SANDAG is asking voters in November to increase taxes to pay for a laundry list of regional needs. Now, they’re trying to fashion a spending plan that can achieve the high bar of 66 percent voter approval.
They’ve released two potential plans, one that would give billions of dollars to individual cities to pay down their infrastructure needs. The other would only deal with regional needs, spending more money on both highway and transit projects.
But SANDAG needs all the support it can get, and transit advocates aren’t sure why the plan that gives them more money completely ignores local infrastructure needs. That’s especially problematic because SANDAG’s board – and the public at large – have already signaled that they want any tax plan to deal with local infrastructure.
Podcast: Who’s Fred Maas?
Scott Lewis and Andy Keatts had LaShae Collins, a candidate to replace Marne Foster on the San Diego school board, on the podcast Friday.
“I see myself as a person who’s gonna be the voice of reason,” she said. “The voice of bringing morals, values and so forth back to the board.”
Keatts and Lewis also talked about the Chargers’ hiring of Fred Maas to coordinate the stadium effort here. After a history lesson about Maas, the duo concluded that it was yet more evidence nothing ever changes in San Diego. And Keatts explained the ins and outs of that SANDAG tax hike planning.
Gonzalez: Give the Kids a Say
In 2012, as layoffs loomed over San Diego Unified teachers, Tierra Gonzalez led 250 students in a walkout at Mission Bay High to protest the cuts at her school.
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, Tierra’s mother, remembers her daughter telling her that without a vote, the walkout was one of the few ways students had to be heard.
So, this year, when Gonzalez met a group of high school students who wanted an amendment to California’s Constitution that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote school board and community college board elections, Gonzalez was on board.
A professor of psychology claimed in the LA Times they can handle it.
Check out this week’s Sacramento Report to find out what else is going on up north. Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins talks to us about measures she might be willing to take to regulate lobbying of the Coastal Commission after the controversial dismissal of the executive director of the agency this week.
• KPBS reporter Alison St. John said on Midday Roundtable that Olga Diaz, though, told her she was not lobbied yet still voted in the way that upset Atkins.
• That executive director, Charles Lester alleges it was nefarious:
“In an interview Thursday, Lester said his termination may have stemmed from some commissioners’ desire to exert more control over the staff that analyzes billions of dollars’ worth of coastal development projects — an assertion that commissioners who voted to fire Lester flatly denied,” reports San Jose Mercury News.
San Diego Unified Backpedals, Won’t Close Logan Elementary
In November, when district officials first unveiled its plans spend upwards of $100 million rebuilding a campus in Logan Heights – currently home to three schools – officials said one of the schools on that campus, Logan K-8, would likely close for good. Nearby elementary schools would have to absorb Logan K-8 students who would be displaced by the construction.
Logan teachers and parents did not like that idea, and for weeks fired off emails to district officials, urging them to reconsider. It looks like it worked.
At a planning session this week, officials said the plan now is to include Logan K-8 in the plans for a new school. Originally, the school was envisioned as a middle and high school only. Now it will be a TK-12 school, according to a story from CBS.
Lincoln High To Border Patrol: You’re Uninvited to Career Fair
Because the U.S. Border Patrol has a strong presence in the San Diego region, it might have seemed like a good idea to invite some of their agents to a career fair at Lincoln High.
At least a few people disagreed. Shortly before the career fair was scheduled to take place, Lincoln Principal John Ross rescinded his invitation “in order to avoid any further controversy on campus and among staff and students,” reports Breitbart News.
It might be wise to insulate students from the kind of stress a visit from Border Patrol could trigger. At the same time, one way to help students overcome anxieties toward U.S. law enforcement might be to have them meet with officers in a safe environment, like schools.
Most-Read Stories of the Week
Our list of the 10 most-read VOSD stories of the week is here. Below are the Top 5:
The Starlight Bowl, built for the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition, now sits vacant and decaying. (Lisa Halverstadt)
In the last few years, San Diego’s seen a craft coffee explosion, and two local roasters recently landed on a prominent list of the best coffees of 2015. (Kinsee Morlan)
If the Chargers want a stadium downtown, they may have to pursue it over the mayor’s opposition. That might happen. (Liam Dillon)
The unsealed search warrant finally answered some lingering questions about the saga surrounding the former school board trustee. (Mario Koran)
The San Diego County Water Authority has dumped a half billion gallons of costly drinking water into a lake near Chula Vista. (Ry Rivard)