Morning Report: Proposition 36 Proving Costly for County

County officials last year projected at least a $58 million annual budget hit if statewide criminal justice reform measure Proposition 36 passed.

Now that the initiative that cracked down on repeat drug and theft offenders has taken effect, county officials tell our Lisa Halverstadt that their estimates appear largely on target.

For now, the county is eating the new workload and budget demands and reallocating resources as needed at a time when it’s also preparing for federal cuts that could dramatically impact its bottom line.

The biggest line item: The Sheriff’s Office reported that it’s spent more than $30 million since Proposition 36 increased the county’s jail population. Halverstadt wrote more about that last week.

More support could be coming: The county expects to get a share of $100 million in state dollars being doled out to counties to support new behavioral health, public defender and court costs. County supervisors last week also unanimously backed a plan to ask the state to deploy more funding for increased law enforcement, criminal justice and behavioral health costs tied to Proposition 36.

Read the full story here. 

20 Years of Impact: How a Voice Rape Kit Story Brought Reform to SDPD

For years, San Diego police put rape kits on a shelf and ignored them. The department’s philosophy: Only check the kits if an investigation warranted follow-up.

A nationwide movement to “test all kits” forced SDPD to change course. But, as former Voice of San Diego reporter Andrew Keatts discovered in 2019, the department was barely checking its backlog of kits, skimping on testing to get through the kits as fast as possible.

Standard practice followed by most departments was to test all DNA swabs collected in a kit. SDPD supervisors told analysts to test just one swab per kit, “so they could check a box,” Keatts wrote. The department was leaving hundreds of leads literally sitting on a shelf.

Reaction to Keatts’ story was swift and severe. District Attorney Summer Stephan blasted the department for lowering its standards. SDPD’s lab manager left the department and the police chief ordered analysts to test all DNA swabs. The chief even sent the entire backlog of kits to a third-party lab for further verification.

Keatts later discovered that, of 396 kits tested, 128 returned DNA matches that met the criteria to be added to law enforcement databases. Without Voice’s reporting, those DNA samples would still be sitting on a SDPD shelf.

Read the full story here.

Related: The U-T reported victims can now track their kits.

Aguirre Planning Countywide Tenant Protection Ordinance

San Diego County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre said this week she plans to introduce a countywide tenant protection ordinance early next year that would make it harder for landlords to evict tenants and possibly would regulate how landlords raise rents.

Aguirre, who represents South San Diego County on the County Board of Supervisors, said her staff is researching the issue and could have a proposal ready for the Board as early as January or February.

“We hope it would complement what Chula Vista and Imperial Beach did,” Aguirre said, referring to tenant protection ordinances adopted in recent years by the two South County cities. Aguirre also cited the city of San Diego’s two-year-old tenant protection ordinance.

Aguirre described her proposed ordinance, which would cover unincorporated areas of the county, as one of several efforts by Board Democrats to lower costs for San Diegans.

Aguirre recently co-sponsored a measure that would regulate so-called “junk fees” levied by landlords and joined other supervisors in voting to send a letter to state lawmakers voicing support for efforts to increase transparency in utility billing.

“I’m aware of the needs because my district has the highest needs,” she said.

In Other News 

• San Diego County agreed to pay $499,000 to settle a wrongful conviction lawsuit filed by a Valley Center woman who was imprisoned for nearly two decades for a crime she says she didn’t commit. A jury convicted Jane Dorotik of killing her husband in 2001, but new evidence caused the sentence to be vacated in 2020, and prosecutors dropped a subsequent attempt to retry Dorotik. Dorotik’s lawyer called the county’s efforts to imprison her “an egregious abuse of governmental power.” (Union-Tribune)
• Iconic Barrio Logan restaurant Las Cuatro Milpas is set to close its doors permanently by the end of this year, following the recent sale of the restaurant to a neighboring church for $2.1 million. The nearly century-old Mexican eatery had faced unpaid tax debts totaling nearly $200,000. (Union-Tribune) 
• Historic preservationists in Ocean Beach say they fear proposed changes to city planning rules will endanger protections for historic craftsman-style cottages in OB along with other historic areas in San Diego. The proposed changes would make it easier for the City Council to overturn decisions by the city ‘s Historical Resources Board. (Times of San Diego)
• The Port of San Diego announced Tuesday that an automobile transport ship operated by Pasha Automotive Services has become the first so-called “roll-on-roll-off” ship to use shore power when docked at the port, which enables the ship to shut down its polluting diesel engines while loading and unloading cars. The transition to shore power for cargo ships is part of the port’s ongoing efforts to reduce emissions in its shipping operations. (KPBS)
• The National School District in National City is looking for a new superintendent to lead the financially struggling district. Current Superintendent Leighangela Brady said she plans to retire in June of next year. (inewsource)

The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt and Jim Hinch. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña. 

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