Morning Report: Gompers Union Battle Continues

For the third time in less than five years, teachers at Gompers Preparatory Academy are voting on whether they should have a union. 

The current decertification vote ends in early June. 

Gompers, which was converted to a charter school in 2005, is often held up as an example of a successful school transformation. But reports of grade inflation also dogged the school in 2017. 

Despite this new decertification effort, the tensions animating the divide between teachers goes back years, reports Jakob McWhinney.

Unionization is a growing trend among charter schools. But it has been controversial at Gompers all along. 

Some teachers within the school have been working to decertify the union since its inception with help from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. They say it will take away their freedom and hurt the school’s finances. 

Teachers who support the union say their ability to collectively bargain has been imperative to ensuring fair wages among all staff. 

Read the full story here. 

County Flags Spiking Hep A Cases

Mayor Todd Gloria’s office says the city is working to add more public restrooms and handwashing stations and to step up sidewalk sanitation amid a spike in hepatitis A cases, especially among homeless residents in the city.

The Tuesday update from Gloria’s office followed a county announcement that the number of cases this year hit 28, including among 18 unhoused people.

County spokesman Tim McClain told Voice that 13 of the 18 cases in the homeless community were in the city. 

Based on what county epidemiologists and outreach workers are seeing, County Public Health Officer Wilma Wooten yesterday requested the city place 13 additional portable restrooms in the downtown area and increase sidewalk sanitation.

Wooten said in a separate statement that the county is now increasing outreach efforts, including to encampments downtown. Wooten also described the latest level of new infections as “above baseline” in an interview with the Union-Tribune, saying that she believed more aggressive steps were needed to prevent the sort of deadly hepatitis A outbreak the region faced in 2017. Wooten also told the newspaper she met with city officials Monday afternoon to discuss street cleaning work that the city stepped up during a 2017 hepatitis A outbreak.

“The city and county also are instituting weekly meetings,” McClain wrote.

Gloria spokeswoman Rachel Laing wrote in a Tuesday statement that the city is now working to implement county recommendations. The shift comes weeks after the city concluded additional restrooms were not needed despite a county order.

Tenant Protection Ordinance Awaits Mayor Gloria’s Signature

A controversial tenant protection ordinance pushed by Council President Sean Elo-Rivera is now headed to Mayor Todd Gloria’s desk.

Only Councilwoman Jennifer Campbell voted against the ordinance.

Gloria, who helped shape the ordinance, now has 10 days to sign it.  It will go into effect 30 days after Gloria signs it – unless a referendum is sought.

Refresher: The ordinance would make the process for removing a tenant in certain circumstances, like a substantial remodel of the property, more transparent by requiring disclosures in writing. Landlords would have to make tenants aware of their rights and could not retaliate against a tenant who declines a buy-out offer. It would also require that landlords provide tenants evicted for no fault of their own with relocation assistance totaling two months of rent, not including a security deposit. Seniors and people with disabilities would get three months. The ordinance also calls for the San Diego Housing Commission to collect data on evictions.

Mayor Gloria Will Attend MLS Expansion Announcement Thursday

Whatever doubt remained that San Diego is getting a Major League Soccer expansion team this week was erased Tuesday when the ownership group investing in the league announced a press conference for Thursday “about the future of soccer in San Diego.”

Mayor Todd Gloria is set to attend the announcement, alongside the commissioner of the league and the principles of the ownership group: Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Mansour, and the chairman of the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation.

The team may not have a name Friday. But they have time to come up with all that. It will play at Snapdragon Stadium starting in 2025, one year before the United States, Canada and Mexico host the FIFA World Cup.

CBS Sports and the Union-Tribune each published stories on the announcement.

In Other News

• Mayor Todd Gloria released proposed budget revisions late Tuesday calling for $25 million in increased spending based on some increased cash flow to the city. Among his proposed changes were additional funding for San Diego police recruiting efforts, lighting and energy efficiency upgrades in parks in underserved communities and $5.5 million to step up housing permit processing. The City Council is set to review Gloria’s latest proposals at a Thursday meeting.
• CBS 8 reveals that the county has seized more than $3 million in Social Security and disability payments from 310 foster children without their knowledge since 2015, leaving them without cash that one advocate deemed a “literal lifeline.”
• NBC 7 reported on a Logan Heights church’s plan to build affordable housing for veterans and seniors on its property. 
• A seven-block stretch of Fifth Ave. in Downtown will now be closed to traffic for much of the day. The section of Fifth Ave. will be open to pedestrians only from noon to 2 a.m. (10 News)
• Harborside Park in Chula Vista was shut down and fenced off due to homeless encampments in 2022, but it will be reopened within six months, Mayor John McCann said. (NBC 7)
• The city of San Diego is moving forward with a plan to crack down on street vendors. The city will hire four dozen new workers to enforce the restrictions. (U-T)

The Morning Report was written by Will Huntsberry, Lisa Halverstadt, and Andrew Keatts. It was edited by Scott Lewis.