Morning Report: Beef Week, Chula Vista
EM - News Moderator 
The beef between Chula Vista John McCann and City Councilmember Michael Inzunza is distracting from city business, writes our Jim Hinch.
Their dislike for each other casts a haze over even the most amiable local government actions, like the naming of a park after a family of Filipino American military veterans. McCann is running for re-election next year. While Inzunza has stated repeatedly he has no plans to challenge him, nobody believes that.
“If Inzunza is not running for mayor, observers say, he sure is acting like it,” Hinch writes.
At one point, Inzunza insisted the mayor say his name instead of referring to him as “the member from District 3.”
The feud extends to issues of consequence, however, like a vote on “sanctuary” protections for immigrants in Chula Vista. McCann abstained on the vote which Inzunza tried to probe at the dais. The whole thing seemed to lead to a lot of forehead rubbing all around.
So who’s winning? Nobody knows.
Beef Week, explained: This is Day 3 of our occasional series where we explore the conflicts and rivalries that shape San Diego public affairs and life. Monday, we had Mayor Todd Gloria versus the County. Tuesday, San Diego’s ongoing beef with Arizonans.
Elementary School Fires Principal, Tensions Boil Over
Parents protested the watering-down of this charter school’s trademark German immersion program. Children were pulled from the school altogether.
That boiling tension spilled over during public meetings after the firing of a popular principal midway through the school year at Albert Einstein Academies. There are threats of lawsuits. Parents want a change in leadership.
Our Jakob McWhinney dives into the turmoil of this Golden Heights neighborhood school.
Wildfire-Fueling Santa Ana Winds Are Coming
Luckily, November brought numerous rainstorms that drenched San Diego County out of drought.
But when cold air settling in over the Great Basin becomes very hot as it rushes down our eastern mountains, it creates our famous Santa Ana winds. And they should arrive Wednesday and Thursday.
These winds helped propel the devastating Los Angeles County wildfires back in January. But fire risk has been mitigated from last month’s atmospheric rivers bringing four times the rainfall San Diego typically experiences then, according to reporting by the Desert Sun.
Still, batten down the hatches. San Diego County is slated to get gusts, at least in the higher elevations, up to 40 miles per hour.
(Another silver lining, Santa Anas can mean great surf.)
What’s Darrell Issa Doing? Day 2
Yesterday Jake Sherman, a prominent D.C. reporter, just tweeted out that U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa was considering running for Congress not in his northeastern San Diego County seat but in … Texas. This after Issa insisted he’d be running here despite passage of Proposition 50 which made the district much more Democratic. Sherman’s post led many hundreds of other writers to spread the news, including us.
Sherman and his colleagues turned it into this short post on Punchbowl. “Under the 2025 map, the Dallas-area seat that Issa is considering is deep red. Ryan Binkley, a wealthy pastor who ran for president in 2024, is already running.”
Day 2: Issa could say “this is incorrect.” But he notably has not. A CNN reporter chased the congressman up a stairwell trying to get an answer.
In Other News
- Encinitas Councilmember Luke Shaffer’s misdemeanor case has been put on pause after he agreed to complete eight hours of anger management classes and 60 hours of volunteer work. Shaffer was charged with an assault and hit-and-run misdemeanor after a dispute with an Encinitas homeowner in July. If Shaffer completes the tasks, the case will be eligible to be dismissed. (Union-Tribune)
- King tides are expected to wash ashore from Thursday to Saturday due to the supermoon. A supermoon, a full moon that gets closer than usual to Earth, will have a stronger pull on the ocean’s waves which will create the king tides. (NBC 7)
- Carlsbad City Council will consider implementing a possible minimum age for electric bikes that can go 20 miles per hour or higher. (ABC 10)
- As Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests increase in San Diego and Imperial counties, more than half of the people arrested are found to not have criminal histories. (inewsource)
The Morning Report was written by MacKenzie Elmer and Jenna Ramiscal. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña and Scott Lewis.
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