Sempra’s Peace piece When the city council voted 6-3 to approve a new decade-long power-providing franchise agreement with San Diego Gas & Electric back in June, Mayor Todd Gloria promised to study the idea of …

When 19-year-old San Diego State University student Dylan Hernandez died falling out of bed after a night of drinking back in November of 2019, the school promised yet again to deal with its long-running intoxication …

Biden’s free bollards and chains The state of Texas, reportedly gaining population at the expense of California, has received another gift by way of the Golden State: a February 15 Texas Tribune dispatch reports that …

Well over a year since the election of Todd Gloria along with a new city council controlled by Democrats, the Democratic mayor may finally be on the verge of picking a permanent chief operating officer. …

Suicide by Navy Crew shortages, limited training, and exhaustion at the nation’s Naval bases — including San Diego’s — are responsible for both a service-wide maintenance meltdown and a mental health crisis, and at least …

The condition of the City of San Diego's Department of Real Estate and Airport Management, known as DREAM for short, is more of a nightmare when it comes to handling the city's giant portfolio of …

Todd’s costly homeless binge Citizens wanting to know how San Diego mayor Todd Gloria will handle the homeless may find some of the answers in the pages of a potentially costly request for proposals put …

Release of a state audit substantiating years of Union-Tribune reporting on county jail deaths during the rule of Republican Sheriff Bill Gore has insiders talking up the possibility of a last Pulitzer Prize for the …

UCSD’s uncontrolled substances An audit completed last fall but just recently released to the public following a request to the university under the California Public Records Act calls out UCSD Health for being out of …

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is ditching its once-vaunted entry into the wild world of cyber currency, unloading the mystically named Diem Association to a subsidiary of a small La Jolla bank. The heavily touted …

Hit piece late fees In what appears to be a much-belated post-election payoff, two Los Angeles-area Democrats forced from office amid sexual harassment scandals came up with big money in 2021 for a 2020 campaign …

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 …

Dia de los politicos Facing a big-money 2022 reelection challenge from termed-out state senator Ben Hueso, Board of Equalization member Mike Schaefer, a fellow Democrat, has taken to the Union-Tribune’s paid obituary section to tout …

As the failing bluffs at Del Mar play havoc with passenger and freight rail service, officials of taxpayer-subsidized Amtrak, otherwise known as the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, have been chronic no-shows at discussions to fix …

Lorena’s new gig Outflanked by ex-Assemblymember (and now California Secretary of State) Shirley Weber and her Assemblywoman daughter Akilah Weber, and fresh from a double mastectomy for breast cancer, Lorena Gonzalez abruptly vacated her state …

Merry, merry payoffs Chris Cate, San Diego’s only Republican city council member, got $5000 for his well-publicized annual Christmas Tree giveaway from city vendor CGI Technologies and Solutions, Inc. On November 3, CGI issued a …

Battle-weary posh He didn’t get combat pay, but House Republican Darrell Issa, widely regarded as the wealthiest member of Congress, took off for Beirut last month on a trip entirely paid for by the American …

Mac “The Communists in San Diego had a little cell that was trying to take over the Journal. A general called me up one day; ‘Do you realize you have three Communists in your editorial …

KPBS’s public money windfall The finances of the KPBS public broadcasting stations, which are owned and operated by taxpayer-financed San Diego State University, have bounced back a bit from the darkest days of 2020’s Covid-19 …

My Own True Story One morning, Hercules had left for work around 6:30 and I was still asleep, there was a knock on the door. I opened the door only about a half an inch. …

After a blitz of allegations about loose ethics and possible crimes, Kelvin Barrios was forced in November of 2020 to abandon his campaign to fill the Ninth District city council seat of Georgette Gomez, his …

Radical, Whole-Wheat Architecture He describes Dryden, who died in 1946, as “flamboyant, quixotic,” and “a personality who ranged from high to low.” He says, “He also describes this scene: “His family said he made and …

UCSD’s new ethics gumshoe Faced with a growing number of critical audits, UCSD’s Office of Ethics & Compliance is seeking a senior investigator to help root out fraud, corruption, and all-around bad ethics at the …

Escape from the Chicks and Beer Image “Monday night the actual rush starts, but we can’t give out bids on Monday. That gives everyone a chance to get around and see where they want to …

Before her December 9 sentencing to six weeks in federal prison and a year of home confinement, along with a $250,000 fine and 500 hours of community service, lawyers for ex-KFMB TV and radio owner …

SDG&E’s sitting ducks The first annual Safety Culture Assessment of San Diego Gas & Electric by the state’s Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety is out, giving the local utility generally high marks, with a significant …

Roommates from Hell I walked outside to the storage door. I pushed on the door and opened it. I saw the rope around John’s neck and John’s face looking at me. I screamed and ran …

Audit hotspot UCSD is again suffering an auditor’s unflattering scrutiny. This time, it’s State Auditor Elaine Howle, who has released a report accusing the school of failing to apply for millions of dollars of minority …

UCSD faculty’s hooky play A September 21 report by UCSD’s Audit & Management Advisory Services has some words of tough love for errant faculty members discovered to be taking too many paid vacations and not …

Juan Vargas, holy man Yet another member of San Diego’s delegation to the House of Representatives has reemerged on the free international travel circuit in the wake of waning covid-19 worries. A freshly filed disclosure …

It's not quite Cupertino South, but San Diego and its environs have been invaded by a raft of Apple Inc. employees in aid of the iPhone giant's ongoing efforts to wean itself from powerful homegrown …

How secret and conflicted is San Diego government? Two fresh revelations about life at the top show just how much of a black box city hall has become since voters threw out the longtime city …

Million-dollar miss An October 20 report from San Diego city auditor Andy Hanau argues some unspecified user fees at municipal parks and other public recreational facilities are too low, and should be hiked. “Parks & …

Democrat Sara Jacobs isn't the only rich House member from San Diego County taking free trips courtesy of foreign business groups. According to an October 27 disclosure filing with the Clerk of the House, Republican …

When Dick Nixon Came to Town San Diego entrepreneur Arnholt Smith, one of Nixon’s earliest supporters, remembered a melancholy evening in the early ’60s when Nixon was holding a meeting and asked him to get …

Notes from Underground Most of the paper's staff lived in the Door commune in a Victorian House on Albatross Street that rented for $295 a month. In late 1973 they were asked to move by …

Sidewalk vids It may seem an audacious request for a mayor and council having difficulty finding their way through the trials and travails of running a big city, but according to a document posted online …

I’m Morgan, He’s Cronkite Scholars, particularly Vjaceslav Vsevolodovic Ivanov, director of the Section on Structural Typology of the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Walter Leland Cronkite Studies at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in St. …

Border body snooping Mexican border crossers afoot at inspection gates in San Ysidro, Tecate, and Nogales, Arizona, will soon be the first guinea pigs in a test of the federal government’s latest high-tech snooping technology. …

An aide to San Diego House Democratic Sara Jacobs took off on a free trip to Cyprus courtesy of the United Nations Foundation, as the controversial non-profit faced new questions regarding corporate sponsorship of its …

Talking Todd’s debacle Democratic San Diego mayor Todd Gloria’s first comic video turn on behalf of the Downtown San Diego Partnership, an economic development association that sometimes dabbles in partisan politics, went viral for all …

An ex-state Assembly Democrat who last year kicked in $1150 to help onetime colleague Todd Gloria get elected mayor is the latest player in the University of Southern California's long-running admission bribery scandals. Plagued by …

Dear Dick: The San Diego Union, Evening Tribune, and Nixon: A Romance in Letters Nixon to Copley: “The ride down and back in your spic-and-span new plane, the superb dinner which you hosted jointly with …

Faulconer’s leavings Mike Pompeo, who served as Secretary of State under President Donald Trump, is bringing his proto-presidential fundraising campaign to San Diego. “We invite you to an incredibly unique opportunity to join Secretary Mike …

Barbara Bry, who lost out to fellow Democrat Todd Gloria in her bid to become San Diego mayor last year, has filed a campaign statement with the county Registrar of Voters to run for County …

Soon-Shiong’s hat-passing scheme San Diego Union-Tribune en Español, a free weekly broadsheet, has long struggled to gain traction after its predecessors, Hoy, and for years before that Enlace, were shot down by corporate economizers. The …

A controversial House Republican from Oklahoma has toured San Diego with Democratic colleague Sara Jacobs, courtesy of a Washington-based think tank criticized by a Harvard University ethics fellow for its ties to Big Oil. According …

Hueso’s big officeholder binge With his tenure as a California state senator winding down, Democrat Ben Hueso has gone on a luxury dining spree with the dwindling cash in his Officeholder Account 2018. State filings …

The 3,786 or so inmates at California’s Donovan Correctional Facility on Otay Mesa, a half mile from the Mexico–United States border, are getting generally so-so medical care, says a new audit by the state’s Office …

Kevin’s big cash crash After a third-place finish as Gavin Newsom’s would-be replacement in last week’s recall contest, uncertain money-raising prospects loom ahead for ex-San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer. Up to now, the Point Loma …