Tcs Enterprises

I think I've discovered my San Diego hero: Walter Gifford Smith. Smith, a ruddy-faced New Yorker who "resembled more the neighborhood butcher than a fire-eating editor," was editor of the San Diego Sun in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Talk about journalism with a point of view! It was an era when newspapers packed a wallop and sometimes provoked a counter-punch. One day the targets of some of Smith's waspishness went to the Sun office, across from Horton Plaza, and threw Smith out a window.

Lawrence W. Taggart, former commissioner of the California Department of Savings and Loan, made a ruling favorable to Lincoln Savings & Loan in late 1984, a month before he left office to join a firm that then received a $2.9-million investment from the S&L. Taggart acknowledged Thursday that he gave Irvine-based Lincoln approval in December, 1984, to put $800 million into subsidiaries that were allowed to make direct investments in real estate, securities and other risky ventures. On Jan.

Hotel Inter-Continental lenders are balking at developer Doug Manchester's demands that they restructure more than $218 million in loans as a condition of Marriott Corp.'s taking over as operator of the financially troubled 681-room hotel.

Friday's increase in the prime lending rate will lead to a one-quarter to one-half percentage point increase in fixed-rate mortgage rates over the next week or two, an increase that is almost sure to have a chilling effect on San Diego's housing market, industry officials said. The anticipated rise in mortgage rates will especially affect the county's new housing market that in recent months had already shown signs of weakness after more than three boom years, the officials said.

Two days after the presidential election, Washington's rumor mill was overflowing Thursday with the names of well-known Californians who have been seeking or might be offered prominent posts in George Bush's Administration. Although few decisions on jobs have been made by the Bush transition team, several California names are popping up with regularity, according to lobbyists, GOP insiders and congressional aides.

Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. was a "con man" who relied on lies and political influence--"juice"--to fool and bully regulators in charge of his ill-fated Irvine-based thrift, California Savings and Loan Commissioner William J. Crawford told an Assembly committee Wednesday. The committee also heard Gov. George Deukmejian's top campaign fund-raiser, Los Angeles attorney Karl M.

Bearing down for all he can on the popular issue of political ethics, Democratic candidate for governor John K. Van de Kamp taunted GOP rival Pete Wilson on Thursday to return more than $200,000 in honorariums he was paid for speeches and articles. Van de Kamp filled the air with excited political slogans at a Sacramento press conference, calling the money "dishonoraria" and saying it amounts to a "corrupt charade" on Californians.

Ted Schmidt had been selling telecommunications hardware for a dozen years when he began researching online marketing in his spare time. In July 1997, he founded a Web business based on mortgage loans. Over the last three years, Schmidt has refined his business model and picked up some tricks of the trade, learning most of them the hard way. Now, in addition to the mortgage loan business, Schmidt is expanding into Web site design and Internet marketing services.

For more than a month, San Diego Mayor Maureen O'Connor has been unable to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Gov. George Deukmejian to discuss the city's growing drug and gang-warfare problem, even after she put her request in writing and offered to meet him anywhere.

With Mayor Roger Hedgecock's resignation Tuesday, the San Diego City Council now must tiptoe through the politically thorny issue of whether to appoint his successor or call a special election. Interviews with most council members and others active in local politics Tuesday indicate that there will be a special election to allow voters to decide who will be San Diego's next mayor. An election could cost the city as much as $1 million.