Told You So ...

I on San Diego

THE HORSE’S MOUTH: San Diego attorney and former SEC fraud investigator Gary Aguirre was among the least surprised by the recent implosion of the U.S. banking system. Aguirre began warning of dire economic straits nearly a year ago (and more recently in our August feature story), but Washington seemed in no hurry to respond. Last February, he sent a letter to Senator Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, attempting, Aguirre says, “to get the committee to come to grips with the developing crisis before it resulted in a crash.” In April, he wrote the Senate Finance Committee staff explaining why the SEC’s voluntary supervision program for Wall Street’s largest investment banks was directly responsible for failing to detect the Bear Stearns collapse. “Although the Banking Committee wasn’t listening,” he says, “the Finance Committee was.” The committee asked the SEC to audit its own voluntary supervision program. Nearly six months later, on September 26, while President Bush was warning of a potential U.S. economic collapse and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was touting his $700 billion bailout plan for our economic system, the SEC audit was quietly released. And SEC chairman Christopher Cox was forced to concede the failures in the SEC’s voluntary Wall Street supervision program did, indeed, fuel the collapse.

RECOVERY MODE: Sometimes the solution is that simple. Terry Grier, the new San Diego City Schools superintendent, was aghast at the high dropout rate in San Diego’s high schools. And so, after identifying 2,400 potential dropouts this fall, he decided to do something about it. With a team of teachers and others, Grier spearheaded a door-to-door canvass, talking to parents, grandparents and, in some cases, the students themselves. The result: recovery of all but 300 of the 2,400 likely dropouts.

REMEMBERING: Nick Reynolds, who died last month in Coronado, knew fame better than any other San Diegan, perhaps. At the height of his career with The Kingston Trio, he experienced the thrill of having four top-10 record albums simultaneously, a feat never duplicated, even by The Beatles. With his partners, he defined popular America folk music for an era. Two years ago, after retiring from the road, he settled in Coronado, where he had grown up a Navy brat. In a Dialogue with San Diego Magazine, Reynolds was asked if life was good. “I’ve had the greatest lives you could possibly live,” he said. “After a couple of false starts, I have the greatest wife you could possibly have. Growing up in Coronado in the old days, when dogs ran free (and so did the kids), then being sent to college, and then The Kingston Trio — and we didn’t pay a lot of dues — and then to be able to retire back in Coronado and not have to worry about finances? Yes, life is good — other than getting old. But what a wonderful place to get old.”

THE SAN DIEGO SHUFFLE: A new Condé Nast Traveler survey may surprise more than a few San Diegans. The study asked frequent fliers to rank their favorite U.S. commercial airports based on access; ease of connections; customs and baggage handling; amenities; safety; and security. San Diego International landed in the top 10, at number 10. The results might have come in handy before the region’s last million-dollar search for a new airport ... And no surprise here: San Diego made Forbes Magazine’s top five “Most Expensive U.S. Cities for Homeowners.” Ranked just ahead of our town: San Jose, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles ... Real estate investor Than Merrill, the former NFL player, recently moved to San Diego, bringing his hit A&E network TV show, Flip This House, along with him. Fall episodes have already begun taping here ... Carlsbad dentist Richard Allen is smarter than at least some fifth graders. He picked up $175,000 this fall as a contestant on the Fox TV game show. What to do with the winnings? “Donate to my favorite cause,” he says, “the education of my two college-age sons.”

ITEMIZED: Continuing a hot trend of turning old movies and stage plays into new musicals, the Old Globe plans a world premiere next summer of The First Wives Club, based on the movie starring Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn ... Ric Grenell, the onetime press secretary to former Mayor Susan Golding, is returning to California after seven years at the United Nations as communications director for four U.S. ambassadors. He’ll be up the road in El Segundo as a senior V.P. at DaVita healthcare company ... Joe McCain, Senator John McCain’s kid brother, had a brief flirtation with our town. In the 1970s, he was a young reporter for The San Diego Union — let go for slipping an item into the newspaper’s divorce announcements for “Mouse, Mickey and Minnie.”

THE LAST WORD: Mayor Jerry Sanders’ economic outlook: “It’s tough, but there is one bright spot,” he told a meeting of The New Majority, a Republican booster group. “I recently met with ‘Pawn Brokers for Jerry.’ They told me their loans were earning a higher rate than Washington Mutual — and they’re more reliable.”

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