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The life and death of Oceanside mobile homes
Owning the land is a very good idea, but those who ended up living in these parks seldom had the resources to do that. What they needed was something that was cheap, and mobile homes were definitely that. But now they are stuck. Thirty years ago a few mobile home parks were purchased by the residents, and that took care of the immediate problem, but then they had to deal with the usual HOA bickering. What I wonder is where the O'side city attorney is in all this. If all this illegal activity is rampant, there should be a response from the city. Just what Angie Hanifin does as part of her duties and responsibilities doesn't seem to include enforcing that ordinance.— January 4, 2020 8:02 a.m.
Mexican minimum wage raised to $6.50 a day
If anyone who lives in this county didn't know it, there is a reason for all the illegal border crossing. The minimum wage in the city of SD is now $13 an hour, and the minimum wage in TJ is less than $10 a DAY. Sure, costs are lower generally in TJ, but not for everything, and food can be more expensive there. For a TJ resident, or for any Mexican resident, there's far better pay just a short distance away in the US. That's why they keep coming.— January 3, 2020 10:15 a.m.
KPBS recruits Julia Dixon Evans from Voice of San Diego
One point in this report is that the KPBS assets made that huge jump due to "$26,225,000 in realized gifts and pledges during the fiscal year." It wasn't very long ago that some writer in the Reader, probably Matt, reported how millions of old pledges on the books of SDSU were finally written off. This smacks of the same sort of thing: someone wants to look generous so he/she makes a pledge of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, due at some future date. It's just a promise, utterly unenforceable in a court of law, that is worth what it cost the giver. At the time it is made, the promise costs exactly nothing. Down the road the giver can get sick, go broke, leave town, be convicted of a crime, lose a lawsuit, die, or just simply renege, and there is no way the recipient can collect. Counting pledges is a time honored way for charities or what we call eleemosynary organizations, to keep books, and is a really poor way to make a financial analysis. Promises are broken all the time, and if such an operation counts all those promises as real assets, it is kidding itself. Soooo, all that growth in KPBS assets is questionable as to collectibility. That is, unless I suppose, they were made by the Jacobs family. A few million here or there is pocket change to them.— January 2, 2020 9:08 p.m.
The reign of Dag Hammarskjöld
Good. But how do you pronounce that name? How many Americans can reproduce that "o" with the two dots above it? (Oh, I know that it exists for most typing software.)— January 2, 2020 8:42 p.m.
Lincoln Acres loses land to National City
A map would help here. I've read through the piece and am not clear. But I do have some awareness of the area, in that my wife's uncle and aunt worked in Lincoln Acres back in the 50's and 60's and built a new, hilltop house there in the early 70's. As for the residents, it's a dilemma of which is worse: benign neglect by the county government, or being absorbed into NC. Both prospects are rather bleak. The statement about the Lower Sweetwater Fire Protection District being "detached" to National City is a puzzle. "Attached" might be a better choice of words. And then there's the comment that an attempt of a property owner to annex a quarter acre of land (?) to NC and having it end up with a proposal to annex over 50 acres. Howzat? We need more info than provided.— January 2, 2020 5:24 p.m.
KPBS recruits Julia Dixon Evans from Voice of San Diego
Voice had some notable blind spots that tied closely to parroting the Jacobs/Qualcomm line. If all that "free" money they were getting from the local kingmaker family has dried up, Voice might be honest. I've attempted to make comments to the editor there about some reporting they did, and received no response. What that reveals about the operation I don't know, but it insured that I paid less attention to what they had to tell.— January 1, 2020 8:33 a.m.
Sluggish growth of tree canopy in San Diego
The slobberin' city has been neglecting its parks for years, and one thing that keeps happening is that trees die (and they do that, you know) and are not replaced. I can think of five or six parks in the Mira Mesa area that have far too few trees, and by the layout of them, it was obvious that they had trees planted in them originally. I've seen inappropriately located trees, such as scrub oaks planted in overwatered lawns, that don't stand a chance. It takes some will and desire to get the trees established, and to then keep them healthy. The lazy city bureaucracy just can't manage to do that, along with many, many other things.— December 29, 2019 9:34 a.m.
Mom's ex-husband clips daughter in Vista
Probably? No, "certainly" is the word for it.— December 27, 2019 11:24 a.m.
Mom's ex-husband clips daughter in Vista
And why in the world did the judge order that?— December 24, 2019 10:05 a.m.
Calico Cidery returns with organic natural ciders, and a barn
I don't get to Julian as often now as I did years ago. If I'd ever seen a sign for the Julian Ciderworks, it didn't register as something I'd want to visit. But this new Calico Cidery sounds interesting. Years ago, like thirty, the Calico Ranch was a U-pick operation. While their emphasis was on apple growing, they had a respectably sized pear orchard, too. The pears came on earlier than the apples, usually in late August. We actually planned a day trip to Julian each year so that we could pick a lug of pears, and would do that the weekend before Labor Day. Those pears (I favored to red bartletts) were the greatest! Within a week, they ripened, and were gloriously juicy, fragrant and tasty. After having them for a few years, no pears that you can find for sale today in town can compare. All good things come to an end, and while Calico stayed open for apple picking, sometime in the 90's stopped the pear picking. But it was great while it lasted. You could often find pears at other farms in the area, but none seemed as good as theirs.— December 21, 2019 4:04 p.m.