The Morning Report
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The city’s new plan to change the fee system that funds parks and other neighborhood amenities isn’t the only land use change Mayor Kevin Faulconer is pushing as his administration comes to a close.
As Andrew Keatts lays out in a new story, the parks funding plan is just one piece of a bigger plan called Complete Communities Faulconer is hoping to pass before a new Democratic mayor would then be forced to see the changes through.
The plan also seeks to make way for far more homes near transit, and change the way it measures the environmental effects of new development.
Some of the changes seek to deliver on policy proposals Faulconer has already laid out, and some would help the city meet state mandates as well as its own long-term planning goals. But that doesn’t mean the plan will have an easy road ahead.
When a City Council committee weighed in last month, “Council members on the committee praised Faulconer’s ambitions, and said the plan aimed to do the right things. But from both the left and the right, they raised specific issues, and instructed city planners to get back to work,” Keatts reports. “And with public criticism coming simultaneously from unions, large developers, business groups, affordable housing advocates and community representatives, how the mayor’s office will sort it all out is anyone’s guess.”
The great outdoors: Faulconer announced late Monday that he was signing an executive order “that will waive regulatory requirements and help restaurants expand their service outdoors, increasing physical distance between employees and customers.”
And that’s because …
‘It’s Not Good News’ Pt. 1: Indoor Business Operations Must Shut Back Down
“It’s not good news,” was how County Supervisor Greg Cox began his public briefing about coronavirus updates Monday.
The state officially placed San Diego County on its coronavirus watch list, triggering certain required business shutdowns, including bars and indoor restaurant dining, for three weeks. The closures went into effect at midnight Monday evening. Takeout, delivery and drive-thru operations at restaurants are allowed to continue.
“Hope is not a strategy, and we can’t simply hope for the best,” said Supervisor Nathan Fletcher. He warned that hospitalizations and deaths are an indicator that tends to lag an increase in new cases, and argued that pointing to those numbers to justify keeping businesses opened isn’t appropriate.
Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s chief public health officer, said no new deaths were reported over the weekend.
‘It’s Not Good News’ Pt 2: Border Hospitals Are Still Overwhelmed
In the latest Border Report, VOSD’s Maya Srikrishnan details the ways in which San Diego hospitals and physicians are working to assist hospitals in Mexico and Imperial County overwhelmed with coronavirus cases.
Hospitals in Chula Vista, for example, have accepted hundreds of patients from Imperial County. UC San Diego physicians are conducting telemedicine visits with patients in Baja California, and doctors on this side of the border are doing training sessions for health care workers in Tijuana and Mexicali.
In Other News
- San Diego police officers shot a man who managed to slip out of handcuffs and access a police officer’s gun while the officer was outside of the vehicle. (Union-Tribune)
- A San Diego Sheriff’s deputy has been suspended after sharing what the head of the local NAACP described as an altered image of George Floyd’s death, with “a naked black male porn star kneeling on Mr. Floyd.” (NBC San Diego)
- Elder care advocates and attorneys say years of staffing cuts at senior care facilities exacerbated those facilities’ struggles with COVID-19. (inewsource)
The Morning Report was written by Sara Libby, and edited by Scott Lewis.