The San Diego City Council discussed revised lease terms from the owner of a Middletown warehouse being eyed for a 1,000-bed shelter earlier this week and it wasn’t impressed.
Our Lisa Halverstadt reports that City Councilmembers during a Monday closed-door meeting directed city staff to keep negotiating with real estate and hospitality guru Douglas Hamm, whose initial deal with the city faced swift backlash last month.
Hamm’s new pitch included a shorter lease term, a lower per-square foot rate and more cash from Hamm for tenant improvements but the City Council wasn’t ready to move forward with those new terms.
Status update: Mayor Todd Gloria, who has championed the shelter plan, says negotiations remain on track and Hamm says he still wants to try to reach a deal. But for now, two key City Council leaders say they have no plans to schedule votes on the proposed deal.
Reminder: Gloria pledged during his January State of the City address that he’d add at least 1,000 homeless shelter beds by early next year. His team says the warehouse at Kettner Boulevard and Vine Street remains its prime pick for a large new shelter but that it’s committed to looking elsewhere if the deal doesn’t come together. For now, Gloria’s team says, they are focused on making the Middletown shelter a reality.
County CAO Search Controversy Escalates
Cindy Chavez, the Santa Clara County supervisor, who was offered the top management job at the county of San Diego before it was rescinded amid former County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher’s downfall, is now threatening to sue the county of San Diego after supervisors declined to consider her again for the job.
In a letter to Nora Vargas, the chair of the Board of Supervisors, Chavez’s lawyer, BJ Chisholm, demanded Vargas preserve records in anticipation of possible litigation. Chisholm accuses the county of “irregularities” in its search process and said her team has heard that Chavez’s race had come up in non-privileged conversations about the search process and that one of the supervisors told someone Chavez was not qualified.
“As a woman of color, Ms. Chavez is familiar with harmful stereotypes that undermine and disparage the qualifications of women of color in leadership roles, and she takes extremely seriously any attempt to undermine her experience, to question her race or ethnicity, or to judge her qualifications on anything other than their merits,” the letter reads.
Why it matters: The threat is yet another unprecedented step in an increasingly hostile standoff between Vargas and Chavez, and the supporters of Chavez, including the most prominent labor leaders in the county. They insist Vargas and the board give Chavez the job of chief administrative officer overseeing 18,000 county employees. Or at least they insist she get another interview and that someone like her is hired.
For three decades, the county has proudly touted its tradition of hiring professional managers with a focus on operational excellence for the top job. But progressives have pushed for an overhaul of county leadership that labor leaders expected would climax with the hiring of a leader that would implement policies fearlessly and cast away lower-level managers who didn’t deliver. Now they’re suggesting not hiring Chavez was not only a bad choice but potentially done illegally.
Wetland Expansion Prevails
San Diego’s City Council unanimously agreed to remove some Mission Bay campsites in exchange for restored wetland Tuesday afternoon.
The changes to De Anza Cove are a result of eight years of negotiating how to move or remove recreational uses in the northeast corner of the bay to make way for natural habitats. But adding new acres of wetland is in line with the city’s Climate Action Plan, despite some dismayed golfers and frequenters of Campland by the Bay which would lose space to wetlands.
“When it comes to the (Climate Action Plan), quite frankly, we’re not moving anywhere near the speed we should be to see those goals reached,” said Council President Sean Elo-Rivera.
Councilmember Jen Campbell argued against language that said the wetland restoration plans would be submitted to state and federal agencies for review. Representatives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spoke at Tuesday’s meeting cautioning that the federal agency favored adding more wetlands than the city’s plan.
“They don’t have to strike the kind of balance that cities do,” Campbell said.
The council agreed to take out the language, but Leslie FitzGerald at the city attorney’s office said both the state and feds would regulate the city’s De Anza plan no matter what.
Song of the Week
Please Ask For Paul, “The Dove”: There’s no shame in being sincere – just look at Please Ask For Paul’s latest single, “The Dove.” The track’s folk-tinged indie rock is dreamy and cinematic in all of the right ways. Singer Marlo Smith’s ethereal vocals float above a bed of thumping drums and bass and sparkling guitars. But it’s also a deeply genuine song, unconcerned with pretense and focused solely on transporting the listener to a gorgeous, sprawling soundscape.
Like what you hear? Check out Please Ask For Paul at the Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel.
Do you have a “Song of the Week” suggestion? Shoot us an email and a sentence or two about why you’ve been bumping this song lately. Friendly reminder: all songs should be by local artists. Read more about this week’s song here.
In Other News
- A Tijuana police official was shot to death on Tuesday. Mexican officials are investigating the killing. (NBC 7)
- Power San Diego, a group pushing for a takeover of San Diego’s power grid from San Diego Gas and Electric, said in a press release that it turned in tens of thousands of signatures to the city clerk. The group hopes it can force the City Council to take a vote on whether to add their public power measure to the November ballot. The group needs at least 24,000 valid signatures to force that vote.
- The North County Transit District has proposed 100 percent affordable housing complexes at two Oceanside train stations. (Union-Tribune)
- Assemblymember David Alvarez has proposed a bill that would allow nursing home residents to be visited by chosen individuals during public health crises. (KPBS)
- Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposed budget received pushback for cuts critics said hit the most vulnerable communities particularly hard. In his revised budget, he walked back many of those cuts. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt, Scott Lewis, MacKenzie Elmer and Jakob McWhinney. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.