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San Diego International Auto Show arrives with auto industry in flux | Rob Nikolewski Jan 02, 2020

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As car buffs ring in the new year with the 2020 edition of the San Diego International Auto Show with the latest makes and models, the auto industry seems to be going in multiple directions at the same time: sales of sports utility vehicles and trucks continue to surge, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in California are trending up but so is the average price of a new vehicle. "If someone told me, 'I want to be buy a car and I want to keep it for 20 years,' it's kind of difficult to answer because I don't know that we have any idea of what a car is going to look like or how it's going to perform in 20 years," said Richard Newendyke, the auto show's chairman and executive manager at Kearney Mesa Infiniti. "Automobiles are still a very personal selection." For years, sedans have dominated the California auto market. "Cars are king," was a longstanding motto among Golden State dealers but in recent years, SUVs and pickup truck (designated as light trucks in the industry) have moved into the fast lane. Nationally, registrations for SUVs and pickups surpassed car sales years ago and sedans in California managed to hang on to a slight lead. The tipping point came in the second quarter of 2018 when the New Car Dealers Association of California reported registrations of 514,470 in light trucks compared to 512,826 for the first six months of that year.

2019 was the year that San Diego's dining scene shone | Michele Parente Jan 01, 2020

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Christmas came early to San Diego this year. Back in January, we made our first visits to the recently opened restaurants Jeune et Jolie in Carlsbad and Fort Oak in Mission Hills. Simply put, we were blown away. And it was apparent, just weeks into 2019, that the region was about to experience a bar-raising, watershed year for dining. And the gastronomic gift kept giving. Animae, Il Dandy/Arama, Morning Glory, Cesarina, International Smoke and Rare Society were among the dazzlingly delicious newcomers that helped make this one of the most exciting culinary years in memory. With a critical mass of first-rate eateries, San Diego is finally shedding its restaurant also-ran status and emerging as a bona fide dining destination. From strip malls to historic neighborhoods, homespun fare to boundary-pushing creations, Convoy Street to Carlsbad, Little Italy to La Jolla, North Park and beyond, nearly every opening tasted like a step forward.

A new law requires corporate boards to have at least one woman on them | Mike Freeman Dec 31, 2019

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Thanks to a flurry of last-minute appointments, most of San Diego County’s publicly traded companies have complied with a California law requiring at least one woman on their boards of directors by the end of 2019. Out of approximately 90 publicly traded companies in the county, only one has yet to name a female board member based on Union-Tribune research: Biotech Tracon Pharmaceuticals. The company did not respond to Union-Tribune emails or phone calls seeking comment. Tracon still could appoint a women to its board on the final day of the year. San Diego cannabis-industry landlord Innovative Industrial Properties, for example, said it planned to announce on Dec. 31 that it has added a female director to its board. In October, the San Diego City Attorney’s office sent letters to 19 San Diego firms that hadn’t complied with the law based on data from the Secretary of State’s Office. Since then, most firms have either added women to their boards or merged with other companies based elsewhere, sometimes outside of state. “We are glad to be able to alert companies,” said Deputy City Attorney Marni Von Wilpert. “City Attorney Mara Elliott has said our city needs more women to bring their problem-solving skills and inclusive mindset to positions of leadership. This is one opportunity to do that.” The city attorney plans to check compliance again in January.

SEALs described Gallagher's war crimes to investigators as "psychotic" | Andrew Dyer Dec 27, 2019

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Navy SEALs who were never called to testify in the war crimes trial of Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher told naval criminal investigators about behavior they witnessed, including the alleged stabbing of a wounded ISIS fighter that led to murder charges against Gallagher. The two SEALs were granted immunity to testify in the trial this past summer, but were never called to the stand. Their interviews with criminal investigators will be available for streaming today on Hulu, on “The Weekly” from The New York Times. It will be broadcast on FX on Sunday. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service conducted the SEAL interviews more than a year before the San Diego court-martial of Gallagher, who was charged and acquitted of several war crimes, including murder.

Pacific Beach residents call for curfew for Fanuel Park a.k.a. "Felony Park" | David Garrick Dec 27, 2019

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A large group of frustrated Pacific Beach residents is lobbying for a curfew for Fanuel Park, which is frequently called “felony park” because of the drug dealing, prostitution, bicycle thefts and other crime there. Residents launched their campaign for a nighttime curfew shortly after San Diego approved curfews in March for five other city parks facing similar problems with drugs, vandalism and illegal activity. More than 500 local residents have signed a petition in support of a curfew that would be in effect from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. The parking lot adjacent to Fanuel Park is already closed from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Police say curfews can be an effective crime-reduction tool because they limit opportunities for illegal activity and provide officers with another enforcement tool.

Christmas special: One death, one life and a heart that beats for two families | Peter Rowe Dec 25, 2019

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A singer, songwriter and guitarist, David Ponder knows the importance of a strong, steady beat. But this was ridiculous. “My heart now, it’s so strong,” said Ponder, 60, a Poway resident who in August 2016 underwent a successful heart transplant at Sharp Memorial Hospital. “The first night home, it was beating so hard it woke me up.” This Christmas, David Ponder is dazzled by the gifts he’s received from strangers: a life-sustaining organ and a life-enhancing relationship. He’s alive because a car wreck killed a man he’d never met, Coronado’s Juan Carlos Lopez, 26. When surgeons removed Lopez’s heart and transplanted it in Ponder’s chest, two families were stitched together in sorrow and joy. Months after the surgery, Ponder visited Lopez’s mother. The bond was instant.

She survived a fall off the Coronado bridge. Now she’ll meet the man who saved her. | John Wilkens Dec 25, 2019

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Sometimes her life feels like one of those photos from the days before digital cameras, when images got bathed in trays of chemicals and came slowly into focus. Bertha Loaiza wants to see the whole picture. She has no memory of the day when she was 3 and her mother picked her up and stepped off the side of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge. She may have been asleep. She survived the 240-foot fall into the water, but her mother didn't, and as Bertha recovered from serious eye and leg injuries, she got it into her head that a car accident was to blame. Kids have active imaginations, especially when the grownups don't say otherwise, and in the grandmother's house where she grew up, nobody talked about what really happened on Aug. 4, 1985. Then, when she was 17, she came across a VHS tape with news coverage of the suicide and the "miracle" child, the first person ever to plummet into the bay and live. "That looks like me," she said of the footage showing a little girl in a hospital bed surrounded by dolls, letters and stuffed animals sent by well-wishers from as far away as Mississippi. She watched the tape over and over, 100 times maybe, and put together the pieces. Her mother, 24-year-old Angelica Gomez, parking a green Ford Pinto mid-span on the bridge. Two fishermen pulling them out of the water. Doctors speculating that she survived because her mother held on to her all the way down and took the brunt of the impact. But finding out the truth only raised more questions, none more troubling than this: "Why did she take me with her?"

Army officer returns home to see his mother before she is deported | Kate Morrissey Dec 24, 2019

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The Cruz family’s home on Thursday evening could have been the scene of any family reunited for the holiday season. The grandchildren played in the yard with their uncle, an Army officer who had returned home that morning. The grandmother doted on the youngest, a toddler. The air inside her home’s newly erected wooden fence echoed their laughter. But mixed in with the joy of togetherness was the knowledge that right after the holidays, the family matriarch Rocio Rebollar Gomez, 50, will have to leave the United States. Rebollar Gomez is waiting for a miracle, her only remaining option after all legal avenues for keeping her in the United States have been exhausted. But she believes it will come before Immigration and Customs Enforcement requires her to leave the country on January 2.

How Sacramento shifted $13.5B of future wildfire costs to consumers | Jeff McDonald Dec 21, 2019

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San Diego Gas & Electric executives spent 10 years seeking permission to charge customers hundreds of millions of dollars for company losses due to three backcountry wildfires started by its equipment in 2007. Lawyers for the power monopoly were thwarted at each turn — first by regulators, then by a state appellate court, the California Supreme Court and finally, in early October, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case. The judges all concluded that SDG&E should not be able to recover $379 million in damages left over from the Witch, Guejito and Rice fires. Investigations showed that the three wildfires were the result of negligence and mismanagement committed by the utility — a finding the company never conceded. In reaching their decisions, the judges relied on what's known as the “just and reasonable” standard — the rule that utilities can only pass along to customers those costs that fairly serve consumers’ interest. It has been a cornerstone of California energy regulation for more than 100 years. Under Assembly Bill 1054, which was introduced, passed and signed into law within a matter of days over the summer, the legal standards have changed.

3 years and $18M later: Why this new city building stood vacant for so long | Jeff McDonald Dec 20, 2019

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Nearly three years after Mayor Kevin Faulconer agreed to a 20-year rent-to-own arrangement to take over an office tower at 101 Ash Street, the first city workers have begun moving into the remodeled office tower in downtown San Diego. The full migration of some 1,130 city workers will be completed in mid-January, and more than 100 planning department and information technology employees began moving in on Monday and are scheduled to relocate by the end of this week. The original goal was for city workers to move into the building two years ago. Now officials say the move is keeping up with a revised plan from August 2018. “We’re on time and within budget as we begin moving city employees into the building this week,” said Johnnie Perkins, one of the city’s deputy chief operating officers, in an email Monday. “This is really a long-term investment for the city that will save tens of millions of taxpayer dollars over time, create more effective and efficient work spaces for city employees and significantly improve customer service with a new home for Development Services.”

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