C I T Y L I G H T S NEWS TICKER


Ransom for stormwater lapses Will fund work at Peñasquitos, San Diego River, Chollas Creek The City of San Diego has agreed to pay the state water board $3.2 million for water pollution resulting from lax enforcement of sediment-control measures at construc- tion sites near the Los Peñasquitos Lagoon, Tijuana River Estuary, and San Diego Bay.


C I T Y L I G H T S By Reader staff writers


of Stephan to the politically powerful post that has a role in everything from policing street crimes to the region’s crooked politicos. Then, in late January, the board of the San


Diego Deputy District Attorneys Association voted to endorse Stephan, a neophyte to local politics. She declared her candidacy the next day, amid word that Dumanis might retire early to give her designated successor a head start and incumbency to use against would- be challengers. Dumanis is widely seen as having emerged


$630,000 to go toward restoring Peñasquitos Lagoon. City officials and construction site


investigators routinely allowed construc- tion companies to bypass sediment-control measures, resulting in stormwater runoff that destroyed wildlife habitats and added significant sediment pollution to San Diego Bay and other waterways. The city will pay $1.6 million to a state


cleanup and abatement fund. The remaining $1.6 million will be used to fund the com- pletion of four restoration projects at Los Peñasquitos Lagoon ($630,000), removing an invasive grass from the San Diego River ($225,000), restoration studies at Chollas Creek ($72,400), and identifying tools to protect the area’s waterways ($682,932). Dorian Hargrove


Deep state GOP justice? D.A. hopeful and husband continue establishment rule A plan by incumbent district attorney Bonnie Dumanis to step aside in favor of her chief deputy Summer Stephan is accompanied by what critics say is a disconcerting back story: Stephan’s husband is U.S. district court judge Dana Sabraw, a biotech-industry favorite who last year refused to even temporarily block a California law requiring mandatory vaccina- tion of school children. “It is clear that the Constitution does not


require the provision of a religious exemption to vaccination requirements, much less a personal belief exemption,” said Sabraw’s August 25 ruling, causing a group of par- ents challenging the state’s right to elimi- nate the exemption to drop their complaint a week later. After maintaining last October that she


hadn’t decided whether to run for reelection in 2018, Dumanis in December revealed that she would step down and endorse the election


from the San Diego party’s big government wing, financed by moneyed downtown and La Jolla establishments, including biotech, venture capital, and development industries, whose interests have long enjoyed favorable treatment by both feds and locals. Appointed to the federal bench here by


president George W. Bush in May 2003, Sabraw, a San Diego State University alumnus with a 1985 law degree from the University of the Pacific, was an early mentor of Democrat Scott Peters, according to comments Peters — a favorite of La Jolla high-tech interests — made at a San Diego bar governmental relations event. The ties between Sabraw, his wife, and the region’s wealthy campaign donors may raise


Nissi Beach, Ayia Napa, Cyprus Offshore: A cozy A


t least one good thing may come out of this year’s


investigation of the Trump campaign’s alleged Russian ties and last year’s Panama Papers scandal. The public may learn how oodles of money is stashed in offshore tax and secrecy havens — those funny little places with names such as Mauritius, Brunei, Niue, and Vanuatu. Don’t laugh. Various


scholars figure that any- where from $7.6 trillion to $32 trillion is stashed in offshore tax and secrecy


Summer Stephan. Departing D.A. Bonnie Dumanis said she would endorse the election of her chief deputy.


fresh questions regarding judicial conflicts of interest as Stephan hits the campaign fundraising circuit. Sabraw, who met his wife in law school,


according to a 2003 Union-Tribune profile, cur- rently resides with her in Rancho Santa Fe. Matt Potter


Bayfront plan seems to please tuna fishermen Plan for Seaport Village and Tuna Harbor would include hotels, aquarium After months of horse trading between San Diego’s commercial fishing fleet and a devel- oper tapped by the Port of San Diego, the sides appear to have reached a détente. Last June, the port unveiled a host of pro-


posals for the redevelopment of 30 acres of land and 40 acres of water along downtown’s bayfront, including Seaport Village and Tuna Harbor, home to more than half of the region’s commercial fishing boats and a popular dock- continued on page 28


Neal Obermeyer


place to hide money ...and dodge taxes and regulation By Don Bauder


havens. A trillion dollars is a lot of bucks. Last year, the United States’ total output of goods and services was $18.6 trillion. More than 70 percent of


big American companies have subsidiaries in offshore havens. Shady individuals use these havens to launder their proceeds from illegal drug and arms traffick- ing, stock fraud, embezzle- ment, and other crimes. The late gangster and financial genius Meyer Lansky was a pioneer in juggling ill-got- ten gains around offshore


havens. And, of course, both companies and individuals use the havens to dodge or sharply reduce taxes and regulation. One major focus of the


Trump team investigations will probably be the island of Cyprus, a secrecy haven for Russian oligarch money. For a while it wasn’t even con- sidered a haven because its sinking banks loaned too much money to crumbling Greece. But dirty Russian money didn’t stop flowing to the island nation. Cyprus is so cozy with


Russia that it is the only European Union country that has allowed the Rus- sian military to use its bases for operations. According to the Democratic Coali- tion, as related by the Huff- ington Post, president Don- ald Trump has two compa-


C I T Y L I G H T S


2 San Diego Reader April 20, 2017


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