Balboa Park visitors can forget about free parking. 

The San Diego City Council on Monday OK’d parking fees for Balboa Park. They agreed to delay charging for parking until city staff develop frequent visitor passes, but that move could cost the city millions. 

Councilmembers dropped some parking rates for residents and increased rates for tourists and non-residents. The Union-Tribune has more on the rates. City staff also plan to release a resident portal in January.  

Councilmembers Vivian Moreno and Stephen Whitburn voted no and Raul Campillo was absent. 

As our City Hall reporter Mariana Martínez Barba explained last month, a lot was hanging on yesterday’s vote. If the City Council didn’t OK parking rates at the park, it could be forced to do significant mid-year budget cuts. 

We could still see some cuts. The Independent Budget Analyst’s Office said the Council’s adjustments could have “several million dollars impact.” 

That’s because the City Council in June passed a budget that relies on a bunch of parking reforms, including charging for parking at Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo. The city reached a deal with the zoo last week. 

Related: Business leaders in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter are fighting the city’s $10 an hour special event parking rates with the internet’s best tool: memes. CBS 8 reported that the higher rates are hurting workers and scaring off customers. 

Environment Report: Tijuana River Sewage Updates Are Now Noticeably Less Frequent

Before the Trump Administration replaced the commissioner in charge of the Tijuana cross-border and sewage management agency, the public used to get more frequent, and more detailed, updates about the sewage crisis.

Those updates included alerts every time a sewage pump or pipe broke on either side of the border, information on when any repairs would be completed, updates on positive progress and more.

But many of those updates are now harder to find, writes our MacKenzie Elmer.

A spokesperson for Chad McIntosh, the new commissioner of the International Boundary and Water Commission, or IBWC, told Elmer that the public can now find updates on X, formerly Twitter.

But those X updates aren’t quite as thorough as previous alerts used to be, Elmer writes.

Speaking of elusive: Commissioner McIntosh has refused Elmer’s multiple attempts to set up an interview to learn about his vision for the agency.

Read the Environment Report here.

Strengthening Audits on the Heels of SD Charter Scandal

San Diego became the epicenter of one of the most brazen charter school frauds in California history in 2019. A3 Education and its two founders managed to enroll thousands of students, who never attended a single day of school — and rake in millions of dollars in the process. 

The only problem? Understanding the scam was near impossible, until we wrote a series of stories explaining it. The grift centered on enrolling athletes, who never actually took any classes. It happened right under regulators’ noses and, as we were the first to report, it exposed massive flaws in the auditing process.

As one auditor said during a Grand Jury hearing: “I’ve had experiences where, you know, clients have stolen money from the organization through an elaborate scheme that we could not uncover because the client didn’t give all the documents necessary.”

What’s happening now: Legislators have now passed a bill, partly because of what happened with A3, that would expand auditors’ ability to understand the financial dealings at charter schools, as EdSource reported. If the bill becomes law, auditors will have to be trained in auditing charter schools and they will have greater power to access charter schools’ records. 

In Other News

  •  As San Diego transitions away from free trash pickups, city leaders are easing requirements for private trash haulers in an effort to help tens of thousands of properties, that don’t qualify for city service, to secure trash service. The new rule lets private trash haulers avoid penalties for low recycling rates; the goal is to make haulers more willing to take on new customers. (Union-Tribune)
  • A federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit against San Diego County, the sheriff and jail medical providers involved in a 2022 jail death. The county will now face another wrongful-death trial or reach a settlement using taxpayer dollars. (Union-Tribune)
  • The new Terminal 1 at the San Diego International Airport will open on Sept. 23. (Union-Tribune)
  • Correction: We updated yesterday’s story, “San Diego Unified Is Getting Rid of Some K-8 Middle Schools” to correct that Grant K-8 is located in Mission Hills. Read the updated story here.

The Morning Report was written by Mariana Martínez Barba, Will Huntsberry and Tigist Layne. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.