Voice of San Diego Podcast
375 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago - ★★★★★ - 174 ratingsThis is Voice of San Diego’s weekly spitfire roundup of news. We cover local and regional politics, the environment, education, the border and more. This show features our investigative reporting and interviews with lawmakers and other special guests.
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Episodes
The Close Race Politicos Didn't See Coming (But Neighbors Did)
September 14, 2018 19:46Incumbents don't often lose in local political races. But in the District 4 City Council race, Councilwoman Myrtle Cole is as challenger Monica Montgomery's grassroots campaign continues gaining steam. This week's show kicks off our podcast series covering the most interesting races in the November election. In this episode, hosts Andrew Keatts, Sara Libby and Scott Lewis break down the biggest issues in , and discuss how Cole and Montgomery say they plan to tackle them. Montgomery sat down ...
The School District Took a Hard Look at Graduation Rates After All
September 07, 2018 21:05Voice of San Diego's didn't go over very well with district leaders. Former VOSD education reporter Mario Koran found that some of the school district’s lowest-performing high school students — sometimes at the urging of school employees — which helped the district land a 91 percent graduation rate in 2016. The district worked aggressively to push back against those findings. It posted a web page aimed at refuting the reporting, and it hired a PR professional to spread the word about its gr...
The Big Questions Facing the Homeless Tents
August 31, 2018 21:15Three went up in Barrio Logan, Midway and East Village near the beginning of the year. It happened quickly as part of the city's response to the deadly , which hit the homeless population the hardest. The city paid for the tents, in part, by pulling from funding set aside to build permanent housing. For a future funding stream, the city floated the idea of using more than $30 million from the $140 million a tax hike measure was expected to generate for expanded homeless services, according t...
Duncan Hunter's Very Bad Week
August 24, 2018 20:04It's been a rough week for Rep. Duncan Hunter. Hunter and his wife are free on bond after they were arraigned on charges related to accusations they . The went into excruciating detail on Hunter's finances, including spending thousands of dollars on . In response, the congressmen accused the Justice Department of being politically motivated against him and President Donald Trump, who is also currently under investigation. Meanwhile, national news outlets have on Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar,...
The Election Reform Train Has Left the Station
August 17, 2018 21:46San Diego is shifting. Historically, the region had been a Republican stronghold. But over the last decade, the county's demographics and politics have changed, . Sometimes, the shift has been powered by organic population growth, but other times the change has been engineered through changes in the way local leaders get elected. In this week's podcast, Andrew Keatts, Sara Libby and Scott Lewis explain recent election reform efforts at both the city and county levels. In 2016, the Democrats p...
A Spectacular Failure
August 10, 2018 22:10The decade-long push to expand the Convention Center is dead. This week, Mayor Kevin Faulconer's top priority – a tax increase that would have funded an expanded Convention Center, homeless services and road repairs – morphed into the biggest failure of his tenure so far. On the podcast, Andrew Keatts, Sara Libby and Scott Lewis discuss the .
Sherman on the City's Recent Frustrations and Failures
August 09, 2018 23:57Scott Sherman is on fire. In a special podcast, the councilman talks about his frustration with a few of the recent decisions his colleagues have made. The new vacation rental regulations – Sherman said they are an infringement on property rights and possibly face a strong legal challenge. The lease extension between San Diego State University and the city for the Mission Valley stadium – Sherman said the City Council should have pushed for a better deal for taxpayers. Listen to more of what ...
The Pension Issue Is Back and Messier Than Ever
August 03, 2018 21:23All former Mayor Jerry Sanders had to do was meet with labor unions before leading the effort to reform city employee pensions at the ballot box. He didn't. And now, six years later, the California Supreme Court . He had an obligation as the city’s top manager to first "meet and confer" with unions about the reforms before leading efforts to put a citizens’ initiative on the 2012 ballot. He wasn't required to do anything the unions suggested, but as the city's chief labor negotiator, he was s...
The Mayor on Vacation Rental Crackdowns, Homelessness and the GOP
August 03, 2018 00:25Mayor Kevin Faulconer joined Voice of San Diego's Scott Lewis in a special episode of the VOSD Podcast to talk about how the new vacation rental regulations will play out, and other big issues.
Cracks in the County’s Foster Care System
July 27, 2018 18:28Union-Tribune reporter Morgan Cook joins hosts Andrew Keatts and Sara Libby to talk about a disturbing case of sexual abuse inside the county's foster care system. Also on the podcast: about a hotel pool being open to the public, and of omitting from court docs whether a defendant being charged with entering the country illegally has actually asked for asylum.
VOSD Podcast Live: Real and Fake News About What's Happening in San Diego
July 20, 2018 19:23Chaos in San Diego courts caused by the Trump administration's immigration policies. A dramatic shift in who can rent out homes to vacationers. A potential 2020 ballot measure to raise sales taxes for transit. Plus: lead in school water and doing away with stamps on mail-in ballots. This week, we tackled all those topics and more, and we did it in front of a packed house at the Whistle Stop Bar in South Park. Hosts Andrew Keatts, Scott Lewis and Sara Libby were joined by Assemblywoman Lorena ...
Patience With the Water Department Runs Dry
July 13, 2018 21:08Beginning last summer, hundreds of water customers started seeing unexpected spikes in their water bills. Many of them contacted the city and media outlets to complain. How the city's water department has responded to those customers' concerns, and what might be behind those unusually big bills is the subject of . On this week's podcast, Voice of San Diego's Ry Rivard joins hosts Andrew Keatts, Sara Libby and Scott Lewis to talk about what he learned through an analysis of water department bi...
Small Cities Say They've Lost Their Voice at SANDAG
July 06, 2018 19:19SANDAG meetings have been . San Marcos Mayor Jim Desmond, who sits on the transportation agency's board, talks to VOSD's Andrew Keatts about the issues fueling the flames. Historically, the regional transportation agency's board meetings have been mostly drama-free. But then , and along with other reforms, SANDAG board members can now call for a vote weighted by population, which gives the representatives from the two biggest cities in the county the power to overrule decisions. Desmond doesn...
The School Bond Pitch You've Heard Before
June 29, 2018 19:12The new $3.5 billion school bond being floated by San Diego Unified should give San Diegans a sense of déjà vu. In this week's podcast, Andrew Keatts, Scott Lewis and Sara Libby talk about how many of the projects being proposed in the new bond are passed by voters in 2008 and 2012. Projects promised in those two past ballot measures, and replacing , ended up taking a back seat to things like new classroom technology and athletic fields. In a Board of Trustees hearing this week, school dist...
Zero Tolerance at the Border, Explained
June 22, 2018 19:46The Trump administration's policy of separating families at the border, and the ensuing confusion over its decision to temporarily walk back some of those policies, has dominated the news. On the latest podcast, hosts Scott Lewis and Sara Libby talk with Voice of San Diego border reporter Maya Srikrishnan about , how the family separations that followed played out and what to expect now that Trump to temporarily keep immigrant families together. Alan Bersin, former border czar and U.S. attor...
The Mayor Makes His Vacation Rental Move
June 15, 2018 21:44San Diego's vacation rentals have long been stuck in a gray zone: The city attorney has said they're illegal, but the city's not doing anything to crack down on them either. That could soon change. On the podcast, hosts Scott Lewis and Jesse Marx talk about the mayor's big vacation rental move this week. The City Council has struggled to reach consensus when it comes to regulating the home-sharing industry. But on Thursday Mayor Kevin Faulconer finally . The City Council is scheduled to weigh...
The Biggest Primary Takeaways
June 08, 2018 16:33Tuesday's election mostly went as predicted, with a couple surprises. This week's show features a special post-election roundtable discussion with hosts Scott Lewis, Andrew Keatts and Sara Libby, plus political consultant Ryan Clumpner and Carol Kim, political director of the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council. The crew works through the more interesting election outcomes in a fast-paced game of true or false, offering their insights along the way. Example: City Council...
Special Podcast: Election Results
June 06, 2018 10:44A lot of races turned out to have much cleaner outcomes after early results than in the past. In a special election podcast, Scott Lewis, Sara Libby and Andrew Keatts digest the election results.
Special Podcast: The Primary Pre-Game Show
June 04, 2018 03:22The primary election is Tuesday. In this special election podcast, hosts Scott Lewis, Sara Libby and Andrew Keatts discuss some of the biggest races and issues facing San Diego voters on June 5.
SANDAG's Wild Weighted Vote
June 01, 2018 20:44For the first time in public, the San Diego Association of Governments board flexed its new authority. The move caused a kerfuffle. Last year’s AB 805 shifted the power on the regional transportation agency's board, which is composed of local leaders from around the county. It allows the board to call for weighted votes that give more power to bigger cities. Some of the leaders from small cities aren't big fans. In this week's podcast, Sara Libby, Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts explain the si...
The City Attorney's Latest Big Move
May 25, 2018 19:55San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliot is flexing her power again — though you wouldn't know it from her office's announcement about her latest move. On this week's podcast, hosts Scott Lewis, Sara Libby and Andrew Keatts discuss the potential far-reaching implications of Elliott's new lawsuit seeking to boot both of the proposals to redevelop the Mission Valley stadium site off the ballot. Later in the show, Keatts interviews Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who was in San Diego th...
The Great Sex Work Debate
May 18, 2018 23:12Interim District Attorney Summer Stephan doesn’t see a big difference between sex work and sex trafficking. She's said that women involved in prostitution rarely choose that work voluntarily and are often being coerced. Genevieve Jones-Wright, who’s running against Stephan for district attorney, disagrees. Jones-Wright has said Stephan is conflating sex trafficking with sex work, the latter of which can be voluntary. On this week's podcast, I. India Thusi, an assistant professor at California...
Potcast: Connecting 'Cannaseuers'
May 15, 2018 19:12Many industries have places where professionals, both young and old, can hobnob and break bread. Weed is no different. And since San Diego crafted a system for adult-use marijuana businesses, there’s been a wave of private clubs offering to connect investors and entrepreneurs who might not know one another but whose interests are the same. They want a piece of the new and limited regulatory system. "It's really in the beginning stages, but there's a lot of fight over who gets what and how can...
Who Really 'Got Rid of' Filner
May 11, 2018 17:03John Cox, a Rancho Santa Fe businessman who's running for governor, made quite a claim in a gubernatorial debate this week. In response to a question about sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement, he said: "I led the recall of Bob Filner and got rid of him as the San Diego mayor." A collective eyebrow raise spread across San Diego. On this week's show, hosts Sara Libby, Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts consider the claim, and go through the laundry list of people and efforts that really put th...
Special Podcast: The Bonnie Dumanis Interview
May 10, 2018 22:37"Is this a trial?" That was Bonnie Dumanis at one point in our interview for this week's podcast. We were asking questions we've long had about the biggest campaign finance scandal we've seen in the last five years in San Diego. We've long wondered what Jose Susumo Azano Matsura, who was convicted of illegally funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of local candidates, was trying to achieve here. We came the closest with this investigation. He had long been at war with Sempra...