Video Transcript:

GLORIA PENNER (Host): We'll talk more about budget cuts, also about the city pension plan, and corruption charges at the county, with the editors. JW August is managing editor of 10 News, and Ricky Young is government editor for The San DIego Union-Tribune. Ricky, considering the barrage of news we're getting about severe cuts everywhere, and especially with education, what's your assessment of what's been cut so far at the San Diego City schools?

RICKY YOUNG (San Diego Union-Tribune, Government Editor): Everybody seemed greatly relieved, at the end of this 11 hour meeting, when Superintendent Terry Grier came up with sort of a solution, in a Solomon-like way, that allowed them to not make the cuts they really didn't want to make, including closing the schools, closing their special fourth, fifth and sixth grade programs at Balboa Park, Old Town and Palomar, and so there was a great sense of relief there, but it's not over. Because of what's going on in Sacramento, there's more coming, both at the school level, the city and everywhere else.

PENNER: I think it's really interesting, those favorite programs haven't been cut. The arts, the excursions, the tenured teachers. I'm wondering, after all the emotion and the recriminations and the dire warning of consequences, did the school board emerge looking like the good guys, who saved the teachers and saved the programs?

JW AUGUST (10News, Managing Editor): For now, they did. But it's not over yet. They're still going to be looking at closing some of the small schools later in the year, so that's still not off the table, and who knows what the future is gonna hold. 

PENNER: Ok, well also this week, Mayor Sanders and an assortment of other local officials, they protested the state's proposal to borrow some $2 million from the government, and Sanders wants local governments to offer alternatives to Sacramento. What alternatives, Ricky?

YOUNG: Well, that's a good question. This is an issue that has gone back to before Arnold Schwarzenegger took office, there was this same sort of din at the time, because his main thing was wanting to reduce the vehicle fee, which goes to cities and counties, and so even as he took office, they were saying, if you reduce that fee you're gonna have to make us whole with many of the same kinds of things that you're hearing right now from the cities and counties in terms of "Don't touch our budgets." They're now saying that again, so.

PENNER: The interesting thing is I interviewed a couple of mayors of the other cities, and National City is in good shape, La Mesa is in good shape, and guess why? Because they raised sales taxes a couple of years ago, and those taxes seem to be giving them the cushion. Is that the answer for the City of San Diego?

AUGUST: Well, it won't happen, but that is the answer. Somebody is gonna have to bite the bullet one of these days. The clock's running, they're looking for the seventh calvary to come riding in, and the seventh calvary is not gonna come riding in.

PENNER: Is it a waste of time, to have all these protests, and to vent? I mean, could the time be better spent?

AUGUST: Oh, I'm glad Mayor Sanders did that. By golly, I'd be on the phone to Kehoe, and all the state assemblymen, and senators, saying, "You gotta stand up for us. They've been taking advantage of San Diego for years, Sacramento. Don't let them take the money."