Jan 26, 2011
Whine and chocolates
GOP headquarters abandoned, left in 'mind-boggling' disarray, landlord says
By John R. Lamb
City Beat
“No one wants to quit when he’s losing and no one wants to quit when he’s winning.” —Richard Strauss
These are shaky times for our beloved friends over at San Diego Republican headquarters, wherever that might be now...
“You wouldn’t believe what they ditched in the trash bin!” said Antoine Georges, who’s owned the building for 20 years. “Thousands of things. Office supplies, staplers— maybe 30 or 40 staplers, the big kind for campaign work—pots and pans, boxes and boxes of stuff, even brand-new live plants! It was just mind-boggling.”
A lively 62-year-old Lebanese man who considers himself fiscally conservative but socially liberal (he says he’s friends with Republican Congressmember Darrell Issa and a cousin of Ralph Nader), Georges told Spin Cycle that he had grown suspicious of his tenants in Suite 107 for some time.
He’d heard rumors that the tenant had wanted to break the lease. Georges said the head honcho of the local GOP, Tony Krvaric, had asked him on several occasions if he’d consider donating the rent as a party gift. Georges said he declined.
Rent checks of roughly $4,500, he said, started coming later and later in the month. The December lease payment, for example, while due Dec. 1, arrived more than three weeks late on Christmas Eve.
SHARE PRINT COMMENT FONT SIZE
Related content
Lovable loserTea leaves 1, Fig leaf 0
Related to:San Diego Republican headquartersRepublican Party of San Diego CountyTony Krvaric
But the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, activity in the suite seemed to pick up, despite it being a typically down time for campaign events. Over previous weeks, Georges said the local GOP “made up some story” that they were going to remodel the 2,700-square-foot office space. Soon, trucks would show up to haul away office materials, Georges said.
Georges said a truck associated with a paper-shredding company appeared one day and hauled off what he described as “20 or 30 boxes of files.” Added Georges: “I have no idea what was in the boxes. I just know there were a lot of them.”
The final move came just before New Year’s Day, when a GOP employee removed a Republican sign that had been bolted to a wall, placed it in a truck and drove off.
A few days later, Georges said he got a letter from Krvaric, claiming the landlord had breached the lease and that the GOP would like its security deposit back.
Georges laughed. “The place is trashed!” he said. “It needs new carpet. The walls need to be repaired because they literally glued campaign signs to the wallpaper. And they still left a bunch of stuff behind! Empty file cabinets, furniture. And they never returned the keys, so now I have to have all the locks changed.”...
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The Governor's Retort: Cities have an obligation to help fund schools
Click on this link to get the original article with lots of wonderful links: Morning Report: The Governor's Retort
January 25, 2011
Voice of San Diego
by Andrew Donohue
The San Diego leaders fighting Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to kill redevelopment have a simple, digestible argument: Sacramento should get its grubby hands off of our local money and solve its own problems.
Looks like Brown, though, might have just one-upped them.
He's framing the debate in a different way: His plan takes $1 billion away from redevelopment and gives it to the state's ailing schools. Scott Lewis takes that a step further and shows how education was originally supposed to be the very check and balance against redevelopment abuse, but Prop. 13 did away with that.
People like Mayor Jerry Sanders and Councilman Kevin Faulconer have big dreams for San Diego's redevelopment money - things like Convention Center expansions and football stadiums - and are fighting hard against the governor.
"But Brown has now illustrated better than ever before that the money for these dreams comes from education more than anything," Lewis writes. "The state will continue to plow money into education but it's time for downtown and other redevelopment areas to do their part.".
And the Blight Beat Goes On
• Faulconer got six of his colleagues to join him in waving their fists at the governor on Monday night, though they have yet to engage in the last-second redevelopment binges that other cities have enjoyed.
• Our Liam Dillon, meanwhile, is waving his fist right back at the city's downtown redevelopment agency. He's begun our latest public records battle — Blight Watch.
That agency, the Centre City Development Corp., has refused to turn over documents that go to the very core of the agency's continued existence. Agencies have 10 days to turn over documents after a public records request except in extraordinary circumstances. It's been than seven weeks and all we're hearing is that "it's complicated."
We'll be dialing up the pressure this week to ensure that the public records do indeed become public.
• There's another aspect of redevelopment suddenly getting attention now that it's in jeopardy: affordable housing.
One CCDC official recently made the bold claim that his agency had created more affordable housing units than all of Los Angeles' redevelopment areas combined. We fact checked it and here's what we found: A big fat "false."...
January 25, 2011
Voice of San Diego
by Andrew Donohue
The San Diego leaders fighting Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to kill redevelopment have a simple, digestible argument: Sacramento should get its grubby hands off of our local money and solve its own problems.
Looks like Brown, though, might have just one-upped them.
He's framing the debate in a different way: His plan takes $1 billion away from redevelopment and gives it to the state's ailing schools. Scott Lewis takes that a step further and shows how education was originally supposed to be the very check and balance against redevelopment abuse, but Prop. 13 did away with that.
People like Mayor Jerry Sanders and Councilman Kevin Faulconer have big dreams for San Diego's redevelopment money - things like Convention Center expansions and football stadiums - and are fighting hard against the governor.
"But Brown has now illustrated better than ever before that the money for these dreams comes from education more than anything," Lewis writes. "The state will continue to plow money into education but it's time for downtown and other redevelopment areas to do their part.".
And the Blight Beat Goes On
• Faulconer got six of his colleagues to join him in waving their fists at the governor on Monday night, though they have yet to engage in the last-second redevelopment binges that other cities have enjoyed.
• Our Liam Dillon, meanwhile, is waving his fist right back at the city's downtown redevelopment agency. He's begun our latest public records battle — Blight Watch.
That agency, the Centre City Development Corp., has refused to turn over documents that go to the very core of the agency's continued existence. Agencies have 10 days to turn over documents after a public records request except in extraordinary circumstances. It's been than seven weeks and all we're hearing is that "it's complicated."
We'll be dialing up the pressure this week to ensure that the public records do indeed become public.
• There's another aspect of redevelopment suddenly getting attention now that it's in jeopardy: affordable housing.
One CCDC official recently made the bold claim that his agency had created more affordable housing units than all of Los Angeles' redevelopment areas combined. We fact checked it and here's what we found: A big fat "false."...
Sunday, January 23, 2011
A Downtown Blight Out
A Downtown Blight Out
Voice of San Diego
January 16, 2011
by Liam Dillon
San Diego's downtown redevelopment agency and a consultant have not released their proof that downtown remains rundown despite a promise to do so more than five weeks ago and requirements in state public records laws to release the information within 10 days.
The documents in question are central to the legitimacy of late-night state legislation that removed a key limit on downtown redevelopment.
Under the legislation, the Centre City Development Corp. will grab a substantial share of billions of dollars in future downtown property taxes for public improvements and development subsides.
Downtown, backers of the legislation argue, continues to require those taxpayer subsidies for redevelopment's purpose: improving rundown neighborhoods.
But the state move meant that CCDC no longer had to prove that downtown was rundown, a public process that it had begun to undertake. Central in that effort was a $500,000 study that CCDC canceled after the controversial legislation passed.
The study and the information behind it are key to understanding if boosters would have been able to justify the need for downtown's continued tax subsidies through the standard process.
In its unfinished state, the study asserts that downtown remains rundown. But the document, written by lead consultant Keyser Marston Associates, had yet to include evidence to back up those findings beyond simple crime statistics...
Voice of San Diego
January 16, 2011
by Liam Dillon
San Diego's downtown redevelopment agency and a consultant have not released their proof that downtown remains rundown despite a promise to do so more than five weeks ago and requirements in state public records laws to release the information within 10 days.
The documents in question are central to the legitimacy of late-night state legislation that removed a key limit on downtown redevelopment.
Under the legislation, the Centre City Development Corp. will grab a substantial share of billions of dollars in future downtown property taxes for public improvements and development subsides.
Downtown, backers of the legislation argue, continues to require those taxpayer subsidies for redevelopment's purpose: improving rundown neighborhoods.
But the state move meant that CCDC no longer had to prove that downtown was rundown, a public process that it had begun to undertake. Central in that effort was a $500,000 study that CCDC canceled after the controversial legislation passed.
The study and the information behind it are key to understanding if boosters would have been able to justify the need for downtown's continued tax subsidies through the standard process.
In its unfinished state, the study asserts that downtown remains rundown. But the document, written by lead consultant Keyser Marston Associates, had yet to include evidence to back up those findings beyond simple crime statistics...
Monday, January 17, 2011
Googins, Faigin battle for first city attorney in Chula Vista
Googins, Faigin face tough battle for first city attorney
By Khari Johnson, SDNN
June 8, 2010
SDNN
Up to now, the city attorney in Chula Vista was appointed by the city council but Proposition Q — a 2008 ballot measure — changed city charter to make it an elected position and Chula Vistans will go to the polls Tuesday to choose between Glen Googins and Robert Faigin as their first elected city attorney.
With a salary of more than $200,000, the city attorney will be the highest paid position in Chula Vista city government.
Both Googins and Faigin promise to follow the rule of law, claim to be independent and accuse his opponent of being beholden to special interests trying to influence City Hall.
They see the position as an advisor, not policy maker, and share concerns expressed by members of the City Council and Proposition Q opponents that the office has the potential to become politicized and impact legal advice offered to the council and city departments.
But that’s also why both claim he should be elected, not his opponent.
“Obviously, now theoretically they’re more responsible to the people than the city council members,” said current City Attorney Bart Miesfeld, “but day to day responsibilities won’t change,” said
Faigin, a resident of Lakeside, has been the county sheriff’s chief counsel since 2002 and decided to run after members of the South County sheriff’s office told him no qualified candidates sought the position.
Googins opened his private practice handling real estate and development issues in 2004 after 11 years of similar work in the city attorney’s office. Disagreements with then City Attorney Ann Moore led Googins to resign, in the process receiving a $175,000 severance package.
Joseph Casas, the candidate endorsed by the San Diego County Democratic Party, dropped out of the race in March and is currently representing Police Chief David Bejarano against accusations of fraud by a former business partner.
“The downside to turning it into an elected position is that instantly the developers, Corky McMillan, all of those people start pumping money into campaigns because they want to influence city politics,” Faigin said.
By the May 27 financial filing deadline, Googins had raised $33,000 from 100 donors, including teachers, border patrol agents and city residents, but also several lawyers, real estate developers. In addition he raised nearly $1,000 from executives from The Corky McMillin Companies, including company president and CEO Mark McMillin.
Googins endorsers include the Chula Vista Police Officer and Firefighter Associations, former City Attorney John Kaheny, state assemblymember Mary Salas, County Supervisor Greg Cox and The Republican Party of San Diego County, though it is a non-partisan race.
About one-third of donors to Googin’s campaign are Chula Vista residents.
“I’m not promising anyone anything,” Googins said. “Just because I’ve represented developers doesn’t mean I’m going to favor any developers. When I’m with the city, the city’s my client.”...
By Khari Johnson, SDNN
June 8, 2010
SDNN
Up to now, the city attorney in Chula Vista was appointed by the city council but Proposition Q — a 2008 ballot measure — changed city charter to make it an elected position and Chula Vistans will go to the polls Tuesday to choose between Glen Googins and Robert Faigin as their first elected city attorney.
With a salary of more than $200,000, the city attorney will be the highest paid position in Chula Vista city government.
Both Googins and Faigin promise to follow the rule of law, claim to be independent and accuse his opponent of being beholden to special interests trying to influence City Hall.
They see the position as an advisor, not policy maker, and share concerns expressed by members of the City Council and Proposition Q opponents that the office has the potential to become politicized and impact legal advice offered to the council and city departments.
But that’s also why both claim he should be elected, not his opponent.
“Obviously, now theoretically they’re more responsible to the people than the city council members,” said current City Attorney Bart Miesfeld, “but day to day responsibilities won’t change,” said
Faigin, a resident of Lakeside, has been the county sheriff’s chief counsel since 2002 and decided to run after members of the South County sheriff’s office told him no qualified candidates sought the position.
Googins opened his private practice handling real estate and development issues in 2004 after 11 years of similar work in the city attorney’s office. Disagreements with then City Attorney Ann Moore led Googins to resign, in the process receiving a $175,000 severance package.
Joseph Casas, the candidate endorsed by the San Diego County Democratic Party, dropped out of the race in March and is currently representing Police Chief David Bejarano against accusations of fraud by a former business partner.
“The downside to turning it into an elected position is that instantly the developers, Corky McMillan, all of those people start pumping money into campaigns because they want to influence city politics,” Faigin said.
By the May 27 financial filing deadline, Googins had raised $33,000 from 100 donors, including teachers, border patrol agents and city residents, but also several lawyers, real estate developers. In addition he raised nearly $1,000 from executives from The Corky McMillin Companies, including company president and CEO Mark McMillin.
Googins endorsers include the Chula Vista Police Officer and Firefighter Associations, former City Attorney John Kaheny, state assemblymember Mary Salas, County Supervisor Greg Cox and The Republican Party of San Diego County, though it is a non-partisan race.
About one-third of donors to Googin’s campaign are Chula Vista residents.
“I’m not promising anyone anything,” Googins said. “Just because I’ve represented developers doesn’t mean I’m going to favor any developers. When I’m with the city, the city’s my client.”...
Sidelining of Chula Vista councilwoman questioned
Sidelining of Chula Vista councilwoman questioned
City attorney says she has a conflict on police contracts because her adult son is a lieutenant
SDUT
By Tanya Sierra
January 13, 2011
New Chula Vista Councilwoman Patricia Aguilar has a son on the police force, a relationship that has become a city issue amid tense labor negotiations.
Aguilar has been asked by the city’s attorney to stay on the sidelines for decisions involving the police union as her son is Lt. Phil Collum, 40, even though the two do not share a home or finances.
The city wants police to contribute nine percent of their salary to their pensions and forgo a six percent previously-agreed-upon raise. The move would save $2.5 million annually amid a budget crunch.
The city might have to lay off 24 low-seniority cops if police don’t give in. Most of the city’s other employees have agreed to contribute to their own pensions and adjust their pay.
Critics are concerned there may be political motivations for the legal advice concerning contract negotiations.
“I can understand how management would be concerned but the attorney should not be jaded by that kind of perspective,” Councilman Steve Castaneda said. “To come to that sort of harsh and extreme decision to disqualify an elected City Council member on facts that don’t seem to be germane to this situation, I think it is problematic.”
Three members of the council have reservations about the city attorney’s legal advice — Aguilar, Castaneda and Councilman Rudy Ramirez.
Ramirez notes that his brother is on the police force, and that’s never been deemed a legal or ethical issue because the two don’t live together or mix finances.
“I asked, ‘If Pat has a conflict, then why not me?’ and I was told that there was no conflict for me because he was my brother as opposed to being my son,” Ramirez said. “You don’t negotiate by concocting some legal position to affect the negotiations. Especially a labor negotiation where we’re going to have to live together and work together.”
City Attorney Glen Googins, also elected in November, issued the advice letter suggesting Aguilar abstain on police labor issues.
Googins acknowledges that Aguilar has no conflict under the state’s Government Code, but he relies instead on a 2009 Attorney General’s opinion that outlines slightly different rules under common law. That doctrine has a broader prohibition against participation in government decisions that might affect personal interests.
The 2009 opinion found a conflict of interest for a redevelopment agency board member whose son had a corporation seeking a contract with his mother’s agency. That mother and son shared an apartment.
Aguilar, who has so far abided by Googins’ recommendation, said her circumstances are different from those in the Attorney General’s opinion because she doesn’t live with her son and they don’t mix finances. Also, she noted, he is not a direct party to a city contract she would have to approve.
“In my case, my son is affected by the issue of contract negotiation only as a part of a larger class of people affected,” she said. “One is a very direct and the other is not.”
Googins, who ran on a campaign of government transparency, refused to release his legal opinion. Googins promised voters he would make his legal opinions public. But in this case, he said, he was not releasing the document because he has not developed a protocol by which to do that.
The Watchdog obtained the advice letter through another source. It notes that Lt. Collum is a board member for the police union.
“As a board member, he is in a position to influence whether or not negotiations will occur and what direction those negotiations should take,” the opinion says.
Googins would not discuss the opinion, saying it was legal advice between him and his client...
City attorney says she has a conflict on police contracts because her adult son is a lieutenant
SDUT
By Tanya Sierra
January 13, 2011
New Chula Vista Councilwoman Patricia Aguilar has a son on the police force, a relationship that has become a city issue amid tense labor negotiations.
Aguilar has been asked by the city’s attorney to stay on the sidelines for decisions involving the police union as her son is Lt. Phil Collum, 40, even though the two do not share a home or finances.
The city wants police to contribute nine percent of their salary to their pensions and forgo a six percent previously-agreed-upon raise. The move would save $2.5 million annually amid a budget crunch.
The city might have to lay off 24 low-seniority cops if police don’t give in. Most of the city’s other employees have agreed to contribute to their own pensions and adjust their pay.
Critics are concerned there may be political motivations for the legal advice concerning contract negotiations.
“I can understand how management would be concerned but the attorney should not be jaded by that kind of perspective,” Councilman Steve Castaneda said. “To come to that sort of harsh and extreme decision to disqualify an elected City Council member on facts that don’t seem to be germane to this situation, I think it is problematic.”
Three members of the council have reservations about the city attorney’s legal advice — Aguilar, Castaneda and Councilman Rudy Ramirez.
Ramirez notes that his brother is on the police force, and that’s never been deemed a legal or ethical issue because the two don’t live together or mix finances.
“I asked, ‘If Pat has a conflict, then why not me?’ and I was told that there was no conflict for me because he was my brother as opposed to being my son,” Ramirez said. “You don’t negotiate by concocting some legal position to affect the negotiations. Especially a labor negotiation where we’re going to have to live together and work together.”
City Attorney Glen Googins, also elected in November, issued the advice letter suggesting Aguilar abstain on police labor issues.
Googins acknowledges that Aguilar has no conflict under the state’s Government Code, but he relies instead on a 2009 Attorney General’s opinion that outlines slightly different rules under common law. That doctrine has a broader prohibition against participation in government decisions that might affect personal interests.
The 2009 opinion found a conflict of interest for a redevelopment agency board member whose son had a corporation seeking a contract with his mother’s agency. That mother and son shared an apartment.
Aguilar, who has so far abided by Googins’ recommendation, said her circumstances are different from those in the Attorney General’s opinion because she doesn’t live with her son and they don’t mix finances. Also, she noted, he is not a direct party to a city contract she would have to approve.
“In my case, my son is affected by the issue of contract negotiation only as a part of a larger class of people affected,” she said. “One is a very direct and the other is not.”
Googins, who ran on a campaign of government transparency, refused to release his legal opinion. Googins promised voters he would make his legal opinions public. But in this case, he said, he was not releasing the document because he has not developed a protocol by which to do that.
The Watchdog obtained the advice letter through another source. It notes that Lt. Collum is a board member for the police union.
“As a board member, he is in a position to influence whether or not negotiations will occur and what direction those negotiations should take,” the opinion says.
Googins would not discuss the opinion, saying it was legal advice between him and his client...
Board reform didn’t pan out for Schwarzenegger
Board reform didn’t pan out for Schwarzenegger
He appointed people to the very state panels that he had sought to eliminate
By Matthew T. Hall
SDUT
January 15, 2011
Arnold Schwarzenegger stormed into the governor’s office in late 2003 intending to “blow up the boxes” of state government and soon targeted 88 boards and commissions for termination.
He left this month, having eliminated only a few, and one of his last acts involved naming a series of political allies to commission seats with six-figure salaries, including several boards that he wanted abolished.
“Clearly, it was against what he said at the beginning,” said Joel Fox, former president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and an ally in Schwarzenegger’s reform efforts. “I’m disappointed he didn’t follow through and set the example at the end.”
Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear blamed the Legislature for blocking reforms. He said the call to eliminate certain boards was meant to streamline government, not save money, because much of the funding originates outside the state’s discretionary general fund.
He said all of Schwarzenegger’s appointments put “inherently qualified” people on boards that remain relevant.
“They serve a purpose so we have to keep them functioning as long as they exist,” he said.
California’s governor appoints 63 people to 12 boards and commissions that pay from $111,845 to $132,179 a year, according to a review by The Watchdog. They are collectively paid almost $8 million a year.
By month’s end, the list will have 18 vacancies for newly sworn-in Gov. Jerry Brown to fill. A Brown spokeswoman said the governor is closely considering each choice while looking for ways to cut costs.
In his final week, Schwarzenegger drew criticism by appointing six people to positions with six-figure salaries, three to boards he had tried to eliminate.
Two were to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, which pays members $128,000 a year to settle state unemployment insurance disputes. While each member handles hundreds of appeals a month, the board has met 44 times since 2008, or little more than monthly.
Schwarzenegger appointed departing Sens. Dennis Hollingsworth of San Diego and Ray Ashburn of Bakersfield to the unemployment board, and Vicki Marti of Fairfax to the Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board.
He also named Kari Miner, a Sacramento interior decorator and the wife of former Schwarzenegger aide Paul Miner, to the Public Employment Relations Board, which oversees collective bargaining for state public employee unions.
Paul Miner was the point person for Schwarzenegger’s proposal to eliminate hundreds of appointed positions and more broadly reorganize state government.
“No one paid by the state should make $100,000 a year for only meeting twice a month,” Schwarzenegger said in his 2005 State of the State address.
Schwarzenegger’s California Performance Review Commission, which included Fox, proposed scrapping 117 of the state’s 339 boards and commissions.
The governor’s follow-up effort was roundly criticized and abandoned within a month. Later, the state did eliminate a waste board and consolidated boards dealing with geologists and hearing aids...
He appointed people to the very state panels that he had sought to eliminate
By Matthew T. Hall
SDUT
January 15, 2011
Arnold Schwarzenegger stormed into the governor’s office in late 2003 intending to “blow up the boxes” of state government and soon targeted 88 boards and commissions for termination.
He left this month, having eliminated only a few, and one of his last acts involved naming a series of political allies to commission seats with six-figure salaries, including several boards that he wanted abolished.
“Clearly, it was against what he said at the beginning,” said Joel Fox, former president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and an ally in Schwarzenegger’s reform efforts. “I’m disappointed he didn’t follow through and set the example at the end.”
Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear blamed the Legislature for blocking reforms. He said the call to eliminate certain boards was meant to streamline government, not save money, because much of the funding originates outside the state’s discretionary general fund.
He said all of Schwarzenegger’s appointments put “inherently qualified” people on boards that remain relevant.
“They serve a purpose so we have to keep them functioning as long as they exist,” he said.
California’s governor appoints 63 people to 12 boards and commissions that pay from $111,845 to $132,179 a year, according to a review by The Watchdog. They are collectively paid almost $8 million a year.
By month’s end, the list will have 18 vacancies for newly sworn-in Gov. Jerry Brown to fill. A Brown spokeswoman said the governor is closely considering each choice while looking for ways to cut costs.
In his final week, Schwarzenegger drew criticism by appointing six people to positions with six-figure salaries, three to boards he had tried to eliminate.
Two were to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, which pays members $128,000 a year to settle state unemployment insurance disputes. While each member handles hundreds of appeals a month, the board has met 44 times since 2008, or little more than monthly.
Schwarzenegger appointed departing Sens. Dennis Hollingsworth of San Diego and Ray Ashburn of Bakersfield to the unemployment board, and Vicki Marti of Fairfax to the Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board.
He also named Kari Miner, a Sacramento interior decorator and the wife of former Schwarzenegger aide Paul Miner, to the Public Employment Relations Board, which oversees collective bargaining for state public employee unions.
Paul Miner was the point person for Schwarzenegger’s proposal to eliminate hundreds of appointed positions and more broadly reorganize state government.
“No one paid by the state should make $100,000 a year for only meeting twice a month,” Schwarzenegger said in his 2005 State of the State address.
Schwarzenegger’s California Performance Review Commission, which included Fox, proposed scrapping 117 of the state’s 339 boards and commissions.
The governor’s follow-up effort was roundly criticized and abandoned within a month. Later, the state did eliminate a waste board and consolidated boards dealing with geologists and hearing aids...
Friday, January 14, 2011
Nathan and Mindy Fletcher Attend to Rail Transportation
Nathan and Mindy Fletcher Attend to Rail Transportation
By Matt Potter
Jan. 12, 2011
San Diego Reader
As the ultimate status of San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders continues to intrigue political onlookers, yet another rumored candidate to replace him has come to the forefront. GOP assemblyman Nathan Fletcher (whose official campaign biography, posted on his website, says that “before his election to the Legislature he served honorably in the military, the community and the political arena”) is said by some city hall insiders to have the inside track to collect the big money expected by some to come into the race from corporations seeking to benefit from a possible City bankruptcy and an ensuing orgy of outsourcing and asset sales. Fletcher’s bio, which also appears virtually verbatim on Wikipedia, touts his service as a Marine in Iraq and eastern Africa, where he was a “Counterintelligence/Human Intelligence Specialist.” Regarding his wife Mindy, it notes that the two “are members of Community Bible Church and proud parents of their son Zach.”
Nowhere does it mention that Nathan is the co-owner of a public affairs company, Arrow Advisers, and that Mindy, a hardened political pro who was an ex–PR aide to George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger, now is employed in Sacramento as a senior advisor by the lobbying outfit Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. Fletcher’s most recent personal financial disclosure report, filed last March, says that in 2009 Mindy — whose hiring was announced November 17, 2008, shortly after her husband was elected to the assembly’s 75th District seat — was paid between $10,000 and $100,000. According to its most recent disclosure filing with the secretary of state, Ogilvy, a branch of the big national PR and lobbying firm, grossed $57,800 in fees for its Sacramento lobbying activities during the third quarter of last year, the most recent period on record.
Clients included the American Chemistry Council ($5800), the investment firm the Blackstone Group ($30,000), and California Strategies & Advocacy LLC, working on behalf of the Centinela Valley Union High School District ($6000). Previous Ogilvy lobbying clients have included Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and California Strategies working on behalf of the Los Angeles Turf Club.
California Strategies & Advocacy is a sister firm of California Strategies, run by Bob White, longtime top aide to Pete Wilson when he was San Diego mayor, senator, and governor. A partner in the firm, which has performed consulting work for the City-controlled Centre City Development Corporation and Mayor Sanders regarding a new city hall, is Ben Haddad, another ex–Wilson aide and former staffer to Mayor Susan Golding. Last fall, Fletcher authored a controversial bill signed by then–Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that lifted the cap on spending by San Diego’s redevelopment agency, a move widely seen as intended to assist Sanders and his allies in the downtown establishment build a new taxpayer-financed stadium for the Chargers.
Also of interest is the fact that Ogilvy’s most recent client is the California High-Speed Rail Authority, the troubled state agency tasked with building a taxpayer-subsidized bullet train across the length of the state. In November 2009, the authority gave the firm a $9 million contract to lobby for the project through 2014. Fletcher has been vice chairman of the Assembly Select Committee on Rail Transportation.
Fletcher reported that his Arrow Advisers, which has a mailing address in University City, had a fair market value of between $10,000 and $100,000. He listed one client, United Friends of the Children, as being the source of income greater than $10,000. The board of that Los Angeles–based charity includes L.A. Democratic mayor Anthony Villaraigosa. Both Fletcher and his wife contributed to Jerry Sanders’s 2007 reelection bid. He was listed as partner in Arrow; she was listed as president of the firm. Neither Fletcher nor his wife responded to questions left regarding the disclosures...
By Matt Potter
Jan. 12, 2011
San Diego Reader
As the ultimate status of San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders continues to intrigue political onlookers, yet another rumored candidate to replace him has come to the forefront. GOP assemblyman Nathan Fletcher (whose official campaign biography, posted on his website, says that “before his election to the Legislature he served honorably in the military, the community and the political arena”) is said by some city hall insiders to have the inside track to collect the big money expected by some to come into the race from corporations seeking to benefit from a possible City bankruptcy and an ensuing orgy of outsourcing and asset sales. Fletcher’s bio, which also appears virtually verbatim on Wikipedia, touts his service as a Marine in Iraq and eastern Africa, where he was a “Counterintelligence/Human Intelligence Specialist.” Regarding his wife Mindy, it notes that the two “are members of Community Bible Church and proud parents of their son Zach.”
Nowhere does it mention that Nathan is the co-owner of a public affairs company, Arrow Advisers, and that Mindy, a hardened political pro who was an ex–PR aide to George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger, now is employed in Sacramento as a senior advisor by the lobbying outfit Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. Fletcher’s most recent personal financial disclosure report, filed last March, says that in 2009 Mindy — whose hiring was announced November 17, 2008, shortly after her husband was elected to the assembly’s 75th District seat — was paid between $10,000 and $100,000. According to its most recent disclosure filing with the secretary of state, Ogilvy, a branch of the big national PR and lobbying firm, grossed $57,800 in fees for its Sacramento lobbying activities during the third quarter of last year, the most recent period on record.
Clients included the American Chemistry Council ($5800), the investment firm the Blackstone Group ($30,000), and California Strategies & Advocacy LLC, working on behalf of the Centinela Valley Union High School District ($6000). Previous Ogilvy lobbying clients have included Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and California Strategies working on behalf of the Los Angeles Turf Club.
California Strategies & Advocacy is a sister firm of California Strategies, run by Bob White, longtime top aide to Pete Wilson when he was San Diego mayor, senator, and governor. A partner in the firm, which has performed consulting work for the City-controlled Centre City Development Corporation and Mayor Sanders regarding a new city hall, is Ben Haddad, another ex–Wilson aide and former staffer to Mayor Susan Golding. Last fall, Fletcher authored a controversial bill signed by then–Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that lifted the cap on spending by San Diego’s redevelopment agency, a move widely seen as intended to assist Sanders and his allies in the downtown establishment build a new taxpayer-financed stadium for the Chargers.
Also of interest is the fact that Ogilvy’s most recent client is the California High-Speed Rail Authority, the troubled state agency tasked with building a taxpayer-subsidized bullet train across the length of the state. In November 2009, the authority gave the firm a $9 million contract to lobby for the project through 2014. Fletcher has been vice chairman of the Assembly Select Committee on Rail Transportation.
Fletcher reported that his Arrow Advisers, which has a mailing address in University City, had a fair market value of between $10,000 and $100,000. He listed one client, United Friends of the Children, as being the source of income greater than $10,000. The board of that Los Angeles–based charity includes L.A. Democratic mayor Anthony Villaraigosa. Both Fletcher and his wife contributed to Jerry Sanders’s 2007 reelection bid. He was listed as partner in Arrow; she was listed as president of the firm. Neither Fletcher nor his wife responded to questions left regarding the disclosures...
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The county board of supervisors hasn't had a new member since 1995
We have some off-the-wall school board members out here in East County (I'm thinking of Jim Kelly), but we have a fine representative on the County Board of Supervisors. I think Dianne Jacob is the most conscientious supervisor on the board.
On the other hand, I think Greg Cox is just one small step above Bill Horn. Why do candidates like these keep getting reelected?
Mary Salas, why don't you run?
Randy Dotinga at Voice of San Diego notes:
"...The county board of supervisors hasn't had a new member since 1995, and if three board members have their way, it'll stay like that for at least a few more years. The U-T says incumbents Pam Slater-Price, Dianne Jacob and Greg Cox are all sending signals that they'll run again in 2012..."
County supervisor races continue to take shape
By Christopher Cadelago
SDUT
January 10, 2011
Supervisor Pam Slater-Price has signaled her intention to seek re-election in 2012, joining an early slate of candidates that includes two board colleagues and a pair of familiar faces.
Slater-Price, who represents the county's District 3, was first elected in 1992. Steve Danon, chief of staff to Rep. Brian Bilbray, is also vying for the seat and has been actively running for several months.
The San Diego County Registrar of Voters office has also received initial paperwork from Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who represents the county’s District 2, and Santee’s Rudy Reyes.
Reyes mounted an unsuccessful campaign against Jacob in 2008 and lost bids for the Santee City Council in 2008 and 2010.
Supervisor Greg Cox, who represents the county's District 1, has made it clear he would run again. Jacob was first elected in 1992 and Cox joined the board of supervisors in 1995.
On the other hand, I think Greg Cox is just one small step above Bill Horn. Why do candidates like these keep getting reelected?
Mary Salas, why don't you run?
Randy Dotinga at Voice of San Diego notes:
"...The county board of supervisors hasn't had a new member since 1995, and if three board members have their way, it'll stay like that for at least a few more years. The U-T says incumbents Pam Slater-Price, Dianne Jacob and Greg Cox are all sending signals that they'll run again in 2012..."
County supervisor races continue to take shape
By Christopher Cadelago
SDUT
January 10, 2011
Supervisor Pam Slater-Price has signaled her intention to seek re-election in 2012, joining an early slate of candidates that includes two board colleagues and a pair of familiar faces.
Slater-Price, who represents the county's District 3, was first elected in 1992. Steve Danon, chief of staff to Rep. Brian Bilbray, is also vying for the seat and has been actively running for several months.
The San Diego County Registrar of Voters office has also received initial paperwork from Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who represents the county’s District 2, and Santee’s Rudy Reyes.
Reyes mounted an unsuccessful campaign against Jacob in 2008 and lost bids for the Santee City Council in 2008 and 2010.
Supervisor Greg Cox, who represents the county's District 1, has made it clear he would run again. Jacob was first elected in 1992 and Cox joined the board of supervisors in 1995.
Monday, January 10, 2011
The Privilege of Not Proving Your Point Publicly
January 9, 2011
The Privilege of Not Proving Your Point Publicly
Posted on January 9, 2011
by Liam Dillon
Voice of San Diego
San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio argues his major pension reform proposal is legal. He says he's got a legal opinion to back it up. But you aren't allowed to see it.
Former head of the city's downtown redevelopment agency Fred Maas believes there are legal problems with requiring the agency to pay off the previous expansion of the city's Convention Center. Maas says there's a legal opinion to back it up. But you aren't allowed to see this one, either.
"I wish it was available," Maas said.
Both opinions are hidden under a veil of secrecy called attorney-client privilege, a legal protection that can keep lawyers' advice private. The idea is to keep legal strategies and opinions confidential so that a client, in this case the city, isn't disadvantaged in litigation.
But circumstances over the past few months have raised potential inconsistencies in how the city uses its legal privilege. It has allowed city leaders like DeMaio and Maas to make their case without having to show the nuance, risk and complexity that often accompany these types of discussions.
The result is that a key element of public debate on significant topics is left out. The proof.
"The public is certainly entitled to be skeptical of their claim that the opinion supports their position," said Terry Francke, head of public records watchdog Californians Aware.
Both situations would benefit from more scrutiny.
DeMaio has an idea to reduce the city's $2.1 billion pension debt. He calls the concept "pensionable pay" and it's central to his financial recovery plan. DeMaio's plan relies on the city excluding specialty pay, such as extra pay for speaking more than one language, from current employees' pension calculations. Doing so would reduce the city's pension debt without affecting employees' take-home pay.
The councilman, who did not respond to a request for an interview, has insisted this idea is legal. He cited a privileged opinion from the city's outside labor counsel as backup.
"We also have written legal opinion from Mayor's own labor counsel Tim Davis confirming this," DeMaio wrote on Twitter last month.
But others argue DeMaio's idea is analogous to a California Supreme Court decision that said a similar move was illegal. Further, 10 years ago the city settled a lawsuit brought by retirees that argued the city was improperly excluding some specialty pay items from pension calculations.
The lawsuit was based on the same principles that DeMaio's plan hopes to follow, said Michael Conger, the retirees' attorney in that case. Conger believes the settlement means you can't do what DeMaio is proposing.
"When parties resolve a dispute, you can't come back 10 years later and say, 'Did not,'" Conger said.
DeMaio also has been on the other side of the debate. He, along with three other council members, want the downtown redevelopment agency to take over the Convention Center bond debt. Doing so would free up $9.2 million annually to pay for general city services, such as police and fire.
A publicly available November opinion from City Attorney Jan Goldsmith asserts the council can shift the Convention Center debt to the downtown agency, the Centre City Development Corp., if the council makes certain legal findings.
But there's another opinion on the Convention Center debt that's private.
"There's a contrary opinion by our own legal counsel that disagreed with [Goldsmith's]," Maas said.
Goldsmith's opinion on the Convention Center includes many caveats. The city would have to determine that the expanded center benefits downtown and there's no other way to pay for it. The Convention Center expansion was finished more than nine years ago and the city has been paying the bond debt out of its day-to-day budget. Goldsmith's opinion concedes that argument is "difficult to make."
The standard for attorney-client privilege is intended to be clear. Privileged information is communication between a lawyer and his client including confidential legal strategy. Because revealing the city's strategy to its potential adversaries could cause harm, privileged documents are exempt from disclosure under the state's public records law.
But the declaration is not without discretion. Goldsmith's Convention Center opinion, for example includes a reference to the private opinion. Francke said it was "certainly not" normal for one opinion to be public and the other privileged on the same subject.
Former City Councilwoman Donna Frye, whose nearly 10-year term ended in December, said Goldsmith's decisions on attorney-client privilege have been inconsistent, especially compared to Goldsmith's predecessor, Mike Aguirre. Aguirre often was criticized for going the opposite way: making too much information public to the detriment of the city's legal position.
Frye questioned why this summer Goldsmith released a memo publicly detailing the legal complications with Proposition D, the city's financial reform and sales tax ballot measure. Lawsuits challenging the ballot measure appeared soon afterward.
Frye added she believes both the private Convention Center and pension opinions should be released because they address public policy issues, not legal strategy. Further, Frye said, if DeMaio and Maas are to be believed the public already knows what they contain.
"If the conclusion is already known, what is the secret, then?" Frye said.
Goldsmith's spokeswoman said the city attorney was busy finalizing a public memorandum of law on pensions and unavailable for comment for this story.
Of course, there's one way the privilege issue becomes irrelevant. There's nothing keeping the person or agency that receive the legal advice — whether that's Mayor Jerry Sanders, the City Council, CCDC or someone else — from waiving privilege and making the information public. Here, that hasn't happened.
"I'd just say this coyness can't and shouldn't be trusted," Francke said. "If the client here won't waive the privilege, the public is entitled to conclude it has something to hide."
The Privilege of Not Proving Your Point Publicly
Posted on January 9, 2011
by Liam Dillon
Voice of San Diego
San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio argues his major pension reform proposal is legal. He says he's got a legal opinion to back it up. But you aren't allowed to see it.
Former head of the city's downtown redevelopment agency Fred Maas believes there are legal problems with requiring the agency to pay off the previous expansion of the city's Convention Center. Maas says there's a legal opinion to back it up. But you aren't allowed to see this one, either.
"I wish it was available," Maas said.
Both opinions are hidden under a veil of secrecy called attorney-client privilege, a legal protection that can keep lawyers' advice private. The idea is to keep legal strategies and opinions confidential so that a client, in this case the city, isn't disadvantaged in litigation.
But circumstances over the past few months have raised potential inconsistencies in how the city uses its legal privilege. It has allowed city leaders like DeMaio and Maas to make their case without having to show the nuance, risk and complexity that often accompany these types of discussions.
The result is that a key element of public debate on significant topics is left out. The proof.
"The public is certainly entitled to be skeptical of their claim that the opinion supports their position," said Terry Francke, head of public records watchdog Californians Aware.
Both situations would benefit from more scrutiny.
DeMaio has an idea to reduce the city's $2.1 billion pension debt. He calls the concept "pensionable pay" and it's central to his financial recovery plan. DeMaio's plan relies on the city excluding specialty pay, such as extra pay for speaking more than one language, from current employees' pension calculations. Doing so would reduce the city's pension debt without affecting employees' take-home pay.
The councilman, who did not respond to a request for an interview, has insisted this idea is legal. He cited a privileged opinion from the city's outside labor counsel as backup.
"We also have written legal opinion from Mayor's own labor counsel Tim Davis confirming this," DeMaio wrote on Twitter last month.
But others argue DeMaio's idea is analogous to a California Supreme Court decision that said a similar move was illegal. Further, 10 years ago the city settled a lawsuit brought by retirees that argued the city was improperly excluding some specialty pay items from pension calculations.
The lawsuit was based on the same principles that DeMaio's plan hopes to follow, said Michael Conger, the retirees' attorney in that case. Conger believes the settlement means you can't do what DeMaio is proposing.
"When parties resolve a dispute, you can't come back 10 years later and say, 'Did not,'" Conger said.
DeMaio also has been on the other side of the debate. He, along with three other council members, want the downtown redevelopment agency to take over the Convention Center bond debt. Doing so would free up $9.2 million annually to pay for general city services, such as police and fire.
A publicly available November opinion from City Attorney Jan Goldsmith asserts the council can shift the Convention Center debt to the downtown agency, the Centre City Development Corp., if the council makes certain legal findings.
But there's another opinion on the Convention Center debt that's private.
"There's a contrary opinion by our own legal counsel that disagreed with [Goldsmith's]," Maas said.
Goldsmith's opinion on the Convention Center includes many caveats. The city would have to determine that the expanded center benefits downtown and there's no other way to pay for it. The Convention Center expansion was finished more than nine years ago and the city has been paying the bond debt out of its day-to-day budget. Goldsmith's opinion concedes that argument is "difficult to make."
The standard for attorney-client privilege is intended to be clear. Privileged information is communication between a lawyer and his client including confidential legal strategy. Because revealing the city's strategy to its potential adversaries could cause harm, privileged documents are exempt from disclosure under the state's public records law.
But the declaration is not without discretion. Goldsmith's Convention Center opinion, for example includes a reference to the private opinion. Francke said it was "certainly not" normal for one opinion to be public and the other privileged on the same subject.
Former City Councilwoman Donna Frye, whose nearly 10-year term ended in December, said Goldsmith's decisions on attorney-client privilege have been inconsistent, especially compared to Goldsmith's predecessor, Mike Aguirre. Aguirre often was criticized for going the opposite way: making too much information public to the detriment of the city's legal position.
Frye questioned why this summer Goldsmith released a memo publicly detailing the legal complications with Proposition D, the city's financial reform and sales tax ballot measure. Lawsuits challenging the ballot measure appeared soon afterward.
Frye added she believes both the private Convention Center and pension opinions should be released because they address public policy issues, not legal strategy. Further, Frye said, if DeMaio and Maas are to be believed the public already knows what they contain.
"If the conclusion is already known, what is the secret, then?" Frye said.
Goldsmith's spokeswoman said the city attorney was busy finalizing a public memorandum of law on pensions and unavailable for comment for this story.
Of course, there's one way the privilege issue becomes irrelevant. There's nothing keeping the person or agency that receive the legal advice — whether that's Mayor Jerry Sanders, the City Council, CCDC or someone else — from waiving privilege and making the information public. Here, that hasn't happened.
"I'd just say this coyness can't and shouldn't be trusted," Francke said. "If the client here won't waive the privilege, the public is entitled to conclude it has something to hide."
Monday, January 03, 2011
How to Drown 'Enron By the Sea'
How to Drown 'Enron By the Sea'
January 2, 2011
by Liam Dillon
In September 2004, The New York Times bestowed a nickname upon San Diego that the city has yet to shake: Enron by the Sea.
Though Enron, the famously corrupt Texas energy company, is long gone, the reference to San Diego's financial failures remains. Just last month, the national media revived it when discussing San Diego's reputation in stories about Mayor Jerry Sanders' plan to foist 401(k)-style retirement plans on most new city employees.
Like many folks, I wouldn't mind seeing "Enron by the Sea" go to sleep with the fishes. But how? The most surefire way is to end the city's series of budget problems. Deficits now stretch back a decade and most observers point to 1996, the year the city hosted the Republican National Convention and began underfunding the pension, as the beginning of the city's modern money woes. Budget problems predate the most recent recession, though the economic downturn certainly hasn't helped matters.
Here are five issues the city should address before it can declare victory over the many-headed hydra that is the city budget. All of them will be discussed in one form or another in the coming year.
Solve the Pension Problem
This one is a no-brainer. But as the last six years have proven, meaningful pension reform can be one of the hardest changes to make.
What could happen in 2011, though, is that city leaders could decide what the pension reform endgame looks like. Decide to develop or pursue legal strategies, such as forcing employees to share investment burdens. Decide to cut salaries or exclude certain compensation from pension calculations — if it's legal. Decide to lobby state and federal officials to change rules guaranteeing certain pension rights or for a negotiated bailout.
It's clear that the city's annual pension payment will continue to put a crushing burden on its ability to provide basic services over the next 15 years. City employees also deserve to know when leaders will stop going after benefits that have been promised to them and perhaps stop with misleading attacks.
Also worth noting is the city's $1 billion-plus deficit for another retirement cost: health care. Negotiations on reforming this benefit, which doesn't enjoy the same guarantees as pensions, are expected this year.
Solving the pension problem doesn't mean resolving everything at once. Lawsuits, for example, often take years. But the city needs to develop a clear finish line.
Fix Stuff
To figure out that San Diego is broke, you need to look no further than at what is broken. Estimates of the city's backlog of repairs for its buildings, streets and sidewalks approach $1 billion. Fixing streets alone will cost $377.5 million.
Despite an infusion of new bond money, streets continue to deteriorate to the point that people are filling potholes on their own.
A comprehensive report on the city's maintenance backlog was expected over the summer, but has yet to materialize. Getting a grip on needed repairs will help determine how much San Diegans must pay to maintain the parts of the city they touch and feel every day. The quicker the better. Spending $1 on street repair now, according to an estimate in a recent city audit, will eliminate or delay the need to spend $6 to $14 to fix streets in the future.
Restore Some Services
In summer 2013, San Diegans will celebrate the grand opening of a new downtown main library. As long as it's not a Saturday.
Budget cuts made over the past decade have degraded city services already. Operating hours, for example, at branch libraries have decreased by 30 percent to 36 hours a week over the past decade. The main library now is closed Saturdays.
Restoring at least some of the library hours and other cuts, most notably the rotating closures of city fire engines, will be central to the city's full recovery.
What Will Redevelopment Pay For?
Both our own Scott Lewis and the Union-Tribune editorial board have noted that redevelopment — the subsidizing of private sector development to fix rundown neighborhoods — has become the City Hall flashpoint.
And why shouldn't it? Time and again, people ask me how city leaders can consider $2 billion worth of big building projects while begging for new taxes to keep police officers and firefighters on the streets. The answer always is that redevelopment dollars are separate from the dollars that fund police and fire services, and redevelopment money can pay only for things like schoobraries and Chargers stadiums.
Now, even with downtown redevelopment continuing for 20 years longer than expected there's a growing consensus that redevelopment money still can't pay for everything. City leaders are going to have to make choices, and they won't be happy ones. Have redevelopment money take over debts, freeing up cash for police and fire services, or build a Chargers stadium?
Add lingering questions about the fiscal impacts of last fall's downtown redevelopment state legislation on other city neighborhoods and you have an issue central to San Diego's financial future.
Define the Role of the Public and Private Philanthropy
Catch nearly anyone who has spent time studying the city's budget for long and they'll tell you, most of them privately of course, that the city should charge all residents for trash pickup and collect greater fees for storm water. Together, according to a recent estimate, the city would collect an additional $60 million-plus a year if both fees were in place.
Given San Diego's reputation as an anti-tax city and recent history, both of those ideas don't appear to be coming soon. Still, no current city leader has made a sustained push to explain why San Diegans should consider these fee hikes for equity or other reasons.
At the same time, the role of the private sector in city affairs has increased, though in fits and starts. Funding for fire pits on the city's beaches, a national cause célèbre, now appears to come from philanthropy after years on the budget chopping block. A plan to create a gathering place in Balboa Park relies heavily on private financing. Opportunities for greater direct involvement from the private sector to provide city services, notably through volunteering, exist.
The definition of the city's structural budget deficit hinges on the word "structural." San Diego's structure is such that the city is set up to spend more money than it collects. Though Proposition D, a sales tax/financial reform measure failed in November, the potential fix to the problem remains simple. The city must cut costs, increase revenues or do some combination of the two.
Until that happens, San Diego will continue to drown in Enron's sea of red ink.
January 2, 2011
by Liam Dillon
In September 2004, The New York Times bestowed a nickname upon San Diego that the city has yet to shake: Enron by the Sea.
Though Enron, the famously corrupt Texas energy company, is long gone, the reference to San Diego's financial failures remains. Just last month, the national media revived it when discussing San Diego's reputation in stories about Mayor Jerry Sanders' plan to foist 401(k)-style retirement plans on most new city employees.
Like many folks, I wouldn't mind seeing "Enron by the Sea" go to sleep with the fishes. But how? The most surefire way is to end the city's series of budget problems. Deficits now stretch back a decade and most observers point to 1996, the year the city hosted the Republican National Convention and began underfunding the pension, as the beginning of the city's modern money woes. Budget problems predate the most recent recession, though the economic downturn certainly hasn't helped matters.
Here are five issues the city should address before it can declare victory over the many-headed hydra that is the city budget. All of them will be discussed in one form or another in the coming year.
Solve the Pension Problem
This one is a no-brainer. But as the last six years have proven, meaningful pension reform can be one of the hardest changes to make.
What could happen in 2011, though, is that city leaders could decide what the pension reform endgame looks like. Decide to develop or pursue legal strategies, such as forcing employees to share investment burdens. Decide to cut salaries or exclude certain compensation from pension calculations — if it's legal. Decide to lobby state and federal officials to change rules guaranteeing certain pension rights or for a negotiated bailout.
It's clear that the city's annual pension payment will continue to put a crushing burden on its ability to provide basic services over the next 15 years. City employees also deserve to know when leaders will stop going after benefits that have been promised to them and perhaps stop with misleading attacks.
Also worth noting is the city's $1 billion-plus deficit for another retirement cost: health care. Negotiations on reforming this benefit, which doesn't enjoy the same guarantees as pensions, are expected this year.
Solving the pension problem doesn't mean resolving everything at once. Lawsuits, for example, often take years. But the city needs to develop a clear finish line.
Fix Stuff
To figure out that San Diego is broke, you need to look no further than at what is broken. Estimates of the city's backlog of repairs for its buildings, streets and sidewalks approach $1 billion. Fixing streets alone will cost $377.5 million.
Despite an infusion of new bond money, streets continue to deteriorate to the point that people are filling potholes on their own.
A comprehensive report on the city's maintenance backlog was expected over the summer, but has yet to materialize. Getting a grip on needed repairs will help determine how much San Diegans must pay to maintain the parts of the city they touch and feel every day. The quicker the better. Spending $1 on street repair now, according to an estimate in a recent city audit, will eliminate or delay the need to spend $6 to $14 to fix streets in the future.
Restore Some Services
In summer 2013, San Diegans will celebrate the grand opening of a new downtown main library. As long as it's not a Saturday.
Budget cuts made over the past decade have degraded city services already. Operating hours, for example, at branch libraries have decreased by 30 percent to 36 hours a week over the past decade. The main library now is closed Saturdays.
Restoring at least some of the library hours and other cuts, most notably the rotating closures of city fire engines, will be central to the city's full recovery.
What Will Redevelopment Pay For?
Both our own Scott Lewis and the Union-Tribune editorial board have noted that redevelopment — the subsidizing of private sector development to fix rundown neighborhoods — has become the City Hall flashpoint.
And why shouldn't it? Time and again, people ask me how city leaders can consider $2 billion worth of big building projects while begging for new taxes to keep police officers and firefighters on the streets. The answer always is that redevelopment dollars are separate from the dollars that fund police and fire services, and redevelopment money can pay only for things like schoobraries and Chargers stadiums.
Now, even with downtown redevelopment continuing for 20 years longer than expected there's a growing consensus that redevelopment money still can't pay for everything. City leaders are going to have to make choices, and they won't be happy ones. Have redevelopment money take over debts, freeing up cash for police and fire services, or build a Chargers stadium?
Add lingering questions about the fiscal impacts of last fall's downtown redevelopment state legislation on other city neighborhoods and you have an issue central to San Diego's financial future.
Define the Role of the Public and Private Philanthropy
Catch nearly anyone who has spent time studying the city's budget for long and they'll tell you, most of them privately of course, that the city should charge all residents for trash pickup and collect greater fees for storm water. Together, according to a recent estimate, the city would collect an additional $60 million-plus a year if both fees were in place.
Given San Diego's reputation as an anti-tax city and recent history, both of those ideas don't appear to be coming soon. Still, no current city leader has made a sustained push to explain why San Diegans should consider these fee hikes for equity or other reasons.
At the same time, the role of the private sector in city affairs has increased, though in fits and starts. Funding for fire pits on the city's beaches, a national cause célèbre, now appears to come from philanthropy after years on the budget chopping block. A plan to create a gathering place in Balboa Park relies heavily on private financing. Opportunities for greater direct involvement from the private sector to provide city services, notably through volunteering, exist.
The definition of the city's structural budget deficit hinges on the word "structural." San Diego's structure is such that the city is set up to spend more money than it collects. Though Proposition D, a sales tax/financial reform measure failed in November, the potential fix to the problem remains simple. The city must cut costs, increase revenues or do some combination of the two.
Until that happens, San Diego will continue to drown in Enron's sea of red ink.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
San Diego firefighter wins $424,000 from city in court
San Diego firefighter wins $424,000 from city in court
He claimed retaliation for exposing wrongdoing in San Diego fire department
By Craig Gustafson
December 20, 2010
San Diego firefighter Paul Vandeveld on the job during the 2007 Witch Creek Fire.
A jury has awarded $424,000 to a San Diego firefighter who said he was suspended and denied a promotion in retaliation for blowing the whistle on wrongdoing in the city’s fire department.
Paul Vandeveld, 44, of El Cajon, has worked in the department since 1990 but his career stalled four years ago after he tried to stop his fellow firefighters from harassing a colleague and aided then-City Attorney Michael Aguirre with his investigation into the city’s pension scandal.
He was suspended without pay for 96 hours for sending an e-mail to higher-ups about the harassment and was denied a promotion several times despite being on the department’s “next in line” list to become a captain.
Overview
Background: Paul Vandeveld, a San Diego firefighter, filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the city in 2008 for suspending him and denying him a promotion in retaliation for helping a city attorney investigation into pension issues.
What’s changing: A jury awarded $424,000 to Vandeveld in a verdict Thursday, a majority of the sum represents what he would have made had he received a promotion to captain.
Future: The city is considering an appeal. Vandeveld, a 20-year department veteran, has asked to have the suspension removed from his record so he’ll be eligible for promotions in the future.
The 12-member jury’s unanimous decision called for Vandeveld to receive the difference between what he would have made as a captain versus his current salary as a fire engineer. The jury also awarded him $60,000 in punitive damages and the lost pay from his suspension.
Vandeveld burst into tears when the verdict was announced Thursday in Superior Court, said his attorney Steven Shewry.
“He’s been under exceedingly high levels of stress and humiliation since people started getting named captain ahead of him,” Shewry said. “It’s been pretty tough on him. He’s not an emotional guy but you can see that it’s not all that pleasant every day for a guy who always wanted to be a firefighter.”
The circumstances that led to Vandeveld’s lawsuit began in 2006 when Aguirre interviewed the firefighter as part of an investigation into so-called pension spiking, a practice in which employees are promoted to higher ranks or positions shortly before retirement allowing them to collect larger pensions once they leave.
Shortly thereafter, Vandeveld tried to intercede on behalf of a fire captain who many in the department believed had leaked to a reporter that a battalion chief had been arrested for drunken driving. In his lawsuit, Vandeveld said some firefighters physically assaulted the captain and spray-painted “rat” on his fire helmet...
He claimed retaliation for exposing wrongdoing in San Diego fire department
By Craig Gustafson
December 20, 2010
San Diego firefighter Paul Vandeveld on the job during the 2007 Witch Creek Fire.
A jury has awarded $424,000 to a San Diego firefighter who said he was suspended and denied a promotion in retaliation for blowing the whistle on wrongdoing in the city’s fire department.
Paul Vandeveld, 44, of El Cajon, has worked in the department since 1990 but his career stalled four years ago after he tried to stop his fellow firefighters from harassing a colleague and aided then-City Attorney Michael Aguirre with his investigation into the city’s pension scandal.
He was suspended without pay for 96 hours for sending an e-mail to higher-ups about the harassment and was denied a promotion several times despite being on the department’s “next in line” list to become a captain.
Overview
Background: Paul Vandeveld, a San Diego firefighter, filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the city in 2008 for suspending him and denying him a promotion in retaliation for helping a city attorney investigation into pension issues.
What’s changing: A jury awarded $424,000 to Vandeveld in a verdict Thursday, a majority of the sum represents what he would have made had he received a promotion to captain.
Future: The city is considering an appeal. Vandeveld, a 20-year department veteran, has asked to have the suspension removed from his record so he’ll be eligible for promotions in the future.
The 12-member jury’s unanimous decision called for Vandeveld to receive the difference between what he would have made as a captain versus his current salary as a fire engineer. The jury also awarded him $60,000 in punitive damages and the lost pay from his suspension.
Vandeveld burst into tears when the verdict was announced Thursday in Superior Court, said his attorney Steven Shewry.
“He’s been under exceedingly high levels of stress and humiliation since people started getting named captain ahead of him,” Shewry said. “It’s been pretty tough on him. He’s not an emotional guy but you can see that it’s not all that pleasant every day for a guy who always wanted to be a firefighter.”
The circumstances that led to Vandeveld’s lawsuit began in 2006 when Aguirre interviewed the firefighter as part of an investigation into so-called pension spiking, a practice in which employees are promoted to higher ranks or positions shortly before retirement allowing them to collect larger pensions once they leave.
Shortly thereafter, Vandeveld tried to intercede on behalf of a fire captain who many in the department believed had leaked to a reporter that a battalion chief had been arrested for drunken driving. In his lawsuit, Vandeveld said some firefighters physically assaulted the captain and spray-painted “rat” on his fire helmet...
Monday, December 20, 2010
Former union boss gets $700,000 for lost pension; Judge says the payout wasn't legally necessary
I see that attorney Ann Smith and Judie Italiano are still working closely. I'm wondering if the pension board was worried about dirty laundry being aired. Ann Smith was closely involved when the illegal pension deal was made, and she knows where all the skeletons are buried.
Former union boss gets $700,000 for lost pension
Judge says the payout wasn't legally necessary
By Craig Gustafson
December 17, 2010
The San Diego city retirement board has awarded a $700,000 settlement to former labor leader Judie Italiano despite a judge’s ruling that she isn’t owed anything beyond her $5,700-a-year pension.
The settlement was approved by Superior Court Judge Joel Pressman because he had no choice once the parties agreed. He expressed concerns, however, that it was “clearly not legally necessary” given his previous decision against Italiano. The City Attorney’s Office also argued the deal wasn’t reached in good faith.
Italiano, former president of the city’s union representing white-collar workers, had been battling with the city and its pension system to restore the annual $86,000 pension she lost in 2007 after the Internal Revenue Service deemed it invalid.
At issue is the city’s past decision to allow labor leaders to include their union service toward their pensions as city employees. In Italiano’s case, she was able to combine her 22 years as head of the Municipal Employees Association — peaking at $114,000 annually — with her nine years as a city typist making about $17,000.
The IRS said the practice, called presidential leave, violated tax law because union leaders aren’t city employees and thus can’t receive credit for union work when it comes to a city pension.
Italiano sued the city and pension system for $1.8 million — the estimated value over time of her combined union-city pension — accusing officials of negligence and making false promises about how much she would have for retirement.
Judge Pressman ruled last month that the city didn’t properly approve the presidential leave benefit so it doesn’t owe Italiano anything but the smaller pension for her nine-year stint with the city.
While the case was still going on, pension and union officials were negotiating a settlement for Italiano. The pension board unanimously approved the deal in closed session Oct. 1 — 45 days before the judge ruled against Italiano.
Pressman reluctantly approved the deal on procedural grounds Monday despite his concerns.
“This court does not see this as a good faith settlement,” he wrote in a tentative ruling. “It is a settlement crafted to give judicial cover to an agreement based on prior illegal acts. This court is not inclined to grant that cover. If the parties choose, the settlement can go forward but without this court’s good faith determination.”
Mark Sullivan, board president for the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System, said the city and pension system were sued by Italiano on different grounds and the judge’s ruling only cleared the city from damages. He said the board needed to limit its financial exposure by settling the lawsuit.
“The cost to defend ourselves in this action would be pretty close to the amount that we were seeking to settle and there’s no way we would be able to recover that,” he said. “Our goal is to minimize the impact to the trust fund.”
City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said it didn’t make any sense to agree to a settlement given the court’s decision.
“Once again, the pension board has overstepped its bounds,” he said. “Although the judge applied procedural standards, he made it absolutely clear that he is not inclined to grant ‘cover’ for this deal. We have other avenues to challenge the pension board’s side deal and will do so.”
Goldsmith declined further comment, saying he would seek City Council input before making any decision.
Italiano’s attorney, Ann Smith, did not return a call for comment.
Italiano, 64, won’t receive the entire $700,000 settlement. She owes the pension system $250,000 for overpayments she received in the first few years after she retired, a sum that will be subtracted from the settlement.
The remaining $450,000 will be used to purchase an annuity for Italiano that is expected to pay her nearly $28,000 annually for the rest of her life. The settlement also leaves Italiano eligible to receive taxpayer-funded health care in retirement, although it’s unclear if she is actually receiving the benefit.
Before the settlement, Italiano had a $480 monthly pension although she received nothing because the system used the money to pay down her outstanding debt. If the presidential leave benefit had been upheld, she would have received nearly $7,200 per month.
The settlement could fall through if the IRS raises any objections.
Italiano resigned from the union in May 2009 amid an internal investigation into her potential misuse of a union credit card. She repaid nearly $14,000.
Former union boss gets $700,000 for lost pension
Judge says the payout wasn't legally necessary
By Craig Gustafson
December 17, 2010
The San Diego city retirement board has awarded a $700,000 settlement to former labor leader Judie Italiano despite a judge’s ruling that she isn’t owed anything beyond her $5,700-a-year pension.
The settlement was approved by Superior Court Judge Joel Pressman because he had no choice once the parties agreed. He expressed concerns, however, that it was “clearly not legally necessary” given his previous decision against Italiano. The City Attorney’s Office also argued the deal wasn’t reached in good faith.
Italiano, former president of the city’s union representing white-collar workers, had been battling with the city and its pension system to restore the annual $86,000 pension she lost in 2007 after the Internal Revenue Service deemed it invalid.
At issue is the city’s past decision to allow labor leaders to include their union service toward their pensions as city employees. In Italiano’s case, she was able to combine her 22 years as head of the Municipal Employees Association — peaking at $114,000 annually — with her nine years as a city typist making about $17,000.
The IRS said the practice, called presidential leave, violated tax law because union leaders aren’t city employees and thus can’t receive credit for union work when it comes to a city pension.
Italiano sued the city and pension system for $1.8 million — the estimated value over time of her combined union-city pension — accusing officials of negligence and making false promises about how much she would have for retirement.
Judge Pressman ruled last month that the city didn’t properly approve the presidential leave benefit so it doesn’t owe Italiano anything but the smaller pension for her nine-year stint with the city.
While the case was still going on, pension and union officials were negotiating a settlement for Italiano. The pension board unanimously approved the deal in closed session Oct. 1 — 45 days before the judge ruled against Italiano.
Pressman reluctantly approved the deal on procedural grounds Monday despite his concerns.
“This court does not see this as a good faith settlement,” he wrote in a tentative ruling. “It is a settlement crafted to give judicial cover to an agreement based on prior illegal acts. This court is not inclined to grant that cover. If the parties choose, the settlement can go forward but without this court’s good faith determination.”
Mark Sullivan, board president for the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System, said the city and pension system were sued by Italiano on different grounds and the judge’s ruling only cleared the city from damages. He said the board needed to limit its financial exposure by settling the lawsuit.
“The cost to defend ourselves in this action would be pretty close to the amount that we were seeking to settle and there’s no way we would be able to recover that,” he said. “Our goal is to minimize the impact to the trust fund.”
City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said it didn’t make any sense to agree to a settlement given the court’s decision.
“Once again, the pension board has overstepped its bounds,” he said. “Although the judge applied procedural standards, he made it absolutely clear that he is not inclined to grant ‘cover’ for this deal. We have other avenues to challenge the pension board’s side deal and will do so.”
Goldsmith declined further comment, saying he would seek City Council input before making any decision.
Italiano’s attorney, Ann Smith, did not return a call for comment.
Italiano, 64, won’t receive the entire $700,000 settlement. She owes the pension system $250,000 for overpayments she received in the first few years after she retired, a sum that will be subtracted from the settlement.
The remaining $450,000 will be used to purchase an annuity for Italiano that is expected to pay her nearly $28,000 annually for the rest of her life. The settlement also leaves Italiano eligible to receive taxpayer-funded health care in retirement, although it’s unclear if she is actually receiving the benefit.
Before the settlement, Italiano had a $480 monthly pension although she received nothing because the system used the money to pay down her outstanding debt. If the presidential leave benefit had been upheld, she would have received nearly $7,200 per month.
The settlement could fall through if the IRS raises any objections.
Italiano resigned from the union in May 2009 amid an internal investigation into her potential misuse of a union credit card. She repaid nearly $14,000.
David Malcolm: A Plant's Power Over a Man's Life
A Plant's Power Over a Man's Life
December 19, 2010
by Liam Dillon
The man with the troubled past walked into the downtown San Diego elevator.
In itself, this incident wouldn't be notable. The man walks into lots of downtown elevators. His bank is downtown. So is his business and the top-floor, invitation-only private club he attends where you have to wear a jacket at dinnertime. He lives downtown, too.
This time people noticed. They were about to walk into a meeting on the source of one of the man's greatest triumphs and greatest troubles.
The man in question, David Malcolm, wasn't invited to the meeting.
It had been more than 10 years since Malcolm put together a $100 million deal to buy 165 acres of bay-front land without cash or credit. A man accustomed to crafting big land deals for private gain did this one for the public, snagging one of the few undeveloped urban coastal parcels in Southern California.
"It could possibly be one of the single best financial deals done in the state of California's history," Malcolm said.
It had been more than five years since the deal became the noose that hung his public career and, according to a close friend, nearly killed him. Malcolm pleaded guilty to a felony conflict of interest charge after it was revealed his company was working as a $20,000-a-month consultant for the land's tenant and he didn't leave his public position. Despite the plea, Malcolm maintained that he's innocent or, at worst, an innocent victim. He even successfully fought to get the charge reduced to a misdemeanor and the conviction expunged from his record...
Ever since he became a Chula Vista city councilman 28 years ago, Malcolm's public life and his life as a real estate wheeler and dealer rarely has been without controversy. For 20 years, all the allegations against him — including one in which he was accused of plotting arson to collect insurance money — came to nothing.
Then the power plant happened. The deal Malcolm brokered as chairman of the Port turned over the plant's operations to Duke Energy, a power company in North Carolina. Duke, in turn, hired a company Malcolm ran for $20,000 a month to try to make similar deals happen elsewhere. In essence, Malcolm began working for a major Port tenant.
Malcolm stayed on the Port, which was negotiating tax breaks for businesses, like Duke, operating on Port lands in the South Bay...
Instead, Malcolm was sentenced to 120 days in a county-lockdown facility, probation and almost $300,000 in fines and court fees. His public career was over.
But Malcolm didn't leave the issue alone.
He sued the Port unsuccessfully over its legal advice. Three years after his plea, Malcolm won a fight to get the charge reduced to a misdemeanor and the conviction expunged from his record. The topic remains raw. Malcolm speaks in extended monologues about the case's arcane details...
[Maura Larkins' comment: I have a sense that plenty of public officials betray the public trust even more than Malcolm did, and they never get called to account. For example, Juan Vargas took a lucrative job with an insurance company right when he left his job on the California Assembly insurance committee. And then the voters returned him to office a few years later!
Also, Duncan Hunter is famous for warm relationships with military contractors. I also have sympathy for Malcolm's disgust with public entity lawyers. It seems that they are often chosen because they tell officials they can help them get away with ignoring the law.]
With Malcolm was his cousin Dan Malcolm, an incoming Port commissioner from Imperial Beach. David Malcolm said that he and Dan were "very close," according to a Port memorandum on the conversation. The memo added the environmental director felt uncomfortable discussing the power plant and the conversation ended.
"This information is included only for public disclosure and to avoid any appearance that the District has been cooperating or in any way engaged with David Malcolm on matters related to the South Bay Power Plant," the Port report states.
It's not just future development that's at stake. There's about $60 million set aside to pay for the plant's demolition. The Houston-based company that currently owns the plant, Dynegy, pays the Port rent. Dynegy also is for sale.
The city of Chula Vista wants in, too. Its leaders were the ones who contacted Malcolm, Peace and other South Bay leaders over the summer to get the plant down. Malcolm and Peace helped arrange a meeting with state regulators this fall to push for the plant's closure.
"I had a choice of saying, 'Oooh, I'm not going to call David Malcolm,'" said Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox. "Why wouldn't you call someone who knows as much about it as he does?"...
Last week, that ask came. A Chula Vista councilwoman emailed Malcolm, Peace and others requesting advice for responding to the Port's latest demands...
[Maura Larkins comment: Was that councilwoman Patricia Aguilar?]
December 19, 2010
by Liam Dillon
The man with the troubled past walked into the downtown San Diego elevator.
In itself, this incident wouldn't be notable. The man walks into lots of downtown elevators. His bank is downtown. So is his business and the top-floor, invitation-only private club he attends where you have to wear a jacket at dinnertime. He lives downtown, too.
This time people noticed. They were about to walk into a meeting on the source of one of the man's greatest triumphs and greatest troubles.
The man in question, David Malcolm, wasn't invited to the meeting.
It had been more than 10 years since Malcolm put together a $100 million deal to buy 165 acres of bay-front land without cash or credit. A man accustomed to crafting big land deals for private gain did this one for the public, snagging one of the few undeveloped urban coastal parcels in Southern California.
"It could possibly be one of the single best financial deals done in the state of California's history," Malcolm said.
It had been more than five years since the deal became the noose that hung his public career and, according to a close friend, nearly killed him. Malcolm pleaded guilty to a felony conflict of interest charge after it was revealed his company was working as a $20,000-a-month consultant for the land's tenant and he didn't leave his public position. Despite the plea, Malcolm maintained that he's innocent or, at worst, an innocent victim. He even successfully fought to get the charge reduced to a misdemeanor and the conviction expunged from his record...
Ever since he became a Chula Vista city councilman 28 years ago, Malcolm's public life and his life as a real estate wheeler and dealer rarely has been without controversy. For 20 years, all the allegations against him — including one in which he was accused of plotting arson to collect insurance money — came to nothing.
Then the power plant happened. The deal Malcolm brokered as chairman of the Port turned over the plant's operations to Duke Energy, a power company in North Carolina. Duke, in turn, hired a company Malcolm ran for $20,000 a month to try to make similar deals happen elsewhere. In essence, Malcolm began working for a major Port tenant.
Malcolm stayed on the Port, which was negotiating tax breaks for businesses, like Duke, operating on Port lands in the South Bay...
Instead, Malcolm was sentenced to 120 days in a county-lockdown facility, probation and almost $300,000 in fines and court fees. His public career was over.
But Malcolm didn't leave the issue alone.
He sued the Port unsuccessfully over its legal advice. Three years after his plea, Malcolm won a fight to get the charge reduced to a misdemeanor and the conviction expunged from his record. The topic remains raw. Malcolm speaks in extended monologues about the case's arcane details...
[Maura Larkins' comment: I have a sense that plenty of public officials betray the public trust even more than Malcolm did, and they never get called to account. For example, Juan Vargas took a lucrative job with an insurance company right when he left his job on the California Assembly insurance committee. And then the voters returned him to office a few years later!
Also, Duncan Hunter is famous for warm relationships with military contractors. I also have sympathy for Malcolm's disgust with public entity lawyers. It seems that they are often chosen because they tell officials they can help them get away with ignoring the law.]
With Malcolm was his cousin Dan Malcolm, an incoming Port commissioner from Imperial Beach. David Malcolm said that he and Dan were "very close," according to a Port memorandum on the conversation. The memo added the environmental director felt uncomfortable discussing the power plant and the conversation ended.
"This information is included only for public disclosure and to avoid any appearance that the District has been cooperating or in any way engaged with David Malcolm on matters related to the South Bay Power Plant," the Port report states.
It's not just future development that's at stake. There's about $60 million set aside to pay for the plant's demolition. The Houston-based company that currently owns the plant, Dynegy, pays the Port rent. Dynegy also is for sale.
The city of Chula Vista wants in, too. Its leaders were the ones who contacted Malcolm, Peace and other South Bay leaders over the summer to get the plant down. Malcolm and Peace helped arrange a meeting with state regulators this fall to push for the plant's closure.
"I had a choice of saying, 'Oooh, I'm not going to call David Malcolm,'" said Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox. "Why wouldn't you call someone who knows as much about it as he does?"...
Last week, that ask came. A Chula Vista councilwoman emailed Malcolm, Peace and others requesting advice for responding to the Port's latest demands...
[Maura Larkins comment: Was that councilwoman Patricia Aguilar?]
Convicted of a Felony, But Not a Convicted Felon
July 5, 2006
Convicted of a Felony, But Not a Convicted Felon
Voice of San Diego
You'll remember my question about the little present former Port Commissioner David Malcolm received last week from Superior Court Judge John C. Einhorn. In 2003, Malcolm pleaded guilty to violating the state's law against public officials participating in deals in which they have a personal financial interest. He was sentenced to three years probation and he had some fines and other economic penalties.
Like many people who finish their probation time, Malcolm asked the judge to expunge his record. Einhorn agreed and gave Malcolm one more little benefit - he ordered Malcolm's charge to be lowered from a felony to a misdemeanor and then expunged.
I wondered what the deal was. Did this mean that, like Britney Spears' first marriage, Malcolm's conviction was successfully annulled? Does it mean that Malcolm is no longer a convicted felon?
I called the district attorney's prosecutor in the case, Stephen Robinson. He said, essentially, that no, Malcolm is no longer a convicted felon, but he was still convicted of a felony.
My brain exploded after we talked but let me try to put this puzzle together:
Malcolm's recent pardon allows him to have the benefits and privileges that we non-felon citizens enjoy: to vote, to run for office, etc. But Robinson said that certain benefits won't be available to Malcolm. For instance, he can't carry a firearm.
"If, four years from now, I was going to run his criminal record sheet - his rap sheet - it will be there. It doesn't disappear," Robinson said about the criminal conviction. He said that if he was investigating Malcolm again, he could use the "rap sheet" to argue that Malcolm has a history doing such and such.
Now, apparently, it's a normal thing for someone to complete his or her probation and to ask the judge to expunge the record as such. If it's not normal, let me know.
But what's really interesting is the second part of this deal: that Malcolm had his charge reduced to a misdemeanor before it was expunged.
I asked Robinson if Malcolm could now argue that he was never convicted a felony, but, instead he was convicted of a misdemeanor.
"I suppose he can say that. I just look at it from my perspective, which is from the criminal-justice perspective. The conviction still stands," Robinson told me.
My brain just exploded again thinking about it.
Robinson, for the record, had argued strongly against the judge allowing Malcolm's charge to go from a felony to a misdemeanor.
His reasoning seems pretty logical: While a port commissioner, Malcolm agreed to become a paid consultant to Duke Energy and he agreed to put the interests of Duke Energy above those of the Port District.
From the DA:
While actively participating in Port District business that directly benefited Duke Energy, Malcolm was being paid $20,000 each month.
So, it wasn't as if he were urinating in public or committing another such misdemeanor violation. This is a heavy accusation to which Malcolm pleaded guilty.
Again from Robinson's brief:
While occupying this position of trust, he betrayed the people of San Diego for his own pecuniary gain. Malcolm's behavior cannot be described as one or two mistakes. It similarly was not a series of errors that took place over a short period of time or in haste. Rather, Malcolm deliberately and methodically engaged in a course of conduct that put the interests of the people of San Diego second to his own financial interests.
Again, it doesn't appear to be a misdemeanor offense.
I called the judge, who referred me to Malcolm's own court filings. When I get them, I'll share them. We still, after all, are left with important questions: If it's true, as Robinson said, that Malcolm's conviction will always haunt him as a felony, then why would Malcolm want it to be reduced to a misdemeanor before it was expunged? What's the point?
"I'd have to ask him what motivated him to take that two-step process," Robinson said.
- SCOTT LEWIS
Convicted of a Felony, But Not a Convicted Felon
Voice of San Diego
You'll remember my question about the little present former Port Commissioner David Malcolm received last week from Superior Court Judge John C. Einhorn. In 2003, Malcolm pleaded guilty to violating the state's law against public officials participating in deals in which they have a personal financial interest. He was sentenced to three years probation and he had some fines and other economic penalties.
Like many people who finish their probation time, Malcolm asked the judge to expunge his record. Einhorn agreed and gave Malcolm one more little benefit - he ordered Malcolm's charge to be lowered from a felony to a misdemeanor and then expunged.
I wondered what the deal was. Did this mean that, like Britney Spears' first marriage, Malcolm's conviction was successfully annulled? Does it mean that Malcolm is no longer a convicted felon?
I called the district attorney's prosecutor in the case, Stephen Robinson. He said, essentially, that no, Malcolm is no longer a convicted felon, but he was still convicted of a felony.
My brain exploded after we talked but let me try to put this puzzle together:
Malcolm's recent pardon allows him to have the benefits and privileges that we non-felon citizens enjoy: to vote, to run for office, etc. But Robinson said that certain benefits won't be available to Malcolm. For instance, he can't carry a firearm.
"If, four years from now, I was going to run his criminal record sheet - his rap sheet - it will be there. It doesn't disappear," Robinson said about the criminal conviction. He said that if he was investigating Malcolm again, he could use the "rap sheet" to argue that Malcolm has a history doing such and such.
Now, apparently, it's a normal thing for someone to complete his or her probation and to ask the judge to expunge the record as such. If it's not normal, let me know.
But what's really interesting is the second part of this deal: that Malcolm had his charge reduced to a misdemeanor before it was expunged.
I asked Robinson if Malcolm could now argue that he was never convicted a felony, but, instead he was convicted of a misdemeanor.
"I suppose he can say that. I just look at it from my perspective, which is from the criminal-justice perspective. The conviction still stands," Robinson told me.
My brain just exploded again thinking about it.
Robinson, for the record, had argued strongly against the judge allowing Malcolm's charge to go from a felony to a misdemeanor.
His reasoning seems pretty logical: While a port commissioner, Malcolm agreed to become a paid consultant to Duke Energy and he agreed to put the interests of Duke Energy above those of the Port District.
From the DA:
While actively participating in Port District business that directly benefited Duke Energy, Malcolm was being paid $20,000 each month.
So, it wasn't as if he were urinating in public or committing another such misdemeanor violation. This is a heavy accusation to which Malcolm pleaded guilty.
Again from Robinson's brief:
While occupying this position of trust, he betrayed the people of San Diego for his own pecuniary gain. Malcolm's behavior cannot be described as one or two mistakes. It similarly was not a series of errors that took place over a short period of time or in haste. Rather, Malcolm deliberately and methodically engaged in a course of conduct that put the interests of the people of San Diego second to his own financial interests.
Again, it doesn't appear to be a misdemeanor offense.
I called the judge, who referred me to Malcolm's own court filings. When I get them, I'll share them. We still, after all, are left with important questions: If it's true, as Robinson said, that Malcolm's conviction will always haunt him as a felony, then why would Malcolm want it to be reduced to a misdemeanor before it was expunged? What's the point?
"I'd have to ask him what motivated him to take that two-step process," Robinson said.
- SCOTT LEWIS
Friday, December 17, 2010
San Diego police are sorry they sued the city
San Diego police are sorry they sued the city
Lorie Hearn
Watchdog Institute
December 16, 2010
By Kelly Thornton
The San Diego Police Officers Association has sued the city several times in recent years, and the city has spent $8.6 million to fight them so far. That makes the city’s own cops its most expensive legal adversary.
Now, the officers are sorry.
The police union has a new lawyer who called two of three lawsuits “frivolous” and has filed two malpractice lawsuits against the attorneys who sued in the first place.
“The San Diego Police Officers Association knows this was expensive litigation for the city and has apologized profusely and we’ve done what we can to make it right,” said the POA’s new attorney, Michael Conger, an employment, business and personal injury lawyer from San Diego. “We’ve gotten rid of any litigation to the city related to this nonsense.”
In total, there are 23 lawsuits filed against the city between 2003 and 2010 in which the city has spent more than $1 million. The POA cases are three of those. For all 23 cases, the city has spent $55.3 million, according to an analysis by the Watchdog Institute, a nonprofit investigative reporting center based at San Diego State University.
One of the three cases brought by the POA was to force the city to pay officers for time spent putting on uniforms and protective gear and answering work-related emails. Another case accused then-City Attorney Michael Aguirre of bribery and extortion related to contract negotiations, and sought his removal from office. A third suit was a spinoff of the second; both alleged that the city’s underfunding of the pension violated police officers’ constitutional rights.
The POA lost all three cases – two at summary judgment, meaning a judge didn’t even think the case was worth going to trial. In the overtime case, a federal jury decided in favor of the city after a six-week trial.
More than 1,000 officers opted to drop any appeals based on advice from Conger. The previous lawyer, Gregory Petersen, an Orange County civil rights and employment attorney, is appealing one of the cases on behalf of about 100 clients who’ve stuck with him.
As the cases dragged on, POA members’ credit cards were charged $20 to 40 a month. To cover legal fees, the organization had to mortgage its headquarters.
“I think they were hurt dramatically,” Conger said of the officers. “They paid Petersen over $2.8 million for the privilege of bringing frivolous lawsuits, and he didn’t win one single motion. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong and doesn’t want to pay a dollar.”
At the same time, the financially crippled city hired an outside legal firm, Latham & Watkins, at up to $750 an hour, because the city had a conflict defending against its own employees...
Lorie Hearn
Watchdog Institute
December 16, 2010
By Kelly Thornton
The San Diego Police Officers Association has sued the city several times in recent years, and the city has spent $8.6 million to fight them so far. That makes the city’s own cops its most expensive legal adversary.
Now, the officers are sorry.
The police union has a new lawyer who called two of three lawsuits “frivolous” and has filed two malpractice lawsuits against the attorneys who sued in the first place.
“The San Diego Police Officers Association knows this was expensive litigation for the city and has apologized profusely and we’ve done what we can to make it right,” said the POA’s new attorney, Michael Conger, an employment, business and personal injury lawyer from San Diego. “We’ve gotten rid of any litigation to the city related to this nonsense.”
In total, there are 23 lawsuits filed against the city between 2003 and 2010 in which the city has spent more than $1 million. The POA cases are three of those. For all 23 cases, the city has spent $55.3 million, according to an analysis by the Watchdog Institute, a nonprofit investigative reporting center based at San Diego State University.
One of the three cases brought by the POA was to force the city to pay officers for time spent putting on uniforms and protective gear and answering work-related emails. Another case accused then-City Attorney Michael Aguirre of bribery and extortion related to contract negotiations, and sought his removal from office. A third suit was a spinoff of the second; both alleged that the city’s underfunding of the pension violated police officers’ constitutional rights.
The POA lost all three cases – two at summary judgment, meaning a judge didn’t even think the case was worth going to trial. In the overtime case, a federal jury decided in favor of the city after a six-week trial.
More than 1,000 officers opted to drop any appeals based on advice from Conger. The previous lawyer, Gregory Petersen, an Orange County civil rights and employment attorney, is appealing one of the cases on behalf of about 100 clients who’ve stuck with him.
As the cases dragged on, POA members’ credit cards were charged $20 to 40 a month. To cover legal fees, the organization had to mortgage its headquarters.
“I think they were hurt dramatically,” Conger said of the officers. “They paid Petersen over $2.8 million for the privilege of bringing frivolous lawsuits, and he didn’t win one single motion. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong and doesn’t want to pay a dollar.”
At the same time, the financially crippled city hired an outside legal firm, Latham & Watkins, at up to $750 an hour, because the city had a conflict defending against its own employees...
Monday, December 13, 2010
Mayor of Redevelopment No Longer?
Mayor of Redevelopment No Longer?
(Click on the link above to get all the links in the story.)
by Scott Lewis
Voice of San Diego
December 13, 2010
Redevelopment is the reason the city of San Diego can consider building a new Convention Center, football stadium and other enhancements downtown at a time when rec centers, libraries and swimming pools are in danger of closing elsewhere.
Cities all across the state use the mechanism for their blighted neighborhoods. But unlike most of them, San Diego does things differently. For one, it allows two nonprofits, fully funded by the city, to manage its redevelopment efforts downtown and in southeastern San Diego: CCDC and SEDC respectively.
And, also unlike other areas, San Diego made its elected mayor the executive director of the Redevelopment Agency -- the entity that oversees not only CCDC and SEDC but the other areas considered blighted in town.
Now, that may change. The City Council is considering ousting him as San Diego's redevelopment leader and hiring a professional manager wake of the mayor's efforts to extend the lifespan of downtown redevelopment without involving the public or City Council.
U-T: We Want Maas Redevelopment
The Union-Tribune made its case for downtown redevelopment this weekend featuring an editorial about, and a Q&A with, the outgoing chairman of CCDC, Fred Maas.
If that didn't give you enough Maas, the man himself penned an op-ed of his own with a now common claim that visionaries like him are only held back by shortsighted "small-town undertakers."
In the Q&A, Maas blasts the proposal supported now by five City Council members that the downtown redevelopment agency take over from the city's ailing general fund, the duty to pay back bonds on the last expansion of the Convention Center - a move that would free up $9.2 million a year.
"We run the risk of bankrupting ultimately over the next 20 years the redevelopment agency. This is not that different from underfunding pensions or from granting benefits without a way to pay for them by raiding our coffers to pay for things that were never contemplated."
Moral: If you don't like something that's happening in the city, compare it to the pension system! But question: Aren't redevelopment efforts eventually supposed to run out of money?
The new City Council president is considering your thoughts on those questions and others as he proposes a new ad hoc committee for redevelopment. And he has set up an email address to collect them: budgetandfinance@sandiego.gov.
Snow? Ha!
The U-T drew a direct line from the major snowfall and incredible collapse of the roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis to the Chargers search for a new stadium (did you see the video of the roof collapse?). Presumably, this adds urgency to the stadium debate there - the Minnesota Vikings are often mentioned in the same breath as the Chargers as possible teams that could relocate to Los Angeles.
Back in San Diego, it was a pretty nice day at the stadium yesterday, as Sam Hodgson's photos prove...
Sulking in San Diego
» Last week, we mentioned a video provoking guffaws across San Diego's political twitterati the last few days. It portrays San Diego as an insecure teenage girl uncomfortable that "the boys" keep making fun of her big pension. It's clearly trying to chide the media for begin so negative while making the case that we shouldn't worry so much about the city's problems, and we should support a new stadium and other projects championed by downtown redevelopment officials and the mayor.
As the U-T summarized, nobody wants to take credit for the flick.
I actually agree with another anonymous commenter, though, who said that the city is better represented by the mother figure in the video - always trying to convince people who are worried here that everything is fantastic. And she does that, even though she regularly admits (even trumpets) how bad things are going to get if we don't deal with our big pension.
(Click on the link above to get all the links in the story.)
by Scott Lewis
Voice of San Diego
December 13, 2010
Redevelopment is the reason the city of San Diego can consider building a new Convention Center, football stadium and other enhancements downtown at a time when rec centers, libraries and swimming pools are in danger of closing elsewhere.
Cities all across the state use the mechanism for their blighted neighborhoods. But unlike most of them, San Diego does things differently. For one, it allows two nonprofits, fully funded by the city, to manage its redevelopment efforts downtown and in southeastern San Diego: CCDC and SEDC respectively.
And, also unlike other areas, San Diego made its elected mayor the executive director of the Redevelopment Agency -- the entity that oversees not only CCDC and SEDC but the other areas considered blighted in town.
Now, that may change. The City Council is considering ousting him as San Diego's redevelopment leader and hiring a professional manager wake of the mayor's efforts to extend the lifespan of downtown redevelopment without involving the public or City Council.
U-T: We Want Maas Redevelopment
The Union-Tribune made its case for downtown redevelopment this weekend featuring an editorial about, and a Q&A with, the outgoing chairman of CCDC, Fred Maas.
If that didn't give you enough Maas, the man himself penned an op-ed of his own with a now common claim that visionaries like him are only held back by shortsighted "small-town undertakers."
In the Q&A, Maas blasts the proposal supported now by five City Council members that the downtown redevelopment agency take over from the city's ailing general fund, the duty to pay back bonds on the last expansion of the Convention Center - a move that would free up $9.2 million a year.
"We run the risk of bankrupting ultimately over the next 20 years the redevelopment agency. This is not that different from underfunding pensions or from granting benefits without a way to pay for them by raiding our coffers to pay for things that were never contemplated."
Moral: If you don't like something that's happening in the city, compare it to the pension system! But question: Aren't redevelopment efforts eventually supposed to run out of money?
The new City Council president is considering your thoughts on those questions and others as he proposes a new ad hoc committee for redevelopment. And he has set up an email address to collect them: budgetandfinance@sandiego.gov.
Snow? Ha!
The U-T drew a direct line from the major snowfall and incredible collapse of the roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis to the Chargers search for a new stadium (did you see the video of the roof collapse?). Presumably, this adds urgency to the stadium debate there - the Minnesota Vikings are often mentioned in the same breath as the Chargers as possible teams that could relocate to Los Angeles.
Back in San Diego, it was a pretty nice day at the stadium yesterday, as Sam Hodgson's photos prove...
Sulking in San Diego
» Last week, we mentioned a video provoking guffaws across San Diego's political twitterati the last few days. It portrays San Diego as an insecure teenage girl uncomfortable that "the boys" keep making fun of her big pension. It's clearly trying to chide the media for begin so negative while making the case that we shouldn't worry so much about the city's problems, and we should support a new stadium and other projects championed by downtown redevelopment officials and the mayor.
As the U-T summarized, nobody wants to take credit for the flick.
I actually agree with another anonymous commenter, though, who said that the city is better represented by the mother figure in the video - always trying to convince people who are worried here that everything is fantastic. And she does that, even though she regularly admits (even trumpets) how bad things are going to get if we don't deal with our big pension.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
With more than 130 lawyers on staff, since July 2006, San Diego spent $34 million on private lawyers."
Morning Report
by Randy Dotinga
Voice of San Diego
Dec. 9, 2010
In other city finance news, 10News and the Watchdog Institute report that "despite having more than 130 lawyers on staff, since July 2006, the city of San Diego has spent more than $34 million on private lawyers."
And the U-T says about 2,200 current and retired city workers "may be forced to accept significantly reduced pensions or pay a lump sum of as much as $50,000 to keep their current pension."
December 10, 2010
Calculating the Cost of a City's Litigation
by Brian Baxter
The AM Law Daily
San Diego, no stranger to large legal bills, is grappling with $130 million in litigation costs accumulated over the past eight years, according to an analysis conducted by the Watchdog Institute, a nonprofit investigative reporting center at San Diego State University.
KPBS, a media arm of the university, has the details on the Watchdog Institute's findings. One of the more interesting tidbits: although San Diego has 137 in-house city attorneys, including 27 in its civil litigation unit, since 2006 the city has spent more than $34 million on outside lawyers.
Some of those who spoke to Watchdog said that former San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre bears the responsibility for some of those bills. In the spring of 2006, Aguirre threatened to sue two law firms--Vinson & Elkins and Willkie Farr & Gallagher--for malpractice.
Eventually, Aguirre hired his own lawyers--on contingency--for litigation in which he claimed both firms charged excessive fees and failed to meet deadlines on work the firms did related to the city's pension crisis. (A voicemail message left for Aguirre at his office--he now is in private practice after losing a reelection bid in November 2008--was not returned by the time of this post.)
But wasn't Aguirre the one who was fighting to reign in the billing rates of Am Law 100 firms doing work for San Diego, as The American Lawyer reported in November 2008?
In that story, reporter Ross Todd detailed Aguirre's suits against three firms--Vinson, Willkie Farr, and bond counsel Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe--for work they did related to San Diego's financial disclosure practices. Vinson paid $4.35 million to settle its role in the case in June 2008. Orrick paid $2.8 million in a similar settlement a month later. A case against Willkie Farr is pending. (Bryan Vess, a San Diego plaintiff's lawyer trying the case against Willkie Farr, did not respond to a request for comment. Nor did Patrick Swann, Jr., a partner at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps defending the firm.)
Since then Aguirre's successor, former local judge Jan Goldsmith, has told Watchdog that Aguirre's litigiousness contributed to a spike in San Diego's legal expenses and insurance rates. Goldsmith claims that Aguirre lacked confidence in his own lawyers, hired expensive outside lawyers, and made insurers nervous with his "sue happy" mentality.
One firm singled out by the Watchdog Institute for its billing rates is Latham & Watkins. Watchdog reports the firm has received $18 million for work it has done for San Diego over the past eight years, charging up to $750 an hour for its services.
Goldsmith also told Watchdog that when he took office in 2008 he was shocked by the amount of money being spent on outside counsel at firms like Latham.
"It was huge, and it was obvious that we had to rebuild the law firm...and make it to a point where we have confidence to handle these cases in-house," Goldsmith said. "It was a terrible waste of taxpayer dollars to use Latham & Watkins essentially as a division of the city attorney's office."
After Aguirre was voted out of office in November 2008, The Am Law Daily reported that Latham's role as "most-favored-firm status could be jeopardy." Goldsmith described the hourly rates charged by Latham lawyers as "outrageous," and noted that attorneys from his own office made only $49 an hour. Goldsmith told Watchdog he negotiated Latham down to $550 an hour on cases the firm already was handling, ones in which it would have been more costly to start over with new counsel.
A Latham spokesman disputed the hourly rates stated by Goldsmith, telling Watchdog that the firm's discounted hourly rates were closer to $400 per hour, with the current city attorney likely citing figures billed by senior lawyers at the firm. Latham noted its success in recovering legal fees from insurance companies for the city.
"A primary reason why municipal clients engage a firm of the caliber of Latham & Watkins is that we often save them money in the long run," the firm told Watchdog. "The total collections from insurance companies equal or exceed the amounts billed by Latham to the city for work since January 1, 2005--with approximately $18.5 million collected to date." (Latham stood by its statement to Watchdog when contacted by The Am Law Daily.)
Despite the firm's successes, Latham's yearly billings for San Diego have decreased from $11.9 million in 2009 to $2.7 million through October of this year, according to the Watchdog Institute report. Aguirre told Watchdog that the city council--not the city attorney--is responsible for hiring outside counsel. Latham, he told Watchdog, was first hired under his predecessor, Casey Gwinn.
"Isn't it funny how two years later it's still my fault," Aguirre said. "The idea of trying to blame me even two years later is so ludicrous. That just shows you how desperate they are."
by Randy Dotinga
Voice of San Diego
Dec. 9, 2010
In other city finance news, 10News and the Watchdog Institute report that "despite having more than 130 lawyers on staff, since July 2006, the city of San Diego has spent more than $34 million on private lawyers."
And the U-T says about 2,200 current and retired city workers "may be forced to accept significantly reduced pensions or pay a lump sum of as much as $50,000 to keep their current pension."
December 10, 2010
Calculating the Cost of a City's Litigation
by Brian Baxter
The AM Law Daily
San Diego, no stranger to large legal bills, is grappling with $130 million in litigation costs accumulated over the past eight years, according to an analysis conducted by the Watchdog Institute, a nonprofit investigative reporting center at San Diego State University.
KPBS, a media arm of the university, has the details on the Watchdog Institute's findings. One of the more interesting tidbits: although San Diego has 137 in-house city attorneys, including 27 in its civil litigation unit, since 2006 the city has spent more than $34 million on outside lawyers.
Some of those who spoke to Watchdog said that former San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre bears the responsibility for some of those bills. In the spring of 2006, Aguirre threatened to sue two law firms--Vinson & Elkins and Willkie Farr & Gallagher--for malpractice.
Eventually, Aguirre hired his own lawyers--on contingency--for litigation in which he claimed both firms charged excessive fees and failed to meet deadlines on work the firms did related to the city's pension crisis. (A voicemail message left for Aguirre at his office--he now is in private practice after losing a reelection bid in November 2008--was not returned by the time of this post.)
But wasn't Aguirre the one who was fighting to reign in the billing rates of Am Law 100 firms doing work for San Diego, as The American Lawyer reported in November 2008?
In that story, reporter Ross Todd detailed Aguirre's suits against three firms--Vinson, Willkie Farr, and bond counsel Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe--for work they did related to San Diego's financial disclosure practices. Vinson paid $4.35 million to settle its role in the case in June 2008. Orrick paid $2.8 million in a similar settlement a month later. A case against Willkie Farr is pending. (Bryan Vess, a San Diego plaintiff's lawyer trying the case against Willkie Farr, did not respond to a request for comment. Nor did Patrick Swann, Jr., a partner at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps defending the firm.)
Since then Aguirre's successor, former local judge Jan Goldsmith, has told Watchdog that Aguirre's litigiousness contributed to a spike in San Diego's legal expenses and insurance rates. Goldsmith claims that Aguirre lacked confidence in his own lawyers, hired expensive outside lawyers, and made insurers nervous with his "sue happy" mentality.
One firm singled out by the Watchdog Institute for its billing rates is Latham & Watkins. Watchdog reports the firm has received $18 million for work it has done for San Diego over the past eight years, charging up to $750 an hour for its services.
Goldsmith also told Watchdog that when he took office in 2008 he was shocked by the amount of money being spent on outside counsel at firms like Latham.
"It was huge, and it was obvious that we had to rebuild the law firm...and make it to a point where we have confidence to handle these cases in-house," Goldsmith said. "It was a terrible waste of taxpayer dollars to use Latham & Watkins essentially as a division of the city attorney's office."
After Aguirre was voted out of office in November 2008, The Am Law Daily reported that Latham's role as "most-favored-firm status could be jeopardy." Goldsmith described the hourly rates charged by Latham lawyers as "outrageous," and noted that attorneys from his own office made only $49 an hour. Goldsmith told Watchdog he negotiated Latham down to $550 an hour on cases the firm already was handling, ones in which it would have been more costly to start over with new counsel.
A Latham spokesman disputed the hourly rates stated by Goldsmith, telling Watchdog that the firm's discounted hourly rates were closer to $400 per hour, with the current city attorney likely citing figures billed by senior lawyers at the firm. Latham noted its success in recovering legal fees from insurance companies for the city.
"A primary reason why municipal clients engage a firm of the caliber of Latham & Watkins is that we often save them money in the long run," the firm told Watchdog. "The total collections from insurance companies equal or exceed the amounts billed by Latham to the city for work since January 1, 2005--with approximately $18.5 million collected to date." (Latham stood by its statement to Watchdog when contacted by The Am Law Daily.)
Despite the firm's successes, Latham's yearly billings for San Diego have decreased from $11.9 million in 2009 to $2.7 million through October of this year, according to the Watchdog Institute report. Aguirre told Watchdog that the city council--not the city attorney--is responsible for hiring outside counsel. Latham, he told Watchdog, was first hired under his predecessor, Casey Gwinn.
"Isn't it funny how two years later it's still my fault," Aguirre said. "The idea of trying to blame me even two years later is so ludicrous. That just shows you how desperate they are."
The City Is Losing Institutional Knowledge on the Chargers Issue
...The City Is Losing Institutional Knowledge on the Chargers Issue
More than just football fans should be concerned about Michell's departure and how it fits into the unrelenting Chargers debate.
Downtown stadium or not, the city has to do something about the Chargers. The city loses $12 million a year operating Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley, money that otherwise could pay for police, fire, parks and library services.
Why does the city lose that much money? Because past city officials failed in their negotiations the team. The city struck such a series of bad deals with the Chargers that the team essentially gets free rent and can leave town whenever it wants while the city bleeds tax dollars.
Michell, Rath and outgoing downtown redevelopment head Fred Maas all were key figures in the city's current talks with the team. Soon they'll all be gone — though the city could hire Maas back as a consultant.
Whomever takes that trio's place will be going up against a team attorney who has worked on stadium issues for eight years and in his recent spare time has advised on other crises involving one of the nation's largest private financial institutions, Lance Armstrong's doping allegations and the divorce case with the fate of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the balance.
Five Things to Know About Kris Michell's Departure
December 8, 2010
by Liam Dillon
1. The Mayor's All Grown Up
Yesterday's departure of Kris Michell, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders' top political aide, came with many things left undone...
"I think she was critically important to the mayor," said Phil Rath, a former city policy advisor who is now a lobbyist. "She was intimately involved in all of the major issues. She was the mayor's point person for pretty much everything that is a major issue in our time."...
2. She Was the Mayor's Link to the Downtown Establishment
...Still, Sainz agreed with the premise that Michell provided the link between the Mayor's Office and the downtown establishment.
3. Expect the Mayor to Hire a Political Expert
If Michell was the city's most powerful person you knew nothing about, her replacement Julie Dubick is a little less of a mystery.
She's an attorney, former partner at downtown law firm Seltzer Caplan and has worked as assistant director of the U.S. Marshals Service and with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C. She ran unsuccessfully for school board in 2000. Her biography from that time notes that she was the highest-ranking woman in federal law enforcement when she worked with the Marshals Service.
Dubick joined Sanders' staff when he took office in 2005. Her legal background has allowed her to give the mayor guidance independent of the City Attorney's Office. Rath said Dubick was one of the top lawyers in the city.
"We never trusted (former City Attorney) Mike Aguirre's legal advice because we always thought it was political advice," Sainz said. "Julie provided the legal perspective."
[Maura Larkins comment: Baloney, Mr. Sainz. Julie simply provides the interpretation of the law that suits your agenda.]
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Adding to the Porkfest's Questions
Adding to the Porkfest's Questions
by Randy Dotinga
Voice of San Diego
December 7, 2010
Downtown's redevelopment agency devoted quite a bit of effort to keep the public from seeing an early version of a report justifying its future existence.
The agency stonewalled our requests under public records law, but finally relented and released the draft of a report that aimed to determine whether downtown San Diego was still blighted - rundown - and needed billions in public money to help it recover.
"The study in its current form does nothing but add to burgeoning questions about the deal's legitimacy and the core mission of redevelopment agencies," writes City Hall reporter Liam Dillon.
All this comes in the wake of the secretive late-night pork-barrel deal in Sacramento that greatly extended the life of the redevelopment agency and circumvented the public process that this study was supposed to kick off.
by Randy Dotinga
Voice of San Diego
December 7, 2010
Downtown's redevelopment agency devoted quite a bit of effort to keep the public from seeing an early version of a report justifying its future existence.
The agency stonewalled our requests under public records law, but finally relented and released the draft of a report that aimed to determine whether downtown San Diego was still blighted - rundown - and needed billions in public money to help it recover.
"The study in its current form does nothing but add to burgeoning questions about the deal's legitimacy and the core mission of redevelopment agencies," writes City Hall reporter Liam Dillon.
All this comes in the wake of the secretive late-night pork-barrel deal in Sacramento that greatly extended the life of the redevelopment agency and circumvented the public process that this study was supposed to kick off.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Randy "Duke" Cunningham regrets guilty plea
Disgraced ex-congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham regrets guilty plea
Nov 22, 2010
CBS Channel 8 San Diego
SAN DIEGO (CNS) - In his first media interview since going to prison, Randy "Duke" Cunningham said he regrets pleading guilty almost five years ago to conspiracy and tax evasion charges, and that he did so on the advice of his lawyers when he was physically and emotionally weakened.
The former GOP congressman from Rancho Santa Fe is serving eight years and four months in the Federal Corrections Institution in Tucson after admitting to taking $2.4 million in bribes from two defense contractors in exchange for steering government contracts their way.
During the nearly hourlong interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune, he also said his visitors have included former Republican Reps. Duncan Hunter of Alpine and Ron Packard of Carlsbad but his only family member who has come is his son. He said his wife, whom is in the process of divorcing him, and their two daughters do not communicate with him.
The 68-year-old former Navy fighter pilot also told the newspaper he fears the prostate cancer that caused him to drop nearly 100 pounds during the scandal has returned.
Upon his sentencing in 2006, Cunningham told a judge his decision to plea guilty was not made under duress. But to the Union-Tribune this month, he said he was pressured by lawyers who said it would costs millions to fight the charges and he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Those lawyers could not be reached for comment, according to the newspaper.
Nov 22, 2010
CBS Channel 8 San Diego
SAN DIEGO (CNS) - In his first media interview since going to prison, Randy "Duke" Cunningham said he regrets pleading guilty almost five years ago to conspiracy and tax evasion charges, and that he did so on the advice of his lawyers when he was physically and emotionally weakened.
The former GOP congressman from Rancho Santa Fe is serving eight years and four months in the Federal Corrections Institution in Tucson after admitting to taking $2.4 million in bribes from two defense contractors in exchange for steering government contracts their way.
During the nearly hourlong interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune, he also said his visitors have included former Republican Reps. Duncan Hunter of Alpine and Ron Packard of Carlsbad but his only family member who has come is his son. He said his wife, whom is in the process of divorcing him, and their two daughters do not communicate with him.
The 68-year-old former Navy fighter pilot also told the newspaper he fears the prostate cancer that caused him to drop nearly 100 pounds during the scandal has returned.
Upon his sentencing in 2006, Cunningham told a judge his decision to plea guilty was not made under duress. But to the Union-Tribune this month, he said he was pressured by lawyers who said it would costs millions to fight the charges and he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Those lawyers could not be reached for comment, according to the newspaper.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)