Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Jerry Brown Wants to Rein in Redevelopment Scams
This is an excellent example of what we are getting w/ these millions of tax dollars. Keep in mind the photos look much better than the actual project. http://www.theboulevard.org/Projects.htm These projects are garbage and they are lying in their reports when they say what the projects will look like and the quality of construction they will give us. They always "value engineer" out all the perks and we end up w/ these awful stucco monstrosities that belong in Temecula. They also lie about the buildings they are tearing down. The most recent project on the list "the Boulevard"....the developer report NEVER acknowledges there are potential historic buildings on site even though the site contains 1 of only 2 salt box buildings in SD and a the clay tile 7 up bottling factory along w/ a couple original craftsman homes. The project was passed on fraudulant info as most of these projects are and the city continues to extend this permit from 2005 when they know this info was fraud.— January 27, 2011 6:24 p.m.
Jerry Brown Wants to Rein in Redevelopment Scams
THANK YOU DON!!!! I have been waiting forever for someone to do a piece on the redevelopment scam. It is the root of so many problems. Pleas read my blog on Toni Atkins the State Assembly Majority WHIP and how she was working consulting w/ her wife Jennifer LeSar at LeSar Development Consulting even after she was elected to State Assembly. They were essentially selling their political connections and influence w/ redevelopment agencies to private developers and LeSar continues to do this. We need to know exactly how rich Toni and LeSar have become of redevelopment dollars. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/ive-got-iss…— January 27, 2011 5:43 p.m.
Congress Secretly Working on Way for States to Go Bankrupt
PS Did you see what I wrote about Assembly Majority WHIP Atkins and how she now is in this position voting on whether to end the redevelopment scam (which of course she wont) while she was working for her wife LeSar Development Consultants working w/ developers and negotiating on their behalf w/ redevelopment agencies to get them redevelopment funds. Certainly they have a team of lawyers, but I still have a hard time seeing how this is legal. Basically LeSar is using her contacts and relationships as CCDC board members and selling this to private clients. They were also selling Atkins personal relationship w/ govt agencies to clients as well as you can see from the pdf I printed on Nov 22 after she was elected to State Assembly and now she is the Majority WHIP. Its so disgusting. I really hope they investigate her. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/ive-got-iss…— January 27, 2011 4:22 p.m.
Congress Secretly Working on Way for States to Go Bankrupt
Wow! This is interesting Don!!! What are the implications of this. You mentioned the municipal bonds. I want to see the sleazy redevelopment sham end and Im wondering if this may help because perhaps they wont be able to sell bonds for their projects anymore.— January 27, 2011 4:15 p.m.
La Madrid Trial Begins Feb. 8
Hey Don, I saw Jerry Brown is going after the Bell City officials to get their excessive salaries and pensions back. Do you think we could get the atty general to go after our city officials? like the head of economic development dept making almost $400,000? That case is interesting precedent.— December 7, 2010 12:12 a.m.
Believe the Grand Jury. Do NOT Believe the Mayor's Office
A city that cant provide basic services has NO business giving millions to developers to build alleged "affordable housing" which is really "tenement slums w/ no social or aesthetic value" as described by SD Architectural Foundation. Prop 22 said we cannot touch the billions in property taxes to private developers like Toni Atkins and her wife Jennifer LeSar.— November 22, 2010 11:25 p.m.
Partnoy Quoted in Great Movie "Inside Job"
Im glad about Partnoy. and I am encouraged by the handful of brave souls that have become whistleblowers. I wish there were more of them. "the movie explains what derivatives are all about, tells how the large banks control politicians of both parties, and tells in graphic terms how the richest 1% have corralled a huge percentage of both wealth and national income, thanks to favoritism from Washington." yes absolutely and 1 thing people are still not getting about the bailout is that it was not just about getting the 700 billion dollars, it was about changing the rules. What happened during the bailout is they took those bad bets....27 TRILLION dollars worth and they put the risk onto the American people. Before the risk was solely the responsibility of the banks. We have not even begun to see the ramifications of this bailout. In fact there is not enough money in the world to cover what we are now on the hook for. I think this is part of why the Fed keeps pumping $ into Wallstreet like steroids, printing and pumping because once WallStreet falls it will not be a simple crash. The bottom will fall out of the market and the $ will be gone.— November 22, 2010 11:13 p.m.
Partnoy Quoted in Great Movie "Inside Job"
The problem is that people still think that no matter how bad or incompetent their leaders are they will not believe that they are truly and completely corrupt and bad to the bone. People still supported the bank bailouts at the time. They did not think the bailout was really just a coup by the banks. They believed it may not be the perfect solution, but that it was better than the alternative. Well, we need to accept that our leaders may very well be evil and corrupt to the bone. Dont forget Mayor Sanders has the blood of 21 people on his hands. He was commander of the San Diego SWAT team during the 1984 San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, and refused to allow the officers and SWAT at the scene to shoot the killer until he got there because he had to sober up before he was caught drinking on the job. Many people that worked under him can not stand him. http://sparkysandiego.blogspot.com/2009/06/oath-o… This guys is bad to the bone and do not underestimate how corrupt all of our leaders are.— November 22, 2010 7:24 p.m.
Partnoy Quoted in Great Movie "Inside Job"
I saw that Congress has to vote to raise the debt ceiling in order to continue. Of course I never agree w/ anything Congress does and this is an interesting dilemna except that the Dems are not in anyway conceding how many trillions were given away to the banks and that this is the reason the debt ceiling must be raised. Then the stimulus came along and gave 100s of billions to the billionare developers....voted on by the Dems. And despite the line from the gov, the banks did not pay us back. They paid us back w/ money from an anonymous TARP fund so that it appears that they paid us back. That is why the Fed will not tell us where the TARP money went. there was a certain amount that on paper went to the banks and then there was another amount that did not have to identify where it went. This is not even to mention how the 100 billion plus to AIG was just a backdoor bailout to many of these banks because AIG insures their investments and the AIG money we have been told will never be paid back. Its all a shell game just like the city of SD and people better wake up and stop beliving the propaganda so we can fix this.— November 22, 2010 7 p.m.
Partnoy Quoted in Great Movie "Inside Job"
Don, I still think the mayor used a Credit Default Swap to change san Diego's credit rating. Remember how we had a horrendous credit rating and then overnight it changed to like a B or B +. That could not have occurred organically. That is still my contention and I will bet anything it is true.— November 22, 2010 6:54 p.m.