CUNNINGHAM SENTENCED Worth of Government Work
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B2 THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE SUNDAY • MARCH 4, 2018 MEDIATE THIS ! A CONTRACTOR, A SMALL STREET AND FIVE LARGE VEHICLES BY STEVEN P. DINKIN universal belief that players contractor’s circumstances. in a zero-sum game have a His brazen aggression Dear Mediator: special obligation to follow may be rooted in financial Parking is tight on my the rules, even when those desperation. He may not narrow street of single- rules are unwritten and have the money to rent family homes, especially unenforceable. suitable space for his vehi- since some older houses Given the finite supply of cles and equipment. don’t have driveways or residential curb space, That wouldn’t give him garages. Everyone follows neighbors stay on friendly license to violate the law, but neighborhood parking terms by parking in their it could make you view him etiquette except for the driveways and in front of more sympathetically. And general contractor who lives their homes. Visitors occa- it might prompt some of you two doors down. He owns sionally throw the parking to help him explore other two SUVs, an RV, a box ecosystem off-kilter, but the code-compliant parking truck and a flatbed truck, good-will symbiosis is soon and storage options. and he parks them all on the restored. Finally, as an exercise in street because his driveway And then there are park- neighborly bonding, plan a is full of equipment. We’ve ing buccaneers like the block-long yard sale to have asked him to be more con- general contractor. fun, raise money and empty siderate, but he says he has In a conflict where an your garages of stuff you a right to park wherever he aggressive outlier has riled never use so you can actu- wants. Does he? up a group of neighbors, a JOHN GASTALDO U-T FILE ally park your cars there. Crowded in North Park community mediator will Similar to the neighborhood street shown here, North Park’s roads can have a frame the negotiation by dearth of parking spots because of the community’s age and density. Steven P. Dinkin is a professional Dear Crowded: determining what the law mediator who has served as Residential street park- does and does not allow. tial districts. out on the city’s code en- bor is called EAR for “Em- president of the San-Diego based ing is an emotionally The San Diego Munici- The contractor probably forcement website: “Make pathy, Attention, and Re- National Conflict Resolution Center fraught issue on many lev- pal Code’s Chapter 8 on doesn’t have the right to contact with the responsi- spect.” You may not think since 2003. els. We feel secure when we “Traffic and Vehicles” in- park all those vehicles on ble person. Describe your he deserves any of that, but can look out our windows cludes a 26-page “Article 6: your street. You and your perception of the problem. you would be surprised by Do you have a conflict that and see our cars. Proximity Stopping, Standing, Park- neighbors can file a com- Discuss how the problem EAR’s ability to open up needs a resolution? Please shortens the distance for ing of Vehicles, and Im- plaint with the city’s code affects you and possible dispute resolution paths. share your story with The Mediator carrying bulky packages. pound Procedures.” It lays enforcement division. That solutions [emphasis add- Approach him again, this via email at mediatethis@ Direct access helps us make out restrictions on public remedy will take time and ed].” time with an emissary who ncrconline.com or as an online quick departures at critical parking of oversized and patience. And it will likely The go-to mediation is on good terms with him. submission by visiting moments. recreational vehicles and on inflame the tensions that technique for communicat- Over coffee, your street www.ncrconline.com/MediateThis. But the real flash point in parking heavy-duty com- are brewing on your block. ing with a high-conflict ambassador should focus All submissions will be kept parking wars is the near- mercial vehicles in residen- A better option is spelled individual like your neigh- on learning more about the anonymous. NOTEBOOKS From Union-Tribune reporting staff PUBLIC SAFETY: TERI FIGUEROA THE READERS’ REPRESENTATIVE: ADRIAN VORE Big drop seen in juvenile arrest rates Aztecs coverage from 6K miles away The arrest rates of juveniles in the bers of adult arrests is also down, at a 10- Regular U-T readers certainly noticed the pairings in the men’s 1,000, and the Yahoo county dramatically fell over a decade, ac- year low. familiar name and face of Union-Tribune Sports story about players allegedly taking cording to research findings released last Burke noted that with the approval of sports writer Mark Zeigler in coverage from loans popped up. week. Proposition 47 in 2014, the state downgraded the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South “Pope wasn’t mentioned in the story, but The rate dropped 66 percent between a number of property- and drug-related Korea. there he was, buried in the documents that ac- 2007 and 2016, San Diego Association of crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. Zeigler, who has worked at the U-T for 32 companied it. Given the time back in the Governments reported in its annual study The year 2015 saw a 28 percent plunge in years, has traveled all over the globe covering States,andgivenmyknowledgeofthesubject, examining arrest rates by local law enforce- felony arrests, and an 11 percent increase in Olympic Games and soccer’s World Cup. He’s IfiguredIbetterstartwriting.Iwokeafewpeo- ment agencies. misdemeanor arrests — not an unexpected also the main reporter covering San Diego ple up in San Diego to get some background, Even with the drop, the county still has shift given the change in classifications. Statebasketball.He’shadthatbeatsince2010. and filed the story.” the second highest rate of arrests — for ju- But in 2016, the misdemeanor arrest rate WhenastorybrokeabouttheAztecs’Malik He has written SDSU basketball stories veniles and for adults — when compared to dropped by 4 percent in the county. It’s un- Pope being suspended after his name ap- during the 2010World Cup in South Africa, the the five largest Southern California coun- clear why. peared in documents related to a federal 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the 2014 Winter ties. San Bernardino topped the list for ju- That same year, adults in the region probe of college basketball corruption, Zeigler Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the 2016 Summer venile and adult arrests. were most frequently arrested for drug or wrote the article, despite being 6,000 miles Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and while on vaca- The findings come from data SANDAG alchol-related offenses, including drunken away in Korea. (SDSU cleared Pope on Tues- tion in France in 2016 and on vacation in New analyzed from California’s Department of driving. day of any wrongdoing.) Zealand last May. Justice. The data include information Between 2012 and 2016, the county also Zeigler’s article appeared in print on the through 2016. saw a 34 percent increase in the number of front of the Sports section Feb. 24. More on Zeigler’s SDSU, Olympic coverage Cynthia Burke, director of SANDAG’s people arrested for skipping court. That, His byline didn’t escape reader Paul Tes- • He covered an SDSU basketball game Criminal Justice Research Division, said Burke said, suggests that some of the peo- saro of Mission Hills, who emailed the Read- Saturday night, Feb. 3. He left for Tokyo on his some of that decrease in arrests of juveniles ple who were cited instead of arrested may ers’ Rep. “Was Mark Zeigler’s story on Malik way to Seoul the next morning. He returned to could be the result of an increased focus on be failing to show up for hearings. Pope in Saturday’s U-T written from SanDiegoonTuesdaymorning,andcovereda prevention and diversion. Pyeongchang, South Korea? If so, why wasn’t San Diego State game that night. As with the arrests of juveniles, the num- [email protected] his location included in the byline?” • He would typically get four to five hours of Yes, Zeigler wrote the story from South Ko- sleep per night during the Winter Games, but rea. Although datelines — a location in upper- some nights might be one or two. “What POLITICS: JEFF MCDONALD case letters at the start of the story — can indi- makes an Olympics in Asia so challenging,” he cate from where the reporter filed the piece, said, “is that with the time change, events are they also can indicate where the event hap- pushedtothemorningsorlatenights.Soifyou Sheriff’s candidate criticizes Gore pened. cover a night event, you might not get back to Zeigler penned the SDSU article in South your room until 2 or 3 a.m., then might have to Cmdr. Dave Myers, the candidate seek- Myers was referring to three internal in- Korea, but the location was irrelevant. I think catch an 8 a.m. bus up to the mountains for ing to replace Sheriff Bill Gore on the June vestigations that have received media at- including a dateline might have even confused snowboard.” ballot, said a series of recent scandals has tention in recent days and weeks. readers. There was no connection between eroded morale across the department and The most serious case involved Deputy Pyeongchang and the college basketball sub- U-T high school internship program is open confidence in the two-term sheriff. Richard Fischer, who was charged with 14 ject matter. The U-T’s annual summer journalism pro- The Gore campaign did not respond to an criminal counts last week after more than a But why would Zeigler write the story at gram for high schools students is taking appli- email request for comment, but the sheriff dozen women accused him of sexual mis- all? He was covering the Olympics, for Pete’s cations.