Morning Report: What the School Chief Didn't Say

In an extraordinary move a few months ago, the superintendent of San Diego Unified schools posted dozens of pages of protected personnel documents regarding the removal of the principal of the School for Creative and Performing. The principal was transferred after tangling with school board member Marne Foster over the treatment of Foster’s son.

Now, “new information suggests the 61-page document dump was carefully curated and incomplete,” VOSD’s Mario Koran reports. It turns out that the situation at the campus was much messier than the public has been told.

For one thing, Foster — before she joined the school board — pressured the principal to rescind the suspension of her son and threatened to go to the media if she didn’t get her way. (Foster later talked publicly about the suspension, over her son’s alleged violation of the school dress code, but didn’t identify her son as the person she was talking about.)

Also, the school’s vice principal was also removed from the school after suspending Foster’s other son. There’s more in our story, including details suggesting that district brass really liked the principal before the superintendent transferred her for alleged failures.

Chargers File for Relocation

You-know-who has made it official: They want the heck outta this here town. But the Raiders and the Rams also made it official. The NFL’s suits are expected to make a decision soon about who gets to move to L.A.

Dean Spanos, the owner of the Chargers went on TV, sort of, to defend the team’s big move toward a big move. “It should be noted that Spanos was being interviewed by one of his own Chargers employees in a Chargers-themed TV studio,” NBC 7 points out.

Spanos confirmed the taxpayers and their politicians just never came through with the dough.

“We have never wanted to leave. this decision to file has had nothing to do with the fans. The fans have been great, they’ve been supportive. It’s really been the inability of the city at the political level to get any kind of public funding or any kind of a vote to help subsidize a stadium,” Spanos said.

• Meanwhile, Chargers spokesman and local villain Mark Fabiani keeps appearing in the NY Times as a spokesman for the billionaire who’s up to something via his purchase of the main Las Vegas paper.

SDPD Cop: 3 Years, 3 Fatal Shootings

On the face of it, the fatal police shooting of a man in Hillcrest last weekend seems like it may not be controversial. The police department says the man approached an officer aggressively with a knife after reportedly threatening his boyfriend, and TV news footage showed a kitchen knife on the ground at the scene.

But as the U-T reports, the officer who shot the man also shot two other men to death recently, once in 2013 and once in 2014. In the second shooting, the officer — “following orders” — shot a hostage-taker.

Border Report: Not So Fast on that Fence

We’ve been hearing a lot about political promises to build a longer and stronger border fence. But, as VOSD’s Border Report explains with the help of the Associated Press, this is no simple task. And it’s not just a matter of money. Legal and logistical issues also loom large.

Also in the Border Report: Links to stories about Trump-ian claims, positive press for Tijuana, the new animated comedy “Bordertown” (one reviewer wasn’t impressed), and a binational party complete with baked Jesus.

Big Money for ‘Housing First’?

Advocates for the homeless are in the midst of a massive rethink about how best to help transients. The big focus, as we’ve reported, is on the creation of permanent housing instead of giving homeless a temporary place to stay as they get back on their feet.

Now, as the L.A. Times reports, state legislators want to redirect $2 billion toward permanent housing. “The new units would operate on a ‘housing first’ model, taking in homeless people with mental illness and drug and alcohol problems even if they refuse psychiatric or substance abuse treatment,” the paper says.

• In an L.A. Times commentary, a professor of economics at Pepperdine University blasts laws that require home developers to build affordable units. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide this month whether it will consider the legality of this type of law.

The professor claims that these laws actually push home prices higher and are unconstitutional.

Toxic Sea Support: Not a Hot Seller

Who wants to support California’s mistake of a lake? Anybody? Hello?

As KPBS reports, an effort to commemorate the long-sought recovery of the Salton Sea via California license plates has been “slow to take off.” Really slow. In fact, only 80 requests have come in, far from the 7,500 needed to get the state to start producing the plates.

But don’t go rushing to assume that Salton Sea advocates have no support. They blame a technical glitch and now have an extra year to convince people to sign up for the plates.

Quick News Hits

• Foes of the right-to-die movement have failed to push an initiative onto the state ballot. They want to quash the new law that allows terminally ill people to commit suicide with an physician’s assistance. (AP)

• “New state medical marijuana laws may prompt San Diego to regulate and expressly allow cultivation of the drug within city limits for the first time,” the U-T reports.

• You may soon be able to order a Lyft car and watch a self-driving vehicle show up. (LA Times)

• If you’ve lived here for a while, you may be familiar with the radio station known as “100.7 Jack FM,” née “Star 100.7,” née B-100. Now, it has a clunky new name (“100.7 KFM-BFM”) and an odd new “variety” format that’s heavy on oldies from decades past. Think Tom Petty and ’80s alt rock with some newer stuff mixed in.

This means the station isn’t going to go after the alt rock crowd that listens to rivals FM 94/9 and 91X, nor is it going to resurrect the refined rock offered by the now-defunct KPRI.

The station, home to the popular “Dave, Shelly & Chainsaw” morning show, shuffled through various formats while “stunting” since Christmas. It played “cocktail music” one day, along with country and a feminine-skewing format of sappy songs called “K-Puss.”

• Yes, the rain is coming today, and a whole lot of it. News8’s Matt Baylow warns of thunderstorms and cold-air funnels. I asked him via Twitter what I should do if I see one of these funnels other than collapsing into panic, as is my wont. He suggests taking a photo but doesn’t seem too worried about my potential fate otherwise. They look like tornadoes but are much weaker and are high — based well off the ground,” he says. Uh-oh. At 6-foot-7, so am I.

• Darn it! It’s Jan. 5, and I’m still writing “Jeb!” on my checks.

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.