San Diego’s main water seller OK’d a less-doomy price increase than the region was expecting, setting it at 14 percent on Thursday.
To make that work, the San Diego County Water Authority will have to find $2 million it can cut from its budget and delay some anti-earthquake-related upgrades to its biggest aqueducts. Those cuts save ratepayers from an anticipated 18 percent beginning January 1.
Keep in mind: Fourteen percent is still the largest annual rate increase on the wholesale price of San Diego water since 2011, Water Authority records show.
Now each of San Diego’s 22 separate water districts will have to figure out how to shoulder that cost or pass it onto customers, depending on the health of their own budgets.
The cuts and delays came at the request of the city of San Diego, the Water Authority’s biggest and most powerful customer on its governing board. They were approved despite the Water Authority’s general manager warning about delaying repairs to its pipes.
Mega-Shelter Vote Postponed
The City Council won’t vote on the mega-shelter lease until at least September.
Three days after the City Council majority punted a decision on the lease and called for changes, Mayor Todd Gloria announced that his team will recalibrate rather than proceed with an initially planned July 30 hearing.
“In discussions with the landlord following Monday’s City Council hearing, we respect the need for further work and review on the proposal,” Gloria wrote in a Thursday statement. “It’s in that spirit that we mutually agree that we should return this item to the City Council in September.”
A spokesperson for Douglas Hamm, who owns the Middletown warehouse the mayor wants to convert into the city’s largest-ever permanent homeless shelter, confirmed that Hamm is willing to work with the city on the proposed lease through September.
The City Council is set to begin its annual August recess next week, meaning there won’t be an opportunity to vote on the lease until early September.
In his Thursday statement, Gloria also committed to work with the City Attorney’s Office to address feedback from the City Council and to convene a working group to “develop a design and preliminary operations plan.”
Gloria emphasized that he remains committed to delivering new shelter beds.
Related: The proposed Hope @ Vine shelter campus, like many other homeless-serving projects, has drawn significant community pushback. A few years ago, a Clairemont housing project for formerly homeless seniors also faced an onslaught of opposition – and now one of its foremost opponents tells NBC 7 San Diego it was a “blessing in disguise.”
Guv to State Agencies: Make Plans to Clear Homeless Camps
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced early Thursday that he has directed state agencies to “adopt clear policies” to “urgently address encampments on state property” in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling declaring that anti-camping enforcement isn’t cruel or unusual.
The governor’s order also puts more pressure on local governments to crack down.
CalMatters shared more details on Newsom’s executive order and advocates’ concerns about it – and raised a central question in its headline: “Gavin Newsom orders state agencies to move homeless people out of camps — but to where?” As the news site notes, Newsom’s order calls for state agencies to contact local organizations to request services for people displaced in sweeps but doesn’t require state agencies to find places for them to go.
What’s this mean for San Diego? TBD. More homeless residents have set up camp along freeways in areas controlled by Caltrans since the city instituted a camping ban last year and it’s often taken Caltrans significant time to clear them.
Mayor Todd Gloria noted frequent delays to Caltrans clean-ups in a Thursday interview with Voice of San Diego. He also acknowledged the need for the state to find places for homeless residents to go if it sweeps homeless camps – and that sweeps could simply force homeless residents to move from place to place without a shelter strategy. Gloria said he hopes the governor’s order will urge the state and other San Diego County cities to provide more shelter.
“I’m hopeful the governor’s direction today will put them in alignment, and on the same page as the city of San Diego, so we can address this issue not as a whack-a-mole approach of, on the city side of the line or the state side of the line, but that we’re all working together to say, this is not safe and it’s not OK to be here, and we’ll get you into shelter as quickly as possible,” Gloria said.
The fine print: Newsom’s order calls for other state agencies to follow Caltrans policies. In a Thursday statement, Caltrans wrote that the “governor’s executive order will not affect Caltrans encampment removal operations” and that the encampment clearing process the governor described is already in place in Caltrans’ San Diego and Imperial counties.
A Caltrans spokesperson later told Voice he was “unaware of any additional resources” associated with the directive.
Progress Report: Bridging Gaps for Migrant Students
A county program that serves children of migrant families aims to create equal opportunities for migrant students.
The San Diego County Office of Education’s Migrant Education program serves children and young people from ages 3 to 21 throughout San Diego County and Orange County. Specifically, it helps families in the agricultural, fishing or lumber industries who have had to move around in search of work opportunities.
The program offers after-school tutoring, college prep guidance, vaccine clinics, parent workshops and many other resources.
Our Jakob McWhinney visited one of the program’s special events at San Marcos’ Woodland Park Middle School where migrant families and students received free dental care.
Program officials say the goal is to help migrant students with the same opportunities and resources as other students who may not be as impacted by poverty, instability or other difficult circumstances.
Read the Progress Report here.
In Other News
- San Marcos, a city with no homeless shelter, passed a ban on homeless encampments on Tuesday following a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows cities to prohibit camping in public areas. (KPBS)
- Rents are down and available rentals are up in San Diego – pretty big freaking news in this fast-growing and housing-strapped city, according to a survey from the Southern California Rental Housing Association. Why? Probably because the region’s added a lot of new properties are on the market. (Times of San Diego)
- The Grove Fire, which began burning Wednesday at the very northern border of San Diego County northeast of Palomar Mountain, consumed 900 acres so far and is only 10 percent contained. CalFire thinks that lightning likely caused the spark. The state firefighting agency put people living near the Chihuahua Valley/Warner Springs area on notice that they should prepare to evacuate. (CalFire)
- San Diego Football Club, the region’s first Major League Soccer team, signed ex-Manchester United defender Paddy McNair for the debut 2025 season. (ESPN)
- San Diego City Council punted a decision on whether to cancel virtual public comment until September, an action proposed by Council President Sean Elo-Rivera. (KPBS)
- U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson tours the U.S.-Mexico border between San Diego and Tijuana Thursday evening with Republican Congressman Darrel Issa. (FOX 5 San Diego)
- The city of San Diego plans to use eminent domain to take over a private piece of the La Jolla neighborhood that’s reportedly essential for building a bike path called the Coastal Rail Trail, which a La Jolla planning group greenlighted back in 2021. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by MacKenzie Elmer, Lisa Halverstadt and Tigist Layne.