Morning report: Construction workers get a break from calculating vehicle kilometers

Contractors in San Diego County have long complained about fees associated with a climate change regulation designed to shorten long commutes, and now they may be able to benefit from some relief.

What we talk about: The state’s Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) policy requires local governments in California to consider how much people drive when planning cities in order to hopefully mitigate climate change. In other words, it requires developers and cities to consider commute times to jobs, schools, and grocery stores when planning a project.

Developers said fees based on the number of vehicle miles traveled by a construction project had hampered development in the county’s unincorporated areas.

But now the district has decided that there is an exception: As long as a development meets all the requirements of the county’s 13-year-old general plan, it will not be reviewed for the number of miles it generates.

County officials told our MacKenzie Elmer that this exemption will help developers overcome hurdles in construction, especially in a region like San Diego County with many rural and unincorporated areas that require a lot of driving.

Environmentalists, however, are not happy. They fear that this will completely undermine the goal of the VMT policy to reduce the use of fossil fuels in vehicles and slow climate change.

You can read the environmental report here.

Escondido City Council considers another sales tax measure

The Escondido City Council will consider putting a sales tax measure on the November ballot. Again.

At Wednesday’s council meeting, city leaders will consider proposing to voters a one-cent sales tax increase for 20 years.

The initiative is expected to generate approximately $25 million in additional revenue each year and is intended to help address Escondido’s persistent structural budget deficit.

Voice of San Diego previously reported that a citizen coalition called Escondido Citizens for Safety had collected and submitted 12,000 signatures — more than the required 7,748 — to put a sales tax increase on the ballot.

But according to a report from Escondido staff, the San Diego County Elections Office may not finish counting and verifying all the signatures until well after the deadline to put measures on this year’s ballot (August 9), meaning the citizen initiative could be pushed back to the November 2026 general election.

Therefore, staff recommend that the city council put the initiative to a vote itself, which requires the approval of at least two-thirds of the council.

Not Escondido’s first rodeo: City staff have already introduced similar ballot measures twice, both of which were expected to raise about $20 million annually. The City Council did not approve the first in 2020, and voters rejected the second at the ballot box in 2022.

Data theft at Palomar Health Medical Group puts patient information at risk

Palomar Health Medical Group announced last week that patient names, birth dates, social security numbers, medical histories and health insurance information may have been compromised in a recent data breach.

According to the doctors’ group, the break-in occurred between April 23 and May 5. Since then, computers have been down and doctors still don’t have access to patient records, KPBS reported. And Palomar says some patient records appear to have been deleted and cannot be recovered.

The violation has already resulted in a class action lawsuit filed on June 24 on behalf of a patient.

Palomar says it is still unknown how many patients were affected and who was responsible for the breach.

What takes so long? Palomar Health Medical Group is an outpatient arm of Palomar Health, a public health system that operates the Palomar Medical Centers in Escondido and Poway.

A cybersecurity expert told KPBS that Palomar may not have the financial resources or personnel to quickly restore the data.

Voice of San Diego has previously reported on Palomar Health’s financial difficulties in recent years, a trend seen at hospitals across the country. The hospital system will likely close this fiscal year with a significant loss in June.

A recent quarterly financial report, which covers operations through March 31, shows a net loss of $40 million for the current fiscal year so far.

In other news

Related: After San Diego authorities voted last year to install around 500 smart street lights across the city, police are now demanding the relocation of over 40 cameras already installed due to infrastructure problems. (CBS 8)

The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne. It was edited by Lisa Halverstadt and Scott Lewis.