Snakes bite Padres in Arizona
David Dodd 10:32 a.m., May 25
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Stories by Matt Potter
Video stars of city hall
No one’s naming names, but somebody over at San Diego city hall wanted to be video star. Before the recording began, however, an opinion from City Attorney Jan Goldsmith was sought. “Does a member of ...
Top-secret sky spies
National drone watchdogs have been having trouble getting details about San Diego County’s plans, if any, for robotic aerial intelligence gathering. But county documents confirm that Sheriff Bill Gore is eager to proceed with at ...
Toxic county outsourcing
As the sheriff shops for high-tech spy gear, the county is looking to farm out its “response services to hazardous materials incidents,” according to a November 8 request for information from would-be contractors. “There are ...
Killer dolphin gig
For the not so princely pay of $17.67 an hour, graduate students at San Diego State University are being offered the opportunity to work for Uncle Sam’s top-secret military dolphin program, according to a recent ...
$400,000 woman
San Diego State University president Elliot Hirshman’s $400,000 salary came in for a lot of criticism when it was announced earlier this year. Even Democratic governor Jerry Brown got into the act, telling university trustees ...
Pre-election victory grub
While election fights raged this past summer, some California pols who were safely ensconced in their seats or faced easy ballot battles partook of some heaping hospitality from the Barona Band of Mission Indians, operator ...
To serve big government
The local branch of Service Employees International Union, the giant public employees union, has been in the market for a new employee. “We’re looking for a Political Organizer to work in our San Diego office ...
Job security, priceless
Though the Obama administration’s second-term housecleaning begins soon, one controversial San Diegan is given good odds to hang around another four years in one capacity or another. Alan Bersin, currently assistant secretary of international affairs ...
Big bay secrets
The bayside Point Loma mansion lavishly remodeled by Mavourneen O’Connor, the secretive twin sister of onetime San Diego mayor Maureen O’Connor, is up for sale for a cool $6,825,000. “195 feet of prestigious water frontage ...
Art by the numbers
Lame-duck San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders has backed off plans to expand the City’s controversial red-light camera enforcement program, leaving that decision to mayor-elect Bob Filner, according to a recent report in U-T San Diego. ...
Singing for their supper
Commercial local media outlets are increasingly forced by the economy and the disruptive impact of the internet on reading, viewing, and listening habits to cut staff, but San Diego State’s taxpayer-backed KPBS public broadcasting operation ...
Let them eat Chargers tickets
It’s Chargers football season, time once again for San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders to quietly give close friends and political allies free tickets to premier seats at Qualcomm Stadium. For the October 15 game with ...
$7.6 million city parking contract, not priceless
Money may be tight, but San Diego’s mayor and city council have no shortage of ways to spend tax dollars, according to a list of top contracts posted online by the City’s purchasing department. The ...
Border mayors dine duty-free
It was billed as the U.S.-Mexico Border Mayors Association’s third annual “Binational Summit,” an “opportunity for mayors from across the border to…collaborate on topics that affect border communities of Mexico and the United States, and ...
Flashy nightsticks
How much should a police flashlight cost? San Diego sheriff Bill Gore is looking for a deal to buy a total of 1800 Bayco TAC330B “nightstick tactical lights,” which retail for about $40, over three ...
Come to Romney Country
Related to the presidential candidate by blood and religion; each traveling separate roads. On a sultry day in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in July 1846, 496 Mormon men, accompanied by many wives, children, and at least ...
A Lobbyist Job-Seeker's Guide to San Diego
As the election approaches, joblessness continues to bedevil America, but in San Diego an impressive number of lobbying gigs are up for grabs. Rady Children’s Hospital is currently on the prowl for a new vice ...
Fund Race: The Ivy Walls of Green
San Diego State University is looking to close a slightly different kind of deal than that of the political variety. With Democratic governor Jerry Brown warning of severe cuts to taxpayer-subsidized education unless voters approve ...
In Memoriam
The San Diego Association of Realtors has traveled a long and bumpy lobbying road. Last December, it agreed to pay a $500 fine to settle charges brought by the City’s Ethics Commission that it chronically ...
Rancho Santa Politica
These days, it seems any self-respecting superrich neighborhood needs its own political action committee to watch over business in Sacramento. One example is “Residents for a Secure Future, Sponsored by the Rancho Santa Fe Association.” ...
Tax Hikes and California's Free Movie Grants
Times seem to be getting better for the City of San Diego, judging from a recent “request for quotation” for the cost of presenting free movies in local parks. According to the document, the expense ...
Rearranging the Lobby
A lot of top lobbyists, registered to do business at San Diego’s city hall, spent a busy summer shuffling their client lists around. The biggest and most intriguing of the changes, local political insiders say, ...
It's all Chinese to Spelich
Once upon a time, John Spelich was the king of San Diego PR. Today he’s in a war with Google, fighting on behalf of one of China’s biggest internet companies over the future of the ...
Shamu's Super PAC
It hasn’t given away any money yet, but a federal political action committee set up by the new owners of SeaWorld has been raking in a lot of cash from park employees. The SeaWorld Parks ...
Permits for the rich and famous
How much does it cost to get a permit to demolish or remodel a house in La Jolla? Plenty, to judge from a recent second-quarter disclosure filed by Peterson and Price, the longtime law and ...
County affords some Fords
San Diego County is looking for a few 2013 “Ford Fusion ‘S’ I-4 Sedans” — 14 to start with and more to come, according to a recent request for bids by the fleet management division. ...
Flying Coach Fisher
Qualcomm vice chairman Steve Altman has kicked in for the cause of San Diego State University basketball by picking up a travel tab for head coach Steve Fisher. According to an undated disclosure statement posted ...
Irwin Jacobs Goes Republican Hunting
Irwin Jacobs goes Republican hunting Who are San Diego’s heaviest super PAC hitters this election season? Of course, first place must go to Qualcomm founder and La Jolla billionaire Irwin Jacobs, with his cool $2 ...
La Jolla Flash
What a difference a year can make. Last August, La Jolla–based GOP political consultant Bob Schuman had a big winner on his hands in the form of a freshly minted presidential super PAC, Americans for ...
The Touch and How to Use It
Congressman Bob Filner, running for mayor against city councilman Carl DeMaio, is being warily eyed by the ranks of the city’s lobbyists. But after his recent flip-flop in support of Irwin Jacobs’s controversial plan to ...
Shamu Bucks
Shamu bucks GOP county supervisor Ron Roberts has been getting credit for a lot of free SeaWorld passes lately, donations made at the “behest” of Roberts by the Competitor Group, the San Diego–based outfit that ...
Fast Food and Politics
Super PAC icPurple, set up by Gateway computer megamillionaire Ted Waitt of La Jolla to back the failed independent mayoral campaign of ex-GOP state assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, is still in business. According to the committee’s ...
Rock de AT&T
Rock de AT&T It was a penultimate series of sorts: the almost-final round of dining and entertainment freebies accepted by staffers of Democratic state senator Juan Vargas, odds-on favorite to win the 51st District seat ...
Full-Service Lobbyists
MJE Marketing, the lobbying outfit that’s been helping to push the controversial Irwin Jacobs Balboa Park makeover through city hall, picked up another $31,000 for its services in the second quarter of the year, recent ...
Political Brewskis
Speaking of Ron Fowler, the voluble Del Mar resident spent a total of $35,224 on campaign contributions during the first half of this year, according to a major donor statement filed with the California secretary ...
Steakhouse Polititcs
It was fun and food in the Gaslamp Quarter at Lou & Mickey’s restaurant and bar for Republican state senator Anthony Cannella and his scheduler Jamie Mori and chief of staff Dillon Gibbons, thanks to ...
Flying in Circles
A few SDSU sports honchos were included on a courtesy flight from Alaska Airlines.
The Doug and Irwin Show
Downtown super-lobbyist Paul Robinson had a solid second quarter, according to a disclosure statement filed last week by his law and lobbying firm, Hecht Solberg Robinson Goldberg and Bagley. His top client, the Grand Del ...
Lobby Lunches
San Diego’s own Sempra Energy may have had its hands full this spring dealing with the shutdown of the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant it owns a piece of, but that didn’t keep Sacramento ...
It's All About the Money
Tuition is going through the roof, and local community college enrollees have been barred from mid-year transfers, but California taxpayer-supported San Diego State University is spending real money to attract one special category of new ...
Low Pay, High Peril
Public television station KPBS, owned and operated by San Diego State University, is looking for a new reporter for its Mexican-border beat, according to a recent posting on the website of SDSU’s Research Foundation. According ...
Bad Debts to Self
Democratic state senator Juan Vargas, whom many regard as a virtual shoo-in for Congress after his victory last month over ex–state senator Denise Ducheny, a fellow Democrat, still has a few major bills outstanding from ...
The Education of a Young Councilman
Fourth District San Diego councilman Tony Young caused a disgruntled stir in some quarters when word got around city hall in late June that he was taking the month of July off to attend a ...
Horning In
If there were any uncertainties about Bill Horn’s intention to run for reelection yet again in 2014, the incumbent GOP county supervisor dispelled them on July 4 by signing a “candidate intention statement” he filed ...
Watered-Down PR
Water bills are soaring, and angry ratepayers are pounding at the doors. What is a water district to do except lay out some big bucks to hire a new public relations person? Such is the ...
If It's Spring, It Must Be a Free Junket
A bipartisan delegation of 13 congressional staffers took an all-expenses-paid spring junket to Hollywood and San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, courtesy of a lobbying group called the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. “The excitement that the ...
Filner's Unkind Durkee
San Diego Democratic congressman Bob Filner, in a hurry to close out his old House campaign finance account so he can get on with his run for mayor against GOP city councilman Carl DeMaio, may ...
Season's Bidding
The proposal period has closed over at the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority for “Seasonal Decorations” at Lindbergh Field. Without specifying which holidays are to be commemorated, the authority asked for “Professional Seasonal Decoration ...
The Selling of KPBS
San Diego State University–run and taxpayer-subsidized public television and radio operation KPBS, troubled of late by severe money woes, is looking to hire yet another fundraiser, this one a hard-charging corporate rainmaker to sell advertising ...
