Why It Matters: Explaining San Diego’s Most Urgent Local Issues
What’s going on with the La Jolla independence fight
It’s still surprising to some, but La Jolla is not its own city — it’s part of the city of San Diego. In our next Why It Matters segment, Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis has an update on an effort to change that.
Water Authority faces existential crisis
For our next Why It Matters segment, we look at big news around how we get our water. Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis explains.
How the new San Diego County proposal for a tax increase would work
Are you ready for the next election? Local politicians seem to be. In our next “Why It Matters” segment, Voice of San Diego’s CEO Scott Lewis explains proposals for new potential taxes.
San Diego proposed trash fee is lower, but not by much
The city of San Diego has been talking a lot of trash recently. Not insults, but how to pay for trash pickup. For our Why It Matters segment, Voice of San Diego’s CEO Scott Lewis explains how we got here.
Mayor’s office: Ex-COO alleging discrimination was fired
It’s no secret the city of San Diego is dealing with budget challenges. In our latest Why It Matters segment, Voice of San Diego’s CEO Scott Lewis explains how that has bled into a lawsuit against the city.
City of San Diego urging CARE Court reforms
A few years ago, Governor Gavin Newsom and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria announced a new law known as CARE Court. They suggested it would force people with serious untreated psychotic disorders to accept treatment – and counties to provide it. For our latest Why It Matters segment, Voice of San Diego reporter Lisa Halverstadt checked on CARE Court.
Why hotel room taxes are going up
In our next Why It Matters segment, we are talking about another cost that’s going up: hotel rooms. That’s because the city is going to raise hotel room taxes. But Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis says the money isn’t going where it was supposed to.
Trash fees for San Diego homeowners
We keep hearing about how things are getting more expensive. In our next Why It Matters segment, Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis adds another item to that list: trash pickup.
Why are San Diego water rates about to soar?
People in San Diego are already feeling higher costs from food, housing and electricity. Now, water rates will also soar. Voice of San Diego CEO and Editor Scott Lewis explains Why It Matters.
Why the Padres are involved in the new minimum wage fight
The San Diego City Council is moving forward with a plan to raise the minimum wage for tourism workers to $25 an hour. In our next Why It Matters segment, Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis says it’s not just hotels that are against the idea.
Are San Diego Schools Recovering from COVID Learning Loss? | VOSD Schools Guide
COVID-19 negatively impacted most schools in San Diego County, and many still haven’t fully recovered. In fact, less than half of local schools are showing signs of improvement.
More than 100 people in San Diego in jail due to Prop. 36
About 115 people are in jail right now who wouldn’t have been last year. That’s because of Proposition 36 that passed in November. It turned certain property and drug crimes from misdemeanors into felonies. For this week’s Why It Matters, Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis looks at the local impacts.
La Jolla takes first step toward secession. What happens next?
The Association for the City of La Jolla turned in 8,000 signatures to the San Diego Local Area Formation Commission, or LAFCO, Wednesday, officially starting the process that could lead to La Jolla seceding from the city of San Diego. Voice of San Diego editor and CEO Scott Lewis explains how this process might play out.
Why Mayor Gloria was blaming the county in his speech
Mayor Todd Gloria’s State of the City speech addressed what the city can do during an era of austerity amid massive budget cuts. In our Why It Matters segment, Voice of San Diego Editor and CEO Scott Lewis highlights another key takeaway from the speech.
Why It Matters: Could La Jolla secede from the city of San Diego?
For decades, La Jollans have talked about wanting to be their own city. And now a serious effort yet to separate La Jolla has gotten one step closer to a vote. Supporters collected more than 7,000 signatures from La Jolla residents.
All of that puts San Diego’s new Council president in an awkward position. Joe LaCava represents La Jolla and lives in La Jolla. But now he’s also one of the top elected leaders for the city as a whole. He wants to remain open to the idea of La Jolla leaving.
Why It Matters: What’s going on with San Diego’s Civic Center glow up?
Last week, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria announced he was halting the effort to redevelop the six blocks around City Hall.
But that work was one of the main reasons Gloria said in a controversial decision two years ago the city needed to buy two towers downtown. Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis explains for “Why It Matters.”
Why It Matters: The shake-ups coming in San Diego leadership
In our next Why It Matters segment, we explore the new dynamics in city politics.
Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis dives into the origins of the council president’s role and examines the evolving landscape of the San Diego Republican Party.
He discusses the implications of leadership changes on city governance and sheds light on how these shifts impact local decision-making and public policy.
Why It Matters: How Prop. 36 could increase demand for treatment beds in San Diego
Proposition 36 got the most yes votes of any proposition on the California ballot. It will make punishment harsher for theft and drug crimes.
Almost 70% of voters supported it. Much of that support came because of promises prosecutors made that it would take care of people suffering from drug addiction.
There’s just one problem: Treatment beds are not available.
San Diego County has just 78 detox beds for the more than 1 million residents here who rely on Medi-Cal.
If someone decides they want to get off fentanyl or meth, and they don’t have private health insurance, getting one of those beds is like winning the lottery.
Why It Matters: How Trump’s election will impact San Diego’s Republican Party
Republicans across the country are pleased with last week’s election. Donald Trump is going back to the White House.
But in San Diego County, the Republican Party could be headed for a new low.
In the San Diego County District 3 election, Kevin Faulconer ran seven points ahead of Trump. But he essentially needed to do twice as well as he did. Trump seems to be slightly more popular in San Diego than he was in 2020. But it appears voter antipathy toward him is going to continue to hurt local Republicans for years to come.
Why It Matters: How Proposition 5 would impact local cities like San Diego
In our next Why It Matters segment, we explain another proposition on the ballot.
Several ballot measures have gotten most of the attention in California the last few weeks. But one of them, Proposition 5, is flying under the radar. But Prop. 5 has more potential to reshape cities than any other proposition.
Prop. 5 would amend the California constitution by lowering the required threshold to 55% for any borrowing to fund affordable housing construction, down payment assistance programs and a host of “public infrastructure” projects, including those for water management, local hospitals and police stations, broadband networks and parks.
Why It Matters: What exactly are the school bonds on San Diego ballots?
The word bond is all over the ballots of San Diegans this year. In San Diego, voters will have to decide on seven different school district bonds.
If they approve them, districts will borrow billions of dollars and then raise property taxes to pay them off. What exactly does this mean? We explain in our “Why It Matters” segment.
Why It Matters: What are independent expenditures and how are they impacting local races?
There are a new batch of ads supporting San Diego mayoral candidate Larry Turner, but they are not from Turner’s campaign.
They’re from the Lincoln Club, which has put $800,000 into a fund to support Turner. That came after a Point Loma attorney gave them $1 million. What they’re doing is called an independent expenditure.
Mayoral candidates can only raise $2,700 per donor but independent expenditures have no limits. For “Why It Matters,” Voice of San Diego Editor Scott Lewis explains the rules and how they’re impacting local campaigns.
Why It Matters: Can Republicans make a comeback in San Diego?
San Diego used to be more conservative than other cities in California. What happened? Can Republicans ever come back? Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis tells us about how San Diego lost its place as a Republican stronghold.
Why It Matters: Breaking down the rift between Carl DeMaio and San Diego GOP
As part of our new Public Matters initiative, we are launching a new segment with our Public Matters partner Voice of San Diego called Why It Matters. In the first installment, Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis explained a recent kerfuffle between Assembly candidate Carl DeMaio and the Republican Party of San Diego County.