County Supervisor Kristin Gaspar has spent a lot of time on Fox News since she spearheaded the county’s decision to support the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California for SB 54, the so-called sanctuary state law.
That law has restricted the ways in which federal immigration agents can cooperate with local law enforcement officers.
In one recent appearance, Gaspar said 385 criminals have been let out of jails and back into the community, thanks to restrictions put in place by SB 54. In a follow-up email, her spokesperson said Gaspar misspoke, and the number was really 347 individuals.
Gaspar is right that since the law was put into place, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department has notified Immigrations and Customs Enforcement of the release dates of unauthorized immigrants in its custody less than in previous years. That’s what Maya Srikrishnan found when she got some official numbers.
Srikrishnan made four significant findings:
The sheriff this year has released 349 people from jail without pre-emptively alerting ICE. ICE has sent 605 requests to be notified when someone is being released. Under SB 54, the Sheriff’s Department checks those requests against a list of about 800 crimes, plus the previous criminal history of the person who’s the subject of ICE’s request. In San Diego, 349 of the 605 requests did not meet those standards, so ICE didn’t get a head’s up on their release.
SB 54 is resulting in fewer people entering the deportation pipeline with the sheriff’s help. Nearly halfway through the year, the Sheriff’s Department has notified ICE of the release of less than a fourth of the people they did the year before.
Most of the people being released without warning ICE are charged with misdemeanors. The three most common charges against people released from the sheriff’s custody without ICE getting pinged were for DUI-related charges, drunken disorderly conduct/public intoxication and domestic abuse – all misdemeanors.
This hasn’t kept ICE from arresting more people. ICE has arrested 72 more people this year than it did during the same period last year. That owes itself to a 50 percent increase in non-criminal arrests, combined with an 11 percent decrease in criminal arrests.
- The Carlsbad City Council voted 4-1 to support the federal government’s lawsuit against the state of California Monday . The City Council members who supported the motion expressed concern primarily over public safety.
“Not for a minute do I believe most or all of the people here illegally are criminals,” said Councilman Keith Blackburn. “Not for a moment. I want to address those who are here illegally and are criminals. That’s my concern, when the communication of our law enforcement agency and the federal law enforcement agency are interfered with at the peril of our residents.”
San Diego’s Solar Search
San Diego must use 100 percent green energy by 2035. One thing that will help the city get there is more solar sites.
In this week’s Environment Report, VOSD’s Ry Rivard covers the city’s quest to find places that can host good-sized solar projects – think empty lots, parking lots or large rooftops.
The city’s hired an outside nonprofit, which is spending the next year and a half looking for places where solar arrays can fit. So far, it’s identified lots of available industrial space that could work.
Of course, San Diego is in the middle of a huge decision when it comes to reaching its clean power target: Should the city form its own agency to buy and sell clean energy, or keep working with SDG&E to do the same thing on the city’s behalf?
Also in the Environment Report: Two statewide water bonds are headed to the November ballot, and Congress is considering banning environmental lawsuits against the controversial twin tunnels.
Yeah, the City Attorney Is Trying to Get SDSU West and SoccerCity Thrown Off the Ballot
From Andrew Keatts: There was some confusion about why in this weekend’s Politics Report we said the city attorney was trying to get both SDSU West and SoccerCity thrown off the ballot.
In a press release, the city attorney’s office referred to their move as petitions, asking a court to simply decide whether they should go before voters.
But the same press release also referred to the petitions as lawsuits – and the lawsuits themselves are anything but ambiguous.
A plain reading of the two lawsuits – they’re largely the same – shows the city attorney is arguing the measures are illegal and should not appear on a ballot.
“(The city) submit that the initiative cannot lawfully be presented to voters because it suffers from fatal flaws,” both lawsuits read.
The subject headings lay out some of those fatal flaws. One says the initiatives contain administrative actions that aren’t permissible for initiatives; another says they conflict with the city charter; a third says they’re against state land use laws, including the California Environmental Quality Act; another says they fail to enact an enforceable legislative action and are too vague. The lawsuit against SDSU West adds that it conflicts with state laws on how state universities can be developed.
These petitions are lawsuits, in the words of the city attorney press release announcing them. And the lawsuits themselves are clear arguments that the initiatives are illegal and that a judge should throw them off the ballot.
School Board Members Get a Challenge
Tony Krvaric, chairman of the Republican Party of San Diego, reports that the party has qualified two write-in candidates for San Diego Unified’s Board of Education. Two incumbents had been running unopposed – Kevin Beiser in District B and Mike McQuary in District C. Now, if Krvaric et al got sufficient signatures, and they beat other write-in candidates who may emerge, Tom Keliinoi will advance to the runoff against Beiser and Marcia Nordstrom will advance to the final against McQuary.
Loxie Shooks, who was featured in our story recently speaking out against the district for its treatment of a teacher she accused of groping her, has also said she wants to run as a write-in against McQuary.
More Politics News
- The Sheriff’s Department confirmed it’s investigating Republican Assembly candidate Phil Graham over an incident in an Encinitas bar last week in which a woman says Graham forcibly kissed her. Graham denies the allegations. (The Coast News)
- In a Mexican presidential debate in Tijuana on Sunday, the candidates focused on the country’s relationship with the United States. (Union-Tribune)
- California Democrats have too much of a good thing – that is, too many qualified candidates running for Congress. CALMatters points to the race to replace Rep. Darrell Issa as an example.
- The veterans charity created by Nathan Fletcher raised more than $1 million between 2014 and 2017, reports the Union-Tribune. The foundation is one Fletcher’s various undertakings in the wake of his second failed mayoral run. Lisa Halverstadt recently examined the charity and other ways Fletcher boosted his Democratic resume following his loss in the 2013 mayor’s race.
From Scott Lewis: Genevieve Jones-Wright, a public defender who’s running for district attorney, held an Ask Me Anything on Reddit Monday. Jones-Wright has consistently maintained that sex trafficking is a crime the district attorney needs to prosecute. But she took issue with District Attorney Summer Stephan’s claim to us that virtually all sex workers are victims of sex trafficking.
Jones-Wright has said many times women pursuing voluntary sex works are not victims and also shouldn’t be prosecuted. So one question came up in the Reddit discussion that keeps coming up: Would she support decriminalization of sex work?
She has been unwilling to go there. She didn’t answer the Redditor’s question, referring the user to another answer about trafficking. At a recent debate, Jones-Wright said, “I’m not going to give my opinion on whether [it] should be legal or not as of this moment. Prostitution is against the law in the state of California, and I’ll leave it at that.”
In Other News
- A series of motorized scooter collisions in beach communities has led the City Council to consider banning the rides from the boardwalks in Pacific Beach and Mission Beach. The City Council, which is taking up the issue Tuesday, could also extend the ban to the boardwalks in La Jolla Shores and Mission Bay Park. (KPBS)
- Another proposal in Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s housing plan – this one aimed at getting developers to build more housing for middle-income folks via offering incentives – made it through the city’s smart growth and land use committee Monday. (Times of San Diego)
- In the wake of water billing problems, Councilman Chris Cate has suggested a series of changes to the city’s water department, including annual budget reviews, hiring a customer service consultant and more. (NBC7)
- A San Diego County Grand Jury report released Monday found lots of room for improvement with the city’s Community Review Board on Police Practices, an independent oversight group that reviews and evaluates serious complaints about the San Diego Police Department. (Times of San Diego)
- Frustrated with stalled contract negotiations, elementary school teachers in National City are considering a strike. (Reader, 10News)
- Rep. Scott Peters is asking the state to consider giving the San Diego Unified School District funding for homeless students despite a missing signature from its grant application. Peters called the move a “drastic penalty.” (inewsource)
- As part of the county’s effort to revamp the juvenile justice system, it’s set to close the juvenile detention facility Camp Barrett and eventually open a new facility there. (Union-Tribune)
- San Diego football fans, at least the ones commenting on this Union-Tribune story about San Diego being eyed as a potential home for a Alliance of American Football team, are still upset about losing the Chargers. Here’s a taste of the tone: “Minor league football in a county of 3.3 million and a city of 1.4 million … pathetic.”
The Morning Report was written and compiled by Kinsee Morlan and Sara Libby.