The Chargers and Popaditch

Thank you, John Lamb, for your Oct. 27 “Spin Cycle” column regarding the CCDC funding secured by state Assemblymember Nathan Fletcher. Fletcher has secured funding for CCDC in such a way as to allow these funds to be used to help the Chargers build a new stadium Downtown. The number being discussed is $500 million of public funds.

The city of San Diego will be underfunded by an estimated $72 million next year.

Mayor Jerry Sanders plans to lay off police officers and firefighters, shut down fire stations and close local libraries to account for the shortfall. With all this, it’s really good to know that we can still cough up $500 million for the Chargers. I assume that when wildfires and chaos engulf our city, we can all rush to the new Charger stadium and live there. How comforting!

The assumption is that the $500 million will help stimulate the economy via the old Republican trickle-down economics. The way this works is that if you hand over $1,000 to big business, workers and taxpayers will end up with $500. So if you give them $500 million, we will end up with $250 million. Wow! $250 million and it only cost us $500 million. What a deal!

While I really wanted to vote yes on Proposition D, this recent backroom agreement convinced me to vote no. There’s no way that I’d hand over my hard earned money to politicians who’d direct the money to wealthy sports franchises that, in turn, make campaign contributions to the same politicians.

Ronald Harris, Scripps Ranch

SNL actor defends ‘hero’

[Dave Maass,] you are no journalist. Your lying smear campaign against hero Nick Popaditch [“The Front Lines,” Nov. 10] is despicable. Your newspaper is bird-cage liner.

Victoria Jackson, Los Angeles / Miami

Editor’s note: This letter writer is the former Saturday Night Live cast member (1986-1992), who’s now an ardent Tea Party supporter. When we asked her where she lives, she added, “What’s your problem with Nick? Intimidated by real men?”

Going where others don’t

I’d very much like to thank you for reporting on stories the other media in this town refuse to. I watched KUSI’s coverage election night while participating in the CityBeat live blog. I watched Popaditch’s on-air interview, where he called Bob Filner a coward and dared him to show his face. I heard the raucous crowd chanting all night. I also saw the pained look on Filner’s face as he strained to conduct his obligatory interview dodging slurs of all kinds.

What I didn’t see or hear was that he was accosted the entire time he was at Golden Hall. I couldn’t know that Mayor Jerry Sanders’ bodyguard had to protect and evacuate Filner, or that actual fights were breaking out between supporters. That was nowhere to be seen on the hours of live coverage provided by KUSI.

I doubt the U-T said much, if anything; I can’t find a single word of it on their website. Even a paper whose sole use in this county is to line the bottom of animal cages would love to report that radical Popaditch supporters, who are avowed white-supremacists, are posting videos encouraging armed conflict. That’s the type of stuff that sells papers.

The only reason I know any of this, or why I’m even bothered by it, is because of fantastic journalists like Dave Maass. He did an admirable job moderating the live blog while managing to be the only person I’ve seen reporting on one of the bigger local stories of the election.

Thanks again, and keep up the great work.

Local papers like CityBeat are so much more important now that people have lost faith in the big, corporate outlets.

Chris Cross, Clairemont

This issue of CityBeat is brought to you by the first people to get a response from Duke Cunningham (ahem, San Diego Union-Tribune).