San Diego State University will award an honorary doctorate to a controversial San Diegan next month.
As our Will Huntsberry discovered, SDSU plans to award the degree to Mark Arabo, who ran an industry group for corner stores called the Neighborhood Market Association. Arabo was the subject of several Voice of San Diego stories back in 2015.
The stories showed Arabo making dubious claims to investigators for the city Ethics Commission and related to his activism for Iraqi Christians. (Arabo is Chaldean.)
Ultimately, the group was smacked with multiple campaign finance violations.
Later, a judge delivered a blistering opinion against Arabo and the association. It found Arabo improperly received payments from the organization and forced him to pay back $248,000. It also forced Arabo out of the organization’s leadership.
A trustee for the CSU system, which is responsible for awarding honorary degrees, said there was a breakdown in the process of awarding the honorary degree.
“There was a weakness in the system,” the trustee said. “We’re going to have to fix that in the future.”
North County Report: Planning Commission Shake Up
In a mysterious turn of events, the Escondido City Council voted 4-1 to remove one of the city’s planning commissioners.
The strange thing? No one would explain why, writes our North County reporter Tigist Layne.
The lone dissenting councilmember asked Mayor Dane White why councilmembers were voting to remove the planning commissioner. White would only say that it was to bring the Planning Commission more in line with the City Council’s vision for development.
The planning commissioner himself was also confused.
Also in Escondido, residents also did an “empty chair” town hall for Rep. Darrel Issa. (In other words, residents placed an empty chair where they believed Issa should have been.) And in Poway, some residents are mad the city won’t raise its fees on developers who don’t want to build affordable housing.
Read the full North County Report here.
Why it Matters: About that Proposed County Tax Increase
As we reported last week, the county of San Diegos’ two Republican supervisors say they were not invited to the state of the county speech. Their colleague, Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, gave the speech last week at the Museum of Natural History.
But if they had gone, they probably would not have liked what Lawson-Remer proposed, our Scott Lewis explains in a new segment of Why it Matters on KPBS. The county is facing a nearly $140 million deficit. To address it, Lawson-Remer first wants to loosen the county’s reserve policy and use some of it for future needs.
She also wants some more money to come in. Her idea is what’s commonly referred to as a mansion tax — she would put a tax on the sale of the top 1% of homes in San Diego.
Lewis explains the proposal here.
Related: Lawson-Remer will join us on the VOSD Podcast this week. Stay tuned.
In Other News
- Efforts to further protect San Diego from devastating wildfires have stalled for two years since a city audit called for changes. The Union-Tribune reports that city officials are pointing the finger at two things: bureaucracy and the budget crisis.
- Alaska Airlines will add new non-stop routes from San Diego to three new airports: Chicago O’Hare, Phoenix and Denver. (Union-Tribune)
- Fox 5 reports that San Diego County Supervisors and local leaders discussed how the Sheriff’s Department communicates with immigration officials – and how it doesn’t.
The Morning Report was written by Will Huntsberry and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.
Lawson-Remer wants a new tax when it’s obvious that our tax dollars are being wasted by the county – $140 million in the hole (and counting), thanks to the “leaders.” Banks know you don’t throw good money after bad. Someone who goes into debt, instead of balancing their budget, doesn’t get more money from a bank. Why should the county get more money? Because of their success with reducing homelessness? Nope. Because they have demonstrated a successful plan to increase housing affordability? Nope. Show us progress in eliminating our county’s problems, instead of just eliminating the contents of our wallets – then we can talk new taxes!
Incompetent Marxist taxaholics.