California’s Supreme Court last week determined the California Coastal Commission overstepped its authority in blocking a San Luis Obispo County housing construction permit, the latest blow to the agency following years of criticism for its role in blocking housing along nearly 900 miles of the Pacific Coast.

The 7-0 decision reversed the commission’s vote to block a developer from building four homes in Los Osos over habitat and water safety concerns. It changes little about the commission’s authority and governance, but comes after a series of pro-development appointees at the behest of Gov. Gavin Newsom and criticism that it has overstepped its 1976 charter to protect the coast from environmental degradation.

The judges said the commission didn’t have the authority to override the county’s coastal zoning laws.

The decision won’t have “significant implications for the commission’s program or authority,” spokesperson Joshua Smith said in a statement. 

Attorneys representing homebuilder Tim Shea said the ruling signals a broader willingness from the judicial branch to check the commission’s powers.

“For decades, both in the Legislature and in the courts, the commission was largely untouchable,” said Jeremy Talcott, an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented Shea. “And, as we’ve seen now in both places, that’s no longer the case.”

Back in 2020, the commission appealed a permit the county had granted for Shear Development Co. to build four Los Osos homes because of water quality issues and concerns the construction would damage the local habitat in the sparsely populated, unincorporated town. 

Counties create their own coastal development with approval from the commission. San Luis Obispo and San Diego — which has the state’s largest coastal zone — both have commission-approved coastal plans. Typically the commission doesn’t interfere once those plans are in place. However, the commission can override local permits in special cases where it thinks the county is violating the state Coastal Act. 

The state Supreme Court said the commission exceeded its authority by blocking Shea’s project. A 2024 bill, Senate Bill 951, by San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener supports the court’s interpretation.

“Neither the County nor the Commission, as local and state entities respectively, should have greater deference accorded to their interpretations of the Coastal Act,” Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote. All but one of the court’s justices were appointed by Democratic governors.

Housing advocates lauded the ruling as another blow to the commission’s authority.

Colin Parent, chief executive officer of Circulate San Diego, said the particulars of the ruling were less important than the court’s decision to take the case at all.

“This is just another example of a very important branch of California government weighing in favor of seeing some changes,” Parent said, following Newsom’s recent appointments and legislation seeking to curb its authority.

In October, Newsom appointed Jaime Lee, a wealthy Los Angeles real estate developer, to the commission and in May, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas appointed Chula Vista Councilmember Jose Preciado. Preciado has been a vocal critic of the commission blocking  housing and supports more development.

State lawmakers continue to seek to chip away at the commission’s authority. Chula Vista Assemblymember David Alvarez authored a law last year, Assembly Bill 357, that loosens building restrictions for coastal student housing.

What I’m Reading Now

A bill to make it easier for San Diego to build a new stadium was amended to circumvent a court order that had blocked the stadium’s proposed height, The San Diego Union-Tribune writes.

Republican officials in El Cajon are suing over state laws limiting local authorities’ cooperation with federal immigration agents, from CBS 8.

The Los Angeles Times speaks to the underdog candidates in the race to lead the nation’s second-biggest city.

Thanks for reading the Sacramento Report, as always. Please reach me with any questions or comments: nadia@voiceofsandiego.org.

The post Sacramento Report: California Coastal Commission ‘Untouchable’ No More appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

San Diego’s budget could be in a lot of trouble if voters repeal the city’s trash fee.

City leaders say if that happens, their only option would be to cut up to $150 million from city services like stormwater, fire and police departments. Our hosts explain what’s at stake.

Also on the show: The county governance reforms are marching forward. But one state Senator says her fellow Democrats need to change the plan before it goes on the ballot.

Finally: Former Voice of San Diego reporter Ashly McGlone stopped by to talk about her new project Reconnaissance Man.

Before the Vietnam War America knows, James Lyle Steele, an original Marine reconnaissance man, was in it. Operating at the leading edge of a brutal, evolving conflict — poisoned bamboo, booby traps, tunnels, ambushes, and helicopter assaults— he faced a war that demanded constant vigilance. This episode offers Steele’s firsthand account of the war before most Americans realized it had begun, detailing the constant, deadly reality of his experience.

Listen Here Now

Listen: Apple | Spotify | PodLink

The post VOSD Podcast: The Meteor Heading for the City’s Budget appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Street homelessness fell 11 percent year-over-year across the county, according to the region’s latest annual census. 

The Regional Task Force on Homelessness, which oversees the annual point-in-time count held each January, also tallied a 12 percent increase in people staying in shelters.

This translated into an overall 1 percent decrease in homeless San Diegans counted during this year’s January census. 

The Task Force also reported a 6.6 percent drop in unsheltered homelessness in the city of San Diego. The group also cheered overall decreases in cities including Lemon Grove, Santee, La Mesa and the Encinitas area – and regionwide drops in unsheltered veterans, youth between 18 and 24 and people living in vehicles. 

In a statement, Task Force CEO Tamera Kohler attributed the reduction in unsheltered homelessness to efforts including state-backed Encampment Resolution Grant projects in communities including Lemon Grove, increased shelter options and a regional focus on diversion strategies to help people avoid or limit their reliance on the homeless service system. 

“This is what progress looks like,” Kohler. “We’re seeing good results where we’ve made investments.” 

But Kohler and the Task Force also pointed to challenges. 

Homelessness among seniors continued to spike this year. The Task Force reported that people over 55 made up a third of the unsheltered population. Among them during this January’s census was an 86-year-old Latina woman in Chula Vista. 

Kohler also noted the loss of crucial housing vouchers that have bolstered the region’s housing efforts and the uncertainty surrounding federal funding that has haunted homeless service providers for months.  

The Task Force separately reports many more San Diegans accessed homeless services during the past federal fiscal year. The nearly 23,000 people who received services was more than double the 9,803 counted during this January’s homeless census and remains close to last year’s tally of people accessing aid. 

The gulf between those two numbers drives home the reality that the point-in-time count represents a minimum snapshot of the region’s homeless population.  

During the same period, Task Force data also showed the number of newly homeless San Diegans eclipsed the number of newly housed ones by 212 people – a narrowing of the region’s years-long homelessness math problem.  

That gap continued in January, the month that volunteers fanned out throughout the county to tally people living in vehicles, canyons and on sidewalks. In January, 88 more people fell into homelessness for the first time than found homes.  

The post Annual Census: Street Homelessness Down 11% Countywide appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Sergeant Jeremy Huff left the presidency as he entered it: quietly. 

The rank and file of San Diego Police Department elected Huff as the president of their union less than a year ago. But already, Huff has resigned. 

That’s because Police Chief Scott Wahl — who had a public feud with Huff — is trying to fire him, multiple sources in the department confirmed. 

Huff’s file with the department isn’t exactly clean. 

In 2021, he received a written warning for using unjustified force when he excessively punched a homeless person a year earlier, according to an internal affairs report. He also received the warning for not turning on his body worn camera.

More recently, Huff was also charged with falsifying his vehicle registration and lying to the Department of Motor Vehicles. It’s unclear exactly what led to the charges, but eventually the more serious of them were dismissed. Huff was convicted of a simple infraction for not having a registration and paid a $25 fine.

But Huff’s potential firing is also noteworthy for his public beef with Wahl.

The feud started after a video emerged in January showing an officer beating a man with his hands behind his head, who appeared to be offering no resistance.

The video quickly sparked outrage. 

During a radio interview, a host asked Wahl about the video. 

“In this particular case, I think there are things we could have done better,” he said. “We do have options that we could, and should be using at that point other than what was used.”

Huff responded to Wahl’s comments with outrage.

“Police use of force is always a reaction to someone’s actions. When someone complies with lawful orders, they get arrested or detained without incident,” Huff wrote. “[Wahl’s] statements have the potential to cause our members to second guess themselves during critical incidents where they only have a split second to make a choice. This doubt leads to bad decisions which can leave our members injured or dead.”

The statement war, as my colleague called it, didn’t stop there. Wahl shot back.

“Responding to a use of force incident by reaffirming my commitment to give officers the training, resources, and support they need to consistently meet the highest standard is not placing blame. It is part of being a leader,” he said.

Wahl added: “It is disappointing that the new [union] president chose to spend his first few days in office misconstruing my intent instead of working with me to better support our officers.”

Around two months after that statement, Huff received his termination papers. But the firing isn’t final. As with most public employees in California, Huff is entitled to multiple stages of due process.

I asked department officials whether Huff’s firing had anything to do with he and the chief’s public fight.

“The San Diego Police Department cannot comment on personnel matters. All Police Department employees are afforded due process regarding personnel issues,” wrote spokesperson Ashley Nicholes.

Huff also declined to comment.

During the incident that led to Huff’s written warning, he and another officer approached a man sleeping on a pedestrian bridge in Mira Mesa. This was in late February 2020, just weeks before the pandemic began.

Huff discovered the man had a warrant out for his arrest.

The man tightened his arms and tried to turn away when the two officers tried to arrest him. Huff believed the man hit him and Huff punched the man three or four times, according to an internal affairs report.

Huff wrestled the man to the ground and the man “refused to present his arms,” according to the report. Huff hit him in the face again.

That punch, not the earlier ones, counted as unjustified force, the report found.

Huff was also reprimanded because he did not turn on his body camera before or during the incident.

More recent court documents do not say exactly why Huff was charged with falsifying his vehicle registration.

A common version of that crime is for residents in California to register their cars in much cheaper states like Montana.

Eventually, city prosecutors dropped the charges against Huff — and he caught an infraction for not having a registration.

On its face, that would be a surprising reason to fire a cop.

In 2019, a statewide reporting project found that more than 80 cops were still working in California, despite having been convicted of many crimes ranging from animal cruelty to manslaughter and domestic violence.

One San Diego officer was charged with knocking his wife unconscious and kept his job, Voice of San Diego reported.

Since 2019, however, California’s laws have changed. A new law in 2021 established a process (one did not exist before) for revoking an officer’s certification.

Some of the reasons an officer’s certification can be revoked seem obvious, like abuse of power, physical abuse or sexual assault.

Another category of serious misconduct established by the law is dishonesty.

“Dishonesty relating to the reporting, investigation, or prosecution of a crime” all count, according to the commission on police training. “Intentionally filing false reports” is also mentioned.

During his time in the department, Huff was also involved in a shooting that prosecutors deemed justified.

Just days after the incident in which Huff beat the homeless man in Mira Mesa, he and another officer shot a different homeless man.

They were involved in an operation to clear an encampment in a park in the Otay Valley riverbed.

Huff ordered a man to exit his tent. When he made contact with the man he saw that he had a gun in his pocket. Huff ordered him to get down on the ground. Instead the man stuck his hand in his pocket.

Huff appeared to have fired one shot and the other officer 11, according to prosecutors.

The man sustained just three gunshot wounds, two to his arm and one to his leg, and lived.

Because the man reached for his gun, rather than getting on the ground, prosecutors deemed the shooting justified.

Officers recovered the man’s gun after the shooting. It was not an actual firearm; it was a BB gun.

Lieutenant Jared Wilson, the previous president of the San Diego Police Officers Association, was re-appointed to the post after Huff’s resignation.

The post Police Chief Tries to Fire Union Boss He Beefed With appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

San Diego’s recently implemented trash fee has politicos and residents down in the dumps. But a new effort to repeal it could lay waste to the city’s already busted budget.

The chief complaint of the anti-fee crowd is the claim that the fee was a bait and switch. When voters approved the concept of a fee in 2022, city officials gave them an estimate of how much it would cost a month. What they ended up charging, though, was nearly twice as much as the original estimate. 

Some groups have seized on that opening, launching campaigns to repeal the tax altogether. There’s just one problem – the fee is bringing in a lot of dough. If the repeal-heads get their way, the trash fee’s nixing would blow an entirely new hole in the city’s budget, even as leaders try to dig out of an already massive deficit. 

Just how big a hole would it leave? Currently, the trash fee accounts for about 5 percent of city revenue. To put that into perspective, that’s equal to the entire city budget for libraries. 

Charles Modica, San Diego’s independent budget analyst, was blunt about the potential impact of the fee’s repeal: “The city would need to really have a real conversation about just picking a service that it is currently providing and not providing that service anymore.”

Read the full story here. 

Related: When city officials originally pitched the fee, they estimated it would cost voters between $23-$29 a month. But they didn’t chain themselves to that number. 

One reader pointed out some fine print on the item’s fiscal impact statement:“Given that a Cost of Service Study could take several years to complete, and the costs to provide this service may increase over the next several years, the actual fee levied could be higher.”

South County Report: About that State of the City

How much can $28,000 get you nowadays? Apparently, a fully-catered extravaganza featuring an opera singer, a Mission Impossible-themed intro video and a skydiver. 

Just ask Chula Vista Mayor John McCann, who on Tuesday rang in the State of the City with all of the above. And McCann, who’s running for re-election, has some things to celebrate. After all, it’s not just his State of the City that puts San Diego’s to shame. Unlike their neighbor to the north, Chula Vista’s finances are in good shape. It’s yet to be seen if that will be enough for voters in November.

Plus: County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre has built her political career on bringing attention to the Tijuana River sewage crisis. And boy, has she been bringing attention to it this election season.

On Wednesday, former United States Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra became the sixth wannabe-governor to visit the area to get a gander at the health hazard. 

Read the full story here.

Candidates Clash

It’s clashing season in local politics, as candidate debates begin to heat up in earnest. That means local newspapers will begin to fill with one of our favorite words: clash.

On Monday night, six candidates vying to replace District 2 City Councilmember Jennifer Campbell clashed over Mayor Todd Gloria’s Midway Rising plan and long-term plans for Liberty Station. 

Last week, four candidates running to represent City Council District 8, which represents San Diego’s southernmost neighborhoods, clashed over the Tijuana River sewage crisis and the need to revamp the San Ysidro border crossing. In District 4, Councilmember Henry Foster clashed with two challengers over the city’s lightning rod trash fee and homelessness. 

If you have deja vu, it’s likely because local candidates for decades have clashed over issues important to constituents. They’ve clashed over labor unions, they’ve clashed over jobs, they’ve clashed over vacation rentals and they’ve clashed over cops. They’ve clashed over graffiti and even clashed over trees and you better believe they’ve clashed over fees.

Heck, if the clash is quite fierce and the clashers like the bright lights, they may not only clash once, they may just clash twice. 

In Other News 

• Correction: Wednesday’s Learning Curve incorrectly identified Akila Weber Pierson as a California Assemblymember. She is a state Senator. D’oh.
• In 2022, Measure H passed with more than 68 percent support by San Diego voters. Four years later, the measure, which would have helped address a shortage of available child care, has hardly seen momentum. (Union-Tribune)
• April weather conditions across San Diego County have been warm and dry, making regions more prone to wildfires as summer draws near. Even with a wetter winter, firefighters hoped the region would receive more heavy rainfall. (Union-Tribune) 
• On May 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Coast Highway 101 will be car-free and open for cyclists, pedestrians and more as Cyclovia Encinitas partners with the city of Encinitas’ Environmental Commission and Mobility and Traffic Safety Commission for a free event to explore Encinitas in a new way. (The Coast News Group)
• Senate Bill 958, is a bill currently being ushered through the state Legislature that focuses on making the proposed height for the Midway Rising mega project permissible. Plans for the project aim for a 165-foot-tall sports arena and 105-foot-tall residential buildings. (Union-Tribune) 

The Morning Report was written by Jakob McWhinney and Rami Alarian. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.

The post Morning Report: Trashing the Trash Fee appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Attendees of Chula Vista’s annual State of the City speech Tuesday had every reason to wonder what exactly they were viewing. 

Was it an annual update on the city’s progress? A Hollywood production? A Broadway show? 

I described some of the eye-opening special effects kicking off the event in Voice of San Diego’s Morning Report today. 

If you weren’t there, you missed: A Mission Impossible-style introductory film starring Mayor John McCann; a skydiver parachuting from a plane over the Elite Athlete Training Center, where the event took place; opera baritone Manuel Vera belting out God Bless America while McCann awarded medals to leaders of the city’s veterans organizations; and lots more. 

The frills were fun. (And controversial in the eyes of the mayor’s Democratic critics, who rolled their eyes and asked who paid for it all.) 

For the record, I asked the mayor’s staff how much the event cost and who paid. Amanda Fredeluces, McCann’s chief of staff, said the roughly $28,000 cost of the event was paid entirely either by McCann himself or by corporate sponsors, including Seven Mile Casino, Neighborhood National Bank, Cox Communications, the HomeFed Corporation and Republic Services. 

The Elite Athlete Training Center is owned by the city, so there was no rental fee, Fredeluces said. Sponsors covered the $11,605 cost of catering and other event fees, as well as the cost of the Mission Impossible-style video, she said. 

Sponsors also paid for the skydiver, though McCann himself paid the cost to jump out of an airplane during filming of the video, Fredeluces said. 

Fredeluces called the event a success and said close to 500 people attended. 

Strip away the extras, and the mayor – along with his fellow City Councilmembers and the city’s roughly 1,000 employees, who execute Council policy – actually do have a good story to tell. 

Chula Vista is surrounded by cities in fiscal distress. National City faces a mounting deficit and just appointed its second interim city manager amid a protracted search for permanent leadership at City Hall. 

San Diego’s budget woes are epic, and well-publicized. 

Chula Vista, meanwhile, balanced its budget this year with no tax increases, no cuts to public services and fully funded reserves. 

The city hit other milestones too. 

The Council approved yet another large-scale development at the city’s rapidly evolving bayfront. 

The Port of San Diego, in conjunction with the city, broke ground earlier this year on an expansion and upgrade of much-beloved Harbor Park. 

The city opened two new fire stations, signed an agreement with San Diego State University to begin offering four-year nursing degrees at the city’s soon-to-be-opened Millenia Library, broke ground on a new permanent housing facility for homeless residents and approved a new park that will honor Filipino American military veterans. 

Though the city reported lower than expected hotel tax revenue this year amid regionwide economic uncertainty, McCann said the city’s recently opened Gaylord Pacific Resort and Convention Center nevertheless ranks as the third-highest revenue-generating property in the Marriott corporation’s entire worldwide portfolio. 

When McCann, in his speech, called Chula Vista “an undisputed economic engine and regional leader,” he wasn’t just bragging. 

In a recent interview, McCann said he plans to make his city’s record of accomplishments a central theme in his upcoming re-election campaign. The success of that tactic will depend on what voters care about most this year. 

Chula Vista Elementary School District Trustee Francisco Tamayo (who attended Tuesday’s event and was one of the eye-rollers) is McCann’s main opponent in the city’s mayoral race. He has signaled he intends to make the race a referendum on the mayor’s reluctance to comment on immigration issues. 

And he has vowed to turn the city’s recent successes into a negative for the mayor by highlighting the extent to which Chula Vista’s rise is making the city unaffordable for residents. 

McCann ended his speech on an inspirational high note, trying out a new slogan to complement his usual “this is Chula Vista’s decade.” (He said that too.) 

“Today’s accomplishments are tomorrow’s legacy,” he said at the speech’s conclusion. 

The accomplishments are real. The legacy remains to be seen. 

The Tijuana River Gets It’s Moment in the Gubernatorial Spotlight 

The humble, much-polluted Tijuana River has gained an unlikely new identity this year. It’s a must-see whistlestop for Democratic candidates running for California governor. 

Former United States Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Wednesday became the sixth gubernatorial candidate to visit the river this year at the invitation of San Diego County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre. 

Aguirre, whose personal charm belies an almost ruthless strategic ability to strongarm powerful people into doing what she wants, has conducted these candidate tours of the river’s smelly shoreline with a clear goal in mind. 

From each candidate she has extracted a promise to declare a state of emergency at the river the moment they are elected to office. 

Aguirre contends a state of emergency declaration would enable a similar declaration from the federal government, which in turn would free up funding and grease bureaucratic wheels. 

That’s debatable. Not in dispute is Aguirre’s success in propelling each candidate toward seeing the river as she sees it: As a major issue requiring an immediate response. 

Becerra, a far more careful and considered politician than some of the other candidates who have visited the river, took some convincing. 

He asked a lot of detailed questions and seemed quite familiar with many of the larger policy implications. He voiced skepticism about the value of an emergency declaration without funding to back it up. 

He listened attentively as a roundtable of local doctors, public health experts and residents (all selected by Aguirre) explained the severe health impacts of river pollution on South County’s most vulnerable residents. 

In the end, they convinced him. 

“I’d be prepared to declare a state of emergency,” Becerra said. “These declarations don’t automatically bring the funding. It does free up hurdles.” 

Aguirre seemed to relax. Becerra’s tour ended with the discussion roundtable at Arandas Café, next door to El Tapatio, a local Mexican restaurant institution. 

Aguirre introduced Becerra to Arandas founder Celia Aranda, who, along with her husband, Victor, started El Tapatio as a taco stand in 1979 and later expanded to opening Arandas, a gourmet breakfast and lunch café, next door. 

Becerra, who grew up in an immigrant family in Sacramento, chatted with Celia about her business in Spanish and asked how river pollution affects her. A lot, said Celia. Aguirre, formerly mayor of Imperial Beach, beamed. 

Notch another win for the strongarm charm offensive. 

In Other News 

Deputy Mayor Cesar Fernandez on Monday signed into law a new ordinance that strengthens city protections for immigrants and requires regular updates on city police interactions with federal immigration authorities. The measure, approved by the City Council earlier this year, comes as South County cities grapple with the effects of the Trump Administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown. 

U.S. Rep. Juan Vargas announced earlier this month he and other San Diego-area members of Congress are asking for $100 million in next year’s federal budget for infrastructure upgrades to reduce pollution in the Tijuana River. 

Two bills authored by state Sen. Steve Padilla that together constitute some of the nation’s strongest protections for young people who use A.I. chatbots advanced through key legislative committees this month on their way toward consideration by the full State Senate. The bills would restrict advertising and require safeguards to prevent chatbots from encouraging suicide or hooking children on protracted conversations. 

The recently authorized South County Higher Education Planning Taskforce this week will begin gathering public input and sketching out plans for an envisioned four-year university in the city of Chula Vista. The taskforce holds the first in a series of public meetings beginning at 10 a.m. Friday at Chula Vista City Hall. More information here. 

The post South County Report: State of the City and Then Some appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Forget the current budget deficit.  

If voters repeal San Diego’s trash fee, city leaders say their only option would be to cut up to $150 million from city services like stormwater, fire and police departments. 

“Outside of new revenue coming in, there’s no other option,” said Charles Modica, the city’s Independent Budget Analyst. 

A business advocacy group is pitching a ballot measure that would remove the fee for fiscal years 2028 and 2029. They need 21,000 signatures to get the repeal on the November 2026 ballot – far fewer than other signature-gathering efforts. 

“The effort is off to a fantastic start,” said former Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who is leading the repeal on behalf of the Lincoln Club Business League. He didn’t say how many signatures the group has gathered. 

While the former mayor says the city needs to repeal the fee and scale back its spending, Mayor Todd Gloria and other city leaders say the repeal could result in a big blow to the city’s budget. 

“The magnitude of those cuts is going to be significant,” said Modica. 

Modica said the money generated from the trash fee is about 5 percent of the city’s budget.  That is more than what the city spends on the library system in a year, and about what it spends on its network of sidewalks and streetlight, he said.  

“The city would need to really have a real conversation about just picking a service that it is currently providing and not providing that service anymore,” Modica said. 

Since 1919, a law known as the People’s Ordinance required the city to collect trash, without charge, from any home with direct access to city streets. The city paid for trash pick up out of its general fund. 

In 1981 and 1986, voters amended the People’s Ordinance to prevent city officials from ever charging fees for city trash collection. In 1981, voters declared that residential trash collection would remain free, although there could be a fee for industrial and commercial waste. In 1986, voters approved an amendment that would require residents who live on private streets or multi-family homes like apartments to pay private haulers to collect their trash.  

Single-family homeowners with access to city streets continued to get trash picked up without paying a fee. 

In 2022, voters narrowly approved Measure B, a new amendment to the People’s Ordinance that allowed the city to start recovering costs.  

The amendment also clarified which properties are eligible to receive city-provided services. This includes properties on public streets that are not mixed-use or commercial. City workers will also only pick up trash at lots with one to four residences maximum.  

City officials estimated the fee would be between $23-$29 per month per customer when they put Measure B on the ballot. But a cost study later revealed that the fee needed to be higher, so the City Council opted for a much higher fee of $43.60 last summer. 

The full cost for the year turned out to be between $32.82 and $43.60. The fee also increases each year. When people got their tax bills, they were furious.  

A group of homeowners sued the city, alleging officials are charging more than what it costs to pick up trash. A judge recently denied the city’s request to dismiss the lawsuit.  

“The ability to charge for trash barely passed at the ballot box,” said Faulconer. “If the city would’ve told people it was going to be double what they said it was going to be, it wouldn’t have passed. That’s, again, why people are angry and rightfully so over a bait and switch.” 

At least one councilmember, also agrees that the City Council should have never doubled the fee. Henry Foster – along with Councilmembers Raul Campillo and Marni von Wilpert – voted no on the fee last June.  

In a recent candidate forum, Foster said he would like to lower it to the estimate the city offered voters when Measure B passed. 

“We need to right our wrongs. We need to take care of our structural deficit, but we need to take the trash down to $29 — no more,” said Foster. 

Modica said two factors increased the fee.  

First, the Environmental Services Department had historically estimated its customer base was much larger. The department thought it served around 285,000 addresses. Since the department didn’t bill households, it didn’t keep track of which households it served. 

A cost-of-service study by the Environmental Services Department in 2022 revealed it served a little over 222,000 addresses. Essentially, there would be fewer families paying the fee and yet the cost of providing the service was going to increase.   

“The denominator by which you would divide the total costs of our things was smaller, which results in a higher fee,” said Modica.  

Just on that point alone, the city would have needed to increase the cost from $29 to $37 per month to recover all of its costs, a report by Modica’s office found last year.  

Modica said the fee also increased because costs are increasing across the board. Vehicles cost more. So does their maintenance. City workers’ pay has also gone up.  

When Measure B first passed, the baseline operating cost for trash collection was about $98.3 million. That number increased to more than $120 million this fiscal year.  

This year, the fee has generated approximately $117 million. The Environmental Services Department estimates the fee will generate approximately $123.9 million next year, which is about $9 million less than officials expected.  

Jordan More with the independent budget analyst office said that’s because some people are returning their additional bins or opting for cheaper bins.  

Homeowners can choose from a wide range of trash bins. The cheapest option is $32.82 a month for a 35-gallon trash bin. The most expensive option is $43.60, which gets you a 95-gallon trash bin. All the options come with bins for recycling and organic waste. 

The money from the fee goes into something called the solid waste management fund. Dollars that go into this fund can only be used to pay for waste management related activities. This essentially frees up money in the general fund to be spent on other city services.  

That could all change soon with the repeal effort.  

Faulconer said he isn’t concerned about the hit to the general fund.  

“This city survived for a hundred years without having to charge people for trash or having to charge families to go to Balboa Park. It’s about priorities,” he said. He also said city officials can invest in public safety and employees “without having to fee and tax San Diegans to death.” 

City officials need to cut back their spending, and focus on reducing middle managers, or unclassified employees at the city, Faulconer said.  

Mayor Gloria, however, is very concerned.  

“Eliminating the solid waste collection fee or further reducing parking revenue will come at the expense of the general fund,” he said. “The sum total of those two things combined exceed the deficit that we’re closing right now. Basically, you would double the challenge we are currently grappling with. It is real. Where would that come from? Well suddenly we’d be right back to where we are today. Where things we are currently doing our best to protect, specifically public safety, police and fire, would have to be up for deeper reductions.”  

The post The Giant Meteor Heading Toward the City of San Diego’s Budget appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane… It’s Chula Vista’s State of the City event! 

Mayor John McCann on Tuesday staged a State of the City that still has us reeling. 

The event began with a Hollywood-style video starring McCann in a madcap race to get to the speech on time – culminating in him leaping out of an airplane and parachuting toward the city.

As the film ended, an actual airplane (this is not a joke) appeared overhead and a skydiver (still not a joke!) descended toward the crowd of roughly 200 residents and dignitaries gathered at the city’s Elite Athlete Training Center. The skydiver landed in a nearby field and McCann strode onto the stage in a tuxedo accompanied by theme music from Mission Impossible.

It may not shock you to learn McCann is running for re-election this year. 

The event also had all the hallmarks of an average State of the City address, with its shoutouts to corporate sponsors, heartwarming personal anecdotes and an exhaustive list of civic progress. But it had so much more. 

Opera baritone Manuel Vera joined McCann onstage to belt out God Bless America while McCann draped medals over the leaders of Chula Vista’s veterans organizations. (McCann is a United States Navy veteran and current reservist.)

McCann couldn’t resist a dig at his big-city counterpart, Todd Gloria. He pointed out that Chula Vista this year balanced its budget with no new taxes, no cuts in services and fully funded its reserves.

“And no parking fee increases,” McCann added, to widespread laughter.

No word on whether McCann is willing to loan his parachute to Gloria. It might come in handy this budget season.

El Cajon Sues to Overturn State Sanctuary Policies

The city of El Cajon is partnering with the conservative America First Policy Institute to sue the state over its immigration policies. The suit claims the state’s policies “induce and encourage illegal aliens to reside within [California’s] borders.”

The lawsuit, filed in San Diego County Superior Court, also says state sanctuary policies place cities in legal jeopardy by forcing them to limit cooperation with federal immigration agents. 

Last year, The El Cajon City Council voted 3-2 to begin cooperating with federal immigration authorities, in defiance of state policy. The vote has led to ongoing protests.

“Sacramento has spent years telling cities like El Cajon to fall in line with sanctuary policies that put our residents at risk,” Mayor Bill Wells said on social media shortly before the lawsuit announcement. “They assumed nobody would push back. They assumed wrong.”

In a statement, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said, “El Cajon should prepare for another loss… [California’s sanctuary law] has been upheld in court again and again, and we’re prepared to defend it from a baseless attack once more.”

The Tijuana River Is Having a Political Moment

The humble and terribly polluted Tijuana River has become a must-stop destination for candidates seeking to lead California. 

Xavier Becerra, the former Biden cabinet member, became the latest candidate for governor to tour the much-abused river on Wednesday at the invitation of San Diego County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre.

Becerra is the sixth candidate to visit the river this year. Aguirre has pressed each of them – successfully, so far – to promise they would declare a state of emergency at the river, if elected.

Becerra, who as California Attorney General sued the federal government in 2018 to demand action on the river, said he was prepared to declare a state of emergency. But he did hedge. He said he would do so only if he felt the state was ready to make an immediate difference.

“If you declare a state of emergency, you have to deliver,” he said.

Senator Wants to Assign Schools New Math Homework

State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson’s out with a bold proposal: giving California kids another test.

Let’s back up a bit. Statewide, kids aren’t doing great in math. Slightly more than a third of students are meeting stade standards on tests and they still haven’t made up deep pandemic-era learning losses. 

Weber Pierson is proposing a bill to create a math screener for kids in kindergarten, first and second grade that – the thinking goes – would catch kids who are struggling with math before they fall too far behind to catch up. It also would require schools to offer additional supports to kids who aren’t up to snuff in math.

But like recent efforts to revamp California’s literacy curriculum, not everyone is on board with this new proposal. California’s powerful teachers unions have already come out in opposition, making the bill’s climb a steep one.

Read the full Learning Curve here. 

In Other News

• Candidates vying to replace outgoing North County Supervisor Jim Desmond showed no love this week for two top county issues: a proposed sales tax increase and an overhaul of county government that would award current supervisors another term in office. All four candidates, including Democrats, panned the measures, which are supported by the Board of Supervisors’ current Democratic majority. (Union-Tribune)
• Chula Vista is preparing to release the first of a series of bi-annual reports documenting interactions between city police officers and federal immigration agents. The reports are required as part of an immigration ordinance the City Council approved earlier this year. (KPBS)
• Y’all, maybe don’t fly drones near the airport, OK? A United Airlines pilot reported spotting one beneath his airplane as it landed Wednesday. The drone was so close, the pilot thought he hit it. Luckily, he didn’t. (Union-Tribune)
• Who’s supporting and opposing Measure A, a city of San Diego ballot measure that would tax second homes? inewsource has the details. No surprise: The California Association of Realtors is leading the charge against the measure. (inewsource)

The Morning Report was written by Jim Hinch and Jakob McWhinney. It was edited by Will Huntsberry.

The post Morning Report: State of the City Like No Other appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

This post has been updated.

San Diego-area state Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson wants to assign California educators some new homework: screening kids for math competency.  

A new bill authored by Weber would require schools to perform math testing for students in kindergarten, first or second grade. It would also require educators to offer extra support to students whose math skills are behind where they should be. 

A number of safeguards to more narrowly focus the screenings are also written into the bill. Those include the stipulation that scores could not be used to evaluate teachers or identify students for gifted programs. Students’ math skills are already tested in third grade. But in pitching the bill, Weber Pierson argued that disparities begin even earlier than that. 

“By that time, many students who are struggling with foundational math skills have already fallen behind,” Weber Pierson said. 

The effort is aimed at evening the incredibly uneven playing field of early childhood education. Some kids who enter the public school system may have already had years of more focused math education. Many of those who start behind, stay behind.  

“Unless those students get intervention, the gap will widen. It’ll be harder for them to access higher-level math classes later on, and this will have implications for future job opportunities and the economic future of California. It’s a continual closing of opportunities,” Alice Klein, the research director at WestEd told CalMatters. 

But like the reading curriculum reforms signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom late last year, the new math framework could face some stiff opposition. That signing capped years of a contentious back and forth debate in Sacramento during which multiple bills aimed at changing how we teach kids to read crumble under pressure.  

Like some of those earlier literacy bills, the powerful California Teachers Association opposes Weber Pierson’s math bill. In their telling, lawmakers should wait to see how the state’s new math framework impacts student achievement. They also argue that without additional funding to support students who are behind, a screener won’t do much.  

In any case, both the literacy bill and this latest math bill are responding to real deficiencies. Statewide, California students still haven’t made up pandemic-era losses in student performance. Only a little more than a third of students met math standards in statewide tests. That number is even lower for Black and Latino students. 

Nationwide, the state’s fourth graders were tied for sixth lowest in math proficiency according to 2024’s NAEP tests. In reading, the state’s fourth graders tied for eighth lowest. 

“It’s frustrating for people who have worked in the education space and for those who have been looking at these numbers for decades — a generation — and seeing that, as a state, we have not prioritized education,” Weber Pierson told California Black Media at a recent press conference. “But I am grateful that we are taking steps to fix it.” 

San Diego Unified’s New Motivation Meter Shows Modest Gains, Big Gaps 

As San Diego Unified continues to embark into the unknown in its attempts to measure student wellness, district officials on Tuesday presented the second results of a survey intended to measure student motivation.  

The survey measured a handful of school-related factors. Those included things like how safe kids feel at school and how good their relationships with teachers are. It also asked about more personal attributes, like whether students demonstrate things like grit or a growth mindset.  

The results showed modest district-wide gains across almost all of the domains, with students’ ability to manage stress and calm themselves seeing the highest increase. Still, the percentage of kids who answered positively in each of the categories lingered in the 50s and 60s.  

More worryingly, though, Black, Latino and English learner students saw marked decreases across almost all categories surveyed. At Trustee Shana Hazan’s prompting, district officials said they would come back with strategies to turn that trend around.  

Along with the standard survey, the district collected recorded testimonies from students. Officials then turned to a new tool in the district’s toolkit to make sense of the voice recordings at scale. The AI-powered program, called Impacter Pathway, analyzes student responses to prompts and identifies attributes, characteristics or trends that may have been expressed, but not stated outright.  

District data guru Roman del Rosario and Area Superintendent Erin Richison walked board members and attendees through the system’s analysis of one boy’s statement. In the statement, the boy said he came from a family that had struggled and that he wanted to succeed to prove himself. To do that, he sometimes takes on challenges he knows may be too big for him. The program identified the statement as expressing grit and a desire to be pushed.  

It was an interesting exhibition that clearly resonated with board members, for whom finding ways to divine data from the squishiness of wellness monitoring has been a primary challenge. 

 Trustee Cody Petterson acknowledged there will likely be concerns about student privacy, and admitted to being icked out by the prospect of AI in this context. Still, he said he was “deeply moved.” 

“I always go back to three years ago when we started this process and our consultant said ‘Hey, you really shouldn’t do this, no one in the country is doing this, we don’t have metrics yet,’” Petterson recalled. “You are creating the tools to hold ourselves accountable to creating this space of wellness.” 

Pooch Poo Soils School Fields; Budget Cuts Curtail Caca Cops 

San Diego Unified’s long-running joint-use program has opened up school facilities all over the district to the public. One of the most popular examples has been the district opening fields to community members after school hours.  

But the program hasn’t been all sunshine and roses. It’s also featured some holes and a whole lot of poop, courtesy of community members who let their pooches roam the fields off leash and don’t pick up after them. The problem got so bad at some joint-use fields that kids were tumbling into doggy-dug holes and doggy-dealt doodoo. The district even closed some joint-use fields to the public to curb the crappy behavior.  

Now, citywide budget cuts are taking a bite out of what little enforcement existed.  

The city of San Diego used to contract with the Humane Society to patrol the parks, but that partnership ended last year. Officials confirmed to Axios their officers no longer responded to calls reporting off leash dogs at local school fields. And while the city is adding stickers at some school fields directing residents to report bad behavior on the Get it Done app, there’s still no function that allows such reports.  

Related: A new analysis from Mayor Todd Gloria’s office projects that the city will need to make deep cuts to its libraries and rec centers to fill its yawning deficit. The cuts, which will include significant reduction in hours and potential closures, would amount to nearly $8 million in savings. The current deficit stands at nearly $150 million. 

One More Thing: Just FYI, San Diego Unified’s Board Opposes Iran War 

In case you were wondering, San Diego Unified trustees are against the Iran war.  

The board voted 4-1 on Tuesday night to pass a resolution, authored by Petterson and Trustee Richard Barrera, that condemned the American- and Israeli-led conflict. Trustee Shana Hazan was the sole “no” vote, saying from the dais she felt the district should focus its advocacy on things more directly related to its students, like school funding.  

The resolution – which decried the war’s negative impact on civilians and children in the Middle East, the worldwide economy, local military families and democratic norms – also called on local congressional representative to do everything in their power to bring an end to the war. 

Even AI caught some fire, with the trustees writing: “The use of AI in the targeting of munitions – and the corresponding reduction of human oversight, judgment, and decision-making in the ‘kill chain’ – has introduced profound and unlegislated risks to civilian populations and, in particular, children.” 

During an emotional speech from the dais, Petterson, the self-professed John Boehner (another frequent crier) of the district’s board, tearfully spoke about his anti-war convictions. To Petterson, a straight line could be traced from the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he said have contributed to the slow decline of America’s prosperity and opportunity, to the war in Iran. 

“I oppose all wars of aggression,” Petterson said. “I am a secular person, but I was raised in the church and in spite of no longer being a believer, per se, God is still watching.” 

Correction: This post has been updated to correct that Akilah Weber Pierson is a state senator.

The post Learning Curve: Senator Wants New Math Screenings appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

San Diego’s South Bay has long taken pride in its deep connections to Mexico.

Enter the second Trump administration, which has thrown the region’s cross-border identity, culture and commerce into chaos.

San Diego hasn’t seen the dramatic onslaught of immigration enforcement that made national headlines in Minneapolis or Los Angeles but as our Jim Hinch reports, it’s suffering nonetheless.

Unpredictable and seemingly random enforcement operations have left residents and workers unsettled. Business and transit ridership are down. Even health clinics are seeing fewer patients.

Meanwhile, Hinch reports, South Bay politicians and community leaders are grappling with what they can do to help as residents demand support.

Read the full story here.

Democratic Super PACs Pour Big Bucks Into Congressional Race

Cue the big money.

Democrats are pouring millions into the 48th Congressional District race in the hopes of eventually flipping the seat, reports the Union-Tribune. For now, much of their fire power is trained on each other.

The current outside spending edge tilts strongly toward Marni von Wilpert, a San Diego city councilmember. A pro-Israel group is supporting von Wilpert to the tune of more than a million dollars and the state’s largest labor union has spent more than $100,000 on her behalf. 

But Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar is also the beneficiary of some very deep pockets. Campa-Najjar’s longtime partner is U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs, granddaughter of Irwin Jacobs, founder of Qualcomm. Jacobs pumped $500,000 into a group supporting Campa-Najjar.  

The Democratic-led House Majority PAC has pledged $4.8 million to the eventual Democratic nominee.

Last week was a rough one for Campa-Najjar, as we wrote in last week’s Politics Report. Laura Loomer came at him because his grandfather was a high-level official in Palestine’s Fatah party. The U.S. Navy also came at him for calling himself an officer in the military, while not stipulating that he is actually a reservist.  

Von Wilpert’s team has called him out for accepting money from billionaires. Campa-Najjar fired back and said he’d rather get financial support from groups that support veterans and small donors than a pro-Israel super PAC.

In Other News

• An analysis by Mayor Todd Gloria ranks library and recreation centers by their importance to the community in the midst of big budget cuts. In the analysis he lays out different scenarios for City Council to consider in order to conserve hours and minimize impact on different neighborhoods. (Union-Tribune)
• A Superior Court judge has ordered Rady Children’s Hospital to continue providing gender-affirming care until at least this Friday. (CBS 8)
• Turns out it’s tough to hire dispatchers. The Harbor Police with the Port of San Diego wants special permission to rehire recently retired dispatchers to fill staffing gaps. (Union-Tribune)
• America’s Finest Charter School in Talmadge will shut down at the end of the school year. (10 News)
• City residents who need help covering trash and recycling fees have until Thursday to seek assistance from the city. (NBC 7)
• San Diego Whale Watch reported its first blue whale sighting of the season. (Instagram)
• Correction: We updated the Environment Report from Monday to note that a spokesperson quoted in the story worked for the governor of Baja California. 

The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt and Mariana Martínez Barba. It was edited by Will Huntsberry.

The post Morning Report: South Bay and the Immigration Crackdown appeared first on Voice of San Diego.