Morning Report: SDG&E Layoffs Don’t Come with Rate Cuts
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This post has been updated.
SDG&E has laid off 50 of the company’s non-union IT staff, according to the business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 465. The union that represents many of the utility’s workers.
These aren’t the first workforce reductions this year. The firings come on the heels of layoffs in other departments and after the utility offered staff an early retirement package earlier this year.
Representatives for SDG&E blamed rising costs for the layoffs, which they said were an attempt to streamline operations. But Fairman struck a different chord. In his telling, the layoffs were about “corporate greed.”
“All we see is them cutting spending and profits continue to go up and up and (energy) rates aren’t coming down,” he said.
Border Report: How Priests Worked to Hand-Deliver a Migrant’s Remains to Venezuela
When Eduard Jose Vivas Bracho died unexpectedly this March from a blood clot, there was no guarantee he’d make it back to Venezuela, from where he’d migrated. San Diego County cremates the remains of people whose families do not come forward to claim them and scatters them at sea. And he had no family in San Diego.
But the 35-year-old did have family back in Venezuela, where his wife and two children still lived. Vivas Bracho had sent money to them since immigrating to the United States in 2023.
Thanks to a friend and fellow migrant, Barrio Logan’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, and a network of Catholic priests, Vivas Bracho’s remains are now en route to his family.
“I know God does things for and because of something,” his wife, Josmary Uriza said. “When I talked with the father, I felt grateful, and I thought it was something that God had destined for us for him to be able to get here.”
In Other News
- San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors will vote Tuesday on a proposal to study whether its Live Well Centers can be utilized to provide services to residents who may be impacted by SNAP and Medicare cuts. (KPBS)
- The Union-Tribune reports that office space construction in San Diego County is at a standstill.
- Today, voters in Poway will vote whether to recall Councilmember Tony Blain, who is facing felony charges. Blain, a U.S. Army Reserve doctor, was supposed to appear in court on Monday but he was deployed overseas, City News Service reports. Our Tigist Layne wrote about the councilmember’s rise and fall last week. The story is really good. Read it here.
- Social media was buzzing on Monday. Witnesses claimed that ICE agents detained multiple people at South Park’s Grape Street Dog Park on Monday, according to reddit posts. Then they locked themselves out of their car, one Instagram account posted.
The Morning Report was written by Jakob McWhinney. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.
Nov. 4 correction: This post has been updated to correct that the Board of Supervisors meeting regarding the Live Well Centers is happening on Tuesday.
The post Morning Report: SDG&E Layoffs Don’t Come with Rate Cuts appeared first on Voice of San Diego.
