Voice of San Diego Podcast

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

May 9, 2025 71 mins

This week the crew brought their notes and their game to Soda Bar where they recorded the podcast before packed house, as Scott, Andrea, Jakob and Bella welcomed Keene Simonds, the Executive Officer of the Local Agency Formation Commission, to the lively LIVE podcast recording session.

Recorded live at Soda Bar, Wednesday May 6, 2025.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This week we sat down for an in depth interview with San Diego County Water Authority General Manager Dan Denham. He filled us in with some deep water knowledge during this week’s show.

 

SHOW NOTES: 
(Links to VOSD articles mentioned during the show and links for further reading)

VOSD:

San Diego Council Bashes County Water Authority Over Costs
Councilmembers say they want to see steep cuts in spending by the ...

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April 25, 2025 51 mins

We have another guest this week. Hot off her state of the county speech, County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer is joining us. 

Our South Bay reporter did a deep dive into what happened after Chula Vista Mayor John McCann helped secure the release of a woman convicted of fraud several years ago. She’s being sentenced today on another charge. 

And we had a story this week out of Encinitas where a homeless service provi...

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We have a guest co-host today, Congressman Mike Levin is here with some reports from D.C. where things are normal and not very interesting at all. He was supposed to bring a hot take. 

Jakob did a story about how some classrooms in local colleges are filled with fake people. We’ll break down how that works and how much it’s costing. 

And we have more trash talk. The new fee for San Diego homeowners is probably...

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April 11, 2025 48 mins

The South Bay County Supervisor runoff is set. Two mayors will race for the future of the county. 

An effort to set aside an area for homeless residents near the airport has hit another snag as the developer of Liberty Station takes the city to court. 

And the U.S Secretary of Education was in town. Jakob went to see her. 

All that and another Dear VOSD.

 

  

SHOW NOTES: 

(Links to VOSD articles m...

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On Sunday, March 31st, 1985, a group of young Black men drove back to southeastern San Diego after visiting Balboa Park. It was just after 6:00 PM and the sun was retreating into the horizon. As a truck driven by 23-year-old Sagon Penn pulled into a driveway on a quiet street in Encanto, they were followed by two police cars.

What happened next would leave one officer dead, another officer and a civilian ride along severely injured...

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April 4, 2025 48 mins

Coming up on the show, we are in the final stretch of the District 1 County Supervisor race. 

The mailers are getting SPICY, and one especially pissed off a lot of people. 

Last month, Mayor Todd Gloria announced he was eliminating the position of chief operating officer and taking over the gig himself. Now, former COO Eric Dargan is suing Gloria and the city for discrimination and for breaking promises in his contract. W...

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March 28, 2025 41 mins

The Padres are playing their opening game as we record. We’ll explain a new minimum wage increase they are fighting.

We’ve got a few updates on what the city is doing to get you to pay for parking. Why San Diego is on the hook for monthly rent payment on an empty homeless shelter. And the historic San Diego Taxpayers Association has no leadership. 

Also, the hospitals are fighting. Palomar Health is borrowing money...

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March 21, 2025 63 mins

We’ve got a Dear VOSD response finally on the city’s history of charging for parking. 

Grossmont Union School District has had some very tense meetings. We’ll talk about a hot mic moment that went viral. 

And as part of our 20th anniversary talk, we have reflections from several of the journalists and former writers at Voice of San Diego who made a difference here.

SHOW NOTES: 

(Links to VOSD articl...

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March 14, 2025 70 mins

There was a surprisingly tense conversation about water rates at the city. The reality that they’re going to soar is starting to set in and we’ll discuss. 

Finally, we’ve got a guest, I have been on his show many times but he’s never been on ours. Darren Smith, the best unemployed radio guy in town is here to explain us some sports and more. 

We’ll go through some headlines with him and get i...

March 7, 2025 66 mins

What exactly happened at City Council this week? We have one of them here, Councilmember Henry Foster joins us to talk about housing, ADUs, land use, the city’s deficit and more.

 

SHOW NOTES

INTRO 00:00:00

Intro

SEGMENT 1 00:02:09

San Diego Football Club opening day drama

  1. AXIOS SDFC confronts fans' homophobic chant that's plagued soccer for years

 

  1. NBC...
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February 28, 2025 49 mins

SHOW NOTES

INTRO 00:00:00

Intro

Parent’s Guide on Instagram!

 

SEGMENT 1 00:00:57

Parent’s Guide on Instagram!

The wait is OVER

This year’s A Parent’s Guide to San Diego Schools is here and ready to help answer all your local education questions!

The Guide explains school choice opportunities and enrollment deadlines, what’s available for after-school care, school performance data in an easy-...

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February 21, 2025 50 mins

If you listened last week, you were set up for the big news this week. The mayor is flexing his muscles. 

 

We’ll explain the difference between eliminating a position and firing someone and what happened to the now former top bureaucrat at the city. 

 

And the parents guide is coming out. Jakob and Andrea here have been working hard on it. We’ll talk.


SHOW NOTES

INTRO 00:00:00

Intro

What our su...

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February 14, 2025 73 mins

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? San Diego Unified School District is...

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February 7, 2025 59 mins

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 that prevents state and local law enfor...

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January 31, 2025 46 mins

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 Southeastern neighborhoods

 

E...

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January 24, 2025 54 mins

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.

See omnystudio.com/listener for priv...

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January 17, 2025 47 mins

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…

 

Read more

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January 10, 2025 73 mins

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’...

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January 3, 2025 66 mins

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&rsq...

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