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Stories by Marty Graham

Not good, Chabad

If you rent one of the 84 apartments at the Scripps Ranch Chabad’s Campus of Life, now offered on a variety of apartment rental sites, your enrollment in a class is part of the rent. …

School improvements cut Normal Heights park space

When angry Normal Heights residents and the planning group began fighting the latest “park” shrinkage at the joint-use Adams Elementary School, they expected some resistance. But, instead, they learned that the joint-use agreement between the …

February 24, 2018
AIDS memorial to arise from murky process?

Ahead of today's (February 22) planning-group meeting to discuss the Olive Street park and AIDS memorial, some people are worried that the convoluted process has overwhelmed the most important idea. The plan (to be discussed …

February 22, 2018
Santa Fe Christian School's "truth"

Both Matt Bosse and Joe Mosca, an Encinitas couple, grew up Catholic and want to share their faith with their children. So when they started to think about a middle school for their older son …

February 22, 2018
Is latest trans-border sewage spill news?

The sewage stink from the beach south of Seacoast Drive in Imperial Beach started about a quarter-mile north of the Tijuana River mouth on February 17th, with the first hints marked by that pungent, green, …

Dog on death row since December

John Correia wants his dog back. He hasn’t seen the dog, a Labrador-pitbull mix named Moose, since the day the La Mesa police officer shot at the dog and missed. “I raised him from a …

February 15, 2018
Egged in the city

A spate of incidents where people walking in North Park and Normal Heights were hit by or nearly hit by eggs has left social media abuzz, but the police say they haven’t heard about it. …

Retail/residential to take place of Scripps school?

The draft environmental review for a four-story apartment project that will be built on San Diego Unified School District land in Scripps Ranch has been released, and residents are not happy with it. "We gave …

Nestor high school to fit in industrial zone

An Otay-Nestor area full of shipping warehouses, dialysis facilities, storage facilities, and a few manufacturing companies may soon get a charter school for a neighbor. The Stephen W. Hawking 2 charter school, which focuses on …

Border outlet store robberies up

Robberies are up 38 percent at the outlet malls in San Ysidro, police say, and the new pedestrian crossing to Tijuana seems to be playing an unintended role. Officer Carlos Lacarra, a community relations officer …

January 25, 2018
Speeders' fun at Rolando intersection soon over

At 58th Street in Rolando, Meade Avenue is less than two blocks long and modestly sloped. But the rolling hills on 58th — coupled with poor visibility and unrestricted right-of-way — are creating danger for …

January 16, 2018
Kroc Center's soccer field to be finished in 2020

The soccer field at the Ray and Joan Kroc Center in Rolando will be on the roof of a new parking garage, with plans for the 23,000-square-foot project in the final approval stages. The Eastern …

January 16, 2018
Councilmember got on Rolando catwalk project long ago

City Councilmember Georgette Gomez — called out by Michael Turko for not participating in his stories on the need to repair Rolando’s “catwalk” walkways — didn’t want to appear to take credit for other people’s …

January 12, 2018
Sandag accused of eminent domain abuse

The San Diego Association of Governments is considering using eminent domain to take an entire downtown block. The land owners say they are concerned about what the agency plans to do with it, since the …

7-Eleven greenlit to occupy Greene Cat

The Encanto Planning Group gave 7-Eleven — which proposes to buy out the Greene Cat liquor store if the franchise chain's conditions are okayed — permission to stay open 24 hours at a meeting on …

December 21, 2017
Border wedding included drug-smuggling groom

While local, national and international media delighted in the cross-border marriage through the open border gate at Friendship Park last month, federal agents with the U.S. Border Patrol were less than delighted. In stories for …

South Bay Super 8 recovery home a smashed success?

In their push for the conversion of a Super 8 motel to a transitional housing facility for up to 84 people, the city attorney's office failed to honor a public records request by the Reader …

Cleanup on Sweetwater Marsh

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on Tuesday (December 5th) unveiled its plan to clean up three areas in the Sweetwater Marsh, bayfront land north and south of the boundary between National City and Chula …

December 7, 2017
Decision made on Mission Bay wetlands plan

A conflicted, somewhat confused Mission Bay Park Committee voted 5-3 to go forward with a plan for the DeAnza Cove Tuesday night (December 5th) after hours of passionate testimony from people who want different things …

December 6, 2017
Downtown homeless people driven north by cops

Normal Heights residents remain frustrated and angry over the recent influx of homeless people in their neighborhood — which city staff say was prompted by the downtown streets bleaching to ward off hepatitis A. The …

La Jollans pick bones over noisy airspace

Some residents of La Jolla Shores and Bird Rock say that U.S. Rep. Scott Peters’s undated letter that blames aircraft-noise increases on Montgomery-Gibbs Field is "nonsense." "The [San Diego County Regional] Airport Authority's noise specialists …

November 30, 2017
Border sewage and campground vie for state funds

Surfrider and Wildcoast, along with three citizens’ groups, have challenged county supervisor Greg Cox over funding for a campground included in a state bill the groups supported. The groups are asking that the $1.6 million …

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 — supported by EPA research — says …

November 16, 2017
Normal Heights' notions for I-15–adjacent property

Concerned about what the city is planning to do with two vacant lots on the northwest corner of El Cajon Boulevard at 40th Street, adjacent to the I-15 off-ramp, local groups are asking the city …

November 14, 2017
Normal Heights park starvation anniversary

One year after the neighborhood called out the city and Normal Heights Elementary School for breaking the promise that the school grounds would be open to the public after school hours, the chairman of the …

November 10, 2017
What SDPD narcs learned about weed in Colorado

On the eve of the election in which California voters legalized recreational marijuana use in 2016, San Diego police chief Shelley Zimmerman sent a team of narcs to Denver to learn how things were going …

November 2, 2017
AIDS memorial plan not so great, say residents

The draft plans for Olive Street Park met resistance Thursday evening (October 26th) as people who live adjacent to the 80´ x 100´ plot of land raised a ruckus over not being included or notified …

October 31, 2017
Old bike-sharing company, new plan

DecoBike is looking at a dozen places for stands in North Park, Uptown, downtown, and Golden Hill after getting kicked out of the beach areas by the California Coastal Commission, city engineer Brian Genovese said …

Proposed AIDS memorial for Olive Street

The announcement on September 9th that the San Diego AIDS Memorial Task Force had selected a site — 20 years after the first such task force got underway — isn’t sitting well with some community …

October 24, 2017
Short-term vacation rental explosion

Locals in Mission Beach and Pacific Beach who say their neighborhoods are increasingly jammed full of unregulated mini-hotels are right, according to the city treasurer’s annual count of short-term rentals. But other neighborhoods — downtown …

Mission Beach's last big chunk

Mission Beach will see the former Mission Beach Elementary School site developed into 59 homes with the California Coastal Commission’s unanimous approval on Thursday (October 12th). The commission was the last stop in the project’s …

October 13, 2017
Who made it first to Mission Bay drowning scene?

A new twist in the March drowning death of a two-year-old in Mission Bay: the 911 system record of the calls were requested by San Diego attorney Cory Briggs, according to the city’s NextRequest document …

October 12, 2017
A concrete border-sewage-collection basin plan

With the governor’s signature late Monday (October 9th), $2.1 million in state funding is on its way to the Tijuana River Valley — some of it earmarked to deal with the sewage, trash, and sediment …

Inn like Flynn on Sunset Cliffs

The Inn at Sunset Cliffs, whose owner overstepped the boundaries of the emergency permit to fix a collapsed deck, won the support of the Ocean Beach Planning Group Wednesday (October 4th) on its application for …

October 6, 2017
A lot of motorcycle deaths in San Diego County

San Diego County has the dubious honor of ranking the fourth worst — of 58 California counties — in motorcycle crash deaths. In 2016, the county broke its own record for the number of people …

October 5, 2017
Rogue docent theory on Torrey pines die-off

Two years ago, Dale Williams, a volunteer docent at Torrey Pines Natural Reserve, started wondering what is killing the rare trees. Williams says about 25 percent of the reserve’s trees, which numbered about 6000, have …

October 3, 2017
South Bay residents leery of Super 8 recovery home

At a meeting held at the Nestor library branch Wednesday night (September 27) it became clear to South Bay residents and business owners that the city is going to place in their midst a motel-sized …

County sees golf carts as viable future transportation

The San Diego Association of Governments has noticed a big increase throughout the county in the use of golf carts and low-speed vehicles — golf carts being two-seaters and LSVs, as they’re called, being four-seaters. …

City Heights YMCA locks the door

Days after a 22-year-old man was stabbed at a bus stop at 43rd and El Cajon Boulevard on September 13th, the Copley-Price Family YMCA staff decided to lock the entrance to the Y off the …

September 26, 2017
San Ysidro swap meet replaced with Goodwill

Colorful displays of toddler clothes and princess backpacks line the remaining vendadoras' (saleswomen's) stalls inside the huge buildings that house San Ysidro's only indoor swap meet. Almost half of the stalls are empty, but those …

September 22, 2017
San Diego still cheaping out on cops

Since July 2015, at least 32 San Diego police officers have left the department to join other law-enforcement agencies — according to exit interviews the departing officers gave the department. “Those are the people who …

September 14, 2017
Plastic-bag ban led to hep A health crisis?

“The plastic bag ban is the main reason for the hepatitis outbreak,” says the homeless man who writes the Homeless Survival Guide. “The hepatitis outbreak was completely predictable — it's why I left San Diego.” …

Coronado driveway contested

Ed McVaney, who owns a couple of houses in Coronado, apparently doesn’t take no for an answer. So when a San Diego Superior Court ruling required him to restore his neighbors’ access to the frontage …

September 3, 2017
Lifeguards given false hope to help Houston?

Eleven San Diego lifeguards, whose union rep Sgt. Ed Harris seemed to have embarrassed San Diego Fire and Rescue into allowing them to go to the flood zone after initially refusing to send them, were …

September 2, 2017
No master plan for Maple Canyon

Maple Canyon lovers heard the echo of the freeway building in the early 1960s at the start of summer, when they found about 50 feet of the west entry to the canyon had been paved …

Sorry, Houston, writes SD Lifeguard union head

They're well-practiced at water rescues — 9000 last year — and at handling boats. They practice swift-water rescues and perform them, most often in Mission Valley and the Tijuana River Valley. They've deployed to floods …

August 29, 2017
Mexico: Keep that s*** out of the Tijuana River

Kevin Vaillancort, a foreign-service officer assigned to the U.S. embassy in Tijuana, wants to assure the people who have banded together to stop the sewage and contaminants flowing across the border that applying pressure on …

“The diesel death zone is a thousand feet”

A group of residents have begun organizing a fight against a proposed‘fly-over freeway ramp from westbound state route 56 to the northbound Interstate 5, a ramp they fear will bring noise, soot and cut-through traffic …

Salty water kills beneficial bugs at San Elijo

Most wastewater treatment plants rely on microorganisms to dine on sewage and render it harmless during secondary treatment; and, much like wine and sourdough bread, if the beneficial bugs die, what’s left is an unappetizing …

Will Carlsbad allow drinking and driving?

A group of Carlsbad residents fighting to keep K1 Speed kart racing from getting city permission to serve wine and beer to onlookers includes the teenager who holds the top scoring position nationwide for performance …

August 4, 2017

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