What's Going On This Week

Booze banned on beaches. Too bad.

Foreclosures are up 328%

The Governore decided he's pro-toll road.

Another Tijuana police official murdered. And you thought TJ was sketchy...

From the Left. Or the Right?

Steve Francis officialy entered the race for Mayor.

But, instead of the old 'no new taxes' Republican mantra, he seems to be trying to get some more votes from the left.

Makes sense, with more resgistered Democrats than Republicans in the county and no Democrat running for Mayor.

Of course...

Still, he criticized the mayor's support for gay marriage -- saying Sanders inappropriately let his personal relationships with his daughter and staff members cloud a policy judgment.

State of the City

Mayor Sanders made his State of the City speech today.

He plans to expand the Convention Center and add new ports of entry.

Of course...

In last year's speech, the mayor promised it would be "a year of action." At that point, he expected the city to have its credit rating back and return to Wall Street by summer 2007. The city remains stranded from Wall Street and that goal carried over again into this year's speech.

And it sounds like the Mayor may not have heard the word from the Governator that we're in a bit of a 'budget crunch'.

Fire Tech

It turns out when there's a fire going on, people aren't at home, they don't have access to computers and sometimes electricity gets cut off. Imagine that.

A panel was held to discuss better alert systems.

“Make sure Web site capacity is beyond your wildest dreams. Ten million hits is something we never imagined,” said Ron Lane, director of the county's Office of Emergency Services.

I don't know. I would imagine that during an emergency people might log onto the website for emergency services.

International Day of Action to Shut Down Gitmo

Apparently San Diego will be observing the International Day of Action to Shut Down Guantanamo.

So, if that's your thing:

Friday, January 11th NOON - 1pm
In front of the San Diego Federal Bldg and Courthouse
880 Front Street (near Broadway)

San Diefo Unified's Awesome Plan

San Diego Unified used $3Million in federal money that was suppose to go to low-income students for retiree benefits instead.

And how are they going to pay back that money?

"They're going to have to figure out where that money is coming from," said Camille Zombro, president of the San Diego Education Association. "But it's not coming out of [retirees'] pockets."

Way to focus on the big picture.

But, what is possibly even more stunning, was the district's plan that originally encouraged these people to retire by offering 7% of their salary on top of the regular benefits.

The $84 million plan was intended to save schools as much as $20 million a year by replacing long-serving, higher-paid workers with less experienced, lower-earning educators.

The offer proved so enticing that nearly 1,500 school workers quit in a single year -- almost 10 percent of San Diego Unified teachers.

And how do they pay for the retirements of these experienced teachers? By taking money from different child development, nutrition, Title 1 and ELL funds.

No, no, that was definitely a good idea. Especially since schools aren't about helping kids...

Gay-la

Happy New Year to all and in the spirit of parties:

Lake Tahoe's Second Annual Blue Gay-la

Five-Day Gay and Lesbian Celebration Includes Skiing, Snowboarding, Parties, Drag Races and Headliner Entertainment

Not sure whether I feel offended or inclined to go...