Officials for the Del Mar Fairgrounds are halting plans to build up to 61 affordable housing units on the fairgrounds.
The problem? That pesky train tunnel that SANDAG wants to build, in order to move the current train tracks away from Del Mar’s crumbling bluff.
The fairground is managed by the board members of the 22nd District Agricultural Association. Until Tuesday, the board members had been in negotiations with the city of Del Mar to allow city officials to build the affordable housing project on the fairgrounds.
That agreement, however, came with a catch, reports our Tigist Layne.
Fairgrounds board members wanted city officials to back them up in their fight against SANDAG to keep the train tunnel away from the fairgrounds.
But Del Mar’s leaders won’t do it. They want the train tunnel to run through the fairgrounds.
“They stabbed us in the back,” one fairgrounds board member said of city leaders.
Gloria Visited Philippines — Despite Paused City Travel
In December, Mayor Todd Gloria announced a whole raft of measures designed to tighten the city’s belt, in order to brace for a roughly $250 million budget hole.
Among them: banning all nonessential travel.
And yet, Gloria himself visited the Philippines last week, the Union-Tribune reported.
Gloria paid for his own plane ticket, but he brought along two members of his security detail, courtesy of city of San Diego taxpayers.
Gloria “met with Filipino business and political leaders, visited historic sites and cemented a sister-city arrangement with the tourist destination community of Cavite City,” the U-T reported.
Nora Vargas’ Other Gig
inewsource reports that months before leaving the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, Nora Vargas already had another job: consulting.
Vargas quit the board in December citing unspecified “personal safety and security reasons.” Her departure left the county without a chair and a split Board of Supervisors. San Diego County is holding a special election to replace Vargas.
inewsource’s Greg Moran reports found that Vargas registered a business in July with the Secretary of State’s office. And last week, she filed a financial disclosure that shows she made between $1,001 and $10,000 from the business from January 2024 to Jan. 6, 2025, according to inewsource.
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In Other News
- In a wild turn of events, a military fighter jet crashed into San Diego Bay Wednesday near Kona Kai Resort. The two pilots managed to safely eject. The video is unreal. (SanDiegoVille)
- The El Cajon City Council voted to support a resolution allowing local law enforcement to collaborate on enforcing federal immigration laws. (Union-Tribune)
- Supervisor Jim Desmond’s proposal to endorse a congressional law that bans transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports failed on Tuesday. (NBC 7)
- Last month, the San Diego City Council voted to remove a footnote in a city code that only applied to certain neighborhoods in southeastern San Diego. A second vote set to take place next month, part of the bureaucratic process, has been delayed, KPBS reports. Residents worry what the delay could mean for the community.
- Fees, fees and more fees. San Diego is considering a trash pickup fee of $53 for single-family homes. And the city also needs more money to enforce vacation rentals, so the City Council voted on Tuesday to raise licensing fees. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Will Huntsberry, Alina Ajaz and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.
Correction: This post has been updated to correct that there was a proposal to endorse a congressional bill, not pass it.
Your content is always so easy to engage with, I love it.
“… Vargas registered a business in July with the Secretary of State’s office.”
it’s looking more and more like ms. Vargas participated in an election that she wasn’t she planned NOT to honor. to me, this is a clear issue of fraud.
is there a legal method to recover from her any costs for a special election?