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It was a surreal scene at Snapdragon Stadium Thursday morning.
A familiar cast of San Diego politicians and business leaders gathered at an overlook into the bowl of the stadium. Padres star Manny Machado was there along with Sycuan Chairman Cody Martinez, whose tribe traces its roots in San Diego back 12,000 years.
But a new crew joined them, laughing about the cute name we San Diegans have for overcast skies in May and promising the international crowd watching a live stream that the sun does come out in San Diego.
“We scouted the globe for the right opportunity for soccer and San Diego ticked all the boxes,” said British-Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Mansour. His investment, combined with Sycuan’s and Machado’s and a few others’ compelled Major League Soccer to officially award an expansion team to San Diego on Thursday.
In a column we published Wednesday, Scott Lewis explained just how big of a moment this is for the city, and the Mission Valley site, which six years ago, “was a sad reminder of civic incompetence, failed visions and betrayal.” It was San Diego State University that had checked off most of the boxes Mansour was talking about and the university’s leaders and boosters were beaming with pride as the international crowd gushed about the stadium they had built.
About the name: Lewis asked Martinez if the team’s name would have a connection to the Kumeyaay people. Martinez said no. The most likely option was San Diego Football Club, SDFC, or maybe Football Club San Diego.
Is this San Diego’s team? Mansour said during the announcement that this was San Diego’s soccer club and they were merely its stewards. As Lewis has explained before, MLS is not a league of separate franchises like other sports leagues. It’s one big company. Mansour, Martinez and Machado invested in the company and now a local outlet of it will put together a team.
The team has two years to build a connection to fans and residents so that doesn’t feel so forced and foreign.
Whitburn Will Lead MTS Through Fletcher Investigation
San Diego Councilman Stephen Whitburn became the new chair of the Metropolitan Transit System Thursday, winning a board vote to lead the agency a month after coming up just shy.
Whitburn will now lead an agency dealing with a series of simultaneous crises.
Here’s what that looks like: It is investigating itself over its handling of allegations that its former board chair, Nathan Fletcher, sexually harassed and sexually assaulted a former agency employee on agency property, during agency meetings. It’s facing declining revenue, as are transit agencies across the state, in part because of a janky fare payment system, as MacKenzie Elmer reported. And its ongoing work stoppage is disrupting service, as Fox 5 covered this week.
Whitburn came up short in his chair bid a month ago, with his Democratic City Council colleagues supporting La Mesa Councilwoman Patricia Dillard. No one secured enough votes to win, forcing a re-vote this week.
National City Councilman Marcus Bush opposed him last time, and voted against him again Thursday. Council President Sean Elo-Rivera and Councilwoman Monica Montgomery Steppe, who also supported Dillard, were absent Thursday. Mayor Todd Gloria attended the meeting, which he doesn’t normally do, and voted for Whitburn. Republicans on the board had supported El Cajon Councilman Steve Goble last month; he won vice chair Thursday, with GOP electeds voting for Whitburn as chair.
Montgomery-Steppe Pulls Out of Supervisor Debate
The campaign to replace Fletcher was supposed to see its first debate Thursday night, with Montgomery Steppe, nonprofit leader Janessa Goldbeck and Amy Reichert attending a forum moderated by Shane Harris, president and founder of the People’s Association of Justice Advocates. The debate focused on homelessness and foster youth.
But Montgomery Steppe posted on social media Thursday afternoon that she wouldn’t attend the debate after learning that the People’s Association of Justice Advocates was charging for attendance.
“Charging money for this event disadvantages the very people it is supposed to be aimed at helping,” she wrote on Twitter.
Harris called her criticism senseless.
“A very nominal priority seating admission fee was charged to members of the general public to participate and want priority seating, which is at our liberty and not illegal by the law as well as quite normal for an event like this,” he wrote on Twitter.
He said the revenue would go to the YMCA, the location for the event, for facility use and staffing support.
City Cleared Homeless Camps From Underpass
For months, the Commercial Street underpass on the edge of East Village has been packed with homeless camps that surround passersby as they drive or walk through. Now both sides of the street are empty.
Police spokeswoman Ashley Bailey said the city began clearing the area last week for safety reasons.
“The area along Commercial Street posed a public safety hazard to pedestrians, vehicles, and trolleys operating in the area,” Bailey wrote in an email.
She also shared a video showing camps blocking the sidewalk and portions of the street that she said forced vehicles to drive on trolley tracks. Bailey could not immediately say how many unhoused people were arrested or cited as the city cleared the area.
Rachel Hayes, 56, who has slept under the bridge for the past few months, was skeptical of the city’s explanation. She said groups had been dropping off food donations there and disputed the city’s explanation about safety concerns. Since the operation, Hayes said, people who had been staying under the bridge have dispersed to nearby areas and have struggled to connect with people who had delivered food.
“Cut us a break,” Hayes said. “We’re doing the best we can out here.”
- Councilman Stephen Whitburn and Mayor Todd Gloria are pushing a controversial ordinance that would ban camping along the Commercial Street corridor – which is a couple blocks away from the St. Vincent de Paul campus and along a trolley line – at all times. More than 160 local professors and researchers have signed a letter urging Gloria and the City Council not to proceed with the camping ban that would also bar people from staying on public property when shelter beds are available.
“We write to express our strongest opposition to the proposed expansion of the encampment ban ordinance,” the group of academics wrote. “If enacted, this ordinance is likely to be ineffective, harmful to public health and the natural environment, and expensive to enact and enforce.”
In Other News
- County supervisors are set to vote Tuesday to commit up to $32 million in American Rescue Plan Act and county Behavioral Health Impact funds to help the San Diego Housing Commission acquire up to four properties to house homeless residents with the help of the state’s Homekey initiative.
- For the first time in 10 years, the city of San Diego has decided not to fund San Diego Workforce Partnership programs that seek to help young people land internships and permanent jobs. The city usually provides about $1 million to the partnership. (Union-Tribune)
- Vista is preparing to open its second safe parking lot for North County homeless residents, KPBS reports.
- A federal civil rights agency filed a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit against a manager at the Encinitas Swami’s Café alleging the employer created a “highly sexualized work environment” for young women and teenage girls who worked at the restaurant. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña, Scott Lewis, Andrew Keatts, Lisa Halverstadt and MacKenzie Elmer. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña and Scott Lewis.