🦴Thunder Beast or Swamp Rhino?

City crews digging for an infrastructure project this month hit fossils about 12 feet down, the city announced Tuesday. The find included several limb bones, ribs, and numerous other bones and fragments, from an animal that lived 40 to 45 million years ago. The city said it will not reveal the exact location, to protect the site.

Principal paleontologist Joseph El Adli made the discovery during routine monitoring and immediately secured the area. His team worked over seven days to expose the bones from beneath several tons of hardened mudstone and sandstone before encasing them in a plaster field jacket for the trip to a lab.

The rock is Member C of the Santiago Formation, a sedimentary rock unit found from Orange County into North San Diego County, and it's turned up fossils from this era in Oceanside before.

El Adli thinks the animal is one of two things. The brontothere, or "thunder beast," found in this formation was roughly the size of a modern black rhino and had small horns on its saddle-shaped skull. The amynodont, or "swamp rhino," had a hornless face, a squat hippo-like body, short sturdy legs and tusk-like canine teeth, and some spent their days in rivers and ponds.

Which one it was may come down to the skull. According to the city, several blocks are still sealed, and a skull could be inside one of them. After lab work, the bones are expected to go to a museum collection for public display. Which museum hasn't been announced.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 960 and Assembly Bill 2694 on September 18, 2026, rewriting the rules for bachelor's degrees at California community colleges. The two are tied together (SB 960 states it takes effect only if AB 2694 is also enacted), and San Diego Assemblymember David Alvarez wrote one of them. Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, who wrote the other, told CalMatters the bills "will give us peace."

Starting in 2028, each district will be placed into one of five tiers based on the percentage of students who complete a degree or certificate or transfer to a four-year university, and the tier sets how many new degrees it can add, anywhere from two to 12. No district could propose more than three new degrees per year, and districts would need to prove there's a workforce need in their region.

The bigger change is Cal State. According to CalMatters, a college can now offer a degree that overlaps with a nearby Cal State program, but only if that Cal State program rejects more than 25% of applicants from that community college three consecutive years. If the two sides disagree, the state labor secretary decides. If the labor secretary sides with Cal State, the district is barred from submitting an application for a similar program for five years.

MiraCosta's one bachelor's degree, in biomanufacturing, is grandfathered, since the new caps do not apply to existing bachelor's degrees. It was one of the state's first. When MiraCosta built it, its dean met with Cal State San Marcos first, and they agreed MiraCosta's degree would be different than the biotechnology bachelor's degree CSUSM offered.

What MiraCosta does next isn't clear. Its tier hasn't been published, and I couldn't find a statement from the college. Statewide, the community colleges argued the caps punish districts that educate low-income students who are less likely to finish or transfer. The system chancellor's opposition letter lays out that case.

The pipe and bulldozers on the beach this month are the harbor dredge, running on a new calendar. The Army Corps of Engineers, working with the city, moved this year's dredging to fall, and Oceanside beaches are expected to receive about 380,000 cubic yards of sand from the harbor.

This is the second dredge this year. The spring round wrapped May 1, with the Corps estimating 330,000 cubic yards placed on Oceanside beaches. Since then, shoaling has reduced the channel's safe navigable depth again. In April, Rep. Mike Levin announced over $8.2 million in federal funding so the Corps could dredge twice in 2026, spring and fall, before moving to a regular annual fall cycle.

The reason for the switch is the waves. The city says fall placement, followed by winter wave conditions, offers the best chance for dredged sand to move southward and stay on eroded beaches in South Oceanside. The Corps retains the option of returning to a spring schedule in future years.

The timing helps this year. Forecasters put the odds of a very strong El Niño above 90% this fall and winter, and a wider beach gives the infrastructure behind it more protection.

Sand was expected to reach the pier around Sept. 18 and then continue south toward Tyson Street Park, depending on weather and ocean conditions. Harbor Lot No. 12 stays closed, and the work is expected to run until about Oct. 20. The city's harbor dredging page has updates.

🚜 Ride a Tractor at Mellano - Mellano Farm Stand - Saturday-Sunday @ 10am-4pm Marigold u-pick, corn maze, $5 parking. Last tractor ride at 3:30. Info

🚗 Walk the South O Car Show - South Oceanside Elementary (South O) - Saturday @ 9am-2pm 12th year of cars, bikes and boats, all to support the school. Info

🎶 Catch a Free Show at MLK Park - Martin Luther King Jr. Park - Saturday @ 3:30-6:30pm KÜF Knotz and Christine Elise, with The Brothers Burns opening. Bring a blanket. FREE

🐟 Shop the Fishermen's Market - Oceanside Harbor - Sunday @ 8am-2pm Local boats selling their own catch, every Sunday at 401 Riverside Dr. Info

🎨 Shop Small at South O Sundays - Covet Art Gallery - Sunday @ 10am-2pm Local makers, art and live music in Covet's backyard. FREE

KOCT's candidate forums. KOCT aired forums for City Council Districts 1 and 2 on Wednesday and Assembly District 74 on Thursday, with a forum on Measure S, the proposed sales tax, Monday, Sept. 28 at 11 a.m. Replays run on the KOCT website and Cox Channel 18 until Election Day, Nov. 3. KOCT.org

Two North County mayor races, one storyline. Voice of San Diego looks at Escondido and Encinitas, where Escondido Mayor Dane White, a Republican, and Encinitas Mayor Bruce Ehlers, an Independent, are running against Democrat-backed candidates Elias Velazquez in Escondido and Rimga Viskanta in Encinitas. voiceofsandiego.org

Oceanside gets ready for El Niño. The city has a working group preparing for flooded roads, swollen waterways and other storm emergencies. OsideNews

Carlsbad fast-tracks its bluff. Carlsbad declared a local emergency to speed stabilization of an eroding coastal bluff along south Carlsbad Boulevard, pointing to storm season and a possible strong El Niño. North Coast Current

That's the week. Tips, corrections, or something I missed? Email [email protected] or send a DM.

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