This week, San Diego Unified trustees advanced four large-scale housing pitches that could supply thousands of homes for district employees on district land.
As our Jakob McWhinney reports, trustees made ambitious moves that represent the biggest K-12 district foray into housing development on district land yet in the state of California.
Delivering on those ambitious plans won’t be simple. McWhinney reviewed how the district got here, challenges that are likely ahead, big decisions the district still has to make and what could come next.
Immigration Arrests Up 1500% in San Diego
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in midwestern cities have drawn national headlines in more recent history but San Diego and Imperial counties have seen a quieter surge over the past year.
CalMatters analyzed immigration arrests during a six-month period last year compared with the same period in 2024 and found a nearly 1500 percent spike in arrests. Last September and October, federal officials arrested more than double the number of people in the area known as the San Diego region than they did in all of 2024.
CalMatters noted that federal immigration agents have descended on downtown courtrooms, swept Home Depot parking lots and arrested migrants near schools.
Related: KPBS also crunched immigration arrest numbers and found that most immigrants arrested in the San Diego sector had no criminal record.
South County Report: Democrats’ South Bay Predicament
Last summer, local Democrats cheered then-Imperial Beach mayor Paloma Aguirre’s ascent to the county Board of Supervisors.
But as our Jim Hinch writes in his latest South County Report, Democrats soon realized they faced a tougher electoral landscape. South Bay doesn’t have a single Democratic mayor and feuds among Democrats have further complicated matters.
Hinch got San Diego County Democratic Party Chair Will Rodriguez-Kennedy’s take on his party’s South Bay conundrum – and also spotlighted Imperial Beach’s new grocery store.
Read the South County Report here.
Mark Your Calendar: Women Leading the Conversation 2026
Join us for an inspiring evening and panel discussion about how women are Building the Finest City. Our guest speakers include:
- Fabiola Bagula, superintendent at San Diego Unified School District
- Maya Madsen, founder and owner of Maya’s Cookies
- Erica Pinto, chair of the Jamul Indian Village of California
- Angela Shafer-Payne, vice president and chief development officer at the San Diego Regional Airport Authority
Enjoy cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and mingling with incredible women on March 26 at the Farmer & the Seahorse 5:30 to 8:30pm. Reserve your tickets here.
In Other News
- A local construction union pushing a potential November city sales-tax measure has recently been mulling a smaller tax hike and whether to focus on 2028 instead. (Union-Tribune)
- Hundreds of volunteers fanned out across the county on Thursday to tally the region’s homeless population. (City News Service, KPBS)
- San Diego County will stop adding new families to its long Section 8 wait list next month, a step it says it decided to take due to federal funding issues. (inewsource)
- San Diego life science companies have been struggling to pull in venture capital dollars, hitting a five-year low last year. (Union-Tribune)
- Some Encinitas activists want to bring back red-light cameras in their city. (CBS 8)
The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.