hightechhigh.org

“HTe’s Chronic Absenteeism rate is: High.”

Agenda unsetting

Have San Diego Republicans abandoned any serious attempt to unseat incumbent Democratic mayor Todd Gloria? Such a surrender could be indicated by the October 3 filing of a campaign committee calling itself the San Diego Safe Shelters and Clean Streets Act Sponsored by the California Business Roundtable Issues PAC. The political fund is closely tied to GOP ex-mayor Kevin Faulconer, who once yearned to challenge Gloria but has since announced a race against incumbent Democratic County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer. In its campaign funding disclosure report, covering the period between July 1 and September 30, Safe Shelters and Clean Streets said it had gathered no contributions. Cash in the bank fell from $32,114 to $25,114, due to a single payment of $7000 to Agenda Setting, LLC, an outfit run by Faulconer’s onetime mayoral chief of staff Aimee Faucett.

An August 22, 2022, Union-Tribune expose of Faulconer’s role in the 101 Ash Street city lease scandal quoted onetime Faulconer chief operating officer Kris Michell about a message from Faucett, who “told her to ‘stop digging’ when she informed Faucett that as much as $15 million in costs related to the Ash Street could not be accounted for. Michell said she wasn’t sure what Faucett meant by the ‘stop digging’ suggestion.” Faucett countered in an email to the paper, insisting, “There is nothing we wanted more in the Faulconer administration than to identify where that $15 million went — and she knows that. She is only now coming forward because she was forced to testify by subpoena.”

Faulconer’s new target: Terra Lawson-Remer

The bulk of the Safe Shelters and Clean Streets financial support arrived in May and June of this year in the form of $75,000 from the Sacramento-based Business Roundtable. During the same period, Business Roundtable got $20,000 from Blackstone Real Estate Partners of New York City, which in 2021 spent more than a billion dollars buying 5800 residential rental units from the Conrad Prebys Foundation.

Longtime Faulconer backer Kilroy Realty, a Los Angeles office and retail developer, gave the Business Roundtable $750,000. “For more than thirty-five years, the Roundtable has identified the issues critical to a healthy business climate and provided the leadership needed to strengthen California’s economy and create jobs,” says the group’s website. In addition to the roundtable’s funding, Faulconer’s now-defunct state ballot measure committee, called Rebuilding the California Dream, came up with $5948 for Safe Shelters and Clean Streets.

The Business Roundtable is currently the major financial contributor to a November 2024 initiative on the state ballot to make it harder to raise taxes and fees on corporations, reports CalMatters. The second biggest giver to that cause is Colorado-based American Medical Response, an ambulance provider. “The contributions from AMR stand out especially in a campaign that has otherwise primarily garnered backing from real estate interests,” says the August 24 CalMatters dispatch. “Spokesperson Jason Sorrick said the company wants to stop fire departments from charging paramedics for the fire engines that respond to medical calls alongside them — fees that Sorrick said can add more than $1000 to a patient’s ambulance bill and amount to taxing them again for a taxpayer-funded service.”

High Tech lows

It’s time for self-assessment by charter schools in the county, which are by law required to tell education officials what is wrong with their operation. Writes Point Loma’s High Tech Elementary School, also known as HTe: “Student attendance levels at HTe during the 2022-23 school year are higher than during the 2021-22 school year, but still lower than pre-pandemic levels. HTe’s Chronic Absenteeism rate is: High. This high rate of absenteeism is connected to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused many students to miss school due to illness, quarantine, or family situation. HTe implemented a ‘Spring Into School’ campaign during March 2023 to focus on increasing student attendance. HTe intends to resume implementation of chronic absenteeism interventions at the start of the 2023-24 school year.” 

Also, “HTe’s current dashboard math indicator is: Low. HTe does believe math achievement must improve.” Last year, High Tech Elementary fourth-grade teacher Amy Glancy was put on paid administrative leave for reading a poem with the n-word, the Union-Tribune reported on February 9, 2022. “The lesson was intended to demonstrate that the poet’s words can evoke emotion — in this case, anger and sadness. Unfortunately, it triggered some very big emotions for the students that I did not anticipate,” Glancy emailed parents, per the U-T’s account.

Can we develop? Yes we McCann!

Developer grito

Baldwin & Sons has joined the long list of special interests making so-called behested donations in the name of Chula Vista mayor John McCann. The ubiquitous housing developer got the Chula Vista city council to approve the November 2022 annexation of a subdivision site known as Otay Ranch Village 13 on a 5-0 vote, but the county board of supervisors went on record against the move in March of this year, saying it would diminish fire protection and other safety services in the area. 

“Otay Ranch Village 13 has always been intended to be part of the city of Chula Vista and the impacts that the Village 13 will have will be substantial to our residents,” McCann, who voted to approve the 1869-acre annexation, told City News Service. On August 22 of this year, Baldwin & Sons gave $1000 at the behest of McCann to the 2023 Beautiful Chula Vista Clean-Up Event, according to a September 25 disclosure filing. The same day, per a separate filing, the developer gave a McCann-behested $1000 to the 2023 El Grito Celebration of Mexican Independence Day.

— Matt Potter

(@sdmattpotter)

The Reader offers $25 for news tips published in this column. Call our voice mail at 619-235-3000, ext. 440, or sandiegoreader.com/staff/matt-potter/contact/.