News Under the Radar
Sempra’s Peace piece When the city council voted 6-3 to approve a new decade-long power-providing franchise agreement with San Diego Gas & Electric back in June, Mayor Todd Gloria promised to study the idea of ...
Biden’s free bollards and chains The state of Texas, reportedly gaining population at the expense of California, has received another gift by way of the Golden State: a February 15 Texas Tribune dispatch reports that ...
Suicide by Navy Crew shortages, limited training, and exhaustion at the nation’s Naval bases — including San Diego’s — are responsible for both a service-wide maintenance meltdown and a mental health crisis, and at least ...
Todd’s costly homeless binge Citizens wanting to know how San Diego mayor Todd Gloria will handle the homeless may find some of the answers in the pages of a potentially costly request for proposals put ...
UCSD’s uncontrolled substances An audit completed last fall but just recently released to the public following a request to the university under the California Public Records Act calls out UCSD Health for being out of ...
Hit piece late fees In what appears to be a much-belated post-election payoff, two Los Angeles-area Democrats forced from office amid sexual harassment scandals came up with big money in 2021 for a 2020 campaign ...
Dia de los politicos Facing a big-money 2022 reelection challenge from termed-out state senator Ben Hueso, Board of Equalization member Mike Schaefer, a fellow Democrat, has taken to the Union-Tribune’s paid obituary section to tout ...
Lorena’s new gig Outflanked by ex-Assemblymember (and now California Secretary of State) Shirley Weber and her Assemblywoman daughter Akilah Weber, and fresh from a double mastectomy for breast cancer, Lorena Gonzalez abruptly vacated her state ...
Merry, merry payoffs Chris Cate, San Diego’s only Republican city council member, got $5000 for his well-publicized annual Christmas Tree giveaway from city vendor CGI Technologies and Solutions, Inc. On November 3, CGI issued a ...
Battle-weary posh He didn’t get combat pay, but House Republican Darrell Issa, widely regarded as the wealthiest member of Congress, took off for Beirut last month on a trip entirely paid for by the American ...
KPBS’s public money windfall The finances of the KPBS public broadcasting stations, which are owned and operated by taxpayer-financed San Diego State University, have bounced back a bit from the darkest days of 2020’s Covid-19 ...
UCSD’s new ethics gumshoe Faced with a growing number of critical audits, UCSD’s Office of Ethics & Compliance is seeking a senior investigator to help root out fraud, corruption, and all-around bad ethics at the ...
SDG&E’s sitting ducks The first annual Safety Culture Assessment of San Diego Gas & Electric by the state’s Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety is out, giving the local utility generally high marks, with a significant ...
Audit hotspot UCSD is again suffering an auditor’s unflattering scrutiny. This time, it’s State Auditor Elaine Howle, who has released a report accusing the school of failing to apply for millions of dollars of minority ...
UCSD faculty’s hooky play A September 21 report by UCSD’s Audit & Management Advisory Services has some words of tough love for errant faculty members discovered to be taking too many paid vacations and not ...
Juan Vargas, holy man Yet another member of San Diego’s delegation to the House of Representatives has reemerged on the free international travel circuit in the wake of waning covid-19 worries. A freshly filed disclosure ...