For decades, the Gibbs family and Montgomery Field, the city-owned airport on Kearny Mesa, have been joined at the hip. The family's concrete-block buildings and metal hangars, its gas pumps, taxiways, and tie-down areas, have …

Heroics In commemoration of Black History Month last year, Union Bank and San Diego State University's KPBS-TV handed out the sixth annual Hero Awards for community service. "I think this is a wonderful way to...celebrate …

GOP county supervisor Greg Cox is no shrinking violet when it comes to his personal investment strategy. According to a recently filed financial disclosure statement, on February 20 of last year Cox and his wife …

The invitation for last Thursday's big campaign fund-raiser at the Town and Country hotel called it an "All American Reception," featuring "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and...Bonnie Dumanis for District Attorney!" But Dumanis's well-heeled guests …

Federal prosecutors in the case against San Diego city councilmen Ralph Inzunza and Michael Zucchet have released a witness list for the upcoming trial, featuring a galaxy of big names from San Diego and Las …

In days gone by, Herbert George Klein was one of the most influential men in America. Starting in 1940 as a humble copyboy at the Copley-owned Alhambra Post-Advocate, Klein signed on early after World War …

A Las Vegas TV station reported last week that Michael Galardi's father Jack has lost the liquor license at his Leopard's Lounge in Vegas, but authorities claim it has nothing to do with Michael's guilty …

To Hell and back Everyone knows that Republicans are into faith-based initiatives, but what was a $5000 contribution from the Stickel Christian Foundation doing on the campaign-disclosure report of San Diego's Lincoln Club, that bastion …

Public radio station KPBS talking head Tom Fudge is steamed that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger won't appear on These Days, his morning radio talk show. "Maybe it's that so-called liberal reputation we've got," Fudge writes on …

If Pete Wilson is coming back to be mayor of San Diego again, can his old pal Dick Silberman be far behind? So it seemed last week, a day after KPBS talking head Gloria Penner …

Those increasingly frequent shutdowns at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station are starting to draw scrutiny from one of the nation's top independent nuclear industry watchdogs. Last week federal regulators said a cooling-water valve that …

The stealth campaign that spends your money to buy your vote.

A Department of Veterans Affairs audit has discovered rampant irregularities in the handling of narcotics and other controlled substances at La Jolla's V.A. Hospital. According to the report, the VA Inspector General Office's "collaboration in …

Chargers owner Alex G. Spanos, the megamillionaire who reportedly wants San Diego taxpayers to give him 60 acres of prime Mission Valley property as part of his latest stadium scheme, has turned Hollywood mogul. The …

San Diego Unified school board chairman Luis Acle, elected this past November, has lost a round against Uncle Sam in U.S. Tax Court. According to an opinion dated June 23 of last year, Acle, representing …

Ex-San Diego city manager Jack McGrory has been sued for divorce by Cheryl, his wife of nearly 20 years. McGrory's controversial relationship with the Padres, for whom he went to work as a lobbyist and …

Our town's secretive "business leaders" are at it again, but just who in the dickens are those pesky devils, anyway? "San Diego business leaders are putting together their own proposal, but they have declined to …

Norma Damashek is not a household name. A longtime citizen of La Jolla, graduate of Barnard College of Columbia University, mother of three, and married to a prominent physician, she is largely staying clear of …

California attorney general Bill Lockyer wants San Diego developer Irving Okovita to stop suing three forest-service workers and an environmentalist who have stymied his efforts to build luxury condos in a bald-eagle habitat near Big …

In November, UCSD announced that 56-year-old Judith L. Swain had been named the first director of the College of Integrated Life Sciences (COILS) at a reported starting salary of $275,000. According to a university news …

The Washington Post is drawing heat for giving $100,000 to the Bush Inaugural '05 committee, which has already raised a record $20 million or so toward its record goal of $40 million from private donors, …

Superintendent Alan Bersin has finally sold his Point Loma house and moved into a manse down the hill in La Playa overlooking San Diego Bay. The controversial school honcho got $1,250,000 in September, when he …

The editorial board over at the Union-Tribune lost more face last Tuesday with the defeat of George Stevens, the old Southeast San Diego pol, minister, and ex-city councilman whom the paper had endorsed over Tony …

San Diego Regional Airport Authority board member Bill Lynch is getting more than a bit of personal education in the pitfalls of running an aviation-related business. Back in November 2001, according to a recently filed …

Of all the bad things said about Dick Murphy before 2004, he was never thought to have been a crook. If the word "corruption" was ever associated with his name, it was a small-c kind …

The demise in the great tsunami of Poom Jensen, grandson of Thai king Bhumipol Adulyadej, brought a torrent of local press coverage last week. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times described the dead 21-year-old as …

When the Union-Tribune gets that old special-interest bit in its mouth, it seldom lets go. Witness the recent spate of stories the paper has run about how decrepit the once-mighty Qualcomm Stadium has purportedly become. …

He's been an aide to Democratic ex-congressman Lionel Van Deerlin, top lieutenant for onetime Republican city councilman Uvaldo Martinez, local functionary for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and executive director of Democratic ex-governor Gray …

The intrigue -- not to mention the cost -- surrounding the ongoing San Diego city audit and pension-fund scandal continues to grow. The Texas law firm of Susman Godfrey, L.L.P., hired to help sort out …

The county's coffeehouses and convenience stores, already awash with just-started free newspapers that come and go each month, can count on one more newbie: The South Bay Review, operated by Mike Inzunza, brother of the …

Look out, Union-Tribune, here comes Neil Morgan, who was fired by the paper this spring, and his old sidekick Bob Witty, who used to help Morgan run the Copley-owned, now-defunct San Diego Tribune. The pair, …

It's been revealed that he's gotten personal legal advice courtesy of city taxpayers. Now it's also come to light that deputy San Diego city manager Bruce Herring, who has for years served as a loyal …

It turns out that San Diego Unified schools chief Alan Bersin managed to have that cozy dinner with the district's three incoming board members last week after all. The locale was San Francisco's posh Postrio …

Embattled San Diego Unified school superintendent Alan Bersin is already trying to make amends with those three new board members elected against his wishes who will take office next week, but his first olive-branch offering …

The election isn't until 2006, but the campaigning, at public expense, seems to have already begun. Late last week, a slick, full-color brochure, headlined "Fly into the Future," showed up as an insert in the …

History was repeating itself. What happened in 2002, and before that, in 2000, was happening again. Big bucks began to show up in San Diego. Much of this money came from wealthy out-of-towners. Where this …

When Susan Golding was mayor of San Diego back in the '90s, she developed a reputation for having a revolving-door staff. One of those who bucked the trend was Ric Grenell, a GOP operative and …

Is a Union-Tribune editorial endorsement now equivalent to a political kiss of death? That's what some local insiders say, judging from the results of last week's voting. The biggest blowout came in the races for …

Scripps Health, the county's medical giant -- with 5 hospitals, 12 clinics, and 10,000 employees -- has settled with an Encinitas man who accused the nonprofit health-care operation of using a bogus name to collect …

The struggling reelection campaign of San Diego mayor Dick Murphy has been getting some under-the-table financial support from Sempra Energy, the utility giant that owns San Diego Gas & Electric and depends on Murphy's friendship …

Ever since its founding as a railroad resort for millionaires back in 1915, Rancho Santa Fe, primarily known these days as America's wealthiest zip code, has had plenty of misery to go along with its …

A bit of California history is being made in this year's Solana Beach city-council elections. It involves the status of Dave Roberts, 43, a former congressional staffer who is one of four residents running for …

Employees of the San Diego State University Foundation -- which is using the city's help to develop thousands of new residential units and a mammoth shopping area around the SDSU campus and has been criticized …

Sunday's startling endorsement by the Union-Tribune of Democrat Mike Aguirre for San Diego city attorney seems to have turned conventional wisdom on its head. But there is a big reason behind the U-T's seeming madness, …

For years, lurid stories about the program's culture of booze, strippers, and kinky pre-game sex, financed by wealthy team boosters, have been making the rounds.

The annual "Excellence in Journalism Awards" will be handed out next Friday at a fancy banquet to be held by the San Diego Press Club at the posh Loews Coronado Bay Resort. But this year's …

What do a Santa Monica developer, a ritzy new subdivision proposed for North County's formerly sleepy Harmony Grove, and the San Diego mayor's race have in common? The answer is county supervisor Ron Roberts, who's …

As John Kerry and George W. Bush conduct campaign warfare over their respective service records and how they are portrayed by those so-called Section 527 political action committees, monied forces on both sides show no …

Mayor Dick Murphy, who's had much better luck staying ahead in reelection polls than building his long-promised new $150 million-something downtown library, is throwing an exclusive high-society bash tonight to hype yet another expensive design …

At least one rich local Democrat won't be climbing on John Kerry's bandwagon anytime soon. Developer, ex-state horseracing boardmember, and former port commissioner Harvey Furgatch, who lives in a house on the beach in Del …