Daily Business Report: Monday, October 6, 2025
Higher gas prices expected after nine-plus hour refinery fire
By City News Service | Times of San Diego
A nine-plus-hour fire at the Chevron El Segundo Refinery has left motorists anticipating higher prices with the facility closed for cleanup and repairs.
Meanwhile nearby residents were largely moving on after being rattled in the hours after an explosion sparked the flames, observers said Saturday.
No injuries were reported.
The refinery processes about 300,000 barrels of crude oil a day, including one-fifth of all motor vehicle fuel and 40% of jet fuel in Southern California, Matt McClain, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, an app that tracks gas prices nationwide, told reporters.
Governor and AG Bonta Targeting El Cajon Again with Lawsuit over License Plate Data
By Katy Grimes| California Globe
Governor Gavin Newsom and California Attorney general Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Friday against the City of El Cajon and its police department, for sharing automated license plate reader data with out-of-state law enforcement agencies. El Cajon is located in East County San Diego and has about 100,000 residents. The Globe talked with Bill Wells the Mayor of El Cajon who presides over one of the few conservative cities left in California.
So naturally the state is suing them, this time for sharing license plate data with law enforcement agencies.
Mayor Wells said license plate technology has helped catch hardened, repeat criminals, recover stolen vehicles, and protect families across the country. The city shared license plate information on a database of cities around the country recently when they got a hit on a car registered in Arizona, but currently in El Cajon. They contacted the Phoenix police department and discovered the hit was because the car owner had shot a woman, and he was now sleeping in the car in a fast food restaurant parking lot in El Cajon. El Cajon police did a check on the car and its owner, when he shot at them.
Sacramento Report: Californians Get a Break from HOAs
By Nadia Lathan | Voice of San Diego
The story of Adam Hardesty is not unprecedented. He decided to retrofit the garage of his three-story Carlsbad condo into a ground-floor apartment to rent out while he was unemployed for more than a year, as CalMatters reported earlier this year.
Despite receiving the legal blessing of Carlsbad city officials, local architects and engineers to build what’s called an “accessory dwelling unit,” he came up against another kind of wall: his homeowners association.
The Mystic Point Homeowners Association feared it would make parking more scarce and lead to a domino effect of neighbors turning their garages into long-term rentals. Amid threats of fines and costly litigation, Hardesty persisted.
