It has been two years since San Diego’s camping ban went into effect.

We wanted to know how it’s going.

A lot of attention on parks: Our Lisa Halverstadt crunched the data and discovered that city parks, especially Balboa Park, have seen the most enforcement. Her analysis shows that two-thirds of the 260 camping ban citations and arrests happened in city park and 40 percent were in Balboa Park.

Refresher: The city of San Diego’s camping law bans camping when shelter is available and at all times, regardless of shelter availability, near sensitive areas such as schools and transit hubs. Since the city approved the ban, other cities across the city have followed suit.

Halverstadt found that while Balboa Park stakeholders say they still face challenges with the homeless population at the park, they have seen an improvement. Meanwhile, service providers continue to raise concerns about the law simply pushing people to hard-to-reach and dangerous spaces to avoid law enforcement.

You can read the full story here.

What do you want to know about the camping ban? Send me a note at andrea.lopez@voiceofsandiego.org.

Scoop: Hospital Borrowing Blues

This week, our Tigist Layne got her hands on a big scoop.

She was the first to report that Sharp HealthCare threatened to sue Palomar Health, a public health care system, for allegedly breaching an exclusivity arrangement the two systems established in 2024.

Let me back up: As we’ve reported, Palomar Health is struggling financially. (Sidenote: Palomar Health fought our reporting for a while, but now openly admit they have “declining financial circumstances.”)

Last year, Palomar Health got a $25 million from Sharp HealthCare. They also entered into an agreement to collaborate.

Here’s how they described it at the time in a press release: “Sharp will expand its network into North County, including primary care and medical specialties as appropriate for the communities. Palomar’s patients will also have access to Sharp’s specialized and higher-acuity services not currently available at Palomar Health, including transplants, advanced oncology procedures and more.” 

Borrowing beef: As the Union-Tribune reported earlier this month, UC San Diego also loaned Palomar Health $20 million. That rubbed Sharp HealthCare the wrong way.

Layne reports that Sharp officials sent a letter to Palomar’s CEO concerning the loan agreement and exclusivity arrangement Sharp and Palomar entered into last year. Now, Sharp HealthCare wants their money back, plus interest.

Palomar Health officials denied Sharp’s allegations. They sent us a copy of their response.

We’ll keep watching: What does this all mean for Palomar Health? Will the health care systems work it out? How could this impact patients? If you have questions or tips, reach out to Tigist.layne@voiceofsandiego.org.

Read the full story here.

Women Leading the Conversation

Thank you to all our members and guests who joined us last week for a conversation with some of San Diego’s most influential women leaders. So many of you are Cup of Chisme readers and I love it!

Our speakers included U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs, San Diego Symphony CEO Martha Gilmer and Ebony Shelton, chief administrative officer at the county of San Diego. We had a fascinating discussion about their challenges as leaders and goals for the institutions they lead.

Here’s our event photo gallery. Hope to see you at our next event!

More Chisme to Start Your Week

• Lisa Halverstadt revealed this week that the city of San Diego is on the hook for monthly payments of $77,000 for a shuttered homeless shelter.
• For this month’s Progress Report, Jakob McWhinney profiles the Santee School District. It is one of 100 school district across the nation performing better than before the pandemic. Read the story here.

The county Sheriff’s Office on Saturday identified two San Diego Police Department officers who used their weapons in connection with the shooting death of a man who allegedly threatened several people with a gun earlier this week in Miramar Ranch North.

According to a Sheriff’s Office news release, the officers who discharged their weapons are Brandon Jordan and Chris Lingenhol.

Jordan has served in the department for 17 years, and is assigned to Central Division Patrol and is a SWAT sniper, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Lingenhol, an SDPD officer for 10 years, is assigned to patrol at the Mid City Division and is a SWAT sniper.

Around noon Tuesday, the 59-year-old suspect pointed a handgun at construction workers and then a pest control employee in the 11600 block Angelique Street, at Cypress Canyon Road east of Interstate 15 and south of Scripps Poway Parkway, authorities said.

The worker then locked himself inside his vehicle for safety reasons, according to the SDPD.

Police sent a SWAT team to the neighborhood near Miramar Reservoir and shut down traffic lanes in the immediate area while working up plans to get the suspect into custody.

The suspect was ordered to drop the weapon, which appeared to be a semi-automatic pistol, but he failed to comply, prompting officers to establish a containment perimeter to prevent the suspect from threatening other people.

SWAT officers attempted to approach the pest control employee, but the suspect allegedly brandished the handgun in their direction, resulting him being fired upon.

“The suspect suffered trauma to his upper body, and unfortunately, he succumbed to his injuries,” according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, which investigates shootings by SDPD officers to avoid conflicts of interest.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, the suspect has been identified but authorities are withholding his name pending notification of his next of kin. Members of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit arrived at the scene to conduct an independent investigation into the shooting.

It was unclear what motivated the assault with a deadly weapon against the pest control employee or construction workers.

No officers were injured.

On Saturday, the Sheriff’s Office stated, “The motivation and circumstances of the shooting are still under investigation.”

“Detectives are currently reviewing evidence, interviewing witnesses and examining the circumstances surrounding the shooting,” sheriff’s officials said.

The county District Attorney’s Office will review the Sheriff’s Office investigation “to determine if the officers bear any criminal liability for their actions,” officials said.

The Sheriff’s Office added that SDPD will conduct an administrative investigation into the officers’ discharge of their firearms.

Anyone with information regarding the shooting was urged to call the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit at 858-868-3200. Tipsters who prefer to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.

Becoming an artist really wasn’t the plan. Jennifer Anne Bennett was 18 and jumping off the cliffs in Hawaii when she saw a woman painting the landscape and flowers around them.

“I recall my amazement that this was something one could do on an afternoon on an island, just for the pleasure of it,” she says, setting it aside in her mind for at least a year until taking classes at Grossmont College in the early 1990s.

That’s when she took her first art class while working on a cross-cultural studies degree, later studying art at San Diego State University and earning her bachelor’s degree in 1998. After working in an art store, a gallery and as a security guard at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, she went to graduate school and got a teaching assistantship. Teaching also wasn’t something she’d previously considered, but it didn’t take long to find that she loved it.

“Teaching and making art are a perfect pairing, and a lifelong learner, I appreciate the opportunity to serve my students and the campus community,” she says, working as a professor of art at Grossmont College, where she’s been teaching since 2006. “After 25 years of teaching, I am excited to focus more on sharing my artwork with the larger San Diego community.”

Her abstract landscape paintings are currently on display, alongside works by Los Angeles-based artist Jeanne Dunn, in “Into the Woods: Resplendent” at the San Diego Mesa College Art Gallery through April 24. (Both artists will be part of an artist talk from 5 to 7 p.m. April 22 at the gallery.) Bennett has 28 pieces created between 2022 and earlier this year in this exhibition, ranging from smaller works on panels and larger works on canvas. An artist and educator, Bennett, 50, lives in San Diego’s Redwood Village neighborhood with her husband, artist John Brinton Hogan. She took some time to talk about her creative process, her relationship to nature, and some of her favorite local places to spend time outdoors.

Q: Can you talk a bit about your creative process for the works you created that people will see in this show? What were you thinking about as you went through concept to execution?

A: The works in this show were inspired by trips to Palm Springs and Mt. San Jacinto, Anza Borrego Desert and Indiana. My creative process is to recall how I felt in these places, the feelings and emotions I experienced there, the colors, temperatures and quality of light. Finally, if I work from images I took of the places, I work from poor-quality images so that I cannot get too precious or specific about details in the photographs.

I try not to think about it too much or I just won’t get to the painting part. Getting started is tough enough, so I mainly think about setting myself up for success to find time to get into the studio. Since I work full time, I need to carve out studio time over school breaks, on holidays and on the weekends.

Q: What did you want to say about nature and the idea of its splendor through the pieces you’ve chosen to include in this exhibition?

A: Painting these special places allows me to revisit and reimagine my time there. I can reconnect to my past visit and share that with the viewer while working in the studio, like visiting an old friend, but discovering something new as the conversation takes a surprising path as the artworks unfold with color and mark-making. The abstract landscapes invite the viewer to enter their world of light and space while the organic contour lines sing like notes across sheet music.

What I love about San Diego’s Redwood Village …

I love that Redwood Village and Rolando Park Community Councils collaborate on community cleanups. We also host our monthly meetings together. Go team! 

Q: You were born in Hawaii and grew up in Lemon Grove? How would you describe your own relationship to nature? What you recall of your introduction to it, the impact it’s had on you in your life, when/how/in what ways it began to show up in and influence your artwork?

A: Growing up in the ‘70s, nature was the playground. We ran wild in the canyons, built things, drew in the dirt, made designs with rocks, costumes out of seaweed. I love the ocean, the pulse of the water and the sparkle of the sand. I think it found its way into my work without me giving it much thought.

Q: You’ve said that you “want to create a nurturing visual space where we can enter, explore, daydream, rendezvous with a lover or friend, enjoy music, or encounter the unexpected.” Why is it important to you to create that kind of nurturing quality in your work?

A: Perhaps that is why I turn to art, to find a sense of place that can bring one a moment of peace and beauty in a world where there is so much pain and anxiety. Moments in the safe space that is the world of this exhibition at the Mesa College gallery should come as valued and supported by those who visit.

Q: In the time that you’ve been teaching art, are there lessons or new perspectives that your students have taught you over the years?

A: I learn so much from my students! I love teaching, and I’ve learned that everyone learns differently. Never assume; repeat, ask them questions, be patient and laugh. I need to remember to apply those to my life and work!

Q: What inspires you in your artwork, in the creative process?

A: The quieting of the mind, getting in the zone, the meditative quality of making artwork.

Q: Do you have favorite local spots that you like to visit when you want to be in nature?

A: Anza Borrego Desert, Mission Trails Park, Coronado Beach, Chollas Lake. I am drawn to native plants and wildlife, as well as other local residents.

Q: What’s been challenging about your work as an artist?

A: Making time to get into the studio.

Q: What’s been rewarding about this work?

A: Bringing people joy when they see the work in person.

Q: What has this work taught you about yourself?

A: It has taught me that I like to work both large and small, and I want to work even larger!

Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

A: To focus on what you can control.

Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?

A: I did not do art as a child.

Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.

A: Mat pilates in the park, go for a green juice, walk or hike, then out for some pho. The next day, work in the garden with my husband, play with our cats, read and paint. I’m a homebody!

Originally Published: March 29, 2025 at 6:00 AM PDT