At least twice this year San Diego Police called in a helicopter to help break up house parties near San Diego State University campus.
Police say they do so as a deescalation tactic. To the students and neighbors living through these incidents, whipping chopper blades and scanning stoplights do just the opposite.
“My immediate reaction was, okay, what’s going on? Let me close my windows, let me lock my doors,” Lisa Danielson, an SDSU student, who was awoken by the sound of a party-raiding helicopter on Jan. 25.
She thought perhaps an active shooter had descended upon the campus.
Our intern reporter Rami Alarian delves into the incidents, revealing that police helicopters are flying in shifts over city airspace almost all the time.
County Supes Have Questions on Contractor Scandal
County supervisors have some big questions and requests for the county’s top bureaucrat amid a major embezzlement scandal involving a former county contractor.
Four of the five county supervisors told our Lisa Halverstadt they’ve spoken with county Chief Administrative Officer Ebony Shelton about potential reforms and to clarify the lead up to District Attorney Summer Stephan’s case against the ex-Harm Reduction Coalition of San Diego COO accused of misappropriating more than $130,000 in public funds.
Halverstadt shared what Supervisors Joel Anderson, Jim Desmond, Terra Lawson-Remer and Monica Montgomery Steppe had to say about the debacle – and clarified some of the big questions about the situation that remain outstanding.
About Those County Government Reforms
Former City Manager Jack McGrory — and San Diegan of many hats — weighed in on Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s proposal to seriously reform county government. McGrory supports most of it.
He says the ideas to create an independent budget office and auditor would add new and good guardrails. If we’re going to have term limits, he thinks three terms of four years would be a good and consistent limit — not only for the Board of Supervisors, but also the Sheriff and District Attorney. McGrory, however, doesn’t support the idea of a top elected county administrator who would function much like a mayor.
Read the full opinion piece here.
How Redistricting Impacted San Diego
New maps show exactly how San Diego’s congressional districts now that Proposition 50 passed in November. The ballot measure redrew California’s congressional districts to combat redistricting in Texas.
Reporters for KPBS and inewsource, who are part of our Public Matters partnership, spoke with people in some of the areas that got redistricted, like Fallbrook, Poway and Chula Vista.
The maps also show, on a precinct-by-precinct basis, how people voted in key elections in recent years.
In Other News
- The City of San Diego City Attorney’s Office is suing soup manufacturer Campbells alleging the company illegally misclassified their distribution workers as contractors, denying them benefits. (CBS 8)
- In other legal news, the city will have to pay $6.3 million in a settlement with 17 insurance carriers for payments to flood victims from the 2024 floods that affected thousands in southeastern San Diego. There are still more than 1,500 flood victims in active lawsuits against the city alleging city workers failed to maintain storm drains and channels near their neighborhoods. (Yahoo!News)
- Congressman Scott Peters started his own podcast, called “72 & Sunny,” where he interviews local San Diego leaders about the work they do.
The Morning Report was written by MacKenzie Elmer, Lisa Halverstadt and Will Huntsberry. It was edited by Will Huntsberry.
i don’t know how much it actually costs to dispatch a police unit to answer a noise complaint. but i am 100% sure that deploying a police helicopter must cost *much* more than that. as well as further disturbing an entire neighborhood with even more noise. way t’ go, SDPD.