Mike Aguirre and his brother Gary aren't the only locals to receive recent write-ups in the New York Times. Dave Cummings, a 66-year-old porn star from University City, was featured in a year-end story headlined …

San Diego City Hall Two thousand six marked the end of San Diego's brief Prague Spring, a short interval of freedom and turmoil between the fall of Mayor Dick Murphy and the rise of Jerry …

With the death of Jerry Ford last week, distant but colorful memories have come flooding back to many of San Diego's political elders. Ford's personal and political ties to America's Finest City were extensive. When …

California state senate president pro tem Don Perata has named San Diego Democrat Denise Ducheny chairwoman of the powerful Budget Committee. Senator Christine Kehoe, who has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the …

Alex Spanos, the megamillionaire developer from Stockton who is paying ex-Clinton aide Mark Fabiani to prospect around the county for a taxpayer subsidy for a new Chargers stadium, is also lobbying hard for federal government …

A few exiting editorial employees of Copley Newspapers are being allowed by management to say their glum good-byes in print. Union-Tribune "readers' representative" Gina Lubrano bid her polite adieu last week, beginning with "It wouldn't …

The Sacramento Bee reported last week that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and wife Maria Shriver took a tour of a new 15-story condo and hotel tower being built at 15th and L streets near the Capitol …

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego's new downtown headquarters, a metallic rust-red three-story cube roundly criticized by many historical preservationists for spoiling the architectural integrity of the adjacent Mission Revival-style Santa Fe Depot, built …

Copley Press employees at the company's Peoria (IL) Journal Star are atwitter over reports that well-heeled locals are eyeing the paper, which is for sale as part of owner David Copley's plan to liquidate all …

Toxicologist Dr. F. Lee Cantrell, director of the San Diego division of the California Poison Control System, has published a paper detailing 121 auctions on eBay over a ten-month period offering potentially murderous substances. "Sixty-three …

There's been an intriguing bump along the road in David Copley's attempt to dismantle his late mother's newspaper empire to pay estate taxes: the sale of the Torrance Daily Breeze, expected to close on November …

Back on August 11, the Barona Indian tribe issued a news release saying that Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction, "was in San Diego this morning to formally endorse the new Barona Education Grant …

"Jesus says, 'Sell all your things and follow Me....' That's always been the most moving thing in my life." So said termed-out assemblyman Juan Vargas in a June 23 Union-Tribune piece about his future plans …

With all the stress of being president of the San Diego City Council, Scott Peters of La Jolla apparently needs a country place for quick out-of-town getaways to relax with the wife and kids. So …

La Jolla's Linden Blue, co-owner with his brother Neal of General Atomics, the big defense contractor, is also a well-known tuxedo-clad socialite who has of late been squiring San Diego mayoral aide and ex-admiral Ronne …

The Sycuan Indian band, proprietors of a casino on their reservation in the hills east of El Cajon, has become a major backer of San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders. Campaign contribution records show that the …

One of San Diego's richest and most powerful players is also one of its most enigmatic. John Jay Moores -- Padres owner, downtown development magnate, University of California regent, confidante and patron of ex-president Jimmy …

Today is judgment day for John D'Intino, the last remaining defendant in the long-running Cheetahs city hall bribery scandal, who on September 2, 2003, pled guilty to felony gun possession and wire fraud conspiracy charges …

San Diego city water staffers have long been pushing the idea of "toilet-to-tap" water treatment, a controversial plan to convert raw sewage into drinking water using a high-tech filtering system. The program has never gotten …

Two weeks ago, San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders got what amounted to a public spanking from the Union-Tribune, which ran a front-page story recounting how Sanders PR minion Fred Sainz and his assistants regularly heap …

One of Mayor Jerry Sanders's most faithful supporters has been Pauline Foster, widow of clothing magnate and South Bay real estate whiz Stan Foster. Ever since Sanders started running for mayor back in May 2005, …

It's no secret that this fall's election season didn't go smoothly for San Diego Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas. First came news that some 5000 absentee ballots, ordered from controversial e-voting vendor Diebold Election Systems, …

Along for the ride on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's VIP trade mission to Mexico last week were a gaggle of big-business types from San Diego: ex-Scripps Clinic V.P. David Gollaher, now president and CEO of California …

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 …

Critics of the Union-Tribune who say that the newspaper and some of its reporters are working too closely with San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders to help advance his agenda may find ammunition in an internal …

Ex-Microsoft exec Nathan Myhrvold of Seattle isn't well known outside the rarefied confines of wealthy computer techies, though he's uttered plenty of quote-worthy statements. The creator of a Windows precursor that was snapped up by …

According to an e-mail from Lorena Gonzalez, political director for the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, the council's robo-call attacking school board candidate Michael McSweeney as a right-wing extremist and touting the reelection of nominal …

The partisan infighting that has marked this year's school board race between nominal Democrat Katherine Nakamura and the GOP's Michael McSweeney was ratcheted up considerably last week when the AFL-CIO's San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council …

Big-name Washington lobbyists have been chipping in to Brian Bilbray's congressional campaign. Fellow-GOPer Susan Molinari, the former New York congresswoman, now a lobbyist and TV commentator, gave $500. Another donor was Jean Denton, who at …

Two weeks ago it was incorrectly reported here that county retirement fund chief Brian White received gifts from financial-services firms doing business with the fund. The actual recipient of those gifts, according to a financial …

Last Friday's Union-Tribune featured a front-page story from the Wall Street Journal about the growing number of "learning-disabled workers" who have complained to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under the Americans with Disabilities Act …

Anyone living downriver from the Lake Hodges Dam, just north of Rancho Bernardo, might wish to take note. The City of San Diego is spending "not-to-exceed" $159,026 on a consultant who is supposed to find …

State senator Christine Kehoe -- who carried Senate Bill 1627 this year to loosen local limitations on cell-phone-tower expansions, which was recently signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger -- has continued to rake in …

Employees of the county's troubled retirement system have been wined and dined by some of the very same people who have contracts to manage the system's investments, according to personal financial disclosure forms on file …

Staffers at the county's pension system aren't the only ones consorting with those in the investment business. Back on May 28, 2004, records show, county treasurer Dan McAllister, then chairman of the retirement board, collected …

Campaign season is in full swing, and the mail is heavy with fund-raising invites. Democratic state insurance commissioner John Garamendi, in a close race with GOP state senator Tom McClintock, dropped into town last Tuesday …

If nothing else, the Kearny Mesa strip joint called Cheetahs has had a colorful family history. For 12 years, according to police records, it was owned by Jack and Michael Galardi. Jack was a hardened …

The tow-truck magnate reputed to be the business brains behind Metabolife International, the diet-drug outfit that made hundreds of millions of dollars before its financial collapse, has finally been sentenced. William Robert Bradley, who pled …

High-dollar political consultant Tom Shepard, who is currently working on the campaign by San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders to privatize city services, has a lucrative side business as a county lobbyist. Among his most recent …

Three decades ago, Democrat Richard Silberman was a high-ranking member of San Diego's largely Republican political domain. A San Diego State grad who dabbled in a long series of financial schemes before hitting the jackpot …

The San Diego City Council keeps eating up the freebies, according to personal financial filings at city hall. La Jolla's Scott Peters, who is married to a multimillionaire, got a $150 ticket this January 19 …

Just exactly who is bankrolling this fall's ballot crusade by San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders to privatize city services and limit pension options for city workers? First on the list in a campaign financial disclosure …

The fledgling Truman Association of San Diego, a group of centrist, pro-business Democrats vowing to vie with the local GOP's wealthy Lincoln Club in the busy arena of independent fund-raising and campaign spending, has picked …

When he's not out on the hustings praising the merits of the Kroll report on past malfeasance at city hall or plugging his privatization measure, one of San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders's biggest causes of …

San Diego city council staffers make a lot of money, but they are way outdistanced by their counterparts over at the County. At city hall, only one chief of staff, Ben Hueso's Ana Molina-Rodriguez, who …

With all that publicity about bad water at Mission Bay this summer, it's no wonder that some people have gotten the heebie-jeebies about the place. Even Cindy Hedgecock, wife of fallen San Diego mayor and …

San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders has finally picked a long-awaited high-dollar consultant to help him restructure the city's Real Estate Assets Department. And the winner is: the brokerage firm of Grubb & Ellis. That's according …

Ex-congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham was packed off to prison for accepting bribes from Defense Department lobbyists, but the scandal hasn't crimped the campaign fund-raising style of his onetime close GOP colleague Duncan Hunter, chairman of …

The campaign committee of San Diego city councilwoman Donna Frye, who was easily reelected this June 6, ended the first half of the year with $8240 in the bank. On June 13, exactly a week …

The repeatedly postponed sentencing of William Robert Bradley, the Metabolife millionaire and onetime business partner of San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders in a failed high-tech licensing venture, has been put off once again. This time, …