Saying he has no other choice because San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre has yet to rule on the legality of City Council's most recent budget vote, Mayor Jerry Sanders just vetoed council's budget resolution from last week that saved libraries and recreation centers from the budget ax.

Aspiring young writers: We are looking for you. voiceofsandiego.org is proud to announce its first ever high-school essay contest. One gifted San Diego County junior or senior will receive a $2,500 college scholarship for their efforts answering one of these three questions:

Former City Councilman Michael Zucchet could be a contender to take the top job at the Municipal Employees Association when General Manager Judie Italiano leaves the post next year.

Several San Diego Unified school board members are boycotting segments of an important educational conference, citing a labor boycott of the Manchester Grand Hyatt in downtown San Diego.

The Southeastern Economic Development Corp. recently released a 10-page document that outlines the changes it plans to make to its organizational structure, policies and procedures and operations in the light of a scathing audit of the agency released earlier this year.

The discussion of whether to close under-enrolled schools to save money in San Diego Unified has been quiet so far, handled by a superintendent's committee that meets roughly every other week. But nobody expects it to stay quiet: Closing schools is among the most controversial steps a school district can take, and the ultimate decision must be aired to the public and approved by the school board. And the worries are already surfacing from grassroots community groups.

A San Diego City Council committee recommended moving forward with a ban on plastic bags at grocery stores and pharmacies by a 2-1 vote this morning.

A Poway teacher won $25,000 from the Milken Family Foundation today, a rare award that was presented by state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell. Only four California teachers will receive such awards this year, and up to 80 teachers will get them nationwide.

Esteban Nuñez, the 19-year-old son of former state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, was one of four men arrested in Sacramento today in relation to the Oct. 4 stabbing death of 22-year-old Luis Santos in San Diego.

Tuesday came and went without resolution as to whether San Diego City Council's vote Monday on the midyear budget cuts was legal, and time could be running out.

It has been a ranking-happy day for San Diego: We are the 7th least affordable city for families according to Forbes.com, the 2nd most popular city to relocate to, according to a BusinessWeek survey, and one of our local universities, San Diego State, ranks 2nd nationwide among research universities for the number of students studying abroad, according to a report on international educational exchange.

I noted in the caption for this photo that plastic bags like this one line Chollas Parkway in the Oak Park neighborhood of San Diego.

A teacher resigned from the Keiller Leadership Academy board last night in another sign of tensions at the noted charter school, one of the few middle schools in the state to shed a punitive federal label under No Child Left Behind.

San Diego City Council voted today to save six community service centers and three painters from Mayor Jerry Sanders' budget ax, a vote that was later declared illegal by Sanders' office.

This story from Saturday's edition of the Bakersfield Californian is an interesting look at how police departments in California investigate shootings by their officers.

KPBS reporter Ana Tintocalis just did an interesting take on the question of whether San Diego Unified is overdoing testing, bringing in a student, parent, teacher and several school district administrators to give their perspectives.

Kelly Bennett has a really interesting installment of "People at Work" today, which is probably one of the most timely pieces the series has seen.

Councilman-elect Carl DeMaio on Monday made it clear how he would have voted (and probably will vote in the future) on Mayor Jerry Sanders' proposed budget cuts.

Conspicuous in his absence from Monday's all-important City Council vote on San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders' proposed budget cuts was Councilman Ben Hueso.

San Diego City Council made it clear Monday that it wanted to keep open -- at least for several months -- libraries and recreation centers that Mayor Jerry Sanders had slated for closure in his budget cut proposal.

E-mailWatch has ended. The Centre City Development Corp. recently turned over one final batch of e-mails sent or received by its former president, Nancy Graham.

The Washington Post takes a look today at the growing danger for journalists covering the drug cartels in Mexico.

The San Diego Superior Court will reduce its business hours starting Dec. 1 as a result of reduced funding, according to a press release just put out by the court. The court will open for one hour less a day, closing at 3:30 p.m. each day instead of 4:30 p.m.

A couple of scenes from Monday's San Diego City Council meeting on the budget cuts that didn't make my story:

I just spoke with chef Brian Malarkey, who was the subject of this weekend's Q&A. I wanted to ask him a quick follow-up question about his rather snarky comments about a fellow chef, Carl Schroeder, who's the executive chef and owner of Market in Del Mar.

As I pointed out in my story today, if you'd invested $1,000 in Lee Enterprises, the parent company of the North County Times, at the stock's peak in 2004, it would have been worth $29 on Friday.

The San Diego City Council this afternoon voted 6-1 to reject nearly all of Mayor Jerry Sanders' unpopular proposals -- including the closure of libraries, recreation centers and reduction of fire crews -- to help close a $43 million midyear budget gap.

My post on Friday regarding City Council members opposing Mayor Jerry Sanders' proposal didn't include much information on what council members want to cut instead of libraries and recreation centers.

You have probably been breathlessly awaiting the second installment in my (very) occasional series called "Obscure School Policies You Didn't Know About, and Probably Will Never Have To." My first installment was about the intricacies of renting schools for bingo.

My colleague Scott Lewis, who's been spending about half his life on the radio and television recently, appeared on National Public Radio's "On The Media" this past weekend.

Chef Brian Malarkey, who was the subject of our Q&A this weekend, just e-mailed over a recipe for Thanksgiving stuffing.

A Washington Post commentary about the controversial Washington, D.C. school Superintendent Michelle Rhee mentions three former San Diego Unified superintendents, Carl Cohn, Alan Bersin and Tom Payzant, two as positive examples and one as a cautionary tale. Though it is addressed to Rhee, the piece could also be of interest to current San Diego Unified Superintendent Terry Grier, a fast-moving reformer frequently at odds with the teachers union and the new principals union, now faced with a new majority on the school board.

San Diego Magazine this month lists voiceofsandiego.org editors Scott Lewis and Andrew Donohue in its "The Powers to Be" feature story on San Diego's young leaders.

I've been calling San Diego City Council members over past day or so to get a sense of where they stand on Mayor Jerry Sanders' proposal to close libraries and recreation centers, reduce the number of fire crews in the city and cut back police and fire academies. These are all crucial parts of a sweeping package of cuts Sanders proposed to close a $43 million midyear budget gap.

Here's a fascinating tidbit I just didn't have space to fit into my story today about shoplifting:

A draft audit of San Diego Unified gave the school district a clean bill of health, with only six problems noted. That is an improvement over the last audit, which noted 13 problems, all but one of which have now been addressed, according to auditors.

San Diego Unified just scored a $125,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to develop programs that link schoolwork to the workplace, but also prepare them for college.

Doug McCalla announced today his retirement as chief investment officer of the city of San Diego's pension fund.

Forbes.com published an interesting commentary today on the small high schools that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation created across the country -- including in San Diego Unified, where one such school is trying to secede from the school district as an independent charter school. The efficacy and affordability of small high schools has come under fire as budget cuts bear down on San Diego Unified.

The Centre City Development Corp. today unanimously approved a new policy that will require its next president to submit to a rigorous forensic financial analysis of his or her financial interests.

No salary increases and no bonuses for the Centre City Development Corp.'s 55 employees this year.

David Wescoe, the administrator of the city of San Diego's pension fund, showed up at today's City Council budget hearing and said there is no reason to panic over the staggering stock market losses suffered by the city's pension fund in recent months.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders made it clear right off the bat at the budget hearing going on now that he is not happy with Independent Budget Analyst Andrea Tevlin's recommendation to put off his proposal to close libraries and recreation centers in the face of a $43 million budget hole.

School board member Mitz Lee just informed me that San Diego Unified will continue to grant physical education credit for Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps and for marching band, despite a new state law that requires all physical education classes to be taught by staffers with physical education credentials. Board president Katherine Nakamura has complained that the law could dissuade students from taking marching band and JROTC, potentially crippling the programs. Lee said that the board voted unanimously this morning to keep granting credit for the classes and fight the law.

The San Diego County Regional Fire Authority, a fire department that will cover almost 1 million unincorporated acres in the county, is now officially open, according to the Local Agency Formation Commission, which approved the creation of the body last year.

In about an hour, San Diego City Council will hold a second hearing on Mayor Jerry Sanders' proposed budget cuts. This gives us just enough time for a deadline post of more reader budget suggestions.

San Diego Unified is threatened with a roughly $40 million budget cut this school year under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to winnow $2.2 billion from California schools in the middle of the year, district staffers told the school board today. The cuts could include reductions in childcare programs, principal training, class size reduction funding, and the elimination of cost-of-living increases.

The Centre City Development Corp.'s board will consider at 1 p.m. whether to require its next top executive to submit to a rigorous financial audit to ensure that whoever is chosen to replace its former president does not repeat her mistakes.

Alex Kajitani, the Escondido teacher who was recently honored as one of five California Teachers of the Year by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, has now been selected as the sole California teacher to vie for the National Teacher of the Year. The winner will be selected by a panel convened by the Council of Chief State School Officers, according to O'Connell's press release.

You might be curious about just how much time it takes for those San Diego Unified tests I wrote about last week. Many teachers have complained about the time consumed by district-required testing, while testing advocates have countered that the benefits of using data in the classroom are worth the time. But how much time are we actually talking?

The North County Times today laid off 25 newsroom staffers -- a significant reduction of about 25 percent in its news staff. Nine other employees were laid off companywide, constituting about a 10 percent overall reduction in staff size.

I can't help but posting a funny coincidence: Today at the City Council meeting there was a presentation on the implementation of automated external defibrillators. One of the presenters was Maureen O'Connor, but not that Maureen O'Connor, the former mayor of San Diego. This O'Connor was the project coordinator for San Diego Project Heart Beat, the AED program being discussed today.

The San Diego Unified school board approved a proposal Tuesday night to hire an outside group to help craft evaluation criteria and procedures for school principals, despite complaints about its cost and objections from the principals association.

San Diego Gas & Electric got a boost today in its push to build the Sunrise Powerlink, a $1.9 billion power line proposed to connect San Diego and Imperial counties.

Today the San Diego Unified school board will consider a year-long $250,000 contract with an outside firm to develop new ways to evaluate principals. Under the leadership of Superintendent Terry Grier, the district has already started using a new method to interview principals, also from an outside company. It is one of several contracts up for approval by the San Diego Unified board that could fall under a ban on spending and contracting proposed by board member Shelia Jackson.

Independent Budget Analyst Andrea Tevlin is recommending that San Diego City Council vote to keep libraries and recreation centers open at least until the city does a comprehensive review of all its facilities. A total of seven libraries and nine recreation centers are slated for closure as part of a package of midyear budget cuts that Mayor Jerry Sanders has proposed to close a $43 million budget deficit.

Federal prosecutors have opened a grand jury investigation in the wake of the Southeastern Economic Development Corp.'s bonus scandal, subpoenaing computers and the public agency's computer server.

San Diego's City Council today voted to approve two water-rate increases, including a temporary hike that will fund a pilot study of sewage recycling.

I'm back again with more reader-generated budget cut ideas. I received a detailed list of ideas/comments from a reader who is particularly well-versed on how the city operates, and wants to remain anonymous -- we'll call this person "Deep Budget."

The New York Times has this front-page story today on voiceofsandiego.org and the emergence of nonprofit news websites.

A quick tidbit from my colleague David Washburn that didn't make it into today's story on Gaylord's withdrawal from Chula Vista:

The Southeastern Economic Development Corp. is reviewing consultant Angela Harris' billing records to the agency "to determine what, if any, action to take" in the wake of our story today examining her role at the agency, according to a statement SEDC spokesman Alexis Dixon just e-mailed me.

Gaylord Entertainment Company today notified Chula Vista officials that it would be scrapping its plans to build a convention center complex on the city's bay front.

Just because all the news recently has been about the city of San Diego's budget woes, doesn't mean that the county of San Diego is in the clear. Not in the least. On Friday, County Chief Administrative Officer Walter F. Ekard sent an e-mail to county employees telling them to expect the worst.

Angela Harris, whose work as a consultant for the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. is examined in my story today, isn't the only consultant to have received no-bid contracts from SEDC that were not discussed or approved by the agency's board.

California schools are no longer allowed to let school staffers other than licensed nurses to give diabetic students their insulin injections, under a Superior Court

Last week, in the midst of reporting on the coming budget cuts, I asked for your ideas on how the city of San Diego could close its $43 million budget gap without closing libraries and recreation centers among other things.

If you're looking for a visual representation of San Diego's latest round of crime stats, look no further.

The overall number of violent and property crimes reported to the San Diego Police Department continued to drop in the first nine months of 2008 compared to the first nine months of 2007, though the number of homicides increased and the number of rapes reported rose by 34.3 percent, according to SDPD statistics.

San Diego City Council is holding a public hearing at 2 p.m. today to consider a water-rate increase to fund its planned pilot study of sewage recycling.

One more thing before we leave for the weekend: Marti Emerald's lead over April Boling has expanded slightly with the counting of about 1,600 more votes in the District 7 City Council race.

The normally adversarial relationship between Mayor Jerry Sanders' office and Independent Budget Analyst Andrea Tevlin has become more intense under the glare of the budget crisis.

Curious how other school districts in the county compare to San Diego Unified when it comes to standardized testing after my story today? So was I.

Rather than cutting libraries, recreation centers and junior lifeguards, why doesn't Mayor Jerry Sanders just do what all the big Wall Street boys have been doing when they find themselves swimming in red ink -- call up Hank Paulson and ask for a dollop out of his $700 billion honey pot?

A Centre City Development Corp. panel has picked Ernst & Young as the preferred company to reevaluate the financial analysis underlying a proposal to build a new City Hall.

One of the most popular alternatives to shuttering seven libraries offered at Wednesday's City Council hearing on Mayor Jerry Sanders' proposed budget cuts was to keep all libraries open, but reduce library hours.

Former San Diego Union-Tribune editorial cartoonist Steve Kelley is suing the newspaper, accusing its higher-ups of pressuring his replacement to not work with him on a joint comic strip.

To combat child obesity, California passed a new bill that tightens requirements for gym classes, requiring that any class that counts for physical education credit be taught by teachers with physical education credentials. That has flustered students taking marching band and Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, who will no longer get physical education credit for their classes next year.

San Diego City Councilman Tony Young, still fuming over council's vote Monday to appoint outgoing Council President Scott Peters to the San Diego Unified Port Commission, called me to reiterate some strong feelings he has about the top job on council.

Just noticed an interesting item on the agenda for the San Diego Unified school board next week: Trustee Shelia Jackson is asking for an immediate freeze on all spending in the school district, "including but not limited to funding, spending, and external hiring."

In my article on teacher complaints about the amount of standardized testing in San Diego Unified today, I touched on the point that some of the tests are not actually required by the school district, yet teachers have repeatedly called them "mandatory."

In what could be a final blow to outgoing City Attorney Mike Aguirre's flagship pension lawsuit, the Fourth District Court of Appeals has dismissed the city's appeal on procedural grounds, according to the court's website.

The U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission awarded an $88 million contract to an Arizona company to upgrade a plant that collects and treats 25 million gallons of Tijuana's sewage.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell chose an Escondido elementary teacher as one of five California teachers of the year. His name is Alex Kajitani, a math teacher at Mission Middle School in Escondido Union School District.

Since June, an outside group has been scouring the San Diego Unified budget to evaluate whether it could save more money and run more efficiently, and its findings are nearly ready. A report from the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, a Bakersfield-based advisory group, is expected within the next few weeks, said school board president Katherine Nakamura. The group was contracted nearly five months ago at a $55,000 cost.

We had a fun and lively night of political banter last night at voiceofsandiego.org's post-election panel, examining the local election results and discussing what lies ahead in San Diego's future.

A quick editor's note: The original cutline for the photo on today's front page incorrectly stated that the budget deficit faced by the city is for next year. The budget deficit is for the current year. We regret the error.

The Copley Press has laid off more than half of the newsroom employees at Today's Local News, a weekly publication that serves part of North County in conjunction with The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Special deliberations on Mayor Jerry Sanders' emergency budget cut package began this afternoon with City Council members taking aim at outgoing City Attorney Mike Aguirre, who has gone $1.8 million over budget in the current fiscal year. Most of Aguirre's excess spending has come in the form of salaries for positions that were not budgeted for.

This chart my colleague Sam Hodgson just put together based on this news tells an interesting story:

Even when an emergency $43 million midyear budget cut is factored in, the city of San Diego will still have a $44 million general fund deficit next fiscal year (2010), which could balloon to $96.5 million in fiscal 2011, according to a worst-case scenario presented in a new five-year budget outlook published today by Mayor Jerry Sanders' administration.

Anyone want to manage the $2.1 billion facilities bond that voters just approved to fix up San Diego Unified schools? The district is advertising for an executive director who will coordinate repair and construction work, work with advisory committees, and report back to the school board about how the bond is being managed. The salary is undecided. Oh -- and you have to have a California driver's license and be unflustered by "walking over rough or uneven surfaces at construction sites and during inspections."

Wow. Check out the little image our media partner NBC 7/39 created to link to my colleague Rob Davis' blog post yesterday about Brian Maienschein comparing Michelle Obama's dress to the complaints about Council President Scott Peters' selection to the Port Commission.

Have you noticed an uptick in testing at your child's school? Teachers in San Diego Unified have complained that new tests required this year by the school district -- not by the state -- are taking up too much class time and stressing out their students without helping teachers to tailor their instruction. Testing proponents say that such exams can help show gaps in teaching and target interventions to the weakest students.

City Council President Scott Peters and incumbent Commissioner Laurie Black were both appointed today to the Unified Port of San Diego's board.

City Councilman Brian Maienschein wasn't going to say anything. But after several critics came forward to lambaste the council for thinking about appointing Council President Scott Peters to the Port Commission, Maienschein told his colleagues he had to speak.

The City Council is currently debating whether to appoint Council President Scott Peters to the Unified Port of San Diego's board when his City Council term ends later this year.

Charter school franchise High Tech High is expanding once again, this time to North County, where a new middle school will serve roughly 300 students beginning next fall.

City Attorney-elect Jan Goldsmith has sent all employees of the City Attorney's office a memo that introduces himself and asks each individual to outline what they have been working on, and what they would like to do at the office.

In another blow to former Southeastern Economic Development Corp. President Carolyn Y. Smith, a judge today issued a preliminary injunction against the agency barring it from issuing a $100,350 severance check to Smith.

Curious what $18,426 of office furniture looks like? So were we.

Centre City Development Corp. Chairman Fred Maas said this week that furniture ordered by the agency's former president, Nancy Graham, will be returned to its broker for sale at market value.

San Diego County Office of Education spokesman Jim Esterbrooks said the slides and handouts from a special education presentation that were criticized as inflammatory and discriminatory by parent Jackie Husson were presented as myths about special education -- not the reality of how special education operates.

Training materials from the San Diego County Office of Education have sparked a complaint from a local parent who said the training was "ridiculous and inflammatory" and would encourage schools to discriminate against families of special education students.

Here's an interesting tidbit lost in the mayor's big announcement yesterday:

The Centre City Development Corp. will spend $344,000 on the performance audit ordered by Mayor Jerry Sanders.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders today announced a sweeping package of proposed cuts to programs and services that would result in more than 100 layoffs and touch just about every department in the city.

I just got an interesting press release: Students at Gompers Charter Middle School in Chollas View are celebrating the election of Barack Obama today with an all-school assembly to discuss the election and to watch the speeches of Obama and John McCain.

Greg Cox, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, said this morning that the county will likely suspend a $10 million taxpayer-funded grant program next year that has been criticized as a slush fund used for rewarding supporters.

The State Water Resources Control Board voted 4-0 this morning to restore up to $1.9 million in funding for beach water quality monitoring programs in San Diego and throughout the state.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders on Wednesday afternoon will make public his proposals for cuts to city programs and services in order to close a $43 million midyear budget deficit. Sanders and other city officials have indicated that the proposed cuts will be drastic, and likely include the shuttering of libraries, the elimination of entire programs and significant layoffs.

San Diego Unified school board member John de Beck got into some hot water earlier this fall after he told a television reporter that low test scores at Lincoln High School were caused by a lack of motivation at the school, and that nothing had changed at the school since it was demolished and rebuilt.

The Wall Street Journal has this story today that takes a look at how the plummeting economy is hitting police and other public safety departments in cities in California.

Once the fancy of so many national publications, the city of San Diego's pension problems have gradually gone off the media radar since the scandal hit full-tilt near the middle years of this decade.

Ramona Unified school board president Bob Hailey said that a letter to the editor in which he and two other Ramona school trustees urged voters to support two candidates for the board was not a violation of California open meetings law, as a fellow board member and an open government expert have contended.

San Diego Gas & Electric's proposed Sunrise Powerlink won't be built as it was originally proposed through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

The Union-Tribune newsroom's second in command, Todd Merriman, has resigned effective Nov. 7. While Merriman is not as well known as the newspaper's editor, Karin Winner, many inside the newsroom consider him to have had as much, if not more, influence over the paper's direction and news coverage in recent years.

A published letter from three Ramona Unified school board members that threw their support to two of the seven candidates vying for seats is "strong evidence" that the board members violated California laws on open public meetings, according to a public records expert.

I spent yesterday afternoon reading through 1,321 e-mails that the Centre City Development Corp. released that had been sent or received after April 1 by its former president, Nancy Graham. I've been fighting for the last three months to get the public documents from CCDC.

When the Centre City Development Corp. moved its offices this summer, its former president, Nancy Graham, spent $18,496.24 on new office furniture.

Four San Diego County school districts will receive funding for emergency repairs from the state, California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell announced today. Escondido Union schools will get roughly $1.7 million, San Diego Unified about $1.1 million, Chula Vista Elementary schools $170,000 and Oceanside schools almost $17,000. Roughly $16 million in emergency repair funding was provided to schools statewide, divvied up by the State Allocation Board, which decides how to divide state bond proceeds and other state facilities grants.

Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 | San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders took time out of his budget cutting Thursday to talk with me about those efforts. For those who don't know, Sanders earlier this month used a speech to the San Diego County Taxpayers Association to announce the immediate need for $43 million in mid-year budget cuts. And that could just be the beginning of the city's woes.

No surprise: The water forecast for next year looks dry.

The executive director of the San Diego Unified teachers union, Dick Gale, is leaving the union to return to the California Teachers Association, with which the San Diego Unified union is affiliated. Friday will be his last day on the job.

It's taken two months of almost constant hounding, more than a dozen blog posts, pressure from the mayor of San Diego and dozens of phone calls, voicemails and e-mails, but, this morning, the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. finally handed over virtually un-redacted copies of Corporate Counsel Regina Petty's legal bills.

Nearly two years since San Diego County voters killed the idea of moving the airport to Miramar to handle projected capacity problems at Lindbergh Field comes this from The New York Times:

For my Monday story about the criticisms facing water conservation, I talked to Judi O'Boyle, a North Park resident who's trying to save by irrigating her back lawn less often.

The Mayor's Office will be calling the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. and asking officials at the agency to abide by the California Public Records Act when it comes to providing copies of Regina Patty's legal bills, mayoral spokeswoman Rachel Laing just told me.

Following the advice of some sage readers, we've recently begun sending out a fairly regular e-mail alert in the afternoons/early evenings. The P.M. Update, as it's called, pulls together all the new content we've added to the site throughout the day and delivers it together as one package to your e-mail inbox.

The Centre City Development Corp., the downtown redevelopment agency I've been arguing with for three months now about the status of a public records request, has a new policy for submitting those requests under the California Public Records Act, the state law that entitles the public to access government records.

More than twice as many San Diego Unified students took the Pre-Scholastic Aptitude Test this school year compared to last -- a jump from 7,497 tests to 16,687 tests, according to Chief High School Improvement Officer Nellie Meyer.

The teachers union is urging educators in San Diego Unified schools not to sign an ethics code that it complains was not developed with union input. It is among several San Diego Unified decisions that have been contested by the teachers union as bargaining proceeds between the two parties.

OJR, an online journalism publication put together by USC and UC Berkeley, published a story featuring us yesterday. Here's a snippet:

Former Southeastern Economic Development Corp. President Carolyn Y. Smith won’t be getting a $100,350 severance check from the city of San Diego until "several serious questions have been answered" about whether she is entitled to it, a spokeswoman for Mayor Jerry Sanders told me.

Day 22 of Petty Watch and I still haven't received the full legal bills I requested from the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. on Sept. 4.

I heard this morning from Ruth Harber, a Valley Center resident, who offered some insight to what effect the cuts in supply have had on her life. Many Valley Center residents who grow avocados have seen a 30 percent cut in their water supply, the result of a cutback from the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District.

The San Diego Union-Tribune's circulation decline continued this year, with the paper reporting a 3 percent drop in daily subscribers for the most recent reporting period, Editor and Publisher reported. That compares its circulation in the six months leading up to September 2008 with the same period a year ago.

Former Southeastern Economic Development Corp. President Carolyn Y. Smith's controversial golden parachute, which is the subject of a lawsuit brought by local activist Ian Trowbridge, appears to have been taken apart, then stitched back together, according to this letter from SEDC Corporate Counsel Regina Petty to Trowbridge's lawyer, Cory Briggs.

San Diego Unified is slated to consider an $80,000 contract with statistician William Sanders and the North Carolina-based SAS Institute Inc. to crunch numbers on student testing over the school year.

It was an uneventful day in court Friday for the La Jolla Children's Pool seals.

Day 19 of Petty Watch and Brian Trotier, interim president of the Southeastern Economic Development Corp., is defending the agency's decision to redact most of the pertinent information from Corporate Counsel Regina Petty's legal bills.

The State Water Resources Control Board, the state's water pollution police, will consider Nov. 4 whether to restore funding for beach water quality testing in San Diego and other coastal California counties.

Here's a snippet from the blogosphere for all you education nerds: One of the senior editors of the American School Board Journal is skeptical of an idea floated by Superintendent Terry Grier to offer more diplomas at different levels to curb the dropout rate in San Diego Unified schools. San Diego Unified already offers an alternative diploma that requires fewer classes, but it is only promoted to older students who are far behind on class credits.

The southernmost stretches of San Diego County got mixed marks in a recent report on child safety and health by the South County Economic Development Council and its partners. Compared to other areas in San Diego County, South County had the lowest percentage of babies born underweight and the lowest percentage of youth who had never seen a dentist, according to the report.

Derek Danziger, the Centre City Development Corp. spokesman, called this afternoon to say his agency would release Nancy Graham's e-mails next week -- not in late November and mid-December, as CCDC attorney Gus Lamanna told me yesterday.

Good news for San Diego Unified schools: The federal government will give the school district an additional $1.6 million in funding for students from military families next school year.

The research and advocacy group Children Now gave San Diego County a "C" grade for the wellbeing of its children in a series of California scorecards released today.

The Centre City Development Corp.'s attorney, Gus Lamanna, just provided three estimated dates for when the agency will release Nancy Graham's e-mails that we've sought.

A federal judge just gave the Children's Pool seals a temporary stay of dispersal.

I had a date yesterday to review former Centre City Development Corp. President Nancy Graham's e-mails, which were finally being made public after nearly three months of waiting.

A federal judge will decide today whether to issue a temporary restraining order that would keep the city from having to disperse the colony of harbor seals at the Children's Pool in La Jolla.

We grabbed five first-place awards at last night's San Diego Press Club awards. Here's a quick list of the first-place awards with links to the stories (the awards are for stories that ran from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008):

One bit of context didn't make it into my story today about the potential for San Diego Gas & Electric's Sunrise Powerlink to avoid crossing Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

The New York Times has this story today looking at the federal government's plans to beef up the border fence at the Friendship Park.

It's Day 16 of Petty Watch and we're still waiting to see Southeastern Economic Development Corp. Corporate Counsel Regina Petty's detailed legal bills.

School administrator Michael R. Hazelton, who has overseen three charter schools with financial problems or alleged conflicts of interest in four years, is now advertising a tutoring center to North County charter schools and aiming to open on Nov. 1.

A San Diego Superior Court judge this morning made it clear that the city of San Diego must disperse the seals from the Children's Pool in La Jolla, but he put off -- probably until Friday -- issuing an order that it be done immediately.

Could lowering the bar for graduation for some students, as Superintendent Terry Grier has suggested doing through a system of tiered diplomas, help cut the dropout rate?

I wrote today about San Diego Unified mulling where to set the bar for graduating -- or whether it would be better to have more bars, setting different standards for different types of diplomas.

Animal rights activists are planning to show up in San Diego Superior Court on Tuesday to protest a lawyer's motion that the city of San Diego immediately disperse harbor seals at the Children's Pool in La Jolla.

The story told by James Spring, who I interviewed for this weekend's Q&A, was so remarkable that my editor Andrew Donohue wasn't sure we could believe it.

If you're looking for tips on ways to conserve water in your landscaping, the Water Conservation Garden at Cuyamaca College is holding a series of presentations at a gardening festival this Saturday.

Lani Lutar has returned to her same position as president and chief executive officer at the San Diego County Taxpayers Association after only six weeks as the vice president of public policy at the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Last night, I had my first chance to speak with Southeastern Economic Development Corp. Corporate Counsel Regina Petty, who has not provided complete records of her billing for work she does for SEDC, despite a California Public Records Act Request which has been pending since early September.

The Southeastern Economic Development Corp.'s board of directors has chosen Brian Trotier, founder of the real estate, finance and management consultancy firm The Terrasys Group, to be SEDC's interim leader as the agency searches for a new president.

One of the schools-within-a-school at Crawford High School, the School of Community Health and Medical Practices, is considering splitting from San Diego Unified as a charter school.

The San Diego Ethics Commission found today that Sunroad Enterprises executive and former city employee Tom Story didn't violate the city's post-employment lobbying laws in his work for the company, which built the infamous office tower in the flight path of Montgomery Field.

San Diego Unified, the California Department of Education and the federal Department of Education have reached an agreement on what, if anything, the school district will repay to the federal agency after its investigators concluded that San Diego Unified misused more than $3 million in funding for low-income children, child nutrition and other programs on a bonus for retirees without getting approval from the U.S. Department of Education beforehand.

I just got back from the Centre City Development Corp.'s downtown offices, where I was told that documents were waiting for me in response to a July 25 California Public Records Act request I filed.

San Diego Unified must pay $300,000 under a settlement with the federal government over how the school district used more than $1.7 million in National Science Foundation funding. Board minutes identify the disputed funds as the Urban Systemic Initiatives grant, which is aimed at improving math and science achievement in urban school districts.

So, on Day 10 of Petty Watch, we received legal bills from the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. for work done by its corporate counsel, Regina Petty.

San Diego Workforce Partnership CEO Mark Cafferty just told me that city and county taxpayers will not have to contribute to the first installment of the $1.1 million that the Partnership owes the Department of Labor.

City Hall was consumed with the specter of budget cuts today, a day after Mayor Jerry Sanders disclosed a $43 million mid-year deficit.

The San Diego Workforce Partnership will have to pay back $1.1 million to the U.S. Department of Labor, as part of a settlement with the federal agency that grew out of a years-long probe of the partnership's mismanagement of grant dollars.

The U.S. Attorney's Office today filed this superseding indictment today against the five former city of San Diego pension officials who were charged in January 2006 for their alleged roles in the city's pension scandal.

City Attorney Mike Aguirre has filed two more criminal charges against former Centre City Development Corp. President Nancy Graham, alleging that she broke the law by participating in negotiations about the massive Ballpark Village project.

Monday, after the dire budget forecast San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders issued in a speech to the San Diego Taxpayers Association, Councilman-elect Carl DeMaio vowed to propose a mid-year cut of 5 percent to the City Council's budget.

Day 10 of Petty Watch and still nothing from the Southeastern Economic Development Corp.'s Corporate Counsel Regina Petty, who is still stonewalling me. But members of SEDC's Board of Directors aren't happy that I haven't received the records I asked for more than a month ago.

Governance policies aimed to quell public infighting on the San Diego Unified school board do not seem to have done the trick in the wake of another contentious board meeting where one school board member called for an investigation of another.

The San Diego Unified school board voted tonight to abolish a policy that barred its members from publicly making negative comments about their superintendent and staff after the policy received heavy criticism. The board also removed a policy that dissuades them from undermining board decisions when speaking publicly.

A billionaire mogul with Democratic ties might be the best hope for those who want the GOP-leaning San Diego Union-Tribune to take a turn to the left.

Cory Briggs, a local activist attorney, just wrote this letter to Southeastern Economic Development Corp. Board Chairman Cruz Gonzalez asking for copies of Regina Petty's legal bills. Briggs states in the letter that he's acting on behalf of his client, community activist Ian Trowbridge.

In a rare major speech, Mayor Jerry Sanders this afternoon said the city's current budget suffers from a $43 million deficit and, for the first time, offered to be a leader in the Chargers' quest for a new football stadium.

Day Nine of Petty Watch, which officially began last Monday, and there's still no response from Southeastern Economic Development Corp. Corporate Counsel Regina Petty about whether she will make her legal bills available.

Activists who oppose the use of rifle ranges in San Diego Unified high schools for Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, a military science class, are ramping up their campaign again and planning to protest at the school board meeting today.