As details began to emerge this morning about the apparent perpetrator of the horrific Aurora, CO tragedy, members of the San Diego media were forced to confront some unwelcome news. Twenty-four-year-old James Holmes grew up in the area.

Veteran journalist Don Bauder was one of the first among those to post locally about this aspect of the fatal mass shooting, via the San Diego Reader website. About an hour and a half later, Bauder added more info in the comments:

Holmes graduated from Westview High School in 2006. He attended a biotech boot camp at Miramar College. He also apparently worked at Salk Institute for Biological Studies. His mother and father live in Rancho Peñasquitos, where he once lived.

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Don Bauder at the San Diego Reader thinks it’s a definite possibility. We’ve heard the rumors too, but haven’t gotten anything solid one way or the other.

Since taking over the San Diego Union-Tribune at the end of last year (and re-naming it U-T San Diego) Manchester has been rumored to be eying the North County Times as well. But UT editor Jeff Light is an OC Register alumn, and has brought plenty of folks with him from the OC to San Diego. The Register has been rumored to be on the block since its parent company Freedom Communications went bankrupt in 2009. Freedom recently settled a major lawsuit with several of its unsecured Register creditors stemming from that bankruptcy, which certainly must make the paper a whole lot more appealing to potential buyers.

More to come on this story, we’re sure.

*Voice of San Diego confirms that Manchester is definitely interested in the Register. “There’s no deal right now,” Manchester told VoSD. “Check with me in 30 days and there might be something.”

For many years a reporter with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Don Bauder was recently the messenger of an unconfirmed rumor about the publication’s possible next owner.

He got a no-comment from Platinum Equity, the LA based behemoth that currently signs the checks and which, after massive layoffs, claims its by-the-border daily is profitable. According to Bauder’s San Diego Reader column, the suitor is local hotelier Doug Manchester (pictured):

Manchester as a buyer would be full of ironies. He is not cooperative with the press. His interest would probably be in the real estate end of the deal…

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At the beginning of the year, a memo went out to employees of the San Diego Union-Tribune, instructing those who had accumulated a large amount of vacation days that they should start taking some, so as to eventually whittle down the buffer to a maximum of five weeks. Then, another memo asked that they lock in this action by April.

According to San Diego Reader reporter Don Bauder, this, along with news of employee pension checks being issued by a different bank, has employees rushing to take those vacation days. He also notes how hard it is to predict what the newspaper’s owner, Platinum Equity, might do next:

Platinum is run by Tom Gores, who is worth a reported $2.2 billion. A similar company, Gores Group, is run by his brother Alec, who is worth $1.6 billion… The brothers failed in a joint attempt to buy Miramax and Platinum failed trying to buy the Boston Globe and Business Week Magazine.

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