The worldwide financial turmoil is beginning to be felt in San Diego, where the budget adopted by the City Council in June is now careening out of balance. Mayor Jerry Sanders and the City Council must move immediately to cut spending and get the looming deficit under control. The longer the mayor and the City Council put off the spending reductions, the bigger the reductions will have to be.

Members of the San Diego Unified School District board will soon have an opportunity to rescind their astonishing attempt to restrict their own free speech. Last month the board adopted policies that include the following: “When speaking to the press or otherwise publicly sharing personal opinions, members will respect decisions of the board and will not undermine those decisions.

Twice last week, Terry Grier, superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District, exercised disappointingly bad judgment. First, he called a “voluntary” meeting of principals on their own time. Few would dare not to go.

Proposition B on next month's ballot calls for creation of a platform over the 10th Avenue Marine Terminal that could house a football stadium, a hotel and other commercial development. The measure pits private developers against opponents that include the Port Commission and San Diego City Council.

Confidence is everything in finance. Until last week the politicians trying to tackle the credit crunch had done little to restore this essential ingredient.

In this campaign, partisans find it difficult to stay faithful to their principles from one news cycle to another. One minute, Republicans oppose affirmative action; the next, they're using it to pick their party's vice presidential nominee.