For years, the Sweetwater Union High School District had a longstanding deal with one of the biggest foster care contractors in San Diego County, called New Alternatives.
Sweetwater used to pay New Alternatives roughly $1 million per year to use a New Alternatives facility in Chula Vista to house Alta Vista Academy, a special education school the district runs for kids with intense mental and behavioral needs.
But earlier this year, that deal fell apart. Our Will Huntsberry revealed that the foster care agency allegedly failed to provide some students with federally required mental health services, violating the students’ rights.
Huntsberry obtained emails from Sweetwater officials that also accused New Alternatives of being poor communicators and failing to implement a critical after-school program. An attorney representing New Alternatives told Huntsberry that it was Sweetwater who didn’t properly communicate about the after-school program or about students who needed specific services.
Remember: New Alternatives is the same foster care agency that’s been stocking millions of dollars into a Montana nonprofit that does very little since 2015 in order to pay its CEO. You can read that story here.
SD GOP Picks DeMaio Ally, Whitsell
Assemblymember-elect Carl DeMaio won the battle for the future of the Republican Party of San Diego when he helped his ally, former party Chair Paula Whitsell, regain her seat as chair of the party Monday night. Corey Gustafson’s short term as chairman is over.
The meeting and many votes of the Central Committee of the Republican Party at the Legacy Resort in Mission Valley was a contentious affair, insiders said, beginning from the moment a presiding officer of the meeting was nominated, State Sen. Brian Jones, only to be challenged by DeMaio. Jones had supported DeMaio’s opponent in the Assembly race.
Whitsell won on a 26-20 vote after hours of procedure maneuvers. Alana Sorensen, who created the conservative action group, RMNNT, and Kristie Bruce-Lane, who just lost an Assembly campaign but immediately launched a campaign to replace Jones, will serve as vice-chairs.
What’s next: Whitsell will now get to hire a new executive director of the party. It will be interesting to see how intertwined the party becomes with DeMaio’s organization, Reform California.
Fire Officials Push to Regulate Battery Storage Sites
The county’s fire officials are proposing new rules for battery storage projects that could put a damper on the region’s clean energy aspirations, reports MacKenzie Elmer.
The Fire Protection Control District is set to vote today on the new regulations that would force builders of such projects to place batteries 10-feet apart from each other and require them to put a 100-foot buffer on all sides from the property line.
Fire officials say this would increase safety and give firefighters a better shot at putting out fires.
The distance requirements would result in smaller projects that would “render the project infeasible,” green energy builders argue. The county fire officials are proposing regulations that are stricter than the state’s fire codes.
“(It will) negatively impact our ability to meet our regional renewable energy and resiliency goals while also negatively impacting our regional economy,” one builder told Elmer.
Border Report: What’s a Sanctuary City Anyway?
As a second Trump presidency looms, concerns about what the future of immigration enforcement will look like are growing – especially in border cities like San Diego.
Lately, Voice contributor Kate Morrissey has been asked one question repeatedly from members of San Diego’s immigrant communities: what is a sanctuary city, and is San Diego one of them?
Sanctuary cities limit local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement to protect undocumented immigrants. In other words, local law enforcement does not participate in immigration enforcement.
By that definition, San Diego, and every city in California, qualifies.
However, there are limits to how much protection a sanctuary designation can offer, experts told Morrisey.
Palomar Health’s Financial Position Is Getting Worse
The state’s largest public healthcare district is still struggling financially, and it’s getting worse.
Palomar Health, which operates Palomar Medical Centers in Escondido and Poway, revealed that it had a $165 million operating loss in its previous fiscal year, the Union-Tribune reported.
And in October, a report from Moody’s, one of the world’s big-three credit rating agencies, warned that Palomar might break financial rules, forcing it to repay over $700 million in bonds right away.
In June of 2023, Voice of San Diego was the first to report that Palomar Health was rapidly losing money. It’s part of a larger trend of hospitals across the nation seeing declines in patient volume and overall revenue.
Soon after our story, Palomar Health’s CEO Diane Hansen told media outlets that the hospital system’s finances were in good health, promising big financial gains moving forward.
But that didn’t happen, and now the region is wondering if Palomar is headed for bankruptcy.
In Other News
- Almost a year after historic flooding destroyed homes and displaced families in Southeastern San Diego, many couldn’t afford to return to their neighborhoods, and others are still working on rebuilding. (Union-Tribune)
- The family of a man who died in the custody of Sheriff’s deputies in March is still seeking answers. They still don’t know his cause of death, his autopsy is sealed and they say the Sheriff’s Office won’t release any body-cam footage. (KPBS)
- A red flag warning is in effect through Wednesday for the San Diego County mountains and inland valleys, as Santa Ana winds could create critical fire danger conditions. (KPBS) The winds could also cause power outages. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.
“New Alternatives is the same foster care agency that’s been stocking millions of dollars into a Montana nonprofit that does very little since 2015 in order to pay its CEO.”
well then, i guess they’ll hafta do more to pay their CEO.
it’s amazing that you folks still can’t always write a cogent sentence with the clauses in the correct place.