Virtual fundraising

San Diego — Ex-San Diego city councilman Byron Wear, at least temporarily sidelined from electioneering after copping a plea to ethics charges over his campaign-funding practices, is keeping his hand in local school-board politics. He and wife Bridget were listed among sponsors of a recent get-together at the Savoy Circle house in Point Loma of Kim Jessop and her jeweler husband Jim for San Diego Unified School District board member Katherine Nakamura. "I would like to invite you to visit with one of our new School Board Members, Katherine Nakamura," wrote Bridget in a recent e-mail. "This is a great opportunity to meet with Katherine and speak to her about important issues we would like addressed in the Point Loma Cluster Community." Themes to be discussed, according to an online invitation, included "Are Our Schools Worthy of Our Children? Has the Golden State Missed the Golden Opportunity? Where Is the Common Ground on the School Board?" Other listed sponsors of the event included lawyer Tyler Cramer, a member of the city's housing commission and the Chamber of Commerce's "Education Roundtable" and his wife Susan; Ted Cramer, his wife Julie; and real estate man Matt Spathas of Sentre Partners, along with wife Kris. One attendee reports that fundraising envelopes were discretely passed around after Nakamura spoke. According to a February 3 filing, Nakamura's campaign had an outstanding debt of $41,365 as of December 31 of last year. Unpaid bills included $33,865 owed to consultant Bobby Glaser's La Jolla Group and $1500 to Classic Yacht Charters. Nakamura lent her campaign $7607, according to the filing. Wear was forced to forgo a $139,500-a-year job as airport commissioner after agreeing to pay a $2000 fine to the city's ethics commission to settle a seven-count allegation that he had failed to pay a campaign vendor within the required 90 days and had accepted contributions over the maximum limits.

Irish family boozing This year, San Diego's "Saint Patrick's Day Parade and Irish Family Festival," set to "celebrate Irish culture and tradition," is being sponsored by Guinness and Miller Lite beer. So who is getting the event's "Special Award"? Pat Connors, an executive with Mesa Distributing, the county's second-largest booze distributor, which handles Guinness and Miller. University of San Diego president Alice Burke Hayes is the parade's "Irishwoman of the Year." ... Retired San Diego police captain Phil Jarvis, who in 2000 was elected sheriff of Bonner County, Idaho, by a landslide, has been charged with the misdemeanor crime of disturbing the peace in the small town of Sandpoint after a party at Eichardt's Pub involving his new girlfriend. According to reports in the Spokane Spokesman-Review, Jarvis has been separated from his wife, who lives in San Diego, for about a year. He reportedly met Stephanie Flannery while she was volunteering with the sheriff's office. On the evening of January 14, the paper says, Flannery promised to call Jarvis after she got home from work. When the sheriff didn't hear from her by 9:30, he called and left a message: "So you're off with somebody and I suspect it's a guy... You told me you were going to get home tonight early. Did you think I would not worry?" Then he headed over to Flannery's house, where, according to a police report, he said he saw her embracing another man on the sidewalk. Jarvis allegedly swung at the man, and the man swung back. Flannery allegedly punched Jarvis, breaking her little finger. A week later, charges were filed against Jarvis in the adjacent county after Bonner's district attorney recused himself from the case.

Countdown How does a convicted stock manipulator spend his last hours before going to the slammer? In the case of Al Palagonia, a former D.H. Blair brokerage executive who copped a plea two years ago in New York to pumping and dumping penny stocks, he heads for the Super Bowl in sunny San Diego for an orgy of pre-confinement partying. Ordered to pay several million dollars in fines, Palagonia, 35, is also reported by Institutional Investor to have recently played a small role in the new Spike Lee film, 25th Hour, as -- what else? -- a crooked stockbroker ... San Diego political consultants are salivating over the prospect: as many as five or six propositions crowding next year's March ballot. Pro-business lobbyists are proposing a so-called "paycheck protection" measure, to limit the expenditure of union dues in local campaigns. There also might be up to three propositions about raising the tax on hotel stays. One sponsored by labor would earmark the money for salaries; another, favored by Mayor Dick Murphy, would leave spending the funds in control of the city council; and a third, authored by hotel interests, would set the money aside for tourist promotion. A possible utility-tax measure is also making the rounds.

Contributor: Matt Potter