Morning Report: Gompers Has a Union, Now What?

No charter school has been held up as an example of the power of reform in San Diego as much as Gompers Preparatory Academy. Once an unsafe, unstable and underachieving embarrassment for the district, it broke off and became a charter school in partnership with UC San Diego. It became known for its signature uniforms, discipline and music. Its ability to get graduates into college has earned plaudits and scrutiny.

Now its story is beginning a new chapter — one with a teachers union.

Reporter Ashly McGlone (she’s back!) checked in with the school, its union leaders and teachers who aren’t so excited about the change. The union doesn’t have a contract yet but that hasn’t stopped it from making big moves.

Union leaders promise to protect what makes the school unique but also pursue changes to make it a workplace with much more in common with the district’s traditional schools.

Behind North County’s Effort to Stabilize Beach Cliffs

Grandview Beach in Encinitas reopened to the public Saturday, one day after a bluff collapse killed three people. In the latest North County Report, Jesse Marx writes the incident has renewed attention on efforts to stabilize cliffs in North County. But deciding how much to spend and which beaches to focus on first is both a political and economic decision. More North County news in our biweekly roundup:

• Encinitas Mayor Catherine Blakespear announced this weekend that a bike-share program involving her city, Solana Beach and Del Mar is indefinitely suspended because of the U.S.-China trade war.
• The city of Carlsbad has tweaked its investment policy so that it cannot put new taxpayer dollars into businesses that seek out, extract and process oil and gas.

All Eyes on the Bry-Gloria Housing Feud

In a column on California’s housing crisis, CalMatters columnist Dan Walters highlighted the feud between San Diego’s mayoral candidates over SB 330, and the push to build more housing in general. The bill, which has made its way through the state Senate, would stop cities from adopting policies that restrict new development and force them to quickly approve projects that comply with local rules. 

Walters said City Councilwoman Barbara Bry was “portraying (Gloria) as a traitor to local homeowners.” Bry blasted the YIMBY movement in June with a campaign mailer entitled “They’re coming for our homes.” 

Last week, Bry voted to increase affordable housing requirements on developers and to make way for more than 9,000 new units near two Mid-Coast trolley stations. 

She boasted of her votes in a campaign email Wednesday and said she was “proud to serve on a City Council that is doing more to reduce housing costs.” 

About SB 330, though, she said the bill would “turn control of our neighborhoods over to out-of-town corporate real estate speculators,” and said so-called YIMBYs, a group that pushes for more home-building, should really be called “WIMBYs” for “Wall Street in My Backyard.”

In Other News

• Laura Nunn, policy director at the San Diego Housing Federation, argues in a new op-ed that while the Morena Boulevard plan makes progress in adding much-needed housing, the plans for mobility around new transit investments are rooted in an old way of thinking.
• County officials have confirmed the first case of measles this year in an 11-month-old child. (City News Service)
• A Hunduran migrant may be sent back to Mexico despite winning his asylum case. (Union-Tribune) 

The Morning Report was written by Megan Wood, and edited by Sara Libby.