Morning Report: We’ve Got Mega-Shelter Lease Numbers

After four closed-door City Council briefings, Mayor Todd Gloria is pitching an improved lease with lower rents for the Middletown warehouse he wants to turn into a 1,000-bed shelter campus.

It’s still not a great deal for the city in traditional commercial real estate terms, according to city budget analysts, their real estate consultant and a veteran industrial broker.

But Gloria and his team argue the site is uniquely ideal to become a long-term homeless shelter campus with an array of onsite services, making the property more valuable to the city.

That will leave the City Council, our Lisa Halverstadt reports, to decide next week whether it’s worthwhile for the city to pay a premium for the site. The City Council is set to vote on the proposed lease next Monday.

Read the full story here.

Environmentalists Blame Bird Deaths on Big Fireworks Shows

Bird advocates say consecutive days of fireworks shows during the Fourth of July weekend likely caused the deaths of nearby birds, prompting environmentalists to, once again, call for an end to firework shows in San Diego.

Just days after SeaWorld and Discover Mission Bay set off more than 1,000 pounds of explosives July 3 and 4, biologists discovered the carcasses of unborn, chick and adult elegant terns washed up on the shore of Kendall-Frost Marsh Reserve. Elegant terns are a near-threatened species, meaning they may be vulnerable to endangerment in the near future.

How it happened: The San Diego Audubon Society told our MacKenzie Elmer that the high frequency of hundreds of firework shows so close to the unofficial nesting ground of more than 7,000 seabirds on West Ski Island likely caused thousands of birds to take flight out of fear.

Amid the chaos, many eggs were likely pushed into the water, and many chicks and adults likely fell into the water and didn’t make it out.

Now, environmentalists want state officials to ban firework shows in San Diego and opt for environmentally safer options.

Read the full story here.

Border Report: Advocates Seek Better Treatment of Pregnant Migrants in Custody

A group of nonprofits and advocates for immigration reform are urging U.S. Customs and Border Protection to shorten how long pregnant migrants are held in immigration custody and ensure they’re not separated from their families while detained.

Currently, CBP releases children born in immigration custody and their families within 12 hours. But advocates say those same rules should apply to migrants who are pregnant, postpartum or nursing, and their families.

Jewish Family Service of San Diego, the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA sent a letter to CBP signed by 138 organizations and more than 1,400 individuals advocating for the changes.

But this isn’t the first time organizations have tried to get these changes implemented for pregnant migrants. And until that happens, advocates say, this vulnerable population will continue to be put in environments that could pose serious health risks.

Read the Border Report here.

In Other News

• UC San Diego wants to build a $2 billion village on the university’s main campus that could house up to 6,000 students in an effort to address a severe housing shortage and increasing enrollment. The proposal will be considered by the University of California Board of Directors. (Union-Tribune)
• A federal judge last week ruled against two San Diego yoga teachers who sued the city of San Diego over updated street vending rules that make it illegal to hold yoga classes with more than four people in most city parks, denying their request for an injunction on those regulations. (10 News) Related: One of the yoga teachers in the case, Steve Hubbard, said he was cited again over the weekend for allegedly teaching a virtual class on YouTube from his own home, which people at a nearby park were streaming. (Sandiegoville)
• CalMatters revealed that 31 percent of all political spending by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the union representing 26,000 state prison guards, since 2001 has gone to Gov. Gavin Newsom. That comes out to $2.9 million, including $1.75 million that went toward Newsom’s anti-recall campaign in 2021. (CalMatters)
• The San Diego City Council unanimously confirmed Mayor Todd Gloria’s appointment of the city’s new fire chief Robert Logan on Monday, who is expected to take over for retiring Fire Chief Colin Stowell in August. (KPBS) Gloria first announced the appointment on June 12. (NBC 7)

Note: There were problems with links to the three op-eds in yesterday’s Morning Report. You can read the trio of op-eds here, here and here.

The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne, Lisa Halverstadt and MacKenzie Elmer. It was edited by Lisa Halverstadt.