SAN DIEGO POLITICS - Housing Shortage

"Morning Report: SANDAG Spells Out the Housing Shortage" by Sara Libby, Voice of San Diego 3/28/2018

Even if cities across San Diego County built every single last home or project allowed within their zoning plans over the next three decades – a very, very big “if” – the region still wouldn’t have homes for everyone.

That’s the conclusion of SANDAG officials who are working on the region’s long-term growth forecast, Lisa Halverstadt reports.

“SANDAG staffers have in recent months met with planners countywide to learn where their local plans allow for housing – and how much.  They concluded city and county plans permit 357,000 more units between now and 2050, short of the 509,000 additional homes SANDAG estimates the region will need,” Halverstadt writes.

As San Diego and other communities have seen time and again, just because a plan allows for a certain number of homes doesn’t mean those homes will ever be built.  There’s community opposition to contend with, and trouble cobbling together funding can also stymie projects.

Some city planners told SANDAG this week that they think granny flats – small units on existing lots – will be part of the solution in their communities.

• San Diego County Board of Education Trustee Mark Powell has an out-there idea for how to ease the homelessness crisis: House the homeless inside people’s homes, a sort-of foster care system for the homeless, he writes in a VOSD op-ed.  His proposal would include “a rigorous screening process” for both the homeowners and homeless residents.

MUSIC - Reaches the 'Unreachable'

"Music helps people in nursing home once considered unreachable" PBS NewsHour 1/5/2018

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  A California nursing home is using music therapy with residents suffering from dementia.  In collaboration with INewSource news service in San Diego, Joanne Faryon reports on how music is reaching those once considered unreachable.

VINTAGE SAN DIEGO - Mickie Finn's Nightclub

Back in the mid '60s, when I was stationed in San Diego while in the Navy, I spent many a good night at Mickie Finn's.

"Mickie Finn's"

Excerpt

The first Mickie Finn's started on University Avenue in the Hillcrest section of San Diego, California, where Fred and Mickie Finn converted an old warehouse into a rambunctious "Gay '90s–Roaring '20s–Swinging '30s" nightclub.  Red-haired piano player Fred E. Finn (born October 4, 1938, in San Francisco) was a recent Business Administration graduate of San Jose State College, a base from which he and banjoist Red Watson played the San Francisco club scene from 1956 to 1959.  One detail he learned in college was location — he considered Washington and Hawaii for his planned nightclub, but chose San Diego, partly, he said, because of logistics — he couldn't afford to transport his collection of old nickelodeons, 1890s pictures, and various turn-of-the-century items, which he planned to use as "atmosphere" for his new club, anywhere else.

Mickie Finn's nightclub opened on October 28, 1960, with seating for 600 people — soon, over a thousand people would cram into the building each evening.  The first year, the nightclub grossed over $250,000.  Red Watson played his banjo with Fred at the nightclub until 1965, when he moved on to play in Las Vegas, preceding Fred's move by a few years.  Over the next fourteen years, four-million customers consumed 250,000 gallons of beer.  Fred would race a 1927 Seagraves fire engine at the El Cajon Speedway as a publicity stunt for the nightclub, as well as fire an old cannon after every score by the San Diego Chargers at all home games.  In the early 1970s, Fred and Mickie opened a second Mickie Finn's nightclub in Beverly Hills on Restaurant Row, in the new Los Angeles Emporium.  The San Diego location closed in 1974.  Fred's blonde banjo-playing wife (born June 6, 1938, in Hugo, Oklahoma) always appeared in the show using the stage name 'Mickie Finn'.  She and Fred were divorced in 1973, and Fred's second wife Cathy took over the banjo duties from 1980 on.

There also was a Mickie Finn's TV Series.

HEALTH - Diabetes Rates, San Diego County

"OFFICIALS CHEER DROP IN U.S. DIABETES RATES" by Paul Sisson, San Diego Union-Tribune 12/2/2015

NOTE:  This is from the online version of the paper, therefore no article link.

County pattern is also encouraging, disease experts say

Fewer cases of diabetes are being diagnosed in U.S. adults, according to promising federal statistics released Tuesday.

The number of diabetes cases had been climbing for decades, driven by the nation’s surging obesity rates.  In 2009, the number of new cases reached 1.7 million.  By last year, it dropped to 1.4 million.  “After so many years of seeing increases, it is surprising,” said Edward Gregg, a diabetes expert who has been tracking the numbers for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  It is unclear whether the national decline extends to San Diego County.  While nationwide diabetes data for 2014 was made public Tuesday, the most recently available countywide statistics are from 2012.

Still, the local pattern is encouraging.  According to the CDC, the San Diego region saw a significant decline in diabetes incidence between 2011 and 2012, with the number of cases per 1,000 people dropping from 7.8 to 6.6.

Tuesday’s announcement gave Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health officer, hope that diabetes rates are continuing to drop as an assortment of local programs target weight loss through exercise, healthier eating and stress reduction.  “There have been millions in grants awarded to many community organizations, and it’s quite encouraging to see some indication that all of the effort maybe paying off,” Wooten said. Officially, the CDC does not know for sure what is causing the diabetes rate to decrease.  Public-health experts would like to think it is the result of a push to get people to be less sedentary and cut back on sugary foods and drinks.  “This is what’s supposed to happen when you put a lot of effort into prevention over the years,” said Gregg, who is scheduled to present the new data at a conference in Vancouver today.

The drop in national diabetes rates did not fall evenly across all demographic groups.

The biggest declines in new diabetes case rates were in men, white people, young and middle-aged adults, and in people with more than a high school education.  But there have not been substantial declines in other groups, including the elderly and minorities.

That made sense to Jane Campbell, director of the Center for Health Promotion at Paradise Valley Hospital in National City, which each year serves about 45,000 South County residents striving to avoid or overcome obesity and diabetes.

Although she said the center’s programs that target diabetes continue to draw more enrollees, Campbell also said she has noticed a significant change in recent years that suggests the region may have turned a corner in the diabetes battle.

“We’ve had more and more people who come in and say, ‘I’m not diabetic, but I want to prevent it’ or ‘I’m not diabetic, but I want to get my blood sugar checked,’” Campbell said.  “People are starting to realize that even if they don’t necessarily have the risk factors, they could still have diabetes.  I think maybe awareness is finally starting to filter its way into the population as a whole.”

While greater public recognition might seem like a warm and fuzzy concept devoid of concrete impact, Dr. Parag Agnihotri, medical director of the Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group in San Diego County, said getting people to think about diabetes before they become diabetic is a vital part of the larger fight.

“We have to take a step back and look at addressing people in the pre-diabetes stages if we really want to see the numbers drop.  To do this, we clearly need to raise awareness,” he said.

Rees-Stealy is five years into a program that seeks to help patients manage their diabetes through nutrition counseling, medication management and regular follow up.  The idea is to come up with a solution that lasts.

Agnihotri said a study of 100 patients participating in the program has shown that they lost 50 pounds on average— and have been able to keep the weight off for four years.  “We saw their fasting blood glucose levels drop, and we saw almost a 40 percent reduction in their medication regimen,” he said.

Ultimately, doctors, nurses, dietitians and public- health experts emphasize that the battle against diabetes is far from over.  There are still 1.4 million new adult cases of diabetes each year, and overall, there are about 22 million Americans living with diabetes.

Dr. Daniel Einhorn, medical director of the Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute in San Diego, said he was encouraged by the latest numbers in the same way that he was encouraged by the gradual decline of smoking.

“If you remember, it happened in dribs and drabs, and gradually we have all agreed that we should get rid of second-hand smoke,” Einhorn said.

He noted that studies, including one out of UC San Diego, have indicated that like smoking, there is a social aspect to obesity.  So making headway against the overall obesity rate might create social pressure for more positive changes, especially those concerning visible habits like soda consumption.

“There is some evidence that obesity is a social disease.  If you have obese friends, you are more likely to gain weight.  I’m hoping that there will be some parallel to what we saw with exposure to second-hand cigarette smoke so that the most egregious obesity behaviors are done less.  Hopefully, that will portend more improvement for the diabetes rate in the future,” Einhorn said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SAN DIEGO - USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)

"‘America’s Big Stick’ is S.D.’s new carrier" by JEANETTE STEELE, San Diego Union-Tribune 11/20/2015

NOTE:  This is from the online edition, so there's no link.  Also corrected obvious typos in the article.

The Navy currently has 10 aircraft carriers, and a handful of them have been familiar guests in San Diego: Vinson, Reagan, Nimitz, Stennis.

Now, there’s a new biggun in town.

The carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) is scheduled to reach San Diego for the first time Monday.  The nuclear flattop is transferring here after a 29-year career on the East Coast.  And the ship is finishing an eight-month deployment of epic dimension.

Six of those months, including a hellaciously hot summer, were spent conducting airstrikes against Islamic State fighters in Syria and northern Iraq.

Some weeks, the heat index on the flight deck climbed past 150 degrees.  The ship’s captain called the conditions “at the very edge of human performance.”

Then, on a rare around-the-world journey, the Roosevelt hosted Defense Secretary Ashton Carter off the coast of Asia, where Carter warned China against aggression at sea.   For the Roosevelt’s crew, then, the Monday arrival in San Diego will be a return to not only the American mainland but also to normal life.

For the city, the flattop brings a new hull number to the skyline — 71 — and new naval history to learn.  The ship is named for Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president.  Roosevelt is known for advocating an aggressive foreign policy and especially for using the Navy as a sign of U.S. ambition.  His most famous quote is, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”  His namesake carrier has adopted that motto, calling itself “America’s Big Stick.”

Its crew members said Thursday that they lived that mantra on this latest deployment.  Navy aircraft delivered more than 1,000 munitions against terrorist targets — more ordnance than any other carrier group so far in the airstrike campaign against the Islamic State.

“Everyone was working very hard, and there was no question that everybody was very tired.  But morale was high because I think the sailors and Marines knew why we were there,” said Capt. Craig Clapperton, the Roosevelt’s commanding officer.

“Our pilots were going up every day, flying anywhere from eight to 16 missions in country,” he said during a phone interview from the ship.  “And they were coming back very, very often with no bombs left on their jets.”

Days handling the aircraft were long and hot.

But maybe the worst conditions were in the kitchen, or “galleys.”  That’s because the carrier uses outside air to ventilate those spaces, Clapperton said.  Temperatures got up to 120 degrees.

After sailors started reporting heat-stress injuries in July, Navy brass had to shorten shifts to give people a break in the even hotter months of August and September.

One Roosevelt cook, Petty Officer 1st Class Anthony Scott, called morale “pretty decent” despite the “treacherous” weather.  “The fight against ISIS, the crew takes that seriously,” said Scott, 29.  “And we take our jobs pretty seriously and have been motivated to do our part.”  As a result, last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris resonated strongly with him.

“It makes me feel pretty proud to know we’ve been making a major commitment to that effort, especially with all those things that recently happened in France,” Scott said.  Since the Paris assaults, which killed 129 and injured hundreds, the United States has continued its bombing campaign in the Middle East.  It also began assisting French warplanes with targeting data.  One scholar of Roosevelt’s presidency said the Navy carrier’s involvement in the anti-terrorism effort is something from the “Rough Rider’s” playbook.  “He didn’t want to have wars, but he believed that a strong military discouraged potential aggressors,” said William Tilchin, a Boston University professor and editor of the Theodore Roosevelt Association journal.

The Roosevelt’s arrival in San Diego is part of a massive three-carrier swap that involves 9,000 sailors and two other flattops.  The carrier Ronald Reagan left town in August to take up residence in Japan.  But, first, the George Washington left Asia and came to San Diego, where the two carriers swapped crews.  The San Diego-based crew is now sailing the George Washington around South America toward Virginia, where the carrier will begin a four-year overhaul of its nuclear core.  Those San Diego sailors will fly home in December and January to take over jobs on the Roosevelt.  Because about 1,300 San Diego sailors will serve on three carriers in the space of a year, this group has been dubbed the “Three Presidents Crew.”  About half of the Roosevelt’s 3,000 crew members will transfer to San Diego.  The other half will fly home to Virginia to take up residence on the George Washington.

These naval musical chairs will save the Navy about $41 million, as thousands of sailors won’t have to relocate with their ships.

One of the newcomers to San Diego will be Shakayla McGee, 20, an aviation boatswain’s mate arriving on the Roosevelt.  A native of South Carolina, it’s her first time in this city.  “I know it’s always sunny,” McGee said.  “Now I want to try the food.” The Roosevelt’s captain, Clapperton, has lived in Coronado and joked that he might as well be on the chamber of commerce payroll.

“I’ve been talking to my sailors about the quality of life and all the things to do in San Diego,” he said.  After more than eight months at sea, he said, “Their faces just light up.”

PS:  When I was in the Navy I served with squadrons out of NAS Miramar (now MCAS Miramar) that deployed on the USS Hancock (CVA-19) which is much like the USS Midway (Museum SD).

LIE FACTORY - National Review Gets a San Diego School Wrong

"Fact Check:  Lincoln High’s Bad Rap" by Mario Koran, Voice of San Diego 1/7/2015

Statement:  “At one San Diego public charter school, assaults on campus involving mostly black and Hispanic students occur almost daily,” wrote Vicki E. Alger, an education researcher, in a story for the National Review (titled "Obama’s Two-Front War on Kids" to show where they lean).

Rating:  False

Analysis:  Lincoln High School’s reputation might be its worst enemy.

Since it reopened with a new campus in 2007, Lincoln has struggled to “rise like a phoenix,” as a former principal once put it, from a disappointing past.  The school has turned over leadership and hemorrhaged students.  Students struggled to raise their test scores higher than the district’s bottom rung.  Lincoln has been portrayed as a place that is simply unsafe to send kids.

A lot of those are valid concerns.  Numbers bear out the students who’ve struggled academically and those who have left the school.  But some of what’s attributed to the school simply isn’t accurate.

Last month, National Review published a story arguing that softening school discipline policies will likely result in more dangerous schools – places where black and brown students aren’t held accountable for bad behavior and assaults occur on a near-daily basis.

The article’s author, Vicki E. Alger, is a fellow with the Independent Institute, a non-partisan education think tank, and author of a forthcoming book on the history of the U.S Department of Education.

The thrust of her piece was that by focusing on racial disparities in school discipline rates, the federal government is implicitly discouraging schools from punishing black and Hispanic students.  Eventually schools give these students a pass for bad behavior, she argues, thus making them even more dangerous.

Here’s a section from the piece:

“Several California school districts that adopted similar quota-based discipline “remedies” are coping with increased violence.  At one San Diego public charter school, assaults on campus involving mostly black and Hispanic students occur almost daily.  Similar tales of chaos and violence are playing out in school districts from Los Angeles to Oakland, where minority students know they now have free reign to threaten and hurt others.  The worst consequence they may have to face is a meeting with a “restorative justice” counselor.”

In the story, Alger doesn’t name the San Diego charter school, but told me through an Independent Institute spokesman she was referring to Lincoln High School.

First, Lincoln isn’t a charter school – it’s a traditional public school.  So that’s a strike.

But putting that error aside, Alger passed along a few articles to support her claim that assaults occur at Lincoln on a near-daily basis.

One of those was a story from KPBS about rising crime at San Diego schools.  A former principal was quoted as saying that drugs, violence and gang activity were constant threats at Lincoln High.  That story, however, was published in 2010.

An editorial from Investor’s Business Daily claimed that Minnesota was adopting race-based discipline policies that looked a lot like state-sanctioned reverse racism.  Here’s how Lincoln was depicted in that story:

Take San Diego.  Just weeks after adopting similar racial discipline quotas, San Diego public schools have witnessed an explosion of violent assaults.

At its premier charter school, Lincoln High, students report daily fights now, mostly involving black kids.  In the past month, there have been several arrests, including one involving a butcher knife, according to local reports.  Victims have been hauled off by ambulance.

Again with the charter school claim.

Alger shared one more story, an Oct. 4 piece from Channel 10:   “Student:  Daily fights at Lincoln High School have created atmosphere of fear.”

The claim that assaults happen every day was attributed to one Lincoln sophomore, identified only by first name, whose face wasn’t shown on camera.

None of the three stories Alger shared with me to defend her claim included any actual statistics about assaults or fights happening daily at Lincoln High.  Anecdotes are one thing, but for Alger’s claim about near daily assaults to be true, the numbers should support it.

I asked the school district for data on assaults recorded at Lincoln so far this school year.  As of Dec. 17, there were 16 batteries and no assaults, the two categories the district generally uses for fights.

Sixteen cases of battery is a concern and worthy of exploration, but it doesn’t come anywhere close to the claim that assaults occur on a near daily basis.  Alger’s story was published Dec. 3.  By then, there had been about 60 days of school, meaning that, at most, fights at Lincoln happen roughly every four days.

Even if you allow for fights Lincoln staff might have not been heard about or ones that happened off campus, the official number isn’t close enough to back Alger’s claim.

In this case, a national outlet seized on a narrative about a troubled school, and Lincoln was held out as a cautionary tale of what could go wrong when a district tries to recalibrate its approach to discipline.

The problem was, Alger’s facts weren’t sound.  She claimed assaults happened “almost daily” at a school later determined to be Lincoln High.  They don’t.  That makes her claim false.

SAN DIEGO - Race vs Crime

"The data on race and crime in San Diego" by Joel Hoffmann, San Diego Union-Tribune 12/6/2014

As is the case elsewhere in the country, black San Diegans make up a disproportionate share of crime victims and crime suspects.

In 2013, blacks made up 5 percent of the county population, but 27 percent of violent crime victims and 29 percent of violent crime suspects were black.  The 2013 crime data was in line with previous studies by the San Diego Association of Governments, which keeps the data.

According to a SANDAG crime bulletin from last year, “Blacks were overrepresented in every violent crime category in comparison to their proportion in the population.”

Cindy Burke, who keeps the data for SANDAG, said the best available discussion of possible racial bias in the San Diego justice system comes from a 2008 study of the juvenile system.

The study found that “race, along with other legal and social factors, increased the likelihood of a youth being detained following arrest.”

Latino youth were 2.8 times more likely than white youth to be detained, meaning held in custody, while black youth were 1.8 times more likely to be detained.

Despite evidence that a disproportionate number of black youth were serving time in long-term juvenile detention centers, the study did not find that race increased the likelihood of such detention.

Taken together, gang affiliation, prior criminal record and poor school performance were better predictors of long-term detention for youth, according to the study.

“It’s difficult to say the causality is race when there are so many socioeconomic factors tied to it,” Burke told the Watchdog.

Of the officers at the San Diego Police Department, 6.4 percent are black, mirroring the city’s 6.7 percent black population.

Lei-Chala Wilson, president of the San Diego chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said there is no doubt racial bias plays a role throughout the justice system in San Diego and other cities.

“The statistics have proven we don’t commit more crimes than anyone else, but we’re more likely to get stopped, detained and arrested,” she said.  “The word is getting out and people are more aware of it.”

Inconsistencies in how data on race and police use of force are reported make it difficult to analyze, but Brian Marvel of the San Diego Police Officers Association said it’s imperative for law enforcement to listen to the community’s concerns and improve relationships wherever possible.

“Just because we don’t think there’s a problem, it doesn’t mean the community doesn’t think there’s one,” Marvel said.

Marvel said the events in Ferguson and New York were “a good opportunity for law enforcement to take a look at those incidents and see what we can gain.”

LINK to charts  (for more readable view, use article link)

CALIFORNIA - Bullet Train to San Diego

"Hurry up, wait for San Diego high-speed rail" by Chris Nichols, San Diego Union-Tribune 11/2/2014

No construction money, completion date exists for San Diego section

Six years after voters green-lighted California’s high-speed rail network, San Diego remains firmly at the end of the project’s line, lacking any money to build track in the region and even an estimated date for when bullet trains could zip through.

Officials with the California High-Speed Rail Authority said there’s been incremental progress on the 167-mile Los Angeles-to-San Diego leg, and strong support for it on the agency’s board.

The local section, however, is far from the top priority of the embattled $68 billion project.

The focus now is on the Central Valley where federal funds are driving the start of 114-mile segment between Fresno and Bakersfield, which the state expects to complete by 2022.  Demolition work started in Fresno in July to make way for the initial segment.

Unless priorities change — which they can with the a vote by the Legislature — the state doesn’t expect to break ground on the San Diego-to-Los Angeles link until after it completes the even larger San Francisco-to-Los Angeles portion by 2029.

Over the past few years, updates on high speed rail in San Diego have slowed considerably.  Leaders at the region’s transportation planning agency have received just three reports on the topic since July 2012, with the last coming more than a year ago.

No land has been set aside in the region for the project’s eventual construction.  The state doesn’t have the money or environmental clearances to do so.

“We’re just not at that stage,” said Lisa Marie Alley, a spokeswoman for the rail authority.

A future in San Diego?

Notably, the rail authority is not at that stage for any section outside of the Central Valley.  Routes for the project are still being refined across the state, including the path through San Diego County, which is planned through Escondido along Interstate 15 and terminates at the San Diego International Airport.

Still, critics say the lack of tangible progress in San Diego County confirms what they’ve suspected for years:  That bullet trains may never crisscross the county.

“I think the chances of San Diego becoming a member of whatever the project becomes in the future is slim to none,” said Mark Leslie, president and CEO of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association.  “I think San Diegans should look at this as basically it was a bait-and-switch.  There were promises made, most of which were not followed.”

Questions remain about the overall project’s ridership projections and ballooning budget, which is up from its original $40 billion estimate but down from a nearly $100 million estimate from a few years ago.  The project, championed by Gov. Jerry Brown, has won key legal and funding victories over the past two years, securing $6 billion from the federal government in 2012 and revenue from the state’s cap and trade program this year.

Still, many of the region’s political leaders last week declined to comment or did not return messages asking them about the volatile project’s future in San Diego.

“There is a lot of support (for high speed rail) in San Diego.  But its silent support,” said longtime San Diegan Lynn Schenk, who has served on the rail authority’s board since 2003 and is a former congresswoman.

HEALTH - Life Support Patients, When to Give Up

This story has a personal connection to me, my family.  My sister died in 2007 of cancer.  She consulted all her doctors and family (Kaiser HMO) and made the decision to NOT be treated and go for hospice care.  Why?  She was in her early 80s and the treatments would have had her in the hospital most of the time and the prognosis was for additional 6mths, IF the treatments didn't kill her first.  She wanted to spend as much time as she could visiting family and places she had a connection to.

"When to let go?  Families of patients on life support face painful choice" PBS NewsHour 9/30/2014

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  We have partnered with Inewsource, a San Diego-based journalism nonprofit, to take us inside special nursing home units where thousands of people live on life support.  The state spends millions of dollars on this type of care designed to preserve life at all costs.  Families often have high hopes for their loved ones to recover, but few ever will.

Inewsource reporter Joanne Faryon reports on the impossible choice facing those families, when to let go.

STEVE SIMMONS:  Your husband.  Your husband.  You know me.  You know me.

JOANNE FARYON, Inewsource:  Steve Simmons spends most evenings by his wife’s bedside.

STEVE SIMMONS:  Does that hurt?  Does that hurt your ear?

JOANNE FARYON:  Rafaela Simmons is severely brain injured.

STEVE SIMMONS:  Squeeze my hand.  Squeeze my hand if you love me.

JOANNE FARYON:  She has a feeding tube in her abdomen, a tracheotomy tube in her throat.  She is unable to walk or talk or respond to the world around her.

STEVE SIMMONS:  Squeeze my hand.  Squeeze my hand.

JOANNE FARYON:  She has lived in this nursing home for the past four years.

STEVE SIMMONS:  You can do it.  Squeeze my hand.

JOANNE FARYON:  Rafaela is one of the 4,000 people living in units like this in California.  On the books, they’re called subacute units, but among some doctors, they’re known as vent farms, because so many of the people who live here need ventilators just to breathe.

The average age of these residents is 56.  But there are units devoted just to children.  They’re the end of the line, the place people go once medicine has saved them, but where there is little hope for recovery.

Ed Kirkpatrick is the director of the Villa Coronado Nursing Home in San Diego County.

ED KIRKPATRICK, Director, Villa Coronado Nursing Home:  The drive in the system is to be able to repair and fix anything.  And that’s a good thing.  That’s a good thing.  We want that to happen.  At what point, though, does it become futile?

SAN DIEGO - In My Home Town, Comic Con 2014

"4-day Comic Con festival kicks off in San Diego" AP, Sacramento Bee 7/25/2014

Like Batman responding to a beaming Bat signal in the sky, fans are streaming to San Diego for the 45th annual Comic-Con pop culture extravaganza.

The four-day festival celebrating film, TV, video games, comic books, costumes and other popular arts kicks off with a preview Wednesday night and goes full force Thursday at the San Diego Convention Center.

More than 150,000 fans are expected to attend the sold-out event, where studios will offer exclusive previews of their latest properties.

Television is making a bigger splash than in previous years, with several shows diving into the 6,500-seat exhibition hall that's traditionally been movies' main home at the convention center.

"This is the year that we'll see as much TV (as film), especially in Hall H," said Matt Atchity, editor-in-chief of RottenTomatoes.com, which aggregates film and television reviews.

Here's a peek at some of the most anticipated presentations:

FILM:  Marvel Studios hasn't revealed any specifics about its panel, but a look at "Ant-Man" and the next "Avengers" installment seem likely.  Paramount is bringing its live-action take on "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," starring Megan Fox and Will Arnett.  Warner Bros. will feature "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" and its reboot of "Mad Max."  Fox is introducing a spate of films, including the animated "Book of Life" starring Channing Tatum.  A few others: Focus Features' animated "The Boxtrolls"; the sequel to Frank Miller's "Sin City"; Daniel Radcliffe's first Comic-Con appearance for the upcoming "Horns"; and the annual appearance by festival stalwart Kevin Smith.

TV:  "Game of Thrones" and "The Walking Dead" will each take over Comic-Con's largest hall for panels with cast members and creators.  Joel McHale and other stars of "Community" will discuss the future of the comedy after its move to Yahoo.  Guillermo del Toro plans to present his creepy new FX series, "The Strain." SyFy's "Sharknado" roars in with stars Ian Ziering and Tara Reid for a peek at the sequel.  The creators of BBC America's "Orphan Black" will be on hand with star Tatiana Maslany.  Other TV panels tempting fans: Emmy favorites "The Big Bang Theory" and "American Horror Story"; FX's "Sons of Anarchy"; and the CW's "Arrow" and "The Vampire Diaries."

GAMES:  Ubisoft is promoting the free-running adventure "Assassin's Creed: Unity" with a French Revolution-themed parkour course that will be open to wannabe assassins.  The cast and crew of the cops-and-robbers shooter "Battlefield Hardline" will be on hand for a panel, as will the creative forces behind the latest edition of the toys-meets-game franchise "Skylanders: Trap Team."  Meanwhile, Nintendo will showcase "Super Smash Bros." and other titles at its gaming lounge, while Sega will hype the cartoony "Sonic Boom" and the scifi horror "Alien: Isolation."  Other games on display: multiplayer racer "The Crew" and blocky Dark Knight romp "Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham."

OTHER FUN STUFF:  MAC Cosmetics is unveiling its new collection inspired by Marge Simpson and offering "Marge Makeovers" at its downtown San Diego store.  Crave Online is throwing a party aboard the USS Midway aircraft carrier (museum) featuring live performances by MGMT and Grimes.  Adult Swim is bringing its Fun House back to Petco Park, and introducing a "Meatwad Full Dome Experience" that includes a free T-shirt at the end.  Hello Kitty will also be at Petco Park, celebrating her 40th anniversary with free temporary tattoos.

SAN DIEGO - Firm Investigation of SDPD

"Firm Investigating SDPD Has Strong Ties to Ex-Chiefs" by Liam Dillon, Voice of San Diego 6/25/2014

The ongoing Justice Department review of the San Diego Police Department is supposed to be independent.  City leaders have taken great pains to emphasize that they will have no control over what’s in the report.  The federal government – not SDPD – is paying the group conducting the review, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit research firm called the Police Executive Research Forum, to help preserve its independence.

But the head of the firm doing the review has deep ties to two former SDPD leaders, and the firm itself has faced some criticism over its close relationships with police chiefs.

Since the probe began in late March, few details have come out about what the firm is doing – save a May community meeting PERF hosted in City Heights.

SDPD Chief Shelley Zimmerman said that PERF officials have visited the city a couple times, including as recently as last week, gone on done ride-alongs and spoken with people inside and outside the department.  The police union had an hour-long meeting with PERF and discussed recruitment and retention problems.  Zimmerman said the firm is evaluating the department’s hiring practices and how it handled a dozen or so recent misconduct cases.

Zimmerman, who said she has no affiliation with PERF, said the firm’s SDPD ties have no bearing on the review.

“I’ve made it very clear that I wanted a thorough, independent critical assessment of our police department,” Zimmerman said.  “I welcome any and all recommendations for us to improve any of our processes.”

Neither the Justice Department nor PERF responded to requests for comment.

The PERF-SDPD Connection

Chuck Wexler, a former official in Boston’s police department, has led PERF for more than two decades.  He’s had very long relationships with former San Diego police chiefs Jerry Sanders and William Lansdowne.

In the 1990s, PERF helped Sanders develop the city’s neighborhood policing model, the nationally renowned approach that emphasized crime prevention.  Sanders served as PERF’s treasurer and as a board member. Sanders’ wife, Rana Sampson, worked at PERF as a senior researcher and trainer.

When Sanders left SDPD in 1999, Wexler called him “one of the most progressive, innovative and compassionate leaders in the country.”

Wexler goes back with Lansdowne, too.  Wexler began a recent PERF report on minimizing officer use of force with an anecdote about Lansdowne.

Lansdowne also served as PERF’s treasurer and taught a senior management class for the firm.  Earlier this month, Lansdowne took a job with a mobile phone recycling company, and the job announcement said he was on PERF’s board.  (Neither PERF’s website nor the firm’s most recent tax form list him as a current member.)

Lansdowne retired in February, just as the SDPD misconduct scandal was heating up again.  Evidence in a civil lawsuit has revealed department leadership missed numerous red flags about a sexual predator in the force and lacked key policies to prevent misconduct.

When problems first struck the department in mid-2011, Wexler had nothing but praise for Lansdowne.  He tweeted links to a U-T San Diego story on Lansdowne’s plan to address officer misconduct allegations and our profile of his response to the problems.

CALIFORNIA - 2014-2015 Budget Signed

REMINDER:  A budget, any budget, is ONLY a plan.  It does NOT spend one penny.  Actual money is spent when the Appropriation Bills are passed.

"Gov. Brown signs $156B budget in San Diego" Fox 5 News San Diego, 6/20/2014

Gov. Jerry Brown signed California’s $156 billion budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year at a ceremony Friday in San Diego.

Brown — joined at the signing ceremony by Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, and Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley — described the spending plan as “not perfect” but a sign of California’s fiscal progress over the past few years.

“What this budget shows is balance, paying down debts, putting almost $10 billion into public schools, creating a rainy day fund and starting to really tie up and shore up the teachers’ retirement fund,” Brown said.

He said it also was a sign that the state government was working, and that the majority could actually govern, with cooperation from the minority party.

The visit to San Diego was the third during the budget cycle for Brown, who was in town on the day his budget proposal was released in January, and last month when he issued revisions.  He said he wanted to sign the budget in San Diego out of respect for Atkins, who took over leadership of the Legislature’s lower chamber last month.

The state spending plan for the fiscal year starting July 1 includes a $1.6 billion “Rainy Day Fund” and $142 million for drought-response measures, such as firefighting, water management, wildlife preservation and food assistance.

Last month, the governor reached an agreement with the Legislature on the reserve fund that would:

• Require the state to bank large increases in capital gains revenues, which are the most volatile form of tax income;

• require supplemental payments to accelerate the payoff of debts and liabilities;

• raise the dollar amount of the rainy day fund to 10 percent of the general fund revenue;

• allow withdrawals to be made from the fund when needed during recessions, within prescribed limits; and

• create a reserve account for education to avoid future funding cuts.

He said the fund would be “untouchable” while he was in office, until it was needed due to poor economic conditions.

Additional agreements with legislative leaders last week will add at least $180 million in overtime pay for health-care workers who provide care to the disabled and elderly in their homes, direct a quarter of cap-and-trade revenue toward construction of a high-speed rail line and expand preschool opportunities for economically disadvantaged children.

“No budget is perfect, and no one got everything that they wanted,” Atkins said.  “But with this budget, that ensures stability and expands opportunity, we have a chance to put the great recession even further behind us.”

The general fund, for discretionary spending, will be almost $108 billion.

Brown’s Republican opponent in the November election, former Treasury Department official Neel Kashkari, said the budget is a “giveaway for special interests paid for by working families,” despite the “nation’s highest poverty rate” and a “failing” education system.

“Higher gas prices for his pet High Speed Rail project, a last minute tax break for a favored industry and micro-managing local school spending from Sacramento Brown’s budget priorities represent more of the same back-room dealing from Sacramento,” Kashkari said.  “Unfortunately for the millions of workers struggling to find good jobs, kids stuck in failing schools and families trying to make ends meet, this budget does nothing to provide a better future through economic opportunity for all.”

After signing the budget, Brown traveled to Los Angeles for a function with Latino legislators.

AMERICA - Are We Living in George Orwell's '1984' Society

NOTE:  Chula Vista, CA, San Diego County, is the city just north of where I live (South San Diego).

George Orwell, novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

IMHO:  You do NOT have expectation of privacy in public areas, which includes streets and highways, nor should you.

"With power of facial recognition and high-tech surveillance, where to draw the line between safety and spying?" (Part-1) PBS NewsHour 4/25/2014

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  During the past year, we have learned a lot about the U.S. government’s surveillance program.

But those efforts are not limited to the National Security Agency.  Local law enforcement agencies are also gathering and mining unprecedented amounts of data.  Privacy advocates worry police can use this information to track anyone at any time without a warrant.

The Center for Investigative Reporting, in partnership with KQED San Francisco, has been looking into these new tools for fighting crime.

The center’s Amanda Pike has this report.

AMANDA PIKE, Center for Investigative Reporting:  Officer Rob Halverson of the Chula Vista Police Department is testing the technology that could change how police fight crime.

He’s on a call to verify the identity of a woman just arrested for possession of narcotics.  He doesn’t need to ask her name or check her I.D.  He just takes her picture.

OFFICER ROB HALVERSON, Chula Vista Police Department:  Just look here, please.

AMANDA PIKE:  His tablet uses facial recognition software to find the suspect’s mug shot and criminal history.

OFFICER ROB HALVERSON:  You can lie about your name.  You can lie about your date of birth.  You can lie about your address, but tattoos, birthmarks, scars don’t lie.

AMANDA PIKE:  Police have access to more data than ever before, raising questions about how that information is used and stored.  The tablet is part of a pilot program in San Diego County.

OFFICER ROB HALVERSON:  It’s been very helpful.  And some people just have to have the threat of, OK, you don’t want to tell us who you are?  We are just going to take a photo and we’re going to be able to compare.  And then when people kind of realize the technology we now have, they’re more likely to tell us their real name in that.

AMANDA PIKE:  More and more, police are using biometrics, biological markers from face scans and palm prints, in addition to fingerprints, to identify suspects.

"New surveillance techniques raise privacy concerns" (Part-2) PBS NewsHour 4/26/2014

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  A report from the Center for Investigative Reporting and KQED delves into a wide-scale surveillance system being developed for police forces.  How can the trade off between safety and privacy be negotiated as technology gets more and more sophisticated?

SAN DIEGO - 2024 Summer Olympic Bid?

"Fact Check:  San Diego’s Phantom Olympic Venues" by Lisa Halverstadt, Voice of San Diego 2/19/2014

Statement:  “More than 80 percent of necessary proposed venues are already in place,” an announcer said in a recent video produced by San Diego’s 2024 Olympic exploratory committee.

Determination:  Misleading

Analysis:  Russia has pumped more than $50 billion into the Olympic games in Sochi, and like many hosts before it, a big chunk of that investment went toward new sports venues.

The latest estimates put the sticker price for new facilities at $6.7 billion but a group of San Diegans hoping to bring the summer games here in 2024 recently debuted a splashy new video that seems to suggest the region’s investment could be far less.

The promotional video, which aims to show San Diego is nearly Olympic-ready, claims more than 80 percent of necessary venues for the summer games are already in place as the camera pans to footage of Petco Park and cheering fans at San Diego State’s Viejas Arena.

The video highlights San Diego’s “first-rate” transportation network and emphasizes the region’s ability to leverage resources from a countywide half-cent transportation tax expected to draw more than $17 billion for transit, highway and road projects over the next 60 years.

What the video doesn’t mention is that San Diego is missing four very expensive sports facilities; two new stadiums, a basketball arena and a large aquatics center.

Vincent Mudd, chairman of San Diego’s 2024 exploratory committee, doesn’t deny that the group wants to focus on what the region already has.

He argues other cities looking to host the summer games have much more to build and says his committee’s assessment is based on information from the U.S. Olympic Committee, which detailed about three dozen facilities needed to host a summer games.  San Diego is just one of at least seven U.S. cities working on a 2024 bid.  The USOC is expected to pick its preferred host city by the end of the year.

The USOC did not respond to requests to confirm its facility requirements or information shared with the San Diego exploratory committee.

We did, however, find 2008 marketing materials for the Beijing summer games that described 37 Olympic facilities, the same number Mudd’s committee documented.  A 2005 U.S. Government Accountability Office review of the 2004 games in Athens also said Greek officials used 35 sports venues, which also closely matches the required number of facilities Mudd’s committee detailed to VOSD.

Mudd says his committee has used the USOC’s guidance to fan out across the region and assess the area’s sports venues.  They’ve tentatively nailed down roughly 30 locations they believe meet USOC protocols, including a beach in Coronado for volleyball and Mission Bay for everything from rowing to the triathlon.

Organizers have yet to pursue formal commitments, Mudd said.

But again, four major facilities are missing from this initial roadmap.  Organizers believe San Diego needs two stadiums, a sports arena and a large aquatic center to host a summer games – four venues likely to come with very large sticker prices.

The committee’s current plan assumes one of those new stadiums will be downtown, a general location the Chargers have also floated as recently as this fall.

They also envision the Olympic village – the hub of the games – would be in Mission Valley, the Chargers’ current home base, and that Qualcomm Stadium will be demolished to make room for more developments.  This concept, like the new downtown stadium, is far from a slam-dunk.  There aren’t any deals with contractors or official discussions about who would pay for it.

Mudd sees five major elements to the prospective Olympic village project: a new stadium that’s better situated for Olympic plans, a hotel, retail stores plus office space and housing for athletes.  The latter two could be used by college students or businesses before and after the 2024 games.

To appease the USOC, one of those stadiums must be outfitted to host track and field events and another for rugby and soccer.

Mudd acknowledged that the Chargers are unlikely to use a stadium built for running events due to the track that circles around the venue, separating players and fans.  The rugby and soccer stadium, however, could work for the football team if it’s properly outfitted.

Then there’s the new sports arena.  Mudd said it would need at least 17,000 seats and large locker rooms that none of the region’s current basketball-ready venues have.

San Diego also needs an aquatic center with at least three 50-meter pools plus two smaller ones swimmers could use for warm-ups, Mudd said.

Altogether, these new facilities are likely to exceed $2 billion, and it’s not clear whether taxpayers or private backers would be writing the checks.

Just to give you an idea, here’s a sample of costs associated with venues similar to what the exploratory committee has proposed:

Last fall, the Atlanta Falcons revealed their new stadium would cost $1.2 billion and the Dallas Cowboys reported similar spending on AT&T Stadium.

Meanwhile, the Beijing National Aquatics Center that debuted for the 2008 summer Olympics cost a reported $140 million, and a basketball arena erected for the 2012 Olympics in London went for about $62.5 million.

Mudd doesn’t deny the four facilities San Diego is missing are pricey but he prefers to focus on what the region wouldn’t need to build – and so does the video.

“When people realize that of everything that you need San Diego has a large percentage of it, that all of the sudden focuses you on the fact that we’re not building this from scratch,” Mudd said.  “We’re not spending the money others (who have hosted Olympics) are because they built everything absolutely from scratch.”

He also emphasized that any facilities San Diego builds don’t need to be especially flashy and should be useful to San Diegans long after the Olympics.

For the purposes of this Fact Check, we decided to assume that the exploratory committee has accurately documented required venues, as dictated by the USOC.

But even if that’s the case, the promotional video’s claim that San Diego already has most of the facilities it needs to host the 2024 Olympic is problematic.

This statement implies San Diego won’t have to invest much cash to ready itself for the Olympics when even the exploratory chair admits taxpayers or private interests must invest in four major venues likely to cost at least $2 billion.

San Diego may indeed only need to erect less than 20 percent of required facilities but the ones it does have to build are especially costly.  Focusing on the percentage of venues the region already has is akin to announcing Thanksgiving dinner is mostly ready — you just have to cook the turkey.

The missing facilities – particularly the two stadiums – are central to San Diego’s Olympic bid.  Other venues the exploratory committee has tentatively nailed down are certainly crucial but beaches and bays, for example, exist because they’re natural resources, whereas a stadium must be built from the ground up — at a high cost.

The promotional video’s claim that San Diego already has more than 80 percent of needed Olympic venues is misleading.  It takes an element of truth about San Diego’s existing sports hubs and leaves a deceiving impression: that San Diego is nearly ready for the Olympics when even the committee pushing for it admits the region needs significant cash and political will to build four major sports venues.

SAN DIEGO - Police Department

"What It Means to Be ‘Black While Blue’" by Liam Dillon, Voice of San Diego 1/8/2014

Benjamin Kelso thinks parents in minority-dominated areas of San Diego should be aware of the color of clothes their children wear.  Their children might draw negative attention from police who think they’re in a gang, he said.

Kelso knows because he’s a police officer.  And he knows because in the early 1990s, fellow San Diego police officers pulled him over for wearing blue and driving a blue Cadillac.

Kelso now heads the San Diego Black Police Officers Association and he’s risen to become a detective sergeant in SDPD’s domestic violence unit.

He said police and community race relations have improved since he’s been on the force, but SDPD still has a long way to go.  We spoke with Kelso for our investigation into the department’s approach to racial profiling issues.

He talked about how his organization’s appearance at Trayvon Martin marches led some SDPD officers to question his loyalty to the force and how certain police practices have upset minority community members.

Q: Can you talk about how the department has changed since when you were pulled over?

A lot of things have changed, not just department-wide.  If we look at our national views on race relations over the past 20 to 30 years, let’s go back further, from the Civil Rights era forward, there’s been significant change, significant progress leading up to now.  There’s been significant progress on the San Diego Police Department.

Being openly racist is not condoned.  In fact, it’s shunned.  In some cases it’s disciplined when it’s brought out, when it’s discovered.

The gray area is those situations that lie in between – that could have racial connotations but they also have justifiable law enforcement applications, so to speak.  That’s that crossroad between criminal profiling and racial profiling.  Depending on the circumstances and the situation, one could be deemed totally justifiable where another one may not be.

They have certainly not solved any sort of larger context race relations problem.  Are there officers in the police department that are racist?  Certainly.  Of every color.  Because racism is still alive and well in the United States.  It’s just not open.

Q: Can you give me an example of the blurred line between criminal and racial profiling?

Because people of different races commit crimes race can’t be completely eliminated as a potential factor in a certain crime.  If a robbery is committed and the perpetrator happens to be black, that’s probably the No. 1 criteria associated with that.  But you can’t use that alone as the basis for a stop.  Otherwise we go back to what we had in the pre-Civil Rights era.

Q: All of the experts we’ve spoken with and folks in the community have said the key issue with respect to racial profiling is the issue of trust between the community and law enforcement.  When profiling incidents happen here, do they erode trust within the community?

They do erode trust.  They create problems.  They create political backlash, so to speak.  They ultimately wind up being situations that organizations like the Black Police Officers Association or the Latino Police Officers or some of the other minority organizations within law enforcement, we work in those communities to build those bridges again, to repair that damage, to try to keep those lines of communications open for when something goes wrong.  It’s not a contest of loyalties because we’re law enforcement officers first and foremost.  But even that gets questioned.

The damaging thing, the hurtful thing, is to have individuals that we work with question our loyalty because we are out trying to solve a problem, trying to mend a fence.

Q: Can you give an example?

The Trayvon Martin situation was certainly a nationally volatile situation.  It raised a lot of community concerns.  There were a lot of protests, marches.  Nationwide.

We attend those things.  Then we have officers that know who we are, see who we are.  We’re identifiable as law enforcement, but we’re in the crowd at those things to help show the community that we support you.  We don’t necessarily have to believe what your organization believes or whatever.  But we support your right to protest, we support your right to feel pain about something that has happened in law enforcement.

Those things are huge.  Those things build huge amounts of trust between us and the community.  But it has a backlash.  Everything has a cost.  We get dirty looks from officers on the periphery that are watching the thing wondering,  “What’re they doing there?  Are they with them or are they with us?  What is going on?”

Q: So that happened?  You were at events and you sort of got a side-eye from other folks on the force?

Yeah.  It became a big topic of discussion.  People actually bring up questions.  Officers do.  They come out with it: “Well, what would have happened if there would have been a riot?  Who would you have sided with?”

Q: That happened?

That question did come up, yeah.  Obviously we keep those things in-house and we talk about those things.  I had a very candid conversation with one individual who brought that subject up, as did others.  When it ended, the individual walked away with a better understanding of what we’re here for and what we’re about.  But what was it that made him question it?  Only he can say what that was.

Q: What can police leadership do to address these kinds of issues?

Supporting efforts for training, making mandates that people should be treated fairly.  I’m not saying that they don’t, either.  I’m saying that if executive leadership supports change, change takes place.

I’ll bring up a prime example: making people sit on the curb.  It has a safety concern for officers.  In certain situations when an officer is outnumbered, it’s reasonable.  But when suddenly those situations become the common practice for everyone, everyone at least in those areas, maybe it’s not so reasonable.

Maybe the commanding officers can get involved in those sorts of things, and say, you know what, if you need to do something like that because it’s a legitimate safety concern, do that.  But when help arrives, move the person, have them sit in the back of the police car.  Or have them sit in the back of the police car from the beginning if you can.

Because [sitting on the curb] is not the procedure that’s taught in the police academy – that is a cultural thing that’s taught in the field by other officers.  It’s demeaning.

When we bring that up to officers, it’s actually met with anger sometimes.  Because the cultural belief is that doing so impacts their safety.  Now, by asking you to not put a person on the curb, you are now asking me to not be safe.  And I want to go home at the end of the night.  That’s not what the issue is at all.

Q: City Councilman David Alvarez said at a mayoral debate that it’s come to his attention that cultural competency training within the department might not be as strong as it used to be.  Have you seen any changes to it?

Have I seen changes in cultural competency training over the years?  Yes.  Specific programs?  I can’t name specific programs.  I can only say that the training of today is not what it was once in the past.  I think that those trainings should always be a part of ongoing training to help people deal with recognizing the impact of our actions as law enforcement officers.

We do a lot of things because we can and not necessarily because we have to.  I guess we have to know where the intersection is of taking an action.  Is this action absolutely necessary, or am I taking this action simply because I can take the action without consequence?

I think nationally we feel like we don’t have race problems anymore.  We believe we’re post-racial. San Diego PD, do they feel they’re post-racial?  Probably.  But we know that we’re not.

"San Diego Has Fallen Behind on Combating Police Racial Profiling" by Liam Dillon and Megan Burks, Voice of San Diego 1/8/2014

The San Diego Police Department and its chief, William Lansdowne, used to be national leaders in addressing concerns about racial profiling.  Now they’re not.

More than a decade ago, San Diego police were among the first to use data to examine how frequently officers targeted minorities in traffic stops.  Today, that policy has become the norm in big urban departments across the country.  But in San Diego, the effort has largely fallen by the wayside.  Officers here now track race in fewer than one out of every five stops and a sergeant in the department’s research and analysis division wasn’t aware that the requirement to gather the information still existed when we asked about it.

Lansdowne isn’t troubled by the decrease in the department’s data collection efforts.  He and his top deputies said residents don’t believe racial profiling is a problem.

“It hasn’t come up in years and years and years in interactions with the community,” said Assistant Chief Shelley Zimmerman, who’s in charge of the department’s neighborhood policing efforts.

But those who monitor San Diego police don’t share that perspective.  The head of the local Black Police Officers Association, the president of the local NAACP and a city councilman all said racial profiling happens in San Diego and they hear about it.

“Everyone knows it exists,” said Lei-Chala Wilson, the local NAACP president.

And city taxpayers recently had to foot the bill for an incident where police officers stopped young minorities for no reason.

This spring, a federal judge ruled that two officers violated the Fourth Amendment rights of two black residents, Dante Harrell and Shannon Robinson, during a City Heights traffic stop in 2010.  Harrell and Robinson’s lawsuit didn’t specifically allege racial profiling, but Harrell said he believed the stop happened because police look for reasons to pull over minorities in minority neighborhoods.  The city agreed to settle the case last month for $450,000.

The lawsuit and renewed national scrutiny over racial profiling got Lansdowne’s attention.  He has ordered a new round of data collection on race at traffic stops, saying profiling has again become an issue in San Diego.

Criminal justice experts, however, say racial profiling is always an issue: Incidents can erode trust between police and the communities they serve.  For some people of color who believe San Diego police officers have pulled them over for that alone, the traffic stops have taken their toll.

"Nobody that I know or myself do I feel safe around [police],” said Abdihakim Afewerki, a 26-year-old engineering student who is black.  Afewerki frequently spends time in Encanto and Lincoln Park.  “In my eyes, they're not there to protect me, they're there to harass me.”


‘We Can’t Be Afraid to Look at the Statistics’

In the late 1990s, civil rights groups in San Jose demanded action after allegations emerged of racial profiling in traffic stops.  Lansdowne, San Jose’s police chief at the time, responded.

His department pledged to gather race and ethnicity information voluntarily on traffic stops to see how frequently officers pulled over people of color.  Criminal justice researchers hailed Lansdowne as the "father of data collection" on police racial profiling.

"We can't be afraid to look at the statistics," Lansdowne said when San Jose released its initial 1999 report, which showed only small disparities between minorities stopped and the citywide population.

But more than a decade later, Lansdowne, San Diego's chief for the last 10 years, has few statistics to look at.

The San Diego Police Department has had a policy to collect race and ethnicity data during traffic stops since 2000, making it one of the first big urban departments to do so, along with San Jose.  The department has told officers they needed to gather this information multiple times in the years since.

But the message didn’t stick.  A sergeant in the department’s research and analysis division wasn’t aware that a data collection policy still existed when we asked in late October.

“We do not keep any demographics on traffic stops,” Sgt. Laura McLean told us in an email.

It turns out officers were keeping demographics on traffic stops – just not very much.  In the first 10 months of 2013, officers gathered racial information on roughly 16,000 traffic stops, an amount equivalent to about a fifth of the citations issued over the same time.  Officers pulled over an untold number of additional drivers without giving them tickets – or noting their race.  Many officers gathered the information diligently, police officials said, but the amount of data the department collected decreased substantially over time.

Lansdowne said the effort slowed because no one demanded the department analyze racial profiling in traffic stops, so he didn’t emphasize the requirement to collect the data.  In the meantime, other law enforcement agencies have surpassed the San Diego Police Department when it comes to being proactive on the issue.

Seven of the 10 largest police departments in the country currently have policies requiring them to gather race and ethnicity information on traffic or pedestrian stops even if officers don’t arrest or cite the person stopped.  An eighth department, Washington D.C., documents the race of those frisked by police.

These data are the cornerstone of a high-profile legal challenge over the New York City Police Department’s practice of stopping and frisking pedestrians in an effort to fight crime.  Researchers found 84 percent of those stopped and frisked by New York police were black or Hispanic.  Civil rights groups have argued these numbers show the practice is unconstitutionally biased against minorities.

Researchers who study the issue say data collection is a key part of a larger effort, along with robust diversity training and strict anti-bias policies, to prevent racial profiling.

“If there is a spirit and culture of transparency and accountability in the department, they’ll collect the data,” said Carol Archbold, a criminal justice professor who specializes in racial profiling issues at North Dakota State University.

NEW YORK - Upstate Struggles With Population Loss

In this Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013, photo, Melissa Grothues and her fiance John Steele pose at a spot on San Diego Bay Tuesday, in San Diego.  The couple left the Buffalo, New York suburb of Amherst seeking a new life with a new environment and landed in San Diego.

Welcome to my home town.

"Upstate New York struggles as more leave than move in" by MICHAEL HILL (AP), Salt Lake Tribune 1/3/2014

Melissa Grothues and John Steele bailed from Buffalo last year.

Dissatisfied with their bank jobs, the 25-year-old college graduates sold the house in suburban Amherst, posted ads for possessions on Craigslist and drove cross country to San Diego for a fresh start.

"We were ready for a bigger city and to move on.  There just weren’t many opportunities in Buffalo, job-wise," Grothues said.  "It just seemed like day-to-day there, every single person that I worked with would be miserable."

The young couple is hardly alone in exiting upstate New York.  More people are leaving the region than moving into it, contributing to a largely stagnant population.  The trend has helped lead to New York losing four congressional seats in the last two Census counts and is about to cost the state some prestige.  At some point early this year, Florida is expected to surpass New York as the third most populous state, according to projections by The Associated Press.

New York is home to about 19.65 million people, but the state’s slow growth is largely fueled by New York City, which has long attracted a large share of international immigrants and young adults, including many from upstate.

The story is different north of the Westchester-Rockland county line.  The population of the 53 counties of upstate New York was essentially flat, decreasing by 0.1 percent from 2011 to 2012, according to the latest county-level Census estimates available.

Though there have been pockets of growth in the Hudson Valley and some other areas, many upstate areas grapple with a slow but steady loss of people.

Why are people leaving upstate New York?

Some complain that taxes in New York are too high.  Others, like Grotheus, say there are better job opportunities elsewhere.  State and local officials have had mixed success in luring high-tech companies and other new businesses to make up for jobs lost when large employers like Eastman Kodak Co. and Carrier Corp. scaled back or shifted operations elsewhere.

"Part of it is probably due to job loss in the major metropolitan areas like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Binghamton.  They all had large employers that had to lay off a lot of people," said Jan Vink of Cornell University’s Program on Applied Demographics.

Others blame the weather in upstate New York, where winters can be a trying mix of heavy snow and little sun.

Kyle Songer moved to Tampa from the Saratoga Springs area in early 2013, becoming yet another New Yorker to leave behind cold and snow for sun and sand.  The 45-year-old instructional designer says moving south was his goal since he fell in love with the beach and surfing while growing up and being a life guard on Long Island.

"I needed to get out to a more relaxing environment and sunshine almost every day," said Songer, who now lives in Clearwater, Fla.  "And that’s what it’s been. It’s wonderful."

In recent years, Florida has been the No. 1 destination for people aged 45 and up leaving upstate New York.  The top destination for people aged 20 to 44 is New York City and the surrounding downstate region, according to researchers at Cornell who looked at census data from 2006 through 2010.  The loss of young college graduates — like Grothues and Steele — is especially worrisome to local politicians because it can contribute to a so-called brain drain.  The fear is that the loss of educated workers in an area can make it less attractive to new businesses, creating a cycle of decline.

Politicians in both parties have tried for decades to reverse the migration trend, but the latest county figures show only 10 of 53 upstate counties had positive migration numbers over the year period.  Top-growing Jefferson County is home to the Army’s busy Fort Drum.  No. 2 is Saratoga County, where a state-of-the-art computer chip plant that currently employs 2,100 people is still growing.

New York committed $1.2 billion in aid to land the Saratoga County chip plant, where ground was broken in 2009.  The aid package illustrates the extraordinary lengths state officials have gone to bring jobs into the region.  Supporters of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s policy to create "tax free" zones near college campuses argue they will help stop the brain drain in other parts of the state.

But they also are battling long-term trends that reach beyond upstate New York.  Vink, of Cornell University, notes that young people are especially hard to retain.

"It’s a hard population to keep around," he said.  "They are very mobile."

SPORTS - San Diego Chargers Make it to Playoffs

My home-town team.

"Chargers seek first playoff win since 2008" by Eric D. Williams, ESPN 1/2/2014

They are doing their best Rodney Dangerfield imitation.

According to San Diego Chargers coach Mike McCoy, his team doesn't get any respect.

"We have been the underdog all year long," McCoy said.  "It doesn't matter to us.  We are just concerned about how the organization feels about ourselves."

At 5-7 with four weeks left in the season, the Chargers were given one percent chance of making the postseason, according to Football Outsiders.

But then a weird thing happened, the Chargers started winning games and gaining confidence.  Injured players such as linebackers Jarret Johnson and Melvin Ingram, along with offensive tackle King Dunlap returned to the lineup.

"Everyone counted us out a month ago," McCoy said.  "No one thought we could do this except the players, the couches and everyone else in the organization."

The Chargers are 7-point underdogs heading into Sunday's contest at Cincinnati, the largest point spread of any of this weekend's opening-round playoff games.  San Diego has not won a playoff game since 2008.

However, the Chargers face a Cincinnati squad that has had even worse playoff luck.  Cincinnati is 1-5 in wild card or first-round games.  And the Bengals haven't won a playoff game since the 1990 season.

Even though they are the favorites, Cincinnati quarterback Andy Dalton said his team will not be overconfident heading into this one.

"We have to understand what's at stake in this game," Dalton said.  "For us, we know that they've been playing well since we've played them.  They're 4-0 since we've played them out there.  It's going to be a tough matchup.  It's the playoffs, so there's a lot riding on it.  We know what's at stake."

Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers said he's not paying attention to his team's odds of getting a road victory on Sunday.

"I think the underdog and favorite talk is more for the outside," Rivers said.  "I know everyone in our locker room thinks we are going to win, and I know everyone in their locker room thinks they are going to win.

"They beat us five weeks ago.  We have seen in the postseason that anyone can win.  Whoever can play the best for 60 minutes will advance."

SAN DIEGO - My City's Tragedy Play

Typical rationalization, everyone else's fault BUT his own.

"Filner's Exit Isn't The End Of San Diego's Mayoral Mayhem" by Sandhya Dirks, NPR 8/30/2013

On Friday, the embattled mayor of San Diego officially steps down.  Allegations of sexual harassment against Bob Filner have rocked the eighth-largest American city, which now has to pick up the pieces and elect a new mayor.

The announcement last week that Filner would leave office was greeted with cheers, boos and a flurry of activity from the press — but it all went quiet when the soon-to-be ex-mayor emerged from a swell of bodyguards to speak at the podium.

"I take responsibility for putting the city through a very bad time," Filner said.  "Again, I apologize to all of you.  Certainly it was never my intention to be a mayor who went out like this."

Then the cracked voice and tone of apology gave way to indignation — and blame:  "I started my political career facing lynch mobs," Filner said, "and I think we have just faced one here in San Diego."

That tone of persecution isn't completely misplaced, says University of California political scientist Steve Erie.  As the first Democratic mayor in San Diego in 20 years, Filner went into office with a target on his back, Erie says.

"He was always a fighter for the little person.  And his campaign was one of putting not only neighborhoods, but putting people of color, community activists, environmental and neighborhood activists first.  They have not had a voice," Erie says.  "This is a town that has been run by the downtown corporate welfare crowd for years."

Erie says the terrible irony is the guy who was supposed to stand up for the little person was going around making women feel small. Women like Laura Fink, the second to publicly accuse Filner.

Fink, who is also a Democrat, says a true progressive vision involves ending a culture of sexual harassment across the board.

"With more people coming forward, with more people reporting it, the less impact it will have and the stronger each workplace will be," Fink says.  "And the more accountable these men in power will be."

So far, no woman has entered the race to replace Filner.  A special election has been set for Nov. 19.  It is unclear what party might have the upper hand.

Until then, City Council President Todd Gloria will serve as interim mayor.  Gloria was one of the many members of Filner's own party who called for the mayor to step down.

"My hope is that we can show that Democrats can run this city and run it effectively and competently," he says.  "I don't know that we've really seen that for the last number of months, but I know that we can see that in the next few months."

Gloria won't say yet if he is running to replace Filner permanently.  But as he packs to make the move eight floors up to the mayor's office, he says the city needs to heal.

"When the average San Diegan can go about their day not wondering what horrible new story is going to come out of this building, I think that heals the city," Gloria says.

Another possible contender in the special election is longtime Republican council member Kevin Faulconer.  Despite being on different sides of the political aisle, he and Gloria have been pretty inseparable as of late.

"Now we have an opportunity as a city to come together, to heal," he says, "particularly in the next several months."

But those next several months will also serve as the staging grounds for what could be a very contentious election.

SAN DIEGO - History of Scandalous Mayors

"FILNER JOINS GROWING LIST OF MAYORS WHO EXITED IN DISGRACE" by MATTHEW T. HALL, San Diego Union-Tribune 8/24/2013

Bob Filner’s disgraced departure from the mayor’s office is just the latest in a city long accustomed to controversy.

Four of the eight mayors San Diego has elected since 1963 have now succumbed to scandal, and a fifth was awash in it only recently, two decades after leaving office.

Then-Mayor Frank Curran finished a distant fourth in a 1971 re-election effort following a bribery scandal.  Roger Hedgecock resigned in 1985 after felony convictions related to campaign financing that were later overturned.  And Dick Murphy left in 2005 with federal investigators probing misleading bond disclosures and the city’s massive pension debt.

Just this past February, former Mayor Maureen O’Connor appeared in federal court to answer charges that she took $2 million from her late husband’s charitable foundation to feed a gambling addiction.  Her case is on hold for two years while she tries to pay back the money.

On hold.  That’s how many San Diegans must feel after Filner’s predecessor, Jerry Sanders, had rebuilt the city’s national reputation and financial condition after a remarkable run of trouble.

Incorporated in 1850, San Diego had its share of scandal early on.  Joshua Bean, its first mayor, “sold” City Hall and city pueblo lands to himself and a drinking buddy.  Mayor Frank Frary was arrested in a brothel in the Stingaree District in 1903.  Former Mayor William Carlson was imprisoned during World War I for mail fraud.  And in 1935, Rutherford B. Irones resigned and received a six-month jail sentence after crashing a city car into a sailor’s vehicle and fleeing the scene and the sailor’s injured wife.

In modern times, just as San Diego exploded in growth to become California’s second-mostpopulous city in 1970, it exploded in scandal again. Mayor Curran, four council members and three former council members were charged with bribery and conspiracy to increase taxi fares after accepting campaign contributions from the owner of the Yellow Cab Company.  Ultimately, all but one — a council member who pleaded no contest to a reduced misdemeanor charge — were acquitted or had the charges against them dropped.

Curran’s political career ended in the next election when voters showed him the door.

Hedgecock’s case evolved in his favor eventually — with a conviction being overturned following jury tampering charges and his record expunged — but his resignation from the mayor’s office was stunning.

At the time, Hedgecock called questions about more than $350,000 in 1983 campaign contributions “the country’s longest-running political soap opera.”  But a reporter called Hedgecock’s departure “dramatic” and “rapid-paced” after he was convicted of 13 felonies.  On appeal, Hedgecock — who now hosts a show on U-T TV — closed his casemore than five years later when a judge reduced a single remaining conspiracy conviction for campaign fraud to a misdemeanor, then dismissed it under a plea deal.  It was finally expunged from his record.

Murphy’s departure may have been the most dramatic — until Friday.

On April 17, 2005, Murphy stood in his driveway a day before 4 million copies of Time magazine hit the streets naming him one of the three worst big-city mayors in America.

“Tell Time magazine that they just don’t understand what’s going on,” he said.

Just eight days later, he stood in the press room at City Hall and said he would resign because it was “in the best interests of San Diego” and “the city needs a fresh start.”

Now it will have another.

SAN DIEGO - My Hometown Reflects U.S. Infrastructure Problem

This is what happens when you DO NOT have budgets with a yearly built-in upkeep for infrastructure.  The problems just keep accumulating until the cost for fixing problems is much bigger than if you had cyclic yearly upkeep.  It's better and cheaper to fix problems in small bites.

Note that this reflects one of the problems that killed the U.S. steel industry, not upgrading machines on a regular bases.  Hence they grew older and more expensive to repair, and did not keep up with more modern steel factories in competing nations.

"Victory for San Diego Sidewalks" by Liam Dillon, Voice of San Diego 6/11/2013

Sidewalks had a good day on Monday.

For the first time, San Diego will evaluate its 5,000 miles of sidewalks after City Council members voted to include a $1 million assessment in next year’s budget.  The evaluation will uniformly identify broken and missing sidewalks, rank the blocks needing the most help and put a price tag on fixing them and building new ones.

And it gets better.  The council also committed to changing the city’s illogical policies that make homeowners responsible for repairing broken sidewalks but the city legally liable for trip-and-fall lawsuits.

“Ultimately we want to revamp the policy in such a fashion that it works,” said Councilman Mark Kersey, who heads the city’s infrastructure committee.

Kersey said he expects the city’s transportation department to bring his committee a formal plan for the assessment in the fall.  At the same time, the committee will begin revamping sidewalk polices.

These efforts should lead to what everyone wants:  A plan to fix the city’s decaying sidewalks so they don’t look like this one in City Heights anymore.

Photo courtesy of The Stumblr
A busted sidewalk in City Heights

Getting money for the sidewalk evaluation wasn’t a slam dunk.  Mayor Bob Filner, who supported the concept of the evaluation, didn’t include it in his initial or revised budgets.  His staffers had concerns about a spate of new trip-and-fall lawsuits should the city identify bad sidewalks but not fix them.  Councilwoman Sherri Lightner recently said she opposed the evaluation because she feared the city would use it as an excuse to send unsuspecting residents a bill to fix the sidewalk outside their house.

But at Monday’s meeting, Lightner made the motion to include the evaluation, along with boosting library hours and other changes, in the budget.  She said she wanted to support the majority of her colleagues who had asked for it.

Numerous neighborhood interest groups and disabled advocates had pushed for the study as well.  I’ve beat the drum for changes to sidewalk policies since January, including through our Stumblr broken sidewalks photo blog.   At the council hearing, Kersey said the sidewalk evaluation “captured the attention of the public.”

The legal concerns are real, he said, but the city has to deal with its sidewalks.

“We can’t just bury our heads in the sand and hope that it goes away,” Kersey said.

A couple notes about our continuing sidewalk coverage.  With the sidewalk assessment funded, we’re going to scale back our publishing on The Stumblr.  So far, we’ve been posting new photos every work day and have almost 130 of them.  We’re going to keep the blog rolling, but now we’re only going to put up photos as they come in.

And make sure to put those photos to good use.  We’re sponsoring an art contest inspired by The Stumblr for the best art project using Stumblr photos or actual sidewalks.  The contest deadline is July 8 and we’ll be unveiling the winner at an event soon after.

Make sure to send in your ideas!