Residents of Mount Hope, a neighborhood in southeastern San Diego, are used to being overlooked by the city.
They know the good and bad of the neighborhood. It is a place of family and community, but also a place with a history of crime and drugs. And today, it has some of the highest concentrations of low-income families in the region.
Since 1979, the Mount Hope Neighborhood Group has been advocating for services from the city to reduce crime, clean up graffiti, street sweep and more. Our Mariana Martinez Barba writes that those requests often went unanswered for years.
Since 2023, Elena Franco, chair of the group, has been trying to change things. Under her leadership, Mount Hope is closer than ever to having a community rec center, neighborhood park improvements and more. Franco is ushering in a new era of community engagement, information sharing and unrelenting advocacy.
Read the full story here.
Del Mar City Council Had an Unusual Meeting Yesterday
Del Mar city leaders yesterday took a break from their vacations to call for an investigation into two sitting state officials over a proposed housing project.
At a special City Council meeting Monday, the Del Mar Council voted to ask District Attorney Summer Stephan and U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon to open investigations into Attorney General Rob Bonta and Del Mar Fairgrounds Board Member Mark Arabo for reasons related to Seaside Ridge, a controversial development proposed for Del Mar’s North Bluff.
The meeting lasted around 10 minutes and included a public comment from Shane Harris, a PR professional and self-styled “hired gun,” who called the meeting “very unusual.”
The city, which has repeatedly rejected Seaside Ridge and is trying to build an affordable housing project on the Del Mar Fairgrounds, sent “Investigative Referral” letters saying their concerns were brought on by a resident, Debrah Barnes, who submitted a letter to the city on July 9.
Barnes’ letter asked the city to review potential conflicts of interest and “influence” between Arabo, a member of Seaside Ridge’s team named Brian Guiltinan and Attorney General Bonta. (It turns out, Guiltinan was Arabo’s real estate agent when he and his wife purchased their multi-million dollar home in 2024.)
That’s what prompted city leaders to call a special meeting, according to a staff report, although the city had Barnes’ letter for a couple weeks before the summer recess started. Arabo and representatives for Seaside Ridge have denied the allegations.
More Sham Charities Discovered in Other States
Since 2023, we’ve been investigating how supposed charities operate concession stands in venues throughout the region.
In our biggest story, we discovered a fake charity pretending to support girls softball in Petco Park. The two men who ran that operation will be sentenced in the coming weeks in federal court. But we also discovered more systemic issues; at least two other charities paid their supposed volunteers under the table and below minimum wage. Then a few months ago, a fourth charity we raised questions about got booted from Petco Park as well.
It’s supposed to work like this: Nonprofits bring in volunteers to work concession stands and the company in charge donates ten percent of the stand’s proceeds. But insiders told us the system is easily abused all across the country.
Apparently, that is also what the Attorney General of Minnesota found. The attorney general’s office shut down what it called a “sham charity” that had been using hundreds of supposed volunteers as workers at five different stadiums throughout the Twin Cities. It harmed taxpayers, as well as other workers, the Attorney General said.
“I hope that this outcome sends a strong, clear message to any other charities running this kind of scam that it is illegal and my office will not tolerate it,” he said, according to a press release.
Voice Gets John Oliver Mention
On this weekend’s episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, we got an unexpected mention.
Oliver was taking on shot spotter cameras — which use AI technology to attempt to identify gun shots. Oliver cited a 2020 Voice story that mentioned the technology can sometimes mistake nail guns for real guns.
That “is not good,” Oliver said. You don’t want hyped up cops showing up weapons drawn because dad finally got around to putting up the christmas lights!”
Bailey Weighs in on Midway Exception
In Saturday’s Politics Report, we implied we got the perspective of both candidates for San Diego City Council District 2 about SB 958 — the bill designed to finally get the Midway Rising project across the finish line. The bill would stipulate that if projects meet certain requirements related to housing then any environmental impacts as a result of the project’s height can’t be considered significant.
In the Politics Report, though, we only had comments from one of the candidates, Nicole Crosby. We heard from Richard Bailey who offered this prepared statement:
“While the sports arena site should be redeveloped, the project needs to be able to stand on its own without preferential legal treatment. The city has repeatedly mishandled this project with incomplete and deficient CEQA analyses; and SB 958 looks like another attempt to bail itself out of its own process failures. As councilmember, I’ll demand full transparency, enforceable community benefits, and a development that prioritizes traffic mitigations and quality-of-life benefits for the surrounding neighborhoods over political shortcuts.”
In Other News
The super El Niño could bring raging floods to San Diego this winter, and given the city’s largely aging stormwater infrastructure, the city put together an El Niño working group made up of members from each city department to prepare for emergencies. (CalMatters)
Deportations are spiking in San Diego and nationwide because of a new Trump administration tactic of scheduling hundreds of immigration court hearings at once with little notice, resulting in missed appointments and deportations. (KPBS)
A company that operated elderly care facilities in Poway owes several San Diego caregivers a total of $2 million in stolen wages. The caregivers have been waiting years for their money, but the Labor Commissioner office has a backlog of more than 50,000 wage theft cases. (inewsource)
San Diego’s first women’s sports bar recently opened in North Park. (KPBS)
The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne, Will Huntsberry and Scott Lewis. It was edited by Will Huntsberry.
Related Posts
