Padres fans saw a goose landing in Dodger Stadium as a sign of good luck as the embattled baseball team fought its way into the Major League Baseball playoffs.
Avian experts saw the goose landing and thought: That’s a very sick bird.
Turns out, the greater white-fronted goose entering the field of play that day was likely suffering from two environmental stressors sweeping the West right now: a highly-contagious strain of bird flu and drought.
This particular flu is killing-off whole swaths of wild birds since it entered the country last year and it’s being carried south by migrating animals. What’s more, drought has dried-up key wintering grounds for waterfowl, meaning rarely-seen wild birds like this particular goose, have been a more common sight in San Diego.
Read more about the goose here.
City to Use State Funds to Aid East Village Homeless Residents
The city recently learned it will receive $2.5 million in state Encampment Resolution Funds to try to house 50 people now staying near the East Village post office.
Dozens of people have been setting up camp in the blocks surrounding the post office and the old Central Library. The city has now received state funds to try to help move some of them off the street.
Dave Rolland, a spokesman for Mayor Todd Gloria, wrote in an email that the city plans to focus on placing the now-unsheltered residents – most of whom are seniors and Black San Diegans – into supportive housing and where necessary, shorter-term bridge housing including nursing and independent living facilities.
Rolland wrote that the city plans to use hotel rooms as temporary landing spots for participants identified as candidates for permanent supportive housing to help them transition off the street as they await their new homes.
Rolland said the timeline for the project is contingent on when the city receives the state funds. For now, he said, city-funded outreach workers are engaging with homeless residents in the area and working to help them prepare for housing.
City Attorney Tweets Office Won’t Tweet
City Attorney Mara Elliott’s office took to Twitter early Tuesday to announce that it would be departing the social media platform.
“Twitter is moving in a troubling direction – one that promotes hatred, violence, bullying, and false information. It is not a forum where users can feel respected or safe,” the City Attorney’s Office tweeted. “We deserve better. For that reason, my office will no longer communicate using Twitter.”
Elliott’s office then directed Twitter users to “look for us on Instagram and continue to check out our website.”
In Other News
- The Union-Tribune reports that developer Doug Manchester wants to build what would become one of the largest hotels in San Diego. (Warning: This link is only for subscribers.)
- The city announced Tuesday it’s stepping up street sweeping downtown and is deploying crews to pick up litter in hot spots “most heavily affected by waste discarded by unsheltered residents,” City News Service reports.
- In a new op-ed, Jack Carpenter argues the Midway District could be an ideal place to live – if voters agree to remove the coastal height limit in the neighborhood.
- San Diego Police conducted a massive bust on Mike’s Market, a corner store in Mountain View. Dozens of people were charged in a 221-count indictment. The alleged criminal network operating out of the store allowed people to buy guns and drugs with food assistance money, prosecutors say. (City News Service)
- NBC 7 reports Monday’s red sunset “wasn’t a Halloween omen,” but can you really trust the media, anyway?
- Three people, including a local pot investor, pleaded guilty in a murder-for-hire plot, reported the U-T. The investor, Salam Razuki, paid to have his business partner kidnapped and murdered. Several people involved in the strange case were working as informants. Our Jesse Marx wrote about the case back in 2018.
The Morning Report was written by MacKenzie Elmer, Lisa Halverstadt and Will Huntsberry. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.