San Diego sides with Carmel Partners in Rolando project The Boulevard at 63rd, formerly known as Centrepoint Luxury Apartments from developer Carmel Partners, has been at the center of a controversy that so far has …
May 29, 2023
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Stories by Joe Deegan (RIP)
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933 more bedrooms for Rolando stirs up locals
The planes that pollute Serra Mesa
As aviation-gas lead drops over Serra Mesa... Usually when people complain about small regional airports, the issue is noise. But Serra Mesa resident Gary Keller is worried about lead poisoning, and a California health coalition …
April 3, 2023
You may not want to own a historic home in San Diego
The problem with San Diego's historic neighborhoods Perhaps most telling, both for both his own home’s designation and for the integrity of the South Park district, was Twining’s exposure of a major error, among several, …
March 26, 2023
Poolside shooting near UTC involving Selis and Wilf clans
University City massacre done by developer family donor They are the crème de crème of San Diego business and political society, giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to both Democrats and Republicans, and in turn …
March 20, 2023
Scripps Ranch seems so peaceful
San Diego’s secret missile-testing sites While hardly Death Valley, Scripps is hot in August, with any errant ocean breezes conditioned by their journey over industrial parks and tract homes on the intervening mesas. And no …
January 23, 2023
Eastlake – square footage over location
What am I doing in Eastlake? The western end of the loop consists of a series of shopping centers, all butted up against Eastlake Parkway, and all bearing names that declare their neighborhood allegiance: Eastlake …
January 9, 2023
Allied Gardens invaded by 2000 sq ft houses
Too many mansions Boyer's 1400-square-foot house sits on 50th Street, immediately to the east and uphill from the proposed development, where bulldozers are currently grading the land into terraces on which will sit 25 new …
December 4, 2022
San Diego crime boss gunned down on Lamont St.
How Frank Bompensiero met his fate "Bomp kicked the door shut, Mirabile wrapped his arms around Borgia just as Jimmy dropped the garrote over his head, handing the other end of the rope to Bompensiero. …
July 17, 2022
Van Dam murder divides Sabre Springs, Westerfield's jail inmates
Good Life in Sabre Springs “I think Brenda is amazing. She’s so strong. I asked her, ‘How do you get out of bed?’ She told me, ‘I do it for my boys because they don’t …
January 31, 2022
I-15 mimics L.A traffic, when there were quail in Bonita
Traffic spares no one “People say, ‘You got a real transportation problem on the 15.’ Well, it’s less a transportation problem than it is a land-use problem. A lot of the people, because they can’t …
January 24, 2022
El Cajon Olaf Weighorst forgeries, Reader author's parents killed
Bushwhacked We look at a Wieghorst painting called Spring Rain, a dark, impressionistic work, one of about a dozen Wieghorsts on the walls. Thackeray can remember when Wieghorst painted it. “It was raining cats and …
January 22, 2022
Santa Ysabel dairy land ebbs away, Jamul casino dreams
Moo Twilight Feed he buys directly from farmers in the Imperial Valley. Because he trucks it himself, it costs around $80 per ton for sudan grass, $100 for alfalfa. But with a herd of 200 …
January 16, 2022
San Diego actors' worst stories, he guards Volcan Mountain, community college adjunct
Break a Leg In 1993, Hal Holbrook was performing King Lear in the title role. Tom Hall, a San Diego actor, likes to tell the story. Hal came on too soon and started a completely …
October 24, 2021
Carlsbad flower fields, Mission Bay, Coronado bridge
God’s Dirt “It’s not for the faint-hearted. It’s pretty high-risk because they’re very, very, very, very perishable. When the flowers are bloomed, you have to pick ’em. And you have to sell ’em. Otherwise you …
August 1, 2021
Sherley Anne Williams' coolness toward outsiders, James Hubbell sees San Diego as forgotten city
Raised Not to Hope Too Hard Sherley Anne Williams built her career celebrating the ways black folks talked and acted. School-wise, street-smart, and quick-tongued, she reserved her deepest antipathy for those outside the African-American experience …
July 10, 2021
Beautiful Saint Malo, Hillel vs. La Jolla, University City astir, the Children's Pool rift
Halfway between Disneyland and the San Diego Zoo I waded through the ankle-deep water toward Saint Malo. Waves tumbled against the shore, the wind was merciless, but I held my Lancome bag high and waded …
February 20, 2021
Fires in Alpine, San Felipe Valley, Julian
Rustic Firetraps Imagine a wildfire driven by winds gusting at 80 miles per hour is racing toward your house east of Alpine. In the predawn darkness, you can see the red-orange glow of the inferno …
February 7, 2021
San Diego County lakes and their fish, Descanso neighbors feud, Cameron Corners for sale
Electric Water, Shocked Fish The gate below the dam at San Vicente Reservoir in Lakeside is closed when I arrive just before 10:00 o'clock on a late-April morning. The lake is closed to recreational fishing …
November 29, 2020
San Diego's gay bathhouses, wild life of our foreign cabbies, best light in the city
Bathhouse Quagmire "I was in those San Francisco bathhouses in the late 1970s," says James Hartline, an HIV-positive Hillcrest man who is campaigning to get San Diego's three bathhouses shut down. "Those bathhouses were a …
November 23, 2020
UCSD entertains species bending, the automated house, an app to find gun bearers
My Gender Is Bunny Cárdenas is spending more than 15 consecutive days living in Second Life. “My contract with myself was to be in Second Life for 365 hours [wearing the headset], except when I …
November 16, 2020
Local lawyer Paul Jonna at front of fight to open churches
Rancho Santa Fe attorney Paul Jonna maintains that Governor Gavin Newsom and county governments around California favored Black Lives Matter protests over churches when it came to how each of them was allowed to assemble. …
October 7, 2020
Juan Vargas loves lobbyists, the Dominelli fake-out, Pala tribe civil war, SDSU hates undergrads, UCSD wants blood south of I-8
Leavin' On a Jet Plane Tax dollars fund airport blitzkrieg. The stealth campaign that spends your money to buy your vote. CEO Thella Bowens proudly pointed to the poll's key finding: that public support for …
September 13, 2020
San Vincente Reservoir, Descanso, Cameron Corners, Boulder Creek, Julian, Lakeside
Electric Water, Shocked Fish The gate below the dam at San Vicente Reservoir in Lakeside is closed when I arrive just before 10:00 o'clock on a late-April morning. The lake is closed to recreational fishing …
August 29, 2020
Of special concern to North San Diego County
Grassy Heaven Broad, open grasslands in the topography of San Diego County are the exception to the norm, which is chaparral-covered mesas and barrancas. And most of the natural grasslands, Mission Valley for example, have …
August 24, 2020
Most notable San Diego Reader stories of the early 21st Century
Bathhouse Quagmire "I was in those San Francisco bathhouses in the late 1970s," says James Hartline, an HIV-positive Hillcrest man who is campaigning to get San Diego's three bathhouses shut down. "Those bathhouses were a …
August 23, 2020
What a teachers union has done to Gompers
Only 16 years ago, gang fights were constant at Gompers Secondary and Middle Schools in Chollas View. That changed when teachers, parents, and a new administration banded together to turn them into charter schools. Part …
August 12, 2020
California nurses board spends $53,000 to prosecute Kathleen Holt
In early March, as COVID-19 began to spread, Kathleen Holt, 64, thought she might be needed to work again as the traditional hospital nurse she used to be. The California Board of Registered Nurses had …
June 17, 2020
San Diego's nay-sayers on opening up businesses now
On the rare occasions that he leaves his home now, Robert, who wishes to remain anonymous, notices many people failing to maintain social distancing. It concerns him, because he has two underlying medical conditions that …
May 20, 2020
Juan Vargas as cash magnet, J. David Dominelli as town sugar daddy
San Diego State's growing contempt for undergrads “We have pulled resources out of undergraduate education in order to build expensive, elite PhD programs that cater to very few students proportionately." By Joe Deegan, March 27, …
May 16, 2020
Mission Valley – garden-land gave way to shopping centers
The never-ending fix to Hazard Center Drive Hazard Center Drive in Mission Valley East is probably the shortest road incurring the longest completion of any in San Diego. It is approximately three blocks long and …
May 11, 2020
El Cajon – from rednecks to immigrants
The slow end of the Kalasho regime At a city council meeting in September Elia spoke publicly to Kalasho: “Ben, you need help. It hurts me to see fellow Chaldeans spiral like this. It might …
May 4, 2020
Hey, Gavin Newsom, we need to work
Sawaya Carpet Care has been in business for 29 years. Recently, owner Steve Sawaya (pronounced Sa-why-a) approached the owner of “a fancy restaurant in La Jolla” about getting paid for a job he’d completed. “Before …
April 29, 2020
Little Italy – will the flavor last?
Tiny rooms in Little Italy On a Little Italy plot where a Victorian house stood for more than a century, construction of tiny apartments is underway. The house, built in the 1890s at the corner …
April 6, 2020
Normal Heights – you want to be involved
We the people of Normal Heights Adam Deutsch and his wife Claire moved to Normal Heights in 2014. Shortly after their move, the couple went to a meeting of the Normal Heights Community Planning Group …
March 30, 2020
Best Reader stories from 2013
Movie lover's paradise Meanwhile, Blockbuster and Hollywood Video have shuttered their local outlets. Owner and buyer Guy Hanford understands why. “When you went into a Blockbuster or Hollywood to rent a film, you never engaged …
March 14, 2020
A green roof over Interstate 5
One might look at former CalTrans engineer Neil Prescott as a latter day Don Quixote tilting at the North Coast Corridor highway project. Rather than defeat it, however, he wants to enhance the project with …
March 11, 2020
Mira Mesa – what there is to love
Mira Mesa braces for mega population growth The decades-old Vulcan mining operation on nearly 300 acres of Carroll Canyon will be a huge housing project if developers' lobbying efforts are successful. Bordered by Mira Mesa …
February 3, 2020
San Diego's City College squeezes the adjunct profs
The tiresome story of colleges hiring adjunct professors to carry the burden of teaching is starting to come full circle. At the San Diego Community College District, cutting classes taught by adjuncts is the latest …
January 29, 2020
Otay Mesa – so unsettled
Feds plan to make pond of Tijuana sewage Just how smelly are thirteen acres of raw sewage? Soon, very soon, we shall find out. Next Monday a federal agency is planning to start building an …
December 23, 2019
Old Town – early and later stories
General store ledgers tell how people lived in Old Town Finding which store the ledger came from involved detective work. In 1864, there were only two general merchandise stores, one in Old Town, the other …
December 9, 2019
How the San Diego Airport is going to sneak in more flights
Terminal 1 at the San Diego International Airport has been disparaged of late as not befitting the high-class city that San Diego aspires to be. The characterization is part of a Regional Airport Authority campaign …
December 4, 2019