Knowing the difference between what the county is in charge of and what the cities in the region are in charge of is key to understanding how local government works.
Who do you go to when you want changes to be made to the San Diego Police Department or the Sheriff’s Department budgets? Who is in charge of dealing with the region’s homelessness issues?
We break all of this down in our latest San Diego 101 Podcast on the city versus the county.
Hosts Adriana Heldiz and Maya Srikrishnan talk to two people who have worked for both the city and county of San Diego to explain who is in charge of what and the differences in how they both work.
Listen to the latest episode here and catch up on previous episodes of the San Diego 101 Podcast here.
New Efforts to Address Homelessness in South and North Counties
The South Bay has long only had a few dozen shelter beds despite a significant homeless population.
The Union-Tribune reports that the Chula Vista City Council last week approved an agreement to acquire 66 prefabricated units to eventually temporarily house as many as 138 homeless residents. The city plans to start with a 75-person occupancy.
The city last month issued a callout for service providers to submit bids to operate the shelter village at an industrial site south of Main Street and Broadway. The city has said it hopes to select an operator and open the shelter by early next year.
Last week’s council vote comes months after the city decided to return a sprung structure that the nonprofit Lucky Duck Foundation loaned it free of charge, as first reported by our Lisa Halverstadt.
At the council meeting last week, the U-T reported that Mayor Mary Casillas Salas said the city ultimately decided that separate units would be a better approach.
“When we first agreed to get that big, humongous tent it seemed like that was the only option at that time and I went to that tent on a number of occasions to look at it and I thought, ‘Well, this is better than nothing, but it still didn’t afford people that individuality, that privacy, that dignity that they needed,’” Casillas Salas said, according to the U-T.
- The county will deploy an expanded homeless outreach team in North County to connect unhoused locals with resources and support to help them get shelter and access to other care. (NBC 7)
Saludos From Mexico
Our Border Report writer, Sandra Dibble, is currently traveling through Mexico and will be back for the next edition on Nov. 29 (if you don’t already subscribe to the Border Report, you can sign up here).
For this week’s newsletter, we rounded up our latest stories and other big news from the border region.
Correction
An earlier version of the Monday, Nov. 15, Morning Report said the city’s redistricting commission approved a preliminary map on a 5-4 vote. It was approved on a 7-2 vote.
In Other News
- Ghost guns are increasingly the lethal weapon of easy access throughout the country, but especially in California. (NY Times)
- The Little League fields at Memorial Park are in desperate need of repairs. (Union-Tribune)
- reported last week on how funding challenges and hundreds of vacancies in the city’s Parks and Recreation Department are contributing to lingering issues in other city parks too.
- Fallbrook had to wait 70 years to be able to use water from the nearby Santa Margarita River, but a new groundwater plant that will allow its residents to use the water has finally been completed. (NBC 7)
- If San Diego voters approve a half-cent sales tax hike in November 2022, the region would be well positioned to compete for billions of dollars in federal grant money for infrastructure projects that could expand transit, improve the movement of cross-border goods and relocate train tracks threatened by coastal erosion. (Union-Tribune)
This Morning Report was written by Maya Srikrishnan and Lisa Halverstadt, and edited by Megan Wood.