Daily Business Report: Tuesday, December 23
Why a San Diego Unified Trustee Says He Punted Ambitious Housing Projects
By Jakob McWhinney | Voice of San Diego
Earlier this month, longtime San Diego Unified board member Richard Barrera stunned some of his colleagues by torpedoing what would have been an historic vote to build more than 1,000 units of affordable workforce housing on district land – the largest project of its kind in California history.
As part of their public-private partnership approach, the district had received 15 proposals across five sites that varied wildly. It was the board’s job to choose which they were moving forward with. That decision set the stage for what was to be a tense meeting, wherein the board may have taken the unusual step of ignoring staff recommendations on projects.
Barrera’s move put a stop to that – at least for now.
Local legislators press state to catch up to feds on Tijuana River pollution clean up
By Deborah Brennan | CalMatters
As Tijuana River sewage has contaminated neighborhoods in southern San Diego County, the federal government has pledged two-thirds of a billion dollars to clean it up.
Now local lawmakers are calling on California to step up the fight against cross-border pollution, and one has introduced a bill to revisit air quality standards for noxious gas from the river.
State Sen. Catherine Blakespear held a joint hearing of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee and the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee in San Diego Thursday to explore how the state can help solve the problem.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ – DEI and Reparations Agriculture Land Seizure Scheme
By Katy Grimes | California Globe
For a peek into how California Governor Gavin Newsom would rule the country if elected President, look no further than his California Agricultural Land Equity Task Force. This ambiguous agency was buried within the state budget in 2022 during Newsom’s statewide Covid lockdown, when media was not allowed near the governor or Legislature.
“Established in the California Budget Act of 2022 (AB 179, Ting), the California Agricultural Land Equity Task Force is an independent 13-member body directed to ‘submit a report (by Jan. 1, 2026) to the Legislature and Governor…that includes a set of policy recommendations on how to address the agricultural land equity crisis.’”
You read that right. Gavin Newsom created a task force to address “the agricultural land equity crisis.”
