City Lights RSS

Though yet to be announced publicly, the San Diego Reader is now offering an RSS feed for it’s great column on local news and media, City Lights. I have always found the City Lights column to be the best source of local news outside of the Union-Tribune’s media hegemony.

In this week’s feed, Don Bauder hypothesizes what lays lies ahead for Frye if she is in fact confirmed as San Diego’s mayor. Ernie Grimm laments the decline in Dial-A-Ride service in East County and describes the problems seniors are confronting with their only other alternative: costly taxi cabs. And, as always, Matt Potter delivers on his excellent column of the most important gossip throughout the county:

The intrigue — not to mention the cost — surrounding the ongoing San Diego city audit and pension-fund scandal continues to grow. The Texas law firm of Susman Godfrey, L.L.P., hired to help sort out the mess, has run up an initial tab of $250,000, which is almost sure to burgeon. According to its recent contract with the city, the firm’s name partner, Stephen Susman, travels in style: “Mr. Susman owns his own aircraft. When he flies on it for your case, unless you have agreed otherwise, he will only charge you first-class airfare for himself and any other professionals from the firm who accompany him.” But that’s just the beginning. The roster of other taxpayer-paid consultants helping to investigate the yet-to-be specified wrongdoing has expanded to include an outfit from Gresham, Oregon, called Breakwater Security Associates, which joined the case last month to “provide computer forensic-consulting services” for the in-house investigation. The company’s job is trying to recover data somehow erased from the hard drives of city computers. The tab for that gig is $325 an hour, or a total of $50,000, which covers development of “specialized software tools” to get to the bottom of the matter.

We would like to congratulate the San Diego Reader for joining SignOnSanDiego as the two local media outlets who “get it” regarding RSS. You can write an email to Scott Jones of the Reader to express your thoughts/thanks about the City Lights RSS feed. You can also write David Rolland of San Diego City Beat and Dick High of the North County Times to explain the importance of offering RSS feeds in the new media age.

If you are unfamiliar with RSS, an excellent summary can be found here along with a list of programs which allow you to easily subscribe to RSS feeds.