There's one important detail in our story today on the city of San Diego's regaining of its credit rating that I wanted to highlight this morning. While the city no longer has a suspended credit rating and path has been cleared to go to Wall Street, it still hasn't actually tested Wall Street's waters.
Here's a key snippet from our story:
Analysts at Standard & Poor's and Fitch said the lifting of the rating suspension doesn't guarantee San Diego's immediate return to Wall Street. Whether or not they are welcomed back will depend entirely on the investors.
Amy Doppelt, a Fitch analyst, said some investors might be ready to snap up the city's bonds, but others might want to wait until the city puts out its 2007 audited financial statement, which Goldstone expects to be out in July or August.
"The only real true test would be when they're ready to go the market," she said.
(San Diego's Chief Operating Officer Jay) Goldstone said he has had conversations about whether people would buy San Diego bonds with some of the big mutual funds like Vanguard and Fidelity. "I've talked to some who say they would need to see the city's 2007 financial reports before making a decision, and others have said 'No problem,'" Goldstone said.
Yesterday's announcement lifted the roadblock to getting to Wall Street, one that the city had been desperately seeking to overcome for nearly four years.
Now, the city has to see what investors say when they actually show up on Wall Street with a bond offering. If they want to see the city's 2007 audited financial statements, then the city will need to produce those.
Goldstone is confident that by the time the city's ready to go it will have those financial statements ready, saying he expects them to be done by July or August. The city obviously had problems getting those done in a timely fashion in the past, but it seems like the long-awaited release of the 2003 financial statements last year has so far cleared the way for further statements to come out with minimal troubles.
Friday, May 16 -- 8:58 am
Everything about the ongoing mayor-union contract dispute is still disputed, down to who should be making the first move.
While a number of union officials say the ball's in the mayor's court, Council President Scott Peters today said it was up to the unions to make the first move.
Another issue is deadlines. According to mayoral spokesman Fred Sainz, the unions need to unite around a single pension proposal tonight, or else the mayor will soon attempt to take his pension plan -- the details of which he has not yet announced -- to voters in November.
Previous talks between City Hall and the unions involved separate negotiations for three different contracts, but because the mayor wants to get going on his pension initiative they must unite under a single pension plan, Sainz said. Pensions for non-public safety employees in San Diego are traditionally enforced across the board.
"The mayor needs to move forward with a proposal for the council to put on the ballot," Sainz said. "Unless there is substantial amount of movement on this, immediately, the mayor intends to move forward and ask the council to place his pension proposal on the ballot."
San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council Political Director Evan McLaughlin said the Mayor's Office was setting an informal deadline for political show head of the June primary.
"The mayor's rushing this with his eye on June 3rd," McLaughlin said. "If he actually wanted to come to agreement on the comprehensive pension reform, he would have included employees in the process, he would have included the City Council sometime before Monday on his proposal, and he didn't."
Peters also said today that he would like to see the unions coalesce around one pension proposal.
"We could agree on one if we had a proposal from the mayor, but it is incumbent on the mayor to make a proposal first," McLaughlin said. "The unions do not bargain with each other, the unions bargain with the city."
Yesterday, Local 127 President Joan Raymond said 127 would not endorse the alternative pension plan put forward by the Municipal Employees Association, which Mayor Sanders adopted at the 11th hour during Monday's impasse hearing in front of City Council. Sanders has not yet clarified whether he still endorses MEA's proposal and will seek to place it on the November ballot if negotiations do not resume.
"We wouldn't agree on [MEA's] pension plan because what it would do is after working for 30 years, one of our blue collar workers who makes an average salary of 42,000 dollars would be retiring for only 18,000 dollars per year," Raymond said. "And as you know you can't live in ... San Diego and have a family with 18,000 dollars a year."
But future agreement may be on the horizon. Raymond also said Local 127 is "willing to even move more" on their own pension plan "if necessary," while Italiano said "We're not married to our plan .. it doesn't have to be our plan but it has to contain some of the same components."
-- LEA YUThursday, May 15 -- 6:52 pm
The International Boundary and Water Commission said today it is scuttling the Bajagua Project and will instead proceed with an upgrade to an existing sewage treatment plant in San Ysidro.
The move effectively kills the controversial Bajagua project, pending any legal appeals on its behalf.
The commission, a U.S. State Department agency, said it will improve the San Ysidro sewage plant's treatment levels, which currently fail to meet federal Clean Water Act standards. It had previously been working with Bajagua, a private San Marcos company, to build a major sewage treatment plant in Tijuana.
In making its decision, the commission cited two factors: Cost and timing. Upgrading the existing plant would be the fast and cost-effective way to meet a federal court order compelling compliance with the Clean Water Act, the commission said in a news release.
The move had been expected since the release of a Government Accountability Office report April 24, which concluded that Bajagua was a more uncertain plan that would cost more. The study drew no conclusions about Bajagua's cost-effectiveness, as the private company's plant would have been built to treat as much as 59 million gallons daily.
The commission has $66 million in hand to finance the upgrade, which it was prohibited from pursuing pending the GAO report. President Bush's 2009 budget includes a commission request for the additional $28 million needed to pay for the upgrade.
Upgrading the San Ysidro plant, which handles sewage from Tijuana households, could be complete by January 2011, the commission said.
"Our design will be completed next month and Congress has already appropriated funds for the project," IBWC Commissioner Carlos Marin said in the release. "We are ready to move forward with construction to complete this upgrade as soon as possible."
We'll have more on this later.
Thursday, May 15 -- 2:35 pm
The 13th floor in City Hall just wasn't good enough for this announcement.
On Harbor Island, with San Diego's skyline as his backdrop, Mayor Jerry Sanders officially announced that San Diego was back on Wall Street.
"This is the most significant day in the city of San Diego in the past four years," Sanders said. "The city once again has access to the bond market."
Sanders said from today forward just about all city borrowing will be cheaper, and taxpayers can expect millions in savings this year on water and wastewater system bonds that the city was forced to privately finance when Standard & Poor's suspended the city's bond rating in 2004.
At Sanders' side were City Council President Scott Peters, Councilman Kevin Faulconer, who chairs the City Council's audit committee, and Chief Operating Office Jay Goldstone.
Sanders took the opportunity to congratulate himself and his administration, and take a jab at his critics.
"For those who say the city has not made progress," Sanders said. "Standard & Poor's has sent a very strong message to the contrary."
Thursday, May 15 -- 2:28 pm We finally got word directly from Standard & Poor's on today's news that it had lifted its suspension of the city of San Diego's credit rating.
The end of the nearly four-year suspension opens the door for the city to return to Wall Street.
Here's what the credit rating agency said about its upgrade:
The positive outlook reflects the expectation that recent improvements in city management practices have begun to address the city's long-term financial challenges, as well as the expectation that the city's audited financial statements for fiscals 2007 and 2008 will be released, as planned, in the next two to seven months. Should management continue to make necessary budgetary adjustments to offset projected budgetary gaps and target structural balance and financial stability, we could raise the rating into the next category.
A further boost in the city's credit rating, which is currently A for its general bonds, would lower its interest rates.
The rating agency said San Diego's fiscal outlook is buoyed by a diverse regional economy; strong wealth and income indicators; good reserve levels and recent management improvements; and a moderate overall debt burden.
It tempered those strengths by noting the region's housing bust; weaknesses in the city's internal financial controls; its limited revenue-raising options; and its long-term debts such as deferred maintenance and pension and retiree health care obligations.
Read S&P's full report here and its brief release here.
Thursday, May 15 -- 1:08 pm The Wall Street Journal had a nationwide look today at various cities' fitful efforts to recycle sewage as a new source of drinking water. It offers this insight on San Diego's latest discussions about it:
The high price tag of the new recycling systems can also be a hurdle. In San Diego, Mayor Jerry Sanders vetoed a plan to launch a pilot program to recycle wastewater back into the public-drinking-water supply last year. "The mayor determined it was not the best use of financial resources at this time," says Bill Harris, the mayor's spokesman, adding that the city has infrastructure problems that require more immediate attention.
Preliminary estimates of San Diego's pilot project are between $6 million and $8 million. If the pilot project is successful, the cost estimate of a larger-scale project is $237.6 million, according a San Diego study on water reuse released in 2006.
Another issue affecting public perception in San Diego? The proposed project would pump purified wastewater into a reservoir instead of an aquifer. That prevents it from undergoing the same natural filtration process as treated wastewater in Orange County's system.
But the City Council voted to override the mayor's veto in December and forge ahead with the pilot project. "We're just not in a position to turn our nose up at any option to increase water supply," says City Council President Scott Peters.
Skeptics may feel squeamish about drinking what used to be toilet water, Mr. Peters says, but San Diego already receives at least some wastewater from other cities that discharge treated sewage water into the Colorado River. "The Colorado River is not filled with Dasani," Mr. Peters says. "That's where we get our water from."
Thursday, May 15 -- 11:13 am We're still waiting for comment from city officials and others on today's news about the city of San Diego's return to Wall Street after nearly four years of brutal banishment.
But, more than a year ago, as it appeared the city was inching closer to the market, I put together this story listing the possible projects that city officials would undertake once they were able to borrow money again.
Here's a snippet:
In the next five years, the Mayor's Office is contemplating seeking loans of $218 million for buildings and facilities; $300 million for streets and storm drains; $493 million for the pension system; and $1.4 billion for the water and wastewater systems.
Officials caution that the infrastructure numbers are estimates and the pension sum might not be reached solely through borrowing.
But when taken together, the projects in the pipeline have the potential to more than double the bond debt currently carried by the city -- and nearly triple the debt burden on the city's day-to-day operating budget. The influx would provide the city with large injections of borrowed cash to complete street and building repairs, meet its pension obligations and comply with health laws.
Now, here's an important caveat: We don't know at the moment how much these plans have changed in the past 14 months or so. We should be able to find out soon when officials speak to the announcement.
Thursday, May 15 -- 11:12 am
After Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Wednesday that he would cut less funding from California schools than originally planned, San Diego Unified Superintendent Terry Grier cautioned employees that while the budget picture has brightened, layoffs are still possible.
Here's the message Grier sent to San Diego Unified staff Wednesday night:
Message from the Superintendent - Budget Update
Message to: All Staff
From: Superintendent Terry Grier
Dear SDUSD Team,
Over the last several months, we have all worked together to oppose the devastating budget cuts that the Governor proposed in January. Our board and our community have worked hard to illustrate to our elected officials the impact of these cuts on our schools. Meanwhile, we have prepared for the worst case scenario.
Today, we received a sign that our efforts to fight these cuts have had some impact. This afternoon, Gov. Schwarzenegger announced his May Budget Revision. He said he would fully fund Proposition 98 next year and talked about a $1.8 Billion increase in funding over his January proposal.
I commend the Governor for prioritizing education and for this partial restoration of funding for our schools. However, I believe that it is a stretch to identify this additional funding as a full restoration of Proposition 98. In total, the Governor simply gives us a few dollars more than we are receiving this year. To put it in plain language, a $1.8 billion dollar restoration cannot make up for a $4 billion cut.
I’m also worried that the Governor’s proposal would shortchange us of the cost of living increases that we need. Many of you may have felt the impact of inflation on your household budgets. The impact on the district’s costs is similarly significant, especially for health care, utilities and the rising cost of fuel. But the Governor’s budget does not provide us with the dollars to pay for these increases. The Governor’s cuts to categorical programs will have a much larger impact on urban school districts such as San Diego. They will damage our priority programs for at-risk students and reduce the resources we provide to our highest need schools.
Today, I received many calls asking about rescinding layoff notices. We have to remember that the Governor’s May Revise is another step in a long budget battle. The legislature will take the Governor’s proposals and could spend months considering them before passing a final budget. This final budget will determine how far we can go on budget restoration. As a community, we all need to advocate for an early budget resolution that fully funds our schools.
Over the next days and weeks, we will analyze the impact of the May Revise. We hope that this analysis will produce some good news for our employees, but we cannot be sure. By any measure, the Governor’s proposal still represents a substantial cut to our district.
I appreciate your patience as we work through this, and ask that we all continue to fight for the full funding that our schools deserve.
Thank you.
Dr. Terry Grier, Ed.D
Thursday, May 15 -- 10:39 am
The Mayor's Office just announced that the city of San Diego has regained access to Wall Street, a significant milestone that ends the city's nearly four-year struggle to regain its suspended credit rating.
The announcement that rating agency Standard and Poor's has lifted its suspension of the city's credit rating will allow the city to return to public borrowing markets, where loans for vital municipal projects less expensive than the private markets used by the city during its banishment from Wall Street.
Standard and Poor's suspended the city's credit rating in fall 2004 after revelations that the city's financial statements to potential investors contained false and misleading information regarding the true state of the city's financial health.
Since then, the city's efforts to return to the bond markets have been consistently stymied, as it struggled to release a set of costly and backlogged audits and independent investigations mandated by its outside auditors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In fall 2006, the city settled with the SEC on securities-fraud sanctions. Last month, the SEC charged five former city officials with securities fraud in relation to the financial disclosures.
The news also provides a boost to Mayor Jerry Sanders' reelection campaign. The mayor campaigned in 2005 on a pledge to restore the city's standing with Wall Street, but had run into many of the same problems as his predecessors in attempts to complete the audits and investigations.
Now, he will have a powerful new talking point. Sanders has called a press conference for noon to deliver the announcement.
Check back throughout the day for complete coverage.
Thursday, May 15 -- 10:35 am Before Mayor Jerry Sanders takes the step of placing his pension plan for new City Hall employees on the November ballot, he might just be able to achieve pension reform months earlier by entering into negotiations with three City Hall labor unions.
A day after the City Council rejected the mayor's labor contract after he declared a negotiation "impasse" with three City Hall unions, the blue-collar workers' union, Local 127, expressed desires on Tuesday to resume bargaining. The two other unions representing white collar workers and deputy city attorneys said they have no such desires to bargain with Sanders, unless the mayor stepped forward and said he wanted to negotiate.
Local 127 has also received permission to strike from the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, Local 127 President Joan Raymond said. But for now, the union is "imploring the mayor and the mayor's staff to come back to the table," she said, and views the strike as a less attractive choice.
The mayor thus far has not responded to Local 127's request, and whether he agrees to any resumption of talks will depend on whether the unions are willing to alter City Hall's current pension system, and whether they will bring other issues to the bargaining table besides pension, mayoral spokesman Fred Sainz said.
"Given the fact that the mayor is committed to no pay increase and healthcare consolidation, fruitful discussions would have to be centered around a new pension plan," Sainz said. "I would not advise the unions to necessarily push on those two other issues because the city simply can't afford it."
On Tuesday the mayor said he was "always willing to talk," but Sainz clarified the statement to mean that Sanders is not entirely open to negotiations, but open to discussing the idea of negotiations.
The Deputy City Attorneys Association and Municipal Employees Association have not sought a resumption of negotiations and said they would only do so if the mayor made the first move. Sainz, however, said that the MEA had verbally expressed desires to revisit talks.
Thus far, Sanders has not actively sought to resume negotiations, but Sainz said that "the mayor is not in this to give employee labor unions incentives."
"Right now we think the ball is in the mayor's court," DCAA President Andrew Jones said. "He hasn't offered us anything to entice us to go to the bargaining table. The mayor just wants to go to the table jut to negotiate the things that he thinks are important, and that's not to our advantage."
MEA General Manager Judie Italiano said given the mayor's lack of outreach to resume negotiations, she did not think his office was sincerely considering returning to the bargaining table.
"I find it hard to think that they're serious [about resuming negotiations]," she said. "The mayor and I have been friends for many, many years and if he wanted to find me he wouldn't hesitate to call me. I don't know what kind of game he's playing."
The mayor and the unions have been wrangling for months over a labor contract, and the negotiations reached an "impasse" last week over the mayor's proposal to not raise wages, consolidate their healthcare plans and impose a hybrid pension plan.
During a City Council hearing on Monday, the mayor replaced his hybrid pension plan with the alternative pension policy proposed by the MEA, but even with the new revision the City Council rejected it with a 4-4 vote. It is now unclear what sort of pension plan the mayor will prioritize within future negotiations, should they happen, or on the November ballot.
The mayor claims that if all city employees, with the exception of police and firefighters, were currently enrolled the pension plan he's proposing, the city would save $25 million a year.
-- LEA YUWednesday, May 14 -- 7:58 pm
After months of arguing that deep cuts imposed by the state compelled San Diego Unified to lay off nearly 1,000 educators, the school board changed course Tuesday night and reinstated nearly 300 teachers, counselors and librarians who were slated for layoffs, heeding the advice of its superintendent.
You probably have the same question I did: What changed?
Board President Katherine Nakamura said that budget predictions from Sacramento are brightening, allowing the district some leeway to restore jobs. Still, she said, relaxing the layoffs is a risk. Superintendent Terry Grier said if state funding for schools diminishes unexpectedly, "we have a real problem."
The reinstatements were "something of an educated guess, as to what was coming out of Sacramento," Nakamura said. "It's an educated guess that things are headed in the right direction."
Less than 24 hours after San Diego Unified restored the employees, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger revealed a new spending plan that would provide $1.8 billion more to schools statewide than was proposed in January, according to spokeswoman Lisa Page.
The January proposal would have left schools' budgets next year with $1.1 billion less than they had this year. So, the governor's new proposal actually represents an increase in funding over the current year's budget.
However, Proposition 98 requires minimum funding levels for schools each year; the governor suspended the proposition earlier this year. If the rule were in place, schools would've been slated to receive $4 billion more than what was laid out in the January proposal.
It's good news, said school district spokesman Jack Brandais, but it's not ideal.
"The rumor mill is going around and people are jumping to conclusions that all the layoffs will be rescinded," Brandais said. "It certainly doesn't look like that. It's better, but it's not going to give us the funding level that we have in this current year."
Wednesday, May 14 -- 7:02 pm
Following up on my earlier post about the lack of information about a key airport committee's meeting tomorrow, more has been posted online. You can now read the backup materials and check out the presentations that will be given at tomorrow's Lindbergh Field planning meeting with the city of San Diego, Sandag and airport authority is now online. Sandag posted it this afternoon.
The joint committee is attempting to plot the airport's future.
If you want to check out the presentations that will be given at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow, they're available here. Included is a 70-page study of the studies that have been conducted of Lindbergh Field since 2001.
Colleen Windsor, Sandag's spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that Sandag intends to post future agendas and supporting materials for the committee meetings on its website.
Wednesday, May 14 -- 5:27 pm
A new charter school slated to open downtown this fall has won approval from the San Diego Unified school board. There's just one catch: The school has to squirrel away $100,000 by July 15.
The school, Urban Discovery Academy, faced strong opposition from charter school monitors at San Diego Unified, who advised the school board not to authorize the school. District staffers questioned whether the school could stay afloat financially and argued that it was an illegal conversion of a private school, Harborside, into a charter school.
Many of the parents who helped plan Urban Discovery Academy previously sent their children to the private Harborside school, which closed for financial reasons last summer and was subsequently resurrected as a special program inside a downtown public school, spurring controversy about equality at the school.
Responding to the staffers' financial concerns, trustee Luis Acle proposed to approve the school's charter on one condition: Urban Discovery has to save $100,000 by July 15 to prove it can stay afloat. His motion passed 3-2, with trustees John de Beck and Shelia Jackson in opposition.
"I'll be straightforward: I'll be watching you," Acle told Urban Discovery supporters, prompting chuckles from the crowd.
Read more about the proposed school here. Or to read the district's objections to the charter, click here.
Wednesday, May 14 -- 4:51 pm
If you missed it, I appeared on KPBS' These Days this morning to talk about the series of stories we recently ran on the health of gray whales and its connection to climate change.
Host Tom Fudge got a good conversation going with me and two marine biologists who study the whale: Steven Swartz of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Maryland and Wayne Perryman of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla.
Wednesday, May 14 -- 4:37 pm
Should contract negotiations between the mayor and three City Hall labor unions fail to resume, Mayor Jerry Sanders will ask the City Council to put some form of a pension proposal on the November ballot. But if the council refuses to place the mayor's pension plan in front of voters, Sanders' current efforts at pension reform will have to stop there.
The mayor told the Union-Tribune on Monday he would collect the signatures necessary to put the pension proposal on the ballot should the City Council refuse to do so directly.
But should the mayor launch a petition drive, he would be "up against a very tight deadline," City Clerk elections analyst Denise Jenkins said. Even if the mayor began the process to collect signatures today, he would have about a week -- between June 4 and June 10 -- to collect the required 60,418 signatures needed to place an initiative on the November ballot.
Furthermore, depending on the method of signature collection, the mayor would have to realistically obtain between 80,000 and 100,000 in make sure at least 60,418 are valid, Jenkins added.
The mayor himself has ruled out an initiative petition as an option, mayoral spokesman Fred Sainz said, and has not started on the paperwork for a petition drive so that he may collect signatures as a back-up plan.
What exactly the mayor's pension proposal will look like remains to be seen. Although the mayor previously declared he would submit his original pension proposal to voters, he said yesterday the plan could look like his original plan, or the white-collar labor union's pension proposal, or something else entirely.
For months, Sanders did not alter his pension proposal during negotiations with three local City Hall unions, but he amended his position during a council hearing Monday night, choosing instead to adopt the Municipal Employee's Association's pension plan. The City Council rejected his pension plan by a 4-4 vote. Today at a press conference, City Attorney Mike Aguirre said he favored for the MEA pension proposal.
"What's important is for the council to step forward and back the mayor and to proceed as the MEA has suggested ... which is to keep the defined benefits in place but keep the costs down," he said.
Check out our full story today for more background.
-- LEA YUWednesday, May 14 -- 2:36 pm
The committee that's plotting the future of the region's international airport is meeting at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow at Lindbergh Field's commuter terminal. If you're wondering what they're talking about, you'll have to get up early.
While the airport authority just sent me the agenda for the meeting, no information about it is available on the authority's website. The only agenda posted for the committee is for its April 23 meeting.
The meeting will not be broadcast on the web, either, as the authority's meetings typically are.
The San Diego Association of Governments has posted the meeting agenda on its website, but it doesn't provide any supporting materials for any of the three presentations that will be given tomorrow. That information is typically available in advance of most airport authority meetings.
The process is significant for Lindbergh Field and for the region's air travelers. The city of San Diego, Sandag and airport authority are considering changes that could culminate in a massive overhaul of Lindbergh Field and its layout. The committee has already gotten off to a rocky start, with one member walking out of the first meeting to protest the presence of Steve Peace, a former state senator who now works for developer and Padres owner John Moores.
Wednesday, May 14 -- 12:39 pm The county Taxpayers Association is refusing to join a community advisory committee on San Diego Unified's next facilities bond, calling its efforts rushed and ill-planned.
The school district is planning an estimated $1.51 billion bond to replace Proposition MM, its largest facilities makeover to date, and expects to put the bond before voters in November. We wrote about the uncertainties that remain for the bond earlier this week.
"Starting this late in the process, I don't see how the committee can do a thorough job in addressing many of the concerns that may come up," said Lani Lutar, association president. "Starting the process a year or two in advance would have been more thorough rather than three months before the deadline when the ballot language is due."
The advisory committee is scheduled to meet for the first time this week. Its membership is expected to include community representatives nominated by school board members and representatives of key interest groups such as the Taxpayers Association.
Though Lutar will not sit on the committee, she said her group would still be reviewing the bond for potential endorsement. Earlier this year, the Taxpayers Association gave high marks to San Diego Unified for its previous bond. That grade will play a role in the Taxpayers Association's decision, Lutar said, but so will concerns about delayed repairs.
Wednesday, May 14 -- 12:32 pm
Geoff Patnoe, the chief of staff for county Supervisor Dianne Jacob, is leaving his current position to work for one of the city's leading political consultants, Tom Shepard.
Patnoe will become president of Shepard's lobbying firm, Public Policy Strategies, Inc., effective June 9. He'll take direct responsibility for management of the company, allowing Shepard more time to focus on his political consulting firm, Tom Shepard and Associates.
"I think he's very well-respected at the county for the role he's played at Supervisor Jacob's office," Shepard said of the decision to hire Patnoe and cede some control of his company.
"I think it's fair to point out that I'm getting old," he added.
Shepard will continue to function as a senior adviser to the lobbying firm, providing help on projects where he feels his help is needed.
"In terms of administration of the company, I'm going to be stepping back and he's going to be taking over more responsibility," he said.
Before joining Jacob's office five years ago, Patnoe worked as president of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association and as a communications aide to Gov. Pete Wilson.
Wednesday, May 14 -- 12:03 pm I just spoke to Damon Mosler. He's the lead prosecutor on the drug bust at San Diego State University that culminated in the arrest of more than 30 students. When the sting happened last week, I wrote this story looking at the possibility that the fraternity boys arrested in the bust could be charged as gang members.
But Mosler just told me he won't be able to bring gang charges against any of the students arrested during the bust.
A quick refresher: California's rather liberally worded gang laws mean all sorts of organized groups can be legally considered "gangs" if they engage in a pattern of criminal activity that's aimed at furthering the gang's status or standing.
If prosecutors can prove a gang nexus for the crime committed, the sentencing implications for the person charged can be considerable. In some cases, sentences can double if prosecutors can prove the crime was gang-related.
The issue is a key point in the Bird Rock Bandits case that is currently on trial.
Prosecutors in that case are attempting to prove that the individuals who allegedly beat to death a young La Jolla man, Emery Kauanui, had been engaged in gang-related crimes over a period of time. After Kauanui's death, the authorities were contacted about other incidents allegedly involving the same group of young men, who called themselves the "Bird Rock Bandits." In order to make the gang charges stick, the prosecutors will have to show that those other crimes and the murder of Kauanui constitute a pattern of criminal activity that meets the statutory definition of gang crime.
In the SDSU case, Mosler said, proving a pattern of gang-related criminal activity won't be possible. Without being able to prove that the crimes the students were arrested for were part of a pattern of gang-related criminal activity, Mosler said, he can't pin gang charges on the frat boys.
"There are no predicate acts I can use," Mosler said. "Under the statute, there's a laundry list of things I need to bring gang charges and I don't have that pattern of criminal activity."
One of the non-students arrested in the sting was referred to as a documented Los Angeles gang member by law enforcement. (The state Department of Justice has defined 10 minimum criteria for an individual to be defined as a "documented" gang member. According to the California Penal Code, an individual has to meet at least two of those criteria on two or more occasions in order to be classified as a documented gang member. Criteria include admitting to being a gang member, displaying symbols and/or hand signs representing a gang, associating with known gang members, etc.)
I asked Mosler if he would be seeking gang charges against that individual.
Mosler said he probably wouldn't because the crimes he is alleged to have committed in San Diego do not appear to have been in furtherance of his gang, which is mandated by statute.
"I would be hard-pressed to prove it was gang-related because of where he is at and how his gang is doing," Mosler said. "He appears to have just been a businessman, doing his thing in San Diego, unconnected to his gang."
Wednesday, May 14 -- 11:43 am San Diego Unified has retreated from its original plan to dismiss more than 900 educators to balance its budget and will now notify only 617 educators of pending layoffs.
At today's school board meeting, Superintendent Terry Grier recommended rescinding layoff notices for 76 counselors, 15 librarians, and 102 high school English teachers -- a total of 286 employees. In addition, San Diego Unified also backtracked on 93 additional layoff notices based on corrected and updated employee data and the ruling of an administrative law judge, district spokesman Jack Brandais explained.
The school board voted to finalize the remaining 617 layoff notices Tuesday night, with trustees Luis Acle and Shelia Jackson opposing the measure.
Grier said the rescinded notices would spare all affected counselors, librarians and high school English teachers. He decided that those employees were a priority based on complaints he heard at school sites about cutting librarians from new libraries built under the district's last facilities bond, Proposition MM, and from students who worried about losing counselors and high school English teachers. The superintendent said counselors play a unique role in reducing dropout rates, "a personal passion" of Grier's, and that high school English teachers were especially needed to help English language learners in the ninth grade.
"It's not that other categories [of employees] aren't important, because goodness knows they are," Grier said.
Grier's exemptions are tentatively estimated to cost San Diego Unified $20 million. To pay for the restored positions, Grier said the school district would be scrutinizing its various reserve funds, lobbying Sacramento to reduce cuts, and undergoing "an ongoing continuous process of looking at how we operate" to become a more efficient, less top-heavy school district.
Tuesday, May 13 -- 10:06 pm
The El Cajon Police Department has launched a new website aimed at helping the department communicate with the community.
The site, www.elcajonneighbors.org, was conceived by El Cajon Police Officer Dan Hansen, a crime prevention officer, and contains links to the department's Neighborhood Watch program, Crime Free Multi Housing program, Gang Street Team, Bike Team, and school resource officers. There's also a neighborhood blog.
Users of the site will also be able to sign up for an e-alert system that will notify them of crime prevention information and current crime trends throughout the city.
Wednesday, May 14 -- 10:13 am A day after the City Council rejected the mayor's labor proposals, many questions remained today surrounding the union contracts, and the mayor's statements have not yet clarified how the next few months will shape up for the city of San Diego and its unions.
Although last night's impasse hearings were premised on the notion that no more negotiation was possible -- hence the "impasse" -- the mayor agreed last night at the 11th hour to incorporate the Municipal Employee Association's pension plan into the contract package.
"In order to achieve meaningful pension reform and with prospects of no reform whatsoever, I continued negotiating in good faith," Sanders said today at a press conference.
But after the council rejected his newly revised labor contract, the mayor said he would take the pension plan to the voters in November. "Everything is off the table at this point," Sanders said in the Union-Tribune today. "Bargaining is over."
Today at a press conference, however, the mayor took on a more conciliatory tone. "We're always willing to talk," he said. "I am never willing to shut a door unless it's absolutely necessary."
Regardless of the option, however, the mayor also added that he felt productive talks would be very unlikely.
When asked by a reporter why his statements differed in less than 24 hours, the mayor said it had been a long night last night.
If the talks don't take place, moreover, it is also unknown for now what the November ballot will look like. The mayor declined to state whether the November ballot initiative would be his original proposal, or the MEA plan he agreed to last night or something different from both.
The mayor had originally proposed imposing a contract on the unions that represent white-collar and blue-collar City Hall workers, as well as deputy city attorneys. The contract included no wage increases and a consolidated health care package, in addition to a plan to create a new hybrid pension system for new employees.
For now, it seems that the wage and healthcare components of the mayor's proposal will not appear on the November ballot, but the pension proposal would. Mayoral spokesman Fred Sainz said that because healthcare and wages are negotiated from year to year, it would not be appropriate for voters to permanently ratify those proposals into law.
"There's a difference between benefits of employment versus pension benefits," he explained. "One is completely negotiable as an employment right and that's what pay and healthcare typically is whereas pension benefits are typically vested. When you go to the ballot ... it has to be something forever."
The mayor admitted that he and his staff had considered going to the voters days before the City Council hearing yesterday, a revelation that drew the ire of San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer Lorena Gonzalez.
"I don't know how they could even imply that they were negotiating with good faith (when) they said they would take this to the voters," Gonzalez said. "That's a threat, that's not negotiation."
-- LEA YUTuesday, May 13 -- 5:35 pm
Yesterday, lobbyist Craig Benedetto called to offer his thoughts of our coverage of the coverage of the coverage of Supervisor Bill Horn's run-in with the North County Times. Benedetto wanted to point out that he and a wireless company executive had met with more county officials than the Times gave them credit for.
The newspaper said he hadn't met with anyone other than Horn. Benedetto said he met with Supervisor Ron Roberts on April 16, 2007 and with land-use aides for Cox, Jacob and Slater-Price on March 28, 2007.
Turns out he wasn't quite right, either. Jennifer Stone, the spokeswoman for Supervisor Dianne Jacob, wrote in an e-mail today that Jacob's land-use aide did not meet with Benedetto.
Stone wrote:
Our records indicate that Supervisor Jacob’s land-use advisor did not attend such a meeting on March 28, 2007.
We plan to contact Mr. Benedetto and encourage him to correct his records.
In addition, we intend to ask that, in the future, Mr. Benedetto refer all District Two scheduling questions to our office, not his.
Tuesday, May 13 -- 12:08 pm
The Washington Post is in the midst of a four-part series examining the health care given to detained immigrants. A central focus of the first part, which launched yesterday, examines the health care -- and its lapses -- at the Otay Mesa Detention Facility.
The hard-hitting story begins:
Near midnight on a California spring night, armed guards escorted Yusif Osman into an immigration prison ringed by concertina wire at the end of a winding, isolated road.
During the intake screening, a part-time nurse began a computerized medical file on Osman, a routine procedure for any person entering the vast prison network the government has built for foreign detainees across the country. But the nurse pushed a button and mistakenly closed file #077-987-986 and marked it "completed" -- even though it had no medical information in it.
Three months later, at 2 in the morning on June 27, 2006, the native of Ghana collapsed in Cell 206 at the Otay Mesa immigrant detention center outside San Diego. His cellmate hit the intercom button, yelling to guards that Osman was on the floor suffering from chest pains. A guard peered through the window into the dim cell and saw the detainee on the ground, but did not go in. Instead, he called a clinic nurse to find out whether Osman had any medical problems.
When the nurse opened the file and found it blank, she decided there was no emergency and said Osman needed to fill out a sick call request. The guard went on a lunch break.
The cellmate yelled again. Another guard came by, looked in and called the nurse. This time she wanted Osman brought to the clinic. Forty minutes passed before guards brought a wheelchair to his cell. By then it was too late: Osman was barely alive when paramedics reached him. He soon died.
Monday, May 12 -- 5:10 pm I just chatted with Craig Benedetto, a lobbyist and spokesman for Cricket Communications, who contested a North County Times story we wrote about last week.
The story included these graphs:
New details about a meeting between county Supervisor Bill Horn and the chief executive of a wireless company with a controversial cell-tower project before the county government have cast doubt on the supervisor's credibility and raised questions about the legality of the meeting. ...
[L]ast week, the supervisor defended his meeting and criticized the North County Times in an e-mail to constituents and in a new feature on the county's Web site called "The Whole Story." Among other things, Horn said all four of his fellow supervisors had also met with [Leap Wireless president Doug] Hutcheson.
However, county supervisors Ron Roberts, Greg Cox, Dianne Jacob and Pam Slater-Price all said through their top aides this week that they had not met with either Hutcheson or Benedetto.
Not so, Benedetto said. Hutcheson met with Roberts on April 16, 2007, Benedetto said, and with land-use aides for Cox, Jacob and Slater-Price on March 28, 2007.
The meetings were not illegal, Benedetto said. They didn't discuss specific projects, which are prohibited under county rules, but instead talked about Leap's launch of Cricket Communications, and the cell-phone carrier's demographics and expected San Diego presence.
"We never talked about any site-specific issues," Benedetto said. "I know the county's parameters. I don’t put my clients in that position."
Monday, May 12 -- 2:42 pm The New York Times has this story today about the Bird Rock Bandits case, which is currently on trial at the San Diego Superior Court.
The piece discusses the gang allegations that have been made against the five individuals accused of beating to death Emery Kauanui, a young La Jolla surfer. That's something I looked at in-depth in this story last year.
Here's an extract from the Times piece:
"We are a community of well-educated, family-oriented people," the local paper, La Jolla Light, said in an editorial. "How can it happen here?"
But for many other residents, the events were not entirely surprising. Violence had long been a part of the local culture at Windansea; one group, the Windansea Surf Rats, had for decades used physical violence to intimidate outsiders and tagged the group’s initials in surf wax on the sidewalk near the beach.
Still, some residents say the Bird Rock Bandits represented a departure: Their brand of violence went beyond the one-on-one fights that sometimes break out on the beach, and their victim in this case, Mr. Kauanui, was himself a local.
"This was Lord of the Flies," said Tim Bessell, 50, a La Jolla-born surfboard shaper. "They may have been playing make-believe as a gang, but in their case, it came true."
Others have found it implausible that prosecutors are equating a beach clique, however unpleasant, to a criminal street gang.
"They weren’t gangsters," says Richard Kenvin, 47, a filmmaker who grew up surfing Windansea. "They were gangsta chic."
Monday, May 12 -- 3:14 pm A judge recommended sparing six of the more than 900 San Diego Unified educators warned of layoffs in March. Administrative law Judge Stephen Hjelt reviewed the layoffs and concluded that the district properly notified the large majority of teachers and did not cut teachers arbitrarily, as the teachers union argued.
Hjelt's recommendation doesn't specify why the six employees should not be dismissed. I left a message with the regional Office of Administrative Hearings to clarify what set the six educators apart.
But it does include an interesting commentary on a recent article in the Union-Tribune, which drew attention to the overhaul layoffs could bring about at schools such as Jackson Elementary, where 24 out of 26 teachers could be dismissed. The school has won awards thanks to its "young and enthusiastic faculty," Hjelt wrote. He continued:
Nevertheless, as a result of the actions of the District, 24 of the 26 teachers at the school are due to be laid off. Any reasonable person reading this article might wonder, are these folks daft?
The answer is "No." No one in this picture is daft, not the District, not the teachers, not their union. The problems that result in this craziness are structural and systemic and reflect how education is truly prioritized by those charged with enacting and carrying out our laws.
San Diego Unified's school board plans to finalize its teacher layoffs tomorrow, guided by Hjelt's recommendation.
Update: The six educators' names were taken off the list by San Diego Unified prior to the judge's recommendation because the teachers union provided evidence that the educators had been hired earlier than the dates listed in district records, district spokesman Jack Brandais explained. The judge therefore listed them as exceptions to his overall finding that the layoffs were carried out properly.
Monday, May 12 -- 6:28 pm
When it meets May 19, the state Fair Political Practices Commission is poised to ban the types of trips that county Supervisor Ron Roberts has taken to China. Roberts has repeatedly traveled abroad on trips paid for by the San Diego World Trade Center, a nonprofit business group that he has directed at least $854,000 in taxpayer-funded grants to since 2001.
The commission, which enforces the state's Political Reform Act, proposes to prohibit elected officials from accepting gifts of travel. If approved, only staff members would be allowed to accept travel gifts, and only if they were designated by a superior. For example, an accountant could still attend a conference. But an elected official could not travel on a trip with a non-specific benefit. In a staff report examining the rationale for the change, the commission says:
[T]he possibility of abuse is much greater with private sources paying for travel for elected officials. While there are some legitimate privately sponsored trips for educational or governmental purposes, many privately sponsored trips for elected officials appear to the public to be junkets. If a trip is necessary or offers important first-hand opportunities for elected officials to view a manufacturing plant or port facilities in another country, arguably the government should pay for it as official travel.
Roberts has legally been able to accept the travel gifts -- well above the state's $390 allowable gift limit -- because they have been given to the county, not to him personally. Though the World Trade Center has never explicitly said that its gifts were meant for Roberts, our investigations have shown that Roberts has repeatedly planned on accepting the gifts long before he was actually designated as the recipient. Internal e-mails have clearly spelled out that the gifts have been solely designed for Roberts.
The commission report addresses that, saying:
Under the existing regulation, it has proved practically impossible, if not fictitious, for donors to provide a gift of travel to the agency, ostensibly "not designating" the individuals who will use the gift.
Monday, May 12 -- 12:04 pm
The North County Times fired back at county Supervisor Bill Horn today, pointing out inconsistencies in the supervisor's story about a meeting with a cell-phone tower developer.
Horn and his spokesman each fired off lengthy rants earlier this week criticizing the Times and reporter Darryn Bennett, who had been investigating the Republican supervisor.
Bennett fired back in today's edition with a story that begins:
New details about a meeting between county Supervisor Bill Horn and the chief executive of a wireless company with a controversial cell-tower project before the county government have cast doubt on the supervisor's credibility and raised questions about the legality of the meeting.
Various sources have contradicted Horn's account of the meeting, as described in an e-mail his spokesman sent to the newspaper last week and on his Fifth District Web site. ...
But last week, the supervisor defended his meeting and criticized the North County Times in an e-mail to constituents and in a new feature on the county's Web site called "The Whole Story." Among other things, Horn said all four of his fellow supervisors had also met with Hutcheson.
However, county supervisors Ron Roberts, Greg Cox, Dianne Jacob and Pam Slater-Price all said through their top aides this week that they had not met with either Hutcheson or Benedetto.
What's more, aides for supervisors Jacob and Slater-Price asked Horn's staff Monday to correct or strike the faulty information from Horn's Web site.
As of late Thursday, the site still included Horn's assertion that the other four supervisors had all met with the developer and the lobbyist.
It has since been fixed. Another hat tip to San Diego CityBeat for its continuing coverage of the coverage.
Friday, May 9 -- 4:42 pm
Parents don't like social promotion. They also don't like grade retention, which prevents kids from advancing a grade if they're failing academically. (If you don't believe that, check out this article about what happened when San Diego Unified let parents of failing students decide whether or not they would be retained.)
San Diego Unified has drafted a plan that aims to prevent both social promotion and holding kids back by directing help to struggling students earlier in the year. The new plan includes interventions at first, third and eighth grade, and will be up for approval by the school board on Tuesday.
Check out the plan here. The last page is a flow chart that shows the steps in the process, and what would happen to students who don't make the grade.
Friday, May 9 -- 2:24 pm
This Just In Archives: Advanced Search
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One important detail to keep in mind.
Friday, May 16 -- 8:58 am
Mayor says the unions need to unite behind a pension plan or he's going to the voters.
Thursday, May 15 -- 6:52 pm
State Department commission says it is scuttling Bajagua.
Thursday, May 15 -- 2:35 pm
SURVIVAL IN SAN DIEGO
Filings up 103 percent over the year.
Wednesday, May 14 -- 11:33 am
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Why are we allowing unreasonable people to demand that we spend money to disturb the seal colony that so many people enjoy visiting?
Thursday, May 15 -- 1:58 pm
CAFÉ SAN DIEGO
Marti Emerald can bring all of these assets to City Hall.
Thursday, May 15 -- 7:50 pm
COMMENTARY: SLOP
'The community knows what I have to offer.'
Thursday, May 15 -- 6:32 pm
COMMENTARY: RICH TOSCANO
Foreclosure filings piled up at their fastest pace yet in April.
Monday, May 12 -- 11:37 pm
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