The San Diego County budget leaped to the forefront of the race to fill a vacant South County seat on the County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday.

Chula Vista Mayor John McCann, the Republican in the race, staged an early morning press conference to decry a recent proposal by board Democrats tap up to $355 million in rainy day funds to prepare for possible federal cuts to Medicaid and other programs.

McCann said the Democrats’ proposal, which comes at time when the county already faces a $140 million budget deficit, “turns our emergency fund into a slush fund…We need to stop ignoring the real problem, which is too much spending.”

McCann and Republican Supervisor Jim Desmond, who also spoke at the press conference, identified several county programs they’d target for elimination before tapping reserves: A $7.5 million expenditure on free phone calls for jail inmates, a $5 million program providing free legal services to undocumented immigrants and the county’s recently created Office of Racial Equity and Justice.

Board Democrats Terra Lawson-Remer and Monica Montgomery Steppe have emphasized that their reserve proposal is intended only to prepare for future budget emergencies, not power new government spending.

But McCann and Desmond said the proposal shows Democrats are not being prudent with taxpayers’ money. “Instead of spending on pointless projects, we need to prioritize the county’s core services,” McCann said. “Reserves [are] meant to fight wildfires and respond to true emergencies, not for political issues.”

The Trump card: McCann’s Democratic opponent, Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, immediately slapped back at the call for cuts with a sharply worded statement accusing McCann of “doubling down on the Republican MAGA plan to slash funding for Medi-Cal and children’s nutrition programs South County families rely on most.”

The slam echoed previous efforts Aguirre has made to tie McCann to unpopular Trump administration policies. But McCann said he has never proposed cutting either Medi-Cal or child nutrition spending and called himself a “strong advocate” for both programs. He reiterated his support for fully funding both, he said, as recently as an April 30 Head Start event in Chula Vista.

Asked to explain the Trump link, Aguirre’s campaign consultant, Dan Rottenstreich, acknowledged that, in fact, it was county budget staff who proposed reducing the number of county employees who enroll people in state healthcare and food programs, not McCann.

But Rottenstreich argued that McCann’s opposition to Democrats’ budget reserve proposal, along with a related proposal to delay the budget vote until after the Supervisor election, amounted to implicit support for the Medi-Cal staff reduction.

Divergent priorities: The clash over the reserve proposal highlighted the sharply divergent views at stake in the supervisor race.

McCann said that, under Democratic leadership, the Board of Supervisors had strayed from the county’s core mission, piling up extraneous programs and running the county into a budgetary ditch.

“Everyone wants government to do everything,” he said. “But…local government needs to focus on core services.”

McCann said he had kept Chula Vista’s budget balanced for years without staff or service cuts by “focusing on the core mission of the city and not going off on all these other issues that cost money.”

Aguirre on Wednesday framed the problem in opposite  terms. “The county doesn’t lack for resources,” she said. “It lacks the political will to take action.”

Aguirre said tapping the county’s reserves would enable long-needed investment in parts of the county that had been ignored for years. The county, she said, “has done next to nothing to end chronic neglect of our community. And it’s not putting tax dollars where they’re needed most – fixing the [Tijuana River] sewage crisis and helping people afford to live here.”

The post County Budget Muscles Into Supervisor Race appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Seventeen-year-old Armando Varela stood in the middle of a crowded art gallery, working up the nerve to speak. 

It was Saturday afternoon and the halls and exhibit rooms at A Reason to Survive, a two-decade-old nonprofit youth arts program in National City, were full of eager children, harried parents and artworks ranging from wall-sized murals to a cluster of decorated wooden boxes small enough to fit in the palm of a hand. The families were there for ARTS’ (as the organization is commonly known) annual spring exhibit of student work. 

Varela stood before the cluster of wooden boxes, a project he and a handful of other students had recently completed in a sound design class taught by art teacher Pablo Dodero. The hand-built boxes were festooned with springs, pebbles, doorstops and other found objects that create musical notes when the boxes are plugged into an electric amplifier. 

Dodero briefly described the project then turned the presentation over to Varela. “Armando?” he said. 

Varela stared in alarm at a roomful of expectant faces. “I didn’t see myself as artsy when I first joined ARTS,” he said haltingly. “But that changed pretty quickly…ARTS helped me find my voice in so many ways I didn’t expect.” 

He grinned, looking more assured. “For example, I’m speaking here.” 

For nearly a quarter century, ARTS, which occupies National City’s former main library building adjacent to City Hall, has provided artistic programming and a warm embrace of encouraging community to vulnerable young people in San Diego County.

Started in 2001 by a Boston native named Matt D’Arrigo as a one-man volunteer art-making session for children with cancer in a San Diego hospital, the program has since expanded into a 20,000-square-foot regional arts teaching hub with a full-size painting studio, a sound technology lab, welding equipment for metal sculpture, power saws for woodworking and a staff of 72 teaching artists, administrators, interns and volunteers. 

Each year, 1,500 students, many of them from low-income, Spanish-speaking or bi-national families, cycle through three program sessions offered in fall, spring and summer. ARTS teaching artists fan out to after-school programs in local school districts and work with teens attending juvenile court schools. The annual budget, most of it supplied by philanthropy, is close to $2 million. 

“We’ve become an established arts and culture center for National City and South Bay youth and families,” said ARTS Executive Director Lucy Eagleson. “We’re the bridge for [families] because we have the trust and the community.” 

Or, as Armando Varelas, a senior at Sweetwater High School, put it on Saturday, “I never had a plan and a future” before enrolling in ARTS. “Now I applied to Southwestern College for a music major with an emphasis in mariachi. Then I want to go to UCSD or SDSU and become a musician and music educator…After I saw this, I knew what I wanted to do.” 

Until this year, ARTS was on an upward trajectory. It moved into the National City facility in 2012 and has won awards and been featured on NBC’s Today Show and in an Academy Award-winning documentary. 

After a budget crisis in 2017, a new executive director, James Halliday, stabilized funding and maintained programming through the Covid-19 pandemic. Eagleson took over last year and has broadened ARTS’ reach further, negotiating contracts with local school districts, recruiting teaching artists and volunteers and upgrading facilities with the help of philanthropic and local corporate support. 

The growth ground to a halt in December. ARTS has an unusual agreement with its landlord, National City. The city allows the organization to use its former library building for free and covers utilities. In return, ARTS is required to provide the city with at least $125,000 worth of art programs and public art projects annually – an amount “we far exceed every year,” Eagleson said. 

Typically, the city has renewed its agreement with ARTS every two years. This year, Eagleson said she hopes to negotiate a longer arrangement, perhaps for five years, maybe even 10. A longer time period, she said, would attract additional funding and make possible a capital campaign to refurbish studios, add equipment and broaden offerings. 

Greater stability would also help ARTS weather a period of heightened national economic uncertainty, Eagleson said. 

“We have to be creative because foundations have less to give with the stock market down, and schools have less,” she said. “I stay painfully positive, energetic and committed to the work. That’s all I can do.” 

The city temporarily extended ARTS’ lease earlier this year. Negotiations continue over terms for a longer arrangement. In the meantime, the City Council has been mired in bouts of infighting and recently parted with former City Manager Benjamin Martinez. 

Eagleson was diplomatic about the situation at City Hall, saying only that ARTS remains firmly committed to serving National City and surrounding communities, which include some of San Diego County’s most ethnically diverse and lowest-income neighborhoods. 

“There are a lot of arts organizations in [San Diego] but it’s so important to have a program in the community you’re trying to serve,” Eagleson said. Students and their families can “walk, bike or take the bus…The trust-building and connection-building are here. We’re grateful that the city of National City recognizes the importance of art and creativity and how it plays a role in building a great community.” 

Examples of trust and community could be found in every room of ARTS’ spring exhibition on Saturday. On a wall near Varela’s sound boxes, a colorful poster depicted ARTS’ latest planned public art project, a series of student-made decorative additions to a free community water spigot at National City’s El Toyon Park, currently undergoing a $7 million city-funded renovation. 

Eighteen-year-old Ada Escamilla stood beside the poster, explaining her part in the public art project. She had designed a metal globe sculpture, she said, which would be painted to show what the earth might look like in a hotter future climate. 

“Our world used to be so much more blue,” Escamilla said. “Now it’s green and yellow and drier.” 

Asked what kept her coming to ARTS, which she first encountered at age 13, Escamilla talked briefly about her love of artistic expression. Then she shared a deeper reason. 

Two years ago, she said, her younger sister was diagnosed with leukemia. “I didn’t want to do anything,” Escamilla said. “I lost interest in all my passions.” 

Escamilla told her ARTS teacher, Sheena Rae Dowling, about her sister’s diagnosis. “It allowed me to be vulnerable,” Escamilla said. With Dowling’s encouragement, Escamilla made an artwork for her sister, a photograph of the two of them together as babies painted to create the impression that “the environment was supporting her [sister],” she said. “If I didn’t have this, I might not have art at all.” 

A few rooms away, Monica Guzman, a medical assistant at Kaiser Permanente, watched her 12-year-old son Joshua decorate a hat with an intricate pattern of smiling faces. 

“He’s done better with this art program,” Guzman said of Joshua. “I went through a divorce seven years ago. He acted up in school…He went through anxiety.” 

After a Kaiser patient told her about ARTS’ after-school art programs in local elementary schools, Guzman said she signed Joshua up for the program at his school, Lincoln Acres Elementary. 

“His mood stabilized,” she said. “It gave him a way to express his feelings. He has a sketch pad at home. He’s proud of everything he does.” 

The program, free like all of ARTS’ offerings, has been a godsend, Guzman said. “I work every day, Monday to Friday, 8:30 to five…He likes to stay [at school] and do art. If I get off early, he says, ‘Pick me up at five.’” 

She flicked through her phone, showing photos of hand-sewn puppets Joshua makes when he’s not drawing. There was C4, a robot determined to “destroy the world,” Joshua said in a deadpan robot voice. Also, the Cheese Wizard, a wizard who loves cheese – but, Joshua said solemnly, “his real name is Dave.”  

“Art and baseball are his life right now,” Guzman said. 

Claudia Rodriguez-Biezunski, a textile art teacher presiding over an exhibit of student sewing projects on the other side of the room, said many, if not a majority, of her students live in Tijuana or have parents in Mexico. 

“I asked my students if their parents were going to come see the exhibit and they said, ‘My parents can’t cross [the border],” Rodriguez-Biezunksi said. “Their family drops them off at the border, they walk across and take public transit here.” 

Rodriguez-Biezunksi said art draws students to ARTS. But they stay because teachers “pour our heart and soul into them.” 

“I also come from an under-resourced community,” Rodriguez-Biezunksi said. “I’m a daughter of immigrants…I was a runaway when I was 15. At age 16, I was kicked out of high school. I dropped out of life. Eventually I graduated and became a teacher because I would have loved to have a teacher who would have cared about me.” 

Saturday’s three-hour exhibit was wrapping up and the galleries were emptying when 16-year-old Fernando Guerrero walked into an exhibit room and pointed to a six-foot-long welded metal sword hanging on the wall. 

The sword, Guerrero said, was his creation, forged in ARTS’ metalworking studio as an homage to his favorite video game, Devil May Cry. The sword was a replica of a sword wielded by the game’s protagonist, a half human, half demon who uses the sword to fuse together the two aspects of his nature. 

Guerrero, a soft-spoken sophomore at the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts, described how he made the sword. Starting with a metal pipe, he said he welded a cross bar to the pipe then fashioned a paper model of a basketball-sized skull to decorate the handle. 

He molded the skull in ARTS’ metalworking forge and welded it to the handle. Then he cut sheets of metal into the shape of a blade and welded them together. 

“It took me 10 weeks to make,” he said proudly of the sword. “I’ll get to take it home. I’ll put the sword over my bed. I’ll hang it on the wall.” 

He pulled out his phone and showed a video of himself heaving the sword off the ground and waving it in the air. “I think it weighs 40-60 pounds,” he said. 

He put his phone away and gazed at his handiwork in the now-quiet gallery. “This place helps me see myself as an artist,” he said. 

The post Lauded Arts Program Faces Uncertain Future  appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

How to make a National City resident mad: Tell them you’ve selected their city as the site of a new industrial development that wealthier, more powerful cities would never allow. 

This Thursday, in an effort to avoid that unhappy scenario, the developer of a new Port of San Diego electric truck charging station proposed on port property in National City is holding a community meeting to outline the project, take questions from the public and, project proponents hope, win over city residents long accustomed to viewing the rosy promises of industrial developers with skepticism. 

Such meetings are standard fare in big development projects. This one takes on added significance because it comes at a time of ongoing tension between National City and the port. 

The two public entities have been at odds in recent years over issues ranging from National City’s representative on the port’s Board of Port Commissioners to how much the port pays the city for municipal services such as policing and firefighting on port property. 

“We want to make sure constituents feel included,” said John Friedrich, chief development officer for Skycharger, a national electric vehicle infrastructure company that was selected by the port to build the 4.8-acre truck charging facility on Tidelands Avenue near the National City Marine Terminal. 

“In my view, [the charging facility] brings environmental and economic benefits to the community,” Friedrich said. “We want to have it be rooted in a local community benefit mindset.” 

If built as planned, the charging facility would resemble an interstate highway truck stop, with 70 charging ports for trucks of various sizes plus a convenience store with restrooms for truck drivers. There would also be a solar panel array atop a canopy shading the charging ports. The solar panels would supply power to the charging ports and send excess electricity to a 1.25-megawatt onsite storage battery. 

The project is part of the port’s Maritime Clean Air Strategy, a multipronged effort to reduce port-generated pollution and transition port infrastructure to alternative energy sources. 

Though California regulators recently withdrew an ambitious plan to phase out diesel trucks statewide, the port is continuing its own efforts. Friedrich said a long-term goal is switching most if not all trucks serving the port, especially those ferrying goods from one part of the port to another or to local warehouses, to electric power. 

“The project will reduce air pollution in National City,” he said. 

Residents and city officials aren’t so sure. Mayor Ron Morrison has said he worries the charging station will draw even more trucks to an already clogged area and raise the risk of toxic electric battery fires. Though the charging station’s storage battery is small compared to larger storage facilities that recently have caught fire, an electric truck that overturned at the Port of Los Angeles last year burned for 24 hours, emitting toxic fumes. 

Friedrich said the National City charging station will have a 24-hour security operation and will have cameras connected to the city’s police and fire departments to ensure the city can respond to emergencies quickly. 

“We will keep having [community meetings] to make sure we’re listening and responding to input on how to maximize benefits,” he said. 

The Skycharger community meeting to discuss plans for an electric truck charging facility in National City takes place at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 1, at the National City Aquatic Center, 3300 Pepper Park Pl. in National City. More information here. 

South County’s Economic Future 

South County’s four mayors – Paloma Aguirre of Imperial Beach, John Duncan of Coronado, John McCann of Chula Vista and Ron Morrison of National City – appeared onstage together Tuesday and did their best to predict their region’s economic future at a time of economic and political uncertainty. 

One word summed up their discussion at the annual South County Economic Development Council Economic Summit at the Liberty Station Conference Center in San Diego: “Headwinds.” 

Several of the mayors used that term to describe what they foresee for their cities and the rest of South San Diego County. 

“We’re at the bottom of the food chain,” Morrison said, referring to cities’ relative lack of power over state, national and international developments that impact cities’ economies. 

Aguirre cited “the big-T elephant in the room: Tariffs.” Duncan said the entire regional economy was imperiled by the ongoing sewage crisis in the Tijuana River, which he said threatens not only residents’ health but also tourism and major new business initiatives, such as a luxury resort hotel opening later this year in Chula Vista. 

McCann also cited tariffs as a problem and lumped in with them what he described as overly rigid and prescriptive state housing rules that “take away local control [and] hurt cities for being able to build housing.” 

Duncan joked about another elephant in the conference center ballroom: The fact that Aguirre and McCann are currently locked in a tight race to fill a vacant seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. 

Duncan took a diplomatic approach: “I’m happy one of these two mayors will be our next Supervisor,” he said. 

There was no politicking on the summit stage. Though the race between Aguirre and McCann promises to be bruising, the two were cordial during the morning’s discussion. Both pointed out that they have worked together in the past, including traveling with a bipartisan delegation of local leaders last year to secure additional federal funding to address the sewage issue. 

“We have worked well together,” Aguirre said. Her words were echoed by McCann: “It’s a collaboration,” he said. 

Happy Trails 

It’s been almost two decades since San Diego County officials gave the green light in 2008 to build a loop trail around the Sweetwater Reservoir northeast of Bonita. 

Since then, hikers, horseback riders and other lovers of peaceful outdoor spaces have waited…and waited. 

Last week, the wait inched closer to being over. On April 23, governing board members of Sweetwater Authority, the water agency that manages the reservoir, approved a proposal to cooperate with county officials to design, build and maintain a trail that loops around the entire reservoir, connecting to a network of existing trails that currently encircle only part of the reservoir. 

Many details of the project, including the final layout of the trails and who will pay for maintenance and other ongoing costs remain to be worked out between the authority and the county. 

But the proposal approved last week puts the authority’s stamp of approval on the project and brings it closer to reality. 

“This is HUGE for South County residents and trail users,” one advocate said after the meeting. Some people have “been waiting [their] whole [lives] for this.” 

In Other News 

Assemblymember David Alvarez continues his efforts to reexamine California environmental policies to ensure they do not unduly burden state residents. Alvarez already co-sponsored legislation to modify state environmental laws to make it easier to build housing. Now he will co-chair a legislative committee that plans to scrutinize recent new clean air policies that critics say will raise the price of gasoline. 

In a statement, Alvarez said the clean air policy committee would examine how the new policy “is implemented, who benefits from clean fuel incentives and how we can improve the transition to a low-carbon economy without unnecessary costs to consumers.” 

The post South County Report: Keep On (Electric) Truckin’ appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

One Friday evening last month, commuters at the Palomar trolley station in Chula Vista might have seen a small group of adults and children gathered around a makeshift altar on one side of the station platform. 

The altar consisted of a photo of a smiling young woman surrounded by votive candles flickering in a brisk ocean breeze. A few adults at the gathering gave short speeches while their children scampered around and stole glances at the photo. 

There was a moment of silence. Then the crowd released 18 lavender balloons they had been holding into the sky. The balloons leaped away in the breeze and soon vanished in the evening dusk. 

The photo at the center of this small memorial ceremony was of an 18-year-old Chula Vista resident named Jaylin Perez. Two months earlier, Perez’s lifeless body had been discovered at the Palomar station after lying motionless near the platform for more than five hours while commuters stepped around her. 

A homeless drug user, Perez most likely died from a fentanyl overdose, her mother, Jeannette Gallardo, said. That chilly March evening, Gallardo and a group of fellow parents who lost children to drugs gathered not only to commemorate Perez’s short life but also to call attention to what they said was a systemic failure by county health officials to provide basic services to homeless drug users. 

“People always say help is available,” said Susan Shipp, whose son, Kyle, died of a fentanyl overdose in 2019 because, Shipp said, there were no treatment options in San Diego County his family could afford. “It isn’t.” 

The small protest, mostly unnoticed amid the noise and hustle of rush hour, was just one of countless recent moments in San Diego County when the seemingly abstruse and technical decisions made by county government leaders suddenly became bluntly real for everyday San Diegans. 

The parents at the protest were not wrong about the county’s lack of affordable drug treatment. Even as the number of homeless people and drug deaths has risen in San Diego County, county health officials have opened just 100 publicly funded detox beds for people seeking help with drug addiction and continue to struggle to provide short-term shelter for homeless people and affordable long-term drug treatment options. 

County leaders’ decisions led to the shortage. In recent years, county supervisors have voted to delay or scrap shelter plans, postponed implementing new state conservatorship rules, prioritized less coercive forms of drug treatment and fumbled a proposed mental health treatment partnership with a UC San Diego hospital. 

Those decisions, some made years ago, continue to be felt by families like Jaylin Perez’s when they search for county services that don’t exist. 

On July 1, residents in San Diego County’s southernmost cities and neighborhoods will make their own decision about the county’s future. Residents of supervisorial District 1 will vote to choose a replacement for recently departed Supervisor Nora Vargas, who resigned abruptly for unexplained reasons late last year. 

The two candidates vying to replace Vargas, Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre and Chula Vista Mayor John McCann, have staked out sharply different visions for county government. Aguirre is a Democrat. McCann is a Republican. Whichever of them wins will cement their party’s control over the Board of Supervisors. 

Residents like the families at the Palomar trolley station last month will feel the effects of July’s election. 

Voice of San Diego has been talking to the candidates and voters around South County. We identified four issues of top concern in the region: Homelessness, the cost of living, public safety and a looming county budget deficit, which, along with possible federal funding cuts, could affect a wide range of county functions. 

We asked the candidates to lay out their vision for county government and spell out their approach to these four important issues. Here’s what we learned. 

Homelessness 

Like the families at the Palomar memorial ceremony, both candidates criticized the county for failing to provide enough shelter space and affordable drug treatment for people struggling with homelessness and drug use. 

Aguirre identified several solutions. First, she pointed to a new city housing department she helped to create in Imperial Beach, which fields an outreach team that meets with every homeless person it can find in the city, identifies needs and connects people with services. Centralizing that work in one department, she said, makes it easier to coordinate efforts. 

At the county, Aguirre said she would prioritize hiring up to 18,000 behavioral healthcare workers and seek to provide “a ton more behavioral health beds.” The county has been attempting to provide such services, but Aguirre said the process has been too slow. “The county hasn’t stepped up,” she said. 

She also said she would seek to duplicate efforts she made in Imperial Beach to prevent mobile home parks and other existing forms of affordable housing from being replaced by market-rate developments. 

McCann’s vision is different. He said he would seek to replicate what he calls Chula Vista’s “tough love” approach to homelessness. In recent years, the city has fielded a homeless outreach team of police officers and case workers (known as “the HOT team”) and opened a tiny-home shelter near the Otay River run by a faith-based organization headquartered in Long Beach. 

The outreach team, like its equivalent in Imperial Beach, seeks to meet with homeless people and direct them toward shelter or services. Chula Vista’s shelter, however, requires residents to remain sober and work toward self-sufficiency with the help of case workers and other service providers. 

The “tough” part refers to what happens when homeless people turn down offers of help. McCann said he led the city to adopt “one of the strictest homeless encampment bans in the county.” Homeless people who refuse to leave encampments or accept help need to face consequences, McCann said. 

“When they’re defecating, stealing, essentially committing violence towards others…we need to decide to hold them accountable,” he said. 

McCann said he would conduct a thorough review of county homelessness spending and eliminate failing efforts. “The county has spent millions and millions of dollars on homeless programs, and we need to find out what has been effective and what has not,” he said. 

Cost of Living 

Aguirre said one of the primary drivers of high costs in San Diego is the lack of affordable housing, an issue on which “my opponent and I agree more than disagree.” 

Like McCann, Aguirre said the primary way to lower the cost of housing is to build more homes working San Diegans can afford. 

“In Imperial Beach, we’ve approved every [housing] project that has come our way,” Aguirre said. “We approved seven if not more projects, each with multiple units and amenities and benefits.” 

Aguirre pointed with pride to what she described as an 86-unit apartment complex on Holly Avenue that, with help from a city-awarded “density bonus,” gave up a portion of its land to be developed into a community park – the first public park in that part of the city. 

Aguirre said she also led the City Council to adopt a tenant protection ordinance earlier this year that makes it harder for landlords to evict tenants for remodeling projects. 

McCann agreed that more home construction is essential for lowering costs. Unlike Aguirre, who favors high-density infill projects geared toward working class families, McCann is a strong proponent of what he called “middle class” housing that maximizes opportunities for home ownership, which he said is one of the primary ways families can gain financial security. 

McCann pointed to Chula Vista’s track record of building multiple master-planned communities on the city’s east side with options ranging from entry level multi-family complexes to million-dollar single-family homes. 

He said one project currently under construction, called Sunbow II, was originally slated to be apartments. “I said no,” McCann said. “And we were able to get them to do a hundred percent of the project as for-sale entry-level homeownership.” 

McCann said that, unlike Aguirre, he opposes a county policy that factors commute times into housing permit decisions, making it harder to build on the county’s undeveloped fringes. 

And he said he would seek to change what he described as an anti-development ethos in county housing policy. 

“When you look at other counties, they’re issuing thousands” of housing permits, McCann said. “When we’re under a housing crisis, we should be looking for ways to streamline the processes and decrease the costs so we can provide quality housing at an affordable rate.” 

Public Safety 

Aguirre said she and McCann also mostly see eye-to-eye about the best ways to ensure public safety. 

“My record is strong here in Imperial Beach,” Aguirre said. “I’m the only one of the two [candidates] who has a working relationship with sheriff’s deputies and the Sheriff’s Department for the last six years.” (Imperial Beach contracts with county sheriffs for police services. The union representing deputy sheriffs has endorsed McCann in the Supervisor race.) 

Aguirre said she voted to increase deputies’ pay in Imperial Beach and recently approved the purchase of a new $800,000 fire truck for city firefighters. 

“Imperial Beach is one of the safest coastal cities in the county,” she said. “The biggest issues, deputies will tell you, once we eliminated gang activity, is people worrying about getting their bike stolen…I want to make sure that [public safety record] is expanded to the entire district.” 

McCann pointed with pride to Chula Vista’s police department, which has expanded during his tenure as mayor and occupies a gleaming headquarters across from City Hall. The City Council recently voted to begin studying the possibility of building a new police substation on the city’s east side. 

McCann he would prioritize ensuring deputy sheriffs have wages, equipment and other resources necessary to make it easier to recruit new deputies, an ongoing challenge for many law enforcement agencies. 

“I want to make sure we fully fund the sheriff’s department and give our deputy sheriffs everything they need to do the best job they can,” McCann said. “I’ve always been pro-law enforcement, and I’m not a fair-weather friend.” 

McCann said that, during his time in city leadership, Chula Vista has become one of the safest big cities in California. “The number one issue is public safety,” he said. 

County Budget 

Aguirre said that, as a Democrat, she would “fight back” against what she described as the Trump administration’s recent “threats of cutting $880 billion in Medicaid.” 

“Over 900,000 residents in San Diego County depend on that for survival,” she said. 

Aguirre said she would seek to close an anticipated $140 million county deficit not by cutting services or raising taxes, but by tapping the county’s $3 billion reserves, roughly $700 million of which is available to cover immediate shortfalls. 

“We have a massive amount of reserves that have been governed by very old-school conservative policies of the past,” Aguirre said. “The fact that South County, District 1, has not had as high a quality of life as other districts in the county is because we were an afterthought when Republicans led the Board of Supervisors.” 

Aguirre did not rule out a tax increase, especially if one is approved by voters. But she said the county should rethink its reserves policy before raising taxes. 

“Our focus needs to be on lowering costs for working families, period,” Aguirre said. “That starts by investing our county’s massive reserves back into the communities.” 

McCann’s views on the county budget are the exact opposite of Aguirre’s. He said it would be foolish to tap rainy day funds to cover what he described as irresponsible budget decisions made under Democrats’ leadership of the Board of Supervisors. 

Pointing to Democrats’ creation of whole new county departments and awarding raises to an expanding county workforce, he said the county needs to tighten its belt before raising taxes or raiding reserves. 

“As mayor of the city of Chula Vista, we have passed a balanced budget with fully funded reserves, and we’re one of the few cities in the county that haven’t had any layoffs or cuts in city services,” McCann said. “I want to bring that budgetary knowledge to the county and work to make sure we fully fund law enforcement and the sheriff’s office and look for opportunities to slash the budget in other areas.” 

As one example of what he described as wasteful spending, McCann said, “The county spends $7 million dollars giving prisoners free phone calls, whereas before, they did not have that. I believe that there are other low-lying fruit options to be able to help streamline and cut waste, fraud and abuse at the county.” 

San Diego “was an incredibly fiscally responsible county” before Democrats became a majority on the Board of Supervisors, McCann said. “I will look for solutions and not partisanship.” 

The post Supervisor Race Pits Different Visions for County’s Future appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

A federal judge on Friday sentenced an El Cajon businesswoman to a year in federal prison for masterminding an elaborate fraud scheme that prosecutors said commenced just weeks after President Donald Trump commuted her first term in prison for a different fraud scheme.

U.S. District Court Judge Cynthia A. Bashant sentenced Adriana Camberos to a year and one day in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release plus forfeiture of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains as punishment for perpetrating a multi-million-dollar scheme that involved illegally redirecting goods intended for sale in Mexico to the U.S. market and selling them at a markup.

The judge also sentenced Camberos’ brother, Andres Camberos, to a year of home detention followed by three years’ probation and forfeiture of ill-gotten gains for his part in the scheme.

Both siblings also must pay restitution to companies they defrauded. Judge Bashant estimated victims’ losses at more than $25 million.

Our South County reporter Jim Hinch has been reporting on the siblings’ case because Chula Vista Mayor John McCann helped to free Adriana Camberos from her first prison term by writing a letter to then-President Donald Trump asking for clemency on Camberos’ behalf in 2020.

As Hinch reported last week, both Adriana and Andres Camberos went on to make campaign donations that benefited McCann’s mayoral campaign in 2022, though McCann said he did not solicit the donations or receive any other recompense from either Camberos sibling.

Adriana Camberos also bought a $1.6 million luxury condominium in Coronado shortly after exiting prison that a real estate company owned by McCann had been trying to sell prior to her release. McCann’s company was not involved in Camberos’ purchase of the condominium, according to real estate records.

Adriana Camberos’ lawyers said she would appeal both the verdict in her case and the sentence. A lawyer for Andres Camberos said he was likely to appeal too. 

“I never thought I would be in a courtroom again,” Adriana Camberos said in a statement she read at Friday’s hearing. “I’m mortified.”

The post Convicted Businesswoman Granted Clemency By Trump Returning to Prison appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

On the morning of Jan. 20, 2021, Adriana Camberos, a businesswoman from El Cajon, was one of more than 151,000 inmates in the federal prison system. 

Convicted in 2016 of fraud for selling millions of bottles of counterfeit energy drinks, Camberos was a little more than halfway through a two-year prison sentence. 

On his last day in office, Jan. 20, 2021, then-President Donald Trump commuted her sentence. 

A White House statement said Camberos was a mother and a deeply religious woman who had mentored fellow inmates while incarcerated and “demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to rehabilitation.” 

Also in her favor, the statement said: The support of the then-deputy mayor of Chula Vista, John McCann, who had written a letter asking Trump for clemency. 

At the time, McCann was a longtime Chula Vista politician less than a year away from launching a campaign to become the city’s mayor. Adriana Camberos would go on to support McCann’s campaign – even as she and her brother, Andres Camberos, embarked on a fraud scheme even more elaborate and lucrative than the one that sent Adriana Camberos to prison, according to federal prosecutors. 

While both Camberos siblings were engaged in selling what an 11-count federal indictment unsealed in 2023 described as tens of millions of dollars’ worth of fraudulent merchandise, they were also immersed in Chula Vista public affairs.   

Andres Camberos opened Chula Vista’s first cannabis retail business and became a sponsor of high-profile city events, including the city’s beloved annual holiday Starlight Parade. 

In 2021, less than six months after exiting prison, Adriana Camberos bought a $1.6 million luxury condominium in Coronado. A real estate company owned by McCann had listed the condominium for sale previously but removed it from the market four months before Camberos bought it. (McCann’s company was not involved in Camberos’ purchase of the condominium, according to real estate documents.) 

A federal judge will sentence both Camberos siblings this week to up to 20 years in prison for what prosecutors described as “a years-long fraud scheme [that] made millions off of lies to other companies.” 

The Letter to the President 

The clemency for Adriana Camberos followed so soon by her involvement in another fraudulent scheme has provoked questions for McCann.  

He said he offered to help Adriana Camberos after meeting her brother during a late 2020 tour of Andres Camberos’ brand-new Chula Vista cannabis delivery business. Chula Vista city staff had just awarded Andres Camberos and two business partners the city’s first ever cannabis retail license. 

Andres Camberos, it turned out, had attended Chula Vista’s Bonita Vista High School, where McCann graduated in 1986, though the two men had attended the school at different times. After sharing reminiscences about Bonita Vista during the tour, Andres Camberos walked McCann to the parking lot “and said, hey, he had something he wanted to talk to me about,” McCann recalled. 

Andres Camberos told McCann about his sister’s situation and asked McCann if he could help, McCann said. 

McCann said he discussed the case with Adriana Camberos’ lawyer, did his own research, talked with the Camberos family and decided to write a letter on Adriana Camberos’ behalf. 

“I believe in giving people second chances,” McCann said. Adriana Camberos “had been described as victimized [by her then-husband, Joseph Shayota, Adriana’s co-conspirator in the fraud scheme.] She had been a model prisoner [and] had conducted Bible studies” while in prison. 

Court documents filed by Adriana Camberos’ lawyers said Joseph Shayota had subjected his wife to years of emotional, verbal and physical abuse and masterminded the fraud scheme for which she was imprisoned. 

“Understanding she was a mother with no prior convictions and had completed more than half of her sentence, I, along with other community leaders, provided a letter supporting her commutation to her family,” McCann said. 

The Camberos siblings, however, did not stay out of trouble.  

According to prosecutors, less than six weeks after Trump commuted her sentence, Adriana Camberos and her brother began sending wire transfers between a group of companies and bank accounts that were at the heart of an elaborate new fraud scheme. 

The scheme, for which both siblings were tried and convicted last year, involved buying discounted goods earmarked for sale in Mexico, relabeling the goods and illegally re-selling them at a markup in the United States. 

Following an 11-day trial in October, jurors found the siblings guilty of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud along with seven counts of wire fraud. They were acquitted on three mail fraud counts. 

Earnings from the siblings’ fraud scheme – $58 million in gross profits from companies involved in the scheme, according to prosecutors – fueled a spending spree on what prosecutors described as multiple houses in the San Diego area, a stable of luxury cars and multiple investment accounts, life insurance policies, a cryptocurrency account and other assets. 

The money also enabled the siblings to make more than $150,000 in local and national campaign donations, some of which went to an independent expenditure committee that supported McCann’s 2022 mayoral bid along with other San Diego-area candidates’ campaigns. 

Both Camberoses are scheduled to be sentenced on Friday. Prosectors have asked federal judge Cynthia A. Bashant to send Adriana Camberos to prison for six years followed by three years of supervised release plus forfeiture of properties purchased with fraudulent funds and restitution to victims. 

Prosecutors requested a sentence of four years’ imprisonment for Andres Camberos, followed by three years of supervised release, forfeiture of properties and restitution to victims. 

Joshua Mellor, one of the federal prosecutors who worked on the Camberoses’ case, said the siblings were not currently in custody prior to sentencing. 

Neither Camberos sibling responded to a request for comment made through their lawyers. 

McCann is now running for a vacant seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, campaigning in part on a platform of public safety and increased funding for law enforcement. 

Asked about the Camberoses’ turn to crime so soon after Adriana Camberos was freed from prison, McCann said he “was saddened [Adriana] chose to engage in illegal activity after she was restored.” 

“Ms. Shayota was given a remarkable opportunity to restore her life,” McCann said, referring to Adriana Camberos by the last name she used before filing for divorce from Joseph Shayota in 2019. She “didn’t, unfortunately, take that opportunity.” 

McCann said neither Camberos sibling gave him anything other than a verbal thank you in return for writing the commutation letter. 

“I received a call and…they verbally expressed their appreciation,” McCann said. “I didn’t receive a card…They didn’t give me anything physically…I really had very little if any communication or interaction with them since the commutation.” 

The Siblings’ Spending 

Among the properties prosectors seek to force the Camberoses to forfeit at their sentencing this week is a $1.6 million two-bedroom condominium in a luxury beachfront high-rise complex in Coronado called Coronado Shores. Real estate documents show that Adriana Camberos bought the condominium in May 2021, less than six months after leaving prison. 

One of McCann’s primary sources of income listed in financial disclosure statements is a real estate company called Coronado Shores Co., headquartered a few blocks from the Coronado Shores condominium complex. The company provides real estate and property management services in the complex and elsewhere in Coronado. 

Christina Denning, a lawyer representing McCann, said that, though McCann’s company and the Coronado Shores complex share a name, they are not related and McCann’s company “did not list the property [purchased by Adriana Camberos] for sale, nor did Coronado Shores Company represent Ms. Shayota in the purchase.” 

Contrary to Denning’s statement that the Coronado Shores Co. did not list the property for sale, real estate documents show that, on July 25, 2020, McCann’s company listed the Coronado Shores condominium for sale on behalf of a Texas-based holding company run by a Houston interior designer and property investor named Lourdes Barroso. 

On Jan. 23, 2021, three days after Adriana Camberos left prison, Coronado Shores Co. took the condominium off the market – “likely due to the property not selling,” Denning said. 

Six weeks later, the property was for sale again but listed by a different realtor. 

On May 14, 2021, Adriana Camberos bought the condominium for $1,665,000.  

Asked about the transaction, McCann said he wasn’t even aware Camberos had bought a unit in Coronado Shores until Voice of San Diego brought the purchase to his attention. 

“I did not even know there was a transaction like that,” McCann said. “Our Coronado Shores Co. had nothing to do with sales, transaction, management, renting, anything” involving Adriana Camberos’ condominium purchase. “We had no conversation [with Camberos about the purchase] and had no knowledge of any of her actions.” 

When Voice of San Diego asked Denning about the fact that, contrary to her statement, McCann’s company had listed the condominium for sale shortly before a different realtor ended up selling it to Adriana Camberos, Denning replied that her initial statement that McCann’s company “did not list the property for sale” was “in direct relation to the transaction inquiry, not the history of the property itself. Real estate is very transactional in that every single individual transaction/sale/purchase is, in and of itself, singular and separate. The statement that The Coronado Shores Co. brokerage ‘did not list the property for sale’ was in response to the single transaction you inquired about. This was not a false statement, nor an intent to leave out any information. The Coronado Shores Co. brokerage did NOT list the property on this single transaction.” 

Denning acknowledged that McCann’s company “had a business relationship” with the owner who sold the Coronado Shores condominium to Camberos – McCann’s company had represented the owner when she bought the condominium in 2019, as well as when she bought another Coronado Shores condominium in 2020. And McCann’s company had provided property management and rental services on the unit Camberos later bought, Denning said. 

But Denning said the prior business relationship had nothing to do with Adriana Camberos’ Coronado Shores purchase. “Coronado Shores made zero money on the transaction and had no communication with Ms. Shayota about the purchase at all,” Denning said. “You continue to attempt to draw conclusions to make my client look guilty of something to fit the fictitious narrative you so desperately want to create.” 

Four months after Adriana Camberos purchased the Coronado Shores condominium, she and her brother embarked on a series of campaign donations that aided McCann’s 2022 campaign for Chula Vista mayor. 

On Sept. 20, 2021, Andres Camberos gave $7,500 to the Lincoln Club of San Diego, which at the time was a primary backer of an independent expenditure committee called the Community Leadership Coalition. Eight months after Camberos’ donation, the Coalition spent $8,066 on direct mail ads supporting McCann’s campaign. 

Campaign records show that the Community Leadership Coalition spent a total of $483,526 on political races in 2022, supporting or opposing candidates in more than a dozen races in the San Diego area. 

Three months after Andres Camberos wrote that initial Lincoln Club check, he and his sister both donated the maximum allowable amount – $360 – to McCann’s 2022 mayoral campaign. 

A few months after that, Adriana Camberos gave $20,000 directly to the Community Leadership Coalition. Campaign records show that, one week after Camberos’ donation, the Coalition spent $19,997 on attack ads against McCann’s mayoral campaign rival, Amar Campa-Najjar. In total, the Coalition spent more than $104,000 opposing Campa-Najjar in 2022. 

The Camberoses also made donations to the Community Leadership Coalition in the names of two of the companies identified by prosecutors as central to the siblings’ 2023 fraud case. The companies, Baja Exporting and Specialty Foods International, each gave $15,000 to the Coalition on Aug. 11, 2022. Specialty Foods employee Lauren Branham also gave $360 directly to McCann’s mayoral campaign. 

Asked about the Camberoses’ political giving, McCann said he had been aware the siblings donated to his mayoral campaign. But he said he had not solicited the donations. 

“The idea that each of them gave $360 out of a several-hundred-thousand-dollar race – we are appreciative, but it was not a major source of income,” McCann said. “We [had] a strict contribution list when I ran for mayor…I do not have any involvement in independent expenditures.” 

McCann pointed out that Campa-Najjar, his mayoral opponent, also had benefited from substantial independent expenditures. 

Camberos Lands First Legal Cannabis Dispensary in Chula Vista 

While donating to political races, Andres Camberos also kept himself involved in Chula Vista city affairs. Two months before his federal indictment, his cannabis company, Grasshopper Dispensary, announced it was sponsoring Chula Vista’s annual summer outdoor movie series in a local public park. 

The announcement, as well as a companion announcement from the city, described a child-friendly event featuring youth-oriented movies such as “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse.” 

In an April 4 response to prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations in Andres Camberos’ fraud case, Camberos’ brother Alfonso Camberos urged the judge in the case to be lenient because “Andres has consistently demonstrated a deep commitment to his community through various charitable initiatives and sponsorships.” 

In addition to the summer movie nights event, Camberos’ brother cited Andres’ support for Chula Vista’s annual holiday Starlight Parade, a cultural arts festival and last year’s 27th annual Lemon Festival on downtown’s Third Avenue. 

McCann said he had nothing to do with Andres Camberos’ cannabis business and had not interacted with Camberos after writing the commutation letter on Adriana Camberos’ behalf. 

“I actually voted no to have cannabis businesses in Chula Vista,” McCann said. “And the City Council does not approve any cannabis store. It actually all goes through the city manager’s office and the city [staff].” 

In an interview with the Emo Brown Podcast on Jan. 22, 2021, two days after Adriana Camberos exited prison, Andres Camberos described the process of opening his cannabis business in Chula Vista. 

Asked by the podcast host whether “there was one person at the city that was very instrumental in holding your hand and walking you through the [city’s permitting] process,” Camberos named McCann, who was deputy mayor at the time, and another Councilmember named Jill Galvez. 

“The actual [business] application was outside of their hands,” Camberos said. “But they’ve always been someone you could go inquire to, you know, and just like an advocate, you know. And John has been, I’m like, ‘Hey, John, we need this.’ Or, ‘We’re inquiring about this.’ And at the very least they can point you in the right direction, right? So you’re not making like a million phone calls and getting, like, a voicemail.” 

Camberos withdrew from ownership of Grasshopper and its parent company, Vista Holding Company, six months after his fraud indictment, following an order to divest sent by Chula Vista’s city manager. 

In her own response to prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation, Adriana Camberos marshaled more than 50 letters from family members and friends attesting to her character, including from Jeannette Lizarraga, the realtor who represented Adriana Camberos in her purchase of the Coronado Shores condominium. 

Like other letter writers in the sentencing response, Lizarraga described Adriana Camberos as a loving friend and an honest businesswoman who didn’t even realize her fraudulent activity was illegal. 

“I truly believe that Adriana had no ill will and truly believed in the [legal] advice she was given,” Lizarraga wrote. “Had she not, she would have shut the whole business down a long time ago. Nothing was worth losing her family and freedom.” 

In the sentencing response, Adriana Camberos’ lawyers objected to prosecutors’ efforts to seize her property, pointing out that she was a 54-year-old grandmother who cared for her own ailing parents and “has touched many others in ways big and small by putting their needs above her own.” 

In addition to the Coronado condominium, prosecutors asked for permission to seize a 7,300-square-foot mansion in El Cajon, a $2 million house in La Jolla, two additional houses in Chula Vista, a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta sports car and three Range Rover SUVs. 

“The bottom line is we helped somebody, and we were looking to give them a second chance,” McCann said of his involvement with the Camberos siblings. “We’re trying to help people in the community ethically…That’s pretty much the situation.” 

The post Chula Vista Mayor Helped Free a Felon Who’s Going Back to Prison with Her Brother – A Lot Happened in Between appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

South County’s seemingly endless sewage crisis in the Tijuana River got some high-level federal attention on Tuesday. 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin spent the day touring the river and conferring with local leaders, following a high-level meeting with Mexican officials the previous evening during which Mexico’s environment secretary assured Zeldin that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum “is fully committed to resolve this issue” once and for all. 

Flanked by local elected officials from both political parties at a Tuesday morning press conference in San Diego, Zeldin said Americans are “out of patience” with the sewage crisis. 

He emphasized the Trump Administration views Mexico as the primary source of the problem. 

Mexican officials “can’t view this as a U.S. problem just because it reaches U.S. soil,” Zeldin said of the sewage and garbage that routinely flow from Tijuana into the Tijuana River and ocean waters off the coast of Mexico and southern San Diego County. “They need to commit” to fixing the problem. 

It was a rare moment of bipartisan comity on a contentious issue. Democratic members of Congress at the press conference, including Reps. Mike Levin and Juan Vargas, praised Zeldin, and even President Donald Trump himself, for focusing attention on the sewage issue and promising swift action. 

“We have a lot of hope at the moment,” Vargas said. 

One notable absence from the lineup of local officials at the press conference was Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, who has made the sewage crisis a signature issue during her tenure as an Imperial Beach leader. Aguirre joined Zeldin on a tour of the river earlier in the day but was not invited to the press conference. 

Aguirre, a Democrat, is in the midst of a close-fought race to occupy a vacant seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Her opponent in that race, Chula Vista Mayor John McCann, a Republican, was invited to the press conference and stood beside Zeldin as he delivered his remarks. 

McCann and Aguirre have cooperated previously to draw federal attention and funding to the crisis, traveling together to Washington D.C. last year as part of a delegation of local leaders lobbying federal officials. 

McCann, who participated in a roundtable discussion Tuesday with Zeldin and local leaders, praised Zeldin for bringing attention to the sewage issue and for vowing to hold Mexico accountable for fixing the problem. 

McCann said accountability south of the border would be one of his top priorities if elected Supervisor. 

“One hundred million gallons of raw sewage are flowing from Mexico to the U.S.” McCann said. “You can’t have your neighbor constantly drop trash in your front yard. Today we worked as a bipartisan group of officials to find solutions.” 

Zeldin said EPA officials are finalizing a comprehensive list of infrastructure fixes and other steps necessary to resolve the sewage crisis. He said the list will then be presented to Mexican officials. 

“Mexico either agrees [with the list] or not. And then we know whether Mexico will be a partner,” Zeldin said. “This is a situation that must be eliminated.” 

Leadership Shakeup in National City Hall 

Last week, I reported on the sudden ouster of National City’s city manager, Benjamin Martinez. The City Council showed Martinez the door in a hastily called closed session meeting on Friday. Councilmember Jose Rodriguez protested the decision by refusing to take his seat at the Council dais, instead joining the audience at the meeting and criticizing the proceedings at a press conference beforehand. 

Mayor Ron Morrison and other Councilmembers listed numerous management problems that led to Martinez’s ouster, including prominent personnel departures, botched licensing procedures, legal judgments against the city and protracted negotiations with the Port of San Diego over reimbursement for city services provided on Port property. 

As has become a regular feature of city politics over the last few months, a group of residents and business owners from a neighborhood near Sweetwater Road on the city’s southern border drew Friday’s proceedings into an ongoing dispute over a controversial development proposal near the residents’ homes. 

The residents – who appear to have gained a prominent ally in City Councilmember Jose Rodriquez, who joined them in making public comments at the meeting – accused Morrison and other Councilmembers of removing Martinez in an effort to squelch an investigation into allegations made by the Sweetwater residents that Morrison and his executive assistant assisted the developer of the disputed project in exchange for financial favors. 

Morrison has said repeatedly he did not help the developer and did not receive financial favors. He has pointed out that neither the residents nor their lawyer have provided proof of wrongdoing. 

On Tuesday, the Council met again to appoint a retired city administrator named Scott Huth as interim city manager until the city finds a permanent replacement for Martinez. 

Sweetwater residents attended the meeting and addressed the Council in public comments, urging Councilmembers to direct Huth to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Sweetwater development. 

“City Hall is falling apart,” one commenter said. 

Kids and Cool Cars 

It’s not all drama and controversy in South County. Just ask the roughly 4,000 kids and their families who flocked to Chula Vista Memorial Park on Saturday for the 22nd annual Day of the Child Community Fair. 

The fair, organized by the Chula Vista Community Collaborative, was a kid-focused extravaganza. There was a scavenger hunt organized by local middle school students, food, dancing, music, an exhibition of 130 classic cars and hot rods, and more than 100 booths at which local community service organizations provided information about food programs, dental services, day care and other resources benefiting local families. 

“It was beautiful,” said Jovita Arellano, family resource center coordinator for the Community Collaborative. 

Festivities started in the morning with a raucous Zumba class led by women from the Norman Senior Center, who pumped up the crowd with cumbia and hip-hop music and aerobic dance moves. 

Chula Vista Mayor John McCann welcomed participants and picked his favorite car – a 1962 Chevrolet Impala – from among the low riders, muscle cars, vintage cars and even low rider bicycles featured in the classic car exhibition, Arellano said. 

Characters from the PBS children’s program Blue’s Clues roamed around the park greeting kids. 

The Chula Vista Community Collaborative is a program run by the Chula Vista Elementary School District. It operates family resource centers on school campuses that connect families in need with resources, including clothing, food, health care and mental health counseling. 

The Collaborative works with the district’s new Community Schools initiative, which aims to transform school campuses into one-stop resource centers for families, helping them address challenges that can prevent children from attending or succeeding in school. 

“There were lots of families out there,” Arellano said of Saturday’s festivities. “The kids loved it.” 

The post South County Report: EPA Visits Tijuana River appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

In the race to determine South County’s most powerful elected leader, voters now face a clear, and revealing, choice. 

Last week’s primary vote in the special election to replace former District 1 Supervisor Nora Vargas on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors whittled down a field of seven candidates to two decisive victors: Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre and Chula Vista Mayor John McCann. 

Both Aguirre and McCann far outdistanced their competition, together garnering almost three-quarters of all votes cast. McCann, a Republican, finished first with 28,065 votes, or 42 percent. Aguirre, a Democrat, won 32 percent of votes, easily besting two Democratic challengers, Chula Vista City Councilmember Carolina Chavez and San Diego City Councilmember Vivian Moreno. 

Now that votes are counted – and the flood of election ads is (thankfully) over – what can we learn from last week’s results? And what can we expect as Aguirre and McCann begin their sprint toward the July 1 general election? 

Since last Tuesday, I’ve been talking to voters, the candidates, their campaign managers and other sources in the community about this high-stakes race. Here’s what I’ve learned. 

First lesson: Political ads are not all-powerful. 

Outside groups spent roughly $2 million leading up to last week’s vote, most of it supporting candidates who didn’t win or attacking candidates who won anyway. 

Aguirre alone was hit with more than $550,000 in negative advertising, much of it paid for by groups supporting Moreno. Aguirre won nearly three times as many votes as Moreno. One couple at an Imperial Beach polling station told me on Election Day that the blizzard of negative ads against Aguirre made them more likely to vote for her. If I’d paid for those ads, I’d ask for my money back. 

Second lesson: South County voters have widely divergent ideas about how to solve their region’s problems. 

Aguirre promised a “common-sense” approach to governing but she was also the progressive in this race. She cast herself as an advocate for “working people” and promised to protect tenants, build more affordable housing and work to solve the Tijuana River sewage crisis – a problem, she suggested, that would have been remedied long ago if it had afflicted a wealthier, less neglected region. 

McCann also cast himself as a “moderate.” But he nevertheless promised a sharp break from the Board of Supervisors’ current leftward tilt under Democratic leadership. He showcased his strong support for law enforcement, opposed new taxes and highlighted his record in Chula Vista of economic development, middle-class homebuilding and what he called a “tough love” approach to homelessness. 

The question now is which of those visions will attract voters who supported other candidates in the primary. Most of those voters went for Democrats, a possible boost for Aguirre. 

But those Democratic candidates – Moreno and Chavez – were very different from other San Diego County Democrats. Both opposed a recent environmental rule that makes it harder to build new housing in outlying parts of the county. Both opposed enhanced sanctuary protections for undocumented immigrants. And both won support from business leaders. 

In other words: Right now, this race is a toss-up. 

Third lesson: Each candidate has distinct strengths and weaknesses. 

Mason Herron, a partner at the political consulting firm Edgewater Strategies, created a nifty interactive map that breaks down election results by precincts. It shows some surprises. 

Aguirre, it turns out, did not get most of her votes from her hometown, Imperial Beach. She didn’t even win all precincts there. McCann won several, possibly in parts of town with higher numbers of Republican or military voters. 

Instead, Aguirre raked in votes far to the north, in wealthier, more highly educated areas of San Diego, including the trendy South Park neighborhood east of Balboa Park and precincts in downtown. Aguirre also won a few precincts in McCann’s home turf, in neighborhoods near Chula Vista’s southern border. 

Aguirre already previewed what she undoubtedly sees as McCann’s greatest weakness: The Republican “R” next to his name on the ballot. While votes were still being counted on election night, Aguirre issued a statement depicting the upcoming general election as a contest between “Democratic values” and “a Trump Republican agenda.” 

McCann on election night promised to stick to his record. But a few days later in an interview he pointed out that, under Democratic leadership, the County now faces a possible $140 million deficit. Expect him to turn the partisan tables on Aguirre, seeking to link her to what he likely will say is a record of Democratic fiscal mismanagement. 

Herron said one thing is certain. Since the winner of this race will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the Board of Supervisors, interest in the race will be higher in July – and the money will flow. 

“You can create a narrative where the future of the county depends on this race,” Herron said. “That’s very different from dickering over flooding and sewage.” 

A Request to Rein in Requests 

National City Councilmember Luz Molina has a request for fellow Councilmembers: Fewer requests, please. 

Molina plans to propose new rules at tonight’s City Council meeting that would limit Councilmembers’ ability to make what are called “Policy 105 Requests” — essentially, requests asking the Council to consider a new issue or policy. 

The policy was initially envisioned as a way for Councilmembers to propose new ideas in a streamlined, two-step process. First, they ask whether fellow Councilmembers are interested enough in an issue to discuss it at a future meeting. Then they schedule the discussion. 

Recently, Molina said, Policy 105 Requests have become something else: An “unchecked process” that is being “misused” to promote Councilmembers’ pet issues, air grievances or stage “political stunts.” 

She cited as a recent example a request to open an investigation into a lawsuit filed last year that accused city officials of colluding to fast-track a controversial development proposal. The request, which was denied, far exceeded the Council’s authority and used up valuable staff time, Molina said. 

She also mentioned a request to consider adjusting lot size rules for households raising chickens. 

Molina’s proposed rules would require Councilmembers making Policy 105 requests to state more fully why they are making the request, explain why the issue is urgent and estimate how much city staff time would be required to research the issue. 

Councilmembers also could be required to persuade another Councilmember to co-sponsor their request. Recent requests, including the lawsuit investigation, have sparked bitter disputes at Council meetings. 

“I wish we could get to a better place,” Molina said of acrimony on the Council. “Working within the bounds of my job as a Councilmember to update the 105 Policy is one way to reduce some of the dysfunction.” 

Still Waiting on Port Ethics Reform 

Last year, state Assemblymember David Alvarez proposed new legislation that would have enacted major governance changes at the Port of San Diego. 

The bill, which would have beefed up ethics rules and mandated more money for conservation efforts, sailed through both houses of the state legislature – but then mysteriously died minutes before being sent to the governor’s desk for a signature. 

Alvarez was all set to reintroduce the bill this year, until he sat down in January with new Port CEO Scott Chadwick, who told Alvarez the Port planned to incorporate many of the bill’s suggestions in its own upcoming revision of Port ethics guidelines. 

Alvarez offered to hold off on his bill “to give this new CEO a chance,” said Chris Jonsmyr, a legislative and communications aid to Alvarez. Alvarez promised to wait for the Port’s new guidelines before reintroducing his bill. 

He’s still waiting. Jonsmyr said the new guidelines, promised for spring, still haven’t appeared on a Board of Port Commissioners agenda for approval. “I’m still waiting for the item to come to their agenda,” Jonsmyr said. 

Alvarez’s bill would require the Port to establish an independent ethics commission that would field complaints from the public, investigate and publish results for public review. The bill also would change how the Port removes commissioners from the Board of Port Commissioners. 

Jonsmyr said the Port already had enacted one of the bill’s provisions, a requirement to set aside a greater percentage of Port revenue for conservation efforts. 

Jonsmyr said Alvarez hasn’t forgotten Chadwick’s promise. “If we don’t see anything by the end of the year, we’ll bring up the bill again,” Jonsmyr said. “And maybe add things.” 

In response to a request for comment, a Port spokesperson said, “This is in progress. We don’t have any further information at this time.” 

ICYMI: Voice of San Diego has been covering some ongoing drama at the Chula Vista Elementary School District. First, there was a highly unorthodox election pitting one school board member against another – who ran while still occupying another seat on the board. Then there were dueling pay-to-play accusations between Superintendent Eduardo Reyes and former COO Jovanim Martinez. Last week, we took a closer look at close ties between a board member and the head of the district’s teachers’ union. The board meets this Wednesday at 6 p.m. at district headquarters, 84 E. J St. in Chula Vista. We’ll be there. 

The post South County Report: The Race Is On (Again) appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

It was the autumn of 2019 and teacher contract negotiations had broken down in the Chula Vista Elementary School District. Teachers wanted a raise. District leaders wouldn’t budge. 

The district’s five-member Board of Trustees met with then-Superintendent Francisco Escobedo at district headquarters to figure out what to do. Former board member Laurie Humphrey, who was at the meeting, recalls someone piping up with a suggestion. 

“What if one of the Board members were to go and see if we can get them to come to agreement?” Humphrey remembers someone – she no longer recalls who – saying. “Cut through the middleman.” 

Escobedo objected. “It’s not the Board’s place to intervene,” he said. It could send a signal that district negotiators weren’t up to the job, and all the union had to do was hold out long enough and they’d get to bargain directly with the district’s top bosses. 

Two board members, Eduardo Reyes and Francisco Tamayo, dismissed Escobedo’s concerns and enthusiastically supported the plan, Humphrey recalls. 

Tamayo reminded everyone he’d learned how to bargain contracts during a previous job in a neighboring school district, where he’d led the union representing non-teaching staff. The choice of emissary to the contract talks seemed obvious, Humphrey said. The board sent Tamayo to the bargaining table. 

A few weeks later, teachers got their raise – roughly 2 percent on top of a similar raise the previous year, plus one additional day off to sweeten the offer, Humphrey said. 

It wasn’t the first – or the last – time Tamayo would play a personal role in helping the teachers union obtain favorable outcomes in the 28,000-student Chula Vista district, whose 50 schools comprise the largest elementary school district in California. 

Since his arrival on the school board 11 years ago, Tamayo said he has sought to “shift” the district away from what he described as an “adversarial” relationship with the teachers union toward what he called “a true partnership” with union leaders. 

The effort has included involving himself in contract negotiations on at least three separate occasions, helping other union-friendly candidates run for seats on the board, giving union leaders early access to school board agendas, helping to hire Reyes, a union ally, as superintendent in 2021 and even engaging in an unusual mid-term election campaign last year to unseat a fellow board member who had clashed with the union. 

Above all, Tamayo has forged what he called a close personal “friendship” with current union president Rosi Martinez, who has served in union leadership as either president or vice president for eight of the 11 years Tamayo has been on the school board. 

The relationship – which Martinez also described as a “warm personal relationship” – has included spending time together with family and friends in Cancun, celebrating birthdays, attending parties and other events, and a 2022 campaign fundraiser for Tamayo hosted by Martinez at her house. Last year, Martinez campaigned alongside Tamayo on the streets of Chula Vista during his bid for another four years on the school board. 

During the years Tamayo and Martinez have worked together, teachers’ salaries have risen close to 17 percent and the district has adopted numerous union-sought policies, including hiring more mental and behavioral health staff, agreeing to robust classroom safety measures when teachers returned to in-person instruction after the Covid-19 pandemic and, according to Martinez, giving teachers more overall “input into decision-making” in the district. 

Tamayo said he is proud of the work he has done to bring “a new mentality” to Chula Vista that “the union is a partner.” But he acknowledged that the closer relationship between the union and district leadership has not yet translated into academic gains for students. 

Test scores remain roughly where they were when he first joined the school board, Tamayo said. And scores are lower than they were before the pandemic, while chronic absenteeism has risen 15 percent, according to a national database that tracks school districts’ post-pandemic performance. Over the past five years, the district has fared little better, and in some cases worse, in academic performance and rates of chronic absenteeism when compared with other California districts with similar demographic profiles, according to the database. 

This year, as one-time infusions of pandemic recovery funds run out, the district faces a $15 million deficit, even as it is in the midst of raising teachers’ salaries by 12 percent over three years – a union-sought provision recently awarded in the latest round of contract talks. 

Looking back, Humphrey said, she would not have agreed to send Tamayo to help broker a contract agreement with the teachers union if she had known of his close relationship with Martinez and the full extent of his pro-union stance. 

“Tamayo knew full well he had this relationship with Rosi,” Humphrey said. “And for him to suggest he would go in there [to participate in contract negotiations] seems so inappropriate to me now…It seems like a conflict of interest.” 

… 

Tamayo was first elected to the school board in 2014. At the time, he was a supervisor overseeing digital security operations in the Sweetwater Union High School District. He also had served as president of the Sweetwater district’s classified employees union, which represents workers without a teaching credential. 

The Chula Vista teachers union did not endorse Tamayo that year, he said. The union favored another candidate. But Tamayo, buoyed by his own union connections and an endorsement from the Democratic Party, won anyway. 

He soon made friends with the teachers union. At the time, under former Superintendent Escobedo, Tamayo said the district was not considered union-friendly. 

“When I got there, [district administrators’ attitude] was: ‘This is our stance and we’re not budging,’” Tamayo recalled. Along with Reyes and another union-friendly board member, Tamayo said he sought “to shift that to look for a win-win situation” with teachers. 

Escobedo, who served as superintendent of the Chula Vista district for 11 years before leaving in 2021 to become director of a San Diego organization that helps to improve urban schools, declined to comment for this story. 

Tamayo offered to meet monthly with union leaders to hear their concerns. He urged Escobedo to give the union an early look at school board agendas so they could voice objections before board meetings, giving the district time to modify proposals before bringing them to the public. 

“I’m not saying the union is always right,” Tamayo said. “But I know there are some things that can improve the relationship.” 

Three years after Tamayo joined the board, teachers elected Martinez vice president of the teachers union. She, too, came to her position intending to reset relations between teachers and district leaders. 

“Under the previous administration in the district, it was a more top-down culture,” Martinez said. “I have worked to build a positive relationship between the union and the board and the union and the district leadership.” 

Martinez’s relationship with Tamayo was especially close. 

In 2018, Martinez and Tamayo, along with their families and some friends, ran into each other at the airport in Mexico City, both of them said. They both happened to be on their way to spending the district’s fall break in Cancun. A photo Tamayo posted on Facebook shows him and Martinez posing in the airport alongside fellow Chula Vista board member Armando Farias, who was traveling with Tamayo. 

“Layover at Mexico City!!!” Tamayo wrote in the Facebook post. “Cancun here we come!” 

While in Cancun, Tamayo celebrated a birthday at a restaurant alongside his family and friends, including Martinez and her fiance, who were staying at the same resort. A Facebook photo of the birthday cake served at the dinner includes a comment from Martinez: “Congratulations my dear Francisco!!!! Thank you for sharing your big day! God always fill you with joy and blessings!!!” 

Photos posted by Tamayo on other occasions show him smiling with Martinez at a 50th birthday party she threw for herself at her house in 2019 and marching alongside Martinez at a political rally in downtown San Diego. 

In 2022, Martinez hosted a re-election campaign fundraiser for Tamayo at her house. A flyer for the event invited attendees to “join host Rosi Martinez” at an evening reception where donors were encouraged to give up to $500 to Tamayo’s campaign. 

That same year, Tamayo’s and Martinez’s relationship became widely known enough in the district that a school principal reported rumors about it to the district’s human resources department. The district opened an investigation. 

“At the direction of the Superintendent, an outside law firm was hired to investigate the allegations [of an improper relationship between Tamayo and Martinez] as soon as the allegations were reported to him,” district spokesperson Giovanna Castro said in a statement to Voice of San Diego. “After a thorough investigation, the law firm determined that there were no facts to substantiate the allegations.” 

The district, citing attorney-client privilege, declined to provide a copy of the law firm’s investigation to Voice of San Diego. 

Tamayo and Martinez said their close bond stemmed from nothing more than a shared desire to move the Chula Vista district in what Tamayo called a more “labor-friendly” direction. 

“It’s a professional relationship,” Tamayo said of his connection to Martinez. “Yes, we have a friendship because we’ve worked together for the past 11 years. But that’s it.” 

Martinez, likewise, said her relationship with Tamayo had always been “professional” and “related to my work for the union, my advocacy for the union and our students…It has been my intent to be part of a shift that provides [union] members a seat at the table. That has been my intent, and I believe I have been successful.” 

The same year Martinez hosted a campaign fundraiser for Tamayo, the union’s political action committee drew up a list of reasons why union members should support Tamayo’s re-election bid. 

Among reasons listed in the document: Tamayo “Directed CVESD Bargaining team to finalize the Restructured Salary Schedule in 2019-20, Safety MOU 2021, and the Tentative Agreement and Safety MOU’s in 2022.” 

The contract provisions mentioned in the document refer to the 2 percent salary increase Tamayo helped to negotiate in 2019, a comprehensive list of post-pandemic classroom health protections for teachers and students in 2021 and another 2.5 percent salary increase in 2022 accompanied by a one-time 3 percent bonus. 

Other reasons to support Tamayo listed in the document include his willingness to “meet (…) regularly with [union] leadership to listen and find solutions” and his “strong” support for giving teachers a “voice” in the previous year’s hiring process for a new superintendent. 

Tamayo is “labor friendly” and a “strong advocate” for union interests, the document says. He “voted to approve…our contracts in all his eight years.” 

Campaign records show that virtually all of Tamayo’s financial support in the 2022 election came either from current or former Chula Vista teachers or from the district’s teachers union and other local unions, who together donated more than three-fifths of the $47,703 Tamayo raised that year. 

Last year, the Chula Vista teachers union essentially funded Tamayo’s entire campaign against fellow board member Kate Bishop, whom Tamayo sought to unseat by running against her while still in the middle of his own four-year term on the board. The union donated all but $4,000 of the $41,000 Tamayo raised in that race. 

Following Tamayo’s victory over Bishop in November, Martinez personally swore him into office alongside fellow election winner Lucy Ugarte at a Dec. 16 ceremony at district headquarters. Photos from the event show Tamayo taking the oath of office wearing a “Chula Vista Educators” t-shirt. 

Tamayo said he wore the union t-shirt and invited Martinez to administer his oath of office as “a nod to her because she was – the union was the one who supported [me] when big labor did not.” 

Tamayo’s campaign against Bishop, who had occasionally questioned union priorities, was controversial in Democratic circles and led to recent moves by party leaders to censure both Tamayo and Ugarte, who ran together as a slate. The Chula Vista teachers union, Tamayo said, bucked the party and supported him anyway. 

Tamayo denied that his support for teachers, or the union’s support for his election campaigns, was in any way transactional. Every time he had played a role in contract negotiations, he said, he had done so with full approval from other school board members. And he said he doesn’t always agree to union demands. 

Recently, he said, he has made clear to union leaders that, facing a deficit, the district will have to make hard choices about programs teachers favor, such as additional mental health assistance for students. 

“I say to the union, ‘This is your priority. But this is the cost,’” Tamayo said. “What do you want me to cut” to continue funding that priority? 

Overall, Tamayo said, he supports teachers because “supporting teachers means supporting kids…Many things teachers ask for,” such as pandemic safety protocols, are also good for students. 

And there is always the danger that, if Chula Vista doesn’t keep up with salary trends in other districts, experienced teachers will leave. “We need to make ourselves more competitive,” Tamayo said of Chula Vista Elementary. “If we rank low among districts in salary, it’s hard to recruit good teachers.” 

Martinez said that, under her leadership and with what she described as “the collective advocacy of our whole membership,” Chula Vista teachers’ salaries have risen from 33rd highest in the county to being in the top 10. 

Ron Marcus, a third-grade teacher at Wolf Canyon Elementary School and a former leader of the union’s political action committee, said he and other teachers have appreciated the rising salaries and other union gains in recent years.  

But he said some teachers were disturbed by the union’s standalone alliance with Tamayo in last year’s divisive school board election. And he said Martinez’s and Tamayo’s close relationship had created a sense in the district “that there’s not accountability” in the union’s relationship with district leaders. 

“You want the school board to hold the superintendent accountable and the union holding the school board accountable,” Marcus said. “There’s a lack of accountability because of friendships between people who should be honest people who hold each other at a professional distance…These friendships make it hard for district leaders and union leaders to make decisions in the best interests of the district.” 

The post How the Teachers Union and a Board Member Transformed Chula Vista Elementary School District  appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

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Two South Bay mayors will race for the open seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Chula Vista Mayor John McCann and Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre will appear on the runoff ballot July 1.

With 11,000 votes still to count, McCann, a Republican, had won 44 percent of votes. Aguirre had gotten 32 percent of votes counted.

Two other Democrats in the race, San Diego City Councilmember Vivian Moreno and Chula Vista City Councilmember Carolina Chavez, garnered too few votes – 13 percent and 8 percent – to overcome the frontrunners’ lead. Three other lesser-known candidates split the remainder of the vote.

McCann will come up short of the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright.

What’s at stake: Tuesday’s special election was called following the surprise – and so far unexplained – resignation in December of former District 1 Supervisor Nora Vargas. The district includes the cities of Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and National City as well as portions of southern San Diego and the unincorporated area of Bonita.

A Democrat, Vargas helped to wrest the Board of Supervisors away from generations of Republican control when she was first elected in 2020. Since her departure, the Board has been split evenly between two Democrats and two Republicans.

The winner of Tuesday’s special election will determine whether the county continues on its current leftward path or reverts to Republican control.

Reactions: “I’m very humbled, very thankful of the volunteers we’ve had and all the supporters we’ve had and all the people who voted for me,” McCann said Tuesday evening at an election night watch party at Karina’s restaurant in Chula Vista. “We’re excited that we will be in the runoff and we know that will be a tough battle. We’re going to continue to be on the ground talking to people, listening to people and finding solutions for South County.”

Aguirre issued a statement from her own watch party at Novo Brazil brewery in Imperial Beach. “It’s a clear message,” she said of her likely advancement to a runoff. “Voters want a Supervisor who fights on the side of working people, gets results on the sewage crisis and pushes for the more affordable San Diego County we need.”

Aguirre on Tuesday evening previewed campaign themes she likely will emphasize: “This runoff is a clear choice between Democratic values that put working people first, and a Trump Republican agenda that would be a complete disaster for all of San Diego County,” she said.

McCann said he was “fully prepared” for a runoff election and planned to focus his campaign on his record in Chula Vista. 

McCann said he had helped to make Chula Vista “one of the safest cities in the county,” reduced the number of homeless people on city streets and brought “thousands of new jobs” via signature economic development projects such as a soon-to-open luxury hotel and resort on the city’s redeveloped bayfront.

“I’ve been a leader to help elevate the image and job growth in Chula Vista, where Chula Vista is an economic engine for the region,” McCann said. “I want to make sure we create innovation and jobs in all of South County.”

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