Three San Diego police officers took a shot at running for public office in 2024 – all lost.
San Diego mayoral candidate Larry Turner conceded the race to Mayor Todd Gloria on Wednesday. He wrote in a statement that it was a privilege to run, and he will continue serving the city as a police officer for the San Diego Police Department.
“Nearly half of this city voted for change and my hope for San Diego is that this is a wake-up call to current leadership that San Diegans deserve strong, competent, and transparent leadership that is not beholden to special interests,” Turner said in a statement.
San Diego police officer and president of the police union Jared Wilson lost his bid for Poway City Council. And Terry Hoskins, who retired in October, lost, too. Hoskins ran for San Diego City Council District 9 against Council President Sean Elo-Rivera.
San Diego Unified Incumbent Appears to Win — Barely
Sabrina Bazzo, an incumbent on San Diego Unified’s school board, appears to have held onto her seat — but only just.
Even though Bazzo is set to win, the tight race speaks volumes, our Jakob McWhinney reports in the Learning Curve.
Typically, candidates anointed by the teachers union, as Bazzo was, win in a landslide. The close results speak to a dissatisfied electorate, McWhinney writes.
San Diego Unified has weathered several storms this year, two of them related to sexual misconduct, and there are budget woes on the horizon.
71 Votes Making Difference in Oceanside Mayor’s Race
Incumbent Mayor Esther Sanchez is closing in on challenger and City Councilmember Ryan Keim.
Updated results from Wednesday evening showed Sanchez trailing Keim by only 71 votes. The race has been close from the start, with earlier results showing Keim leading Sanchez by one percentage point and more than a thousand votes. Sanchez, though, has slowly been catching up.
Air Pollution Cops Launch New South Bay Stink Alert System
Communities adjacent to the polluted Tijuana River can now check both the air around them for contamination before they decide to venture outdoors.
The region’s air pollution cops just released an air quality tracking and alert system designed to protect the most sensitive populations from hydrogen sulfide, a gas that can become toxic commonly produced by sewage (which pollutes the river) or oil refineries. The board of the Air Pollution Control District requested an air quality alert system for the gas back in September after local university researchers publicized what they said were extremely dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide emanating from the river.
Residents can sign up to get alerts from the new system by email showing whether the air each day is contaminated by hydrogen sulfide.
In Other News
- Three are dead and an officer was wounded in a gunfight in Little Italy Wednesday. A suspect allegedly killed two people inside a car on Union Street. The suspect shot a Harbor Police officer and was killed in the ensuing gunfire. The officer is expected to recover. (Union-Tribune)
- A second rare, deep-sea fish has washed up on a San Diego beach. (City News Service)
- U.S. Rep. Mike Levin appears to have defeated his opponent in the race for the 49th congressional district which covers parts of North County. (NBC 7)
- A Dutch airline has added a non-stop flight between San Diego and Amsterdam. (NBC 7)
- Two San Diego warships fought off drone attacks in the Middle East. (U-T)
- The SDSU men’s basketball team hit triple digits (albeit against a Division III team) for the first time in six years in a game Tuesday night. A U-T sports writer has some thoughts. (U-T)
The Morning Report was written by Will Huntsberry, Andrea Lopez-Villafaña, Tigist Layne and MacKenzie Elmer. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.