For more than a year, San Diego Unified school board members have been talking about a plan to open a parking lot for homeless families at the old Central Elementary campus in City Heights.
The whole property could be an ideal facility for sheltering families. But the ideas for how to use it had boiled down to a small parking lot.
Our Lisa Halverstadt and Jakob McWhinney found even just a small parking lot for district families was unworkable.
The city said it decided last year it couldn’t move forward after receiving less grant money than it sought to support the project – and shared that news with district staff last August.
What also happened: The city quietly inquired about potentially using grant funds to help back a larger safe parking project instead, a plan the Regional Task Force on Homelessness rejected.
School board member Richard Barrera and San Diego Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who both represent the City Heights area, both say they are frustrated by the impasse – and the fact that the property hasn’t been serving homeless families and students.
The Learning Curve: What the Budget Giveth
School districts, including San Diego Unified, learned more about what they’ll be getting from the state in the coming budget year.
San Diego Unified, and other big districts, had previously sent out their budget wish list. It turns out, they won’t be getting their biggest wish.
District officials wanted a technical, but powerful, change to the way schools are funded. They wanted schools to be funded based on school census numbers, not on average daily attendance. Critics believed that would take away any financial incentive for districts to drive down chronic absenteeism.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declined to make the change.
On a cost-of-living-adjustment, or COLA, disagreement, state and district officials split the difference.
Find out what else district officials got (and didn’t) in the Learning Curve here.
Poway City Attorney Doesn’t ‘Give a Flying …‘
On Tuesday, Poway City Attorney Alan Fenstermacher revealed that newly elected City Councilmember Tony Blain has sent him multiple emails threatening to have him fired or demanding his resignation.
Blain allegedly instructed Fenstermacher to call the police on two people that criticized Blain. Blain himself allegedly called the Sheriff’s Office on a third person who asked Blain to resign.
Fenstermacher laid it all on the line.
“I am no longer intimidated by you Councilmember Blain,” Fenstermacher said at Tuesday’s meeting. “I don’t give a flying fuck if you fire me. I will not take this lying down anymore. You are a bully, you’ve been harassing me for months, and I’ve tried to be professional. This is enough.”
In Other News
- The National City Council signed off Tuesday on a city of San Diego plan to reserve 37 beds at the San Diego Rescue Mission’s South County Lighthouse shelter in the South Bay city. The Rescue Mission said it expects to begin accepting San Diego shelter referrals within the next week.
- A photographer for the Union-Tribune captured photographs of firefighters as they worked to contain a fire in Rancho Bernardo Wednesday. (Union-Tribune)
- San Diego FC, San Diego’s new MLS team, acquired two new players, including Danish winger Anders Dreyer. (ESPN)
- The National Weather Service made a funny. On X, NWS San Diego posted that there is “increasing confidence for a rare phenomenon,” — aka rain — on Saturday.