Daily Business Report: July 23, 2026
Special Education Enrollment Is Exploding Everywhere – It’s Plummeting at Del Mar Union
by Jakob McWhinney | Voice of San Diego
Del Mar Union Elementary School District’s special education program has long been the subject of controversy.
While students have always excelled academically, over the years, legal claims to secure services, lawsuits and complaints to government oversight agencies have piled up. The disputes have become so heated that the district has at times temporarily banned families from stepping foot on campus.
And it’s not just outsiders who’ve raised alarms. The district’s special education program drove a then-sitting school board member to file a legal claim to secure services for their child.
How La Mesa became the ‘Amsterdam of San Diego’
by Drew Sitton | Times of San Diego
La Mesa’s cannabis industry is nearing maturity, with its 14th and final dispensary under construction on the corner of University and 70th. After that, there is no space for any other dispensaries in the city of 60,000 under zoning rules.
Even as more cities cash in on the lucrative cannabis industry, La Mesa leads the way in the number of dispensaries in East County, due largely to the city’s modest tax rate and permissive zoning.
“It’s pretty low-key become one of the most cannabis-dense small cities in San Diego County,” said Jackie Bryant, a journalism professor at San Diego State and editor of Leaf Magazines.
The Other Cardenas Working in Politics
by Jim Hinch| Voice of San Diego
Two years ago, Jesus Cardenas, a leading San Diego County Democratic political operative, abruptly vanished from public life.
He pleaded guilty to two felony counts of fraudulently obtaining Covid relief money by massively overstating the size of his political consulting firm’s workforce.
Forced to step away from his role as a go-to political consultant to a generation of Democratic power brokers, he became a political pariah.
