Morning Report: School Officials May Curb K-8 Closures

San Diego Unified officials are now considering walking back their plan to close to middle school grades at some of their K-8 schools south of Interstate 8. 

Last week, our Jakob McWhinney broke the news that officials planned to shutter the middle school portions of four K-8 schools. After the news, parents at Bethune K-8, one of the targeted schools, organized, went on local TV, wrote letters and generally raised an understandable ruckus. 

Now, school officials are considering keeping the middle school grades at Bethune open. They claim part of the reason they want to shut down the middle school grades is because of poor performance at the targeted schools. Now, in retrospect, they are saying Bethune’s performance issues haven’t been as bad as the other schools. 

Bethune initially wasn’t planned to be part of the closures, Superintendent Fabiola Bagula told McWhinney. However, some officials convinced her it should be. Now, she has revisited data which shows Bethune students performed better than students at other schools slated to lose their 7th and 8th graders.

Bagula said she plans to hold yet-to-be-scheduled community meetings before making her final decision. 

Read the full story here. 

New Hotel/SeaWorld/Petco Minimum Wage Will Stand

Tuesday the San Diego City Council approved the new minimum wage for some workers in the hospitality industry. Up until Friday last week, various groups were negotiating with City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera and labor leaders to either get out of having to pay the higher minimum wage or see it phased in.

Their leverage? A possible referendum. Residents can force any city ordinance that passes the Council to a referendum as they did in 2014 when the city passed its last minimum wage increase. The referendum failed but the referendum successfully delayed implementation of the higher required wage.

Each of the entities, from the hotel groups to the Padres to SeaWorld agreed not to do a referendum and secured a phase in of the minimum wage they could accept.

“I’m certainly not going to predict the actions of all human beings who could bring a referendum forward,” said Elo-Rivera. “But I’m confident the folks we have engaged with would not do that.”

But: There was buzz even Wednesday at City Hall that a referendum may still come.

Not happening, unless someone makes it a personal pursuit. The industry actors that will have to deal with it are staying out.

Robert Gleason, the chair of the San Diego County Lodging Association, reaffirmed his commitment to move on.

“The City Council’s $25 minimum wage mandate is a costly burden for San Diego’s hospitality community as we face broader economic headwinds. Hotels and their partners engaged in good-faith negotiations to get the phased-in implementation that provides some breathing room and will mitigate the negative impacts of the immediate 45 percent initially proposed. Following the vote, we are focused on managing our hotels through current economic challenges and creating plans to implement the ordinance,” he said in a written statement.

New ‘Fix It’ Collective Opens Downtown to Reduce Landfill Waste

Zero Waste San Diego, a local nonprofit, is opening a “reuse and repair collective” next week in downtown San Diego. The point is to empower people to repair broken things that would otherwise be thrown into a landfill.

At Zero Waste’s clinics, retired trades people and otherwise handy folk teach others how to repair everything from small appliances, clothing and bicycles. Local governments contract with Zero Waste to host the clinics as part of cities’ plans to combat climate change. 

Now the nonprofit has a home in a former preparatory school building at 611 Beech Street. Some rooms are outfitted with sewing machines, while others have carpentry tools and work benches.

It opens Thursday, Sept. 25 at 11 a.m. 

Politifest: How Can We Make Electricity More Affordable?

San Diego has some of the highest electricity rates in the country but the region and state have also made commitments to use less natural gas and fossil fuels, get more of its power from renewable sources and reverse the trend of carbon emissions. What hope can we offer to people struggling with the cost of living that their power bill will be easier to pay?

Hear more at Politifest. Get your tickets today.

In Other News 

• Fire officials are warning that the San Diego region could be “ready to burn.” Dry conditions have created a situation where the region is highly combustible heading into the last months of the year. (Union-Tribune)
• Speaking of fires, here are the local ZIP codes most at risk of fire. (CBS 8)
• San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria wants to dissolve the city’s parking districts, alleging mismanagement of the groups’ funds. Parking districts are nonprofits that take in parking revenue in order to maintain their districts. Gloria said an internal review found mismanagement and violations. Some parking district leaders say that’s not the case, while others acknowledge problems. (Union-Tribune)
• In a new op-ed for Voice of San Diego, a Carlsbad businessman argues that the San Diego Board of Supervisors’ decision to tap the region’s massive reserves won’t benefit constituents, and instead, will only help the supes politically. Read the op-ed here. 

The Morning Report was written by Will Huntsberry and MacKenzie Elmer. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña. 

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