Daily Business Report: Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022
The importance of California’s
agricultural water supplies
By Chris Scheuring | Special to CalMatters
Scheuring is senior counsel for water policy at the California Farm Bureau
Wendell Berry famously said that eating is an agricultural act. That makes all of us into farmers, and nowhere is that more true than in water terms.
For farming is irreducibly the process of mixing dirt, water and sunshine to bring forth from the ground what we need to eat. And no matter who you are, it’s true: somebody, somewhere, must devote a lot of water to the process of feeding you.
Some have been sidestepping this fact in the ongoing policy evolutions over the way we must capture, store and move water in California. Yet even the most ardent urban environmentalist finds herself at the local grocery store or the farmers’ market – filling her basket with California-grown nuts, fruits and vegetables.
Some of these crops can only be grown here, or in one of the few similar agricultural climates around the world, in an irrigation-based agricultural economy.
Take almonds, now and then the whipping-post of California water use: They cannot be grown in a place where it rains in the summer. Iowa, for example, is awfully cold in February – which is precisely when almonds need mild Mediterranean winter weather for their blossoms to be pollinated. Mediterranean crops need a Mediterranean climate, which usually means mild winters and hot, dry summers.
Beyond that, the case for California agriculture is made by our farming practices and their regulatory backdrop, whatever natural reticence California farmers may have about being regulated. We do it more efficiently here, and with more oversight, than in most alternative agricultural venues around the world. I would compare a California avocado favorably to an avocado anywhere else in the world, on those terms.
TOP PHOTO: Photo via iStock
With $10 million gift, Darlene Shiley
builds upon her husband’s legacy
Philanthropist Darlene Shiley has given a $10 million gift for the clinical space expansion of the Shiley Eye Institute at UC San Diego Health. Specifically, the gift will finance the expansion of the clinical space and function of the institute.
“Over the last three decades, Donald and I have supported the growth and excellence of the Shiley Eye Institute and her centers of care. It was one of our first philanthropic projects we supported and were loyal to for the ‘long haul,’ as Donald would say. I now continue that legacy with pride, with the knowledge that we have improved and will continue to improve medical care and research that benefits all of us.”
With her late husband Donald, who passed away in 2010, Darlene Shiley has been a longtime supporter of UC San Diego across multiple endeavors, including the Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, named in part to honor Darlene’s mother, Dee Marcos.
Today, the Shiley Eye Institute encompasses more than 91,000 square feet and three centers: the Anne F. and Abraham Ratner Children’s Eye Center, the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Retina Center, the Hamilton Glaucoma Center, and soon to be the Viterbi Vision Research Center.
Average new-car price tops $46,000 — an all-time high
Consumer Reports
For the first time ever, the average price of a new car has edged past $46,000, according
to a new report from Kelley Blue Book and data from TrueCar, a Consumer Reports
partner that provides market analysis and an online marketplace for cars.
Buying a car—just about any car—has been difficult for months now, and new data shows that new cars, like used ones, are costing consumers more than ever. Blame it all on the pandemic and the resulting global semiconductor shortage that has hobbled automakers’ ability to crank out new cars, crimping supply, pushing up prices, and limiting availability.
“We are seeing new transaction prices hit all-time highs,” says Nick Woolard, an analyst with TrueCar, adding that the average transaction price for November was up 8 percent over a year earlier.
Lorena Gonzalez’s political bombshell
CalMatters
It didn’t take long for a political earthquake to strike Sacramento.
Moments after state lawmakers rung in the 2022 legislative session Monday, Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez — who for years has been one of the state Capitol’s most powerful players — announced she will step down Wednesday to prepare to assume leadership in July of the California Labor Federation, an influential alliance of unions representing about 2.1 million workers.
“It wasn’t a tough decision after everything I’ve been through in the last few months,” Gonzalez told Alex Koseff,who started Monday as CalMatters’ new Capitol reporter and contributed to this dispatch.
Gonzalez was diagnosed last year with breast cancer and recently underwent a mastectomy and a series of other surgeries, tweeting updates from her hospital bed.
“You do a lot of introspection, and my life’s work is with the labor movement and with workers,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez has been the labor movement’s most prominent and vocal champion at the Capitol since her election in 2013. Unafraid of Twitter confrontations — as exemplified by her now-infamous tweet “F*uck Elon Musk” — and taking on Silicon Valley gig-economy titans, Gonzalez has steered significant union victories through the Legislature, including a bill that made it harder for companies like Uber and Lyft to define their workers as indendent contractors and a bill that targets warehouse speed quotas used by companies like Amazon.
San Diego’s Independa to deliver health
offerings on LG smart TVs
Independa, a San Diego award-winning TV-based platform providing remote engagement, education and care, announced a new global partnership to offer the Independa Health Hub — an integrated ecosystem of health offerings — to be first launched on all 2021 and 2022 LG smart televisions in the U.S. and Canada.
The Independa Health Hub provides consumers with bi-directional video communication that allows users to connect with health care providers, wellness services, family and friends in the comfort of their homes through their LG televisions.
As the first tele-healthcare service supported on LG TVs, Independa features an intuitive interface that makes it easy for users to initiate a video chat with a caregiver or easily access a menu of relevant professional services. Pop-up notifications inform when someone is calling and personal alerts can be set up for more reminders. All notifica
Lavine, Lofgren, Morris & Engelberg
welcomes two tax managers
Felix Jandoquile and Matt Lundgren have joined the accounting firm Lavine, Lofgren, Morris & Engelberg LLP as tax managers.
Jandoquile is an enrolled agent with 25 of years of experience providing accounting services to S corporations and partnerships.
He specializes in tax and financial statement preparation, internal audits, fixed assets, cash flow and bank reconciliations.
Prior to join LLME, Jandoquile was a tax manager at Wade, Howard & Associates, CPAs. He has also worked in private industry and as an internal auditor.
Lundgren is a CPA with seven years of experience providing tax and accounting services.
Prior to joining LLME, he was a tax manager at Hamilton Tharp LLP where he focused on trust, estate, and individual income tax matters, as well as preparing fiduciary accounting reports.
Lundgren also specializes in foreign matters, concentrating on the taxation of United States volleyball athletes playing abroad in Europe and Asia
San Diego law firm Antonyan Miranda
names four new partners
San Diego-based family law firm Antonyan Miranda has named four new partners – attorneys Naghmeh Bashar, Andrew Rosenberry, Carlos Tavares and Sara Yunus. All four attorneys are Certified Family Law Specialists, a distinction earned by less than one percent of California’s active attorneys.
Naghmeh Bashar has significant experience in family law, but also has transactional and civil litigation experience, representing corporate entities in contractual and financial matters both domestically and abroad. Bashar is a voting Board Member of the Association of Certified Family Law Specialists and the Executive Editor of its quarterly published newsletter, The Specialist.
Andrew Rosenberry has nearly 30 years of experience in complex civil and family law litigation and has served as a Judge Pro Tem for the San Diego Superior Court, Family Law Division. He attended Gettysburg College and Penn State University and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science prior to earning his law degree from California Western School of Law.
Carlos Tavares, who serves as Antonyan Miranda’s Managing Attorney, has been practicing family law for nearly two decades. He is particularly skilled at working on complex and high-net-worth matters such as financial analysis and tracing, custody and visitation disputes, contempt and post-judgment enforcement, and domestic violence restraining orders.
Sara Yunus is the senior supervising ttorney for the AM EZ division of Antonyan Miranda, which offers a variety of family law services at a lower price point. She has successfully litigated a broad range of family law matters, from child custody and domestic violence restraining orders to complex asset division and business valuation.
Escondido Community Foundation
to award grants to local organizations
The Escondido Community Foundation, an affiliate of the San Diego Foundation, is awarding grants to support organizations that provide workforce development resources needed for economic growth in Escondido. In the 2022-2023 grant cycle, the foundation will award funding to programs that provide resources for job readiness, job shadowing, internships, vocational education, advancement opportunities and technology instruction.
Applications are now open for local organizations to submit a letter of intent to receive grants, specifically for projects in Escondido. The funding range is $15,000 to $35,000 for each organization selected. According to Trudy Armstrong, director of regional outreach, seven to eight organizations will be awarded.
The Letter of Intent (LOI) is the first step in a two-step application process, which will facilitate the allocation of funding for Escondido-centered projects. Deadline for LOI submission: Jan. 24, 2022, 5 p.m.
Quidel Corporation buying Ortho
Clinical Diagnostics for $6 billion
San Diego-based Quidel has agreed to acquire Ortho Clinical Diagnostics Holdings for $6 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, announced Dec. 23, Quidel will buy Ortho Clinical with a combination of cash and newly issued shares in the combined company.
Headquartered in New Jersey, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics is one of the world’s largest in vitro diagnostics companies. The company posted $1.8 billion in revenue in 2020. Quidel’s offer of $24.68 per share represents a 25 percent premium to Ortho shareholders based on OCDX’s closing price on Dec, 22.
City of Vista allocates $2.5 million
to fund COVID-19 grant program
The City of Vista has allocated $2.7 million to fund a Small Business COVID-19 Grant Program administered by the Vista Chamber. The grant program provides flexible assistance to small Vista businesses that have experienced economic hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Grant funds will be awarded to for-profit businesses who qualify for funding based on select criteria and can demonstrate financial loss through a Profit and Loss Statement or can document how their proposed prospective activities will assist them in recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Applicants must meet qualifications to be considered for emergency grant funds.
Tower 16 Capital Partners acquires
four properties in Albuquerque, N.M.
San Diego-based Tower 16 Capital Partners has acquired a four-property portfolio totaling 572 units in Albuquerque, N.M. The property was acquired from Greenwater Investments for an undisclosed price.
While the project represents Tower 16’s first investment in Albuquerque, the company has made similar moves into markets such as Las Vegas, Arizona, Denver and the Inland Empire. Based on the market fundamentals in Albuquerque, Tower 16 plans to acquire a portfolio of 1,500 units in the next 18 months.
Number of people coming to San Diego in U-Haul
trucks rose nearly 19 percent from 2020
San Diego is the No. 12 growth city in America based on U-Haul truck moves throughout 2021, according to transactional data compiled for the annual U-Haul Growth Index.
People coming to San Diego in one-way U-Haul trucks rose nearly 19 percent year-over-year, while departures rose only 14 percent from 2020.
Arriving customers accounted for 50.8 percent of all one-way U-Haul traffic in San Diego during 2021 to make it a leading city for netting do-it-yourself movers. San Diego has typically been one of California’s few steady growth markets in recent years, though it was not among the top 25 U.S. growth cities in 2020.
U-Haul customers made the Kissimmee-St. Cloud (Fla.) market the leading growth city of 2021. Raleigh-Durham (N.C.), Palm Bay-Melbourne (Fla.), North Port (Fla.) and Madison (Wis.) round out the top five growth cities.
Amy Somerville joins Buffini & Company
as VP of professional development
Real estate leader Amy Somerville has been named vice president of professional development and industry engagement for Carlsbad-based Buffini & Company, the largest coaching and training company in North America. Somerville, who has been the host of Buffini & Company’s 7 Figure Club — Live, and Lessons In Leadership, previously served as senior vice president at RE/MAX, LLC.
In this new role, Somerville will lead Buffini & Company’s professional development efforts, and bring valuable experience as an acclaimed national presenter to support international, team, broker and agent training programs.
Somerville, owner and founder of Moment of Clarity LLC, has been a frequent host at national media events. While at RE/MAX World Headquarters she led the professional development, education, technology training and production departments. An industry expert on real estate educational programs, Somerville has facilitated training, coaching and leadership events worldwide.
She is recognized in the industry for her high-energy programs featuring top-producing agents, teams and brokerages. As the host of the Buffini & Company 7 Figure Club — Live, Somerville facilitates synergy sessions and contributes timely and relevant content to keep team leaders on the cutting edge of real estate trends and technologies.
