Axios San Diego

April 16, 2025
The week is nearly half over, and so is April. It's a weekend in May, basically.
Today's weather: Coast — Cloudy, gradually becoming sunny with a high in the low 60s; Inland — Partly sunny with a high near 63.
🎧 Sounds like: "King of the Beach," by Wavves
🎂 Happy birthday to our Axios San Diego member Bill Sailer!
Today's newsletter is 770 words — a 3-minute read.
1 big thing: ✍️ 4 budget takeaways
City libraries would be closed Sundays and Mondays, and parks and recreation center hours cut by a third under Mayor Todd Gloria's proposal to deal with a $258 million budget deficit.
Why it matters: After years of dancing around a structural imbalance between city spending and revenues, city leaders — for the first time since the Great Recession — are grappling with real budget cuts.
- Gloria's proposal would eliminate 393 positions — 233 of which are currently vacant — resulting in budget savings without any layoffs.
- Of the 160 city workers whose jobs would be eliminated, the mayor's office said "the vast majority" would be eligible to transfer to other positions.
Here are other big takeaways from Gloria's outline:
✂️ Libraries and parks got it worst
The biggest cuts would hit libraries, all of which would open only five days a week, and parks and recreation centers, which would open 40 hours a week instead of a max of 60.
- That represents 77 eliminated library positions, and 122 in parks and rec.
- The proposed cuts include closing portable restrooms throughout city parks. Increasing public restrooms has been a city goal for years.
👮🏼 Public safety protected
SDPD's spending would increase by $29 million due to increased personnel costs, but the city would consolidate the northwest division into other offices and cut overtime.
- If approved, this would be the 16th straight year of higher police spending, climbing from $385 million in 2011 to $702 million.
Fire and rescue would grow by $24 million under the proposal, but it also includes cuts to fast-response squads downtown and in San Pasqual Valley.
⛺ Homelessness vulnerability
Overall spending on homelessness would fall by about $30 million, to $105 million, although city spending out of its general account would actually increase by $3 million.
- The city says that reduction is due to lost state funding, and includes the closure of a shelter on Rosecrans it operated with the county, and an outreach program with CalTrans.
2. 🏄 LA28 surfs to SD
Lower Trestles, the world-renowned surf spot on the border of San Diego and Orange counties, will host the surf competition for the 2028 Summer Olympics, LA28 announced Tuesday.
Why it matters: The break, known as "The jewel of southern California surfing," might be the closest San Diego gets to hosting an event for the LA Olympics.
- Trestles is easiest to access from San Clemente, and is part of San Onofre State Beach, just north of Oceanside.
The big picture: Last year was the fourth straight that Lower Trestles hosted the World Surfing League's world championships, which are moving to Fiji this year.
What we're watching: Temecula is hosting equestrian events for the LA Olympics, putting another major event in even-closer driving distance.
- San Diego's Snapdragon Stadium was floated as a possible soccer venue for the games.
3. The Lineup: State of the County incoming
⛺ Nonprofit groups that help run the Rosecrans homeless shelter that Gloria proposed closing in his draft budget say they were shocked by the announcement.
- And county leaders who partnered on the shelter didn't like being partially blamed for the decision. (Union-Tribune)
🎤 County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, the acting chair for the board of supervisors, is delivering a State of the County address today at 6pm from the Natural History Museum, and it will be livestreamed here.
4. 🍺 Craft beer tanks


The craft beer industry took a spill in 2024.
Why it matters: The craft industry declined for the third straight year, accelerating a trend driven nationally by a downward shift in alcohol consumption.
By the numbers: Craft beer production fell 4% in 2024, the biggest drop in industry history outside of the pandemic, per a Brewers Association release Tuesday.
- The beer market as a whole saw a 1.2% dip in production during the same period.
The bottom line: The number of small, independent breweries operating in the U.S. fell for the first time in two decades, with 501 closing and 434 opening.
Zoom in: San Diego no longer makes a mark on BA's 50 biggest craft breweries.
- Tilray Beer Brands, the 4th largest craft brewery, owns two brands that used to be local breweries: Green Flash Brewing Company and Alpine Beer Company.
- Craft 'Ohana, 17th largest, owns the Modern Times Beer label, which last year closed its brewery and is now brewed on a contract basis by AleSmith.
- Pizza Port, 38th largest, is a true local brewery and early leader in San Diego's craft beer renaissance that still makes world-class beer.
Yes, but: Sapporo/Stone — owner of San Diego's once-swaggering local brewery that taunted non-craft competitors — no longer qualifies as a craft brewery.
- It's the 14th largest overall beer companies.
Our picks:
🏀 Andy is encouraged by the team Brian Dutcher is putting together for next year.
☁️ Kate is loving this weather.
This newsletter was edited by Ross Terrell.
Sign up for Axios San Diego





/2025/04/15/1744760650944.gif?w=3840)
