I know it’s a lot to ask, but think back to that bizarre episode last summer in which then-congressional candidate Carl DeMaio and his former staffer Todd Bosnich were hurling accusations at each other seemingly every day.
In the course of defending himself, DeMaio said Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman had personally called him to say he’d been cleared of Bosnich’s sexual harassment allegations. Zimmerman could have quickly put a major chapter of that whole sordid scandal quickly to rest — but instead she refused to confirm DeMaio’s account, or to comment at all. The whole thing just hung there, forever unanswered. (Bosnich did admit to lying about another piece of the DeMaio scandal.)
That’s one example among several Liam Dillon has rounded up of times SDPD could have been transparent on issues of broad public interest, but chose not to. “From fatal police-involved shootings, to high-profile political investigations to federally recommended reforms, San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman has sent a clear message: She’s going to try and keep as much information from the public as she can.”
• Almost half of the next San Diego Police academy class is made up of minorities, KPBS reports: “Forty-five percent of the 105th academy class are minorities, and 29 percent are bilingual. That’s more diverse than the previous academy class, but still not the highest percentage of minorities in recent years.”
• Kelly Davis examines an Oceanside case in which police officers shot a 22-year-old man who was behaving bizarrely and hurling rocks at people.
That case and others, Davis writes for The Intercept, highlight “the fact that we simply don’t know how many people are killed each year by law enforcement — or why. How many are armed? With what? How many are black? Hispanic? How many are mentally ill? How many are, like Elwood White, black and seemingly mentally ill?”
Behind the Drama at a Performing Arts High School
For a long time, there was only a slow trickle of news related to what, exactly, happened at the School of Creative and Performing Arts that led to its principal being removed and leaving the district soon after.
The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that the principal, Mitzi Lizarraga, and San Diego Unified’s school board president, Marne Foster, didn’t like each other. The rest depends on which version you believe: Either Foster abused her authority to engineer decisions that benefited her family (her son attended SCPA when the drama went down), or Foster’s political enemies lied about events leading up to the leadership shakeup.
Lately the slow trickle has given way to bigger bursts of information coming out about what exactly happened between Lizarraga, Foster and the school district. Mario Koran rounds up all the information we know so far.
How NCTD Fended Off Bias Lawsuit
A juror in the case against the North County Transit District, which was sued for age and gender discrimination, talked to inewsource about why the 12 jurors ruled in favor of the transportation agency this week.
A refresher on the case from inewsource:
Virginia Moeller sued the transportation agency in 2013, saying the CEO of NCTD “made various age and age/gender based remarks indicating a bias against female, and/or older female employees.” But one of the jurors in the two-week trial in Vista Superior Court said Moeller didn’t prove her case.
The juror told inewsource that even though “the jury saw enough evidence to establish a chaotic atmosphere exists at the transit district,” jurors were troubled by what they perceived as false testimony from an ex-CFO.
Quick News Hits
• The New York Times profiles La Jolla’s Walter Munk, the “Einstein of the oceans,” and his eight decades of scientific work, most of it at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
• The CPUC doesn’t seem to be cooperating with the state attorney general’s investigation into the relationship between the regulator and public utilities it regulated. (Union-Tribune)
• “Surfboard shaper” is as cool a job title as there is, and San Diego’s Tim Bessell is getting props from Vogue for his Andy Warhol boards, inspired by Warhol’s little-known surf film “San Diego Surf.”
• Mother Jones’ hilarious roundup of one-star Yelp reviews of national parks includes one that knocked Joshua Tree for being hot in the summer.
I Read Social Media So You Don’t Have To
What I’m about to say might shock you. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez said some candid things on Twitter Tuesday, and people reacted strongly to those things! I’ll wait while you collect yourself.
Gonzalez posted some photos of a Donald Trump piñata in her Sacramento office, including one of him wearing a “Democrats” jersey: “Yes, I think Donald Trump is a joke, like my piñata of him. A joke. He wants to ignore the constitution & deport 1/4 of my district,” she wrote.
Lots of people responded angrily to the tweets, but she got a surprising defender in Ryan Clumpner, head of the Lincoln Club. As a matter of fact, lots of state Republican pols have spoken out against Trump over the past month.
• God bless Twitter bots. A story about a sea lion eating a shark off the San Diego coast is well and good on its own. But throw in the hashtags #Dieting and #DietPlans and it really becomes something special.