Voice of San Diego Podcast
This is Voice of San Diego’s weekly spitfire roundup of news. We cover local and regional politics, the environment, education, the border and more. This show features our investigative reporting and interviews with lawmakers and other special guests.
Episodes
The Registrar of Voters has made a dramatic change to how it evaluates signatures on petitions. A bunch of high-profile signature gathering campaigns have fallen apart in San Diego and it may not have been just because they were incompetent. This is a big change.
One of those campaigns was to raise a tax to fund an expansion of the Convention Center. It failed spectacularly. But then another initiative made the ballot in 2020...
This week we revisit the Politifest 2025 Showdown awards at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice Theater on the beautifual campus of the University of San Diego. We have games, and plenty of solutions for our beleagured and beloved city on this week's podcast.
SHOW NOTES
Here are all the videos from last weekend's Politifest 2025
Scott Lewis, CEO and editor in chief at Voice of San Diego.
Andrea Lopez-Villaf...
SHOW NOTES
SEGMENT 1 - POLITIFEST
Buy Your Tickets for Politifest 2025
Politifest is back on Oct. 4, and this won’t be our usual public affairs summit. This year, we’re bringing together community leaders to go head-to-head in our first ever Solutions Showdown. Hear their ideas and cast your vote on which proposals you think could solve the biggest issues facing San Diego.
Next week the San Diego City council will vote on a series of new water rate increases. But city hall is abuzz that they may not have the votes to pass them. If they don’t, we’re entering uncharted waters.
We have an update on San Diego Unified School District’s decision to close the middle school portions of some K through 8 schools. They’ve already backtracked on one.
And finally South Bay repo...
This week on the most popular public affairs podcast in San Diego:
Nathan Fletcher reappeared. We’ll review his first public comments since he went from the most prominent politician in San Diego to just gone.
San Diego Unified School District is changing some kindergarten through 8th grade schools to just kindergarten through fifth grade.They’ve already backtracked on one. Is this the beginning of many year...
Violence against outstretched palms – as in hands not the trees. The curious case against Encinitas City Councilmember Luke Shaffer.
San Diego County Water Authority leaders may have thought the chatter about dissolving their agency may be in the past then came LAFCO. The funny agency nobody knew about is making headlines again.
And guests to the Zoo spend a bunch of money in San Diego. The Zoo and the city want t...
The Voice of San Diego team is embarking on an ambitious pursuit: Developing a public policy for how AI should and shouldn't be used in our newsroom. And we're bringing our listeners along for the ride.
Tap in for an unfiltered conversation where co-hosts Scott Lewis, Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña, Jakob McWhinney, Will Huntsberry and Bella Ross grapple with our concerns surrounding this new technology, and how we may consider us...
It’s dealmaking season at City Hall. The push for a new $25 minimum wage for some workers in the tourism and entertainment industry in San Diego is heading to a City Council vote Sept. 16. Here’s what we know about all the entities trying to get out of having to pay workers that.
Prop 50 mailers are hitting mailboxes and the ads are on TV. We’ve talked about it the last two podcasts but now it’s alread...
San Diego’s Sunset Cliffs are crumbling. The city’s plan to save them is … a one way street?
The County Board of Supes has officially voted to tap into previously off-limits county reserves, but thanks to a labor agreement nearly half of those funds are already spoken for.
Also, why an aging north county dam has one company saying “Damn!”
And finally, Assemblyman Chris Ward is calling into...
Were you hallucinating too or do you also remember the city of San Diego saying pizza boxes could now go in the green bin. Also, a lot of people do not understand how to use the green bins, apparently.
We haven’t had a chance yet to talk about it but we should: A judge dismissed the sexual harassment case against Nathan Fletcher that ended his career. But he’s still got one going against the accuser.
And we ...
This week, the Padres are getting into politics. The team just took first place in the National League west for the first time this late in the season in 15 years. Success on the field could help them in the field of politics.
We’ve got a special guest host today, former Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey is in the studio. He’s now become something of a conservative tiktok pundit weighing in mostly on city of San Diego...
RVs are all over Mission Bay. Why the city now feels OK about cracking down on them.
Mack is Back! Mackenzie Elmer our environment reporter is dropping in to discuss bobcats that have been terrorizing the Wild Animal Park. And why the big news about a big Mexico/USA deal on the border sewage crisis is deja vu.
Finally hospitals used to panic that SB 43 would flood them with patients with drug and menthal health challeng...
You may be shocked to learn that of San Diego County cities Encinitas is closest to meeting its housing goals.
That’s right. The bad boy of North County with a history of failing to follow housing laws is actually building homes. Housing, or lack of, is among the top issues in our region and senior investigative reporter Will Huntsberry has spent months analyzing housing data. He’s here to dish on his findi...
There’s officially a new county supervisor and so there’s a new chair of the board of supervisors and they’re wasting no time making big changes.
El Cajon police have stopped responding to calls when a person says they’re going to hurt themselves. They blame lawyers but it’s complicating the response of civilian teams as well, we’ll explain.
And we talked about school enrollment plunging ac...
The mayor is just flat ignoring the budget the city council passed and will not fire the top managers the Council cut. And you thought budget drama was over.
Local water managers are demanding an apology from one of their colleagues. Apologies after demands for apologies are always the best apologies. We’ll explain why this matters.
And Jakob published an extraordinary analysis and maps this week of how many fewer...
We’re drowning in education news this week.
The Trump administration’s grant freeze has put millions of school funds in jeopardy. The decision has some school leaders scrambling.
Our Jakob McWhinney got nerdy and figured out just how much money San Diego County stands to lose. Also, a San Diego Unified Board Trustee is calling it quits after one term. We’ll explain why.
And, meet our new City Hal...
The county is back in the hands of Democrats.
Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre is set to fill the vacant seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. The county has so much going on – there are big questions around the sewage crisis, homelessness, housing, budget, immigration.
The list goes on and on – and South County reporter Jim Hinch joins us today to dish on what Aguirre’s v...
The city has a new budget. There was a veto. A veto override and then an Instagram slam. We have a special guest, Councilmember Vivian Moreno is here. She’ll give us the insider take.
And the push to raise the minimum wage for hospitality workers is going forward.
And, the mayor has a new job!
SHOW NOTES
INTRO 00:00:00
SEGMENT 1 00:00:39 - Support VOSD
SEGMENT 2 00:06:39 - Vivian Moreno
...The mayor does not want a chief operating officer gosh darn it! The most dysfunctional budget cycle in the city of San Diego continues with a big list of vetos from Mayor Todd Gloria.
And the biggest political battle in San Diego is finally nearing its end. Our reporter Jim Hinch went to a debate between Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre and Chula Vista Mayor John McCann and he’ll tell us how the race is looking. ...
Federal immigration agents are trying to hit their quotas of people to arrest and deport and it’s causing some distressing scenes across California. On the eve of big protests, where are we headed? We’ll grapple with it.
For the first time in more than 100 years, owners of single family homes in the city of San Diego will have to pay for trash pickup. It almost didn’t happen. We’ll go through the tense...
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