San Diego News Fix

A proposal to strip professors of their emeritus status if they do anything to harm the reputation of San Diego State University is causing a backlash among faculty who say the policy would suppress free speech and stoke the “cancel culture” movement sweeping the country.This is the second major free speech controversy to roil the campus since last winter, and the new policy raises the possibility that a professor could be penalized for comments that he or she made in the past.The proposal says that SDSU’s president, on the advice of the University Senate, would have the right to revoke a professor’s emeritus status based on conduct that occurred before or after they were granted the honorary title. Such conduct would have to harm the university’s reputation. The committee did not specify what that means.

The state has barred all public and private schools in San Diego County and most other California counties from holding in-person classes until the counties do a better job of containing the coronavirus.The decision announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom Friday disrupts the plans of many local school systems that were forging ahead with reopening next month despite the recent surge in COVID-19 cases.https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/story/2020-07-17/all-san-diego-county-schools-are-banned-from-reopening-until-covid-19-measures-improvehttps://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/story/2020-07-18/some-parents-lament-school-closure-order-even-as-they-understand-why-it-was-given

Host Joshua Emerson Smith talks with Union-Tribune reporter Brittany Meiling about local businesses flouting the coronavirus shutdown orders and the response from government authorities. San Diego News Fix is also available wherever you get your podcasts.

San Diegans are closer to getting a say in how they might be watched.A City Council committee on Wednesday unanimously approved two proposed ordinances geared at governing surveillance technologies in the city, an action sparked by sustained pushback from activists and others who were surprised and upset last year when it was revealed that San Diego had quietly installed cameras on streetlights throughout the city.“Today’s action is a promising step that will protect both the safety and civil liberties of our communities,” Councilwoman Monica Montgomery said before she and three fellow councilmembers on the Public Safety & Livable Neighborhoods Committee voted to support the proposals.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-07-15/san-diego-council-committee-unanimously-approves-ordinances-targeting-surveillance-technology

Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who one year ago had part of his hand shot off in a lethal attack by a gunman at the Poway synagogue he founded and received an outpouring of support that included meeting President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax fraud and wire fraud Tuesday.Goldstein, 58, pleaded guilty to his role in several long-running, multimillion-dollar schemes involving tax, real estate, insurance and grant frauds, some of which stretched back to the 1980s. Omar Meisel, the acting head of the FBI in San Diego, said the investigation uncovered $18 million in “complex financial schemes” by Goldstein and co-defendants, with the rabbi “at the center of illegal activity” that went on for years.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/story/2020-07-14/rabbi-injured-in-poway-synagogue-shooting-pleads-guilty-to-tax-chargeOur previous coverage: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/topic/shootingSpecial episode on the shooting: https://art19.com/shows/the-san-diego-news-fix/epi

A former sheriff’s deputy who shot an unarmed detainee in May as the man ran from authorities outside the downtown San Diego jail has been charged with murder, a rare move by prosecutors that makes him the first member of local law enforcement to face a murder charge in the shooting death of a suspect.The District Attorney’s Office announced Monday that it is charging former detentions deputy Aaron Russell, 23, with second-degree murder in the May 1 death of Nicholas Peter Bils, 36.Russell, who resigned from the county Sheriff’s Department in the days after the shooting, is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday morning in San Diego Superior Court. He is charged under a theory of second-degree murder, which carries a potential sentence of 15 years to life in prison. He also faces an allegation that he used a gun in the killing, which could add up to 10 years to his sentence if he is convicted.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/story/2020-07-13/da-files-murder-charge-against-officer-who-sho

Navy officials said Monday that the fire ravaging the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard for a second day has reached temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees, and it is still burning in various portions of the ship.Smoke and fumes continued to affect the skyline and air throughout San Diego.Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, the commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3, said Monday that the fire is in the superstructure of the ship and its upper decks and that the ship’s forward mast has collapsed.“There’s obviously burn damage all the way through the skin of the ship, and we are assessing that as we kind of go through each compartment,” he said. “Right now the priority is to get the fire out so that we can take a complete assessment.”

State data shows that a South Bay skilled nursing facility is coping with what appears to be the largest COVID-19 outbreak among nursing homes in the state.Early Thursday evening, Reo Vista Healthcare Center in San Diego’s Paradise Hills neighborhood updated a short statement on its website, indicating that it had 100 COVID-19 patients, 15 more than it had Wednesday. The total is significantly higher than the next-highest total listed in a database run by the California Department of Public Health, though figures listed in that resource reflect totals from Wednesday, not Thursday.Though the facility with an estimated 135-bed capacity does appear to currently house the most COVID-19 patients among the state’s 1,223 nursing homes, that has not been the case until quite recently. Though it now has 100 COVID-19 patients, the total for the entire pandemic is 112. The record for the whole pandemic, according to state records, is 205 at a convalescent hospital in Los Angeles.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribu

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s office has come up with four key recommendations for negotiating a new agreement that allows one utility the exclusive right to use the city’s public right-of-ways for transmission and distribution as well as installing wires, poles, power lines, and underground gas and electric lines.San Diego Gas & Electric currently holds what is called the franchise agreement, which has been in place since 1970. But the deal expires in January and city officials are counting on fielding competitive bids from a number of different companies — not just SDG&E — before deciding who should win the new agreement.With that in mind, Faulconer’s staff, working with an energy consulting firm, proposes:a new franchise agreement that lasts 20 yearsa provision calling for third-party reviews to make sure the company that wins the bid is keeping its promises and doing a good jobmaking adjustments to the franchise fees that would lead to a projected net benefit to San Diego ratepayers of $85 mil

She doesn’t think of herself as a risk-taker. But April Simpkins of San Diego says she’s willing to help test a COVID-19 vaccine by allowing herself to be directly exposed to the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 130,000 people nationally since February.“I’m young and healthy and don’t see that much danger,” said Simpkins, 29. “The coronavirus has really been surging lately and a trial like this could help develop a vaccine sooner.”Simpkins is one of 30,000 people globally — and about 100 in San Diego — who have volunteered to participate in a controversial type of medical study known as a human challenge trial, or HCT, if such a trial gains federal approval.

With per-capita infection rates above state thresholds for seven straight days, public health officials confirmed Monday that a fresh set of sure-to-be-unpopular restrictions will start Tuesday.As has occurred in other counties across the state that have ended up on the governor’s monitoring list, some businesses not considered essential must cease indoor activities for the next three weeks, shutting down or moving their operations outside where, statistics show, the coronavirus is less likely to be transmitted.Starting at midnight, local restaurants, family entertainment locations such as bowling alleys and batting cages, wineries, movie theaters, zoos and museums must cease all indoor activities, according to the governor’s order which was announced last week.Grocery stores, medical offices and other businesses deemed essential when the first stay-at-home orders appeared in March will be able to continue serving customers, patients and clients indoors. And some enterprises that were initially deemed “noness

South Bay communities, particularly those that are low income and with large Latino populations, continue to be the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, according to an analysis of COVID-19 deaths by ZIP code.The most recent data provided by the county confirms trends previously reported by health officials and underscores the sometimes fatal consequences that stem from longstanding health disparities, doctors say.Deaths in these hard-hit communities, they said, are likely the result of social factors that have long been known to impact health, such as poverty, access to health care and the availability of affordable housing. Barriers to testing and a high population of essential workers are also likely contributing to higher numbers.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2020-07-05/new-data-showing-covid-19-deaths-by-zip-code-further-highlight-health-disparities-across-county

Ahead of Independence Day weekend, many indoor activities and businesses were shuttered across the state. While San Diego was not among those counties initially closed, current COVID-19 trends show that we will likely have to shut down as well on Monday.Governor Gavin Newsom’s actions drew criticism, as many argue that the George Floyd protests were the cause of the region’s spike, but contact tracers have found that isn’t the case

Ten San Diego beaches scored perfect marks, while one Mission Bay location failed to make the grade, on the 30th annual “Beach Report Card” by the nonprofit Heal the Bay.The annual report assigns letter grades to beaches, based on bacteria levels found in water samples throughout the year. Those grades represent an effort to translate scientific test results into readily understandable information for beachgoers.“California’s beaches are iconic and essential to our economy here in California,” said Shelley Luce, president and CEO of Heal the Bay. “But, unfortunately, they are not always clean and not always safe.”Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/story/2020-06-30/ten-north-county-san-diego-beaches-earn-high-grades-on-annual-beach-report-card

Just 17 days after they were allowed to reopen on June 12, San Diego County bars, breweries and wineries learned Monday that they will not be allowed to operate, at least not in the traditional sense, starting Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. While restaurants will still be allowed to serve drinks with meals, no one will be allowed to stand around with drinks in their hands after the stroke of midnight Tuesday.Announced Monday afternoon by county Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, the decision follows a mandate from Gov. Gavin Newsom, released over the weekend, that asks bars to close in some California counties due to increasing rates of novel coronavirus transmission.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2020-06-29/bars-to-close-wednesday-as-county-health-department-responds-to-local-covid-surgeFollow COVID-19 trends here: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/tracking-coronavirus-cases-san-diego-county

Within 24 hours of a police shooting that critically wounded a man in downtown San Diego, police on Sunday released footage of the encounter as protesters took to the streets and local elected leaders demanded transparency.The man, who police identified as Leonardo Hurtado Ibarra, 25, of San Diego, suffered life-threatening injuries. He was hospitalized in an intensive care unit Sunday, police said.Police released four video clips, captured by the body-worn cameras of two officers who shot Ibarra, a streetlight camera and a security camera. The video shows that the 5:47 p.m. shooting on Sixth Avenue occurred about 10 seconds after the officers got out of their patrol car.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-06-28/protesters-take-to-streets-after-police-shoot-critically-injure-man-in-downtown

After roughly 100 days camped out at dining room tables or propped up on pillows while Zooming from their beds, many white-collar workers across San Diego are slowly coming to a realization: working from home might actually be permanent.Some think it’s because a post-pandemic world will never exist, and workers must be protected from health threats. Others say it’s more to do with business accounting, as saving money on rent is wise for any company in a shaky economy.Either way, many businesses in San Diego are in the midst of difficult conversations about how and when they will return to the office — or whether they’ll permanently say goodbye to their office-centric lifestyle.Some are already downsizing their square footage, while others have negotiated their way out of leases entirely.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2020-06-26/work-from-home-san-diego-offices

San Diego police now have standalone policy calling for officers to attempt to de-escalate encounters when they can, and a new imperative that officers intervene if they see another officer using unreasonable force, the mayor and police chief announced Wednesday.De-escalation “is important, because de-escalation tactics help officers to defuse a situation, enhance the officer’s — and the public’s — safety, and lessens unintended consequences,"Mayor Kevin Faulconer said at a midday news conference at police headquarters. “And as a result, of course, results in lives saved.”The department has long taught de-escalation techniques. The change here is that the officers are now required to use them if safe and reasonable in the situation — and that requirement is among the demands from those pushing for policing reform, from activists to police advisory and review boards in San Diego.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-06-24/sdpd-to-require-officers-to-intervene-if-other-of

The San Diego City Council Tuesday unanimously endorsed plans for a new police review board that would have the power to launch independent misconduct investigations and subpoena witnesses. A formal vote to place it on the November ballot is set for July 7.“It is time to shift power into the hands of the community and to have a more transparent board,” said Councilwoman Monica Montgomery, the City Council’s only Black member. “I’m happy that we’re moving this forward as part of a comprehensive plan for police reform.”Other recent reform efforts in San Diego include a ban on police officers using carotid restraints, new Police Department de-escalation procedures and creation of an Office on Race and Equity.Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2020-06-23/san-diego-council-unanimously-endorses-police-reform-ballot-measure

A state fiscal agency found “significant evidence” that current and former employees with the Sweetwater Union High School District may have committed fraud, misappropriation of funds or other illegal practices, according to the results of a long-awaited audit report announced Monday night by the San Diego County superintendent of schools.The report also found violations of board policy, education and government code, and securities laws, San Diego County Superintendent Paul Gothold said.Sweetwater Superintendent Karen Janney and district finance staff violated their fiduciary duties, the report found. District staff intentionally misrepresented the district’s finances and left out and delayed information when presenting the district’s finances to the school board and to bond market participants, the report said.Some financial staff referenced in the report are no longer with the district, including the chief financial officer. Janney has led the district since 2015.