San Diego News Fix

A plan to put a protected bike lane in North Park has drawn criticism from the community. The plan would remove street parking from the popular corridor, and remove 420 parking spaces. Among the detractors are a group of disability advocates who say they’ve been left out of the conversation about how to alter mobility options for a greener future.

Long before a San Diego County jury in July awarded David Collins more than $12 million for brain damage he suffered in Sheriff’s Department custody, a mediator recommended that his civil lawsuit be settled for $3 million, his attorney said. The Board of Supervisors, acting in closed session on advice from county attorneys, rejected the mediator’s suggestion, according to Collins’ lawyer, Robert Vaage. Instead they approved a counter offer their lawyers said was more in line with Collins’ injuries: $500,000, Vaage said. The plaintiff’s attorney considered that a lowball offer and opted to take chances with a jury, which last month returned a verdict worth $12.6 million. Now supervisors are confronting their largest civil judgment in decades, potentially adding to the $167 million in jury awards, settlements and claims San Diego County has paid out over the last 30 years.

The Union-Tribune analyzed available campaign data, which shows that San Diego County residents have donated more than $1M to more than 20 candidates.

Legoland, in its biggest expansion yet of the Carlsbad theme park, announced Thursday that it will open next year a brand new land devoted entirely to the popular Lego movies — complete with a new 4D-style ride. The Lego Movie World, as it’s being called, will encompass a little more than two acres of the park, occupying the former Lego Friends Heartlake City area. Located in the far west side of the park, the area will be entirely reimagined to give park visitors the sense of being immersed within Lego’s cinematic universe — more specifically, The Lego Movie and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. Key to that will be its signature ride, Masters of Flight, which will transport its passengers to the Lego movies’ memorable lands, aboard title character Emmet’s triple decker flying couch — or at least that’s what it will feel like.

A new date has been set for the criminal trial of Rep. Duncan Hunter; he will now face trial starting on Jan. 14 instead of Sept. 10, based on a court decision Tuesday. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas J. Whelan changed the date after lawyers requested a delay. It will allow time for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to consider Hunter’s appeal of Whelan’s refusal in July to throw out the indictment. Hunter’s lawyers plan to ask the appeals court to dismiss charges that he spent more than $250,000 in campaign donations on girlfriends, family vacations, tuition for his children and other personal expenses. Hunter’s defense attorney, Gregory Vega, filed a similar motion with Whelan in June arguing that some of the evidence prosecutors gathered about Hunter’s allegedly criminal conduct was protected by the “speech or debate” clause of the U.S. Constitution. Whelan rejected the argument, ruling that it was “wholly without merit.”

San Diego State University President Adela de la Torre has been accused by one of her former deans of saying that education leaders in California cannot obtain or keep top jobs unless they pass a left-leaning “political litmus test.” The accusation, which de La Torre denies, was made by Lance Nail, who stepped down as dean of SDSU’s Fowler College of Business in May, less than two years after his high profile recruitment from Texas Tech University, where he was an innovation expert. Nail said Monday that de la Torre made the political claim when he told her he was leaving for a deanship at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. At the time, he was willing to consider staying at SDSU, which hoped that he would make the most of a $25 million donation the campus received to improve the business school. Nail claims that de la Torre said, “If you’re not a Democrat and you don’t support unions there will be no place for you in education in California.”

San Diego has installed thousands of microphones and cameras in so-called smart streetlamps in recent years as part of a program to assess traffic and parking patterns throughout the city. However, the technology over the last year caught the attention of law enforcement. When police officers picked up Hernandez last summer, they had never used a streetlamp camera in an investigation. Today, such video has been viewed in connection with more than 140 police investigations. Officers have increasingly turned to the footage to help crack cases, as frequently as 20 times a month. Police department officials have said that the video footage has been crucial in roughly 40 percent of these cases.

Last weekend’s mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton accentuated a painful fact of 21st century life: the lurking fear that a lethal threat could erupt at any public gathering. Anxiety is soaring among the faithful (domestic terrorists have attacked houses of worship), shoppers (malls have been shot up), Hispanics (targeted in El Paso), concertgoers (remember the Las Vegas massacre?), parents and teachers (school shootings have come a long, lethal way since Columbine in 1999). Everywhere, it seems, there are signs of a society under siege.

Migrants say they've become targets for abuse. Story: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-california/story/2019-08-06/asylum-seekers-report-theft-exploitation-in-mexicalis-migrant-shelters

At build out in 2037, San Diego State University’s Mission Valley campus will create 45,174 new car trips per weekday on area roads, according to the latest traffic analysis. As many as 19,099 more vehicle trips could be added to the mix when the university’s 35,000-person stadium reaches maximum capacity for sporting events or concerts. The new transportation figures were included in the university’s draft environmental impact report, which was published Monday. The study, required by state law, considers the effects of the university’s proposed development plan for the 132 acres of land it plans to purchase from the city of San Diego. The report is being circulated for a 60-day public review and comment period that ends on Oct. 3.

Five Democratic presidential candidates who visited San Diego on Monday honed in on gun safety, healthcare, immigration reform and hateful rhetoric as key topics during the annual UnidosUS conference. Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Kamala Harris of California and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro took turns on stage at the annual event, which drew thousands of people to promote the Latino community. The candidates all expressed frustration with the lack of Senate Republican action on proposed gun control legislation and the growing problems of white nationalist violence and domestic terrorism on display last weekend. “We cannot fix a problem if we refuse to name a problem,” Biden said. “This is white nationalism, this is white supremacy, this is about hate.... Mr. President, it is long past time you stood up it. This is hatred, pure and simple, and it is being fueled by rhetoric so divisive that it is causing people to die.

The massacre of 20 people Saturday by a man who traveled 650 miles to a Walmart in El Paso, reportedly with the intention of shooting “as many Mexicans as possible,” marks what appears to be one of the deadliest hate crimes ever against Latinos.

Even though the war crimes trial of Edward Gallager is over, and he has been cleared of nearly all charges, the trial still looms over the Navy. Earlier this week, President Donald Trump rescinded the medals of the servicemen who were on the prosecution against Gallagher and the top admiral dismissed all charges of another SEAL tied to the case.

Students and staff at Garrison Elementary School in Oceanside will be relocated to San Luis Rey School when school starts in August because of sinkholes that appeared on campus earlier this year, the Oceanside Unified School District Board voted unanimously Wednesday. Preschoolers will be moved to either Del Rio or Libby Elementary Schools, and families who don’t want to move their students can request school of choice transfers to other campuses in the district. The board decided to move the students as it investigates what is causing the sinkholes, and determines whether they can repair the damage and renovate the site. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/story/2019-07-31/oceanside-school-students-to-be-relocated-because-of-sinkholes-garrison-elementary

San Diego approved two much-anticipated pieces of housing legislation Tuesday: the city’s first incentive focused on housing for moderate-income residents, and new regulations that aim to boost construction of units for low-income residents. The City Council unanimously approved the new law focused on moderate-income residents, defined by the city as families making 80 percent to 120 percent of the region’s median income of $86,300 for a family of four. The measure would allow developers to build larger projects with more units if they agree to reserve some of the units for moderate-income workers like nurses, teachers and firefighters. Story: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/san-diego/story/2019-07-30/new-san-diego-laws-aim-to-spur-housing-for-low-income-moderate-income-residents

In a new podcast series from The Los Angeles Times Studios, join along in the journey of how San Diego journalist Joanne Fayron found the identity of an unknown man who has been in a vegetative state since 1999. Learn more and subscribe here: https://www.latimes.com/projects/room-20-podcast/

Earlier this month, Southern California Edison — the operators of the now-shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant — resumed transferring heavy canisters filled with spent fuel assemblies from wet storage pools to a newly constructed dry storage facility on the plant’s premises. Putting aside the criticism from some advocacy groups about restarting transfers at all, the move brings up a larger question: Where will the waste at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, known as SONGS for short, eventually go? Some of the options are fairly well-known, such as reviving a controversial site in Nevada, while others are more obscure, such as a proposal to send the waste down deep boreholes.

If all goes according to plan, patrons of the San Diego Symphony’s annual outdoor concert series will next summer find that the usual pop-up venue has been replaced with an ultramodern, permanent structure. Wednesday, Port of San Diego commissioners unanimously approved a long-term ground lease with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra Association for operation of a 3.68-acre venue on the 10.8-acre Embarcadero Marina Park South site. The action follows the board’s December approval of a coastal permit, and clears the way for construction of the $45 million project, which includes around $3 million in improvements to the surrounding waterside park. Story: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/growth-development/story/2019-07-24/symphonys-permanent-home-on-the-bay-could-be-ready-for-2020-summer-pops

Sixteen Marines were arrested at Camp Pendleton Thursday morning during battalion formation for various illegal activities ranging from human smuggling to drug-related offenses, the 1st Marine Division said in a statement. The Marine Corps said information from a previous human smuggling investigation led to the arrests. On July 3, two Marines — Byron Darnell Law II and David Javier Salazar-Quintero — were arrested for allegedly transporting unauthorized immigrants as part of a smuggling operation. Story: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/2019-07-25/16-camp-pendleton-marines-arrested-on-human-smuggling-drug-related-activities SEALs: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/2019-07-24/san-diego-based-seal-team-7-platoon-sent-home-from-iraq-for-deterioration-of-good-order-and-discipline

Mayor Kevin Faulconer has appeared recently in conservative news outlets and on pop-culture radio shows where he is being lauded for something that would have been unimaginable just two years ago: progress on combating homelessness. The mayor was a rising political star after his 2014 election and was considered a leading Republican candidate for governor a couple of years later, but that changed dramatically when San Diego was thrown into crisis by the 2017 hepatitis A outbreak linked to homelessness that killed 20 people and sickened nearly 600 across the region. At least on the air, it seems like a new day for Faulconer. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/columnists/story/2019-07-23/nearly-sunk-by-homeless-hepatitis-crisis-faulconer-now-sought-for-advice