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Last year, San Diego Gas & Electric said it had a plan for providing 100 percent renewable energy to San Diegans within the next two decades. That’s a goal the city of San Diego has set for itself, and SDG&E doesn’t want to lose any business, so it came up with this plan to assure San Diegans the utility company can be part of the green energy future.
Just one problem, Ry Rivard reports. The utility company’s plan isn’t much of a plan at all, according to report written by a consultant hired by the city.
“SDG&E’s offer ‘raises more questions than it answers,’ ‘gives little or no information about the approach, costs, or risks,’ and may well threaten the city’s ambitious plans to fight climate change,” Rivard writes, citing from the report. It all comes down to how it’s being framed: While SDG&E says its plan offers “flexibility,” the reviewers say the plan lacks details.
The city is evaluating SDG&E’s proposal as it also explores establishing a CCA, a government-run entity that would purchase power for city customers instead of SDG&E.
• Sophie Wolfram is director of programs at Climate Action Campaign, and she’s also concerned about the city’s ability to meet its climate goals. The city has a plan to cut gas emissions in half, and to do that, we’re going to need a lot of people to get out of their cars and use other modes of transportation. “The mayor needs to make the plan’s walking, biking and transit goals a top priority to fulfill the promise of a better future for our children,” Wolfram writes. That means setting forth a detailed roadmap, protecting people who aren’t in cars, and getting the mayor actively and consistently involved in the issue, Wolfram argues.
• KPBS reports on the coming budget battle that is shaping up over how San Diego will fund its responsibilities under its Climate Action Plan.
County Goes After Another Journalist
San Diego County is once again on the losing end of a court battle over an attempt to force a journalist to participate in a court proceeding about a story they covered. 10News photojournalist Paul Anderegg was on scene when he witnessed a collision on Interstate 5.
Randy Dotinga reports the district attorney’s office claimed Anderegg wasn’t a journalist in the context of how he witnessed the collision, and wanted to force him to testify. But a judge rejected that argument.
Earlier this year, the county tried to drag VOSD contributor Kelly Davis into a court case about inmate deaths in local jails due to her previous coverage of the issue. The county lost that argument, too.
The Learning Curve: Restorative Justice Gone Awry
A new model of school discipline, which aims to reduce student suspensions by first trying a more therapeutic approach, may have the side effect of increasing violence in schools if it’s not carried out properly. Mario Koran reports the “restorative justice” model of discipline means disruptive students who are ejected from class sometimes reappear, seemingly having faced no consequences, as far as the teacher knows.
Teachers said the practice “creates unclear and inconsistent consequences for students, which contributes to a cycle of negative behavior,” Koran writes. “Two educators who have worked at Lincoln High told VOSD that teachers and administrators are under pressure to keep suspension rates low.” Under that pressure, schools in San Diego Unified are engaging in “blue-slipping,” where a school sends a student home for the day informally.
Meanwhile, a county education official warns that restorative justice and reducing suspensions aren’t one and the same. “One of the biggest mistakes school districts have made is conflating lower suspension rates with restorative justice,” said Anthony Ceja, a senior manager for the San Diego County Office of Education.
School Officials Running Unopposed: San Diego Explained
San Diego Unified Trustees Kevin Beiser and Mike McQuary are incumbent candidates for their seats on the school board this year. But the election isn’t going to be very exciting; both candidates are running unopposed. This is a recurring theme on the school board. Mario Koran and NBC 7’s Monica Dean look into the odd way candidates have to run for the seats and the immense power it gives to teacher unions in our most recent San Diego Explained.
San Onofre’s Gift Will Keep Giving
Soon the visible parts of the San Onofre Nuclear station will be gone, but the risk it poses will be ever present. That’s because the spent nuclear fuel rods that will remain radioactive for thousands of years to come will stay put in their picturesque scene on the beach, KPBS’s Alison St. John reports. “There is no guarantee the spent fuel rods will be removed, and so far efforts to find alternative sites have gone nowhere,” St John writes.
The rods are expensive and dangerous to move, and nobody wants them. One solution may come from Finland, which has acknowledged its problem and is burying a tomb for its rods that will be designed to last thousands of years.
Radio Stars Are Still a Thing
Kevin Klein, the shock-jock radio morning show host who was supposed to start a new show in San Diego this week, has suddenly gone silent.
Klein posted an offensive picture on Twitter days before the show was supposed to debut that made light of people who commit suicide by jumping from the Coronado Bridge. A lot of folks found that in poor taste.
Now, the Union-Tribune reports that Klein never went on air when the show was supposed to debut. Deadspin has a funny take on the whole debacle.
Lightning Round
• It turns out a judge agrees that homosexuality isn’t a religion, and tossed out a lawsuit that sought to force Rep. Susan Davis to take down a Pride flag in her office. (Long Beach Post)
• The Guardian checks into how San Diego is dealing with homelessness using big tents.
• “The Trump administration is backing away from treaty mandate to ‘give preferential attention to the solution of all border sanitation problems,’ including the sewer water crisis at the border. (The Revelator)
• Oceanside will send errant drones packing using its new anti-drone device. (NBC 7)
• When it comes to cannabis dispensaries, Oceanside says no. But farming, testing, and delivery of cannabis in Oceanside? Good to go! (NBC 7)
• Everyone is worried about where young activist David Hogg, now famous for his gun control advocacy, will go to college. With an acceptance to Cal State San Marcos, he may soon call Southern California home. (New York Times)
Seth Hall is a local writer and technologist. You can email him at voice@s3th.com or follow him on Twitter: @loteck.