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Buss thought about calling James anyway. Over lunch with his kids, he mentioned the idea, offhandedly. “It’d be good to know that guy,” his son Joey recalled him saying. League rules allowed teams to meet with any free agent. Why not meet with James to introduce him to the Lakers’ vision? Why not sow the seeds of a future partnership?
ANOTHER DREAM TEAM
“LeBron was always somebody that he was interested in,” said Buss’ daughter Jeanie, the Lakers co-owner. The idea took eight years to materialize. The 2010 meeting never happened. Two years later, after James won his first championship, the Buss family patriarch was in the grip of an illness that eventually took his life.
Lakers' signing of LeBron James began with a Jerry Buss Jerry Buss never saw James turn into a three-time champion, a savior in Cleveland and an entertainment dream mogul. He also never saw the team he stewarded through By TANIA GANGULI LA TIMES
Eight years ago Jerry Buss had a dream. LeBron James as a Laker. It was the summer of 2010 and the Lakers were not going to be players in free agency. They had just won their 16th championship, beating the hated Boston Celtics. They had their team. Besides, they had no salary cap space to add a star.
10 championships fall to the depths of the last five years. He didn’t see a player who was like a son to him, Magic Johnson, come back to the franchise in an effort to suspend its free fall. The recovery has been painful, and it is not complete. But eight years after Buss first suggested James should be a Laker one day, he is one.
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3 “He was like a little kid,” Johnson said. “He couldn’t wait to sit in front of Shaq. I have been through a lot of those times when we were recruiting guys and I could see how animated and excited he got.” Buss loved telling star players about his vision, and he always felt confident in his pitch. His recruiting ability, plus deft moves by the executives he hired, helped bring some of the league’s biggest stars to the Lakers. The maverick owner showed that confidence the very first time he met Johnson. The NCAA tournament star had been drafted onto the team — he had no choice in the matter — but Buss knew Johnson would love being a Laker. As the years passed, Johnson sometimes spoke with free agents to tell them what it was like.
His arrival is a beacon assuring fans that the franchise is traveling in the right direction. “It just feels right,” said Jesse Buss, Jerry’s youngest son, who is the Lakers’ assistant general manager and director of scouting. “It feels like, finally. It means a lot since it’s really the first chance since he passed away that it kind of seemed like similar to something he would have done.” James’ decision is a start, a possible first step in the healing of a proud franchise. Superstars have always been the Lakers’ way. Jerry Buss thought having one — player or coach — made everything easier. Especially the business of winning championships. It’s what got him so excited in 1996 when thengeneral manager Jerry West told him about a teenager named Kobe Bryant. Buss was on vacation with his youngest children at the Royal Hawaiian, whose staff knew the family so well they’d let the kids store their toys at the hotel between trips. He rushed back and forth from the beach for updates from West. That summer they also signed Shaquille O’Neal, who dreamed of Lakers stardom from the first time he saw a room full of celebrities stare in awe at Magic Johnson. Johnson remembers how delighted Buss was at the idea of securing O’Neal.
“He was a little kid. He couldn't wait to sit in front of Shaq.”
It was good preparation for a time when the franchise would need him to sell. Bryant nearly left before his final two championships, but Buss promised he could build another championship team. He sent a telegram from vacation assuring him so. “The day we traded for Pau [Gasol], Kobe called and said, ‘I can win a championship with this dude,’” Jesse Buss recalled. They won two, in 2009 and 2010. That summer, James left Cleveland for Miami, joining Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade to create a superteam. He met with the New York Knicks, New Jersey Nets, Clippers, Cavaliers, Heat and Chicago Bulls. Two years later, after James won his first championship, the Lakers brought in two players meant to reload their title hopes — Dwight Howard and Steve Nash. Read more www.sdmonitornews.com
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Favorites, Incumbents Win at Polls, But Rent Control Measure Fails By Manny Otiko | The midterm election results show some favorites and incumbents won, but there were more than a few surprises.
Cox, who is originally from Illinois, has never won a race for an elected position. Democrat Marshall Tuck, the former CEO of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school company, is the winner of the state superintendent of public instruction race. He faced off against Democrat Assemblymember Tony Thurmond which he lost.
Former Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom is predicted to be the next governor of California. With 100 percent of precincts reporting in, Newsom had a 10 point lead over his Republican challenger John Cox.
And in the race for state insurance commissioner, Democrat Ricardo Lara, defeated Independent Steve Poizner. Lara had 50.8 percent of the votes, while Poizner had 49.2 percent of the electorate.
Newsom, who is originally from San Francisco, rose to national prominence as mayor of the city. He ran on a progressive campaign which promised to back issues such as ending the state’s housing shortage, education and clean energy. Also, as governor, Newsom will be seen as one of the nation’s foremost opponents of President Donald Trump’s harsh immigration stance. Newsom is a supporter of sanctuary cities, while Trump claimed Californians were “rioting” against this issue. (This was incorrect.)
There were surprising results from state ballot measures. Proposition 10, a rent control question failed, as did Prop. 8, a question to regulate charges on kidney dialysis treatment. Prop. 6, a question to repeal the fuel tax also failed. This question was supported by Cox and other Republicans.
California Black Media
Cox, an attorney and real estate entrepreneur, ran on a campaign of reducing taxes and regulations which he claimed were strangling economic growth in California. He poured $4 million of his own money into his campaign.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein retained her U.S. Senate seat. She defeated fellow Democrat State Sen. Kevin de Leon by almost 10 points.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra was another incumbent who won reelection. Becerra won 60 percent of the vote, while his Republican challenger Steven C. Bailey received about 40 percent of the electorate.
However, some of the measures that passed were Prop. 1, to fund veteran and affordable housing, Prop. 2, to amend the existing housing program for mental illness, and Prop. 7, to change daylight savings time. Polls closed on Tuesday night, but Sec. late tally’s came in and people had their say!
“State law gives county elections officials up to 30 days after Election Day to complete vote counting, auditing, and certification. In California, we work to ensure every ballot is counted properly and every ballot is accounted for,” said Padilla in a press statement.
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WE DID IT!
Community, we did it!
We organized. We worked. We fought. We voted. And we were heard! I am so proud and honored to have been the torch bearer for this movement—and this moment—of community empowerment. I can never properly express my gratitude for all the work that has been done on my behalf. But this isn’t about me. This is about the future of our communities. A future where we are the builders of our own homes and our own opportunities. A future where we are treated with respect and dignity by law enforcement and political power brokers. A future where the community has a direct line to the decisions made at City Hall. A future where our voices and our lives matter. Right now, we celebrate the work we’ve done. We, together, have brought a new day to south east San Diego. We have woken up to the power of our own voices, our own instincts, and the sheer power our collective will. I want to thank everyone who has stood with me over this journey. Make no mistake: Every endorsement, dollar, door knocked, phone called, sign waved, and event hosted brought us one step closer to our seat at the table of power. You made a huge difference in a campaign that the political establishment never saw coming. Most importantly, the community knows how to hold City Hall accountable to their promises. And I cannot wait to work with the community to keep mine. But this is just the beginning of the journey. Community, we are just getting started.
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REDISCOVERING EACH OTHER Michelle Obama Says She & Barack Are Rediscovering Romance After the White House: 'It's Just the Two of Us' Michelle and Barack Obama are going back to their romance roots. Since leaving the White House in January 2017, the former first couple have been reveling in the one thing they rarely shared during their eight years as president and first lady: alone time. “We are finding each other again,” Mrs. Obama says in an exclusive at-home interview with PEOPLE about her postWhite House life and new memoir, Becoming, on sale now. “We have dinners alone and chunks of time where it’s just us — what we were when we started this thing: no kids, no publicity, no nothing. Just us and our dreams.” The former first lady, 54, went on to reminisce about the couple’s recent getaway to Palm Springs — without daughters, Malia, 20, and Sasha, 17 — which marked “the first time in a long time it was just the two of us.” “And it was good,” she said. “We swam, we sat, and he wrote because he’s still writing his book. So he’s a little resentful,” she added with a laugh. Despite their recent marital bliss, Mrs. Obama also spoke candidly with PEOPLE about more troubled times in their seemingly perfect union, including one point when the former first couple sought help from a marriage counselor.
The San Diego Monitor “Because we’re role models, it’s important for us to be honest and say, if you’re in a marriage and there are times you want to leave, that’s normal — because I felt that way,” the former first lady says. Did she herself ever consider leaving Barack? “There were definitely times when I wished things were different,” Obama tells PEOPLE, “but I don’t think I ever thought, ‘I’m just checking out of this.’ “
City Water Department Knew of Smart Meter $2M later
By Tom Jones, Dorian
Hargrove and Consumer Bob
For more than a year, hundreds of San Diego residents complained about unexpected, and unexplainable, increases in their bi-monthly water bills. During that time the Public Utilities Department repeatedly insisted that there were no significant problems with the smart water meter program. The city instead blamed the billing irregularities on water leaks, over-watering of landscaping, houseguests visiting for the holidays, and a water meter reader who allegedly misread more than 340 meters. Since last July, NBC 7 Responds has been asking questions about billing problems, including whether or not the city’s $60-million smart water meter project or Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) factored into the billing spikes. In January, Jerry McCormick, spokesperson for the Public Utilities Department, said the city “has had no exceptional or unexpected problems regarding the AMI [smart meter] equipment supplied by our vendors.” Read more www.sdmonitornews.com
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