Quick Links for Nov. 12th

No witty intro this time around (so, you know, business as usual), but chew on these Quick Links while we have fun testing out this new (to us a least) mobile WordPress app. Apologies in advance for the increase in typos.

Schwarzenegger to canal opponents: “I’ll be back…tracking”

After absent-mindedly announcing that the much-maligned peripheral canal is a virtual lock to be built while in Stockton last week, Governor Conan the Barbarian is backing off those comments this week by claiming that “canal” might not be the right word to describe the project. After 40+ years in this country, Arnold’s language comprehension has finally progressed to the point where he understands semantics. It truly is a red letter day.

Instead of using a canal, our future President (according to Demolition Man) told the Fresno Bee editorial board that the state is also looking into boring a tunnel to SoCal using a machine not unlike one seen in Total Recall (or the one Shredder and his henchmen use in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon).

We’re skeptical of the practicality of the idea, but after mulling it over for a bit we actually think the Governator isn’t taking this idea far enough. State Assemblyman Bill Berryhill mentioned recently that the proposed canal would be wide enough to accommodate cruise ships, can you imagine how bad ass it would be to float down an underground tunnel (preferably on the top of a gold bar-filled dump truck ala John McClain in Die Hard with a Vengeance)?

Or we could take a cue from the southerners the water would be shipped to and turn it into the world’s longest amusement park ride. One section could be constructed with a Pirates of the Caribbean theme and the stretch that navigates through the Sierra Nevada mountains would be perfect for a Splash Mountain-esque log ride.

Imagine how much money something like that could bring in. The construction costs could be paid off within the decade and we’d be well on our way out of debt. We need to approve this now just to begin the end of lengthy, partisan budget delays.

After that we hope Gov. Schwarzenegger starts work on a plan that would benefit all of California, figuring out a way to recreate the 3-boobed chick from Total Recall. Then we can work on melting the ice at the Earth’s core to patch the hole in the atmosphere.

Hey look at that, dissent!

Just 2 days after we called the Record out for its one-sided analysis of the prison hospital(s), the letters to the editor section (still the only place you can publicly comment on Record/local issues by the way) is dominated by letters in support of them. We’re not vain enough to take credit for this (OK, that’s a lie), but we are happy to see both sides of the argument finally represented in the paper. Granted, it’s in the least credible part of the paper (aside from Tony Sauro’s music previews), but at least it’s something.

Ol’ Bulletpoint’s kind of rusty at this whole effort thing

We mentioned this on our Twitter account but it warrants repeating here. Sports editor Bob Highfill has been on a tear recently after relying on a column consisting of short bulletpoints for about as long as we can remember. It started last week when he penned a column about overzealous PA announcers at high school football games and another on the new Cougars owner. We said it jokingly last week but apparently it rang true, when it rains it pours.

Highfill continued the trend this week by eschewing his weekly Tuesday bulletpoint column for yet another column dedicated to one topic. Unfortunately, this week’s topic was how he royally screwed up the Edison/West column. His transgression was misidentifying the announcer who botched the field goal call at the end of the infamous game. He assumed it was regular PA announcer Ray Harris when it was actually an unidentified replacement after Harris left his post in the 3rd quarter to tend to a family emergency.

How does one make such an error in judgment? Well, Highfill neglected to give Harris a jingle while writing the column. Go ahead. Read that again. The editor of the sports section decided he didn’t need to contact the person the column was about. And to think, my old editor used to give me shit for not getting clichéd postgame quotes from sweaty athletes in towels. Yet Bob Highfill couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone for comment from the catalyst of this entire story?

We said it on Twitter and we’ll say it again, maybe “Must B.” Highfill should stick with giving his opinion in short, 3-sentence bursts. If only so the Record can spend less time deflecting slam dunk libel suits.

Beggars can’t be choosers

A couple weeks ago when we got lazy and posted that e-mail we got about the prison hospital we didn’t really think much of it. News has been thin lately and we hadn’t posted in day or two so we slapped on some tenuous angle about the Record denying you the reader your voice and boom, we had an instant feature.

It worked out pretty well for us because we hadn’t touched on that subject yet and we always enjoy an opportunity to highlight how the internet provides instant feedback and such. Since then, plenty of prison hospital news has dropped and we have to say, the Record’s coverage of it has been kind of fishy.

Ok, maybe “coverage” is a bad word. The straight news coverage has been fairly even, although most of the news on the Stockton end is about how much we don’t want the hospitals. Of course, that’s to be expected when they dump a second one on you within a week, but we’ll get to that. The coverage of the story isn’t really that fishy, it’s the analysis of it. Specifically, it’s universally against the hospitals. Our reader Rob may have been on to something.

Let’s start where it always starts, with Mike Fitzgerald. 2 days after the initial story dropped that the original hospital was definitely for sure coming to Stockton, Fitzy went all doom and gloom spouting off all the talking points that you’ll have memorized by the end of this post. Most hilariously he bemoans the fact that the state will lure away top medical professionals from local hospitals with the rub being that the health care of the citizens will suffer at the expense of state-housed prisoners.

This claim is a knee-slapper because these local hospitals are presumably the same ones Fitzy was talking about when he said those same medical professionals were overpaid hacks. So, if we’re to believe Mike Fitzgerald, the state is going to overpay by up to 40% to take away our grossly overpaid doctors. Those bastards.

Of course, the shit really hit the fan when the state casually mentioned that they’re going to throw up a second prison hospital right next to the other one like 3 days after they came by to talk about the first one, which is an admittedly fucked up move. I mean, they were just here. Couldn’t they have slipped in an “Ohbythewayit’sactuallytwonotone” real quick while Doug Wilhoit and friends caught their breath? I mean, Jesus, they dropped that shit out of nowhere. With no warning!

Oh wait, what’s that totally hidden link you find when you do the super difficult search for Record articles on prison hospitals? Why, it’s an article Scott Smith did dated June 17th where that dick J. Clark Kelso who totally didn’t tell us anything until the last possible second talks about the possibility of San Joaquin County hosting 2 prison hospital facilities. Ok, so maybe we had a little warning. But still, 4 months isn’t muc…wait, does that say 2008?

Yes, that’s right. We knew there was going to be a possibility that we could get saddled with multiple prison hospitals over a year ago because that allegedly shifty court-appointed receiver flat-out told us so. That shady son of a bitch! Granted, that article was before they condensed it down to 2 hospitals instead of the 8 or so they had planned spread out amongst the state. But let’s face it, 2 prison hospitals are 2 prison hospitals. And as the Chamber of Commerce will tell you, any prison hospital is bad.

Of course, we’re not buying into that, but Record Editor Don Blount is (twice!). The big sticking point here is that a huge prison complex over by Arch Road would kill Stockton’s fragile economy. You’re probably already thinking what I’m thinking. Arch Road is part of Stockton? Yes, Arch Road is actually Stockton’s southernmost border, but it might as well be Lathrop because it’s in the middle of bum fuck nowhere.Hell, the only reason I know it’s there is because there’s a Burger King there and years of Rock Bottom World of Furniture jingles has etched that off-ramp into my brain. If our economy survived that ugly as sin yellow warehouse, we can survive a fucking hospital. It’s not like our rep can really get any worse.

That might be the most hilarious part of this whole thing. That somehow this prison is going to lower people’s opinion of Stockton even more. It’s not. Don’t get us wrong, we love the leaps and bounds Stockton has made just in the past decade. But nobody, and I mean nobody thinks Stockton and thinks “Oh yeah, you guys have that nice Marina and that Arena and a decent stretch of bars”. No, they think crime. They’re always going to think crime. They may be wrong, but it’s how it’s always going to be because frankly that’s always how it’s been. Those 2 vacated prison sites they’re planning on using didn’t spring up overnight. Shit, they just closed this decade.

Stockton has always succeeded in spite of its reputation. Did we have a good rep when someone decided to plant a giant movie theater in the middle of Downtown Stockton? No, but it was built anyways. We built an Arena and drew 3 minor league teams to the area as our crime rate was threatening to be (and eventually became) tops in the state.

We did all that shit with “bad” Stockton. Now we’re halfway-decent Stockton and we’re struggling. The economy’s down and unemployment’s way up. We need help. The state isn’t exactly a knight in shining armor but it’s something. Something we desperately need. In that Fitzy article we linked too earlier he was talking about how the hospital would do nothing for Stockton’s army of unskilled laborers, completely ignoring the fact that maybe we should get those motherfuckers skilled so they can go work in the God damn hospital.

Like we said, this whole thing isn’t ideal, but it’s not the worst idea in the world. Groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the City of Stockton are always going to be against ideas like this because it makes their jobs harder. It makes it harder for them to sell Stockton to outside businesses looking to settle in Stockton. Frankly, if a bunch of infirmed inmates housed on the outskirts of town scares them off they probably weren’t going to work out anyway. Stockton is always going to be a little rough around the edges, and when you bring in companies scared of that edge (like say, Paragary’s) it’s going to be a fight. If they’re not willing to fight, they probably weren’t suited for this place. If they ‘re willing to try we’ll welcome them with open arms and help them win that fight because, as we’ve stated countless times before, Stockton’s a town full of fighters.

So while we appreciate all the press this whole thing is getting, maybe the Record should look into playing Devil’s advocate and showcasing both sides of the coin. It’s not like they’ll be providing the jobs lost if this thing moves on down to Bakersfield.

Seriously though…

This was going to be an open letter to the construction on Pershing, but we’ve written enough letters to streets, so instead we’ll just bitch a little bit since not much went on this weekend.

So seriously, what the fuck is going on with Pershing Ave? Construction crews have been tearing up the exact section of it that I have to drive to get to work every day and have somehow made Stockton’s already shitty infrastructure even shittier. Pershing was never the smoothest street to drive down to begin with, but it was a lot easier to maneuver when there wasn’t a giant metal plate that has no chance of being flush with the asphalt laid across most of the right hand lane.

I was fine with this when the work first started. I assume it’s part of those Obama bucks we got for those “shovel ready” projects. But this shit started back in July and they don’t seem to be making any discernible progress. They still have to bump traffic down to one lane for most of the day to divert traffic away from whatever bullshit work they’re doing. Their trucks are tearing apart the already fairly beat up asphalt to the point that I’m pretty sure my front passenger-side tire committed suicide overnight a few weeks ago in anticipation of another day on  that abominable stretch of road.

I’m not arguing that whatever work they’re doing over there shouldn’t be done. I have no fucking clue what they’re doing over there. But whoever is doing it needs to hurry the fuck up and finish. I’m glad they have jobs and all but it’s November now, it’s getting to be a bit much.

So quit milking the clock and finish laying cable or whatever the fuck you’re doing. And while you’re at it, take some of that spare asphalt that’s filling in the temporary holes you’re making (very unevenly I might add), and fill in some of the pot holes you’re exacerbating.

Quick Links for Nov. 6th

This is going to be quick, it’s been a long day. Quick Links!

When it rains, it pours

Earlier this week we once again took record Sports editor Bob Highfill to task for not dressing like Fred Flintstone for Halloween once again mailing in his sports column by writing 2 sentence bulletpoints on random subjects instead of focusing, in-depth, on a singular subject. We used to do this a lot more but we kind of backed off when we realized we shouldn’t care that much about a section that we never read and shares its pages with the classifieds.

But it looks like our most recent bitching about the quality of the Sports section paid off because Bob Highfill finally found a subject in which he could write more than a couple of sentences about, the Edison/West football controversy. Ironically, his opinion somewhat mirrors ours. The Edison PA announcer blows, and any official making a call based on what that guy says if fucking stupid. Sure, he said it more diplomatically, but the point stays the same. Dude’s a PA announcer, not a play-by-play announcer. He needs to work on correctly pronouncing the opposing team’s mascot before he can even start to think about getting his Gus Johnson on.

Save the tits!

It’s that time of year again when the Stockton Thunder “go pink” to raise money and awareness for breast cancer research. Being a boob man, we can’t help but support this (my Aunt being a breast cancer survivor might have something to do with it too), even if holding a breast cancer event a week after Breast Cancer Awareness Month seems very …well, Stockton. Let’s just hope the ice stays frozen this time.

Alan Pettet continues being a jackass

Earlier this week there was some commotion over ADA-compliance suits after some douche from Sacramento sued Finnegan’s Pub and a barber. It brought forth a tweet-storm (oh no!) against the serial litigator and opened up some debate on the intent and enforcement of ADA laws. And then Dr. Claw (Our new supervillan nickname for Pettet)  came along and decided it’s the city’s responsibility to make sure he can get from the Marina to the Waterfront Warehouse. Thing is, he can get into the Waterfront Warehouse, he just has to go around to the front. Alan’s apparently too important for that and is demanding the City create an accessible ramp or something so he can get in through any door he pleases. Because, you know, that’s totally in the ADA code. Way to be self-centered media whore Dr. Claw. I’ll enjoy watching you fall on your face, both figuratively and literally as you try and enter the Warehouse through the rear.

Change we can believe in

One of the unheralded changes in the new, improved Record blogs has been an update, or in some cases the addition of, pictures of the writers to put with their words. In some cases, it was just as simple as retaking another standard headshot. Others went artsy and put up pictures of them plying their craft (and, surprise, it’s mostly the web team employing this method).And there were others, like LENS editor Robin Nichols, that we got to meet (in a way) for the first time. Unfortunately, there were others who neglected to take the opportunity to show an updated version of their face.

Fitzy apparently declined to show off that salt and pepper goatee he debuted at a SUSD Board meeting. We weren’t exactly clamoring to see what Lori Gilbert looks like nowadays considering we’re pretty sure her current pic was taken in 95. But there is one glaring omission that we were kind to looking forward to, and his name is David Siders. Or more specifically, David Siders’ beard.

You may not have known this, but his last headshot the Record’s City Hall writer has sprouted quite the facial garden. Legend has it that it just sprung up one day out of the blue and has stayed around ever since. We’ve always been big proponents of beards, myself having sported a neck curtain for a good chuck of my 20s, so we’d like to see Siders sport his proudly in his blog avatar.

Now, you can’t photograph David Siders’ beard without it giving you permission, so all we have to rely on right now is this artist’s rendering:

That’s pretty accurate, but your eyes just want to tell you it’s Chuck Norris striking a pose in a karate gi. It’s actually a drawing I did of David Siders hunched over his computer during a recent Council Meeting.

So please, whoever’s responsible for this stuff, free the facial hair. Let’s see that face fuzz in all it’s glory. Do it for us. If not for us, for ball cancer. But most importantly, do it for the people of Stockton, who deserve to see that we can trust a City Hall reporter with the gravitas to be a flannel shirt away from looking exactly like a lumberjack.

Small update: As Record reporter Daniel Thigpen pointed out to us on Twitter, we totally forgot to mention the addition of his beard to his Record blog headshot. We regret the error. An especially egregious error considering he was the only reporter to change their picture to include facial hair. Apologies to him and his awesome beard.

Breaking! Bob Highfill almost discusses a relevant, localish, and interesting topic in his column

Unfortunately Ol’ Bulletpoint only maintains this high level of journalism (well, high for him) for all of 2 bulletpoints. We’re not sure how a single subject warrants two bullets, but we’re not generously paid page editors, so what do we know?

The bulletpoints in question have to do with recent allegations levied against Raiders Head Coach Tom Cable by some ex-wives and, to an extent, ESPN. The long and short of it is that Cable’s jaw-jacking blow to Randy Hansen’s face wasn’t the first time the Raiders coach has gotten punchy. ESPN dug up Cable’s most recent ex-girlfriend and his first wife who both allege domestic abuse but didn’t press charges.

We’re not trying to make light of the situation, domestic abuse is a serious allegation and is downright abhorrent, but that didn’t stop the ESPN Outside the Lines feature from seeming like a total hit job. For one, Cable’s admitted abuse of his first wife was 20 years ago. Again, we’re not downplaying the severity of domestic abuse, but one would think there’s some kind of statute of limitations on these kinds of things. Why are we holding a guy accountable for something that happened in the 80s? He’s a football coach, not a politician.

The more recent allegations come from Cable’s ex and she isn’t exactly a stellar witness. For one, in the OTL interview, she apparently claims that Cable just hit her one day. Maybe it was just shoddy reporting by Colleen Dominguez but they really just dive right into it. Dominguez asks Cable’s ex when Cable first hit her and she claims he hit her at in a car parked at a restaurant. She gives no context (not that there’s any proper context to hit a woman), nothing. To the casual viewer it would seem Cable just punched her out of the blue.

We’re also skeptical of the second accuser because she’s a woman scorned. The last abuse she alleges is when she catches Cable with another woman and demands to see her and Cable tells her to get the fuck out while the accuser screams “I’ll fucking ruin you!” It’s not a real stretch to say their could be a credibility problem here.

But the biggest credibility problem is with ESPN. The alleged news network has no problem running this story just hours before the Raiders/Chargers game and even ran it again on Monday in case you missed it causing Raider fans to claim ESPN had it in for the Raiders. Obviously the Raiders are going to suck no matter what stories ESPN runs but for once Raider fans’ bitching wasn’t completely unfounded.

Earlier this year hotel employee Andrea McNulty brought a civil suit against Ben Steelers QB Rothelisburger for allegedly getting his Kobe Bryant on when she came up to fix his TV. ESPN didn’t report on the story for a few days after it broke, claiming a “long-standing” practice of not reporting on accusations against sports figures without a criminal case. Since Ben’s case was only a civil suit, ESPN felt it wasn’t a story.

Fast forward a few months later to this Cable story. Fairly old allegations of abuse, combined with zero criminal charges. Shit, there aren’t even civil charges, just words in divorce papers and a bitch with an agenda. Yet this is a total mega-story. Ben Rothelisberger, the most recent Super Bowl winning quarterback, allegedly rapes a girl during the offseason resulting in actual civil charges being brought against him. Not a story at all. It’s a good thing ESPN stopped pretending to be a news organization a long time ago. The Record is a news organization though, and it’s not surprising at all that their sports editor missed this major part of a story involving one of the local pro teams. It’s not like he has a weekly column in which he can opine on the world of sports in detail or anything

WTF Recordnet? (And Edison/West Football controversy stuff)

So I’ve decided to ditch the Quick Links I was writing to take issue with the Record’s new “improved” search feature. As you may have heard, some shit went down at the Edison/West football game last week. West made a game winning field goal and the refs missed it despite video Kirk Barron shot showing the ball clearly bouncing across the bottom crossbar (3:00 mark). The ref missed this because he apparently thought the E-House announcer shouting “No Good!” prematurely (as in, before it even passed the uprights) was enough for him and he stopped following the path of the ball. There were also some time clock shenanigans.

The CIF ruled earlier this week that since CIF rules state you can’t use video review in games, it doesn’t matter what the video says, the shit call stands. West High, very clearly, got jobbed. It’s a heart-wrenching story and it has garnered a fairly decent amount of attention. But for some reason the story is not on Recordnet.com.

It was in the Record, on Tuesday if we remember correctly. Might have been yesterday. But when we do a search for Edison West football controversy. Nothing pops up. We figure maybe the story didn’t use the exact word “controversy” so we take that out and search all stories about Edison West Football. Then Just Edison Football.Then West football. Nothing. Then we decided, “You know what? Let’s just search ‘football’ and sort it by date. We’ll just scroll back through all the football stories until we get to the one we want. Jack shit. I’m not sure how we can further simplify our search.

The only place we can find something about the controversy on a Record site is a blog post Kirk Barron did the day after game on the Record’s Sports blog. So we ask, WTF Recordnet?

Before we go, I just have to add that going on the E-House announcer’s word that the kick was no good is an abysmal error in judgement. I’m not a HS Football fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I just happened to be at the Edison/McNair game last week which was also hosted by Edison (my brother plays for the Eagles) and the announcer was one of the worst I’ve ever heard. I don’t know if he’s a student or some handicapped dude like Radio, but he’s awful. He never got the names of the players right and he actually teased the West game by saying that the “Willed Cats” were coming the next week. Yes, he called the West Wildcats the Willed Cats, as if they were tabbys with resolve. How the fuck do you take that guy’s word on something that’s going to decide the game and possibly your officiating career if he’s wrong?

If Edison had any intestinal fortitude they’d forfeit this game. They lost. It was there fault. And they know it. Make it right E-House.

Mailbag dump!

It’s been a week since the Record finally upgraded their somewhat archaic blogging platform for the sweet land of WordPress and they still have yet to check the box allowing comments. Normally we wouldn’t care because things of substance are rarely revealed in blog comments, but Recordnet is still “updating” it’s forums which leaves Letters to the Editor as the only real way for their readers to publicly espouse their opinions. And that’s just bullshit.

Part of the point of having a web presence is the ease of consumer feedback, with the current commenting limitations in place, the Record is effectively controlling what feedback you see. That may not be their intent, from what we’ve heard they actually are just updating their forums, but regardless it’s the result.

And it’s a sad result really, Recordnet has been making an effort if the past year or so to increase reader interaction with its writers through live chats and blog/forum comments and this is an unneccessary and completely avoidable step backwards after some much-needed progress.

We hate to see such a limited discussion of not just The Record, but Stockton as a whole. Short of starting your own blog, The Record’s really the only place where you can publicly state your opinions on local issues to a wide-ish audience (unless you feel like shouting into the cavernous abyss that is Twitter). And we intend on changing that.

Since the Record’s limiting your commenting ability, if you got something to say on local issues that isn’t making the Record’s rather restrictive cut on the opinions page, send it our way. We’re not encouraging an all out rejected Letters to the Editor feature so please don’t send us letters about how the city spent millions of dollars on downtown redevelopment while they cut the tree trimming service that, in hindsight, seems pretty important. But we’ve always wanted this place to be somewhere where real Stocktonians can come and state real opinions because that’s what Stocktonians do, we keeps it real.

So here’s our first letter/comment/whatever from reader Rob who has an opinion on the proposed prison hospital. The letter is sic’ed (we too wonder who Dennis Wilhoit is) and doesn’t necessarily reflect our opinions. And since we didn’t write it, it’s bolded.

 

Just wanted to bitch about something thats been on my chest and cant seem the get the Record to publish it as a letter to the editor.

So, several things have been bugging me lately about the so called officials from the City of Freakin Stockton, San Joaquin County and even the Chamber of Commerce (who the fuck is Dennis Wilhoit). The State’s Federal Receiver for the prisons wants to bring a Hospital for prisoners’ to one of the old abandoned prisons’ here in the Stockton Area (between a landfill and the airport). Everyone of these groups has come out against the idea of having this hospital here in Stockton, “its a bad idea for Stockton and the area”, “it will take much needed Healthcare professionals away from the private hospitals” “it will bring with it, the families of the prisoners” etc, etc, etc.

Boo fuckin hooo! Did these same officials come out against bringing a V.A. hospital to the area? No, these same officials who are worried about “loosing healthcare professionals” actually went out and fought to bring this hospital to the area! What? Double speak much? So its really not about healthcare professionals at all now is it?

The same officials are always talking about how we need to bring more of an “educated workforce to the area” ie; more non blue collar workers. These people supposedly bring with them an acceptance of art and all the other hoity toity bull shit that only comes from these types of educated people..WTF. They also want to bring more money, (Mo money mo money) and jobs to the area. Am I to understand that brining 3000 jobs and pumping $300 MILLION (Stkn Record 10/25/09) wouldn’t do just that…. Prision Guards, Dr.’s Nurses, Janitors, Book Keepers, Grounds Keepers, Cooks, Chefs, and so many other jobs its impossible to list them all here! All of these employees would generally live in the area and spend there salaries here creating a tax flow to the area unprecedented by the other major employers in the area. What would it do to improve the unemployment rate? People with jobs always tend to improve areas, they bring other jobs and businesses that support the hospital/prison. They bring uniform companies selling uniforms the the employees, catering companies, more employed people in our community means more money flowing through the whole city and county! We NEED jobs locally, I for one am tired of having to commute out of the area for a decent paying job. My friends are unemployed and need jobs. My favorite local restaurant needs more customers who have some expendable cash so they don’t close. The pathetic malls need to fill some empty voids.

Bring on the Hospital/Prison, bring on the jobs, bring on the hoity toities, show me the money!

Rob
“Those who deny the freedom of others, deserve it not themselves.”
Abraham Lincoln

Quick Links for Oct. 26th

Sorry for the infrequency of posts lately. I’d explain why but it’s not all too interesting. So we’ll just move on and pretend we haven’t been slacking the last couple week. We highly encourage you check out Rod Villagomez’s 24-hour Rant-a-thon where, if we understand the concept correctly, he’s going to get his Stephon Marbury on (and unfortunately, not a truck party). We hope to make it to Finnegan’s for his halftime show at 8, but until then Quick Links!

So the third and final strike conveniently comes on the last pitch thrown?

Our “Mike Fitzgerald is jabbering on about downtown redevelopment” senses were tingling when we woke up yesterday, and sure enough, there was Mike Fitzgerald making an ass out of himself in the Record.

In his latest offering, he bemoans the soon-to-be opened Marina’s inflated operating costs (which are mostly attributed to security costs) as another setback of sorts for publicly funded redevelopment and it’s all Ann Johnston’s fault or something. So yeah, same song, different verse.

This time? The City’s inability to turn a profit at the Arena, Ballpark, Bob Hope, and (coming soon!) the Marina shows we can’t redevelop well (no shit) and that we should turn redevelopment over to private firms, because they’ve totally been successful so far. Of course, Fitzy being Fitzy, he’s very selective in how he applies the term “private-sector entrepreneur”. When we think private-sector entrepreneur we think of, well, anybody outside of City Hall who decides to open up a business. Mike Fitzgerald apparently only thinks of the successful ones. Which is pretty rich considering he just wrote about a failing private sector entrepreneur a fucking month ago.

We’ve maintained for a while now that the city-owned venues aren’t going to be money makers. That’s not their intended goal, at least initially. These venues are the foundation (albeit an incredibly shaky one, which happens when foundations are built too quickly) for downtown redevelopment. They draw people downtown to the local businesses opened by the private sector.

Fortunately, Fitzgerald somewhat concedes this point. Private businesses opening up is the next step, but it’s always been the next step. Saying the city botched things so badly that we have to turn things over to outside interests is just dumb. Things have been badly botched but we haven’t struck out like a giant metaphorical Mighty Casey. If anything we’ve been hit by a pitch. That pitch being IFG’s piss-poor ability to book decent acts.

The catch is, that pitch that beaned downtown revitalization was partially thrown by private investors themselves! Places like Paragary’s, The Sheraton/Lexington/Whatever, and Sunset failed to do the proper market research to be successful. And it pains us to lump the Sunset in with the group because we liked that place but it’s true. We just barely now found out when the Marina’s official open date was going to be (it’s Friday). If that private-sector entrepreneur had just taken the time to call City Hall to double-check the open dates for the parking lot and marina her business was dependent on, her business might still be open today. Shit, the Marina named a start date fairly soon after that column came out, who’s to say they can’t change their mind?

So yeah, the private sector’s redevelopment batting average isn’t any better than our own. Turning the reins over to them isn’t going to do us any better. The solution, as it’s always been, has been a mixture of public and private involvement. Ironically, the downtown amenity that caused Fitzgerald to come to the conclusion that privately owned businesses are the only ones that can be monetarily successful is the multiplex, which is a public-private partnership.

So, in essence, Fitzgerald’s saying the City needs to give up on its redevelopment plan and let the private sector take over, at the precise moment in the public-private downtown revitalization partnership plan where the private sector takes over and starts making tax dollars. He even mentions the City’s convening entities like the Downtown Alliance and the Conference and Visitors Bureau (Hi Wes!) to figure out the next step in this plan. All very convenient, all very lazy. Although, I guess I’m not the one to be making laziness accusations.

Don Blount sees that he’s repeated himself in print, doesn’t think much of it

Hey, remember that time a bunch of bikers (the non-motorized kind) were in Stockton? That was kinda cool if you had the day off from work, were into bike riding, and were into it enough to stand for a few hours to watch a bunch of dudes in tight shorts ride by in 6 seconds. And hey, Lance Armstrong drove by!

Well, the AmGen tour hasn’t been back since. That was 2007. In 2008 when Stockton didn’t make the cut, Don Blount wrote a column complaining about it. When it happened again this year Don Blount wrote a column complaining about it, then realized he wrote that column a year ago. Now, most men in this position would realize they wasted a lot of time and would start working feverishly on whatever backup idea they had. Not D.W. No, Donald W. Blount decided it would be a great time to do a mashup and do a “The more things change, the more they stay the same” column.

We’re not saying the AmGen Tour dissing us isn’t a big deal, but it’s a news story, not a column. We already read the column a year ago. If we’re going to pitch a fit every time we get dissed by these guys, well, we’d better be ready for a lot of lazy mashups (again with the lazy claims).

Teen Slave update!

Hey look, details of the case against “Kyle’s” accused ummm, beaters(?) are surfacing. OK, well, one of the accused is refuting Kyle’s testimony. Granted, it’s the most randomly involved of all of the accused, but it’s always nice to see someone claim that a 16-year old kid getting hit the legs by an adult so hard there’s bruising does “not constitute ‘great bodily injury.’” I wonder what their thoughts on baseball bat branding are. Stay classy guys.

OK, that’s it from us today. Hopefully this week’s better than the last couple.

Playing catchup

Sorry again for the break in regularity. I think it’s safe to say the days of us posting every day of the week are over. That’ll still be our goal, but those still expecting that to actually happen will be disappointed. At least until we get some more writers (as always, e-mail us, we could use the lightened workload).

Anyways, these last couple days haven’t been without news, so let’s tackle it in an old school no headline Quick Links fashion.

So that Johnny Ford meeting happened. You know, the one we likened to Custer’s last stand? Well, that was sadly wishful thinking as this thing will drag on and waste our tax dollars for at least another 2 weeks. I could get all pissed off and write about how this underwhelming Council once again put off even the most basic decisions (albeit slightly controversial), but at least they had a good reason this time. It’s Interim City Manager Kevin O’Rourke’s first week and legally, he’s really the only one who can decide whether or not to hire Johnny Ford back. Sure, the Council could appoint him to some special position or something, but we all remember Ann Johnston’s unneeded stand she took on that. Still, David Siders opined in his blog that this was Ford’s most likely road to reinstatement. So yeah, we doubt he’s coming back. Way to delay the inevitable. (Which is apparently the Ford camp’s current strategy)

As always with these things, you really should go to David Siders’ blog for the more detailed play-by-play of the meeting. Also because, if you haven’t noticed yet, they finally revamped the Recordnet blogs! And they’re WordPress! Yup, they finally vaulted themselves into the 21st century by updating their host! At first glance it seems OK (hooray being able to search blog posts!). Sure, there are a few issues. Comments being disabled is the big one. Sure, we’ve had our fair share of fun at the expense of their commenters, but the forums are gone. They’ve left them no place to comment!

And that’s inexcusable because WordPress makes comment moderation insanely easy. We should know (we have commenters occasionally! Swear!). They even have a built in spam filter. WordPress makes comments easy, so the Record should have no problem implementing them soon.

The other slightly annoying issue is the fact that the blogs are on a completely different website than the Record. They’re a part of esanjoaquin.com which is a site I had only previously heard of because I got stuck behind a bus once. We’ll save you the trouble, it’s not a very good site. They have great blogs though! Navigating between blogs has never been easier, only it’s at the expense of widening the gap between the blogs and the rest of the news on Recordnet.com when they should be doing everything they can to close that gap. But hey, progress!

That’s it from us today. Probably more tomorrow. We’d write more today, but it’s nice out and we feel like taking advantage of that before the weather turns to shit (Ok, well California’s version of shit weather). Enjoy mowing through our pingbacks Recordnet staff!