Today’s newsletter is presented by PLNU Coastal Cleanup.
Good morning, San Diego ☀️
Here’s what we have for you today:
- University of San Diego’s soccer team started its season on the right foot: They beat the defending NCAA national champion and No. 1 ranked Washington Huskies on the road.
- And shoutout to reader Gwen Jackson, who got the answer correct to yesterday’s news quiz. We asked where Waymo first launched, and the answer was Phoenix.
Andrew Keatts
General manager and editor
Top story
SDPD ramps up officer presence in Gaslamp to address violence, ‘lawlessness’ at night
The first weekend of SDPD’s “Operation Last Call” — an effort to overwhelm the Gaslamp Quarter with officers during the late-night hours that have seen a spike in disorderly conduct as people dump out of bars at the end of the night — seems to have made a mark.
“There was definitely a ramp-up of officers, approximately two on every block,” Michael Trimble, the director of the Gaslamp Quarter Association, told our Drew Sitton for a new story. “So they definitely helped by having additional boots on the ground.”
Last week, SDPD Chief Scott Wahl announced an operation that would deploy up to 25 officers to the bar area from 8 p.m. until 4 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.
His announcement followed a massive brawl outside Tacos El Gordo — but that brawl was only the latest in a series of escalating chaos in the area in recent years. As we reported in May, instances of pepper spray use by SDPD officers downtown spiked from just 68 in 2017 to 361 last year.
Gaslamp also experiences three times more disorderly calls than anywhere else in the city, the second largest number of crimes and the most assaults on officers.
“Ever since COVID, I think there’s been a feeling that there are no consequences, so I can do whatever I want,” Trimble told Sitton.
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Stories you should know about
🌱 Rep. Scott Peters is pushing a bill that would make the federal government build a robust carbon removal regime to combat climate change. The bill would ramp up carbon removal efforts, but also create a rigorous tracking and reporting program and support new technology generation (advocates like the bill, but aren’t especially optimistic that it could pass anytime soon).
⚓ The USS Lincoln arrived in Thailand for a rest stop on its way to return to port in San Diego. It’s the forest port stop for the crew during a grueling nine month deployment that became national story after family of crew members spoke up against conditions on the ship.
What else we’re reading
💰 In 2018, Chula Vista and Port of San Diego officials estimated it would cost $870 million to subsidize the Gaylord Pacific Resort and Convention Center. Now, as they refinance the bonds, they’ve acknowledged that it will cost more than that, thanks to economic headwinds. (They’re not yet clear just how much more it will cost). (Voice of San Diego)
⛺ San Diego officials set their homelessness spending by forecasting how much revenue they thought they’d receive — mostly from state or federal grants — then worked backwards to decide what services they could provide with that money. A new report from the city’s budget analyst says that’s backwards: the city should decide what services it prioritizes first. (Union-Tribune)
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Locals Only
🍳 What’s the best breakfast spot in Point Loma/Ocean Beach? Let us know and we’ll shoutout you and your recommendations tomorrow.
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