Editor’s Note: This is a new column about newsworthy members of San Diego County’s Jewish community. We’ll draw our accounts from local print, broadcast and Internet media, adding tidbits now and then from our own store of knowledge. The names of people we know are Jewish community members will appear in boldface type.
SAN DIEGO – Two Jewish philanthropists were in the news on Friday, May 9—one for helping U.S. President Barack Obama raise money to support Democrats in the upcoming congressional campaigns; the other for giving a $6 million gift to underwrite educational programs of the San Diego Zoo. The philanthropists respectively are Irwin Jacobs, co-founder of Qualcomm, and Robert Price, director of the Price Family Charities.
Jacobs was the host to a $10,000-per-person noontime fundraiser on Thursday, May 8, at which Obama reportedly told supporters that the local congressional race pitting incumbent Democrat Scott Peters against the Republican challenger, former City Councilman Carl DeMaio, is one of the most important contests in the nation – especially if Democrats are to realize Obama’s dream of a majority in both the Senate and the House. Currently, Democrats control the U.S. Senate, while Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives.
In U-T San Diego coverage of the event, writer David Garrick reported that 70 attendees heard Obama tell them “We’re not going to be able to go where we want to go and can go and should go unless I’ve got a Congress that’s willing to work with me.”
The President said his goals before completing his second term in January 2017 are to increase the federal minimum wage and to enact immigration reform.
Torrey Pines Boulevard en route to Irwin and Joan Jacobs’ home in La Jolla was lined with sign-carrying protestors, who sloganeered for different causes. Environmentalists opposed a proposed Keystone oil pipeline from Canada through the American heartland. Others opposed the Obama Care, also known as the Affordable Care Act, and still others just didn’t like the President—period. There were a few sign-carriers who voiced an opposite opinion – in support of the President.
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Karen Kucher wrote another Page 1 story for U-T San Diego, this one reporting that the $6 million donated by the Price Family Charitable Foundation will be used, in part, to teach children at 65 area elementary schools about animals and the need for water conservation. The funds also will pay to transport school children to the zoo for further instruction.
Robert Price described himself and wife Allison as “fortunate to have the resources to help this community. I think because of our background as grandchildren of immigrants and our sense of connection to kids who need the opportunity, that this is where we put our interest—This is one of the things that is very important to us.”
Price’s father was Sol Price, an attorney who became the guru of big box marketing, starting with Fedmart and moving on to Price Clubs, which eventually were merged into Costcos.
San Diego Jewish World and its predecessor newspaper, San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage, have reported over the years that among Price’s other charitable projects is the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem, which is a place where it’s hard to determine whether the animals or the visiting humans see more variety. The zoo in Jerusalem is one of the few places where Arab families, Orthodox Jewish families, secular Israelis, Christians, and tourists all mingle –their styles of dress an ever changing tableau as they pass before the animals’ eyes.
UT-San Diego quoted Price as telling attendees from the Dingeman Elementary School at the San Diego Zoo ceremonies that “you young people are going to be taking care of our planet. You are the future of our Earth.”
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Another member of the city’s Jewish community, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, apparently has withstood a blitz by her reelection opponent Bob Brewer, in which complaints to two governmental bodies were use to buttress Brewer’s television commercials suggesting that Dumanis has not acted ethically while in office.
In a local section story in the U-T, reporters Jeff McDonald and Greg Moran reported that the San Diego Ethics Commission quickly rebuffed a complaint brought by Brewer supporter David Stutz, who alleged that Dumanis should have disengorged contributions that came to her past unsuccessful mayoral campaign from retired police officer Ernesto Encinas and luxury car dealer Marc Chase.
According to the U-T reporters, those two men pleaded guilty in a federal case to improperly contributing money from a Mexican national to Dumanis’s mayoral campaign. The Ethics Commission said by the time the federal probe came to light, Dumanis had long closed the books on the mayoral campaign. A spokeswoman for Dumanis says the district attorney intends to disengorge the amount in the future.
We’d like to add the incidental information that Stutz is the widower of the late City Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, whose father, Col. Irving Salomon, was a philanthropist who served as an envoy to the United Nations during the administration of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Wolfsheimer, like Dumanis, was a Jewish Republican.
In a complaint to the Fair Political Practices Commission brought by Jean Walker, Dumanis was accused of failing to report some $5,000 in luncheon and dinner tickets that were given to her by various civic and non-profit organizations. Dumanis’s spokesman, Steve Walker (no relation to Jean), told the U-T that FPPC regulations exempt public officials from reporting such tickets if they are appearing at the functions in official capacities and do not partake of the meals. According to Walker, Dumanis “has a long-standing policy of not accepting meals at events,” the U-T reported.
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In the business section of the U-T, Ian King of Bloomberg News wrote about another Jacobs family member – Paul Jacobs, a son of Irwin’s. Paul recently announced he would step aside as the chip maker’s chief executive officer and become executive chairman of the board, with Steve Mollenkopf succeeding him in his previous position. Bloomberg reported that Jacobs received a one-time equity grant of restricted stock units valued at $45 million “that will vest based on certain profit goals being met.” In the changeover, Jacobs will be paid a salary of $1 per year, with his substantial equity in the company providing the rest of his compensation.
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Finally, a blurb in the U-T sports section, reports that 2012 first-round draft pick Max Fried, a left hand pitcher, had a “successful” bullpen session on Wednesday, March 7, indicating that the left hander’s sore forearm is getting better. It’s anticipated the southpaw will be sent to a minor league Padres affiliate in the middle of May, according to Padres farm director Randy Smith.
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Compiled by San Diego Jewish World