the Morning Report makes fun of itself, it’s not just a sign of painfully low self-esteem. It’s because Letterman taught us all how to not take ourselves too seriously. The last thing you should be full of is yourself. (A better choice: Fish tacos!)
As we try to get a hold of ourselves, we’re outsourcing the Morning Report-ending joke to NBC 7’s Dave Summers and his tweet about “an El Cajon man facing multiple felonies after allegedly stealing malted barley”: “The Great Grain Robbery.”
Nice! Giving him this space is the yeast we could do.
Randy Dotinga is a freelance contributor to Voice of San Diego and national president of the 1,200-member American Society of Journalists and Authors (asja.org). Please contact him directly at randydotinga@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/rdotinga.