Daily Business Report-Aug. 7, 2019
California holds itself up as a model for other states seeking ways to take the politics out of redrawing district maps.
California stretches applicant deadline
to draw political districts — pool’s too white, too male
Interested in helping to redraw California’s electoral map—dicing up the state into legislative and congressional districts and shaping the next decade of Golden State politics?
You now have another week and change to get that application in.
State Auditor Elaine Howle, charged with staffing California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission, announced that her office would be extending the application period from Aug. 9 to Aug. 19.
All regular voters without a history of state government employment, lobbying or big campaign spending are encouraged to apply.
Particularly if you aren’t a white guy.
For weeks, government-transparency and voter-engagement groups have been warning that the commission’s applicant pool to date has skewed white, male and Democratic.
Howle said it was those warnings, plus a surge of applications from underrepresented groups over the last week, that convinced her to extend the deadline.
Every state redraws its internal political boundaries every 10 years following the national census. Like a growing number of states, California does not give that power to elected lawmakers but invests it in an independent commission.
That’s thanks to a proposition voters passed in 2008 hoping to rid state and federal elections in California of political gerrymandering. It created a state commission to be made up of five registered Democrats, five Republicans and four other members who belong to another party or no party at all. That 2008 law also requires at least some of the candidates to “be chosen to ensure the commission reflects this state’s diversity.” (City and county political maps are still mostly drawn the old fashioned way).
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SDSU Mission Valley draft
environmental impact report published
San DiegoState University has published the SDSU Mission Valley Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR). Published on Aug. 5, the DEIR is available for public review and can be found on the SDSU Mission Valley website. The DEIR will be available for review for an extended comment period of 60 days — 15 more than required under CEQA. The comment period will close on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2019.
Next Steps
SDSU will host three public meetings during the DEIR comment period to provide the public with an overview of the findings of the report and also opportunities to review project information and speak with the technical team.
Meetings will be open to the campus community and members of the public and will be held at the following times and locations:
- Thursday, Sept. 12, from noon to 1:30 p.m., at SDSU’s Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center, 5250 55th St., in San Diego. A parking garage is located just south of the building.
- Thursday, Sept. 12, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., at SDSU’s Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center, 5250 55th St., in San Diego. A parking garage is located just south of the building.
- Tuesday, Sept. 24, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., at the Mission Valley Marriott, 8757 Rio San Diego Drive, in San Diego.
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Emmerson Construction launches two
new divisions to manage company growth
Emmerson Construction, a West Coast general contracting and construction management firm, has
elevated two long-time industry professionals to lead new divisions within the company.
- Janice Patterson, who will serve as director of construction for the Garden Apartment Division, which builds two-to three-story complexes in garden-like settings.
- Patterson has worked in the building industry for over 30 years and has experience across all housing product types.
- Since joining Emmerson in 2009, she has focused her skills on garden apartments and is currently completing the 42-unit Pacifica at Playa Del Sol in Otay Mesa and the 60-unit Serenita in Brawley.
- Zion Patton, who has been named director of construction for the Mid- and High-Rise Division, which is responsible for large-scale developments such as 14th & Commercial (444
Zion Patton units) and 13th & Broadway (273 units) in Downtown San Diego, as well as Stylus and Siena at Civita in Mission Valley (306 units).
- With 25 years of experience in both affordable and market-rate housing, Patton joined Emmerson in 2015.
- His division most recently began construction on Salerno, an 80-unit community with the Irvine Community Land Trust in the city of Irvine’s Cypress Village.
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EDAN announces relocation and
expansion of its U.S. operations hub
EDAN Diagnostic Inc., serving as the American operation hub of EDAN Instruments Inc. — a health care company and medical device manufacturer, announced an office relocation and expansion. The new address is 9918 Via Pasar, San Diego. This new 13,588-square-foot office is almost twice the space as the old one, to accommodate the increasing demand in the medical market of the Americas.
Other than enhancing the service ability, a production area is planned in this new location, aiming to prepare for the government contracts and bids through the U.S. General Services Administration. Producing EDAN’s products in the U.S. is seen as a paramount step to further anchor in the American market.
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Petco expands footprint
of in-store veterinary hospitals
San Diego-based Petco announced a rapid growth plan to expand its footprint of in-store, full-service veterinary hospitals. With the addition of three new regional veterinary partners — Global Veterinary Partners, based out of Weston, Fla.; VitalPet, based out of Houston, Texas; and VetnCare, based out of Oakland — Petco will more than double its count of full-service in-store vet hospitals by the end of 2019.
In addition to these new partnerships, Petco is expanding operations with existing partners Thrive Affordable Vet Care and The Pet Vet (which have partnered with Petco since 2017 and 2009, respectively) to open the more than 50 veterinary hospitals currently operating within Petco stores in Texas, California, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Utah, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri.
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PriceSmart announces plans to
build new warehouse club in Costa Rica
PriceSmart Inc. has acquired 227,000 square feet of land in Costa Rica, where it plans to open its 46th warehouse club. This club will be located within the city of Liberia, Costa Rica, which is situated in the northwestern part of Costa Rica and is approximately three hours from the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica.
This club will be PriceSmart’s eighth warehouse club in Costa Rica and will be built as a small-club format in this secondary city. This club is expected to open in summer 2020.
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BioTime relocates its headquarters from
San Francisco Bay Area to San Diego
BioTime, a biotech company with three cell therapies in human testing, is relocating its headquarters from Alameda in the San Francisco Bay Area to Carlsbad. The publicly traded BioTime also plans to change its name to Lineage Cell Therapeutics.
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CourseKey raises $5 million in funding
Local tech startup CourseKey, first launched by a San Diego State University student, has raised $5 million in VC funding. The company plans to build out its technology, which allows professors to take attendance more efficiently, and create additional useful tools for colleges, universities, and other learning institutions.
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CARLSMED and precisive surgical announce merger
CARLSMED Inc., a San Diego-based medical technology company, announced that it has completed a merger with Seattle-based spine imaging system company Precisive Surgical to offer the industry’s first personalized surgical workflow platform. The terms of the merger are not disclosed. The system will enable earlier surgical intervention delivering personalized implant devices to patients with complex, multi-level spinal deviation of alignment. The expected results include better patient outcomes and quality of life, reduction in the use of opioids for pain management, as well as decreased overall surgical costs to the patient, surgeon and hospital/surgery center.
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Homegrown Icon
Higgs Fletcher & Mack celebrates its 80th year
In 1938, Dutch Higgs and Ferd Fletcher, who met while representing clients on opposite sides of a lawsuit, became golfing friends before they ever worked side-by-side in a law Firm.
When they combined forces to form Higgs & Fletcher in 1939, there was no way they could have imagined the legacy they would leave behind. Now “80 years young,” the firm, now known as Higgs Fletcher & Mack (HFM), is San Diego’s longest standing home-grown law firm, nearly 80 attorneys strong and representing a myriad of individuals and businesses in San Diego and throughout California.
Over the past 80 years, the firm has grown and evolved, successfully adapting to the needs of its clients, and adhering to a simple set of core values to ensure client success and its own.
Click here for the full article in SD METRO magazine, Page 12.
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Furry shipmate makes an impact on staff, patients
at Naval Medical Center San Diego
Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) has a very diverse and caring staff, but one of its most notable staff members is
facility dog, LC.
LC’s first day at NMCSD was March 26, 2019. Since then, she has been improving the morale of staff members and patients all around the hospital.
“Every day I come into work, I cannot wait to see her,” said Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Crislynne Warden, a surgical technician and secondary handler. “Seeing the way she lights up our staff members’ faces, no matter what type of day they are having, brings so much joy and calmness to our chaotic days here.”
LC receives requests to visit staff and patients all around NMCSD. Her presence brings smiles to the faces of everyone with whom she comes into contact.
“LC is a welcoming sight for most adult patients; they are able to relax and not worry about why they are here,” said Cheryl von Husen, facility manager and secondary handler.
LC is a stress reliever for both staff members and patients. She has a way of calming patients down before a procedure, especially our younger patients.
“Children love to play ball with her or give belly rubs, which LC has no problem with since she really likes belly rubs,” said von Husen. “Playing ball is her favorite thing to do, but once she starts, she never wants to quit. We have to hide the ball to get her to stop.”
Having her on staff boosts morale command-wide. Staff enjoy her company when they are having a troubling day and just need a pick-me-up.
“LC is such a mode of comfort,” said Warden. “She feeds off of our energy and is the ultimate companion.”
“To have the ability to provide that type of comfort to people in some of their most vulnerable moments is a gift,” said Warden.
LC adds to NMCSDs mission: to prepare to deploy in support of operational forces, deliver quality health care services, and shape the future of military medicine through education, training, and research.
By providing comfort to both our patients and staff, LC assists the hospital in being the nation’s premier military medical center, providing world-class care; anytime, anywhere.
For more information about NMCSD visit www.nmcsd.med.navy.mil or www.navy.mil/local/sd
