Morning Report: Supes Are Struggling to Fulfill Their Shelter Promises

During 2021 and 2022, San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors talked a big game about getting serious on addressing homelessness. 

They worked to create a new shelter plan, ramped up efforts to identify new sites and pledged to create new shelters in unincorporated communities. But two years later, the board doesn’t have much actual shelter to show for it, reports Voice of San Diego contributor Kathryn Gray. 

The county did expand a hotel voucher program originally launched in 2020 and created two safe parking lots, but the board has also thrown up roadblocks that have hindered its progress. 

On Tuesday, supervisors pumped the brakes on an additional safe parking lot. In June, the board scrapped the opening of a 150-person tiny home project due to community opposition. That decision cost the county $10 million in state funds. 

The county has since identified a new site for the tiny home project, but officials are encountering the same sort of pushback it received at the last site. And for the many homeless residents of the county struggling with life on the streets, things aren’t getting any easier. 

Read the full story here.

Carlsbad’s Smoking Ban Is Real

In Carlsbad, smoking isn’t just frowned upon. It’s now illegal — mostly, that is. 

Last week, Carlsbad passed a sweeping ban on smoking and vaping in or around multifamily residential buildings, as our Tigist Layne reports. 

While the ban is real — and has been making headlines — whether it will be easily enforceable is an entirely different question. 

Carlsbad cops say they don’t have the resources or manpower to enforce the ban. Enforcement, then, will fall to other residents and landlords. What does citizen enforcement look like in this case?

It means landlords could evict people for smoking and neighbors could bring civil legal complaints against their neighbors. 

“So you pass an ordinance and then tell the property managers, ‘You need to enforce this’ … good luck. This is another clear case of government overreach,” one person wrote in a letter to city staff. 

Read the full North County Report here. 

Met Leader’s Job Still Hangs in the Balance

The leader of the country’s largest water district showed up Tuesday to defend himself at a meeting held to look into his staff’s accusations against him.

Adel Hagekhalil, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, told the district’s governing board he “didn’t commit any misconduct.” A June letter from the board’s chief financial officer, Katano Kasaine, alleged Hagekhalil harassed, demeaned and sidelined her creating a hostile work environment. Hagekhalil, hired as general manager in the spring of 2023, denied those allegations. 

“Everything I’ve done has always been for the best interests of Metropolitan,” Hagekhalil said, according to the Los Angeles Times. The board went into closed session and voted to extend Hagekhalil’s leave of absence until Oct. 23 to continue its investigation, a month later than it was scheduled to end. 

Our Scott Lewis described how Kasaine’s letter hinted at a major disagreement between herself and San Diego representatives on the Metropolitan board. She was profoundly uncomfortable with how Metropolitan’s budget came together, in particular with its finance committee chair, Tim Smith, a former San Diego representative, who insisted the agency’s budget include assumptions about a Colorado River water deal that would infuse cash into the budget. 

Smith resigned from his position on the Otay Water District, and likely the San Diego County Water Authority board, on Aug. 2, according to a press release from that district, which likely means he’d no longer represent San Diego at Metropolitan. 

In Other News

• San Diego County’s law enforcement review board (known, unfortunately, as CLERB) will have a new executive officer. Brett Kalina, a longtime FBI officer, will serve as the agency’s new chief. CLERB’s last leader, Paul Parker, resigned from the job “in frustration” over not being able to make enough progress, the Union-Tribune previously reported. 
• Sea lions are getting sick with Parkinson’s-like symptoms from a brain-altering neurotoxin that is coming from an algae bloom off Santa Barbara. Even though the bloom is happening to the north, cases in San Diego have been popping up, according to Sea World. (NBC 7)
• Port Authority officials said recently that a proposed people mover that would have linked the airport to public transit via Port property is unlikely to happen. (U-T)
• United Airlines flight attendants picketed outside San Diego’s airport Wednesday morning. United attendants have been in negotiations for a new contract for three years, one union official said. Union members voted nearly unanimously to authorize a strike if negotiations fail. (FOX 5 & KUSI)

The Morning Report was written by Jakob McWhinney, Will Huntsberry and MacKenzie Elmer. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.