Parking ticket hotspots: Gaslamp, Mission Beach
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Monday November SIXTH,
We’ll tell you where it’s most common to get a parking ticket in San Diego. More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….
The district attorney’s office said it received a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety to support prosecutions and investigations of fatal traffic crashes.
The D-A said the 8-hundred thousand dollar grant will go towards the D-U-I Homicide Unit and training for prosecutors and investigators.
Last year, the county said there’s been a 14-percent increase in DUI injuries over the last five years. According to the D-A, 33 people were killed in DUI-related crashes in 20-22.
25 people have been killed so far in 20-23.
There’s still time to apply for help with your water bill.
County residents now have until March 20-24 to use the Low-Income Water Assistance Program. The federal program was established in 20-21 to help low-income residents with overdue water and wastewater bills.
The program will pay up to 2 thousand dollars for qualified applicants.
Renters whose utility payments are part of the rent can also apply.
Visit taphelp DOT org to fill out an application.
The San Diego City Council is expected to vote on the Library’s Master Plan tomorrow (Tuesday).
The Master Plan is meant to provide a vision and strategy for the libraries’ facilities, technology and program investments.
The plan includes recommendations for renovation and expansion of some branches.
The library held public listening sessions on the plan starting in 20-22.
Last month, the city council committee on community services recommended that the full Council approve the plan.
From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now. Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
THE TECHNOLOGY COMPANY VIASAT IS MAKING GLOBAL JOB CUTS. THAT'S IMPACTING A LARGE NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES HERE IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY.
NORTH COUNTY REPORTER JACOB AERE LOOKS INTO WHAT THE LATEST TECH SECTOR LAYOFFS MEAN FOR THE REGION.
Viasat is cutting its global workforce by 10 percent … … including about 160 positions at the company’s Carlsbad headquarters. Tech San Diego Executive Director Kevin Carroll says it's not all bad news, as there's a lot of small to mid-size tech companies in the region that are hiring. “It was 160 jobs which sounds like a lot. And again for those people who were laid off my empathy goes out to them, those jobs will be absorbed into the community pretty readily.” The global layoff expenses will cost Viasat roughly $45 million, but are expected to save the company about $100 million annually, starting in fiscal year 2025. Jacob Aere, KPBS News.
Even after Rachel Hayes got the keys to her new apartment, it wasn’t easy to stay there. “I wasn't used to being, for one, alone. The quiet. I was up every 2 hours checking my locks.” Hayes says a lot of people don’t realize how hard it is for someone to go from living in a tent to having stable housing again. But that’s the goal of the place where she lives now – a new permanent supportive housing complex in San Ysidro. It’s called Milejo Village. It officially opened this month and includes 64 homes with one to three bedrooms each. The homes are saved for families who make less than 25% of the median income. The complex also offers supportive services for seniors, families, and residents dealing with mental illnesses. Ryan Clumpner is Vice Chair of the San Diego Housing Commission. “The root cause of homelessness is a lack of housing. But for many people, maintaining that housing means that we do need to assist with those supportive services..” Hayes says her place is finally starting to feel like a home. And it means she has more time and energy to advocate for the unhoused community. “Housing first works. Like I said, it's not a homeless crisis, it's a housing crisis. And without the housing, there will be more and more people becoming homeless.” Kori Suzuki, KPBS News.
Have you ever gotten a parking ticket? Data analyzed by KPBS says it’s likely you have.
Reporter Katerina Portela tells us where the parking ticket hotspots are.
In the three weeks I’ve lived here, I’ve gotten about 6 or 7. If you run up and grab something really quick and come back down, you got a ticket. Right away. I’ve been ticketed like 6 times in the past month. Parking tickets are a fixture of life in San Diego, and most San Diegans have parking ticket stories of their own. In the past 10 years, the city of San Diego has handed out more than 5 million parking citations totaling $300 million. Wondering what the most common day to get a parking ticket is? It’s Thursday. Thursdays received 19% of all citations in the last decade. On the other hand, the least common day is Sunday, which only received 2% of all citations. The most common citation was violating street sweeping signs, with 1.1 million citations and $60 million in fines. There’s just an extreme amount. Mission Beach resident Kane Halloway says the fear of tickets structures his day. He’s a tattoo artist, and has to work on one tattoo for hours at a time. And he doesn’t have employee parking. “It’s very inconvenient to have to leave where I am to go move my car so that I don’t get a ticket.” Beachside areas across the city, like the neighboring Pacific Beach, also are high on the list for citations. Both Mission and Pacific Beach’s parking is mostly metered or only available for limited times. But metered parking actually helps businesses. So says Sunny Lee, executive director of Discover Pacific Beach. “The businesses really want to see people turning over in the parking spaces that are right in front of their businesses, which is why the parking meters are going in, because then it allows for more visitors to those businesses.” The most common citation—almost a quarter— was for violating street sweeping signs. And a big chunk come from Mission Beach. During the past 10 years, the city collected $65,000 in street sweeping tickets just on Mission Boulevard. And that could increase even more in the coming years. Last May, the city announced it would increase the frequency of its street sweeping in Mission Beach from three days to four. Mission Beach resident Bear Stoy got a ticket but says he rarely sees street sweepers. “I’m just bummed, I got to pay off student loans and other bills to pay and these tickets don’t really help out with that. I don’t see too much street sweeping going on. I see the parking ticket guys out a lot but that’s about it.” “Just because they don't see the street sweeper doesn't mean that it's not going to come through.” Jose Ysea is a spokesperson for the city. “We need to be able to make sure that we have a predetermined time where all those cars are going to be cleared so that we can go in and sweep those streets.” Ysea says money from parking citations goes into the city’s general fund, which pays for public libraries, parks, and even parking enforcement. Gaslamp Quarter boasts some of San Diego’s most iconic nightlife, restaurants, and events. It also boasts the streets with the greatest number of parking tickets. Over the past decade, 5th Avenue has been the top place to receive a ticket at a meter. The city collected nearly $1 million from expired meter citations on 5th Avenue alone. But this might be changing. Since COVID, the city has blocked off portions of 5th Avenue to cars, creating the Gaslamp Promenade. That could mean fewer parking tickets as well. Michael Trimble is executive director of the Gaslamp Quarter Association. “Before, it was a lot of people driving up and down 5th Ave looking for that magic spot that they could never find. With all the parking we had up and down 5th Ave, we only took away 30 spaces. To replace it, we’ve tried to add spaces on 4th Ave, 5th Ave, and on the cross streets.” So the rest of downtown could have the same number, if not more, parking violations. That means San Diegans will likely continue to have their days ruined by a little slip of paper on their windshields. For KPBS, I’m Katerina Portela.
For an interactive map of all the parking tickets given out in the past decade, head to kpbs dot org.
Coming up.... How the E-P-A is helping San Diego with its air quality issues. We’ll have that story and more, just after the break.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY IS GIVING A BOOST TO SAN DIEGO’S EFFORTS TO IMPROVE CHRONIC AIR QUALITY PROBLEMS IN THE REGION.
ENVIRONMENT REPORTER ERIK ANDERSON HAS DETAILS.
San Diego air quality regulators are getting a one million dollar boost for efforts aimed at empowering local communities struggling with air pollution issues. The E.P.A’s Laura Ebbert says the money will be used to help improve air quality monitoring in city neighborhoods with the region’s dirtiest air. “There’s a lot that can be done and a lot that’s important to do in terms of making sure that folks understand and have access to information that makes sense to them about air quality issues or about environment issues.” Two other local environmental justice initiatives – in Encinitas and San Ysidro -- are also getting funding from the federal agency. Erik Anderson KPBS News
THE HUMAN BRAIN INITIATIVE HAS JUST PUBLISHED 21 PAPERS IN THE JOURNAL SCIENCE, REVEALING WHAT SOME CALL A MAP OF THE HUMAN BRAIN. AND SAN DIEGO SCIENTISTS ARE PART OF IT.
HERE’S SCI-TECH REPORTER THOMAS FUDGE.
The Brain Initiative, funded by the National Institutes of Health, has so far identified 3,000 different brain cell types. Many scientists have compared this initiative to the human genome project. The comparison is apt and they are closely linked, says Bing Ren, a molecular geneticist at UC San Diego. This is because the work of those brain cells depends a lot on how their genes are activated. “Tiny changes in the sequence of our DNA can make someone more prone to psychiatric disease. Like depression, schizophrenia or addiction, he says. San Diego researchers, working as a team, are looking at the way genes within the brain cells are switched on and off. The other part of the team is based at the Salk Institute, where studies of human and animal brains have gone on for quite a while. Salk neuroscientist Margarita Behrens says one key is to determine which brain cells are affected by genetic variants. The genetic variants that give vulnerability to a disease like Alzheimers seems to be more important in one cell type and not the others.” Salk researchers have studied the mouse brain, and they have drawn a pretty good molecular map of that, says Behrens. But a mouse brain is made up of 80 million neurons. The human brain has 80 billion neurons. SOQ.
The San Diego Blood Bank says you can get more bang for your blood this month.
For every blood donation you make at a donor center or mobile blood drive this month, the Blood Bank will provide five meals to the San Diego Food Bank to feed families in need.
To be eligible to donate blood, you must be at least 17 years old, weigh at least 110 pounds, and be in good health.
You can schedule an appointment to donate at san diego blood bank dot org.
That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
