The Battle of Florida Canyon

Thirty Years Ago
By now the Navy’s environmental study on the proposed expansion of its Balboa Park hospital into Florida Canyon has met with much disapproval.

The Navy hopes to obtain the property to build its hospital by swapping part of the present site, near the junction of Park Boulevard and Interstate 5, for a section of undeveloped canyon land in the center of Balboa Park — as if the hospital would pick up one huge foot, pivot, and plant it firmly several hundred yards to the northeast.
— “THE BATTLE OF FLORIDA CANYON,” Gordon E. Smith, May 10, 1979

Twenty-Five Years Ago
Oscar Galván, social science teacher at Southwestern Junior High School, is one such individual. After being approached by Remy Bermudez, assistant to Roger Hedgecock, to write a song for the mayor’s birthday party-cum-fundraiser at the Cafe del Moro held on May 2, Galván sat down and devoted an evening to the task:

Long live Mayor Roger Hedgecock
This nation’s role model
A courageous and most earnest man
And of sincere motives
Due to some other man’s failure
The press has incriminated him
Discrediting his name
As if it were the court of justice
In legal decisions
He takes all of us into account
And what he never thinks of
Are his own personal gains
— CITY LIGHTS: “THE STRUM VOTE,” Abe Opincar, May 10, 1984

Twenty Years Ago
From the tone of Paul Krueger’s column on Miramar Lake (“The Inside Story,” April 27), San Diego’s “Mayor of Unmanaged Growth,” Bulldozer Ed Struiksma, is either hearing heavy footsteps in his bid for reelection or he has been seized by paranoid delusions of grand conspiracies. (Shades of Captain Queeg.)

The fact is that Bulldozer Ed has gotten caught once again by his own community — not “outsiders” — with his hand in the developers’ cookie jar.

However, by approving Carmel Mountain Ranch and development on Lopez Ridge and by exempting numerous projects from the city’s sensitive-lands ordinance, Struiksma has almost singlehandedly choked the I-15 corridor.
— LETTERS: “BURY BULLDOZER ED?” Peter Navarro, May 11, 1989

Fifteen Years Ago
When a photograph of Robert O. Peterson’s funeral at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune last week, the flag-draped casket gave the impression that Peterson, the founder of the Jack in the Box restaurant chain and husband of former Mayor Maureen O’Connor, was being buried in the national cemetery. Since government officials have stopped performing casket burials in the overcrowded graveyard, the gesture seemed to reek of favoritism and bias.
— CITY LIGHTS: “AT FORT ROSECRANS, YOU CAN’T TAKE MUCH WITH YOU,” Melinda Powelson, May 5, 1994

Ten Years Ago
David Copley is expanding his realm again. Though mom Helen Copley still owns the Union-Tribune, David has been busy with his own project: gradually acquiring all the houses on a block along Virginia Way. David has spent millions purchasing at least five houses and consolidating the north half of his block into a single parcel. Last month, he bought two more small parcels across the alley for a total of a million dollars.
— CITY LIGHTS: “ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDS,” Matt Potter, May 6, 1999

Five Years Ago
“The hogs are at the trough.” On February 17, 2000, David Parley, chief financial officer of Peregrine Systems, emailed those words to the company’s attorney, Richard T. Nelson. Parley (now deceased) was perturbed that company insiders were dumping shares during a period in which they had been instructed not to do so.

But bail out they did. Between February 15 and February 18, 2000, Peregrine’s then-chairman John Moores and four other officials dumped a staggering $194 million worth of Peregrine stock.
— CITY LIGHTS: “UNETHICAL, IMMORAL, AND UNCONSCIONABLE,” Don Bauder, May 6, 2004