Politicos, there are still some races that are too close to call – and there’s one that was clear soon after the polls closed Tuesday night.

Here’s a status update on potential November election match-ups and one under-the-radar one that’s already clear.

The North County supes race: Democratic District 5 Board of Supervisors Kyle Krahel’s edge over Republican John Franklin grew in the latest vote counts posted late Thursday. Franklin, Vista’s mayor, now trails Krahel by about 1,461 votes. This makes it appear more likely that Krahel could face off against Republican San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones in November.

The District 8 City Council race: The second candidate in the District 8 City Council is still too close to call. But Gerardo Ramirez, chief of staff to sitting Councilmember Vivian Moreno, has a growing lead over fellow Democrat Venus Molina, who serves as chief of staff to District 2 Councilmember Jennifer Campbell. Ramirez is now 346 votes ahead of Molina.

The November match-up that’s set: Appointed County Treasurer-Tax Collector Larry Cohen, a Democrat, will face off against Republican Certified Public Accountant Shirley Nakawatase.

PSA: The county’s treasurer-tax collector oversees the collection of property, transient occupancy and cannabis taxes, manages county investments and disburses funds to school districts.

About the winners: Cohen and Nakawatase both argue they’ve got the best experience for the job. Nakawatase noted her roles working with business, nonprofits and groups including a county subsidiary agency and said she wants to focus the office more on serving taxpayers. Cohen said his experience working as the appointed treasurer-tax collector and past roles in private sector biotech and as chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Juan Vargas, who served the financial services committee, make him best suited to deal with the complexities of the job.

Not on the November ballot: A spokesperson for sitting County Supervisor Joel Anderson, a Republican who also sought the seat, said he called Nakawatase on Wednesday to let her know he would support her. 

“That office is a wreck, and they need somebody that is dedicated to doing the job,” Anderson said in a statement.

Anderson now plans to serve the rest of his supervisorial term representing East County communities, where he’ll be termed out in January 2029.

Einstein School Superintendent Officially Out

Yesterday we told you that embattled Albert Einstein Academies Superintendent David Sciarretta has resigned after more than a year of tumult over his use of district funds and a flood of parent complaints.

The charter school’s board held an emergency meeting Wednesday and later announced its acceptance of Sciarretta’s resignation and a settlement agreement.

Our Jakob McWhinney has more on how the drama surrounding Sciarretta unfolded. It all started with complaints about the degradation of the charter’s trademark German language immersion program and ratcheted up after allegations that he used district funds on projects including a personal podcast. Then the San Diego Unified School District recently started investigating.

Read the full story here.

County Redistricting Maps Survive Years-Long Court Battle

The U.S. Supreme Court this spring declined to hear a legal challenge against new San Diego County district boundaries etched out during a 2021 redistricting process, upholding the changes.  

Now the county’s Independent Redistricting Commission is calling on the Chaldean Coalition, an organization that had alleged the new boundaries split their community, to pay at least $634,000 in legal bills covered by taxpayers. 

How we got here: The commission approved new boundaries in late 2021 after a year-long process. The changes, which included keeping Rancho San Diego in more urban District 4 and moving El Cajon into more rural District 2, took effect early the following year. Some Chaldean community members objected to those changes and said they identified more as rural East County residents. 

The Chaldean Coalition sued in March 2022, arguing the move amounted to an illegal division of its community. The case has been winding its way through the courts ever since.

Read more here.

Colorado River Deal Is a ‘QSA 2.0’

San Diego signed a deal Tuesday to start talking about selling water to other thirsty states in the Southwest. 

The San Diego County Water Authority is probably the only water agency in this Colorado River-dependent region that has claim over more water than its people and industries use. 

It won’t be easy: Water Authority General Manager Denham told our MacKenzie Elmer that this deal is like “a QSA 2.0.” He’s referring to another very complex deal San Diego made in 2003 to buy water from farmers in Imperial Valley, who had to let some farm land go dry. It was a very complex arrangement involving the four major water agencies in Southern California. 

San Diego will need buy-in from the Imperial Irrigation District, and farmers already have concerns. 

Keep in mind: San Diego wouldn’t actually be physically shipping desalinated water to Arizona or Nevada. The water would be exchanged on paper, so a buyer in Arizona purchasing San Diego’s water would take an equivalent amount of Colorado River water. 

There are still a lot of questions: If San Diego is selling its water to another state, would that count against the total amount of water California gets from the Colorado River? Each state and its water rights holders are entitled to draw certain amounts. And when drought hits, everyone scrambles to agree on how to use less. 

That’s the pickle the Southwest faces right now as Colorado River levels are at record-breaking lows. You can read more in the full post here. 

In Other News 

• A county Law Enforcement Review Board investigation found that a sheriff’s deputy violated department policy in failing to aid a homeless woman who died after being left in a Lemon Grove ditch. (Union-Tribune)
• The 3,008-home Fanita Ranch project in Santee has been halted – at least for now – by an appellate court ruling. (Times of San Diego)
• A federal judge this week ordered the Otay Mesa Detention Center to let county health inspectors into the privately run facility after they were previously denied full access. (CalMatters)
• A new city report uncovered surging overtime in the city’s Transportation Department as city workers hustle to try to repair more roads. (Times of San Diego)
• A Tijuana protest temporarily closed the southbound San Ysidro Port of Entry on Thursday. (Union-Tribune)

The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt and MacKenzie Elmer. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.

The post Morning Report: Still Too Close to Call appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

San Diego signed a deal Tuesday to start talking about something that’s never been done before: Sell water to other thirsty states in the Southwest. 

The San Diego County Water Authority received a lot of national press recently because it’s probably the only water agency in this Colorado River-dependent region that has claim over more water than its people and industries use. Even The New York Times showed up Tuesday to catch the Water Authority’s general manager, Dan Denham, raise a glass of desalted water with top Colorado River negotiators celebrating their shared interest in creating an interstate water market.

Now it may take a small army of lawyers to pull off. Denham told me this deal is like “a QSA 2.0.” He’s referring to another very complex deal San Diego made in 2003 to buy water from farmers in Imperial Valley, who had to let some farm land go dry. It was a very complex arrangement involving the four major water agencies in Southern California. 

“The effort itself is as big as the QSA,” Denham said.

It was hard because farmers in the Imperial Valley hold very old rights to Colorado River water. They would be some of the last to lose their water, after even whole U.S. states, should the river be pushed to the brink. 

San Diego will need the Imperial Irrigation District’s buy-in on any future interstate water trades as well, the district’s Water Department manager, Tina Shields, has told Voice of San Diego. And some farmers are already worried that if urban centers start trading their investments like desalination or even recycled water, agriculture will be called upon to cut back as well, according to the Desert Review.

But this interstate deal wouldn’t trigger any new conservation or negative impacts to the environment like the QSA did, Denham told me. 

San Diego wouldn’t actually be physically shipping its desalinated water to buyers Arizona or Nevada. The water would be exchanged on paper, so a buyer in Arizona purchasing San Diego’s water would take an equivalent amount of Colorado River water. 

There are still a lot of questions: If San Diego is selling its water to another state, would that count against the total amount of water California gets from the Colorado River? Each state and its water rights holders are entitled to draw certain amounts. And when drought hits, everyone scrambles to agree on how to use less. 

That’s the pickle the Southwest faces right now as Colorado River levels are at record-breaking lows.

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David Sciarretta, the longtime superintendent of Albert Einstein Academies, has officially resigned. 

At an emergency meeting Wednesday afternoon, the charter school’s Board President Maria Ortega announced that trustees had voted unanimously to accept Sciarretta’s resignation and enter into a settlement agreement with him. Exactly what’s being settled is unclear. 

The move comes after more than a year of controversy at the charter school that gave rise to mounting frustration with Sciarretta from parents and teachers. But even as his resignation is a welcome move for those who’ve wanted him gone, some still bear misgivings about the process.  

The trouble began a year ago, when parents and community members raised the alarm about what they saw as the deterioration of the charter school’s trademark German-immersion program.  

Ultimately, San Diego Unified, the charter school’s authorizer, found parents’ concerns that Einstein’s program wasn’t a true dual immersion program to be true. That prompted a demand by the district for the school to fix its charter, which because of the programmatic changes, was no longer accurate.  

But over the past three months, tension has significantly ratcheted up. 

In March, allegations that Sciarretta improperly used thousands of district funds on projects like a personal podcast reignited calls for him to step down. Those allegations prompted officials at San Diego Unified, to launch an investigation into its financials. The charter school had already launched at least two investigations into Sciarretta’s conduct. 

“The district recently received a complaint regarding AEA that includes, but is not limited to, allegations of misuse of the school’s credit card, violation of conflict of interest policies, and failure to comply with the school’s fiscal policies. Based on the complaint, the district will be conducting an investigation,” read a letter sent by district officials. 

In the letter, San Diego Unified officials requested a wide range of documents, including all public records act requests received by the school, all of the charter’s financial documents and contracts, all invoices and payments to consultants and independent contractors, credit card statements and the results of third-party investigations conducted into any allegations of misuse of funds. 

In April, the controversies moved to the budget. Leadership announced the charter school was facing a nearly $2 million budget deficit. Officials seem likely to lay off a handful of school staff to plug the hole. Those plans prompted new calls of mismanagement from stakeholders who’ve felt the school’s controversies over the past year have contributed to families leaving Einstein.  

Back in March, I spoke to one such parent, Barbara Ecker. Her children attended Einstein for years, but she ultimately decided to pull them out because of concerns that the relationship between leadership and the community had so degraded that it would begin to seep into the classroom. She said she knew of at least 30 families who’d made a similar decision.  

Between the 2024 and 2025 school years, enrollment at Einstein dropped by 54 students. While a meaningful dip, it’s not seriously out of line with rates of decline at other San Diego Unified-authorized charter schools.  

But while Ecker held Sciarretta responsible for much of the deterioration, she also pointed to the board, which she feels hasn’t met the moment. She herself serves as the board president for a small preschool.  

“If I had parents coming to me with concerns about our (preschool’s) director, I would be addressing those. I wouldn’t just sit there and listen with deaf ears,” Ecker said. “I don’t know how the board can just continue to ignore concerns brought up by people.” 

Concerns like that are part of what led a group of teachers, parents and a board member to launch a committee aimed at bringing greater community representation to the board. Proposals include creating a seat for a parent and a teacher, though the board has not yet approved any plans. 

Then in May, the president of the charter’s board, Ortega, announced in a letter to the community that Sciarretta was “on inactive status until further notice.” The vaguely worded letter did not describe who had made the decision to place Sciarretta on inactive status. It also included a disclaimer that the letter was “not intended to convey any negative message or criticism regarding any employee whatsoever.”  

Similarly, Wednesday’s resignation agreement raises some as-of yet unanswered questions about what the settlement agreement entails. Einstein’s board did not indicate if the investigations into Sciarretta had substantiated misconduct, or even if they’d been completed. School officials also did not respond to questions about what, if anything, the investigations had yielded or the circumstances surrounding Sciarretta’s resignation. 

For some, it feels like one more question mark in a saga rife with them.  

“We really don’t know what this means. Does a settlement mean he’s getting a payout?” Sabrina Bochen, a parent who’s been vocal about her desire to see change at the top of Einstein wondered. “This had to happen for the school to move forward and it’s been very frustrating to the school community that board haven’t acted more forcefully.”  

The post Einstein Superintendent Resigns After More Than a Year of Turmoil appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

The U.S. Supreme Court this spring declined to hear a legal challenge against new San Diego County district boundaries etched out during a 2021 redistricting process, upholding the changes.   

Now the county’s Independent Redistricting Commission is calling on the Chaldean Coalition, an organization that had alleged the new boundaries split their community, to pay at least $634,000 in legal bills covered by taxpayers. 

The commission approved new boundaries in late 2021 after a year-long process. The changes, which included keeping Rancho San Diego in more urban District 4 and moving El Cajon into more rural District 2, took effect early the following year. Some Chaldean community members objected to those changes and said they identified more as rural East County residents. 

The Chaldean Coalition sued in March 2022, arguing the move amounted to an illegal division of its community. A San Diego Superior Court judge in 2023 ruled against the Chaldean Coalition. The state Court of Appeal upheld the maps last year and the state Supreme Court later decided against rehearing the case. In early March, after the Chaldean Coalition requested U.S. Supreme Court review, the nation’s high court declined to hear the case. 

Redistricting Commission Chair David Bame cheered the Supreme Court’s denial and prior legal rulings.  

“This was an independent commission meeting for the first time and having a result that was validated all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Bame said. 

Yet the legal challenges also hit the county’s bottom line. Bame wants the Chaldean Coalition to voluntarily cover the bills. 

The Chaldean Coalition and its attorney did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 

County spokesperson Tammy Glenn said the county has not reached out to the organization and does not expect to take further action. 

The post County Redistricting Maps Upheld by Highest Court appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Trump’s top Colorado River official visited San Diego Wednesday and offered a novel proposal: Line the coastline with desal plants. 

The proposal isn’t necessarily out of line with what some Democrats have said. Gov. Gavin Newsom has told other governors that expanding desalination could help relieve pressure on the Colorado River. 

But that’s not at all the stance of environmentalists, who say desal is harmful, energy intensive and costly. 

That didn’t stop Trump’s man, Scott Cameron, from praising the possibility. (Cameron is acting commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation.)

“Imagine a future where a string of six, or even a dozen desalination facilities are operating along the California coast providing ample amounts of beautiful, clean, clear, fresh water,” Cameron said. 

As our MacKenzie Elmer reports, Cameron was in town to sign an agreement with other state officials that could eventually allow San Diego to sell water to other states — something that’s never been done before. 

Read the full story here. 

Superintendent Is Out at Einstein Academies 

David Sciarretta, the superintendent of Albert Einstein Academies, has officially resigned. 

At an emergency meeting Wednesday afternoon, the charter school’s Board President Maria Ortega announced that trustees had voted unanimously to accept Sciarretta’s resignation and enter into a settlement agreement. Exactly what’s being settled is unclear. 

The resignation caps more than a year of controversy for the charter school that’s included charter violations, abrupt firings, allegations of misuse of district funds, multiple investigations and more. 

“This had to happen for the school to move forward and it’s been very frustrating to the school community that board haven’t acted more forcefully,” said Einstein parent Sabrina Bochen. 

The Divide on Measure A

The second homes tax may not be officially cooked just yet, but there are some clear trends in the early vote dumps. 

Particularly interesting is the differing voting patterns between heavily Democratic neighborhoods, which was pointed out by political consultant (and Voice contributor) Mason Herron on X. Neighborhoods in more working-class parts of the city, like Encanto and Chollas Park, voted down the proposal. Meanwhile, more progressive and wealthy areas, like Hillcrest and North Park, supported it. 

In other words, some of San Diego’s poorest and most diverse communities chose not to support another tax, even if it may not have applied to them. It’s likely no coincidence that some of those communities were devastated by flooding two and a half years ago which soured residents’ trust in city leaders. 

As it stands, only City Council Districts 3 and 9 – which cover downtown and an area east of downtown — backed the measure. Even then, the margin was thin. Literally everywhere else seems to have panned it. 

North County Report: About Those Election Results

Primary Election day has come and gone, and in some North County races, early results have already started solidifying who will face off in November.

Our Tigist Layne broke down the preliminary results of some of the top races impacting North County and beyond. Here’s a sneak peek.

District 5 County Supervisor: Ah yes, the race that turned into a messy power struggle between the region’s Republicans. San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones has so far done very well, likely locking in her place in the General Election — probably much to the delight of Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, who endorsed her. Democrat Kyle Krahel is slightly leading over Republican Vista Mayor John Franklin in the battle to see who will face off against Jones in November.

48th Congressional District: This race is key to determining which party will control the House of Representatives. Termed-out County Supervisor Jim Desmond, a Republican, has taken an early lead. Of the many Democrats in the race, San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, led the pack and will face Desmond in November.

Read the North County Report here.

In Other News 

• As KPBS first reported, a nonprofit in Imperial Valley got some $6 million in tax breaks related to an immigrant detention facility it owns and leases. State Senator Steve Padilla of San Diego has now introduced a bill that would stop nonprofits from getting tax breaks related to detention centers they may own or operate. 
• Oceanside Unified is renaming its Cesar Chavez Middle School, after the late activist was accused of sexual abuse. The new name, Senda Middle School, translates in Spanish to “path” or “journey.” (Union-Tribune)
• Scotland incoming: San Diego FC hired a new technical director, Chris Docherty, from the Scottish Football Association to head up the San Diego team. (Union-Tribune)

The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne, Jakob McWhinney, Mariana Martínez Barba and Will Huntsberry. It was edited by Will Huntsberry. 

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The results of Tuesday’s Primary election are (slowly) coming in, and so far, there are a few races affecting North County showing strong early results.  

More than 500,000 ballots have been counted so far, according to the San Diego County Registrar, but there are roughly 375,000 ballots still outstanding. 

Here’s where the races in North County stand now. Keep in mind, these early results could change as more votes get counted. 

Rebecca Jones Sweeps County Supe Race 

San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones is likely headed to the runoff in the race for District 5 County Supervisor, early results show. 

Who: Jones and Vista Mayor John Franklin, both Republicans, are running for the seat currently held by Jim Desmond, who is termed out.  Democrat Kyle Krahel (the former chair of the county Democratic party) is also a top candidate. Other contenders are Democrat Norma Contreras, who is the former chair of the La Jolla Band of Luiseno Indians, and Sasha Miller, an independent endorsed by the Green Party. The top two vote getters in the Primary will advance to the General Election.  

What’s at stake: For Democrats, this race is a chance to establish a supermajority on the County Board of Supervisors for the first time ever. And for Republicans, the race took on another meaning, becoming a litmus test for which Republican group has more pull in the region: the San Diego County Republican Party or Carl DeMaio and his political action machine Reform California. 

The local party didn’t make any official endorsements this year, but DeMaio endorsed Jones, despite most of the local party members favoring Franklin.  

What early results are showing: It turns out, DeMaio may have picked a winner, but it’s still too close to tell whether Jones will face Krahel or Franklin in November. 

• Jones has so far swept the Primary receiving 41 percent of votes (almost 39,000 votes). 
• Krahel is in second place with 20 percent of votes (almost 19,000 votes). 
• Franklin is close behind with 19.5 percent of votes (around 18,500 votes). 

District 5 includes Escondido, Oceanside, San Marcos, Vista, as well as several unincorporated communities including Borrego Springs, Fallbrook, Valley Center and more. 

Related: Want to hear from District 5 voters about how they voted on Tuesday? Read Voices of the Voters here.

Desmond Takes Early Lead in 48th Race 

Speaking of termed out County Supervisor Jim Desmond, it looks like he’s headed to a runoff against San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert for the 48th Congressional District seat.  

Von Wilpert is one of the several Democrats who took a swing at replacing Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican who currently holds the seat but is not running for re-election.  

Who: Last year, voters passed Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting measure, Proposition 50, creating five new, Democrat-leaning congressional districts, including the 48th. Several Democrats jumped into the primary eyeing a chance to flip the seat, including von Wilpert, Ammar Campa-Najjar (who lost the seat to Issa in 2020), Palm Springs economist Brandon Riker, Vista City Councilmember Corinna Contreras and more. 

In April, seeing his chances for re-election dwindling, Issa dropped out of the race and tapped Desmond, also a Republican, to run instead. Desmond was widely expected to make it to the runoff in November, but results of the Primary will determine who he will go up against. 

What’s at stake: At stake is a congressional seat that could determine if the House of Representatives enters the next two years of the Trump administration with a Republican or Democratic majority. 

What early results are showing: As predicted, Desmond has been dominating the polls so far in San Diego County, and von Wilpert has a strong lead over the other Dems: 

• Desmond has so far received 46 percent of votes (around 25,000 votes). 
• Von Wilpert has received 20 percent of votes (almost 11,000 votes). 
• Campa-Najjar has around 11 percent of votes (around 6,000 votes.) 
• Contreras follows with almost 7 percent of votes (around 3,700 votes). 

In Riverside County, Desmond is also leading with 37 percent of the votes, followed by von Wilpert with 19 percent and Republican Kevin Patrick O’Neill coming in third with 11 percent of votes so far. 

The 48th District includes portions of both San Diego and Riverside counties. 

Related: I talked to voters in the district yesterday about how they felt about the race. Read Voices of the Voters here. 

Mara Elliot Leading in State Senate Race 

Democrat and former San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott is leading in the race for the 40th Senate District.  

Who: Elliot, former state Assembly candidate Kristie Bruce-Lane and San Marcos City Councilmember Ed Musgrove, both Republicans, are hoping to replace termed-out Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, also a Republican. 

Bruce-Lane is endorsed by DeMaio and Reform California. 

What’s at stake: This district is historically a swing district and has flipped back and forth between Republican and Democratic representatives over the past several years. If Elliot keeps her lead and ends up winning the General Election in November, the district will, once again, flip from Republican-led to Democrat.  

What early results are showing: Elliot will likely head to the runoff in November; the rest of the Primary results will determine which Republican she will face. 

• Elliot has 44 percent of the votes (almost 70,000 votes). 
• Bruce-Lane has 30 percent of the votes (around 47,500 votes). 
• Musgrove has almost 26 percent of the votes so far (around 41,000 votes). 

The district covers a large chunk of the county including San Marcos, Escondido, Poway, Fallbrook and more, as well as northern neighborhoods in the city of San Diego. 

In Other Election News 

• Poway District 2 residents also voted in a special election to fill the City Council seat left vacant by embattled former Councilmember Tony Blain. So far, Anita Edmondson has taken the lead over Vanessa Springett. Edmondson has 55 percent of the votes so far, leading by 10 percentage points over Springett, who had 45 percent of the votes. (Union-Tribune) Related: You can read more about Blain’s short, but controversial, time in office here. 
• Voters in Carlsbad, Oceanside and Vista overwhelmingly approved Measure H, which asked voters to approve leasing Tri-City Medical Center to Sharp HealthCare for 30 years. So far, 92 percent voted in favor of Measure H, or nearly 63,000 voters. (Union-Tribune) 
• Incumbent Rep. Mike Levin (D) took an early and wide lead over Republican Armen Kurdian in the race for the 49th Congressional District. Levin so far has 54 percent of the votes (60,000 votes) and Kurdian has 28 percent of the votes (31,000). Kurdian has a strong lead over the other Republican candidate, Star Parker, and will likely face Levin in the General Election. (sdvote.org) 
• In the 50th Congressional District, which includes parts of inland North County, incumbent Rep. Scott Peters (D) is leading so far, but Republican challenger Steve Cohen, a former KUSI news director, is close behind. (sdvote.org) 

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President Donald Trump’s top Colorado River official visited San Diego Wednesday to say the president sees “real potential” in developing more plants that make drinking water using the ocean – right off the California coast.  

That’s a problem for environmentalists, who say desalination plants are environmentally harmful, energy intensive and costly.  

“Imagine a future where a string of six, or even a dozen desalination facilities are operating along the California coast providing ample amounts of beautiful, clean, clear, fresh water in an environmentally benign way to serve not just California communities but to be shared at a reasonable price with… sister states to the east,” said Scott Cameron, acting commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, standing in front of the Carlsbad desalination plant.  

He was there to sign an agreement with other major Colorado River negotiators from Arizona, Nevada and California to explore how states might buy and sell water across state lines – something that’s never been done before. The San Diego County Water Authority wants to sell off its expensive and energy-intensive desal water to these states, but needs permission from the other signatories to do so.  

Even though San Diego is trying to get rid of desal water, Cameron took the opportunity to encourage California to build more of it.  

“I’m confident the state of California’s political leadership favors desal and I look forward to the date where the state bureaucracy fully aligns itself with making desal easier, faster and cheaper to permit so we can all benefit,” Cameron said. 

When asked to expand on that, Cameron said he was talking about Gov. Gavin Newsom coming out on record as in favor of desal. In a Feb. 11 letter to governors in other Colorado River user states, Newsom cited desalination as among technologies that may be necessary to reduce pressure on the river, according to USA Today.  

“That ought to provide some political coverage for other politicians in the state,” Cameron said.  

Newsom terms out of office in January. The candidates that could replace him are still being decided as officials count votes in California’s Tuesday primary but the frontrunners are Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Beccerra. It’s unclear where each candidate stands on the issue.  

But it’s abundantly clear what environmentalists think about Cameron’s suggestion.  

“Proliferating open ocean desal is a terrible idea,” said Patrick McDonough, an attorney at the environmental nonprofit, Coastkeeper. “Our Carlsbad plant is nothing short of a boondoggle. It’s extremely expensive. It’s energy intensive. It’s environmentally damaging.” 

The best way to solve the crisis on the Colorado River, McDonough said, is simple: Use less of it.  

“Then you don’t have to develop multibillion dollar infrastructure,” he said. 

Coastkeeper fought the construction of the Carlsbad plant. It also battled and successfully helped defeat a proposal by Poseidon (the same company that built the Carlsbad plant) to build another large desal plant in Huntington Beach back in 2022.  

Cameron’s agency operates the major dams on the Colorado River and leads negotiations between states on how to share the dwindling resource. But those negotiations are at a standstill and the Colorado River is hurtling toward record-breaking drought compacted by a predicted super El Niño that could raise temperatures even more.  

A lot of legal maneuvering and dealmaking has to happen before the Water Authority could start selling off its water oversupply in order to bring down ever-rising water costs on its member agencies.  

“We have to make this theory of interstate exchanges work because we are out of tools and out of other options,” said Water Authority General Manager Dan Denham.  

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Tuesday night was a tale of two parties. Two election night parties. 

At Liberty Station’s Stone Brewing, a small coterie of Democratic elected officials and functionaries and a larger coterie of news media shuffled around trying to make sense of the lackluster returns trickling in. 

Meanwhile, at downtown’s US Grant Hotel, a much more spirited collection of Republican operatives and supporters laughed and drank in a blindingly-lit convention room, backed by a pianist’s rendition of “Billie Jean.” 

The takeaway seemed clear: this was a not-so-great night for San Diego’s Democratic in-group. Chula Vista’s Republican mayor had a huge lead over his Democratic opponent. A tax on second homes lagged behind in the vote count. And several Republicans seemed to make it out of crowded primary fields in local races. 

Hell, even if it was only a just-OK night for Republicans – that still seemed worth celebrating to them.

Normally we now get long stretches of days, even weeks of fingernail-biting anticipation as the county so slowly tallies the rest of the votes. But there doesn’t appear to be many close races to watch this time around. There are a couple. We start at the top:

It’s Becerra vs. Hilton

As of 11 p.m., with more than 50 percent of votes counted, it appeared that a Republican and Democrat — rather than two Democrats — would make it through to the general election. Steve Hilton and Xavier Becerra led the race, with billionaire Tom Steyer on the outside looking in. The New York Times has a nice tracker here. 

Empty Homes Tax Goes Down

Measure A presented a simple choice. What do voters in the city of San Diego have more disdain for – people with enough money to own a second home they leave empty, or new taxes? Turns out, it’s additional taxes. For now, at least. 

Championed by Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, Measure A would have placed a tax on homes left vacant for more than half of the year. It was pitched as a way to both raise badly needed revenue for the city and, potentially, make available badly-needed housing. 

As of Tuesday evening, the measure’s prospects looked grim, with about 58 percent of voters casting a ‘No’ vote. It will become the second citywide tax increase rejected by voters in as many years. Despite the poor showing, intern Naomi Granata found the pitch resonated with some voters in North Park.

San Diego County Assessor-Recorder-Clerk Jordan Marks was one of a number of local electeds who came out in opposition of the tax. He said the city’s housing problems couldn’t be solved by what he called “bad taxes.”

“This result reflects that Sean Elo-Rivera and the City Council have lost the trust of the public and that voters are reading the fine print,” Marks said.

Elo-Rivera said it wasn’t looking good, but he was hopeful the picture would improve. Ultimately, he thought the money spent opposing the tax — and the distorted message he felt it sent — was too big to overcome.

“There was an enormous amount of money spent, and not just money spent, but money spent to trick voters into thinking that something was going to impact them that wasn’t,” Elo-Rivera said.

No Ammar

Republican County Supervisor Jim Desmond led the way in the 48th Congressional District on Tuesday night. 

What we were waiting for is the candidate who would go with him to the runoff. It will attract a ton of national attention and money. It was one of the seats made more competitive by Democrats in the special redistricting vote last year.

San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert and Ammar Campa-Najjar, squared off for a chance to wrest the seat out of longtime Republican control. With 53 percent reporting, von Wilpert held a commanding lead over Campa-Najjar. The councilmember will advance to face Desmond in November.

On the ground in the district, reporter Tigist Layne found that the national politics that led to the redistricting fight were also front and center on voters’ minds as they headed into vote.

Bailey vs. Crosby in Coastal Council District

Former Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey and Deputy City Attorney Nicole Crosby will advance to the November election in District 2 of the San Diego City Council.

Bailey, a Republican-turned-Independent, seemed destined to finish in the top two after he attracted significant attention on social media. The race for the second spot was more uncertain. Josh Coyne, like Crosby, attracted significant Democratic support. And Mandy Havlik — a more development-resistant candidate — also had strong grassroots support in Point Loma. 

Our new intern Fiona Bork talked to voters in District 2, which covers the city’s southern coastline, who said that affordability was the most important issue. Exactly how that explained their electoral choices differed by a lot. One voter said Coyne’s market-driven approach to building more housing appealed to him. Another liked Havlik’s approach to limiting vacation rentals. A third voted for Bailey because she wanted less development and more public transit. It seems unlikely that Bailey, who is fiscally conservative, would support massively expanding public transit options. Read the full story here. 

City Council District 4: The race for southeastern San Diego’s council district featured three candidates: incumbent Henry Foster, Martha Abraham and Johnny Lee Dang.

Abraham was highly critical of Foster in her campaign and that seemed to resonate well with voters. At the latest count, she led Foster by several hundred votes. 

Foster has many supporters in the district, but the city’s handling of catastrophic flooding in January 2024 — among other issues — has led to massive distrust of City Hall. 

Council District 6: Incumbent Kent Lee had one prominent opponent, Mark Powell, who is a former member of the County Board of Education. They will both make the runoff but Lee got 55 percent of the vote in early counting.

City Council District 8: San Ysidro School Board Member Antonio Martinez and current District 8 chief of staff, Gerardo Ramirez, lead in this race — which was crowded with Democrats. Venus Molina, who serves as the chief of staff to Councilmember Jennifer Campbell, trailed closely behind in third place. This is one of the races close enough to change as the registrar continues counting votes. Molina’s count improved slightly as the night went on.

Our South County reporter, Jim Hinch, spoke with voters outside the Otay Mesa/Nestor Branch Library. One voter told Hinch she voted for Molina because she liked that she is local and a single mother. Read the full story here. 

Election Watch Party Bonus: Ramirez’ supporters and family gathered at the Landing Strip, a bar and restaurant at Brown Field Municipal Airport, to watch results roll in. They broke out into applause when results showed him coming in second.

“For some of the folks it might seem like ‘hey man’ you’re second place, but we’re in there. This is a huge, wonderful sign,” said Ramirez.

DeMaio’s Gonna Gloat

Two local elections were something of a proxy battle between two warring factions of the Republican Party. Assemblymember Carl DeMaio’s team won, again. Every time local Republican leaders unite to oppose him or the people he supports, DeMaio wins. This time it was about two races: the one to replace County Supervisor Jim Desmond and the one to replace State Sen. Brian Jones.

In the county supervisor race: San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones left no doubt she would make it to the runoff. The only remaining question is who will face her — Vista Mayor John Franklin or Kyle Krahel, the former chair of the Democratic Party. After the first votes were counted, Krahel held a slight advantage with 20 percent of the vote compared to Franklin’s 19 percent. DeMaio went all in for Jones and she led the field with more than 41 percent of the vote.

In the state Senate race: As expected, former San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott made the runoff for the state Senate District 40 seat. She got nearly 45 percent of the votes counted so far. The real question was who would go with her. That Republican battle between Kristie Bruce-Lane and San Marcos City Councilmember Ed Musgrove seems to have also gone DeMaio’s way with Bruce-Lane holding a 4.7-percentage-point advantage over Musgrove. 

That’s not enough of a gap to call the race but it’s significant. 

Teachers Union Pushed Barrera to Runoff in Statewide Race

The race for State Superintendent of Public Instruction became something of a flex test for the state’s largest teachers union. Could the California Teachers Association almost singlehandedly lift a relatively unknown San Diego board member over a bevvy of better financed, higher profile candidates? Yup. Easily. 

Fueled by nearly $5 million in spending from the state’s largest teachers union, longtime San Diego Unified Trustee and labor-darling Richard Barrera sailed to a convincing second place finish in the race for state supe. In his nearly two decades as the power behind the throne of the second largest district in the state, Barrera has engineered a progressive labor friendly transformation that the union hopes can be taken statewide.

He will now face off against Republican Chino Valley Trustee Sonja Shaw in November. 

Brews and News + Your Chance to Win Padres Tickets

Meet our team and get an election debrief at our Brews & News Live Podcast at Soda Bar on Thursday, June 11. We will be joined by San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera. Get your tickets here and you’ll be automatically entered to win two tickets to a Padres game. Winners will be announced at the event.

Obligatory note: No purchase or payment of any kind is necessary to enter or win the Brews and News Live Podcast Giveaway. A ticket purchase or donation will not increase chances of winning. All applicable federal, state, local and municipal laws, rules, and regulations apply. Void where prohibited by law.

In Other News 

• Opinion: A retired lifeguard finds irony in SDG&E’s stance on residents putting solar panels on their balconies. The company once argued against rooftop solar because it was unfair to renters, but now, he writes, “a low-cost system allows most of those same people access to solar, but SDG&E seeks to deny them as well.” (ICYMI: Our MacKenzie Elmer wrote that plugging in such a device could put her at risk of getting her power cut.) 
• San Diego County officials warned South Bay residents to limit their exposure to the outdoors after a broken pipe spilled millions of gallons of sewage into the Tijuana River. (Union-Tribune) 
• NBC 7 reports that a judge ruled that the city of San Diego illegally collected parking ticket late fees for three years. 
• About that cross-border tunnel: The U.S. Attorney’s office says a recently discovered, massive tunnel stretching from Tijuana to Otay Mesa leads to a fake store in the southern San Diego neighborhood. Four people have been charged in connection with drug trafficking linked to the tunnel. 

The Morning Report was written by Jakob McWhinney, Mariana Martínez Barba and Will Huntsberry. It was edited by Will Huntsberry, Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña and Scott Lewis. 

The post Morning Report: Runoffs Largely Set appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

For voters in North Park who voted for Measure A on Tuesday, the choice was simple: property owners, whether they live in San Diego or not, are part of the community. And that comes with obligations. 

The San Diego City Council placed Measure A, known as the Non-Primary Homes Tax, on the ballot primarily as a way to raise city revenue in the wake of a budget deficit. The measure was championed by Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera. The tax would apply to residential properties left vacant for more than 182 days a year, starting at $8,000 annually per property in 2027, and rise to $10,000 in the following years. 

Proponents say there are not enough affordable homes for San Diegans and this tax is a way to make owners of these empty homes pay their fair share.  

Anthony Johnson, 56, and Joseph Mora, 46, are social workers who believe the tax would push homeowners to sell or rent their properties instead of pay, and bring more housing supply back to the market.  

“People who have multiple homes … when you put a tax on that, people start to think differently,” Johnson said. 

John Bode, 59, a self-employed contractor also voted in favor of the tax.

While he acknowledged these property owners still pay property taxes in the community, the owners aren’t physically here to be a part of it.  

San Diego “(doesn’t) need more people vacationing here. We need more people living and being able to live here,” Bode said.  

Opponents of the tax, including City Councilmember Raul Campillo, have raised several counterpoints to the tax, namely that not all people who own multiple homes are wealthy enough to absorb the tax. 

Stop Measure A, the leading campaign against the measure, argues that because the proposed tax’s revenue would not be legally required to go toward housing, Measure A would end up being a permanent tax without clear safeguards or guaranteed results. 

Some supporters interviewed in North Park don’t think Measure A goes far enough. 

“Frankly, I would go way more aggressive if I was writing it,” said Kylie Gomez, 34, who works in tech.  

 “It wouldn’t be a dollar number, it would be a percentage and I think I’d increase the percentage depending on the value of the home,” Gomez said. “But we have to start somewhere.” 

The post Voices of the Voters: Some San Diegans Say Second Home Tax Is About Community  appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Affordability. That’s what drove voters in San Diego’s District 2 to the polls on Tuesday afternoon. 

It’s also why Alex Fischer, a 36-year-old Point Loma resident, cast his vote for Josh Coyne.

Coyne is one of seven candidates looking to replace District 2 Councilmember Jennifer Campbell. The top contenders are Democrats Coyne, Nicole Crosby and Mandy Havlik along with former Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey, a former Republican. 

Fischer, who has a daughter and another child on the way, wants to make sure his children have an affordable place to live if they choose to stay in Point Loma in the future.

Fischer said he appreciated Coyne’s “market-driven” approach to reducing the cost of housing in District 2 by pushing for more development. According to his website, Coyne is proposing to expedite the building process in transit hubs, near schools and underutilized city-owned properties that include “diverse housing types” and “mixed-use neighborhoods.”

“If people ever want to have a chance to buy a house here, something has to change,” Fischer said. 

Allison Hervey, a 34-year-old born and raised in Point Loma, voted for Havlik for the same reason.

She also voted yes on Measure A, which would place a tax on second homes that remain vacant for more than half the year, because she thinks it is the key to creating more affordable housing in District 2.  

“I’d love to buy a house but it’s pretty tough out there,” Hervey said. 

She said she thinks Havlik’s approach to affordable housing — which focuses on increasing assistance programs for first-time homebuyers and converting “underutilized” commercial properties to mixed-use developments — will help push Hervey’s agenda of limiting short-term rentals in San Diego.

“I grew up in the neighborhood. I’m still friends with a lot of people from San Diego and nobody can buy because there are people who own multiple houses that are all short-term rental,” Hervey said. “It would be really nice to open up that housing stock and give it back to the people.” 

Ann Cooley, a 75-year-old Point Loma resident, voted for Bailey. She said she isn’t sure what the solution is but would like to see more thought put into housing development. Generally, she is an advocate of less development and more public transit. 

The post Voices for the Voters: Affordability Is Top of Mind for Voters in District 2  appeared first on Voice of San Diego.