The idea of merging Chula Vista elementary and secondary schools into a single district has re-emerged thanks to a new push from Chula Vista Councilwoman Mary Salas.

Salas believes parents aren’t being served well once their kids enter upper grade levels within the Sweetwater Union High School District, which has been plagued by scandals in recent years.

But Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox’s State of the City address Tuesday night revealed a powerful counterargument: A merger to bolster Sweetwater schools could drag Chula Vista schools down.

Cox is worried how unification with SUHSD could affect the high-performing elementary school district. Cox said the district’s success can be attributed to ethical conduct by elected officials and administrators – a not-so-subtle invocation of Sweetwater’s troubled recent history.

All Chula Vista Elementary School District schools exceed 800 on the Academic Performance Index, which measures academic achievement and growth in schools, with more than 25 percent scoring at 900, said Cox. The API is based on a scale from 200 to 1,000. Sweetwater’s 2013 API score was just under 800.

“I wouldn’t want anything to disrupt our elementary school district’s enviable performance or put its finances at risk to bail out Sweetwater,” Cox said.

The Chula Vista district’s director of communications was similarly wary.

He told The Reader: “We appreciate the high regard that parents have of the Chula Vista Elementary School District. However, a lot of research and analysis needs to be conducted to make an informed decision about unification.”

He asked whether it would be wise for CVESD to take on Sweetwater’s financial liabilities – CVESD currently has a healthy reserve, at just over 20 percent. SUHSD is down to just 3 percent.

Cox said unification is not the best path to solving Sweetwater’s problems and tarnished reputation. Rather, she suggests the culture of the Sweetwater district must change before unification can be a viable option for Chula Vista schools.

“Culture at the top needs to change at Sweetwater before a conversation about unification can begin,” Cox said.

Cox said failed attempts to unite the districts over the years should be a telltale sign that the approach doesn’t do much to improve how the schools are governed. Plus, she said, the districts themselves don’t want to do it.

“Minus the support of the districts themselves, unification is dead on arrival,” Cox said.

Cox, who has taken a hands-off approach when it comes to SUHSD’s many controversies, said she plans to hold conversations with community members in the coming months to discuss how best to address problems within the school district.

“I am compelled to confront Sweetwater’s current problems through my ability to convene community members in constructive conversation,” Cox said.

Cox said most SUHSD schools and administrative offices are in Chula Vista, a fact that could lead negative perceptions about the district to carry over to the city.

Though Cox and Salas diverge when it comes to the effectiveness of a merger, they do seem to agree on one point: The districts’ finances need a public airing.

Salas told VOSD that even if the merger doesn’t happen, the unification process could be a step in the right direction for the Sweetwater district. “If at the end of the day there’s no unification, the process of dialogue and transparency can build better districts,” Salas said.

Cox wants a full audit to make Sweetwater’s financial situation public. The audit, she said, is the only way the new Sweetwater administration will “know what they’re in for.”

Our journalists are always on TV, the radio and even in print in local community papers, but Voice of San Diego is mainly a product of the internet. Our best work lives online and in social media.

But not everyone is accustomed to getting their news online. Many aren’t aware of how much they can learn about the struggles — and triumphs — of their neighborhoods with the internet.

That’s why we’re launching a series of news literacy workshops aimed at helping underserved residents leverage new media and technology to become empowered members of their community.

We’ll be kicking off the workshops in Chula Vista next month. We chose Chula Vista because we have wanted to dedicate more reporting resources to the South Bay for years and thought this would be a good first step in understanding the diverse concerns of its residents.

By partnering with local community groups like South Bay Community Services and the Chula Vista Library, we’ll collaborate with residents to develop a meaningful curriculum that can help them leverage technology to learn more about local government, the school system, the economy and other public affairs.

As a by-product, we hope to learn what issues should be addressed not only by Voice of San Diego but also other news outlets – and by citizen journalists too. One of the workshops will be dedicated to helping the participants create community blogs where they can contribute stories and commentary about what’s happening in their neighborhoods.

We hired recent University of San Diego graduate and Eastlake native Bianca Bruno as an intern to spearhead this project. She’ll be spending the next few weeks doing research, hosting focus groups and recruiting workshop participants. She’ll be chronicling the whole experience and sharing it on the new News Literacy section of our site. You can also follow on Twitter @VOSDnewslit.

Voice of San Diego has a two-part mission: to do investigative reporting and to make sense of public affairs and policies so people can make better decisions for social progress and good government. We’ve been able to achieve our mission by providing strong reporting and analysis along with an array of community engagement events — from small coffees and panel discussions, to large outdoor festivals and arts and culture gatherings.

If you have any suggestions or questions, please shoot us an email. If you’re a Chula Vista resident, you can also sign up for the workshop series by contacting bianca.bruno@voiceofsandiego.org.

Our News Literacy workshop series kicked off last week with a group of 25 parents from the Castle Park and Hilltop neighborhoods of Chula Vista. VOSD’s Scott Lewis asked the crowd of mostly women to open up about what’s going on in their community. Here’s what came of our conversation.

Chula Vista residents have a lot to say. You just have to ask.

Most of the attendees were folks who have become community leaders through participation in South Bay Community Services Promise Neighborhood, a program that brings together a diverse group of community partners focused on a holistic approach to family, education and health in the spirit of getting Castle Park kids on a college track.

The workshop crowd was made up of mostly mothers and grandmothers who said they are especially concerned about their children and grandchildren.

They said there’s a lack of affordable extra-curricular sports and activities for middle school and high school students to participate in once the school day is over. They’re worried that without opportunities after school’s out, kids will get involved in gangs and tag up the neighborhood – another major concern on the top of their list.

Infrastructure problems have left residents in the dark.

Parents said there’s a severe lack of streetlights in their community.

One woman said her neighborhood near Palomar is so dark that she feels unsafe walking her dog at night.

There was also concern about street and sidewalk maintenance in the South Bay. The SeeClickFix website run in collaboration with the city of Chula Vista allows residents to note local infrastructure problems by locating them on a Google map. But the site’s effectiveness, and whether the city really uses it to make repairs, has been contested by locals.

They don’t see enough of themselves in the media.

When asked why they thought the community problems they outlined hadn’t been covered well by local media, the mood in the room shifted.

Many attendees spoke under their breath. One woman said, “We have no voice.” Another said the fact that their community is low-income contributed to the problem.

“It’s because we’re treated as dispensables,” said another.

They’ll be a big part of the solution to community problems.

Moving forward, I’ll be working with both parents and students from the Castle Park and Hilltop neighborhoods to develop community blogs where they’ll strengthen their skills as citizen journalists. Their thoughts, concerns and calls to action will be documented online. Residents will hold a mirror up to their community, reflecting the problems they experience in their everyday lives, and how they measure their neighborhoods.

The number of homeless people in San Diego County is down 4 percent, according to this year’s point-in-time homeless count, and long-term data shows the city’s efforts to provide shelter and aid might be paying off.

Here’s how the Regional Task Force on the Homeless’ WeALLCount process has worked in the past:

Every January, while it’s still dark early in the morning, hundreds of volunteers wielding flashlights and maps of U.S. Census tracts fan out across the county in cars and on foot, depending on their zone. They count the number of people they see sleeping in tents, cars and makeshift structures, and on streets and sidewalks.

Then the organization adds in the number of people the region’s shelters reported were sleeping there on the same night. This particular kind of count — a point-in-time snapshot — is required for any region to be considered for federal funding to combat homelessness.

Based on the task force’s data, there’s been a 12 percent increase in the number of homeless people in shelters since 2010.

Here’s how the number has changed over the years:

San Diego still had by far the highest number of homeless people among cities in the county. The census includes 19 cities and 14 unincorporated areas, and 62.9 percent of the total population counted was in the city of San Diego alone. Escondido came in a distant second, with 6.7 percent of the population counted this year.

Here’s a look at the cities within the county with the highest homeless populations:

And here’s a more detailed breakdown of the homeless population in the city of San Diego:

The number of homeless people without shelter in downtown San Diego ticked up from 2011 through 2013, but went down in 2014. Task force reps were unable to pinpoint a specific effort that would explain the decrease, or the decline in the overall population in the county.

Officials in San Diego have said the opening of the transitional Connections Housing facility, as well as ex-Mayor Bob Filner’s push to increase funding for homeless shelters and encourage cooperation between various groups that aid the homeless, have all helped.

The Serial Inebriate Program, a multi-agency effort intended to help homeless people deal with alcohol and substance abuse issues, placed 720 people in treatment and housing programs last year. That was an 84 percent increase from the arrangements made in 2012.

Increased resources in the past year were key to that spike, said San Diego Police Lt. Debra Farrar, who oversees the department’s homeless outreach team.

Farrar’s team spends most of its time in downtown San Diego, where another group besides the regional task force keeps a close eye on the homeless population.

The Downtown San Diego Partnership, a business group, routinely counts homeless residents in five central city neighborhoods, and releases its own numbers. One night a month, a team from the organization tallies the number of people sleeping on downtown streets between midnight and 6 a.m.

The numbers tend to fluctuate by season and time of year, so here’s a look at the average number of homeless people the group found in these five neighborhoods the past few years.

Right now, the challenge downtown appears to be in the East Village and Gaslamp District – probably a good place for the task force to start during next year’s count.

With a couple clicks of a mouse, 17-year-old Alma Lopez accepted an admissions offer to attend CSU Dominguez Hills this fall. She’ll be the first in her family to graduate high school and to go to college.

The Castle Park High School senior has had a tough go at it, growing up with family members who’ve been in trouble with the law or involved in gangs. She struggled academically and at home her sophomore year.

Lopez got back on track her senior year once she was accepted to South Bay Community Services’ Promise Neighborhood Academic Advocate program, where she worked closely with a mentor who helped guide her through the college application process.

For many college-prep groups, Lopez’s acceptance letter might be the happy end to her story. They might send her out the door and hope for the best. But retention rates for students like Lopez once they set foot on a university campus are dismal. So the South Bay group and a handful of others are taking a novel approach: They keep “prepping” kids even after they go off to school.

Making it to Sophomore Year Takes Resources

Lopez will still be in direct contact with her Academic Advocate mentor, Rea Concepcion, while she’s living in L.A.

Alan Seidman, a college retention expert, said academic preparedness makes or breaks students the first year. He said many college students struggle with reading level – being able to digest the material in a college textbook is vital.

Christopher Yanov, who runs the college readiness program Reality Changers, agrees.

“I would argue that college retention doesn’t start after 12^th grade,” Yanov said. “The retention part happens in high school.”

Yanov said one of the biggest complaints from Reality Changers’ first graduating class was that the program wasn’t there to guide them after they set foot on a college campus.

They’ve since set up an alumni network to connect their former students with internship opportunities and resources to succeed at college.

And this fall, Reality Changers will connect their junior and senior alumni at SDSU and UCSD with incoming freshmen. Yanov said they hope this additional support will offset some of the struggles freshmen experience that may cause them to transfer schools or drop out.

The biggest hurdle to get past, Yanov said, is making it to the first day of sophomore year. Getting students back to college after their first year, and a summer at home where they might fall into family responsibilities or work a summer job, is a major obstacle. After that, he said, students are much more likely to go on and graduate from college.

And universities deserve to carry part of the burden, too, said Seidman.

“If a college accepts a student they have a responsibility to provide resources to help that student become successful. Otherwise, don’t accept them,” Seidman said.

The Feeling Factor

There’s more to succeeding in college than being able to read your books and pass your math class, though.

Campus climate – the attitudes, standards and behavior of a school – reveals itself in the retention rate of underserved students.

Esteban del Rio, director of the Center for Inclusion and Diversity at the University of San Diego, said that whether a student feels welcome on campus is a huge indicator of campus climate.

“The student culture has to be welcoming and inclusive enough to broad experiences, so first-generation students have to do less negotiation to see if they belong,” del Rio said. “It’s a huge project.”

Del Rio said hiring staff and faculty who are not only as diverse as the students they work with, but who are willing to mentor students on how to navigate “the majority culture” is necessary to retain first-year students.

Though Reality Changers offers students tools to succeed past college, Yanov said his students benefit most from gaining confidence in themselves.

“Where schools main efforts are dealing with discipline, we work on confidence and motivation, which isn’t necessarily a tenant of the public school system today,” Yanov said.

Lopez agrees. She said she plans to study criminology and psychology, and that being around family members who were involved in crimes ignited her passion for criminal justice. The ability to believe in herself, Lopez said, is the major takeaway she got from working with Concepcion.

“This community has so much potential,” Lopez said. “It just needs to be put on the spot. We have heart. We have brains, too.”

Despite being the second largest city in San Diego County, Chula Vista typically makes headlines for negative perceptions of the city.

A few years ago, Forbes magazine named it one of the most boring cities. In April, a survey showed six out of 10 San Diegans have a pretty low regard for the South Bay city.

Residents came together to debunk some of the pervading myths about their community and come up with possible solutions at a public forum Friday at the Chula Vista Public Library. A few common themes kept cropping up.

It’s Not THAT Far

Even the moderator reinforced one of the primary outsider perceptions.

“It’s so far to get to, I left two days ago to get here,” said Mesa College political science professor Carl Luna.

Luna’s joke highlighted a fairly typical complaint by San Diegans: Chula Vista is just too far from other populous areas of the county.

The City Has Growing Pains

South Bay is considered the final frontier for development in the county. But many residents already feel Chula Vista has a tough time making sure infrastructure keeps up with growth.

Oregon transplant Pam Keel, who’s a member of the community group Crossroads II, has lived in Chula Vista’s Hilltop neighborhood for 14 years. Keel said she’s concerned about a lack of infrastructure improvements in the city.

Keel and her neighbors want to be able to venture out to local parks, but the green space in west Chula Vista, she said, isn’t up to snuff.

“Castle Park isn’t really a park,” Keel said. “It’s a power line path.”

Longtime resident Judy Flacke said expansion that started in the 1970s has had a detrimental effect on the neighborhood.

“I think it grew too fast. The growth was hard on the city,” Flacke said. “It couldn’t keep up, and went from a small bedroom community to a bigger entity.”

Don’t Call Us ‘Chulajuana’

Chula Vistans are tired of their city being called “Chulajuana.” Resident John Vogel considers the nickname a slur for the area south of Interstate 8.

“Some people just focus on where they live and what they know and accept stereotypes that are kind of like urban legends,” Vogel said.

Part of the negative perception of the border city, Flacke said, comes from unease as city demographics change and the Latino population grows.

Forum attendees want to get outsiders up to speed on what their changing community has to offer. Vogel said that campaign should start with a regular resident who can act as champion of the city.

“Take someone outside of the official structure to promote the city,” Vogel said. “It should grow organically out of the community.”

Chula Vista Councilman Rudy Ramirez doesn’t have a permanent decision-making role for the Metropolitan Transit System, the public agency that runs public transportation in much of San Diego County.

He was an alternate on the 15-member board of elected officials that set agency policy, but Ramirez found a way to stand out. He cast the only vote against MTS’s proposed $240 million operating budget last week because he said the agency continues to neglect social equity in its transit service.

I talked with Ramirez about his belief that public transportation in the region is systemically inequitable, how he’d like to see the problem addressed and other problems he sees in the transit system, including what he calls “inhumane” treatment of riders. Here’s a lightly edited transcription of our conversation.

Can you expand on your comments, that you weren’t able to support the MTS budget because it lacked attention to social equity?

I sit as an alternate for Chula Vista. I don’t get to (sit on the MTS board) very often. I was there maybe a year ago, and I raised the issue about social equity and wanted to know what MTS has done to understand that, for themselves, the board and for the public. If they’d studied it. It felt like to me based on own my experience in Chula Vista as a regular rider of the transit system, that it appeared there were inequities in the way resources were distributed throughout the county. The fact that you have beautiful bus shelters that are hardly used in UTC, but people in Chula Vista — elderly people and sick people have to stand in the sun to wait for a bus. What I wanted, what I hoped, was to study it. There’s enough money being spent here that people would want to know the answer, and to do it in a transparent way. Those were my arguments in a couple of meetings. Here it is, it’s budget time and they haven’t done that, they’re not interested, so I wasn’t inclined to support the budget.

So your request out of the budget would have been that it included money to study whether the system is equitable through some combination of social definitions?

Yes.  That’s true.

I realize a study like this would require a great deal of technical expertise, but what specifically would you expect MTS to study in terms of social equity?

I’d like to see if the (Capital Improvement Projects) budget is distributed across the county, to see how that money is being spent. I’d like to see if operational dollars are available in areas where people need more transit options. I’d like to understand if we are considering communities of special need, where you have more elderly, if there’s more transit in areas where people may not have choices. Those issues are important. We know, for example, that the blue line is the most-used transit line in the system. Yet, I see a lack of resources on this line. This is the one that starts in San Ysidro and goes to Old Town. Those are the sorts of issues that we’d like to understand. If you have a lot of ridership, and you’re not putting more resources back into it, those are things the board should consider.

Have you done anything to force this conversation in the time between first mentioning it a year ago, and (last) week’s budget vote?

I’ve talked to a lot of members of the riding public, and they agree. I try to ride public transit a lot. It needs a comprehensive, professional look. It needs an MTS that is interesting in discovering this. We need to know how we make decisions and where we put resources. They’re unwilling to do that. They see no value in that, or they would be doing it, and moving it forward. They’re not going to be responsive to an alternate on the board. If they’re not interested in hearing it, it isn’t something that gets done.

So you mentioned your issues with MTS, and your perception that they aren’t concerned with social equity, but …

Well, I had a number of concerns. I don’t like the policy of not providing bathrooms. It’s an inhumane transit system that doesn’t provide for basic human needs. That position is inhumane and reprehensible to me. I can’t support a budget that doesn’t provide for a humane experience on a transit system. It’s mind-boggling to me that anyone could support that policy. What it comes down to me is, you have people making decisions, on the board, who don’t use the system, because if they did with any frequency, they’d understand. I get that bathrooms are tough. They require a lot of attention, and there’s a cost associated with that. But if they’re not providing a service, they’re certainly not encouraging transit, which they should do, and they’re pushing out that cost to the surrounding community. You get off, and you go to a Starbucks or other local business. It creates other problems, and it’s not fair. If you want to open a taco shop in Chula Vista, they require you to provide a bathroom. If they require it of mom-and-pop entrepreneurs, why not of a public transit agency?

So after initiating the conversation, had you done anything with MTS specifically to address these issues, prior to (last) week?

I have talked to other board members. It just seems they’re more — they just seemed more interested in defending the agency than responding to what might be an important public need. I really don’t mean to single out anybody on the board, or accuse anybody, I think it’s just the structure of the agency and its oversight. I think it’s tilted away from greater scrutiny and oversight and it’s a different thing to do to have council members who are busy in their own community, they’re there on a part-time basis, to oversee in detail what this regional agency is up to.

What happens next? Is this something you’re going to keep pushing for?

The other people I’ve been in touch with is, my fellow council members in CV, I talk about this often. (Councilmember) Mary Salas is very aware, I told her my concerns before I went into the budget meeting. She indicated that she understood, and that I should vote my conscious, so she was supportive of my concerns.

But will you continue to push this, with whatever power you have as a council member and alternate board member?

I certainly am. As an alternate it’s difficult for me to be as involved as I’d like to be, because we do have a primary representative (Salas), and I have to defer to her internal reasons.

I want a public agency that is going to assume authority, not pass the buck. It should be a matter of routine that these agencies look at the social equity issue for themselves, or they should stand up and say we don’t care about social equity and we don’t think it’s important in running a system in San Diego. Or, they should study it and explain it, so people like me aren’t just left with their own impressions, and just sort of guess at it and go off their gut. They could reassure the public that they’ve done their due diligence.

Apart from a school board scandal and being named one of the most boring cities in the country, Chula Vista isn’t typically a major focus of local news.

That’s why we wanted to focus our efforts on a News Literacy program aimed at serving Chula Vistans.

To cap off our first series of News Literacy workshops, we’re hosting Let’s Talk Chula Vista with outgoing Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox and new City Manager Gary Halbert. The event is free and will be held at the South Branch library on July 29 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. We’ll discuss the future of the city and a major concern raised by News Literacy participants: street infrastructure and safety.

We weren’t sure what to expect when we started this effort. We’ve made some strides, and hit some bumps that provide definite opportunities for learning. Here’s where we’re at:

News deserts are real.

Access to modern technology is necessary for gathering news and information about your community. That’s why it’s so troubling that parents from the Castle Park community of Chula Vista have raised concerns that many residents there don’t own computers or have access to them.

We initially thought we’d train residents to be citizen journalists and to use a blog they could take ownership of. But when we found out the majority of our participants didn’t even have an email address, we realized the need to start with the basics.

We’ve since set up a Facebook page that has become a bilingual hub for parents to post about the major concerns they have for their community:

And at the end of the workshop series, we’ll provide participants with refurbished computers from Computers 2 SD Kids so they can continue to get their news online.

Residents are ready and willing to be engaged.

Much to our surprise, residents have not been shy in sharing their concerns. Now that we’ve locked down what they are most worried about, we’re brainstorming community-driven solutions.

While residents have been connected to services through other organizations, there have been some gaps. The parents we work with want to be as involved with their kids’ lives as possible. But they say there’ve been roadblocks to getting involved at their kids’ schools.

News Literacy parents were especially interested in getting their kids into sports and involved in after-school activities. But with limited incomes, parents need affordable options. We’ve since connected them to Aqua Fun and Fit, free summer swim classes sponsored by the Kaiser Foundation and held at local pools.

Being heard is a milestone in itself.

Participants have had a direct impact on their community by sharing their experiences and concerns, which led to increased reporting on Chula Vista.

A new state bill banning school administrators from fundraising for the board members they serve is on its way to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk.

It’s the latest in a series of measures meant to address the years-long corruption scandal at Sweetwater Union High School District.

South Bay voters will also get a shot at a clean slate of school board members in this November’s election.

Four trustee spots are up for grabs after SUHSD board members were kicked out for their involvement in a pay-to-play scandal that began in 2011. They and other administrators were charged with accepting gifts over the legal limit in exchange for contracts. And the fifth member – John McCann – is in the run-off for a seat on Chula Vista City Council, leaving his seat vacant as well.

Recently, we’ve seen a few major reforms to how these powerful positions get filled. Let’s take a look at what has come from the South Bay scandal.

No Funds Raised by Administrators

The latest development: Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez’s bill passed out of the state Assembly Monday, legislation that would ban school administrators from raising money for board campaigns.

Gonzalez’s bill was a direct reaction to the SUHSD scandal, which also reverberated through San Ysidro School District and Southwestern College following claims that school administrators there raised money for board elections by asking contractors to dig into their pockets. Under the bill, administrators can’t campaign or fundraise for candidates in public school and community college board races.

A Cap on Contributions

South Bay voters worked for years to get a campaign contribution limit on donations to candidates running for school board. Community advocate Maty Adato said the proposal was on the board agenda five different times for two years before it was finally approved in January.

Adato said fomer SUHSD board president Jim Cartmill sat on the resolution for months before finally signing it and bringing it to the board.

“He takes credit for getting this passed, and in my opinion that’s an insult,” Adato said. “We [community advocates] met with the attorney and did all the work.”

Now individuals can only contribute $750 or less to SUHSD trustee campaigns.

Trustees Now Represent Geographic Areas

SUHSD jumped on the bandwagon of school districts switching up their election process after residents filed a petition with the County Office of Education. This year’s election will mark the first time South Bay voters will elect representatives by area — voters in five districts will each elect a single trustee. The areas are divvied up to include roughly the same number of people.

The new method is thought to provide better access to board members. But critics – such as Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox – said she was concerned board members might “scratch each other’s backs” and look out only for the interests of the area they represent instead of the entire district.

“They’re supposed to watch out for the community as a whole,” Cox said. “That one person alone doesn’t get things done unless you have support from other members.”

In a few short weeks, South Bay voters get a shot at a clean school board slate.

After a years-long pay-to play scandal involving members of the Sweetwater Union High School District board, administrators and contractors, residents will choose five new school board members to represent more than 41,000 kids.

Once elected, those officials have a hefty to-do list: hire a new superintendent, make sense of district property deals gone awry, move to a new district office and regain the trust and support of a community disenchanted with school leadership.

At public meetings with Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox this summer, residents said one of their top priorities is getting to know the candidates. They’ll get an opportunity this Thursday at our forum with the candidates vying to represent students in Castle Park and San Ysirdo.

This election marks the first time voters will elect a trustee to represent their respective areas after the district was diced up. Check out a map of the newly drawn geographic areas here. With more than 20 candidates running for these seats, we thought we’d help you get to know them better. Below is a sampling of their answers from a questionnaire we sent them. Check out the rest of their answers here.

What Transparency Means to Them

Jerome O. Torres, Area 1 (Chula Vista High School, Sweetwater High School, Granger Junior High, National City Middle School)

“It means that, except for those board decisions that are legally required to be conducted in closed session, all other decisions will be conducted in public and not clandestinely. The board meetings will be webcast with translation services in Spanish and Tagalog provided in real time. All current and past policy and financial-related documents will: one, be made available to the general public free of charge; and two, be posted on the websites of the district and respective schools.”

Kevin O’ Neill, Area 2 (Bonita Vista High School and Middle School, Hilltop High School and Middle School)

“The response to a [Public Records Act request] will meet the spirit as well as the actual requirement under the law insofar as district staff will help the requester formulate and define the information that is being sought.”

Defining the District’s Biggest Problem

Nicholas Segura, Area 4 (Castle Park High School and Middle School, San Ysidro High School)

“I believe the biggest problem is education inequality. I would like to ensure that resources are more fairly distributed throughout the district. Every student should have access to strong opportunities and a chance to shoot for the stars and receive a high-quality education, regardless of their community’s socioeconomic environment.”

Frank A. Taramtino, Area 3 (Eastlake Middle School and High School, Rancho Del Rey Middle School, Otay Ranch High School, Olympian High School)

“The decisions made regarding support of independent charter schools, the elimination of neighborhood school boundaries, the use of [state] Mello-Roos funds to buy iPads without a workable implementation plan, the disposal of district property and the lease option to buy a new district office in the Eastlake Business Park are short-sighted and will impact the district (and the new district leadership) for many years.”

Jim Cartmill, Area 3

“The public perception of the district. I will commit to solving it by getting the message out that the Sweetwater district continues to be true to its mission:  maximizing student achievement.  I will build on the quantifiable academic progress to work with our employee groups to get the message out to the broader community that the Sweetwater district is moving in the right direction.”

What Background or Experience Makes Them a Qualified Candidate

Paula Hall, Area 5 (Mar Vista Middle School and High School, Southwest Middle and High School)

“My children have been in the SUHSD schools. I am a parent who has been trying to be the voice from our area (west of I-805) for the past few years because our schools have been neglected. I have also been active involving other parents from different schools so they understand the decisions tied to programs and finances, and what they must question and what they must provide input on.”

On Working with Families from Other Areas

Felipe Nuno, Area 4

“First I would like to find out why their child is going to a different area than where they belong.  If it is because the parents believe that the other schools are better than the one in their communities, then I would challenge them to help me change that. I want parents to become part of the solution in improving their own schools in their own communities.”

Bertha Lopez, Area 2

“Students have always been my No. 1 priority. If there an issue, I will guide the parents in the right direction so they can resolve their concern. Geographic areas should not be a barrier for our students or parents. My role as a board member will be to represent all students and the public regardless of their geographical area.”

Chula Vista was one of the first cities in the region to adopt a Climate Action Plan, but it’s now playing catch-up to San Diego when it comes to giving its plan some teeth.

The Chula Vista City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to accept recommendations for a plan that addresses where the city’s energy will come from. But two Council members want the plan to go even further – namely, they want to follow the city of San Diego’s lead and set a hard goal of making the city 100 percent dependent on renewable energy.

They asked staff to take a serious look at including a statement in Chula Vista’s updated Climate Action Plan that sets an achievement goal for making the city dependent on 100 percent renewable energy.

San Diego’s commitment to be a green-energy city by 2035 is legally binding; Chula Vista’s plan so far is not.

Here’s how Andrew Keatts described the importance of a legally binding target for San Diego:

If it is implemented by a largely supportive City Council, it will put San Diego on the hook to cut carbon emissions in half by 2035. … It would also give the city a backbone of sorts when future development controversies arise. In the past, the city has quickly caved to neighborhood concerns over new housing or transit projects – if the plan becomes law, the city could argue it’s legally required to support environmentally friendly urban growth principles.

The flip side is that environmentalists will have a new tool to hold the city accountable in the courts.

Councilwoman Pat Aguilar, especially, wants to give San Diego a run for its money.

“I guess I do want to compete with San Diego a little bit,” Aguilar said. “San Diego, in their Climate Action Plan, has a specific statement. I mean it’s really, really clear-achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2035. We don’t have anything, really, that’s that specific and directive. When you come back I hope that you will consider maybe being a little more aggressive on that particular subject.”

Adding that statement to Chula Vista’s plan would mark a region-wide commitment toward making San Diego dependent on 100 percent renewable energy, said Nicole Capretz, who’s now policy director for Councilman Ed Harris and who helped guide San Diego’s plan in her role as director of environmental policy for Interim Mayor Todd Gloria. Capretz wasn’t involved with creating Chula Vista’s latest recommendations.

“It moves the needle region-wide,” Capretz said. “It just shows these plans are contagious. If they have a political commitment, if their mayor and council says this is what they want to achieve, they empower staff to make it happen.”

“Without metrics or goals plans get waylaid. The priorities for funding are always determined by requirements and what politicians say they’re willing to devote time, staff and resources to.”

Not all Chula Vista’s elected officials are on board, though.

Mayor Cheryl Cox was unconvinced a 100 percent renewable energy goal is feasible for Chula Vista.

“When we look at what San Diego is attempting now to do – and keep in mind this is the San Diego that unanimously passed the pure water resolution – they’re all our friends,” Cox said. “What we’re saying that we do, we actually accomplish. And I think we accomplish it within a reasonable time frame. But some aspirations are just so unreachable with what we know now, I think we are wise in the way that this idea is being approached.”

But Capretz said technology improvements have put the goal within reach.

“Most people in the energy world say we have the technology to get to 100 percent renewable – it’s just if we have the political will,” Capretz said.

Next up for Chula Vista’s Climate Action Plan: directing city staff from the Public Works Department to work out the details for moving implementation forward. They’ll present the updated plan to the Council next spring.

Transparency and restoring public trust loomed large on the campaign trail for Sweetwater Union High School District’s new slate of board members.

In fact, all five new trustees said both were top priorities. Just a couple weeks after being sworn in, not all of them are living up to that.

Last month, South Bay voters elected five fresh community faces to represent five different areas in the district.

This was part of the district’s reform efforts in the aftermath of a scandal that left four of the previous five trustees with criminal records and, without seats on the board. It was a “pay-to-play” culture, where trustees accepted lavish gifts in exchange for votes on contracts worth millions.

Now it looks like some trustees are so afraid to say the wrong thing, they’ll barely say anything at all.

All efforts to reach Area 1 representative Arturo Solis went unanswered. When I tried to get his phone number from the district, Manuel Rubio, director of grants and communications for SUHSD, said he couldn’t give out that information. Instead, Rubio said community members could leave messages for the trustees with him.

Solis has been MIA since the beginning of our coverage of this election. Solis never responded to a questionnaire from Voice of San Diego’s Bianca Bruno, even after he asked on Twitter if he could submit answers after the deadline. He did not respond to emails sent to two different emails listed for him on the district website and that he gave the San Diego County Registrar of Voters.

Area 3 representative Frank Tarantino also declined to talk, citing, curiously, the Brown Act, saying that the law prevented him from speaking to media. The Brown Act allows the public to attend meetings of and participate in local government and prohibits local officials from talking about topics discussed in closed meetings. It doesn’t prohibit public officials from speaking with journalists.

Terry Francke, who founded Californians Aware, an organization that specializes in public information rights, says he’s never heard of a board member using the Brown Act to avoid talking to a reporter.

“Sometimes either fellow members or lawyers for these local boards exaggerate the effects of the Brown Act because they don’t want members speaking to press,” Francke said.

Paula Hall, trustee for Area 5, told me about the obstacles this board has to tackle, but when I asked her what goals she had for the new board – a basic question – she said she’d rather keep that to herself.

Kevin Pike was the only board member who gave candid answers about his concerns for the new board.

But transparency isn’t the only major hurdle the new board has to clear. Here’s a look at the load this board will take on.

Restoring Integrity

After the long and messy scandal where 15 people faced charges, it’s a challenge, to say the least, to restore public trust.

Two convicted trustees ran for seats this election but were defeated.

“I think it’s a breath of fresh air,” Pike said. “People were tired of all the corruption and scandal going on and they wanted to put people in those positions that they felt were going to do the best job.”

Pike is hopeful the new election rules, in which trustees are voted in by area, will help that process.

Paula Hall said one way to restore trust involves constant connection to the community, and being aware of the issues, not just in their own areas but across the district.

Bringing Equity to Sweetwater Schools

Throughout Chula Vista, communities don’t feel represented by their district. That’s one of the reasons the district was split into five areas to ensure equal representation across the district.

Hall said there’s a lot to do when it comes to bringing equity to all schools. The public feels strongly about fixing up the schools that have been neglected for the past 25 years, Hall said.. It’s important to turn these schools into “facilities we can be proud of that are safe and support the programs for the different communities,” Hall said.

Hiring a New Superintendent

After the pay-to-play scandal landed former Superintendent Jesus Gandara in jail, and his successor Edward Brand was caught accepting a pension at the same time he was being paid to lead the district, the community sorely needs new leadership. The pressure is on to find a superintendent who will be communicative and competent.

Pike said at this point, he can’t see himself supporting a nationwide search.

“The last time they did a national search for a superintendent, he ended up in jail,” he said.

The new hire will replace Tim Glover, who has served in the role on an interim basis since July.

Correction: An earlier version of this post said 15 administrators and members of the Sweetwater board were charged with crimes. The 15 charged included officials from the Sweetwater High School District, the San Ysidro School District and the Southwestern Community College District.

Chula Vista and Port of San Diego officials are hoping to entice developers with something rare in California: the promise of hassle-free waterfront development.

The vision for the 535 acres – more than 600 football fields – includes a convention center, hotels, apartments, office space and retail, with almost half of the property left as open space with trails for pedestrians and bikes. It also preserves and protects an environmentally sensitive area south of a nearby national wildlife refuge.

The master plan successfully passed a full environmental review in 2010. That means that when developers pursue projects in that area, they only need to prove their plans are consistent with that plan – a much easier process than doing their own environmental review.

“It’s already entitled,” said Gary Halbert, Chula Vista’s city manager, describing the city’s pitch to developers.

The space is one of the largest developable waterfront properties left on the West Coast.

The arrangement came together over 10 years ago because of an agreement between the Port, which regulates development along the San Diego Bay, the city of Chula Vista and private developer Pacifica Companies. Back then, the Port began negotiations to take ownership of over 100 acres of environmentally sensitive property near the Sweetwater Marsh National Wildlife Refuge that was owned by Pacifica.

Pacifica had previously put forth two proposals to develop the land that were shut down by environmental groups that thought the habitat was too sensitive for development. Former environmental activist Allison Rolfe – who had worked with the San Diego Audubon Society and San Diego Coast Keeper in opposition to the projects – approached Pacifica with an idea she had heard in planning school: a land swap.

Pacifica would hand over the environmentally sensitive land, and in exchange a public entity would hand the company land more suitable for development.

Pacifica latched on to the idea, and hired Rolfe to ensure it would happen.  The Port signed on, too, offering up 35 acres of developable land on the waterfront, in exchange for the sensitive property it’s now preserving.

“The reason these things usually don’t happen is that developers usually have a property-rights attitude that they just want to do what they want on the land they own and government agencies aren’t willing to be creative to do something like a land swap,” Rolfe said. “This started out that way – battle lines being drawn. We were showing up at hearings and protesting, but then this land swap thing happened.”

The plan is now endorsed by the same environmental groups that once opposed it.

The bayfront development plan was also approved by the Coastal Commission, which is usually an extra hurdle for oceanfront projects. The Coastal Commission is often viewed as tough on developers, and tends to favor buildings below 30 feet high – about three stories – along the coast. But it unanimously voted to make way for a 30-story hotel and for 11 residential towers on Pacifica’s 35 acres.

“The hardest part about building on the waterfront is getting it entitled,” Rolfe said. “If you get it entitled, you’re golden.”

But other developers weren’t as eager to join Pacifica on Chula Vista’s bayfront.

Despite the already entitled area, when the city put out a call for developers to build a 1,250-room hotel and a convention center, it received only one response, from Houston-based RIDA Development Corporation.

That one response “happened to be outstanding,” said Halbert. RIDA declined to comment on the project.

In addition to the RIDA hotel and convention center, Pacifica Companies also has 1,500 residential units, a 250-room hotel and some commercial and office space in the works on its property facing the waterfront. It plans to start construction in early 2017.

Halbert expects the two projects to catalyze interest in the area, drawing in other developers.

“We see these two as keystone projects on the bayfront,” he said. “We will get other developers.”

The Port of San Diego and Chula Vista want to make it real, real easy for developers to build on waterfront property in that city, so they paved the way for developers. All the environmental reviews, the legal hurdle-clearing, the community meetings; all the classic obstacles to waterfront development have been handled upfront, Maya Srikrishnan reports. That’s their pitch to developers, a pitch that has already yielded a few big projects.

It all came through a rare land-swap deal, where a developer agreed to hand over sensitive environmental land to the Port in exchange for land more suited for development.

We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Riot

In 2014, then-Police Chief Bill Landsdowne told the City Council about police body cameras: “Everybody gets to look at them and find out if they’re acting correctly and properly.”

Apparently, the new Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman didn’t get that memo; she’s against showing police body camera videos to anyone. That is, unless they riot violently in the streets, Liam Dillon reports. She might consider turning over videos in cases “where public safety is at risk, where people are damaging property, assaulting people,” she said recently at a press conference. But recall that a protest in City Heights last year did result in some violence against police officers, and Zimmerman declined to release body camera footage even then.

It’s not just body camera videos Zimmerman is determined to keep under lock and key. We’ve been battling it out in court against the department in order to gain access to footage of an officer-involved shooting captured on a private security camera.

• There’s a sliver of silver lining here, though. Zimmerman might be open to the idea of breaking down how often body cameras contributed to sustained complaints against officers.

The Learning Curve: Tackling Teacher Tenure

On Tuesday, we’re hosting an event with Assemblywoman Shirley Weber to talk education. Weber has been a vocal supporter of changing education policy in the Assembly, even when change remains elusive. One topic on Mario Koran’s mind is the tricky issue of teacher tenure, an issue currently in play thanks to an important court case on appeal. In this week’s Learning Curve, Koran wraps up the basics of teacher tenure and what impact the court’s decision in Vergara v. California may have.

• Koran got pretty fired up about this Daily Beast article highlighting a private prison making good money locking up infants and toddlers and their mothers in a “preschooler prison.”

Illegal Donations: San Diego Explained

You know it’s illegal to donate money to political campaigns on behalf of other people, right? Some people either don’t know or don’t care, as evidenced by recent city and state investigations into tow company owners who may have done exactly that. Liam Dillon joined NBC 7’s Monica Dean to show how wrongdoers try to keep these donations hush-hush in our most recent San Diego Explained.

Bring Back Our Bosses

We mentioned this week how the staff of the Union-Tribune might be feeling a little disconnected from its parent corporation, now that its publisher is no longer anywhere nearby after Los Angeles Times publisher Austin Beutner was fired. U-T staff are in good company; this week dozens of Los Angeles civic leaders sent an open letter to the Tribune Company, urging them to restore local leadership to the L.A. Times.

San Diego civic leaders are, no doubt, at this very moment, huddled together collaborating on their plans to express similar concern for their own daily paper.

Forfeiture Bill Fails

Thursday saw some key votes in the California Legislature, one of them being SB 443, a bill targeting what the Union-Tribune described as the “widely abused practice” of law enforcement officials taking money and property with impunity using asset forfeiture laws. The bill failed on Thursday.

To understand the havoc civil asset forfeiture can wreak on people’s lives and why many are demanding reform, check out this Washington Post investigation, and this Atlantic piece.

• Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez explained on Twitter why she thought the bill wasn’t good enough.

Fletcher, Obama Pitch Iran Deal

Former politician-turned-veterans advocate Nathan Fletcher has, as they say, a seat at the table. It’s not just figurative here, he literally has a seat at the table a few inches from President Obama. Fletcher and Obama teamed up Thursday in support of the president’s nuclear deal with Iran, USA Today reports.

Fletcher’s appearance stirred up a frenzy among local operatives who wondered whether Fletcher is planning a run against Rep. Scott Peters in 2016. Fletcher shot that rumor down directly.

News Nibbles

• San Diego has a new planning director, Andrew Keatts reports. Jeff Murphy was formerly Encinitas’ director. The Seaside Courier has details.

• Sempra Energy’s venture into Mexico is facing big challenges after a period of big success. (Bloomberg)

• One of San Diego’s craft brewers has decided their brewery will be better now that they’ve sold it to MillerCoors. (Union-Tribune)

• Google is talking to the city of San Diego about bringing ultra-fast, affordable internet lines to San Diegans. They want to know if you’re interested. (Google)

• Terrible heat is sending kids home from school early, NBC 7 reports, and dogs into emergency rooms, Fox 5 reports.

• Hoping for cooler temperatures in your house? Maybe a gigantic chunk of ice will fall out of the clear sky and crash through your roof. It happens. (L.A. Times)

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated where Zimmerman discussed body cameras and her potential data collection change. It also misstated the extent of campaign finance investigations involving tow company owners.

Seth Hall is a writer and technologist. You can email him at voice@s3th.com or follow him on Twitter: @loteck.

Chula Vista is hoping to goose investment in its underdeveloped west side by lowering the costs of building west of the I-805 freeway.

This fall, the City Council is expected to vote on a proposal to allow residential developers to put off for up to 30 years paying the fees they’re charged to improve things like roads and parks in the communities surrounding their projects.

The hope is that’ll be enough incentive to attract developers to the area.

The west side of Chula Vista stands in stark contrast to the part of the city east of the 805. While the east side is filled with new homes, landscaped roads and walking trails, the west side contains trailer parks and the city’s oldest homes – some are remnants of the time when the west side was filled with lemon orchards, and much of the housing was built for workers employed by the aircraft manufacturing plants that used to occupy the bayfront.

“There’s been no real market established in the western part of Chula Vista,” said Kelly Broughton, Chula Vista’s planning director.

For years, building new homes and apartments on the west side of Chula Vista didn’t pencil out for developers because they couldn’t charge enough for the end product to turn a meaningful profit, stagnating growth and furthering the divide between the east and west sides.

“The cost of development is the same between the east side and west side. But the demographics are markedly different,” said Kevin O’Neill, a former Chula Vista planning commissioner and one of the developers of the Stone Creek Casitas, a project of 97-market rate apartments on Chula Vista’s west side. “The rents you can attain on the east side allow you to build a nicer project and the lenders are more likely to lend to projects there.”

But the city’s new proposal, if passed, would allow developers to not make any payments toward standard fees charged on new projects for 10 years. During those 10 years, the fees would accrue interest. After 10 years, the developer would have 20 years to pay back the fees and interest.

That 10-year mark is significant, because that’s often when developers can re-finance loans after construction.

Broughton said the plan is meant to give developers more upfront equity.

“We think it will bring development to the west side,” he said.

When Stone Creek Casitas came forward, the developers worked out an agreement with the city delay paying fees on the project. That grew into the broader policy the city’s now proposing.

O’Neill said his project would have owed roughly $2 million in fees, not including separate payments that would go toward sewer, water and schools.

But the idea comes with tradeoffs.

One concern is that this strategy might hurt future homeowners, because the fees would eventually be paid off by whoever owns the property. If someone buys a home that was built under this agreement, the fee would eventually be added to their property taxes.

“It certainly doesn’t fix the problem,” O’Neill said. “But it shows the city of Chula Vista is trying to think creatively.”

Broughton said every few years the city re-evaluates these fees, but lowering them means making compromises.

For example, right now the city has a rule that there should be three parks for every 1,000 residents. If the city decided to lower the number of parks required per thousand people, it would lower the cost, but at the expense of building fewer parks.

And by delaying when these fees are paid, the city will also be delaying when the services that are meant to be provided with them will be delivered to area residents.

Nonetheless, Juan-Pablo Mariscal, of the developer Mar Group, said he thinks the plan will work, and that Chula Vista will become one of the most promising areas for developers to target if the measure is approved.

The Mar Group just finished one project on the west side and is in the process of building two more.

“With this new strategy, the city of Chula Vista is becoming more competitive with all the cities in the county,” Mariscal said. “Now you have a better environment towards development. Before fees were too expensive.”

Presently, Chula Vista’s development fees are more expensive than some communities in San Diego that developers could choose to build in instead.

In Chula Vista, the fees – not including those for sewer, water and schools – are about $19,500 per unit. In Mid-City, the fees are about $12,200 and in Barrio Logan, they are roughly $12,800.

“At the end of the day, as developers, we’re looking to do great developments as fast as possible at the lowest cost,” Mariscal said.

San Diego school board president Marne Foster recently distanced herself from a $250,000 claim filed against the school district. Her son’s father made the claim, accusing the district of harming her son — said to have run up $10,000 in trauma counseling bills — via a negative college evaluation.

She said she was not a party to it and wouldn’t comment on it.

Mario Koran was able to contact the father, John Marsh, who said Foster wrote the claim herself: “She brought me a blank complaint form and said, ‘Sign it.’ So I did. And I didn’t think twice about it until there was backlash.”

The district denied the claim, and no lawsuit was filed.

It was yet another alarming revelation as we try to unravel what happened at the School for Creative and Performing Arts.

As we reported earlier this week, the counselor who wrote the negative evaluation was suspended for 9 days and is still upset (“I was punished for telling the truth”). The principal of the school was also removed and told Koran it was because of Foster’s anger about the evaluation.

And that brings up what might be the most important question still unanswered: Did Superintendent Cindy Marten have a better reason to punish the counselor and remove the principal than that a school board member was mad about an evaluation her son had received?

Chula Vista’s West Side Rethink

In the olden days, a railroad might separate the the fanciest parts of town from the rest. Now, freeways often play that role.

In Chula Vista, the county’s second-largest city, I-805 is the dividing line. To the west lie the oldest parts of the city, a mix of middle-class and poor residents in apartments, trailer parks and classic SoCal houses. On the other side of the freeway you can find the sprawling modern homes and schools of the master-planned Eastlake community.

The city may give a boost to the west side, which is congested and dumpy in parts. As VOSD’s Maya Srikrishnan reports, the plan is to woo new housing developments to the area via nice deals on building fees.

“For years, building new homes and apartments on the west side of Chula Vista didn’t pencil out for developers because they couldn’t charge enough for the end product to turn a meaningful profit, stagnating growth and furthering the divide between the east and west sides,” Srikrishnan reports. Now, the city might allow builders to avoid paying fees for 10 years.

• Time for a time warp: Check out this 1986 L.A. Times story about the debut of Eastlake, a community directly inspired by Irvine. “Housing in the first-phase neighborhoods of EastLake Hills and EastLake Shores will be produced by eight builders and will range in price from $49,900 to more than $300,000,” the story says.

Then-Mayor Greg Cox, now a longtime county supervisor, raved about the project: It “adds an element of prestige to the community and will be a standard for development in Chula Vista for years to come.”

• The city of Chula Vista wants a consultant to help it figure out how to offer ultra-fast Internet service in a big new development along the bayfront.

NFL Won’t Open Doors to S.D.

San Diego officials wanted to head to Chicago next month to make their case for a football stadium to NFL officials. Sorry about it, the NFL says. That’s not gonna happen.

An NFL vice president tells us that the meeting “is not the forum where something presented by outsiders gets a full discussion with questions.”

What now? A mayoral spokesman says “to better allow for an in-depth presentation, the NFL is looking at having hometown cities present to a smaller setting of team owners.”

In other words, no meeting is happening with either the full owners group or a committee.

Meanwhile, a sports reporter tells Mighty 1090 that the NFL may only want to move one team to L.A., not two. If true, this would put the Chargers into a pickle because there’s still talk that the Rams and Raiders want in on Los Angeles action too.

• The NCAA is investigating San Diego State’s men’s basketball program, CBS Sports reports. But SDSU doesn’t seem to know anything about it.

Poway Schools: Look Who’s Back

“A slew of consultants who brokered Poway Unified’s notorious $1 billion capital appreciation bond deal in 2011 are up for more bond work Wednesday night — though it’s unclear how much they stand to make,” VOSD’s Ashly McGlone reports.

It’s also not clear how much property owners will have to pay in the district, which encompasses part of the city of San Diego in addition to Poway: “How much in special tax bonds the district plans to sell and how much each firm will get paid isn’t disclosed on board documents. The district did not respond to a request for the amounts.”

Environment Roundup: Sonar Stifled

• “The Navy agreed to limit its use of sonar and other training that inadvertently harms whales, dolphins and other marine mammals off Hawaii and California in a settlement with environmental groups approved Monday.” Among the restrictions: “Sonar… is not allowed in blue whale feeding areas near San Diego, according to the environmental groups.” (AP)

• County residents are doing fine on the water-conserving front. (City News Service)

But other drought news isn’t so good. A new report says the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada hasn’t been this low in 500 years. This is based on evidence from tree rings. (KPBS)

• The NY Times has an explainer about the devastating Northern California fires.

Baywatch? Well, Close Enough

• The cops want to keep an eye on Ocean Beach via a dozen surveillance cameras, NBC 7 reports, although the 24-hour live feed won’t be monitored 24 hours. While video surveillance of the public is common in many cities, this is apparently the first feed of its kind in the city.

It’s unclear from NBC 7’s initial reporting whether this is an extension of Operation Secure San Diego, a surveillance network of private cameras around the city that the department tried — and failed — to put together, as VOSD’s Andrew Keatts reported last year.

While that program was never robust enough to spark a real conversation about the civil liberties concerns demanded of expansive, all-inclusive surveillance networks, our reporting last year turned up an issue that could prove significant now that this Ocean Beach-specific network has materialized: The department never outlined how it would safeguard residents’ privacy while it pursued these technologies. At least, it hadn’t done so as of a year ago.

Opinion: Stop the Trash Truck Glut

In a VOSD commentary, port commissioner Bob Nelson calls on the city to dump the system that sends a crazy quilt of trash trucks over streets in the older parts of the city. “A partially filled trash truck puts as much strain on city pavement as thousands of passenger vehicles,” he writes, but the city retains a system that allows multiple trash haulers to serve multiple types of customers.

“If noise and road congestion were the only issue, it might not burn so much. But the destruction of public property — taxpayer property — to keep the trash cartel quiet is more than I can tolerate.”

Culture Report: The Skies Opened

The Culture Report spotlights “Rainmaker,” an art exhibit at the downtown library that opens up this weekend. With the help of works by modern artists, it spotlights the City Council’s 1915 decision to hire a cloud-seeding rainmaker (said to ‘tickle the clouds to tears”) and the mass chaos that followed when the skies opened.

Also: A debate over a grand (and free) new modern art museum in L.A., a mural inside a mini-Target, and in-person voting for the annual Orchies & Onions architectural awards.

Quick News Hits: Missing a Scapular?

• Fresh off a new owner (Tribune Co.), a new sister paper (L.A. Times), the U-T now has a new publisher. Now, there’s buzz that the LAT and perhaps other papers in the Tribune chain will face newsroom cuts. (Poynter)

• A very unfortunate incident — an iPad left on a plane — sent me to Lindbergh Field’s Lost and Found department, which has a helpful online database listing thousands of found items.  (Not so helpful: American Airlines, which sent me to the airport, which sent me to American Airlines.)

San Diegans and visitors, pick up the white courtesy phone if you’re missing a scapular (“a Christian garment suspended from the shoulders”), marriage license (paging S. Codrington and L. Gregory), or “gum” (type unlisted).

And hey, Lindbergh Field? About that “charm” you found on Sept. 9. Is it winsome and personally magnetic? Yeah, that’s my charm. I’ll pick it up.

Randy Dotinga is a freelance contributor to Voice of San Diego and national president of the 1,200-member American Society of Journalists and Authors (asja.org). Please contact him directly at randydotinga@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/rdotinga.

“If you don’t care about education, we will make you …”

That’s the warning — er, promise? — from VOSD’s Scott Lewis this week. He explores some entertaining and important facets of education with special co-host Laura Kohn, CEO of the Education Synergy Alliance, and guest Francisco Escobedo, superintendent of Chula Vista Elementary School District.

Escobedo sheds some light on why he thinks his district outshone others in recent state standardized testing. He also discusses his district’s English-language learners — he said they make up 37 percent of the student body — and how some of his schools have successfully closed the so-called achievement gap.

Not everything’s a cakewalk at the Chula Vista Elementary School District, though. Escobedo shared some of his concerns, including keeping his eye on the growing digital divide and working on creative ways to close it.

Also in the podcast, we recap some of the high points of our talk with Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, dip our toes into the new computer-adaptive state test that requires students to rely on more critical-thinking skills and end with the ongoing fallout involving San Diego Unified board president Marne Foster.

Peppered with questions on the drought, infrastructure woes, economic growth and housing affordability, the mayors of Chula Vista, Encinitas, Poway and San Diego instead made the case for their cities’ greatness.

The San Diego County Taxpayers Association’s mayoral forum Thursday never developed into a serious policy discussion on regional issues.

Poway Mayor Steve Vaus made his case clear: Poway is above the issues faced in other cities in the region. It doesn’t have infrastructure issues and did such a good job at conservation that the mayor wants to start looking at ways to allocate water – giving everyone a certain amount to use however they see fit – instead of mandating reduction targets.

Chula Vista’s Mayor Mary Salas said Chula Vista is ready for aggressive growth, with its decades-long plan for a university and its soon-to-be-developed bayfront. Chula Vista is trying to be a part of the “new economy,” Salas said, and is “ready, willing and able to accept these companies” that find it too difficult to go to San Diego or Carlsbad.

The city of Encinitas, meanwhile, just needs to keep on keeping on, said Mayor Kristin Gaspar, who is also running to replace Dave Roberts on the county’s board of supervisors. “We are a built-out city,” Gaspar said. (She didn’t mention the city remains out of compliance with a state law to explain how it will allow for sufficient low-income housing).

Gaspar said she loves fixing streets, because they “tell a tale about what that city is like.” She was less enthusiastic about new infrastructure investments in public transportation. “How will we pay for those?” she asked.

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said the city aims to establish itself on the global stage, emphasizing an expected increase in the local military presence, and the border economy.

But there were four questions at the forum that the mayors didn’t really bother answering.

How can cities provide affordable housing for active-duty military and veterans?

The mayors all failed to point to policies or programs – subsidies, inclusionary housing rules or state and federal grants – in place to accommodate low- and middle-income housing for active military and veterans. They instead touted the role of local nonprofit groups, or just talked about the warm feelings we have for the military.

“When we say thank you for your service, we really mean it,” Vaus said. Salas pointed out the state-operated and funded CalVet veteran’s home in Chula Vista – though it’s run and funded by the state – and Vaus referenced a partnership with Habitat for Humanity that is building 30 homes for veterans. Other than that, there was no mention of concrete housing options or city policies to provide housing.

How do you deal with short-term rentals?

Basically, short-term rentals aren’t a problem anywhere but the city of San Diego. Chula Vista has about five rentals posted on AirBnB, Salas said, though she expects they’ll become a problem once the bayfront is finished. Poway has one or two, Vaus said. Gaspar, though, touted Encinitas’s proactive approach: It passed an ordinance back in 2006 to deal with short-term rentals that the city and county of San Francisco are using as a model and they haven’t had problems since. The Encinitas ordinance uses fines and strict permitting to keep parking, noise and occupancy issues under control. Faulconer steered clear of details, saying the city is working on it and it’s about balance neighborhood concerns and economic benefits.

How is the city shaping its youth into a productive workforce?

The mayors pointed to community colleges, school districts and business associations, which are doing most of the legwork.

Faulconer opened his answer with, “What can a mayor do? A lot,” but offered few details into what he was actually doing on the topic.

How are you preparing for El Niño?

The mayors were ready and willing to tout their cities’ successful water conservation efforts and the region’s diversifying water portfolio. But when it came to talking about how their cities would prepare for the massive El Niño downpour, the mayors had little to say other than, they hoped it rained, but not too much at once. So if there’s flooding, good luck to us all.

Chula Vista leaders and residents resolved decades ago to bring a university to town. It’s clear they aren’t giving up, though they’ve had plenty of reasons to over the years.

They’ve been passed over in attempts to get their own state school. They had a bill to study their request vetoed. They’ve struggled to attract a private school.

But last year, the city finalized agreements with developers, giving it enough land for a campus and enough money to keep up the fight. City staff is clearing environmental hurdles to building, it’s got studies demonstrating the need and it’s hired consultants to make the case.

And despite years of setbacks, they’ve got hope, after Assemblywoman Shirley Weber secured funding for studies in the next two years that could make way for a new school in the UC or CSU systems.

Nothing’s assured for the South Bay’s steadfast pursuit of a university. But through the fight, it’s charted a nontraditional path to founding a four-year school.

From the History Department

Other cities in San Diego County with four-year universities first had an existing institution, then found and built out the campus. In Chula Vista, city officials are providing the campus and hoping a university will find them.

South Bay residents longed for a four-year school of their own at least as far back as 1986.

In 1993, Chula Vista identified land near Otay Ranch for a university, though the city didn’t actually own the land. But that changed in 2014.

Several residential developers owned the property and additional land around the 375 acres that the city hoped to set aside for a college campus. Through several agreements, the city acquired the land and about $2 million in cash to make the university happen, in exchange for speeding up the permitting process for developers to build homes surrounding the campus area.

In 2010, the city commissioned a report to show the area needed a four-year school. The California Postsecondary Education Committee’s report showed demand for undergraduate enrollment in California was expected to increase 16 percent from 2008 to 2019, or by a total of 387,000 would-be students, and the UC and CSU systems’ demand were both expected to increase at the same rate.

More importantly to South Bay residents, the report said the area’s college-bound population would increase by 29,000 people, to 115,180 students.

In 2008, about two-thirds of the students who graduated from high school within the South Bay area attended some type of postsecondary institution, but most enrolled in community colleges. More than 90 percent of South Bay first-time college-goers stayed within San Diego County.

All of this, the city says, supports the conclusion that the South Bay needs a university of its own. And the city now has the land it would need for a university.

Finding a Tenant

The city now faces the daunting task of finding a university to occupy the land it’s worked so hard to set aside.

“That’s probably the biggest question,” said Scott Donaghe, the university project manager at the Chula Vista planning department. “We thought if we had the land, universities would come knocking at our door. But they actually want land and they want money.”

In other words, it’s not cheap to build a university, and most universities struggle to find the cash to start or expand – on top of finding the land.

Chula Vista has $1.4 million left from its land deals, after spending some of it on consultants that marketed the city to universities and analyzed who might fund a university there.

One consulting group is expected to finish a report by the end of the year that would spell out financial models for a university, proposing how to create a nonprofit-controlled land trust to govern the property and suggestions for potential universities. The city’s planning department is also working on a land use plan and an environmental report for the area that they hope to finish within a year.

At this point, Donaghe said he thinks it’s likely that the campus will end up being shared space between two or three universities that want satellite campuses. The city is looking to Mexican universities, counting on the fact its proximity will make it a prime location for a binational university.

A report by a city advisory committee laid out several options.

One is a model similar to the Claremont Colleges in California, which is made up of seven private institutions. Each owns its own land and buildings on the larger property, though the colleges share things like a library, student center and parking.

Another option is something like the Centennial Campus of North Carolina State University, a campus that houses a large research university and several corporate and government partners. The campus is divided into “academic neighborhoods,” that have teaching and research sections for various subjects, like biosciences and biotechnology, information and communication technologies and education.

Chula Vista City Councilwoman Patricia Aguilar would prefer a public university to ensure it’s affordable to area students, and to avoid recent scandals with for-profit universities.

But she recognizes the challenge of trying to start a public university there.

“The state has very little money,” Aguilar said.

Chula Vista has tried to get state funds before and it hasn’t worked out.

In 1995, the city was passed up for a new University of California campus – the university system’s governing board instead chose a location in the San Joaquin Valley, which became UC Merced.

In 2009, then-Assemblyman Marty Block, now a state senator, put forward a bill to study putting another CSU campus in Chula Vista. The governor vetoed it.

“When we look at the growth of California over the next 50 years, it’s clear we are going to need additional facilities for higher education,” Aguilar said. “But finding the money for a public university is definitely going to be a hurdle. That doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. San Marcos is a perfect example.”

A Different Path

Cal State San Marcos took a different path.

It was already a university before it found its current San Marcos campus.

North County residents pushed for a university and in 1979 the state budgeted for a “San Diego State North.” The university spent its first three years teaching classes out of a high school in Vista.

In 1988, the university purchased the land where Cal State San Marcos currently resides for $10.6 million. The university then put in a request to the Legislature for $51.8 million to plan and build the campus.

Nor did UC San Diego follow Chula Vista’s path.

The Scripps Institute of Oceanography was affiliated with the UC system and already in La Jolla before there was a full UC campus. It acted as an anchor for the new university.

Oceanographer Roger Revelle had a vision for expanding the area into a full campus and led the push. The campus was intended to be science- and tech-focused, to supplement Scripps, but officials quickly realized they wanted to offer other disciplines to provide well-rounded educations.

“It’s a completely a different set of circumstances between what happened here and what Chula Vista is trying to do,” said Lynda Claasen, director of Special Collections and Archives at UC San Diego Library. “It seems a little backwards to me. Normally one has a vision. It’s a huge undertaking to start a university.”

Even most private universities start with money and university leadership. Then they find land.

The University of San Diego’s founders, Bishop Charles Francis Buddy and Mother Rosalie Clifton Hill, had decided to start a university in 1949 and raised the funds before buying property.

Hope for Public Funding

Chula Vista may have another chance at public funding.

Weber, the state assemblywoman, this year got studies for a new university passed as part of the state’s budget.

In January 2017, that study will determine whether the state should invest in a new California State University. In January 2018, it will put out a similar study for the University of California system.

While the studies provide hope, they may find the state can’t afford another university. Or they may find that the state needs another public university, but that it shouldn’t be in Chula Vista. There have been pushes for a state university campus in Stockton and many existing campuses, like UC Merced, would like to expand.

“There’s a huge need for bachelor’s degrees in order to fill the labor market,” said Joe Kocurek, spokesman for Weber. “Clearly there is going to be some need for new public institutions. We’re confident they will see the need in Chula Vista. But ultimately it’s going to need some funding.”

Donaghe said having a public university would be the best thing for the city. But Chula Vista isn’t going to wait to see if it lucks out this time.

“It’s kind of a catch-22,” Donaghe said. “Sometimes the public universities come in and do whatever they want, and we’d like to have some of the planning we’ve done incorporated. But on the other hand, if we end up with a private university, we would’ve done ourselves a disservice by not making the process easier for them.”

Regardless of what happens, Chula Vista isn’t going to quit on its university dreams. At least not yet.

The land agreements explicitly say the city can hold onto the land as long as it’s used for a university. The residential developers who gave the land to the city had one major concern – that the city doesn’t use it to build housing that competes with them. The city could end up using the land for something other than a university, but it wouldn’t be easy.

“We’re not setting ourselves up for failure,” said Donaghe. “There are different thoughts. Some people would consider using the land for park land. To me, this is our goal – whether it takes 30 or 50 years.”

Aguilar said right now no one on the City Council intends to turn the land into anything but a university. But, she says, if 20 more years pass and they still can’t get a university there, who knows.

CityBeat’s Ryan Bradford joins the podcast this week to get us in the Halloween spirit by talking about his book “Horror Business,” a sweaty pagan pride festival and the reason people are attracted to fear.

Also on this week’s podcast, Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts dissect the latest stadium video that made the rounds earlier in the week and discuss why fans are so quick to blame Chargers spokesman Mark Fabiani rather than the Chargers.

Voice of San Diego’s Maya Srikrishnan phones in to talk about Chula Vista’s ongoing mission to get its own four-year university. We also touch on an elementary school principal who recently set the record straight and the conflicting interests in San Diego Unified’s school facility improvements.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes on Stitcher or stream it here.

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