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In 2017, Grossmont Union High School District managed to fire Joshua Allen Barney for inappropriately touching and making inappropriate comments to a student in his weightlifting class. Still, Barney found his way back into a classroom.
In the years following his firing, a state commission that oversees teacher performance and a trial court found that his conduct was inappropriate and that he was likely to engage in similar behavior. Just last year an appellate court upheld that decision.
But in late 2022 Barney was hired as a P.E. teacher by Sweetwater Union High School District. That’s partly because his new employer didn’t contact his previous employer. But also because after the state commission that oversees teacher credentialing found probable cause to revoke his credentials in 2019, the state Attorney General’s Office chose not to prosecute his case.
That decision left Barney’s credentials in place, which left him free to find another teaching job. Now, he’s been suspended again and yet another investigation has been launched.
More Vendor Rules on the Horizon
Street vendors along the Embarcadero will need a permit to operate beginning in May.
The Port of San Diego adopted new rules to control the number of vendors in the area and limit places where they are allowed to set up. NBC 7 reports that the new rules establish a lottery system that vendors must enter to take one of the 36 spaces reserved for selling merchandise or food.
Similar to complaints raised in the city of San Diego about vendors in public spaces, visitors at the Embarcadero have taken issue with the vendors creating crowds, noise and more.
County: No New Hep A Cases For Now
County health officials aren’t reporting new hepatitis A cases a week after revealing a small spike in the virus.
After further testing, county spokesman Tim McClain said the county has tallied four hepatitis A cases so far this year, down from the five it initially reported last week. Three of the four cases were among unhoused residents, including one who passed away. The county typically sees two to three cases a month.
The county flagged the spike in the wake of a 2017-2018 hepatitis A outbreak that sickened nearly 600 people and left 20 dead, including more than a dozen who were homeless.
Given past experience, officials say they are being proactive and coordinating in ways they initially didn’t in 2017.
You can read the entire story here.
In Other News
- A new Chula Vista policy aimed at limiting no-fault evictions is set to take effect next week. (KPBS)
- San Diego police are deploying dogs trained to detect illicit fentanyl and using software to map overdoses so they can target resources to try to prevent deaths. (Union-Tribune)
- El Cajon is offering $25,000 signing bonuses to try to lure veteran police officers from other cities. (Fox 5 San Diego)
- Federal, state and local officials revealed Tuesday that they arrested nearly 50 people and rescued eight children during a major operation to combat sexual exploitation in San Diego and National City. (CBS 8)
- On the occasion of President’s Day, Voice contributor Randy Dotinga wrote a rollicking history of the literary forgery surrounding the real or not-so-real romance between Abraham Lincoln and Ann Rutledge for the Washington Post. Congrats, Randy. (Washington Post)
The Morning Report was written by Jakob McWhinney, Lisa Halverstadt and Will Huntsberry. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafana.