Morning Report: A Convo with San Diego Unified’s Interim Supe (2025)

It’s been a wild couple of months for San Diego Unified. The board voted in late August to fire Superintendent Lamont Jackson, then promoted district No. 2 Fabiola Bagula.

She’s the district’s interim superintendent, but board members seem to have no intention of replacing her.

So, how does Bagula plan to lead the second-largest school district in California?

Education reporter Jakob McWhinney interviewed her to try to find out. Bagula said she plans to work aggressively to drive down the district’s ballooning budget deficit, claims she will fight for greater transparency as stakeholders fret about a perceived toxic culture and will use her experience in and out of the district to push for accountability.

Read the whole story here.

Get to Know San Diego Unified Area A Board Candidates

Morning Report: A Convo with San Diego Unified’s Interim Supe (1)

The blooming scandal surrounding former Superintendent Jackson has added extra relevance to what had been a fairly lowkey election year for San Diego Unified’s board. In addition to their normal duties, board members will now have to decide how to fill the district’s top position: stick with Interim Superintendent Bagula, or open the job up to outside contenders?

Only one board member has a challenger this election cycle, Area A Trustee Sabrina Bazzo. Bazzo, who was first elected four years ago, is a former school volunteer who feels she’s developed a track record of supporting students and communities. Whether Bagula is the right person for the job still isn’t clear to her.

Crystal Trull is Bazzo’s challenger. A fellow district volunteer, Trull feels there are deep problems with how district leaders have conducted themselves and that new blood may be badly needed.

Head here to read the full Q&A’s with Trull and Bazzo.

Allegations Fly in Chula Vista Council Race

The November elections are close, so naturally races are heating up.

South County reporter Jim Hinch writes that the candidates vying to represent Chula Vista’s fourth council district are making all sorts of allegations against their opponent. From an old DUI arrest to their record of paying taxes, the campaigns are not holding back.

That race is between Cesar Fernandez, a Chula Vista Elementary School District school board member, and Rudy Ramirez, a retired small business owner and former Chula Vista city councilmember.

Hinch unpacks everything you need to know about the heated race.

Read the South County Report here.

Vargas Stalls Tijuana River Superfund Decision, Lawson-Remer Pursuing Anyway

Morning Report: A Convo with San Diego Unified’s Interim Supe (2)

County Supervisor Chair Nora Vargas, whose district encompasses the Tijuana River Valley, got her Republican colleagues to agree to stall a Superfund designation proposal introduced by her Democratic colleague Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer on Tuesday.

As our MacKenzie Elmer reported earlier this week, Superfund status, which certifies an area has been contaminated with hazardous waste, can take years to get. The status can compel the state government to put in dollars for clean-up and allow governments to pursue the contaminators to cover costs. If the contaminators can’t be identified or no longer exist, the federal government would foot the cleanup bill.

Lawson-Remer said she’s going to pursue it anyway.

“We are submitting an immediate petition to the EPA requesting a Superfund designation,” Lawson-Remer, who is up for re-election in November, said in a press release.

Vargas, who is also up for re-election this year, said the county needs more time to understand all the legal and property value ramifications pursuing Superfund status would entail. Under her motion, which passed, after 90 days, the county’s chief administration officer would come back to the board with that analysis. At least one public speaker said he was concerned about the government trying to use eminent domain to kick out people living and working in the valley during cleanup if it became a Superfund site.

Lawson-Remer and Democratic Supervisor Monica Montgomery-Steppe voted against the delay. Lawson-Remer said the county doesn’t know the full scope decades of pollution from Tijuana may have on the soil and groundwater, so pursuing Superfund could compel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do intensive testing.

But getting a Superfund designation on land polluted by another country could prove to be extra tricky, EPA officials have said. Typically, it takes years for locations to even get the designation, let alone for cleanup to begin.

More Post-Hospital Care for Homeless San Diegans

County supervisors voted Tuesday to advance plans to open at least 49 recuperative care beds to give homeless patients with behavioral health conditions more safe places to recover.

How they’re paying for it: The county plans to use $12.4 million in state funds to back the new services and start-up costs. It also got $6 million from the feds to invest in recuperative care and fund building upgrades at a former Volunteers of America facility in National City. The county expects to reopen the facility in early 2026 and provide up to 89 beds for patients in need of detox, residential addiction treatment or recuperative care.

The county has pressed forward with plans for this facility as it prepares to implement a state conservatorship expansion law that’s expected to put more pressure on a behavioral health treatment system already ill-equipped to meet demand.

Where the beds will go: County spokesperson Tim McClain said about a third of the county’s new respite beds will likely be at the National City facility and that others will be in locations elsewhere in the county based on the outcome of an upcoming bidding process.

Addressing existing hurdles: Another $2 million in federal funds will support efforts to ease access to existing programs. The allocation follows feedback from stakeholders and a Voice of San Diego investigation that found bureaucratic red tape and confusion surrounding Medi-Cal insurance reforms often left homeless patients unable to access recuperative care.

Song of the Week

Year of the Dead Bird, “Paulie Walnut Shrimp”: Year of the Dead Bird’s new release “DJXQQ” puts the noise in noise rock. On one of the release’s two tracks, “Paulie Walnut Shrimp,” the band dials up the cacophony, mixing zippy synths, plodding drums and blown-out yelling vocals. The end result is almost nonsensical – but in a good way. Noise for noise’s sake.

Like what you hear? Check out Year of the Dead Bird at The Brown Building on Thursday, Oct. 10.

Do you have a “Song of the Week” suggestion? Shoot us an email and a sentence or two about why you’ve been bumping this song lately. Friendly reminder: all songs should be by local artists.

In Other News

  • Oops! Our link to our main story in yesterday’s Morning Report was broken. If you want to read more about why the future of housing is at stake in a county supervisor race, click here.
  • After firing the company overseeing the toll-collection system for Route 125 for operational failures, SANDAG hurriedly entered into a contract that replicated some of the same problems as the prior contract. (Union-Tribune)
  • Three homeless people have been violently attacked, two of whom have died, in Oceanside over the past month. (NBC 7)
  • The San Diego Wave Football Club has been sued by five former employees who claim they were sexually harassed by staff. (CBS 8)

The Morning Report was written by Jakob McWhinney, Andrea Lopez-Villafaña, MacKenzie Elmer and Lisa Halverstadt. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.

Morning Report: A Convo with San Diego Unified’s Interim Supe (2025)
Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Francesca Jacobs Ret

Last Updated:

Views: 6080

Rating: 4.8 / 5 (68 voted)

Reviews: 83% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Francesca Jacobs Ret

Birthday: 1996-12-09

Address: Apt. 141 1406 Mitch Summit, New Teganshire, UT 82655-0699

Phone: +2296092334654

Job: Technology Architect

Hobby: Snowboarding, Scouting, Foreign language learning, Dowsing, Baton twirling, Sculpting, Cabaret

Introduction: My name is Francesca Jacobs Ret, I am a innocent, super, beautiful, charming, lucky, gentle, clever person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.