The largest crowd of revelers in Hillcrest Mardi Gras history filled University Avenue last night as they celebrated a beautiful Fat Tuesday evening at the annual neighborhood party. Excitement was in the air as friends – old and new alike – ate, drank and collected beads. Tootie and the Lips Girls entertained throughout the night along with Candye Kane, Sue Palmer, Il Circo street performers and the Bugs. All the proceeds from the event will support community improvements through the Hillcrest Business Association and scholarships through the GSDBA Charitable Foundation.

San Diego LGBT Pride recently announced a program affording both nonprofit and commercial organizations opportunities to conduct official Pride events, ranging from arts and culturally based affairs to family-oriented, health-related or adults-only happenings. Such events will tie directly into Pride’s 2009 calendar schedule from June 13 to July 31, provided they recognize and support the diversity of San Diego’s GLBT community and the mission and vision of San Diego Pride. This year’s San Diego LGBT Pride celebration, “Stonewall 2.0 – Activism for Equality,” will be held July 18-19.

Official celebration events may be free or ticketed, either of which require a standard donation to San Diego Pride listed in the program’s detailed summary under “events” on the Web site at www.sandiegopride.org. Ticketed events must create fund-raising opportunities for San Diego Pride, which are negotiable with relevant Pride-events coordinators.

Hosting organizations will receive use of an official Pride logo, as well as public-relations support that includes listings of their events on the Pride Web site and in this year’s Pride Guide, which distributes 20,000 copies regionally starting in June.

Organizations seeking “official Pride event” designation must submit an application form by Wednesday, April 15, available for download on the Pride Web site. Applications submitted beyond the deadline are not guaranteed publicity in the Pride Guide or ensuing marketing materials.

“Pride is continuously looking to partner with community organizations for producing everything from grassroots events to for-profit productions,” said Ron deHarte, executive director of San Diego LGBT Pride. “During these difficult financial times, Pride can help promote a wide variety of entertainment and special events that will broaden the reach of participating organizations as well as San Diego Pride.”

In addition, prospective applicants may organize their events around a specific purpose or organization aligned with San Diego Pride, such as Youth Pride, activism-awareness programs, “Pride Green,” the HIV/AIDS community and others. The possibilities are vast and Pride encourages creativity among its partnering organizations.

For more information, call the Pride office at 619-297-7683 ext. 107, or visit www.sandiegopride.org.

Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) San Diego is offering scholarships for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender high school seniors, undergraduate and graduate students.

If you can use $1,000 to help pay school expenses and are a San Diego County resident, apply for one of our scholarships of $1,000 or more.

The application deadline is Friday, March 27.

For more information or to link to the PFLAG scholarship application, visit www.pflag.com.

The San Diego LGBT Community Center announced last week that effective Tuesday, March 17, its Behavioral Health Services (BHS) program will re-locate to the main Center building at 3909 Centre St., in Hillcrest. The move will significantly improve community members’ ability to access counseling services and County of San Diego HIV Testing services, which are currently located at a separate location on El Cajon Blvd. in North Park.

“By bringing these services onsite to our main building, we will be able to better integrate all our services, making it much easier for clients to access all programs, services and information at one site: our main facility,” said Center CEO Dr. Delores Jacobs. “The move addresses requests from BHS clients and hopefully eliminates the confusion and inconvenience sometimes encountered by those who naturally assume that our Centre Street facility is the location for all of our programs.”

The Center’s BHS programs provide a wide range of counseling services by mental-health professionals. These include individual, couple/family, and group counseling; specialized services for transgender persons; help for those struggling with relationship violence and assistance for those living with HIV/AIDS.

In addition to enhancing the quality of community programs provided by The Center, the integration of the services will create a cost-saving opportunity at a time when The Center, like all community organizations, is experiencing the challenges brought on by the national economic downturn.

Effective March 17, those seeking information about counseling services can call the main Center at 619-692-2077. Until March 17, all services will continue to operate at the current 2313 El Cajon Blvd. site.

With a growing number of individuals and families being impacted by the economic crisis, The San Diego Food Bank has asked The San Diego LGBT Community Center to host a distribution site for the Community Cares Project. Beginning Tuesday, March 3, and continuing on the first Tuesday of every month, from 9 to 10:30 a.m., visit The Center’s parking lot for a “one-stop-shop.” Receive emergency food, pre-screen for food stamps and sign up for a range of other services, including housing, employment and medical as well as low-cost utility programs. For more information, visit: http://sandiegofoodbank.org/programs/communitycares

On the same day that the city released figures showing a jump in the city’s pension deficit to $2 billion, City Councilmember Carl DeMaio released a report showing million-dollar pension payouts and six-figure retirements being made in the city’s financially-troubled pension system.

DeMaio’s report details the top 100 retirement allowances paid by the city pension system in 2008. The report also reveals the dollar value of the additional lump-sum payouts made under the controversial Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) program that has allowed city workers to “double dip” to bank retirement payouts at 8 percent compound interest for five years while continuing to draw a city paycheck.

“San Diego taxpayers are being asked to raise taxes to bailout the city’s pension system, but we see these outrageous million-dollar payouts and six-figure retirement allowances,” DeMaio said. “Excessive benefits not only waste the taxpayers’ money, but threaten the retirement security of rank-and-file city workers. We must reform the city’s pension system once and for all.”

To begin the process, DeMaio has called on the pension board to vote to reduce the DROP interest rate from the current 7.75 percent guaranteed rate-of-return to an indexed rate of about 4 percent. This reform alone would save $3.5 million of the annual required contribution rate (ARC) and $25-45 million off the unfunded actuarial accrued liability in fiscal year (FY) 2011 – and would reduce the overall unfunded pension liability by roughly $250 million by FY 2012.

“The public needs to know that city employees are receiving 8 percent guaranteed, risk-free investment returns on DROP accounts at the taxpayers’ expense,” the District 5 councilmember said.

The report is the third of four DeMaio’s office is releasing on excessive labor costs, salaries and benefits in city government.

City unions have been quick to blast the reports – blindly labeling them as misleading. “There is no surprise that the unions want to shoot the messenger on this, but the data is irrefutable as it comes directly from the city’s payroll system. As city leaders talk of service cuts and tax increases, I am shining a light on how our existing tax dollars are being spent and suggesting ways we can save money. The taxpayers deserve no less.”

Last month in advance of labor negotiations beginning, DeMaio released a proposal to balance the city’s budget by freezing city employee salaries and reducing benefits. The proposal would save up to $70 million annually.