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>> JOANNE: Coming up next on KPBS Evening Edition, Occupy San Diego protesters set up
tents at the federal building in defiance of police, while across the country hundreds
more are in demonstrations. We'll speak with a lawyer who is trying to
stop the arrests here in San Diego. >> DWANE: And just how did San Diego schools
end up in the financial mess they're in. We'll talk to a financial expert.
KPBS Evening Edition starts now. >> JOANNE: Hello thank for joining us, I'm
Joanne Faryon. >> DWANE: And I'm Dwane brown, the verdicts
are in for a San Diego police officer. >> JOANNE: Anthony Arevelos was accused of
asking for *** favors from women we pulled over.
7 women accused him of making inappropriate comments or touching them.
He was an 18 year veteran of the San Diego police department, he was fired in April.
>> DWANE: San Diego developer Doug Manchester is buying the "Union Tribune" newspapers,
the paper was sold about two years ago, what do we know about this latest deal, Ametha?
>> We don't know that much, platinum I can quit is selling the paper to Doug Manchester,
also known as "papa Doug" he is one of San Diego's biggest investors, we are not going
to find out terms until the end of escrow sometime in mid Democrat.
One of the big questions looming over the sale is did Mr. Manchester buy the paper for
the land it sits on which is expected to be extremely valuable and one that could be developed
into possibly a hotel or retail outlet or did he buy the paper as a media investment
or both? >> DWANE: You spoke with reporters at the
paper and folks in the business community. What did they have to say?
>> There is some skiddishness among reporters in the community they are questioning whether
he bought the paper to use as a personal mouth piece to represent his business interests
or his political interests. He is a big contributor to Republican candidates
and causes. He donated $125,000 back in 2008 during the
effort to ban same sex marriages. >> DWANE: KPBS Ametha Sharma.
The Occupy San Diego spread beyond the plaza today, members of a union joined them for
a march on the federal building downtown, the union claimed agents are targeting their
members, this comes after days of arrest at the Occupy San Diego encampment.
Joanne is talking with a lawyer for the protesters tonight over at the evening edition round
table. >> JOANNE: As you saw on the news today was
a national day of occupy protesters, here in San Diego dozens have been arrested since
the movement ban a month ago. Brian Pearce is joining me, he is filing an
injunction for what he says is a violation of protesters rights.
Tell me about the legal action you're taking. >>> It's narrowly focused on 54.0110, of the
San Diego Code Section and that's a municipal code ordinance that makes it illegal to put
an object down on city property whatsoever. So it's overbroad and arbitrary.
>> JOANNE: When we saw the protesters being arrested, it was a couple of weeks ago, and
that was the ordinance they were arrested them under?
>> That's one of them, they have been charging people with unlawful assembly, which is odd,
yet they have been arresting people at 2 a.m. when they are sleeping.
So unlawful assembly is being used as a catchall, an assembly isn't unlaugh because the police
say it's unlaugh, there has been unlawful, there has to be conduct.
The police and the city may not want people camping out and protesting in this manner
but you have to have an actual law that you're going to use to arrest people, you can't just
charge things that don't apply and in the case of the San Diego municipal code ordinance
when they are using, the main issue is they're using it to threaten people that are coming
into the civic center plaza so they have the plaza saled off with sealed off with water
barricades so the only way in is to climb over one of these barricades or go through
a narrow passage way that they have flanked with police officers, who will then tell everybody
going in you can't set that down if you're carrying anything.
>> JOANNE: So are you challenging the ordinance or the fact that the police department is
using the ordinance to arrest people? >> Both.
I think it's overbroad and allows for arbitrary enforcement
>> JOANNE: Because anybody could be arrested under that ordinance
>> Exactly. So as it's being applied to specifically block
free speech, you can't set that sign down, even if it's next to you, that would be unconstitutional
use of the ordinance. >> JOANNE: Is this unique to San Diego?
We're seeing arrested all across the country. Is this any different than why others are
being arrested across the country? >> I haven't seen an ordinance like this in
any other city and the legislative history was put in place to stop dumpsters from taking
up space in alley ways but the ordinance could have been written specifically for that rather
than having such broad language, putting Downey object, a coffee cup on a park bench could
be a violation. >> JOANNE: So you filed this yesterday, what
happens next. >>> Next I've served the lawsuit and the request
for a temporary restraining order on the city, and the Court will now either rule on it,
more likely they'll want to wait and hear what the city has to say about it and issue
a ruling and whether we will get a temporary restraining order and then there will be more
lit takings, the final step would be to get a permanent injunction.
>> JOANNE: Brian Pearce thanks for being here. >>> Thank you.
>> DWANE: The U.S. and Mexico work together to keep the border region safe and today the
EPA continued the collaboration, in Kearney Mesa the government presented thousands of
dollars worth of equipment. Both teams talk about being prepared and they
say hazards no no boundaries. The Navy is look at algae to help the fleet
cut back on fossil fuels. It powered this ship from California to Hawaii.
The military uses more than 90% of the energy consumed by the federal government.
From alternative fuels to alternatives for retirement.
Our series on aging continues tonight. We look at two very different retirement communities.
This is KPBS Evening Edition. >> DWANE: About 65 faculty and staff members
from San Diego state joined in a one day walkout over disputed pay raises that were never paid
due to budget cuts. This comes one day off cal trustees voted
to raise student television again. >>> When is it going to end?
That's all I'm thinking. >> DWANE: After three tuition increases in
the past year, this biology major is disappointed to hear his tuition may go up 500 next fall
if the state budget proceed injections don't work out.
>>> I think we should be cutting from other places.
>>> It kinda doesn't make sense that they're charging us more and paying out more.
It doesn't solve anything and I'm a single mom so it's probably going to be hard if they
decide not to increase the financial aid to compensate for it this spring.
>> DWANE: The 23 campus state system isn't the only one facing financial troubles, if
the state doesn't raise taxes UC schools and public schools could feel the pinch.
Another 9% would push tuition to nearly $6,000 a year.
>>> These students are the future economic engine, without their education and being
able to prepare them for the work force the state is going to be worse off because of
it. >> DWANE: Now any tuition increase could be
contingent on what happens at the state level but for a broader look at the California education
system, Joanne has some perspective with her guest at the evening edition round table.
>> JOANNE: For the past several weeks we have been telling you about impending budget cuts
to the California state schools and the cuts are confirmed likely in January.
Today we want to give you the pig picture. About 40 years ago California ranked fifth
when it came to education funding, today we have fallen nearly to the bottom.
Ears an excerpt from the KPBS documentary broadcast last year on the legacy of proposition
13, it takes a close look at what happened to education funding after California taxpayers
voted down their property taxes in 1978. Arguably the post affect proposition 13 has
had is in the way schools are funded. >>> So prior to Prop 13 being bassed, local
school boards could increase property tax rates and that increase would flow directly
to the school district. So school boards back then set policy and
determined how much money they were going to have.
That's very different from where we are today. >> JOANNE: Joining me to explain where we
are today is Julian Betts, professor in the department of economics at UC San Diego and
executive director of San Diego researches alliance, Julian thanks for coming back.
Last time we spoke we were talking about education cuts and things have gotten worse since then,
haven't they? >> Substantially worse, we have an unusually
bad recession in California and it's hurting. >> JOANNE: When we have a recession in this
state it means that income taxes go down, sales tax goes down, the state has less money
and that trickles down to schools. This is different than other states isn't
it? >> All states have this problem and other
states will have mid year cuts as are going to happen here but we seem to be particularly
vulnerable in this recession. >> JOANNE: So bring us up to date in terms
of what's happening now with the state budget and how that's going to affect our schools
logically. >>> It's one big play in Sacramento, isn't
it? We passed a budget that's balanced on overly
rosy perspectives. Cal State, the University of California, programs
for seniors, disabled would be cut, if tax revenues fall short by $2 million or more
when the public schools would be hurt as well and we just heard this week that tax revenues
are not going to be 1 or 2 billion short they are going to be more like $3 billion to $7
billion so cuts seem likely for pickup schools and universities.
>> JOANNE: Don't we have the highest teacher student ratio in the country?
>> I think we have the second highest, thank goodness for Utah we are about a third above
the people teacher you see nationally about 20 to 1 versus 15 1 you see nationally.
>> JOANNE: And in terms of our school days how do we rank?
>> For the longest time if you looked at these figures nationally almost every state had
uniform policies of 180 days in a school year. A couple of years ago we backed away from
that in California because of cuts that started in 2008, districts were allowed to cut 5 days
and now they can cut by another 7 so now just in a matter of two or three years we could go from
180 down to 168, that's a lot of learning time foregone.
>> JOANNE: You studied the impact of this. What happens, if you're given a situation
where you have larger classrooms and fewer school days, what happens to the quality of
education? >> I think there is strong evidence that the
length of time that students spend studies in the classroom and outside of the classroom
and directly related to learning, that's no surprise but it jumps out in any statistical
analysis. Class size matters but not quite as much as
people think. The best evidence is those that compared class
sizes of 20 to 15, that's not what we're talking about now, we're going into relatively unchartered
territory, going from 30 or 35. So the costs there in terms of student learning
could be bigger. >> JOANNE: Teacher salaries, it's something
that San Diego unified is talking about, school trustee Scott burnett has a plan out there
in reducing teacher salaries. Where are we with the rest of the country?
>> The latest figures I've seen place salaries third in the country for teacher salaries.
You have to be careful because cost of living is higher than elsewhere, there is a professor
at text A and M who Texas A and M who wrote on this, but we don't exactly what can be
done there. I think if we reduce teachers salaries a lot
a lot of young people would stop going into teaching or teach in another state but it
clearly is one of the major factors here. >> JOANNE: We don't have a lot of time yet,
people could pay higher taxes, we opened up with proper 13, and basically taxpayers said
"I don't want to pay more taxes" and we ended up in this situation.
Another poll came out today and voters said what?
>> A majority of Californians believe that Cal State and UCs are under funded and they
should go up but only a minority supported an increase and I suspect that's the same
pattern that PPI would have found if they asked about K 12.
There is not much they can do apart from increasing chart I believe donations or increasing some
taxes. They tried that last year, people are unsympathetic,
it's hard to imagine a major increase in taxes right now but we need to think about how we
divide the state budget into various pots, prisons, public schools, so on.
>> JOANNE: Julian Betts thanks for coming. >>> Thank you.
>> DWANE: One of the most difficult decisions facing seniors is where to live in their final
years. As part of our series on ageing in San Diego
Alison St. John takes us to two different senior communities, unupscale, the other low
rent. >>> Hello.
>>> Ina Rubenstein lives here in the La Jolla village at a senior center.
>>> We decided we needed to be at a place where we could age in place actively and not
have to worry about getting sick later on. >>> Ina and Irwin moved into this two bedroom
apartment on the seventh floor two years ago. It's a continuing care retirement community
that includes assisted living and skilled nursing care for its residents.
>>> We looked for one where the monthly rate does not change as you get from one section
to the other and there were only three in the area.
>>> They had to be both financially and physically healthy.
>>> The idea is that you come in when you're healthy and active and you live with us for
the rest of your life at whatever level of care you should need.
If you need to move to higher levels of care, you don't pay anymore than what you did in
independent living. >>> Residents pay an entrance fee and between
$3,000 to $6,000 to live here a month depending on the size of the apartments.
Everyone has access to the amen ities. >>> We have comfort foods, fresh fish, like
you're going to dinner at a nice restaurant downtown.
>>> Until the economic downturn there was a waiting list to get into "V".
>>> As quickly as an apartment became available we would call someone from the wait list.
However in 2008 when things changed and it happened to have coincided with our putting
up our new tower with 184 additional apartments things slowed down a bit.
>>> In this economic climate upscale senior communities have trouble filling space, meanwhile
at the other end of the financial spectrum, affordable assisted living like this project
in city heights often have waiting lists. Josie Davis is 76, she lives at housing square,
a private nonprofit run senior community center, she lives on her husband's pension of $1,000
a month. >>> The rent is cheap because it's $577 here.
I can't afford to have the one bedroom, one bedroom would be $600, so I have a studio.
>> JOANNE: Davis lives alone but surrounded by her memories.
>>> When I was young I didn't have as much wrinkle as I have now.
>>> Activities are limited. >>> They play games, I'm not card game in
the lunch room, you know, sometimes we do that and we have movie every Friday.
>>> There is breakfast and lunch every day, Davis sometimes goes to the food bank to get
food she cooks for herself in the evening. Carolyn Stephenson keeps an eye on 100 seniors
living in this complex. >>> We're showing that in city heights if
we provide an affordable place to live and nutrition and services, people can live here
for the rest of their lives and die here. Which actually is a good thing, because it
means they aren't dying in an emergency room, a hospital or a long term care facility.
>>> To qualify to live here seniors have to be 62 and have an income below $26,000 a year.
Paul Downey of the community services center says most live on less than that, they don't
pay more than 60% of their income. >>> When we look at the gaps and the number
of seniors that don't have adequate income in the state of California that is of deep
concern and when you multiply that by the demographics that we're going to double the
number of seniors in this country between today and 2030 it's a real problem.
>>> The elder index suggests more than 40% of seniors in San Diego struggle to make basic
ends meet. >>> What I have here is a place for me to
stay, sleep, come home to, I have a place to come home to so I'm thank of for that,
that I'm not on the street. >> DWANE: That was KPBS reporter, Alison St.
John, the state elder index finds the high cost of living means a single senior needs
$23,000 to pay for basic necessities, while a couple needs $30 Yorks, by the year 2030
there will be more than a record number of seniors in San Diego.
This is KPBS Evening
Edition >> JOANNE: Welcome back to the public square
on KPBS Evening Edition. Earlier this month San Diego got a look at
a proposed massive sculpture being considered for the Navy pier, it looks like two sails
rising out of the ground to your we aring over San Diego bay.
Its facing criticism, some have called it a set of bunny ears.
The midway aircraft pitched the idea and it will old public hearings this year to find
out what people think about it. You can tell us, like us on Facebook, Twitter
us, or email us. Our reporter Angela Curron did a story on
the curious beginnings of this, and you can see that on the web site.
Dwane has a recap of the stories tonight. >> DWANE: Police officer convicted on 8 felony counts and four merchandise
but he was acquitted of several other charges. And San Diego developer Doug Manchester is
buying the "Union Tribune" newspaper, he has hired long time radio executive John lynch
to serve as C.E.O. of the paper. You can watch and comment any of the stories
you saw tonight at www.kpbs.org/news/evening edition.
Thanks for joining us, we will live you with a look at the forecast.
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