City Attorney Mike Aguirre is getting threatening letters. There is nothing new about that, except that these have come from purported law enforcement agencies. On July 17, Aguirre got a hand-delivered letter from the district …

What is it about Sunroad Enterprises and regional airports? During the same period in which certain City planners were plotting to use Sunroad's defiance of federal and state air safety laws as a pretext to …

On April 11 of this year, Copley Press, parent of the Union-Tribune, sold nine newspapers in Illinois and Ohio for $382.5 million. Now we know: those papers were losing money. The buyer was GateHouse Media …

After pleading guilty to conspiracy, fraud, and obstruction of justice in the Peregrine Systems swindle -- the biggest and most blatant in San Diego history -- former chief executive Stephen Gardner last month got on …

A beggar comes to the door and asks for food. The housewife says he can have dinner if he will whitewash the porch. Ten minutes later he is back, claiming the job is done. The …

The San Diego economy is like the chap sitting in a restaurant waiting for his sausage sandwich: the wurst is yet to come. The local economy suffers from mild dyspepsia, with employment barely growing, but …

The U.S. economy is growing at a mere 0.6 percent annual rate, yet the stock market is rolling upward, with occasional setbacks when inflation and interest rates spike up. This seeming anomaly actually makes sense, …

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. To a large extent, that's what's fueling the current buyout-driven stock market upthrust. The richest 1 percent account for almost 20 percent of household income and …

Harold (Hal) Fuson Jr., senior vice president and chief legal officer of Copley Press, has always called himself "the house liberal" -- out of step with the militaristically conservative hierarchy. Aboooouuuut faaaaaace! At the end …

'They're all marching to the same drummer. Nobody is supposed to get out of step. The rule is to obey orders." That's activist Norma Damashek talking about city government under Mayor Jerry Sanders, a former …

Watching Mayor Jerry Sanders distort the truth is as disgusting as watching the Union-Tribune helping him do so. Friday, June 1, was another example. At the request of the city attorney's office, Sanders released documents …

Want a job with a good salary and great benefits? Work for the government. Want a job with a very, very good salary and great benefits? Work for the City of San Diego. Yeah, that …

Whenever Mayor Jerry Sanders tries to pull a rabbit out of a hat, he comes up with a skunk. Or a rat. The mayor's confession last week that he and his aides erred in letting …

Back in the 1960s, people were pigeonholed by the movies they enjoyed. Critics concluded that bumpkins liked The Sound of Music (1965), while the worldly-wise liked The Graduate (1967). One movie was light and maudlin, …

San Diego wants to build up, not out. Single-family detached homes will become historical artifacts. High-rises will mushroom out of the ground. But will it work? The infrastructure to support the population growth doesn't exist. …

Mayor Jerry Sanders would like San Diegans to believe that the City's sins will soon be in the past. He inherited a mess and proclaims he is fixing it. His predecessors practiced "delay, deny, or …

Mayor Jerry Sanders packed his 15-person charter review committee with lobbyists and lackeys who are in the pockets of developers and downtown business interests. Now the community is fighting back. At least two groups, the …

On January 23 of this year, city land czar James Waring wrote a letter to Jeff R. Brown, aviation safety officer of the California Department of Transportation in Sacramento. In the City of San Diego …

Civic activist Mel Shapiro says that Centre City Development Corporation is "a sacred cow." Actually, it's more like a 500-pound gorilla that plops itself down anywhere it desires. Recently, Shapiro thought it odd that Centre …

Last week, members of the mainstream media believed they were covering a story about a search warrant issued by the city attorney's office and approved by a judge but blocked by the police chief. The …

Okay, so California Government Code section 1090 bans government officials from developing, negotiating, or executing a contract in which they have a financial interest. It's an obvious conflict; someone violating 1090 deserves to be punished. …

The City is going to sell a slug of land. What's to keep a councilmember from buying some at a cheap price and later dumping it at a fat profit? Well, there's California Government Code …

New Mexico governor Bill Richardson -- sometimes called "Dollar Bill" Richardson -- is running for president. It's not an ideal time. Richardson was on the board of San Diego's Peregrine Systems from February 2001 to …

At next month's Peregrine Systems criminal trial, defense lawyers will probably ask if the U.S. attorney's office selected defendants on the basis of a highly biased report prepared after the company plunged into bankruptcy in …

Forgive us our debts? For more than three years, William (Bill) Newsome, a member of San Diego's widely publicized Community Bible Church, has peppered the pastors and elders with questions about the church's debt and …

Every February, the Internal Revenue Service sends out a news release warning Americans that unscrupulous tax preparers may use dirty tricks to lower their clients' income taxes. The preparer may wind up in the hoosegow …

In its advertising, Las Vegas boasts that "What happens here, stays here." But that's not true if you are a well-known San Diego biotech executive who went through a quickie marriage in mid-2005, a week …

The hamlet of Potrero in southeast San Diego County, 45 miles from the city and just 8 minutes from Tecate, is being ambushed. The attackers are county bureaucrats marching alongside Blackwater USA, the private military …

If you're like a record number of San Diegans, you're having an anxiety attack: you've got a mortgage you can't afford, and higher home prices won't bail you out. Save yourself additional angst: if you …

As the second month of 2007 moves along, Wall Street and Main Street are still swashbuckling, but the San Diego economy is noticeably buckling. San Diego stocks? They are historically so speculative and volatile that …

It's shocking to find out: political discourse is often coarse. Consider, for example, the straitlaced, rigid James Baker. In 1981, David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, told a financial journalist that supply-side economics was just …

The arts community fervently hopes that if Mayor Jerry Sanders tries to redevelop the four-block Civic Center Plaza, as he mentioned in his state of the city speech January 11, the Civic Theatre will remain …

The noose is tightening around Marty Schottenheimer's neck, even though the Chargers have retained his services for next season. According to some howling fans and nitpicking sportswriters, the Chargers coach chokes in playoff games. His …

It's a huge boat for a tiny tax-and-secrecy haven. The new $33 million yacht sported by David Copley, owner of Copley Press and The Union-Tribune, is registered in Majuro, capital of the Marshall Islands, a …

Robert Nardelli is corporate America's new symbol of wretched excess. He resigned under pressure last week after refusing to take a cut in his bonus. He had been making more than $10 million a year …

Sell the family jewels cheap and then go into the tank. That's Mayor Jerry Sanders's secret long-term plan, say more and more observers of city hall. His strategy is, first, to sell or lease San …

'Ultimately, putting people in a home they cannot stay in is not a business we should be in." Daniel H. Mudd, head of Fannie Mae, the big government-sponsored buyer of home mortgages, made this utterance …

Some Wall Streeters want to put a leash on the law -- except the law of the jungle. On December 12, the Justice Department announced it would ease up on its tactics for fighting corporate …

San Diego has a bang-up football team and a banged-up balance sheet. And that presents a dilemma: will National Football League owners permit the Chargers, potential Super Bowl contestants, to leave a city the year …

Want to find robust good health? Go to a doctor's office or a hospital. The patients may be sick, but health-care employment is doing very, very well. According to a study by Business Week magazine, …

Michael Ellis, cofounder of the bankrupt Metabolife International, has battled drug enforcers, the Food and Drug Administration, the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service, personal injury lawyers, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, bankruptcy probers …

Despite all you read, San Diego is not eating humble pie. It's swilling korn likker. Last week, shortly after the Securities and Exchange Commission slapped the City with one of the most biting sanctions ever …

The election was a nasty, bitterly partisan battle pitting liberal against conservative, Republican versus Democrat, rich versus poor. The combatants screamed at each other over such issues as tax cuts for the rich and immigration. …

In 2003 and 2004, as Helen Copley lay gravely ill, Copley Press hired the Washington, D.C., firm of Capitol Tax Partners to lobby for lower estate taxes. According to U.S. Senate disclosure records, the newspaper …

For two years, the stock of retailer Petco Animal Supplies has been a dog because management has been screwing the pooch. Since 2000, it has piled up debt so insiders could make fat and fast …

In France, a common mini-scandal is the ménage à trois, a person with two lovers, sometimes under the same roof. The San Diego Chargers, secretly and lustfully eyeing the Los Angeles market, may outscandalize the …

Financially, the City of San Diego is going down a rat hole. Make that a pothole. That's because years of infrastructure neglect -- both the shirking of maintenance duties and the shelving of critical construction …

San Diego's jockstrap plutocrats, with support and succor from city councilmember Scott Peters, are muscling in on land that belongs to the public, say critics. It's happening in two places: on the beach in front …

Few things are more repugnant than wannabe alpha males. They're like high school boys snapping locker-room towels at each other. In the financial world, hedge funds are the youthful towel snappers -- barking and boasting …

There'll be no new day dawning if the city keeps walking on the dark side. Mayor Jerry Sanders pledges transparency, open government, public participation, and accountability, and then bows and scrapes before Wall Street, whose …