Category: San Diego

by Alina Ajaz, Tessa Balc and Lisa Halverstadt / Voice of San Diego / June 30, 2025

In the initial six months after San Diego police started enforcing Proposition 36, Black San Diegans were disproportionately affected by the new state law.

Police data shows 32 percent of 374 people arrested for Proposition 36 related drug or theft charges in the city of San Diego from mid-December through May were Black, a community that makes up 6 percent of the city’s population. Disparities were consistent for both drug and theft charges.

Black San Diegans were also disproportionately arrested more than once on Proposition 36 charges, making up 40 percent of those with a second offense.

San Diego police say they work to minimize disparities but argue that those tied to Proposition 36 may be spurred in part by a concentration of enforcement downtown, which has a large homeless population that’s also disproportionately Black.

Community leaders and advocates who opposed Proposition 36 say the early data shows their concerns about the law, which increased penalties for repeat drug and theft offenses, were merited. They say the early numbers echo past disparities in policing and prosecution, particularly among communities already overrepresented in the criminal justice system.

“It is depressing. It’s extremely unfortunate but it’s not surprising,” County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe said.

Local group “Protect Public Land” stages demonstration in downtown San Diego, emphasizing the importance of preserving environmental policies.

 By Elizabeth Sanchez / CBS8 / June 28 -29, 2025

UPDATE: Sen. Mike Lee pulled his proposal to sell public lands out of the spending bill late Saturday night before it was ultimately passed by the Senate on a 51-49 vote.

ORIGINAL STORY-
The Senate is set to hold an initial vote on President Trump’s budget bill, which includes a controversial provision for the sale of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. In response, a local group in San Diego staged a protest to oppose the sale of all public lands.

More than a dozen demonstrators from the group “Protect Public Land” gathered Saturday, June 28, in downtown San Diego, carrying signs and distributing fliers to raise awareness about the issue. The protesters emphasized the importance of preserving environmental policies and maintaining public access to these lands.

“This is important because conservation is a key trait of American history,” protestor Michael Williamson said. “We are trailblazers in protecting public land and the nature that’s on it.”

From Neighbors for a Better California

Neighbors for a Better California Pushes for a Pause

San Diego’s Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Bonus Program, a key initiative to increase housing supply, is under scrutiny due to safety hazards, particularly fire risks, and community concerns about its impact on neighborhoods.

On June 16, 2025, the City Council voted 6-3 to revise the ADU Bonus Program, with changes including:

• Restricting large lots: The program will be repealed in single-family zones with lots of 10,000 square feet or greater to limit oversized projects.
• Unit caps: As of June 2025, ADU limits are set at 4 units for lots under 8,000 sq. ft., 5 units for 8,001–10,000 sq. ft., and 6 units for lots over 10,000 sq. ft.
• Safety and infrastructure: Reforms propose stricter fire code standards and new infrastructure fees for ADU projects.

The very some meeting,  Councilmember Joe La Cava addressed the City Council, highlighting public unease about the ADU Bonus Program’s effects.

By Arturo Castañares – Publisher / La Prensa / June 26, 2025

A New York judge last month ordered an appointed remediation manager to oversee the notorious jail on Rikers Island in New York after 40 inmates have died since 2022, yet more inmates have died in San Diego County jails without any substantial reform taking place.

46 inmates have died in San Diego County jails since 2022, including 19 in 2022, 13 in 2023, 8 last year, and 6 so far this year.

Those are more deaths per year than Rikers, a jail known as one of the worst -if not the worst- in the country, with stabbings, slashing, fights, assaults on staff, and high numbers of inmate deaths.

In comparison, Rikers has had 40 deaths since 2022, with 19 that year, 9 in 2023, 7 in 2024, and 5 so far this year.

And, before anyone complains about comparing apples to oranges, the jail population of Rikers is larger than the combined population of all seven of San Diego’s County jails, so the percentage of deaths per thousand is even higher for San Diego jails.

By Francine Maxwell / June 30, 2025

San Diego’s policing “restructure” under Chief Scott Wahl isn’t a revolution — it’s a remix of the same old playlist.

Wahl has created new departments for his friends, shuffled people up the chain, and called it reform. He has dropped four outreach officers with a badge and a badge number and then claimed the department is “listening.” But behind the scenes, nothing meaningful has shifted for the communities carrying the heaviest burden of policing in this city.

By Neighbors for a Better San Diego / June 27, 2025

On Tuesday morning, July 1, at 10:00 a.m., there will be a second reading of the amended ADU ordinance, adopted by the City Council on June 16, 2025.

While Neighbors For A Better San Diego (NFABSD) would have liked the Council to adopt our “Four is Fair” proposal, that motion was rejected on a narrow 5-4 vote, leading to the compromise that is before the Council for final approval.

NFABSD supports adoption of the amended regulations and will remain vigilant to ensure that the new regulations and other existing Municipal Codes are rigorously followed.

We have received inquiries regarding the difference between the adopted regulations and state law. Unfortunately, that target has changed since NFABSD started in 2021. As a result of state laws enacted after 2021, California requires cities to permit 2 ADUs and 1 JADU on every single-family lot:

By Kate Callen / June 27, 2025

In 2022, when San Diego Councilmembers Joe La Cava and Sean Elo-Rivera pushed for Measure B to levy trash fees on single-family homes, they sought to assure the public that all would be well.

They said the new fees would be an affordable $23 to $29 a month. They said this wasn’t a scheme to raise money for a cash-strapped city because the real aims were “responsible governance, local innovation, and world-class service.” They promised that the public would be fully engaged in every step of the process.

That was all false. Fees will be nearly twice the estimates, and they will get higher. The public was shut out of the process – and no, ushering people into conference rooms to look at table-top exhibits of tiny trash bins doesn’t count as “community engagement.”

And when they voted in the fees June 9 at a meeting packed with angry constituents, weary councilmembers finally spoke the truth: They felt they had to do this because they were desperate for money.

By Michael Smolens / San Diego Union-Tribune / June 27, 2025

Earlier this month, San Diego Catholic Bishop-Designate Michael Pham and Auxiliary Bishops Ramón Bejarano and Felipe Pulido reflected on the past and accurately predicted the future.

“. . . it has been experienced that the presence of faith leaders makes a difference in how the migrants are treated,” they wrote in a June 11 letter to fellow priests, deacons and parish leaders.

A little more than a week later, Pham led a delegation of faith leaders to accompany immigrants attending court hearings at the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building in downtown San Diego.

The proceedings and scene in and around the courthouse on June 20 were calm compared with chaos and controversy in San Diego and elsewhere at other times when agents snatched immigrants on the way to and from appointed court hearings.

Too bad that sense of dignity, humility and, frankly, adult behavior brought by Pham and his colleagues couldn’t be cast upon other aspects of the immigration enforcement crisis, created by recent militaristic raids and aggressive government response to protests that sometimes have devolved into violence.

From Surfrider San Diego County

SAVE DEL MAR’S BEACHES FROM ANNIHILATION

Don’t allow SANDAG to derail our shoreline! This is serious. SANDAG recently backpedaled from their previous commitment to relocate the train off of Del Mar’s eroding bluffs. They’re now considering keeping the train in place indefinitely, despite over 20 years of costly, continuous, beach-killing bluff stabilization work to prevent the railroad from collapsing onto the beach.

Keeping the train in place would continue this unending struggle against Mother Nature, requiring deep trenching into the bluffs and building seawalls across almost 1.7 miles of beach. In addition to forever destroying the bluffs’ natural beauty, the seawalls would subject the beach to accelerated erosion and eventually, permanent beach loss, as sea levels continue to rise.

The current seawalls will be removed if the train is relocated, but leaving it in place means more will be added… permanently.

By Lisa Mortensen

While I encourage research on housing policies in order to find solutions for the chronic need for affordable housing, going to Austria to find out about government subsidized housing programs that work in that country appears a bit untimely. 

At a time when the County of San Diego, the City of San Diego, and our State all have deficits, this junket seems to be a pipe dream.  In addition, the urgency of this announcement made now is perplexing since next week is the County Supervisor election which would bring all 5 members into the discussion on this further.

However, what is really saying the quiet part out loud that calls this trip into question is the fact there is a $15,600 payment to Jennifer LeSar’s academy which is sponsoring this junket.

by Marti Emerald / Times of San Diego / June 26, 2025

As a former investigative journalist and now a Sweetwater school board trustee, I’ve spent decades calling out public officials who mislead voters. And let me tell you — Republican John McCann’s campaign for supervisor is engaged in some of the most desperate and dishonest tactics I’ve seen in a long time.

Here’s the truth: McCann has one substantive policy, and that’s bringing DOGE-style cuts to programs South County families rely on, like Medicaid, CalFresh, and CalWorks. That’s the same old Republican playbook that’s left South County behind for decades.

I know Paloma Aguirre. She’s honest. She’s tireless. And she shows up. While most politicians are about photo ops, Aguirre is about getting stuff done — like securing $600 million from Congress to solve the Tijuana River sewage crisis, lowering electricity bills for ratepayers, and cutting homelessness in half here in Imperial Beach where I live.

That’s why teachers, firefighters, trade unions, Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, the Democratic Party, and the Union-Tribune are endorsing Aguirre in the July 1 special election for the open seat on the Board of Supervisors.