Voice of San Diego Podcast

It’s the 20th anniversary of the launch of Voice of San Diego, the greatest nonprofit news organization go live in 2005. We launched before YouTube. We’ll reminisce a bit with a sort of special guest.  The city of San Diego’s budget deficit has provoked some tense conversations. A City Council budget committee hearing last week had some great clips. And where are the kids? S...

Coming up on the show today, a special interview with San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez. She is ready to talk about deaths in county jails, local law enforcement’s relationship with federal immigration agents and more.    SHOW NOTES 2017 California Senate Bill 54 , commonly referred to as "SB 54" and also known as the "California Values Act" is a 2017 California state law tha...

Is it the end of San Diego’s decidedly pro-housing majority? There was an earthquake at City Hall this week about ADUs  At the same time, Poway City Council has reached a telenovela level of drama, we’ll break it down.   SHOW NOTES   00:00:00 Opening  00:04:15 Controversial Encanto ADU Policy From KPBS San Diego City Council repeals controversial footnote targeting...

Our annual Parents Guide to San Diego Schools is almost done. We have added a new metric this year and it reveals how well schools recovered, or didn’t, from COVID.  Jakob here took it and turned it into a story. It’s a bit of a downer.  Another local government is promising to protect people from Trump’s immigration action. We’ll review the supposed protections....

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria gave his state of the city speech. If last year was the everything is awesome speech, this year was the everything is definitely not awesome speech. This was the tough conversations speech. The we can do hard things speech.  The dynamic PowerPoint that went with included such rousing lists like refocus, reimagine, revisit and re-evaluate…   SHOW NOTES 0...

We are going to go through some updates to stories but we’ve got a special co-host today, San Diego City Councilmember Raul Campillo. We’ve got some questions for him and he said he’s come up with a contribution to our hot takes segment at the end.    SHOW NOTES Segment 1  00:02:15 Updates  00:06:28 Fletcher Nathan Fletcher’s Accuser Drops Sexual Assault...

This is our first show of 2025 and it is already starting with some huge news: We finally will discuss the incredible news that County Supervisor Nora Vargas will not be taking the oath of office for her re-election.    The balance of power in the county is once again up for grabs, right as the county braces for thousands more people being forced into treatment.    What’s...

This is the last episode of 2024 and we have a super mega roundtable for you.  I am in studio with the core four – Lopez, Jakob, Bella – and we have one open seat so we’re going to bring in one reporter at a time. We’ll ask them each what’s going to happen. What’s one thing they want to know "What’s going to happen?"  I think that’s the cor...

This week we have a special episode for you. This coming year is going to be a difficult one for leaders of San Diego Unified School District. They are facing a massive budget deficit, ongoing stagnation in enrollment. They’re grappling with the aftermath of scandals involving sexual misconduct allegations that got the attention of the federal government and brought down the district’s...

December 13, 2024 The election just ended. The election just started. We often accuse politicians of being short sighted but one thing they definitely plan far in advance is their next political move. We may have heard the first shots in the 2028 mayoral race.  The city has a new president of the City Council and the region has a new Republican leader, same as the old one.  And the count...

We’ve got the full crew in today to host a conversation with Mayor Todd Gloria, fresh off re-election, the mayor has no honeymoon. A huge budget deficit is coming up and his plan to deal with it – a tax increase – failed.  For more on the issues: Can San Diego Finally Pass a Sales Tax Increase? Politics Report: The Civic Center Dream 101 Ash St. Newly Homeless Residents Still Outpacing Newly House...

This week is thanksgiving so what better time for us to bring back beef week? It’s more like Beef 10 Days. It may seem incongruent but we should all be thankful we can beef in local politics without violence or whatever.    And we have a special guest this week, Council President Sean Elo-Rivera is here. We’ll talk about the election and some tough decisions coming up for him and his colleagues.  ...

The Registrar of Voters made us wait six days for an update on the vote count from November 5 – 16 days ago. The main local race we’re still watching is the Oceanside mayoral race. Just 31 votes separated the incumbent and her challenger.  Senior investigative reporter Will Huntsberry will join us later on the show to explain why the city of San Diego has purchased at least $1 million worth of gea...

We are still processing the election, as I am sure all of you are. But at least some questions have been answered. We’ll go through those updates.  And, where does the city of San Diego go from here? The mayor and Council President got re-elected but a sales tax failed and a deficit looms. A lot of people are worried about big cities and we get it.   For more on the issues:   Deadly Failure: A Sai...

Well, that was an election. We will go back through the races we drafted last week. As always, there are a couple nail-biters as we begin the tradition of waiting for updates every afternoon.  But we can say that San Diego incumbents did well. Mayor Todd Gloria and the City Councilmembers hoping for another term did fine. So did Terra Lawson Remer, the county supervisor who faced down millions in...

Coming up on the show this week… It’s time. This is our last show before the apocalypse. We’ve got a special roundtable to go through our ranking of the best elections to watch Tuesday. Local elections that is. The Voice of San Diego elections draft and the elections contest are back. We’ll do it.   For more on the issues: San Diego 2024 Election: What’s at Stake Politifest 2024: News and Media  ...

It’s the last lap of this election season and we have updates on several major races in San Diego.  Is Mayor Todd Gloria overstating his creation of homeless shelter beds? Yes. Did Terra Lawson Remer use campaign funds for her kid’s preschool? Yes. She has a good defense but it’s interesting.  And in South Bay, the chair of the County board of Supervisors has created several enemies.  Finally, rem...

Coming up on the show this week…  We’ve got more mailers here to dissect. We’ll cut through what campaigns want voters to know and what we don’t even understand like: Why are California realtors bullying a candidate for her poker playing skills? There’s a newspaper endorsement that’s not really a newspaper endorsement … It is silly season in San Diego.  To wrap it up, We’ll talk about a key school...

Coming up on the show this week…  The race between Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer and former mayor Kevin Faulconer is easily the hottest race this year. Millions are being spent on behalf of the candidate. The mailers are getting wild. We’ll get into it.  Speaking of mailers, we’ve got some good ones.  Plus, the latest in the city attorneys race and can a new million dollar infusion help a cop beat...

We got through Politifest. We’re going to discuss some of the many things people said and didn’t say. It was a big day for us.  Also, why does Brian Maienschein, who is running for city attorney, have a campaign finance account for an attorney general race in 2030. We posted an explainer we can give you the cliff’s notes on.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A million dollars has already gone into the big county supervisors race from outside groups – most of it in support of mayor Kevin Faulconer, and if you’re in the district, you can tell from your mailbox. Usually mail waits until ballots are out.  That’ll be our introduction into Politifest Week. We’ve been trying to run the show like normal while preparing for our big annual gathering. We’re goin...

Why the San Diego Republican party has had it with Carl DeMaio. Nobody has been more influential than him in the party but resources are now  going to flow to DeMaio’s opponent in a closely watched Assembly race. We’ll get into the beef.  Also, we’ve got more details on the allegations of sexual harassment against former San Diego Unified Superintendent Lamont Jackson. New documents reveal the all...

The city of San Diego stands to lose hundreds of shelter beds. Mayor Todd Gloria is proposing one solution: move some people from the Golden Hall shelter to the city’s safe camping sites.  Feels like the city and county are going backwards on shelter. We’ll dig into it.  University researchers raised an alarm about a toxic gas in the Tijuana River Valley, but the county says there’s no reason to p...

San Diego Unified School District, the second largest district in the state, fired its superintendent. It appears trustees have already settled on his successor. We’ll talk about what she apparently doesn’t want to talk about.  It’s been 10 years since California banned plastic bags at grocery and liquor stores. Now a San Diego lawmaker is trying to get the state to ban plastic bags at grocery sto...

A few months ago Jakob here broke news that San Diego Unified School District had commissioned an investigation into its superintendent for alleged misconduct. Now, they’ve apparently finished that investigation. We’ll tell you what we know.    For months, Nathan Fletcher’s advocates have said he was wrongly accused of assault and that soon enough, they’ll have the receipts to prove it. A new cour...