Cup of Chisme: How the Camping Ban Is Working

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.