San Diego boosters have long pushed for an expanded convention center.
Now the Chargers are pushing a combination convention center-stadium project (the convadium!) and tourism folks aren’t into it, despite big economic impact numbers being thrown about. Now tourism boosters are throwing out their own numbers, and they don’t match the Chargers’.
The Chargers claim they’ll draw in an average of nearly 225,000 new hotel room night stays annually in the project’s first 10 years. A study backed by the hotelier-run Tourism Marketing District projects just 90,500.
That’s a big difference!
I decided to dig into the gulf between those estimates. In a new story, I explain both the numerical (and philosophical) divide between the two groups.
Protesters Want a Safer, Saner Border
You’ve heard a lot lately about ideas to make the border much more difficult to cross. But a group of protesters this weekend has a different take: that any new approach to the border should be one that de-escalates tensions instead of adding to them. In this week’s Border Report, Brooke Binkowski notes a group called SOA Watch held protests in Arizona this weekend against the increasing militarization of the border, and violent confrontations between Border Patrol officers and civilians.
Also in the Border Report: a scary uptick in violence in Tijuana, Haitian immigrants keep flooding the border despite a new U.S. policy to send them home and an SDSU student who grew up on both sides of the border is crowned Miss Baja California.
Op-ed: Not All Tax Hikes Are Created Equal
There are a few proposed tax hikes facing San Diego voters in November, but the president of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association only thinks one of them deserves your vote.
Taxpayers President Haney Hong and policy analyst Megan Couch argue in a new op-ed that Measure A deserves voters’ support because the agency pushing the proposal, SANDAG, “is an established organization with demonstrated ability to follow through on its promises to voters.” Measure A would hike sales taxes countywide by one-half cent in order to fund transit, highway and open space preservation projects.
Measures C and D, the competing proposals to fund a new football stadium, are much riskier for taxpayers: “Measure C and Measure D do not do enough to protect revenues the city relies on to ensure you and your children receive the public services you pay for,” they write.
It’s Happening: Voting Has Begun
From now until Election Day on Nov. 8, voters can cast ballots at the San Diego Registrar of Voters Office.
If you’d rather get a jump on voting from home, mail-in ballots are set to go out beginning today.
The ballot you receive in the mail will spill onto two pages. Andrew Keatts spelled out what that means for voters here. Pro tip: You must return both pages, or ballot cards as they’re called, at the same time for them both to count. If you return the first page, then want to return the second page later, the latter one won’t count.
Quick News Hits
• Amid crititicsm, San Diego police are beginning to assess why officers decided not to test hundreds of rape kits over more than two decades. VOSD contributor Kelly Davis previously wrote about why SDPD’s argued against sending all rape kits to the crime lab. (Union-Tribune)
• Cory Briggs is challenging an appellate court ruling that suggested he might have engaged in criminal conduct in a case against the city of San Diego. (inewsource)
• Reveal reports on the growing trend of building new homes in areas that are at high risk for wildfires. We’ve reported that several big projects looking for a green light from San Diego County would be built in high-risk wildfire areas.