Politicians proposing homeless service projects in San Diego face a harsh reality: The neighbors are not going to embrace them – at least initially.
That reality hit San Diego politicos hard this year. The beefing between shelters versus neighborhoods is our latest entry in Beef Week.
Mayor Todd Gloria faced the wrath and skepticism of Point Loma residents over plans to open a parking lot for people living in vehicles near the airport and protests from a broader swath of San Diegans – including nearby Mission Hills residents – over a proposed 1,000- bed shelter in Middletown. For now, he’s adamant that he’s not giving up on either project.
Over at the county, board Chair Nora Vargas successfully persuaded her colleagues to cancel a plan to put 150 tiny homes in Spring Valley following backlash from neighbors, losing out on $10 million in state cash that had previously been pledged for the project. Now fellow Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe and other county officials are trying to weather the storm following protests from Lemon Grove residents over the 70-cabin project that county is now pursuing there instead.
The bottom line: As housed residents raise concerns about public safety the homeless crisis, they are not excited about providing homeless residents a safe place to go near them. Opponents of homeless service projects often say they agree that San Diego needs more solutions to this problem, but they disagree on where those solutions should go.
So what can be done? Our Lisa Halverstadt rounded up the takes.
Hungry for more beef? Read more stories in our Beef Week series here.
Mayor Making Immediate Budget Cuts
San Diego voters rejected a sales-tax increase on the ballot and Wednesday, the mayor announced a hiring freeze, cuts to overtime for city employees and pausing some plans for capital improvement projects, as Axios reported.
The city is staring down the barrel of a $258 million budget deficit. Gloria’s immediate cuts will help, but they won’t be enough to overcome the projected shortfall. More structural budget cuts will be on the way.
It’s a dramatic shift in tone. Gloria and other leaders did not make the case that passing the sales tax increase would make or break the budget. City Councilmember Raul Campillo previously told Voice the city would be able to continue providing the same levels of service even if the sales tax didn’t pass.
Civic Center halted: Just more than two years ago, when the City Council and mayor decided to settle its lawsuit against the company that leased it the 101 Ash Street tower, they said it was because they wanted the building so they could complete a major revitalization of the Civic Center area.
The mayor said, Wednesday, in light of the budget crisis, he was putting a stop to the effort.
No word on if we can sell the building back.
Related: The mayor coming into the podcast studio today for a conversation about the budget and other things. Send any questions you have to scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org.
North County Report: Del Mar’s Short-Term Rental Rules
“The city of Del Mar is an Airbnb owner’s dream,” writes our Tigist Layne. That, however, is about to change.
The Del Mar City Council passed new rules regulating short-term rentals, which are set to go into effect in 27 days.
The new rules will limit the number of vacation rental homes to five percent of the city’s housing stock, or 129. There are exceptions though.
Read the North County Report here to find out more.
Oceanside Mayor Wins Re-election
Almost a month after Election Day, Oceanside’s mayoral race is finally over with incumbent Mayor Esther Sanchez narrowly defeating her challenger Councilmember Ryan Keim.
In the end, Sanchez won the seat by only 232 votes, receiving 50.15 percent of total votes.
In Other News
- National City Councilmember Jose Rodriguez’s colleagues voted to censure him for allegedly breaking the city’s code of conduct. (Union-Tribune) Our Jim Hinch previously reported on tension on the City Council. You can read his story here.
- The group behind the latest effort to make the neighborhood of La Jolla a city gathered more than 7,000 signatures for its petition to the region’s boundary refs. (Union-Tribune) But as our Jakob McWhinney reported yesterday, that is just one of the many steps the group needs to go through to make the “city of La Jolla” happen.
- Tyson Street Park in Oceanside is the city’s pick for a sand retention project. (KPBS)
- San Diego’s GDP is up to roughly $261 billion and bigger than half of U.S. states. (U-T)
The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt, Will Huntsberry and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.
Once Again!!! Homelessness as we know it on this fifth day of December two thousand twenty-four is a planned created culture a planned created environment. Foul church and state influence on this matter will continue to be exposed!!!
The City’s budget is over $5 BILLION; these cuts are less than 5%. Why all the hand-wringing? Why have major cuts only to highly-visible targets, instead of the rest of the invisible budget? Why can’t other parts of the $5 billion get cut? We don’t maintain the roads or storm drains, now we’re cutting first responders and libraries – what is all the money being spent on? How about a follow-up on this, VOSD, telling us about all the untouchable areas of the budget that is left alone while our city crumbles?