Morning Report: It’s Here

Hi. We have made it to Election Day. The campaign mail will stop, at least for a while. You’ll get to wear your “I Voted!” sticker for most of today, which is a nice treat – unless you vote by mail, a modern convenience I can’t quite get behind. And I invite you to listen to “Move on Up” by Curtis Mayfield at least a few times. It’s my personal Election Day routine.

We’ve got a last run of election coverage for you before the results pour in.

Randy Dotinga compiled the weirdest campaign moments of the local primary season. Among them: the San Diego Union-Tribune encouraged its readers to write in Ronald Reagan for president, to send a message to Donald Trump that his antics are anathema to those who still love The Gipper.

Problem is, no one will get that message. The county registrar clarified that Reagan isn’t a qualified write-in candidate, so any votes following the U-T’s attempt to avoid making an endorsement simply won’t be tallied.

Other winners: independent mayoral candidate Lori Saldaña’s suggestion something untoward took place when an oppositional research group requested a public records into her time as a community college professor.

I also tagged along with precinct walkers this weekend to see what campaigns were doing to get out the vote before Election Day. I went out with a volunteer for Robert Hickey’s city attorney campaign Saturday, and a group supporting Assemblyowman Lorena Gonzalez, Chris Ward for City Council, Gil Cabrera for city attorney and Ed Harris for mayor on Saturday.

What’d I learn? Well, it isn’t so surprising, but it’s worth remembering: most voters really, really don’t pay close attention to city politics. For all the deep dives we take into candidate policies, most voters just wanted to know each candidate’s party.

We’ll have more coverage as the day wears on. Reporters will talk to voters in the city’s District 1, District 3 and District 9, and in the county’s north coastal District 3, to hear what their top issues were, whether they’re more tuned in to national or local races and what ballot issues they cared about.

Those dispatches will publish throughout the day, so come take a look while you fiend for the first set of returns. The first batch of returns, reflecting ballots that were mailed in, should be available shortly after 8 pm when polls close.

Vince Vasquez, with the National University System Institute for Policy Research, released his final turnout projection Monday, forecasting 50 to 53 percent of registered voters will cast a ballot in the election – which he called a “high-turnout blue primary.” County Registrar Michael Vu expects turnout between 55 and 60 percent.

Last week, local pollster John Nienstedt suggesting turnout still wouldn’t be so great. He updated his projection Monday, saying it could now reach 51 percent countywide and 46 percent in the city. He, like Vasquez, said Election Day prospects are looking better for Democrats than Republicans.

Tijuana’s First-of-its-Kind Election

Tijuana’s in the midst of its own tight mayoral election, too.

Juan Manuel Gastelum of the right-of-center National Action Party is in the lead, ever so slightly, over René Mendívil of the his party’s historic rival and the party currently in control over the city, the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Julian Leyzaolo of the Social Encounter Party, a Christian evangelical party, is also in what’s essentially a three-way tie.

In this week’s Border Report, Brooke Binkowski explain what it means that independent candidates got involved in the race involved – even if the historic party powers are likely to win once again.

“No matter the outcome of the race in Tijuana, the changed laws promise to remap the political landscape there — and in the rest of Mexico, as well,” Binkowski writes.

This week she also got into the surge of international refugees who’ve arrived in Tijuana looking for political asylum in the United States, and the capture of a regional leader of the Sinaloa Cartel this weekend.

Civic San Diego Angers Some Over Choice in Encanto

Civic San Diego has been a key player in downtown development for decades, most of which as the Centre City Development Corp., which handled tax-funded redevelopment projects and regulated some private activity.

The agency has in recent years hoped to take on similar responsibility in other neighborhoods, especially driving new, transit-focused development near Market Creek Plaza. The group has selected a company to develop one of that neighborhood’s key areas.

Not everyone in the community is happy with how it turned out.

Civic San Diego followed its normal selection process, but a community member and a Civic San Diego board member tell our reporter Kinsee Morlan that the organization didn’t make good on its own promises that the process would involve the community from beginning to end.

Others in the neighborhood, though, say the comments don’t reflect the whole community and they just want to see something good happen at a long-blighted piece of land.

In Other News

• It’s never been safer to drive a car or be a passenger in San Diego.

It’s also never been more dangerous to be a pedestrian, according to a new story from inewsource based on data from San Diego’s Medical Examiner’s Office.

Pedestrian fatalities are up 53 percent from 2007.

Modern technology has made cars safer for the last 20 years. Pedestrians haven’t received anything comparable – though transit and pedestrian advocacy groups are pushing the city to do just that, with engineering improvements to city streets and sidewalks.

• San Diego just got a leg up in its efforts to bring in federal money to combat poverty. The southeastern area of the city was named a “Promise Zone” Monday, making it easier for the city and social service providers to get money to combat crime, build new housing or provide job training. Organizations in the area that apply for federal grants will now have a head start over their competitors in other parts of the country. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

•  KPBS asked the same five questions to San Diego Unified School Board, District E candidates LaShae Collins and Sharon Whitehurst-Payne. Regardless of the results tomorrow, both candidates will face off again in November, but that time it’ll be in a citywide vote. The race is only open to voters in District E, in the southeastern part of the city, during the primary.