Daily Business Report-Feb. 15, 2019
Construction of the Fresno River Viaduct in January 2016. The bridge is the first permanent structure being constructed as part of California High-Speed Rail. The BNSF Railway bridge is visible in the background. (Photo: California High-Speed Rail Authority)
High-Speed Confusion:
Gov. Newsom stirs high-speed rail furor
Dan Morain | CALmatters
So wait—is high speed rail on or off in California? In his State of the State speech, Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted the project for cost overruns, blew off its fast-track, San Francisco-to-L.A. ambitions and seemed to say it would just run from Bakersfield to Merced now.
Newsom: “Let’s be real. The current project, as planned, would cost too much and take too long.”
High speed rail critics heard an obituary. As it is, Gov. Jerry Brown, a champion, most recently scaled the project down to a $77 billion Bakersfield to San Jose line.
Republican Assemblyman Jim Patterson of Fresno said “Newsom put the final nail in the coffin of high speed rail.”
Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted: “The train to nowhere is finally stopped. This is the right move by @GavinNewsom.”
Then, confusion: Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and a major proponent, tweeted that the naysayers were wrong and Newsom just wanted to finish the Central Valley segment before pushing onward. Newsom’s chief of staff tweeted that he was “fully committed.”
Wiener: “The governor is being pragmatic and realistic. This project is not going to happen in one fell swoop.”
Newsom tweeted, too: “We’re going to make high-speed rail a reality for CA. We have the capacity to complete the rail between Merced and Bakersfield. We will continue our regional projects north and south. Finish Phase 1 enviro work. Connect the Central Valley to other parts of the state.”
In Washington, Axios’ Mike Allen summed up the conventional Beltway wisdom: “If the richest and most progressive state in the U.S. can’t follow through on an ambitious rail plan … it signals nothing but trouble for people concerned about climate change.”
Read This Train Won’t Leave the Station
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Scripps researcher named co-leader
of NASA program to study origins of life
Scripps Research professor Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy has been named co-leader of a new NASA initiative to investigate how life emerged from Earth’s early environments.
The initiative, called the Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Earth Environments (PCE3) Consortium, will explore the chemical processes that occurred on early Earth and the advent of the first biological molecules and pathways, leading to the emergence of systems harboring the potential for life.
The initiative is one of five networks with a new NASA program called Astrobiology Research and Coordinated Networks (RCN), which seeks to understand the emergence and early evolution of life and inform the search for life in and beyond our solar system.
“With this visionary program NASA is focusing on the age-old and vitally important question of the origins of life, and I am honored to be the co-leader of this research network,” says Krishnamurthy, an associate professor of chemistry at Scripps Research. “Scientists have long theorized about how life began on this planet, and what conditions are required for it to exist on other planets, and we now have the opportunity to make great progress on answering this question.”
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January home sales fall, while prices are unchanged
Resale home transactions in San Diego County fell significantly in January — not uncommon for the first month of a new year, according to housing statistics compiled through the San Diego Multiple Listing Service by the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors.
Single-family homes saw a drop of more than 20 percent last month compared to December, and nearly 17 percent for attached properties (condominiums and townhomes). Compared to January of last year, sold listings were down more than 13 percent for single-family homes, and 26 percent for condos and townhomes.
The median price of homes barely moved in January, with single-family homes dipping by about one-and-a-half percent to $615,000; that number is up more than 3 percent from a year ago. Attached properties nudged up about a tenth of a percent to $415,000 – about two-and-a-half percent higher than January of 2018. Properties were closing escrow during January in an average of 40 days.
“While January can be a sluggish month for home sales, the number of homes on the market is up by more than 30 percent from a year ago,” said SDAR President Kevin M. Burke. “I’m hoping this will boost the optimism of home buyers as we head into the spring.”
In January, the ZIP codes in San Diego County with the most single-family home sales were:
92071 (Santee) with 42
92114 (Encanto) with 37
91977 (Spring Valley) and 92026 (Escondido North), both with 28
92056 (Oceanside East) with 27
92064 (Poway) with 25
The most expensive single-family property sold in January in San Diego County is a home in the La Jolla neighborhood of Lower Hermosa, built in 1980, with 4,777 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and a sale price of $5.794 million.
Click here for a detailed look at the numbers.
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Navy expects USS Gerald Ford’s
advanced arresting gear ready in 2019
ExecutiveGov
The U.S. Navy aims to begin the expansion of aircrafts that can be launched and recovered from the next-generation aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford by end of 2019, USNI News reported.
Commander Mehdi Akacem, Ford’s air boss, said the service awaits the launch and recovery bulletins needed to put the ship’s Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Arresting Gear in service. The systems will enable every configuration of the F-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler aircraft to operate from Ford.
“In a couple of months, they are on a path to publish the fully fleet-representative recovery bulletins that will give us the capability to recover any weapons configuration which F-18 or a Growler can have on a Nimitz-class,” Akacem said.
The EMALS and AAG systems are expected to begin operations after Ford’s departure from Newport News Shipbuilding in July for more testing at sea. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said potential delays in technology integration or development aboard the ship are under control.
Out of all of the next-generation technologies on Ford, the AAG, built by General Atomics in San Diego, has been the most troublesome for the Navy. Early versions of the system installed at test facilities did not meet required reliability levels and prompted an extensive redesign for follow-on versions that delayed land testing by two years.
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Battle over the gig economy runs
through San Diego (and strip clubs)
Voice of San Diego
San Diego is at the center of an ongoing battle about whether strippers should be classified as employees or independent contractors.
Two important lawsuits in San Diego courts have recently dealt with employment status and damages, while a proposed new law, from Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, would likely ensure strippers can only be hired as employees going forward.
As VOSD contributor Lyle Moran writes, one court case last year forced Deja Vu Services Inc., which operates dozens of strip clubs across the country and one in San Diego, to reclassify some 5,800 exotic dancers as employees. A newer suit claims the company retaliated against those workers by drastically cutting their wages.
That latter suit, Moran writes, “could be a harbinger of similar suits to come as companies grapple with how to comply with the California Supreme Court’s 2018 Dynamex decision that makes it more difficult to classify workers as independent contractors.”
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Madeleine Albright to serve as UC San Diego
commencement speaker on June 15
The University of California San Diego announced that author, businesswoman, professor and former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright will deliver the keynote address at the UC San Diego All Campus Commencement on June 15. An icon of American diplomacy, Albright shattered the glass ceiling when she was named the nation’s first female secretary of state. Albright just concluded a 10-city tour across the U.S. to promote her latest book,“Fascism: A Warning,” which debuted last April at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. She is the author of five other New York Times bestselling books.
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Realtors group relocates its ‘City Pitch’ to Clairemont
The Pacific Southwest Association of Realtors (PSAR), a 3,200-member trade group, has launched a new weekly property marketing pitch meeting, called “City Pitch,” at its recently opened PSAR Central San Diego Service Center in Clairemont Mesa, 4340 Genesee Ave., Suite 203, San Diego.
The event for brokers and sales agents begins at 9 a.m. every Tuesday morning. The focus is on properties in the following ZIP codes: 92102, 92104, 92105, 92108, 92111, 92115, 92116, 92123, 92124 and 92120. PSAR officials said all San Diego-area Realtors are invited to attend to pitch their properties, network and put deals together. Agents will have two minutes to promote their listing. Agents should bring at least 50 property flyers and PSAR staff will insert the flyers into a pitch portfolio distributed to all attendees.
Since March 2017, PSAR has held a weekly “City Pitch” at a restaurant in North Park. With the opening in late January of its new Central San Diego Service Center, PSAR’s “City Pitch” was relocated to the Clairemont office. The new 1,500-square-foot PSAR Central San Diego Service Center includes a 65-seat educational classroom for training, plus resources for Realtors. In addition to Clairemont, PSAR also operates service center offices in Chula Vista and El Cajon. For more information on PSAR, visit www.psar.org, or phone (619) 579-0333.
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San Diego Green Building Council
holds ‘State of Green Building’ on Feb. 20
The San Diego Green Building Council will host its annual GreenMeet: State of Green Building event on Wednesday, Feb. 20. The event will run from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the offices of BNIM at 797 J Street in Downtown San Diego. Admission is $30 for SDGBC members and $40 for nonmembers. Walk-ins are $45. Click here for more information.
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Craft beer, Girl Scout cookies
on menu for ‘Cookies on Tap’
For the fifth consecutive year, adult fans of Girl Scout Cookies will pair them with local craft beers during National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend (Friday-Sunday, Feb. 22-24). AleSmith Brewing Company, Mike Hess Brewing and Stone Brewing return as Girl Scouts San Diego’s official partners for “Cookies on Tap.”
“Backed by research, Girl Scout programs are designed specifically for girls and delivered within an all-girl, girl-led environment,” said Girl Scouts San Diego CEO Carol M. Dedrich. “Cookies on Tap proceeds will help underwrite innovative programs in the outdoors, life skills, entrepreneurship, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).”
Cookies on Tap participants will have an opportunity to write notes of support to accompany cookies donated for Operation Thin Mint, a Girl Scout service project that sends “a taste of home and a note to show we care” to military troops deployed around the world. Since the program was founded here in2002, San Diegans have donated more than three million boxes of Operation Thin Mint cookies to troops and local veterans organizations.
AleSmith Brewing Company’s tasting room is at 9990 AleSmith Court (formerly Empire Street) in Miramar. AleSmith will pair its Spezial Pils (German-style pilsner) with Trefoils Girl Scout Cookies, Nut Brown Ale (English style) with Girl Scout S’mores, AleSmith IPA (India pale ale) with Savannah Smiles, and Speedway Stout with Coffee (imperial stout) with Tagalongs.
Mike Hess Brewing, which returns to Cookies on Tap for a fifth year, will participate at 3812 Grim Ave. in North Park, 7955 Silverton Ave. in Miramar and 4893 Voltaire St. in Ocean Beach, and its newest location at 805 Ocean Lane in Imperial Beach. All Mike Hess locations will pair Hop Cloud Hazy IPA with Savannah Smiles, Habitus Double Rye IPA with Samoas, Grazias Vienna Cream Ale with Do-si-dos, and Umbrix Imperial Stout with Girl Scout S’mores. These exclusive pairings will be featured at select locations: Steel Beach Lager with Trefoils (North Park and Imperial Beach), Into the Sunset Blood Orange IPA with Tagalongs (Ocean Beach), and White Peach My Other Vice with Trefoils (Miramar).
Stone Brewing locations participating in Cookies on Tap are 795 J Street and 1202 Kettner Blvd. in downtown San Diego, 310 N. Tremont St. in Oceanside, 1999 Citracado Pkwy. in Escondido, and 2816 Historic Decatur Rd., at Liberty Station. Stone’s pairings are Stone White Geist Berliner Weisse with Savannah Smiles, Stone Tropic of Thunder Lager with Samoas, Mikhail (Stone Totalitarian Imperial Russian Stout aged in bourbon barrels) with Girl Scout S’mores, and Enter Night Pilsner with Thin Mints.
The Girl Scout Cookie Program is America’s leading business and financial literacy program for girls, where they learn five life skills (goal-setting, decision-making, money management, people skills, and business ethics). Many successful women say they developed self-confidence and business savvy while selling cookies.
During the six weeks of the 2019 Girl Scout Cookie Program (Jan. 27 to March 10), San Diegans are expected to purchase more than 2.5 million boxes of cookies. All proceeds stay in San Diego to fund local troop activities and service projects, events, camps, volunteer training and financial aid for more than 34,000 girl and adult members.
Customers can locate the nearest source with the Girl Scout Cookie Finder. The free app is available at www.sdgirlscouts.org, the ITunes Store and the Android Marketplace, or by calling **GSCOOKIES (**472665437) from a mobile phone.
For details, visit www.sdgirlscouts.org/cookies-on-tap.
