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I on San Diego

LOOKING BACK: An old newspaper colleague once defined a reporter as “a voyeur with a typewriter.” That was more than a quarter-century ago — around the time San Diego Magazine published its first “People to Watch” issue. Of course, we’ve all come a long way since then. Now reporters are voyeurs with word processors.

In the years since that first installment, we’ve never tired of watching our fellow San Diegans — for better or worse. Usually, it’s for better, but sometimes for worse is more fun.

In 2005 we brought you quite a lineup. In that January’s “People to Watch” issue, we did a whole feature story on Carolyn Smith and the Southeastern Economic Development Corporation she ran for more than a decade. Last fall, she resigned under fire for issuing hefty annual bonuses to her colleagues and herself without board permission. But that doesn’t diminish the progress SEDC made during her tenure. We also introduced San Diego’s new city attorney, Mike Aguirre, who tried to come in like a lamb. Aguirre promised he would “not be the flamboyant elected official people are expecting.” Right. You probably heard he lost his reelection bid in November.

Publisher David Copley was one of our watchables that year. He was rumored to be awaiting a heart transplant in January; he got it that July. We suggested you watch newly reelected San Diego mayor Dick Murphy. You watched him resign a few months later. At San Diego State University, some boosters were calling for football coach Tom Craft’s head, we wrote. He was decapitated later that year. Last month, they got successor Chuck Long’s head, too. The more things change, the more they stay the same at SDSU.

On a brighter note, we celebrated two San Diego Chargers quarterbacks in 2005, Drew Brees and Phillip Rivers — the star quarterback and the diligent apprentice. These days, both men are teaching other quarterbacks a thing or two.

In 2006, we asked how long the honeymoon would last for new San Diego city schools superintendent Carl Cohn. The answer turned out to be “not long.” After two unproductive years, he quit under fire. That was the same year we suggested you watch the Centre City Development Corporation’s new president, Nancy Graham, the former mayor of West Palm Beach. “Despite some detractors in South Florida,” we wrote, “she comes to San Diego with impeccable credentials.” Under fire last summer for alleged conflict of interest, Graham resigned, her credentials more than a little tarnished.

Best-selling author Anne Rice blew into town from New Orleans, purchasing a mini-mansion in La Jolla and extolling its virtues. Later that year, she blew town for Palm Desert. La Jolla was too cold, she cried. Hey, she came from New Orleans. And that was the year Temecula’s Floyd Landis, denying doping allegations, stated his intention to race in the 2007 Tour de France. That was also the year he was stripped of his 2006 Tour victory and banned from racing for two years. The suspension is up the end of this month. Stay tuned. Landis promises to ride again.

MEANWHILE: Mike Aguirre’s landslide defeat in his bid for reelection as city attorney apparently hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm for public service. His rumored plans include spending some time in Washington, lobbying for his own appointment as San Diego’s next U.S. attorney. No odds yet posted ... San Diego ranks second among the best places in the United States to live and work, according to 3,000 respondents to a survey conducted by the Human Capital Institute in Washington, D.C. Our city came in just slightly behind top-ranked New York City, which also garnered the most votes for worst place to live and work ... Addison at The Grand Del Mar hotel, which opened two years ago to rave local and national reviews, has become the first San Diego restaurant to earn AAA’s coveted Five Diamond Award ... VoiceofSanDiego.org, San Diego’s nonprofit, Web-based newspaper, got front-page treatment in a recent New York Times feature. Quoth the Times: “Their news coverage and hard-digging investigative reporting stand out in an Internet landscape long dominated by partisan commentary, gossip, vitriol and citizen journalism posted by unpaid amateurs.”

QUOTEWORTHY: Actor Richard Dreyfuss turned up at SDSU in late November for a speech that sounded more like a civics lecture. His role as vice-president Dick Cheney in the recent film W was clearly a stretch for Dreyfuss. Through Cheney, he said, “we’ve risked our place in history and risked our soul as a nation.” Would Dreyfuss ever run for political office? Not likely. “I have sinned,” he quipped. “I’ve been a low-down dirty dog. But running for office today would be a step down!”

PERFECT MATCH? As this magazine went to press, 40 percent of the San Diego Chargers’ victories this season were attributable to the Oakland Raiders. Which leads us to Greg Colt’s lovely line in the Miami Herald: “Thursday’s Oakland at San Diego game was the first NFL telecast available in 3-D, verifying that the Raiders look awful in any dimension.”

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