Daily Business Report: Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Coalition backs ‘new vision’ for aging San Diego Civic Center, with housing, arts, more
By Jennifer Vigil | Times of San Diego | (Photo courtesy of U3 Advisors)
East Village and the Gaslamp Quarter thrum with life. San Diego’s Civic Center – not so much.
A broad coalition of partners, paced by the Downtown San Diego Partnership and Prebys Foundation, hopes to change that over the next several years.
On Tuesday at the inaugural WAVES Festival, billed as an “ideas and experiences festival,” they unveiled what they called “a bold new vision for the Civic Center,” developed in collaboration with the urban planning firm U3 Advisors and more than 20 local organizations.
The plan, proponents say, reimagines what they call the heart of Downtown San Diego, fanning out from Civic Center Plaza, a drab collection of buildings that includes San Diego City Hall and the San Diego Civic Theatre.
How to Add 10 Million Acre Feet Per Year to California’s Water Supply
By Edward Ring | California Globe
There is a good chance that a Californian is going to be nominated to become the new Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. One source of opposition to his confirmation could be senators representing states that share with California the waters of the Colorado River, concerned that a Californian will not sufficiently take into account their interests. But if California invests in projects to increase its water supply, it won’t need as much water from the Colorado River.
What follows are ways California, and only California, has the potential to increase its annual water supply by 10 million acre feet per year. That’s enough to cope with a prolonged drought without starving cities or farms of water. It’s also enough to make generous deals with the other states that withdraw water from the Colorado River.
Thin the Water Guzzling Overcrowded Forests
This can be profitably handled by the private sector. Thin our forests back to historically normal levels. A 2011 study by experts from UC Merced reported that 60 percent of the state’s consumptive water comes in the form of Sierra runoff, and that when forest cover is reduced by 40 percent, total runoff increases by an estimated 9 percent. That means if California’s forests were thinned appropriately, 2.2 million acre feet of water (40 MAF x 60% x 9%) would be added to California’s annual water supply.
Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly Warn Conservatives About Appearing on Gavin Newsom’s Podcast
By Evan Symon | California Globe
Republicans and Conservatives appear to be avoiding Gavin Newsom’s new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom.” It reached a new peak on Tuesday with political commentator Tucker Carlson and talk show host Megyn Kelly saying that it is a mistake to be a guest on Newsom’s show, and encouraged others not to do it.
While a guest on Kelly’s podcast, Carlson proceeded to identify that it was only a superficial move that Newsom wanted to hear from Republicans. Instead, Carlson said that the real move behind Newsom reaching out to figures on the right was to help “rehabilitate” himself and get prepared for the 2028 presidential election. Until recently, Carlson was actually booked to appear on “This is Gavin Newsom” and that he even texts with him occasionally.
“I have been bothering him for years, ‘You should come on my show.’ And he was kind of open to it. And then he whips around and he’s like, ‘No, you should come on mine,’” said Carlson on Tuesday. “I was like, ‘I would love to,’ because I would love to debate him about what he’s done to my state. And then I watched a parade of people go on, some of whom are good friends mine, and I realized – and I’m not attacking them at all – I almost did, but then I realized, oh, wait a second, the point of this is not to have a real conversation or to answer questions. The point of this is to rehabilitate.”
