From homelessness to lackluster public transit, San Diego has no shortage of problems that require great urgency. And yet one of the biggest beefs of the year didn’t arise from public policy at all. It arose from people in short shorts holding rackets.
Fearless reporter Jakob McWhinney stepped into the middle of the pickleball-tennis fray — and, as far as we can tell, has emerged unharmed.
McWhinney unpacked a year of wild feuding that has included creative and radical activism on the part of pickleballers. The pickleballers, infamously, flew their drones over Point Loma’s Peninsula Tennis Club to try to show how underutilized the courts are. They took screenshots of years worth of court logs to try to prove the same.
But, astonishingly, it wasn’t even the tennis players who drew picklers’ deepest ire. It was city officials.
“The city appears to be in bed with tennis, protecting them at every turn,” one pickler told the Union-Tribune earlier this year.
Things got so bad, the warring sides even tried to bring in a mediator.
Now a new pickleball center is planned in Point Loma and — would you believe it — the pickleballers are still calling foul.
Read McWhinney’s full story to find out more.
Beef Week is a special Voice of San Diego reporting theme week. Our reporters are following the biggest battles in the region. Read all the stories here.
North County Report: Underground Trains and Affordable Housing
Regional officials have an ambitious plan to move 2 miles of precariously-placed train tracks off the crumbling bluffs on which they now rest. The new plan: push the tracks underground.
But officials can’t settle on a site. One leading option is to move the tracks under the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Fairground officials don’t like that idea and now they’re also saying it could interfere with a potential plan for affordable housing.
City leaders in Del Mar and fairground officials are in negotiations to approve a development on the fairground that would include 54 units of affordable housing. (That is, of course, because the state is forcing officials in cities all over California to make way for much-needed housing.) Fairground officials say it’s unfeasible to build the housing development and the underground train tracks.
And when it comes to Del Mar housing: Don’t forget Seaside Ridge! It’s a proposed development that would be located on a property known as North Bluff. The development would include 85 units that are mandated as affordable and 174 market-rate units.
Developers are currently using state laws to try to push the project over the finish line and city officials are fighting back.
County Supes May Postpone Conservatorship Expansion
San Diego County Board Chairwoman Nora Vargas is asking fellow supervisors to vote next week to postpone implementation of state legislation expanding eligibility for conservatorships.
The state legislation that would otherwise take effect Jan. 1 makes people struggling with severe addiction eligible for conservatorships and is expected to put more pressure on a treatment system now often unable to deliver immediate voluntary care.
In a Wednesday board letter, Vargas called for the county to implement the conservatorship expansion bill in January 2025 to give the county and various players more time to prepare.
Not everyone is on board with the proposed postponement.
In Other News
- A high school senior is suing Poway Unified School District and Superintendent Marian Kim Phelps, the Union-Tribune reports. The student is accusing Phelps of allegedly bullying and harassing her and her teammates on the softball team. Phelps has denied the allegations.
- San Diego State University’s football team has a new coach. (KPBS)
- Time to dig the umbrella out of your closet. On-and-off rain is expected through Friday. (FOX 5)
- A family vacation went terrifyingly awry in Oceanside when police mistook a rental car as stolen. Video shows multiple officers with guns drawn and pointed at a couple, demanding they exit a minivan. It turned out, the rental car company had failed to report the van had actually come back to its lot. (NBC 7)
The Morning Report was written by Will Huntsberry and Lisa Halverstadt. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.