Daily Business Report: Thursday, March 17, 2022
Cox Communications and San Diego Oasis help
seniors with new ‘Tech Tank’ in La Mesa
Cox Communications and local nonprofit San Diego Oasis announce the grand opening of the “Tech Tank,” a one-of-a-kind center created to give San Diego older adults an opportunity to advance their technology skillsets and reduce social isolation, all to help bridge the “digital divide” among seniors.
The “Tech Tank,” located at San Diego Oasis’ La Mesa location (inside Grossmont Center), will offer technology classes, workshops, and demonstrations, as well as one-on-one tech support both in-person and virtually.
In 2020, Cox Communications awarded San Diego Oasis a $300,000 grant to create an education hub for older adults to make technology affordable and accessible. However, the pandemic made reaching seniors more challenging and with the recent supply chain issues, the “Tech Tank” was not a reality, until now.
For more information on the “Tech Tank” powered by Cox Communications, visit www.san-diego.oasisnet.org/tech-tank, email Tech@SanDiegoOasis.org or call (619) 881-6262 x1002.
PHOTO: Seniors getting tech help at the Tech Tank opened by Cox Communications and San Diego Oasis.
Coastal Commission endorses San Diego’s
new short-term rental ordinance
By Dave Schwab
The California Coastal Commission unanimously endorsed San Diego’s new short-term rentals ordinance in a March 9 vote.
Commissioners capped rental numbers by population while providing a lottery for operators, as well as requiring a review of the measure’s impacts after seven years.
The new regulatory system caps whole-home rentals at 1 percent of the city’s 540,000-plus housing units. Mission Beach, which historically has had the city’s highest percentage of short-term rentals, was carved out and given a 30 percent cap by commissioners.
Coastal Commission staffer Alex Llerandi said the amendment passed by the commission “is designed to balance the need to protect and preserve high-priority visitor-serving accommodations, with community character and housing needs by permitting STRs to be located throughout the city. But it caps the total number of rentals allowed.
“The majority of STRs, approximately 39 percent, are along the coast,” Llerandi pointed out, noting, “That’s almost 5,000 units. The vast majority of STRs are whole-home rentals, as opposed to home share, where the property owner is present.”
San Diego home price hits new record — nearing $800,000
San Diego’s median home price hit a record $775,000 in February as buyers shrugged off rising mortgage rates.
Local prices increased 15.2 percent in a year as of February, reported CoreLogic/DQNews on Tuesday. The number reflects a combination of new and resale condos, townhouses and single-family homes.
February’s median — the point at which half the homes sold for more and half for less — is higher than the previous record of $750,000 in January. San Diego wasn’t alone, with almost all counties in Southern California hitting new price peaks.
Californians used more water
as state braces for another dry year
CalMattersl
California is going in the wrong direction when it comes to addressing the state’s persistent drought.
Urban residents used 2.6 percent more water in January 2022 than they did in January 2020, state water officials reported Tuesday — despite Gov. Gavin Newsom last year urging all Californians to voluntarily cut their water use by 15 percent and declaring a statewide drought emergency.
Statewide, Californians reduced their water use 6.5 percent from July 2021 to January compared to the same period in 2020 — less than half of Newsom’s goal.
And, with the state recording its driest January and February in history amid a dwindling Sierra Nevada snowpack — which provides California with about a third of its water supply — some experts say it’s past time for Newsom to issue mandatory statewide water restrictions.
Illumina Accelerator invests in seven
additional genomics startups
Illumina has invested in seven more genomics startups in the fourth global funding cycle of the Illumina Accelerator programs in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Cambridge, UK, the company said on Wednesday.
Most of the companies — which receive an undisclosed amount of seed funding, access to Illumina sequencing systems and reagents, lab space adjacent to Illumina’s Bay Area and Cambridge campuses, and access to business guidance and genomics expertise — are in the therapeutics space, but several have taken a diagnostics or synthetic biology angle.
The startups are: 4SR Biosciences, B4X, Cache DNA, NonExomics, Crisp-Hr Therapeutics, Rethink Bio, and Purpose Health.
The new class of firms brings the number of startups in the Illumina Accelerator portfolio to 68. Illumina Accelerator provides its chosen firms with an undisclosed amount of seed funding.
Scientists develop one method to identify
Asian giant hornet and accelerate its removal
‘Don’t call them murder hornets’
By Mario Aguilera
The world’s largest hornet has been the focus of extensive news coverage of late due to its menacing appearance and expanding footprint in North America. But while the “murder hornet” label attached to the Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) may be an overdramatization of its danger, researchers agree that the invasive species is destructive and threatens North American bee populations and millions of dollars in crop production.
Because honey bees offer few defenses, giant hornets can rapidly destroy entire bee colonies.
“My usual plea is that people should stop calling them ‘murder hornets’ because they are large and perhaps frightening but not truly murderous,” said James Nieh, a Division of Biological Sciences professor and bee researcher at the University of California San Diego. “They are amazing social insects, but they don’t belong in North America and harm our critical bee populations, so we should remove them.”
But how to eliminate them is not clear. Even knowing where they occur—thus far reported in Canada and the Pacific Northwest—has been difficult to determine.
In the journal Current Biology, the researchers reveal the identification of three major components of the Asian giant hornet queen’s sex pheromone, an achievement that could be used as bait to trap and track the insects.
David Whelan joins The San Diego Law
Library as director of libraries
The San Diego Law Library Board of Trustees announced the hiring of David Whelan as its new director of libraries.
Whelan has worked on improving access to legal information for the past 25 years.
He comes to the law library from Toronto, Canada, where he was the director of legal information at the Law Society of Ontario’s Great Library. In that role, he managed the law library, provided strategic guidance on law library operations, managed of the regulator’s web content, and acted as a resource on legal technology, law practice management, and law libraries.
Prior to working at the Great Library, Whelan was the director at the Cincinnati Law Library Association and director of the American Bar Association’s Legal Technology Resource Center.
He is also a prolific author, publishing five books in print and electronic formats, and dozens of articles on topics related to information technologies.
Whelan replaces John Adkins, who retired at the end of 2021. Adkins had been director of the law library for the past 12 years and saw the library through a major renovation and budget cuts that shuttered two of the law library’s four locations.
SDG&E sets supplier diversity record,
supporting regional economic growth
San Diego Gas & Electric purchased nearly $1 billion in goods and services from diverse business enterprises in 2021. More than half (56 percent) of SDG&E’s diverse business expenditures, or $525 million, were with local companies in the San Diego region. And approximately 90 percent of SDG&E’s diverse suppliers are located in California, further helping to grow California’s economy, which currently is the fifth largest in the world.
Highlights from all diverse spending categories and interviews with key suppliers can be found in SDG&E’s newly released annual supplier diversity report.
Overall, SDG&E infused $2.4 billion into the economy last year, the highest level of expenditures on goods and services in the company’s 140-year history. Of that amount, $936 million went to small and diverse suppliers, representing 39.1 percent of the total expenditures – far exceeding the 21.5 percent goal set by the California Public Utilities Commission.
Port of San Diego seeks pubic input on
redesign of Pepper Park in National City
The Port of San Diego is seeking public input as part of the next step in redesigning Pepper Park on the National City Bayfront. The Pepper Park Design Workshop, a virtual community meeting, will be held March 23 at 6 p.m. via Zoom.
The community and stakeholders are invited to participate and provide feedback on three conceptual plans based on public input collected during previous Pepper Park outreach efforts. The site plans will showcase how new park elements – like a splash pad, group picnic areas, playground upgrades, etc. – can fit within the existing park and the future 2.5-acre expansion.
To learn more and/or to register, go to portofsandiego.org/nationalcitybayfront
TOOTRiS and Urban Plates partner to serve
restaurant workers with child care services
Urban Plates, a fast-casual restaurant chain, is partnering with TOOTRiS to provide child care information to their 650-plus employees. Under the partnership with TOOTRiS, each of Urban Plates’ employees across California can now easily find and connect with thousands of Child Care providers and enroll directly from their computer or mobile device
“Finding quality and affordable Child Care is an ongoing challenge for our team members with young children as it is for all working parents,” said Alison Wagner, Head of human resources at Urban Plates. “The partnership with TOOTRiS allows them to arrange for reliable Child Care, whether planned or in an emergency. They no longer have to scramble to get shifts covered when a child gets sick, or their regular caregiver is unavailable. Most importantly, they have some peace of mind knowing their children are being looked after by vetted professionals while they are on the job.”
Rincon tribe to bring broadband service
to reservation through AT&T partnership
The Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians announced a new collaboration with AT&T this week to build a fiber network on its tribal lands that will connect more than 400 homes on the reservation to more reliable high-speed, broadband Internet service.
Accessing this important resource is one of the primary infrastructure goals for Rincon’s tribal council, said Chairman Bo Mazzetti.
“On a national level, there’s a major move toward trying to increase broadband services, especially to underserved communities,” Mazzetti said. “With Zoom and those kinds of mediums, it’s a major service for everyone.”
In 2019, the Federal Communications Commission reported that only 65 percent
of those living on rural, tribal lands had access to broadband Internet, compared to 99 percent of housing units in urban areas of the country.
City of San Diego showcases new facility
for firefighter training exercises
On Friday, March 18, firefighters from the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) will hold the first in-service training at a new facility located at Fire Station 10 in the College Area. This facility was conceptualized and developed by members of the SDFD Training Division staff who recognized a need and took the steps to complete the project.
Traditionally, full-scale training exercises, like the one scheduled for Friday, would take place at the SDFD Training Facility at Liberty Station. That would require crews from eastern parts of the city to be out of service in traffic while commuting to the location. Having a new facility that is more centrally located allows crews to train closer in proximity to the communities they serve.
The cost of developing this facility was approximately $200,000 and funds came from the California Firefighter Joint Apprenticeship Committee and Fire Tech Program through Miramar College. These programs offer money to fire agencies based upon the number of training hours they log.
SDFD aims to eventually add training facilities at the Mira Mesa fire station, as well as a station in South Bay.
