For anyone looking around San Diego and seeing a city headed in the wrong direction and wondering whether maybe they were crazy and it wasn’t all that bad and other people didn’t really see it that way: Wonder no more. 

This chart is so staggering that it really is hard to find the words.

The chart shows the results of a running poll conducted by Public Dynamics and Pulse Decision Science on behalf of the Municipal Employees Association, obtained by the Politics Report. 

It tells quite a story. 

In June 2020, 32 percent of San Diegans felt the city was on the wrong track. It doesn’t get much better than that. But the percentage has been rising slowly and steadily ever since. By last September, the percentage of wrong trackers had grown to 49 percent. That’s substantial and it didn’t speak well of the Democrats running the city. 

That was nothing. 

In the last eight months, wrong trackers climbed a mountain. They now make up 69 percent. 

There’s one obvious reason that comes out of the poll itself. 

The poll asked respondents to identify, in an open-ended way, the biggest issues facing the city. The pollsters then tagged those into separate buckets. 

Homelessness has tended to rank in the top two or three among people’s biggest concerns. In this most recent poll it ranked fourth. 

But that doesn’t necessarily mean people’s concerns over homelessness have gone down, said Ryan Clumpner, who worked on the poll. 

It may simply mean people’s concerns over homelessness continue unabated, but now they also have new concerns: like the city’s budget, which ranked second. That hasn’t been a big concern in the last few years, but it is now. 

That at least partially explains why the percentage of people dissatisfied with the city’s direction has grown so much. The city faces multiple problems. Residents don’t feel any of them are being seriously addressed. And in the meantime, new concerns are being added to the situation. 

This poll also tells another story — in a way more fascinating and surprising than the first. It relates the question of taxes and fees that has recently dominated City Hall. 

The people (many of them Republican) behind the recently-aborted efforts to repeal the city’s trash fee and Balboa parking fees have been telling the story that San Diegans are straining under the weight of new taxes and fees and ready to revolt. 

City Hall politicians have seemed to accept this narrative, as well. Council President Joe LaCava and some other leaders seem to have received the message that citizens will brook no new fees and taxes. 

But only six percent of people polled listed taxes and fees as a major issue facing the city. 

The poll asked other questions which shed light on this. 

A full 50 percent of people said they would pay more in taxes if they knew they would get better services. Only 29 percent answered in the inverse. 

Another chart also showed people’s support for new revenue. 

Fifty-five percent said billionaires and corporations aren’t paying their fair share and that they should be taxed more for improved city services. 

“The story that the business community is telling — that we’ve gone too far on taxes and fees — is not how people actually feel,” Clumpner said. “Part of the reason so many people feel the city is on the wrong track is that leaders are taking away the wrong message, which is that they have overreached. The answer is actually that they haven’t reached far enough to solve the things that people expect them to solve.” 

The anti-tax-and-fees crowd was having a big moment, as I wrote previously. But the recent deal that locked in a trash fee and killed Balboa parking fees has now defused it. 

City Hall leaders have a new moment and a cleaner slate to tell a different story for what they want for San Diego. It will be interesting to see how these poll results inform their vision. 

No, Bailey Won’t Stop Midway Rising

A campaign text message hit phones Friday with a striking claim: “No more overdevelopment! Richard Bailey will stop the Midway Rising mega-development, limit ADUs, and stop city hall politicians from destroying our communities.”

The mailer was paid for by Steven Richter, the resident who poured money into an effort to support Larry Turner for mayor in 2024,

This was interesting because we’ve tracked Bailey on Midway Rising for months now and, while he was at first saying pretty harsh things about it, he seemed to be settling into a it’s-not-my-favorite-but-what-are-you-going-to-do message.

Also, now that a deal has been struck on the two issues he has campaigned on the most — repealing the trash fee and paid parking at Balboa Park — we did wonder if Midway Rising would take the top spot on his issues list.

It doesn’t look like it. We asked Bailey to comment on the text messages. Here was his written response:

“The Sports Arena site desperately needs to be redeveloped but there are legitimate concerns that the scale of a 4K+ unit mixed use redevelopment will impact the surrounding area.  The state surplus lands act incentivizes higher density development while limiting local input – this is not right. As a Councilmember, my goal will be to help make redevelopment of Sports Arena a success for the site and minimize impact to the surrounding neighborhood to the greatest extent allowed by law. I’ll also push for reforms to the Surplus Land Act that allow for greater local input on future projects,” Bailey wrote.

City Council Struggles with Attendance

Dispatch from Mariana Martinez Barba: City Council President Joe LaCava said it has been tough to get colleagues to meetings.  

“That’s just not a good look for the Council,” LaCava said. A few weeks ago, he had to end a meeting early because they didn’t have a quorum.“I find it a little embarrassing.” 

The City Council has nine councilmembers. Five members must be present to have a quorum. 

In an email, LaCava expressed his frustration to colleagues after they lost quorum at an April 7 meeting. They did not reach the non-agenda public comment portion of the meeting. 

“This is not the first time and, sadly, unlikely to be the last,” he said in the email. “I get it. You make plans. You have busy calendars. To be blunt, that is no excuse for not letting Luz, Heidi, or my team know if you have hard stops. You know this. With no advance warning, it eliminates options to save the meeting.” 

District 2 Councilmember Jen Campbell’s spokesperson said the Councilmember has been “dealing with some minor health issues,” and monitors budget meetings at home. 

District 4 Councilmember Marni von Wilpert and District 7 Councilmember Raul Campillo have also been absent for some meetings. Their spokespeople said it was due to scheduling conflicts. 

Joshua Stewart, communications director for von Wilpert in an email statement said the councilmember remains, “fully involved in budget deliberations, giving voice to District 5 residents and protecting the services working families and neighbors rely on.” 

A communications representative from Councilmember Campillo’s office said he was absent from the latest public hearing on the budget because it was rescheduled. The meeting was originally slated for Monday, May 18, but then cancelled due to the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego.  

Still, Council President LaCava told us that budget review committee meetings are booked on the yearly legislative calendar. The meeting dates were shared in a city report in October of last year. 

It’s Time: Submit Your Picks in the Elections Contest

The primaries are here. You know the drill. The winner gets a lunch with Will Huntsberry, Scott Lewis and Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.

Like before, all you have to do now is fill out a form.

Usual disclaimer: Don’t get mad about the lines we took. We have no idea what’s going to happen. As with any over/under we just tried our best to find a line that we thought would be hard to choose between over and under. If you think we’re off, let us know by winning the thing.

Usual disclaimer II: If we didn’t include a race you care about it is because we are snobs and look down on that race and the people who care about it.

Don’t miss Brews and News on June 11

Grab a pint, meet our team of journalists and get the inside scoop on the latest local investigations at our Brews & News Live Podcast. Join CEO and Editor-in-Chief Scott Lewis, Managing Editor Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña, Social Media Producer Bella Ross, and Education reporter Jakob McWhinney on June 11 at Soda Bar for this special recording. Get your tickets at vosd.org/events.

If you have any feedback or ideas for the Politics Report, send them to scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org or will.huntsberry@voiceofsandiego.org.

The post Politics Report: San Diegans to City Hall: You Suck appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! For us at least. 

It’s election season and we bring back our Voice of San Diego Primary Election draft. Each of our hosts selected the races they were most curious and interested in. 

Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña highlights the wide-open City Council District 8 race featuring four Democrats. And Scott Lewis picks the competitive District 2 race.

Jakob McWhinney tracks how the California Teachers Association is spending millions to back San Diego Unified Trustee Richard Barrera in the state superintendent of public instruction race. Bella Ross is watching the proposed tax on non-primary homes, Measure A.

Listen Here Now

Listen: Apple | Spotify | PodLink

The post VOSD Podcast: Primary Preview appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Earlier this month, UC San Diego celebrated the $5 million renewal of a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that helps the university recruit early-career life sciences researchers.

Only a few weeks before, however, NBC7 San Diego chronicled how NIH had dramatically reduced cancer research funding to UCSD and the region’s other major life sciences research institutes, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

These two headlines point to a larger contradiction affecting one of San Diego’s most important federal relationships: Congress is investing more in health research than ever before, but the executive branch is making those dollars harder to spend. Whether—and how—that tension ultimately resolves could have far-reaching effects on our local economy.

NIH and San Diego

Each year, NIH—part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—awards billions of dollars in research and training grants to universities and other medical research institutions. As the world’s largest single public funder of health and medical research, NIH’s grants support everything from basic investigations of molecular biology to testing of drugs in clinical trials.

Over the past several decades, federal policymakers from both parties have supported spending more on NIH-funded research. The agency’s budget grew from $11 billion in 1995 to $49 billion in 2024, a 120 percent increase after adjusting for inflation. Amid this growth, NIH has maintained a rigorous process for awarding grants, subjecting new applications for funding to extensive scientific and technical review that sets the international standard.

San Diego has benefited greatly from Washington’s growing commitment to the NIH. The county ranked 9^th nationwide in total NIH grant dollars received in 2025. UC San Diego alone received $576 million in grants, followed by the Scripps Research Institute ($164 million), Salk Institute ($61 million), and Sanford Burnham Prebys ($45 million). These grants help seed the discoveries that fuel the region’s life sciences industry, which BIOCOM tallies at upwards of 2,000 life sciences companies, supporting 167,000 local jobs—more than 10 percent of the local workforce.

Changes Under Trump II

Since taking office in January 2025, the second Trump administration has offered much less support to NIH than previous administrations—even the first Trump administration. This posture has shown up in a few different ways.

First, DOGE moved to terminate thousands of NIH grants that investigated the extent and impacts of health disparities by race and gender, which the administration said ran afoul of new executive orders abolishing federal “DEI” activities. A recent report by researchers at UCSD and other institutions found that these terminations disproportionately impacted minority researchers.

Second, the administration attempted to slash the permissible rate of indirect costs on grants to higher education institutions. Universities rely on NIH grants to pay for not only direct costs of a specific research project, but also lab maintenance, equipment, rent, and administrative support. States, universities, and medical associations immediately challenged that policy in court, and it was blocked earlier this year.

Third, the administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposed a nearly 40 percent reduction in NIH funding, a dramatic U-turn from the agency’s steady upward budget trajectory. Congress ultimately rejected that proposal, and actually provided NIH with a slight increase in its budget for the current year.

Fourth, Nature recently reported that NIH has lost nearly 20 percent of its staff in the past year due to resignations and layoffs. This, on top of an extended government shutdown late last year, has impacted the agency’s ability to make timely grant awards. Through the first 7+ months of this fiscal year, NIH has awarded fewer than half the average number of new grants it had awarded the previous five years.

These policies represent part of a larger tapestry of Trump administration actions that have aimed to defund U.S. colleges and universities, which collectively receive about three-quarters NIH grant and contract dollars. Along the way, funding for biomedical research has absorbed some collateral damage.

Impacts on San Diego (So Far)

In a previous D.C. Explained column, I reported that overall NIH funding to San Diego institutions eventually held steady in 2025, at more than $1 billion. As usual, much of that funding represented annual payments on grants originally awarded in previous years. But the number of new and competitive NIH awards to San Diego—in effect, the pipeline of new science—shrank, from 571 in 2024 to 467 in 2025.

This slowing trend appears to have continued into 2026. A little more than halfway through the federal fiscal year, NIH has awarded 531 total grants to San Diego-area recipients, down from 665 in 2025 and 776 in 2024 at the same point in those years. The total dollar amount of those grants is roughly the same as last year at this time, but that may reflect recent NIH policy changes that give more awardees their entire grant amount up front. This leaves fewer dollars to be distributed in future years, and creates steeper odds for early-career researchers to get funded in the first place.

What’s Next

The slowing pace of NIH grantmaking has not escaped Congress’s notice. In March, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya testified before House appropriators, committing his agency to spend its full $49 billion budget by the end of the fiscal year. And earlier this month, Bhattacharya faced skepticism from Senate appropriators over the administration’s renewed push to cut NIH’s budget, this time by nearly $6 billion.

Although San Diego institutions may weather the federal storm for another year, some state lawmakers want to insulate California’s life sciences industry from Washington chaos over the longer term. Last year, state legislators introduced a bill (now S.B. 895) to create California’s own version of NIH within the University of California, funded by a $12 billion bond measure that voters would also need to approve this fall. The measure is not without controversy, but it offers a reminder that California has provided its own critical support for biomedical research in the past.

The ultimate prognosis for San Diego life sciences won’t be dictated by year-over-year NIH or state funding totals alone. But down the road, those trends could have major impacts on the early-career researchers, breakthrough discoveries, and world-leading companies that shape our region’s identity, economy, and fiscal health.

The post D.C. Explained: Changes at the NIH Pose Challenges for One of San Diego’s Economic Pillars appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

From immigration to AI regulation, the Legislature addressed an array of hot-button issues ahead of a key Friday deadline.

That included advancing a bill to make it harder for federal immigration agents to operate in California and another to strengthen privacy protections for immigrant service providers.

In San Diego, it meant pushing plans to make it easier for developers to build a downtown sports arena and another to make it easier for people with severe mental illnesses into conservatorships.

Here are some of the biggest developments for San Diego out of the Capitol this week.

Midway Rising Project Gets ‘OK’ from Senate

Environmental groups and activists have paid little attention to a city-backed bill to cut green tape from planned construction of a stadium in San Diego’s Midway District.

That trend continued this week as the bill cleared its biggest hurdle yet to mere buzzes and murmurs on the Senate floor.

Senate Bill 958, authored by Senator Akilah Weber Pierson, would allow the city to circumvent the district’s zoning laws to build the 165-foot-tall arena. 

Although voters approved two ballot measures to lift the neighborhood’s 30-foot limit on building heights, a January state Supreme Court ruling overturned the measures, saying voters weren’t fully informed about how taller buildings could affect noise levels, air quality and nearby wildlife.

SB 958 says a building’s height doesn’t have a big impact on the environment, which would allow the project to override the court ruling.

An earlier version sought to exempt the entire project from review under the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires any new development to be studied for its potential effect on the environment. Last year, California lawmakers approved exempting most new housing from CEQA, which can lead to costly, yearslong construction delays for developers to be in compliance with the law. Lobbyists and bill consultants say SB 958 would similarly make it easier for developers to build by not letting environmental rules get in the way of building height.

“The goal is to allow for development to happen in California without having these things that you can’t even test for,” Weber Pierson said of environmental rules requiring developers to study a project’s environmental impacts decades into the future. “I can’t predict what kind of potential wildlife might come in 10, 15 years, which was part of the ruling. And nor should that be a part of anything else in the future if you’re dealing with height.”

The California Conference of Carpenters union, which supports the bill, is an influential force in the state’s housing and development politics, and is one of the main interest groups lawmakers are working with on SB 958.

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the national umbrella that includes the California conference, gave at least $28,800 in campaign contributions to Weber Pierson from 2021 to 2024, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database.

One local environmental group has been at the center of opposition to the project and remains its biggest critic.

Save Our Access, a nonprofit dedicated to coastal protection, sued the city after the 2022 ballot measure passed, arguing that it failed to study all the environmental impacts from height increases. It opposes SB 958.

Otherwise, city and state officials adamant about getting the 16,000-seat arena up have faced little criticism.

The legislation passed with bipartisan support in the Senate. Two Republicans — Sen. Megan Dahle of Redding and Sen. Roger Niello of Roseville — did not vote, as well as Long Beach Democratic Sen. Lena Gonzalez. It awaits a floor vote in the Assembly.

CARE Court Changes Advance

Despite the county being an early adopter, a 2022 program to help get the state’s most severely mentally ill off the streets and into treatment has largely been ineffective in San Diego and elsewhere.

In the years since Gov. Gavin Newsom’s CARE Court rolled out, which allows families to volunteer a loved one to receive mental health services, local officials have claimed it doesn’t do enough to help those with the most severe mental illnesses. Those people often don’t want treatment, they say, which leaves counties with few options but to release people back onto the streets.

Mayor Todd Gloria has lobbied for bills in the past that would make it easier to force people into treatment. 

An oft-given solution is to allow family members or court-appointed officials to handle the life and treatment decisions of an individual in what’s called a conservatorship.

This year, San Diego-area Democrat Catherine Blakespear is pushing Senate Bill 1016, which would allow judges to order mental health evaluations of people who are unwilling to participate in CARE Court or struggle in the program. Senate Bill 989 would make it easier to file CARE petitions.

The proposals have reignited a debate about how or when to force people into involuntary treatment. Many families and advocates see the bills as a lifeline to getting more people into the program.

Democrats are split.

Weber Pierson and Chula Vista Sen. Steve Padilla did not vote for SB 1016, a tactic lawmakers often use to avoid voting against bills they don’t support.

Weber Pierson said there’s not enough evidence the current program isn’t working and that any new changes would be burdensome for counties to implement. Padilla refused to explain why he doesn’t support the bill.

Races to Watch

With the primary election on Tuesday, some Republicans are worried that intra-party fighting will get in the way of the party’s chances of re-electing a Republican in the Escondido state Senate district currently represented by Brian Jones.

Earlier this month, the state Republican Party sent a cease-and-desist letter to Assemblymember Carl DeMaio for using official party branding on mailers for his political group, Reform California. 

The condemnation came, in part, due to heightened frustration that DeMaio was  misrepresenting who the party endorsed, according to former San Diego County GOP Chair Corey Gustafson. Most traditional Republicans are supporting San Marcos City Councilmember Ed Musgrove for the state Senate district. DeMaio’s group, Reform California, is supporting Kristie Bruce-Lane. Musgrove is seen as more electable in the competitive district, Gustafson said.

What I’m Reading Now

Chevron remains at the center of California politics as the state works to transition away from fossil fuels, Grist reports.

San Diego County begins public feedback on its $9 billion proposed budget, from KPBS.

After endless twists and turns, many voters are still unsure who to support for governor and are holding onto their ballots, the Associated Press reports.

The post Sacramento Report: Lawmakers Weigh in on Midway Rising appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

If you’re tuning into city budget conversations, you’ve likely heard about a spike in middle managers that’s contributed to the city’s budget crisis.

What’s been less clear is the roles those new managers have taken on, why their ranks have grown so much and why they became such a big pariah in city budget talks.

Our Mariana Martínez Barba dug in and found that middle managers are non-union employees, making them more flexible to address new tasks and functions. Many of those positions were tied to new city programs, required by new state and federal mandates or were the result of settlement agreements or grants.

New middle manager positions also served as a workaround to Proposition B, a 2012 ballot measure that froze many City Hall wages for years.

Then there’s the fact that the city’s budget wasn’t looking so tight around the time the ranks of middle managers started growing.

Read the full story here.

Speaking of middle managers: Councilmembers want to cut more positions.

In a memo sent to the city’s Independent Budget Analyst, Budget Committee Chair Henry Foster along with councilmembers Kent Lee, Vivian Moreno and Sean Elo-Rivera asked the office to identify $3 million in cuts in “non-frontline” departments.

They also said they want the positions of chief operating officer and film program manager back. 

Also related: 

• The Union-Tribune reports that City Councilmembers Foster, Moreno, Elo-Rivera and Kent Lee are proposing a compromise budget that, among other changes, reverses cuts for libraries and recreation centers and reduces those to arts and culture. The new cash would come from additional middle manager cuts, reductions in homeless service offerings, canceling a controversial police department license-plate reader contract and implementing two-officer units.
• Earlier this week, CBS 8 reports that hundreds of San Diegans gathered at City Hall to rally against proposed arts and culture cuts. 

South County Report: South Bay Latinos’ GOP-Curiosity Appears Over

After the 2024 election, our Jim Hinch reported on a rightward shift among South Bay’s Latino voters who shared their concerns about the economy, inflation and even lax border enforcement.

In this week’s South County Report, Hinch breaks down the results of a new poll of Latino voters that dove deep into California Latinos’ views. Though the poll doesn’t lay out specific results in San Diego County, Hinch notes that the numbers seem to reflect the backlash to President Donald Trump that he’s been hearing from voters.

Also in this week’s newsletter: One Chula Vista City Council candidate responds to Hinch’s recent reporting on an unflattering old image circulating of another candidate – and there’s now a Democrat in the Imperial Beach mayor’s race. Spoiler alert: He’s been on the game show Jeopardy.

Read the South County Report here.

Las Vegas Signals It’s Interested in Buying San Diego Water

Las Vegas has signaled interest in buying San Diego’s desalination water, the latest development in what will surely be a complex agreement permitting cities to trade water over state lines.

Last week, the board of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which provides water to the Las Vegas metropolitan area, officially signaled it wants to talk interstate water transfers by signing onto a memorandum of understanding proposed by the San Diego County Water Authority. San Diego is keen to sell off water it doesn’t need but is obligated to buy, like de-salted ocean water from a desalination plant in Carlsbad.

Such a deal could work like this: Las Vegas agrees to buy water from San Diego, maybe even at the high price of desalinated water – expensive because of all the energy it takes to make it. In exchange, Las Vegas gets to take a portion of San Diego’s Colorado River water.

Las Vegas, like San Diego, depends on water from the Colorado River which is dwindling due to overuse and climate change. The seven U.S. states that use it are currently deadlocked over how to agree to use less of it. Nevada gets the least amount of river water of any state.

San Diego still needs the federal government, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and various water movers in Arizona to agree to work on how to develop interstate water trades.

Don’t Miss Brews and News on June 11

Join our VOSD Podcasts hosts Scott Lewis, Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña, Bella Ross and Jakob McWhinney on June 11 at Soda Bar for an election recap and more during our Brews & News Live Podcast. 

Get your tickets today.

In Other News

• Opinion: Shane Harris makes the case for why voters should vote no on Measure A. “At a time when San Diegans are already dealing with rising utility bills, new fees, and increasing everyday costs, asking voters to approve another tax without a clear spending plan only deepens concerns about trust and accountability,” he writes. Read his op-ed here.
• The county is seeking feedback on its $9.15 billion budget. (KPBS)
• Former Voice intern Jenna Ramiscal and fellow San Diego State student Polly Hill reveal that there are more than 1,300 AI-enabled cameras on SDSU’s campus. (The Daily Aztec)
• Harbor Island West Marina’s makeover is officially underway. (CBS 8)
• Nearby residents had a lot to say about two proposed pedestrian crossings over railroad tracks in Leucadia. (Union-Tribune)
• More parents want San Diego Unified to limit students’ screen time. (KPBS)

Lisa Halverstadt, Mariana Martínez Barba and MacKenzie Elmer wrote the Morning Report. Editing by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña. 

The post Morning Report: The Story Behind San Diego’s Surge in Middle Managers appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

The city of San Diego’s expanding ranks of middle managers have become the go-to attack line on how spending got out of hand. But for years, city leaders saw them as the only way to get flexibility or roll out special projects. Now, everyone agrees there should be fewer of them.  

Mayor Todd Gloria historically supported these roles, but they cost the city’s general fund more than $49 million this fiscal year. Amid a projected $118 million budget deficit, he is now proposing cuts. 

It’s unclear what the long-term impact of the proposed cuts will be on city operations. But the city’s chief financial officer told us the cuts will increase risks and response times across the city. 

But who exactly are these employees and why did they become the budget’s biggest target? 

Middle Managers for Dummies  

The city’s workforce is split into two groups: unclassified and classified. 

“It’s basically just a fancy way of saying unionized versus not unionized,” said Mark Kersey, president and CEO of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association. Kersey is also a former city of San Diego councilmember.  

Unions represent classified employees – they have clear roles and responsibilities strictly defined in their contracts. 

Department heads can’t assign them work outside of the scope and intent of their job title. 

Unclassified employees, on the other hand, are not part of a union and are at-will employees. (Except for the city’s deputy city attorneys, who are unclassified and have a union.) 

Unclassified employees make up 7 percent of the city’s more than 13,000-person workforce. Here’s what that looks like in a pie chart. 

Kersey said administrations like having unclassified workers. Unclassified employees are more flexible. Department heads can assign them different tasks beyond what they are responsible for in their job descriptions. 

The general fund budget has more than 700 unclassified individuals and about 210 of those are middle managers. 

That includes about 97 program coordinators and 113 program managers. 

Kersey said middle managers are primarily in these two roles.  

The city’s chief financial officer, Rolando Charvel, confirmed that same description in a memo to city staff last month. 

Kersey said middle managers fill a role between frontline workers and department leadership.  

The city charter says they do that but in fancier terms. 

Every time a department director wants to create a middle manager position, they need approval from something called the Civil Service Commission, which the personnel department reports to. 

Personnel staff bring forward the recommendation of the exemption of the position. Then the Commission deliberates on the position and if approved, it moves to City Council for final approval.  

Rolando Charvel, chief financial officer with the city, gave us an example of a middle manager. 

When the state mandated an organics recycling program in early 2022, the city had to roll out the program and hire new drivers to support the increased collection of organics recycling. 

Because of that the city needed to hire someone, like a program manager, to oversee those workers. A manager is also required to ensure proper compliance with state organics recycling laws.  

He said managers are important to coordinate employees and ensure compliance and communication. 

“The good news is that you can give them [middle managers] different duties, but the bad news is that they do cost more,” said Kersey. 

Which Leads Us to How They Got So Big 

A 2024 presentation to City Council by Michael Zucchet, General Manager of the San Diego Municipal Employees Association, kicked off the whole conversation around middle managers.  

He pointed out that between 2015 and 2024 positions like program manager and program coordinator grew from 70 people to 393.  

Zucchet said that’s because of two reasons. 

First, a 2012 ballot measure called Prop B mandated a pay freeze at the city from 2013 to 2018. The freeze made the city very uncompetitive in wages.  

Classified employees got stuck in this pay freeze. So, city officials turned to unclassified employees as another option. 

Their reasoning was they could pay these workers more because they wouldn’t have to negotiate with the unions and pay unionized workers the same salaries. 

Zucchet said city officials decided they could make a “program coordinator” position, or other unclassified positions and effectively recruit someone they can pay more. 

He also said the city’s finances were bouncing back in 2013. The city’s revenue sources like property tax, transient occupancy tax, and sales tax were on the rise.  

Kersey agreed with Zucchet and said they had the money to hire middle managers at the time. 

Kersey also told me the funding for the roles came from a variety of places, including federal and state grants. 

This drove an increase of middle managers from 2013-2018.  

But at a recent press conference, Zucchet called Kersey out for adding all those middle managers “back then.”  

“In FY2014 through 2020 there was a tripling of these positions, tens of millions of dollars. Not to make this personal but who oversaw that tripling? Mark Kersey who was on the City Council, who’s now at the Taxpayers Association lead. So, it’s a little rich to be hearing that,” Zucchet said. 

I asked Kersey about Zucchet’s comment.  

“We actually had the money to pay for those positions, which is why we funded them,” said Kersey. “If we didn’t have the money, we would not have funded them.” 

Over the past five fiscal years, city officials added 169 unclassified employees to departments that directly report to the mayor’s office. These are departments like Public Utilities Department, Human Resources, police and more.  

City officials added about 73 employees to departments independent to the mayor. These include the City Auditor’s Office, Independent Budget Analyst’s Office, Ethics Commission and more.  

The Covid-19 pandemic created a need for more middle managers. In a memo to city staff, Charvel detailed how the expansion of new programs, homelessness-related services, and grant-driven staffing needs “reflected the operational demands of that period.” 

For example, Charvel told me in fiscal year 2023 both the state organic recycling program and Pure Water project required more hires. 

Of those workers, 74 percent were funded by the general fund, and 26 percent were funded by other sources like grants and enterprise funds.  

In the memo, Charvel said at least 47 positions are directly tied to new programs, like Citywide Translation & Interpretation Services, Sidewalk Vending Ordinance, Immigrant Affairs and more.  

He said most of these positions are approved by the City Council, mandated by the state or federal government, or driven by settlement agreements and grant requirements.  

Charvel said nearly half of the positions added were also eliminated over this same period as programs wound down or funding changed.  

“I think while they [Taxpayers Association] may be looking at 2011, I’m living in 2026. You look at the data today, we have made substantial reductions in those kinds of positions. Reminder that does not come without impact,” said Mayor Gloria in a press conference. 

For his budget this year, Gloria announced he would cut 37 unclassified positions from the general fund to save over $9.3 million.  

But Some People Still Have Beef with Middle Managers 

In his 2024 presentation to City Council, Zucchet called middle managers “substantial, low hanging budget fruit.”  

Kersey said while these employees are doing good work for the city, at some point tough, choices must be made. “It’s not like they’re just sitting around on TikTok all day,” he said. 

Kersey and Zucchet have made a big deal out of middle managers, along with former mayor of Coronado Richard Bailey.  

Bailey has made it a focal point to wrangle in the city’s personnel costs if he’s elected for the District 2 Council seat.  

District 4 candidate Martha Abraham and District 8 candidate Gerardo Ramirez have also called out the city’s “middle manager problem.”  

If the mayor were to cut all the current middle managers in the city, that would result in approximately $49.9 million in savings to the general fund budget.  

That’s about 2.3 percent of the budget. It is about 42 percent of the city’s deficit of $118 million.  

Both Bailey and Zucchet think that while these people may do important jobs, they aren’t delivering the basic neighborhood services that frontline workers do. 

“I think it’s really a question of what we’re getting in return – are roads better paved or not, are we seeing those frontline services fulfilled,” said Bailey. 

But Charvel told me how cutting some of these roles will have an impact on city operations, increasing risks and response times.  

He said the risks vary depending on the department and specific position. Some examples include reduced oversight of programs and contracts, slower implementation of projects or policy direction, less capacity to monitor budgets, and more.  

“In practical terms, when management capacity is reduced, the work does not always go away. It is either reassigned to remaining staff, which can slow response times, or it is deprioritized,” said Charvel in an email statement to Voice.  

The post How San Diego’s Middle Managers Became the Villain   appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

I don’t own a home in San Diego. Like many residents, I rent. I feel the pressure of rising costs. I understand how difficult it is for working people and families to find stable, affordable housing in this city. And like most San Diegans, I want real solutions to our housing crisis. That’s exactly why I’m voting no on Measure A.

Initially, the City Council wanted Measure A described as an “empty homes” tax until a judge ruled that the city could not use that misleading language. Now the measure is identified as a “non-primary homes” tax. Supporters claim it will free up housing supply by encouraging owners to sell their property or rent it out to local residents. It sounds simple, even appealing. But when you look closer, the reality is far more complicated — and far more concerning.

This measure isn’t just about abandoned or speculative properties. It creates a tax of up to $10,000 annually on homes deemed not to be a primary residence and “vacant” for more than half the year. That definition sweeps in far more people than many voters realize. It also puts the city in the business of monitoring how many days San Diegans spend in their own homes, shifting the burden onto residents to prove they lived there rather than requiring the city to prove they did not.

It includes retirees who maintain a second home to be closer to doctors, family, or grandchildren. It could impact military families deployed for extended periods if they fail to properly file paperwork with a new city bureaucracy. It affects people navigating inheritance, relocation, family illness, or other life transitions. These are not faceless investors gaming the system; they are real San Diegans with legitimate reasons for how they use their homes.

Framing this as simply an “empty homes” issue is misleading. And that matters, because public policy should be rooted in clarity and honesty.

But the deeper problem is this: Measure A does not solve the housing crisis. It does not build a single new home. It does not increase density in the areas where it is needed most. It does not streamline approvals or reduce the barriers that make housing development so difficult in San Diego.

Instead, it relies on the assumption that taxing certain homeowners will somehow translate into more housing supply. That assumption is not backed by a clear plan or proven mechanism for delivering results. In fact, the city’s own Independent Budget Analyst report acknowledged that other jurisdictions that implemented similar taxes did not see lower rents or lower housing prices as a result.

Even the roughly 5,000 homes the city says it would initially target are largely not located in areas where new transit-oriented housing development is feasible. They are not near major job centers or transportation corridors where density makes sense. They are not the types of properties that will suddenly become accessible, affordable housing for working families.

If we are serious about solving the housing crisis, we should focus on what actually works: building more housing in places where people can live, work, and move efficiently. That means aligning housing with transit, infrastructure, and economic opportunity. That is the kind of policy that expands access. I call it “housing on wheels.”

Measure A does not do that.

What it does do is generate revenue — revenue that would go directly into the city’s General Fund. And we have already seen where that has gotten us: a budget deficit now exceeding $120 million, driven by overspending rather than a lack of revenue. There is no dedicated funding stream, no lockbox, and no guarantee that the money raised by Measure A would be used to increase housing supply or improve affordability.

At a time when San Diegans are already dealing with rising utility bills, new fees, and increasing everyday costs, asking voters to approve another tax without a clear spending plan only deepens concerns about trust and accountability.

Measure A also creates a new layer of bureaucracy in a city already grappling with how many employees will eventually need to be cut. It requires homeowners to report how their property is used and opens the door to audits, disputes, and penalties. It expands government oversight into private property in ways many residents may find intrusive.

As a renter, I want more housing options. I want lower costs. I want a future where homeownership is within reach for more people. But policies like Measure A do not move us closer to that future.

If anything, they risk discouraging investment, creating uncertainty, and distracting from the real work that needs to be done to increase housing supply.

This is a smoke-and-mirrors measure. I call it “piecemeal taxation.” It sounds like a solution, but it does not address the root of the problem.

San Diego deserves better.

As ballots arrive in mailboxes, voters should look past the label and ask a simple question: Will this actually fix the housing crisis?

In my view, it will not.

And that is why I am voting no on Measure A.

Shane Harris is the CEO of S Harris Communications and the spokesperson for No on A Campaign.

The post I Support More Housing — But Not Measure A appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Following the 2024 presidential election, talk among South County politicos centered on the surprising shift to the right of the region’s majority Latino voters. 

I wasn’t surprised by that shift, based on reporting I’d done. Latino voters and politicians I talked to in 2024 spoke of deep concerns about the economy, inflation, even what many described as an overly porous U.S.-Mexico border. 

For many voters, Donald Trump was the answer to those concerns. 

But I wondered. Would South County Latinos’ Republican-curious feelings last? 

This week, UnidosUS, which calls itself the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights organization, released a national poll of Latino voters that includes focused polling of California Latinos. 

The poll does not break out results for San Diego County. But the statewide numbers track with observations I’ve made during my own conversations with South County residents and politicians this year. 

In short, Latinos’ Republican-curiosity appears to be over. 

There is a major backlash to President Trump’s handling of the economy, immigration and foreign policy. Latinos are reverting to many of their previously held views – though that does not necessarily mean unwavering allegiance to Democrats. 

Some highlights: 

• Seventy-one percent of California Latinos disapprove of Trump’s job performance. That’s higher than a 67 percent disapproval rating among Latinos nationwide. 

• Top factors in Latinos’ views of the president include the cost of living, inflation and immigration enforcement – precisely those issues that motivated Latinos to move right two years ago. 

• Among Latino Trump voters, more than a quarter (28 percent), now say they would change their vote if they had the opportunity to choose again. 

• Just 13 percent of California Latinos support Trump’s current approach to immigration: Deporting undocumented immigrants regardless of how long they’ve been in the United States. Three-quarters of Latinos support an amnesty program that would provide a process for longtime undocumented residents to become citizens. 

The topline results might suggest a slam dunk for Democrats in November. But the full poll presents a more nuanced picture. 

By a wide margin, California Latinos want elected officials to address pocketbook issues, rating them far more important than issues that often dominate Democratic campaigns, including gun violence, education, civil rights and police brutality. 

Just 5 percent of California Latinos want elected officials to address police reform. Thirteen percent rate gun violence as an important issue. 

All of this tracks with what I’ve seen and heard in South County. 

Latino residents and politicians alike (and many of those politicians right now are going door to door in campaigns asking voters what they care about) say the same things over and over. 

The economy is terrible, they say. Everything costs too much. Even if they are American citizens, they worry they’ll be harassed by immigration authorities. They feel life under Trump has not turned out as they expected. 

What does all of this mean for South County elections? 

Democrats undoubtedly will do better this year than in 2024. But it’s early for a victory lap. 

There has been a lot of internal discord among South County Democrats this election cycle, some of which I’ll be covering in more detail. And the Republicans and conservative-leaning independents currently leading all three South County cities are not viewed by most voters as overtly partisan. 

If there is one overriding takeaway from the Unidos poll, it’s that, even in staunchly Democratic South County, Republicans two years ago had an opportunity to broaden their coalition and erode Democrats’ longstanding dominance among Latinos. 

Based on this poll, Republicans appear to have blown that opportunity. 

Democrat Enters IB Race for Mayor 

Democrat Karl Bradley this week announced he is running for Imperial Beach mayor, making Imperial Beach the third and final South County city that could end up with a Democrat in the city’s top office. 

Though Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two to one in South County, not a single South County city currently is led by a Democrat. 

Bradley, a retired school construction manager who has served in recent years on I.B.’s Design Review Board, will face current Mayor Mitch McKay, a self-described conservative-leaning independent who filed papers seeking a second term in office earlier this month. 

City Councilmembers appointed McKay to the mayoral seat last year following the election of then-Mayor Paloma Aguirre to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. 

Bradley said the speed with which the Council’s conservative majority appointed McKay without entertaining other candidates for the job was part of what motivated him to enter the race. 

If elected, Bradley said he would focus primarily on the ongoing sewage crisis in the Tijuana River, which he said has jeopardized residents’ health and delivered a sharp blow to the city’s economy. 

Bradley said the current conservative-leaning Council has not been proactive in drawing attention to the issue or pressuring federal authorities for greater transparency into efforts to upgrade a cross-border wastewater treatment plant. 

“There are those who think if we don’t talk about it, business will get better and developers will come back,” Bradley said. “That’s not realistic.” 

Bradley said he hoped to leverage his years of experience managing multimillion-dollar school construction contracts to scrutinize work at the treatment plant and advocate for a more balanced housing mix in Imperial Beach. 

Other top issues include finding ways for the city to earn more revenue so it can afford to keep highly qualified employees at City Hall and limiting the proliferation of high-density apartment projects that are out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood. 

Fun fact (or two): Bradley is a lifelong drummer who still wails away on his drum kit in the garage and, over the course of his life, has played in punk, heavy metal, classic rock and country bands. He’s currently in a musical theater orchestra in San Diego. 

And he once appeared, and won, on the television game show Jeopardy. His winning final Jeopardy question was about the classic French romantic play Cyrano De Bergerac.  

Council Candidate Responds 

Last week, I wrote about a controversy over election messaging in the race to represent Chula Vista’s 2nd District on the City Council. 

Two candidates in that race – former planning commissioner Russ Hall and current District 2 Councilmember Jose Preciado – accused a third candidate, Angelica Martinez, of seeking to belittle Preciado by using a four-year-old image of him in a campaign poster that dated from a time when Preciado, who has struggled with his weight, weighed more than twice as much as he does now. 

Martinez last week did not respond to a list of questions sent by email or a request for a phone interview. 

This week, she emailed to say she felt the story about the campaign image unfairly depicted her as engaging in personal attacks when, in fact, the image was intended to highlight what she said was Preciado’s policy failures on crime and other important issues. 

She also suggested she was not directly responsible for the image’s circulation on social media in recent weeks. 

Though Martinez declined to respond directly to questions about the image’s origin and appearance on social media in a phone interview this week, in a follow-up email she said she herself did not “independently post” the image but “might have been tagged in a post related to the” campaign event at which the image was displayed on a poster. 

“Not once have I talked about [Preciado’s] weight or physical appearance,” Martinez said. 

Martinez said she has kept her campaign focused on District 2’s high crime rate, the city’s need for more police officers and what she said was Preciado’s recent effort to silence her and deprive her of her speech rights while she was trying to give an interview to a Spanish-language news reporter. 

“My decision to run for Chula Vista City Council District 2 has always been about protecting families, taxpayers, small businesses and the residents of our community,” Martinez wrote in an email. 

“My campaign has consistently focused on crime, homelessness and the rising cost of living – the same issues Councilmember Jose Preciado campaigned on in 2022 but failed to meaningfully address four years later in 2026. I will not allow false narratives to damage my reputation when all I have done is hold an elected official accountable to the promises and statements he himself made publicly during his 2022 campaign.” 

The post South County Report: Latino Voters’ Rightward Shift Appears to Be Reversing appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Voters countywide will decide in November whether to approve a half-cent sales tax hike to fund healthcare, yet-to-be-specified Tijuana River sewage solutions, child care and public safety.

The county Registrar of Voters has confirmed that the coalition behind the San Diego County Health & Safety Act submitted enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

In a Wednesday announcement, the labor and advocacy coalition signaled it will focus on federal cuts to make the case to voters for the sales tax hike projected to pull in $360 million annually.

“This November, San Diego County voters have the power to protect San Diego from everything Washington is trying to take away,” coalition spokesperson Courtney Baltiyskyy wrote in a statement. “More than 121,000 San Diegans signed this petition because they know our health, safety and clean water are on the line.”

Where the money would go: If approved, the initiative would direct up to 60 percent of new tax dollars to child care and health services for children, health care for uninsured or underinsured people, food aid and other health care causes. Nearly 23 percent would go toward yet-to-be-detailed efforts to combat the Tijuana sewage crisis and nearly 18 percent to public safety services, wildfire prevention and crisis response. 

A tough sell: The coalition will face an electorate already reeling from other rising costs and skeptical about local governments. A poll obtained by Voice of San Diego last year showed just how skeptical city of San Diego residents were: 57 percent of the 776 city voters polled said they thought the county was on the wrong track.

Encinitas Bumps Up Development Impact Fees

Encinitas will now require housing developers to pay 200 to 500 percent more in development impact fees when building single and multi-family housing projects.

Development impact fees are one-time fees developers pay to local governments when building housing projects to fund things like park development, roadway improvements and traffic mitigation in the surrounding community.

Starting July 20, the city is raising its fees for future housing developments by 200 to 500 percent. The developers of an average, 1,736-square-foot home in Encinitas will now owe $47,827 in impact fees, up from the old figure of $15,843, according to the staff report.

Officials at the Building Industry Association are criticizing the city for raising prices on developers who are already facing extremely high costs just to build.

Related: Around this time last year, our Tigist Layne asked Encinitas Mayor Bruce Ehlers what he thought of the amount of development impact fees the city brings in yearly – at the time, staff were predicting the city would bring in almost $15 million in development impact fees by the end of the current fiscal year (June 30).

“It’s not enough,” Ehlers said. “For example, let’s say we wanted to widen one side of the road on Santa Fe Drive to accommodate for increased traffic – that alone would probably cost around $5 million. It’s not enough.” 

Well, it looks like the rest of the City Council agreed with him.

Ehlers also previously told Layne the state should be funding its own housing mandates by subsidizing things like parking garages, street maintenance, traffic mitigation and more. You can read that story here.

The Learning Curve: Union Aims to be Kingmaker in State Supe Race

On paper, longtime San Diego Unified School District Trustee Richard Barrera appears to be lagging his opponents in the race to become California’s next State Superintendent of Schools.

But as our education reporter, Jakob McWhinney, reports, Barrera’s lackluster fundraising results might not matter in the little-noticed but consequential race.

That’s because Barrera has the backing of the powerful California Teachers Association, which often plays a decisive role in statewide education races.

Three of Barrera’s competitors have outraised him, some by a lot. But already a CTA independent expenditure committee supporting Barrera has blown past those totals, dropping $5 million into the race with more expected to come.

“We are planning to spend as much as it takes for him to win,” one union rep told McWhinney.

It’s a wide open race, with no candidate showing a decisive lead in polling. Can CTA’s financial muscle secure another win? We’ll know on June 2.

Read the Learning Curve here. 

In Other News 

• Authorities on Friday arrested a top-ranking San Diego County health official for allegedly killing a 27-year-old woman in a hit-and-run car crash. Health and Human Services Deputy Director Assmaa Elyyat faces one count each of vehicular manslaughter and felony hit-and-run after allegedly hitting the victim at a bus stop. (Union-Tribune)
• It all started with a tap on the shoulder. inewsource went behind the scenes to show how a deal came together to roll back San Diego trash fees and eliminate paid parking in Balboa Park.
• Twelve San Diego Fire Department firefighters earned more than $200,000 in overtime last year, according to an investigation by Times of San Diego. City officials said the high overtime amounts are a result of salary increases and persistent understaffing.
• Officials at a Chula Vista high school repeatedly expressed fears in recent years that one of their students was showing a disturbing affinity for mass violence. The student, Caleb Vazquez, was one of two teens suspected in this month’s shooting at a San Diego mosque that killed three people. (Union-Tribune)
• Tourists and commuters soon will have another way to travel from Chula Vista to downtown San Diego. Starting June 1, Flagship Cruises will offer daily ferry service from the Chula Vista waterfront to San Diego’s Fifth Avenue Landing. The 45-minute trip is expected to cost $15 one way.
• The behavior of one of the suspects in the Islamic Center shooting had raised concerns among school and law enforcement officials last year. (Union-Tribune) Related: We updated yesterday’s Morning Report to clarify that when the police department’s license plate reader system got a hit on the suspects’ vehicle, they sent officers to the Mission Valley area. Here’s a timeline.

The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt, Tigist Layne and Jim Hinch. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña. 

The post Morning Report: County Sales Tax Makes the Ballot  appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

We’re less than a week away from Tuesday’s statewide primary election, and in most ways, the field for California superintendent of public instruction seems as wide open as ever. What’s more is that, amid a fractured and contentious race for governor, voters barely seem to be paying attention to the similarly fractured race for state supe. 

That may end up playing in favor of longtime San Diego Unified Trustee Richard Barrera, whose longshot candidacy was given fresh life by an endorsement from the state’s No.1 schools power player: the California Teachers Association.  

Now, as the union pours millions into the race, it’s clear they’re not leaving his election up to chance. 

It’s not hard to understand why voters aren’t plugged into the state supe race. The position’s powers can be more symbolic than practical. The state supe doesn’t develop educational policies, but they do implement them. They also don’t create budgets, but they do disburse funds. Much of what they do is advocate for positions. 

The race is also a bit of a black box. More flashy races are getting all the attention and there’s little public polling on the state of the race. Fundraising offers a peek behind the curtain.  

According to an EdSource tracker, Barrera has raised about $220,000. That lands him in fourth place behind California State Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, conservative Chino Valley Union Trustee Sonja Shaw and former California State Senator Josh Newman who’ve each raised between $284,000 and $330,000. 

Muratsuchi and former Speaker of the House Anthony Rendon, also transferred boatloads of cash from past campaigns they’d run – over $350,000 and $1.1 million, respectively. That gives them way more money to work with than the other candidates. 

Bad news for Barrera, right? Not really.  

His personal fundraising doesn’t really seem like it will matter. That’s because Barrera had the backing of the California Teachers Association, which for at least 40 years has acted as a kingmaker in the race. 

This cycle had the chance to upend CTA’s staggering win streak. While labor organizations have often coalesced around a single state supe candidate, this year support splintered, with various unions supporting different candidates. 

So, Barrera’s hopes hinged on just how much support he’d get from CTA. Turns out, a whole lot. 

Over the past two months alone, the union’s independent expenditure group has dropped nearly $5 million into the race. CTA President David Goldberg told me there will likely be more where that came from.  

“We are planning to spend as much as it takes for him to win,” Goldberg said. 

It’s not hard to see why CTA put their considerable weight behind Barrera. He’s a true-blue labor guy who came to the board not from the classroom, but from organizing spaces. Over his nearly two decades on San Diego Unified’s board, he’s played perhaps the largest role in charting the district’s course. That includes the development of the district’s now tight-knit relationship with labor, its embrace of progressive programs like community schools and its unprecedented leap into workforce housing.  

Even so, his labor history has earned him enemies. Those inside the labor movement have called on CTA to rescind its endorsement due to Barrera’s once-close connection to Mickey Kasparian, who was accused of sexual impropriety by a host of women. Those outside of the movement have alleged his close labor ties constituted a conflict of interest. 

Those concerns haven’t swayed current CTA leadership, who’ve dominated the independent expenditures in the race. Of the nearly $5.6 million spent by independent expenditure committees in the race, more than $5 million has gone to support Barrera.  

Even so, what little polling we have doesn’t show a clear favorite. A Public Policy Institute of California poll released in April showed just 7 percent of voters said Barrera was their pick. That placed him tied for second with Shaw.  

Ahead of them were San Francisco Unified teacher Ainye Long, a virtual nonentity in campaign fundraising, and Anthony Rendon, a former speaker of the California Assembly, each of whom had 9 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, the shoulder shrug of “don’t know” far outpaced every candidate, with 32 percent of the vote.  

That poll, though, was functionally conducted an eon ago as far as electoral politics are concerned. After all, then-Congressmember Eric Swalwell was voters’ top pick for governor. By the time the poll was released, Swalwell had dropped out of the race and even stepped down from Congress after women accused him of sexual assault and harassment. 

All but $50,000 of the outside spending on Barrera’s behalf came after late March and early April, when voters we’re being contacted for the poll.  

And Goldberg, for his part, said he feels good about how the race is shaping up. 

“These races that are bottom of the ballot are often hard to break through. That’s very true this year, with so much going on with the governor’s race,” Goldberg said. “But I’m starting to see [Barrera] break through.” 

There has been some momentum for his campaign. He’s pulled in a host of newspaper endorsements, like the San Francisco Chronicle and the McClatchy group, which includes the Sacramento, Fresno and Merced Bees. Barrera has also long counted current state supe, Tony Thurmond, for whom he works as a deputy, as a supporter. 

Even the California Charter Schools Association, once the sworn enemy of the CTA, is backing Barrera who, despite his union bona fides, has long struck a more measured tone about the system than some of his compatriots. The group has dropped nearly $40,000 on television and web ads for Barrera. 

One interesting wrinkle in the race is just how volatile the state supe position is in this moment. While it’s long been an ill-defined position, that could become even more true if proposed changes advanced by Gov. Gavin Newsom and then, in a much different form, by the state legislature, become law. Those changes would strip even more powers from the state supe role and award them to the governor, or the legislature, depending on whose version of the changes win out. 

Needless to say, Barrera, like the other state supe candidates, oppose the changes. So too does Goldberg and the CTA. In any case, Barrera, who’s long been a more behind the scenes figure than an in-front-of-the-camera one, could potentially thrive in the soft power role of the state supe. 

That potential dealmaking ability is part of why the CTA endorsed him. For Goldberg, Barrera also reminds him of another candidate the CTA has endorsed this cycle. 

“Some of the reasons we’re supporting him are also why we endorsed (Tom) Steyer,” Goldberg said. “He’s talking about raising revenue in a way no other viable candidate is doing,” he said, referring to Steyer. 

That’s true.  

The billionaire is one of the few gubernatorial candidates who’s come out in favor of proposals like the controversial billionaire tax. Even CTA hasn’t spoken directly in favor of that proposal, likely because it would require new revenue be spent on healthcare costs. Barrera, similarly, has told me he supports taxes on the rich but would want the revenue to be put back into schools. 

What We’re Writing 

Officials at the wealthy North County Del Mar Union School District suspected an elementary student lived outside the district’s boundaries. So, they hired a private investigator to surveil the child’s home and follow them to school. The child’s mother was so frightened by the sight of a car tailing them, she called the police.  

The post The Learning Curve: Unions Drop $5 Million on Barrera for State Supe appeared first on Voice of San Diego.