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Voice of San Diego
Politics Report: South County Trash Fight Goes to Sacramento
State senators had some questions for one of their former colleagues, Ben Hueso, when he appeared before them April 24. He was advocating against a bill from state Sen. Steve Padilla that would prohibit the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board from handing out waste discharge permits for any landfill in the Tijuana River watershed.
Another City Could Be Ready to Ditch Housing First
Vista may soon have a new homelessness policy, and like the one approved in Escondido a couple months ago, it calls for a crackdown on criminal activity, shelter priority for Vista residents and a rejection of the Housing First approach. It’s a continuation of a larger trend in San Diego...
How a Cold Email Turned into a Mega Shelter Pitch
It all started with an email. Real estate investor and developer Douglas Hamm had been in escrow for about a year to buy a 65,000-square foot warehouse near the airport when his expected tenant’s business plans changed. Soon after that, as Hamm describes it, a light bulb went on....
The Learning Curve: A Crash Course on the ‘Science of Reading’
When I first started as Voice of San Diego’s education reporter, I didn’t know much about education. So, like any good reporter, I did some digging. That’s how I stumbled onto American Public Media’s “Sold a Story,” podcast. It exposed me to one of the highest stakes conflicts I’d never heard of: the “reading wars.”
San Diego Needs Affordable Housing Where it Does the Most Good
Ricardo Flores is the executive director of the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC) San Diego – a nonprofit community development corporation that funds affordable housing projects. Ricardo and his wife live in Kensington. The San Diego region – and California in general – has been in the throes of...
Softball Scandal Takes Down Poway Schools Boss
Look familiar? We pulled this post from the Morning Report. Subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay up to date on the latest news. Click here. Marian Kim Phelps is out as Superintendent of the Poway Unified School District. The embattled district leader has been under fire since November, when...
Morning Report: Softball Scandal Takes Down Poway Schools Boss
Marian Kim Phelps is out as Superintendent of the Poway Unified School District. The embattled district leader has been under fire since November, when students and parents alleged she had harassed members of the Del Norte High School softball team on which her daughter plays. The harassment allegedly stemmed from a May incident at a banquet for the softball team during which some members did not clap for Phelps’ daughter.
Environment Report: Mayor Gloria Wants to Empty Public Power Piggy Bank
Mayor Todd Gloria clawed back money that San Diego Gas & Electric shareholders pay the city to do climate projects and pursue a public takeover of San Diego’s energy grid in his most recent proposed budget. This is the third time I’ve recorded Gloria sacrificing climate change-related policies in...
Morning Report: County’s Deep State vs. Unions
Labor unions are not letting up on their pressure on county supervisors to consider Cindy Chavez, a Santa Clara County supervisor, for the top job as chief administrative officer of the county of San Diego. Chavez used to run the South Bay Labor Council. They’re planning a large rally led...
Sacramento Report: Efforts Are Afoot to Rewrite LGBTQ Laws
Last month, I wrote about the competing state tax measures voters will see on the November ballot. And now, there’s more. There are conflicting measures on LGBTQ rights, including one which would enshrine marriage equality in the state constitution, and another that could impose limits on transgender students. The...
The Progress Report: How 4 Schools Are Teaching Kids to Read – and Seeing Success
Betsy Hall stood at the front of a classroom at Johnson Magnet School in Emerald Hills. She led her pupils, who sat in small groups at circular tables, through chapters of “Uncovering the Logic of English.” The book uses systematic phonics techniques, in part, to lay out simple rules for reading and speaking English.
Logan Memorial Students Stage Walk Out to Protest Layoffs
At 10:55 a.m. on Tuesday, a chime rang over the loudspeaker at Logan Memorial Educational Campus. “Attention students,” a young voice said, crackling with distortion, “we have a walkout at 11:00 a.m.”. Minutes later, students flooded into the quad. Their numbers grew into the hundreds before they walked...
A Court Says Agencies Can Delay Records Responses Indefinitely and We Must Fight It
In 2015, we sent San Diego Unified School District a public records request for documents related to an educator we had been investigating whom former students had accused of sexually harassing and assaulting them. The district provided next to nothing in response. We worked with district officials for the next...
What We Know About the Pollution Below Mayor Gloria’s Mega-Shelter Site
The state says Mayor Todd Gloria’s team needs to dig deeper into the property he wants to make into a mega-shelter, citing concerns there could be unknown contamination from a shuttered chemical plant next door. California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control says it will work with the city to...
Song of the Week: ‘Johnny Garçon’
The sad reality of local music scenes is that for every band that bursts out into the wider world, there are dozens of excellent ones that never make it out of the domed ecosystem of their hometown. They toil in obscurity for years, become mainstays at places like the Casbah but not much more or burn up in the atmosphere on attempted liftoff.
Escondido Arts Center Could Be Getting New Management
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, a longtime pillar of the community that’s often seen as the arts and culture hub of North County. Since 1994, the Center has offered events, workshops, holiday celebrations, concerts, theater productions, gallery shows and more...
County Supe Slams San Diego Mayor’s Budget
Look familiar? We pulled this post from the Morning Report. Subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay up to date on the latest news. Click here. Many of the programs former city councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe championed as a member of the San Diego City Council are on the chopping block in the mayor’s proposed budget — and she has something to say about it.
Mega Shelter Diary: Long Meeting; No Update
Look familiar? We pulled this post from the Morning Report. Subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay up to date on the latest news. Click here. The San Diego City Council had a lengthy closed-door discussion Monday on Mayor Todd Gloria’s mega shelter proposal and ended its meeting without any public announcements.
Morning Report: County Supe Slams San Diego Mayor’s Budget
Many of the programs former city councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe championed as a member of the San Diego City Council are on the chopping block in the mayor’s proposed budget — and she has something to say about it. “I cannot remain silent in the face of a...
What the ‘Historical Significance’ Review of the Sports Arena Misses
Look familiar? We pulled this from the Politics Report, a Voice of San Diego member exclusive newsletter. Become a member and subscribe to the newsletter here. I’ve had several people ask me about the city’s Historical Resources Board and staff review of whether the Pechanga Arena is historically significant. So I was glad the Union-Tribune explained it well. In short, Midway Rising, which plans to redevelop all the nearly 50 acres under and around the arena, has to study the historic impact of their plans just like they must evaluate the environmental impact.
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