Morning Report: Break for Builders on Vehicle Miles Traveled

Developers in San Diego County have long complained about the fees associated with a climate-conscious rule that aims to limit long commutes and they may be getting a break.

What we’re talking about: The state’s vehicle miles traveled policy, or VMT, requires local governments in California to consider how much people are driving when designing cities to hopefully mitigate climate change. In other words, it requires developers and cities to consider commute times to jobs, schools and grocery stores when building a project.

Builders have said the fees assessed based on how many vehicle miles a development creates have stifled development in unincorporated areas of the county.

But now the county has decided there’s an exemption: As long as a development meets all the standards required by the county’s 13 year old general plan, it won’t be subject to reviews about how many driving miles it creates.

County officials told our MacKenzie Elmer this exemption will help developers overcome hurdles when trying to build, especially in a region like San Diego County with lots of rural and unincorporated areas that require lots of driving.

But environmentalists aren’t happy. They’re worried this will completely undermine the goal of VMT policies, which is to reduce fossil fuels from vehicles and slow down climate change.

Read the Environment Report here.

Escondido Council Will Consider Another Sales Tax Measure

The Escondido City Council will consider placing a sales tax measure on the November ballot. Again.

At Wednesday’s council meeting, city leaders will consider sending a 20-year, one-cent sales tax increase to voters.

The initiative is projected to bring in around $25 million each year in new revenue and would aim to address Escondido’s ongoing structural budget deficit.

Voice of San Diego previously reported that a citizens’ coalition called Escondido Citizens for Safety reportedly collected and submitted 12,000 signatures – more than the required 7,748 – to place a sales tax increase on the ballot.

But according to an Escondido staff report, the San Diego County Registrar of Voters may not finish counting and verifying all of the signatures until well past the deadline to place measures on this year’s ballot, which is Aug. 9. That means the citizens’ initiative could be pushed to the November 2026 general election.

So staff is recommending that the City Council consider placing the initiative on the ballot themselves, which requires approval from at least two-thirds of the council.

Not Escondido’s first rodeo: City staff has floated similar ballot measures twice before that were both projected to raise around $20 million annually. The City Council didn’t approve the first in 2020, and voters rejected the second at the ballot box in 2022. 

Data Breach at Palomar Health Medical Group Compromised Patient Information

Palomar Health Medical Group announced last week that patients’ names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, medical history and health insurance information may have been compromised by a recent data breach.

According to the medical group’s officials, the breach happened between April 23 and May 5. Computers have been down since then, and doctors are still unable to access patient records, KPBS reported. And Palomar says some patient records appear to have been deleted and may be unrecoverable.

The breach has already prompted a class-action lawsuit that was filed on behalf of a patient on June 24.

Palomar says it still doesn’t know how many patients were compromised and who is responsible for the breach.  

What’s taking so long? Palomar Health Medical Group is an outpatient arm of Palomar Health, a public health care system that operates Palomar Medical Centers in Escondido and Poway.

A cybersecurity expert told KPBS that Palomar may not have the financial resources or the manpower to recover the data quickly.

Voice of San Diego has previously reported on Palomar Health’s financial hardships over the past couple of years, a trend for hospitals nationwide. The hospital system will likely end this fiscal year in June with a significant bottom-line loss. 

A recent quarterly financial report, which shows operations through March 31, shows a $40 million net loss so far in this fiscal year. 

In Other News

• After the San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved its largest ever wrongful-death settlement at $15 million, the county is still facing more than a dozen other jail-death lawsuits that will cost taxpayers millions of more dollars in the coming months and years. (Union-Tribune)
• San Diego will pay an engineering firm $100 million over the next 10 years to assess the city’s aging dams that have been deemed safety risks and create a strategy for repairs and possible rebuilds. (Union-Tribune)
• San Diego Police announced over the weekend they will install more surveillance camera-equipped “Smart Streetlights” in Hillcrest ahead of the upcoming Pride weekend to protect against potential hate crimes and mass gathering attacks. (NBC 7)

Related: After San Diego officials voted last year to install roughly 500 Smart Streetlights throughout the city, police are now asking to move more than 40 cameras that have already been installed due to infrastructure issues. (CBS 8)

• A recent increase in the number of juveniles arrested in Escondido for crimes of violence, much of it gang-related, has prompted the Escondido Police Department to revive a special enforcement team focused on gangs and at-risk youth. (Union-Tribune)
• A long-awaited project to transform a dangerous route through Balboa Park into a safer 2.3-mile bikeway and sidewalk called Pershing Bikeway will have its grand opening on July 27. (Union-Tribune)

The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne. It was edited by Lisa Halverstadt and Scott Lewis.