Win Some

LOSE SOME: With the baseball season less than half over, and our Padres alternately swimming and then sinking slowly in the West, it might be time to start looking forward to an exciting new Chargers season. It might—if you lived in Las Vegas. With the city of San Diego up to its armpits in debt, our pension deficit up to $1.4 billion and our potholes taking on the dimensions of manholes, our mayor has effectively sent our professional football franchise packing. We simply can’t afford them anymore, says Jerry Sanders. Oh, they’ll still be around, for a while. But excuse the fans for not whipping themselves into a frenzy for the blue and gold. Let them move to Chula Vista, says Sanders, or Oceanside. Maybe Bonsall. And if that doesn’t work, talk to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. You remember Oscar. Big-time lawyer. Former mouthpiece for the mob. Coronado condo owner. Helped keep a San Diego mayor out of the slammer. Oscar’s just itching for an NFL team. Probably envisions some system where the betting windows are right next to the nachos stands. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue would love that. He won’t even let NBC’s Las Vegas show be promoted during NFL games. So, what would life be like for a Charger in Sin City? Well, contract negotiations should be simpler. No protracted bargaining; no season-long holdouts. The team could just make you an offer you couldn’t refuse. Want to build a new stadium? Just borrow some money from the “cocktail waitresses.” Come to think of it, no need for Dean Spanos to build a state-of-the-game football stadium. The lobby of the new Wynn Hotel ought to work nicely.

MONEY GAME: Okay, we can’t afford a football team. We still can’t get an audit of our city’s finances. We can’t be sure of securing bonds for maybe another year. The mayor’s been told to lop $400 million or so off his $3 billion city budget. And Inc. magazine says we’re one of the “Hottest U.S. Cities for Doing Business.” Again. In fact, we’ve moved up a couple of notches since last year, when we were No. 22. This year, we’re in at No. 20 among major U.S. cities. Of course, this isn’t about how well our politicians manage our money. We already know about that. This is about how our local businesses manage their resources. And it’s mostly related to job growth. Here’s what Inc. has to say: “San Diego—Construction crews have been busy with new hotels, condos and homes. Action in biotech and telecom (Qualcomm is based here) has sparked a boom in services, which has added some 10,000 jobs since 2000.” Maybe we should turn City Hall over to Qualcomm? Oh, and yes, Oscar, Las Vegas was No. 1.

SAN DIEGO SHUFFLE: La Jolla Playhouse artistic director Des McAnuff, director of the Playhouse-spawned Broadway smash Jersey Boys, has won the New York Drama League’s Julia Hansen Award for directing, and the play has won for “distinguished production of a musical.” But that’s just a start. Boys also has 14 nominations in two other New York theater competitions. And McAnuff has nominations for best director of a Broadway musical from both the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle . . . Added drama in the musical category: McAnuff and his former protégé, Michael Greif, have both been nominated for the Drama Desk award for best director—Greif for Grey Gardens. . . . What do Jimmy Durante, Phil Harris and Padres announcer Jerry Coleman have in common? They’ve all been nominated to the National Radio Hall of Fame for 2006. What can Coleman claim that Durante and Harris couldn’t? He’s already been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

STRIKING OUT: Another Baseball Hall of Famer, longtime L.A. Dodger and Padres playoff hero Steve Garvey, is in a financial slump. The Los Angeles Times says Garvey’s been dodging a long list of personal and professional bills. And one attorney, who’s reportedly been trying to collect on a $235,500 Garvey debt, put it this way: “Once a Dodger, always a Dodger.”

OIL SLICK: With the price of oil still hovering around $75 a barrel, a San Francisco outfit called Sustain-Lane.com is out with a ranking of how major cities would survive in a major oil crisis—like if a barrel went to 100 bucks. Among the 50 largest cities in the United States, San Diego’s not looking so slick. And when you analyze it, that’s not so surprising. The rankings are based primarily on mobility—stuff unfamiliar to us, like public transportation. Also, access to locally grown fresh food and wireless networks for telecommuting. San Diego is way down at 36. Oddly, New York City ranks as best equipped to handle a crisis. Do they grow their own food in New York? And Oklahoma ranks worst. Don’t they have their own oil supply?

BOTTOM LINE: San Diego keeps trying to chip away at its pesky $1.4 billion pension fund deficit, but somehow I don’t think this is going to help. The headline on a press release out of City Hall says, “City Council Approves $100 Pension-Funding Plan.” Let’s see, that would leave just $1,399,999,900 to go. Or maybe that was a typo.

Listen for Tom Blair’s Friday reports on KOGO News Radio (600 AM) at 7:25 a.m. You can also click here to listen to his column.

Items for the magazine or radio may be e-mailed to tblair@sandiegomag.com.

© 2006 San Diego Magazine

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