Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Juice through strength

— It's called the "Peace Through Strength PAC, Non-Federal Account," but the political fundraising committee run by House Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter has seemingly been more concerned with the Republican congressman's local political clout than anything having to do with the national defense. According to available disclosure reports, the committee collected more than $32,000 through the third quarter of last year. Most of the money was contributed by big defense contractors, consultants, and others with business before Hunter and his all-powerful Armed Services committee. Big donors included Sorrento Mesa's Trex Enterprises Corp., a laser radar outfit ($8000); Evergreen International Aviation, an Oregon firm that provides air transport for the Pentagon ($5000); Oshkosh Truck Corp., maker of "severe duty" trucks for the Army ($5000); U.S. Ship Management of Charlotte, North Carolina ($2500); Moon Engineering Co., Portsmouth, Virginia ($2000); and Marine Hydraulics International, a Norfolk, Virginia, shipyard ($1000). Hunter has doled out most of the cash to a variety of San Diego County Republican candidates and issue campaigns. Last year he gave $1000 to the successful assembly campaign of Chula Vista mayor Shirley Horton; $1000 to Michael Giorgino, who lost to state senator Denise Ducheny; $15,000 to "No on 52," the campaign against a statewide measure favored by Democrats to allow election-day voter registration; and $15,000 to Ron Rogers, who failed in his bid for mayor of Imperial Beach ... When is a wealthy and connected spouse newsworthy? Apparently not in the case of UCSD chancellor Robert Dynes, named last week as president of the University of California by a committee of UC regents headed by San Diego's own John Davies. Dynes is married to UCSD physics professor Frances Hellman, daughter of wealthy UC alum and San Francisco financier Warren Hellman. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as "key adviser in the costly and ultimately unsuccessful merger of the Stanford and University of California at San Francisco medical centers in 1997," Hellman's investment firm, Hellman and Friedman, has managed hundreds of millions of dollars for the California Public Employees Retirement System and has made large investments with UC regent and Padres owner John Moores, who okayed the promotion of Dynes. Yet no newspaper in the state, including the San Diego Union-Tribune, mentioned the relationship. Responding to an e-mail regarding the omission, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Charles Burress replied, "I didn't know he was the father-in-law, though I'm not sure I would have mentioned it if I had known."

Sponsored
Sponsored

Strip city That financially pressed Las Vegas man linked to the investigation of the San Diego City Council's strip-club connection was sued last year for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, conversion, and unjust enrichment. Tom Waddell, who says he's been called to testify before a federal grand jury in the Cheetahs case, told the council in April that he lived in San Diego and was concerned with strip-club regulation, spurring councilman Michael Zucchet to call for new hearings on the matter. Waddell filed for bankruptcy last year, with one of the creditors listed as Kenwood Communications Corporation. In a lawsuit filed last year, Kenwood charged that Waddell and his company, Direct Meeting Solutions, billed it $92,767 for an "incentive" trip to Barcelona, Spain. The charges included "purchase of 60 airline tickets" along with a 35 percent deposit for hotel rooms. After paying that and another $54,655 more, Kenwood says, the trip was postponed by the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and Waddell was allowed to retain the funds. But "less than two weeks before its long- awaited Barcelona trip last August," the company claims it discovered that Waddell hadn't booked the rooms or bought the airline tickets and the trip was canceled. In all, the suit says, Kenwood was out $144,420, plus unspecified monetary damages. Neither the company nor Waddell would comment ... Ex-Clark County, Nevada, commissioner Dario Herrera, another Cheetahs connection, has been targeted by federal auditors for a contract his public relations firm had with the Las Vegas Housing Authority. Auditors for the Department of Housing and Urban Development allege that "payments to Herrera Communications ceased in January 2002 without explanations, and there was no evidence they provided any services for the $50,000 in total payments they received."

Pure torture A group called Survivors of Torture International is having a reception next Thursday night at Balboa Park's Museum of Photographic Arts. Representatives of the "over 11,000 torture survivors in San Diego County" will be chowing down on an assortment of "wine, hors d'oeuvres, and live Andean music." ... The late Charles Nathanson, whose UCSD-based San Diego Dialogue was a big critic of public education here, graduated from Detroit's tony private prep school, Birmingham Detroit Country Day, according to an obituary in his hometown Detroit Free Press.

-- Matt Potter

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Yo-Yo Ma, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky come to San Diego

— It's called the "Peace Through Strength PAC, Non-Federal Account," but the political fundraising committee run by House Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter has seemingly been more concerned with the Republican congressman's local political clout than anything having to do with the national defense. According to available disclosure reports, the committee collected more than $32,000 through the third quarter of last year. Most of the money was contributed by big defense contractors, consultants, and others with business before Hunter and his all-powerful Armed Services committee. Big donors included Sorrento Mesa's Trex Enterprises Corp., a laser radar outfit ($8000); Evergreen International Aviation, an Oregon firm that provides air transport for the Pentagon ($5000); Oshkosh Truck Corp., maker of "severe duty" trucks for the Army ($5000); U.S. Ship Management of Charlotte, North Carolina ($2500); Moon Engineering Co., Portsmouth, Virginia ($2000); and Marine Hydraulics International, a Norfolk, Virginia, shipyard ($1000). Hunter has doled out most of the cash to a variety of San Diego County Republican candidates and issue campaigns. Last year he gave $1000 to the successful assembly campaign of Chula Vista mayor Shirley Horton; $1000 to Michael Giorgino, who lost to state senator Denise Ducheny; $15,000 to "No on 52," the campaign against a statewide measure favored by Democrats to allow election-day voter registration; and $15,000 to Ron Rogers, who failed in his bid for mayor of Imperial Beach ... When is a wealthy and connected spouse newsworthy? Apparently not in the case of UCSD chancellor Robert Dynes, named last week as president of the University of California by a committee of UC regents headed by San Diego's own John Davies. Dynes is married to UCSD physics professor Frances Hellman, daughter of wealthy UC alum and San Francisco financier Warren Hellman. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as "key adviser in the costly and ultimately unsuccessful merger of the Stanford and University of California at San Francisco medical centers in 1997," Hellman's investment firm, Hellman and Friedman, has managed hundreds of millions of dollars for the California Public Employees Retirement System and has made large investments with UC regent and Padres owner John Moores, who okayed the promotion of Dynes. Yet no newspaper in the state, including the San Diego Union-Tribune, mentioned the relationship. Responding to an e-mail regarding the omission, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Charles Burress replied, "I didn't know he was the father-in-law, though I'm not sure I would have mentioned it if I had known."

Sponsored
Sponsored

Strip city That financially pressed Las Vegas man linked to the investigation of the San Diego City Council's strip-club connection was sued last year for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, conversion, and unjust enrichment. Tom Waddell, who says he's been called to testify before a federal grand jury in the Cheetahs case, told the council in April that he lived in San Diego and was concerned with strip-club regulation, spurring councilman Michael Zucchet to call for new hearings on the matter. Waddell filed for bankruptcy last year, with one of the creditors listed as Kenwood Communications Corporation. In a lawsuit filed last year, Kenwood charged that Waddell and his company, Direct Meeting Solutions, billed it $92,767 for an "incentive" trip to Barcelona, Spain. The charges included "purchase of 60 airline tickets" along with a 35 percent deposit for hotel rooms. After paying that and another $54,655 more, Kenwood says, the trip was postponed by the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and Waddell was allowed to retain the funds. But "less than two weeks before its long- awaited Barcelona trip last August," the company claims it discovered that Waddell hadn't booked the rooms or bought the airline tickets and the trip was canceled. In all, the suit says, Kenwood was out $144,420, plus unspecified monetary damages. Neither the company nor Waddell would comment ... Ex-Clark County, Nevada, commissioner Dario Herrera, another Cheetahs connection, has been targeted by federal auditors for a contract his public relations firm had with the Las Vegas Housing Authority. Auditors for the Department of Housing and Urban Development allege that "payments to Herrera Communications ceased in January 2002 without explanations, and there was no evidence they provided any services for the $50,000 in total payments they received."

Pure torture A group called Survivors of Torture International is having a reception next Thursday night at Balboa Park's Museum of Photographic Arts. Representatives of the "over 11,000 torture survivors in San Diego County" will be chowing down on an assortment of "wine, hors d'oeuvres, and live Andean music." ... The late Charles Nathanson, whose UCSD-based San Diego Dialogue was a big critic of public education here, graduated from Detroit's tony private prep school, Birmingham Detroit Country Day, according to an obituary in his hometown Detroit Free Press.

-- Matt Potter

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Yo-Yo Ma, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky come to San Diego

Next Article

Mid-range fleet scoring bluefin limits off Ensenada

Rockfish to open at all depths April 1st (no foolin’)
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.