Secretive Executive Has 2 Sets of Rules
Few can argue with the Price Co.’s formula for success as it prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary. (See story on Page 2A.)
But the company that has discovered a simple way to please a discount-hungry public has a more complicated set of rules for dealing with the press.
Take, for example, its policy on photographs of its president, Robert Price. The New York Times, which ran a story on the booming Price Club operator Sunday, took Robert Price’s picture--a privilege not given to the Los Angeles Times or other papers in San Diego because of Price’s fears about his and his family’s security.
By contrast, a national trade magazine was allowed to shoot the company’s building only from the parking lot.
Our picture features only the innards of the Morena Boulevard Price Club warehouse, per the company’s restrictions. When our staff said we’d like a panoramic picture, a company official asked--jokingly, we presume--if we were going to bring our own ladder.
The bottom line: A ladder was provided, but our industrious photographer had to lug the 10-foot wooden ladder across the giant warehouse floor.
A Boost for Latino Bankers
They receive little publicity and an equal amount of recognition among the three-piece crowd, but two minority banking associations are trying to make things happen in San Diego.
The Hispanic Bankers Assn. on Friday installed a new slate of officers, and now will attempt to “assist in the growth and development of Hispanics in the banking industry.” In addition, the group hopes to serve as “role models” for Latino youths, 25% of whom drop out of high school, according to Jose R. dela Garza, assistant vice president of Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and this year’s president of the association.
The 5-year-old association’s members total only 30, and dela Garza said expanding the ranks is one of his priorities. “We really don’t know how many Hispanics in banking are out there. It’s becoming a concern because the destiny is written for this region--we are going to be the majority, and there’s a constant influx of Hispanics in very important levels of different sectors of the community,” Dela Garza said.
There is also an Urban Bankers Assn., a 12-year-old group of 30 black bankers in San Diego. The association is slightly ahead of its Latino counterpart: On June 1, former Congresswoman Yvonne Burke keynotes an association-sponsored scholarship awards banquet, to benefit two black university students from San Diego studying finance and banking.
Tax Benefits of Condos’ Lower Values
Some San Diego condominium owners grew wide-eyed last week when Los Angeles County officials reported that more than 10,400 people will each pay an average $190 less in property taxes because of declining condominium values.
But before locals figure out what to do with any property tax savings, they should know that L.A. County Tax Assessor Alexander Pope actually invited condominium owners to apply for reassessments.
San Diego County Tax Assessor Greg Smith isn’t being so cordial, although he noted that, under state law, anyone who believes his property has decreased in value since its purchase can ask for a reassessment. Smith said that only 1,045 properties in San Diego County--most of them condos--have been reappraised downward under Proposition 8, passed by voters in 1979.
The impact on county revenue, officials said, has been “minuscule.”
Not included under Proposition 8 is the condo that was purchased for, say, $75,000 in 1978, rose in value to $100,000 and now is valued at $85,000, Smith said.
Even the Bar Is Dry at Radisson
Radisson Hotel developer Carroll Davis on Friday signed a stipulation with the state Alcohol Beverage Control Board acknowledging that the hotel violated state liquor laws. The agreement stemmed from several drug-related arrests at the hotel earlier this year.
Davis previously had objected to signing the stipulation, saying he feared that it would hurt any future efforts to secure another liquor license. His fears have been eased, he said Monday.
The federal regulators who now control the Radisson Hotel have entered escrow on a purchase of another license. In the meantime, the hotel is dry and probably will remain so for at least 45 days.
Meanwhile, the costs of administering Davis’ bankrupt firm continue to mount. A hearing is scheduled for June 5 into the fee requests of trustee C. Hugh Friedman, his lawyers and accountants. Total tab for what’s been paid and what’s being asked: $595,500.
Kroc Supports Anti-Drug Seminar
Eighty sports reporters and editors showed up at Monday’s all-day seminar at the Hotel Inter-Continental, where drugs in sports was hotly discussed by drug rehabilitation experts.
Keynote speaker at the seminar, organized by the San Diego Union sports staff, was baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth.
Picking up the tab for the event, including air fare for the participants: San Diego Padres owner Joan Kroc.
Custodians Picket 2 Office Buildings
It’s an atypical scene: Laborers picketing outside the Wells Fargo Bank building in downtown San Diego. But that’s exactly who shows up every other week at noon for the last three months, there and at the Central Savings Tower, as janitors protest their working conditions at the two structures.
Making minimum wage with no benefits, the workers claim that many of them were fired after they unsuccessfully tried to organize into Service Employees International Union, Local 102.
Of the 25 janitors who worked at the Central Savings building when the union tried to organize, only eight are left, according to Mike Nava, area representative of the union. A similar picture was painted at the Wells Fargo building, he said.
The Koll Co., which manages both buildings, referred all calls to Commercial Maintenance Systems, a subsidiary of a Maryland-based building services firm. Commercial Maintenance bounced an inquiring reporter from staffer to staffer, and all of them declined to discuss the situation.
