Since Measure A began making its way to the ballot, the debate over it focused on priorities: Does it invest in transit enough to get people out of their cars? Does it give enough to North County?
Now, though, there are big questions about whether the measure will even generate the $18 billion its promised in the first place.
On Monday we revealed the dramatic revenue shortfall facing SANDAG’s last transportation tax – a shortfall that Measure A money could be used to backfill. Now we’re focusing on the underlying issues facing the agency’s optimistic forecast of how much money a new sales tax could bring in. Basically, SANDAG officials are counting on San Diegans to spend a lot more than they’ve ever spent on items that carry a sales tax in order for the $18 billion to materialize.
Meanwhile, reporter Maya Srikrishnan takes a closer look at all the different things Measure A aims to do for regional transportation and infrastructure investment. One way to look at it is as a blueprint of the things that might be at stake if in fact the tax doesn’t generate $18 billion.
Srikrishnan’s story also takes a deep dive into how the measure compares with similar transportation measures around the state and to SANDAG’s last tax increase, and maps out where the early projects in the plan – the ones most likely to be built – would be located.
Andrew Bowen at KPBS also examined a few claims about the measure being made on campaign mail pieces, like the promise that it will provide $4.3 billion to repair roads (“somewhat misleading,” Bowen writes).
Border Report: Barrio Logan Rallies for Crash Victims
A week after a truck driven by a suspected drunk driver careened off the Coronado Bridge and into Chicano Park, killing four people and injuring several others, the owner of the Mesheeka art gallery and clothing shop on Logan Avenue hosted a fundraiser to help cover funeral expenses for the victims’ families.
The crash has also led multiple community members to call on public agencies to make the needed safety enhancements to the bridge that would ensure a fatal crash like this never happens again, as Brooke Binkowski covers in this week’s edition of the Border Report.
In other border news this week, Binkowski rounds up coverage of the relatively unpopular promise by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to build a border wall, what a writer for Fusion learned by spending a week at the wall that already exists and the L.A. Times’ story on the new leader of the Border Patrol.
Sandra Dibble at the Union-Tribune reported Monday that a drug tunnel between San Diego and Tijuana discovered last week was allegedly equipped with rails to more efficiently smuggle marijuana.
Opinion: San Diego’s Affordable Housing Ballot Measure Is an Easy Call
There’s a lot of complicated and controversial stuff on the ballot this year, but the head of the San Diego Housing Federation argues Measure M is a no-brainer.
The measure would make it possible to build thousands more homes reserved for people earning below the area median income. Since it doesn’t raise taxes, make any changes to city development restrictions or alter existing affordable housing laws in the city, Stephen Russell says it’s hard to think of a good reason to vote against it.
“While Measure M doesn’t absolutely guarantee that all of those affordable homes will be built, it allows our city to pursue any available funds and to support the construction of the affordable homes that are so badly needed in our communities,” Russell writes.
El Cajon Still Mourning Shooting Victim
It’s been nearly a month since an El Cajon police officer shot and killed Alfred Olango while he was unarmed, but his death is still reverberating in the community.
The community continues to gather regularly in the shopping center parking lot where he was killed, as Claire Trageser reports for KPBS, weeks after the protests and marches following his death have ended.
“It’s brought a lot of us closer and we have a community now and a new family to where we know we have each other’s backs,” said Wilnisha Sutton, a community organizer from San Diego.
In Other News
• KPBS takes a closer look at Prop. 52, which would extend a special fee charged to hospitals that the state uses to secure additional federal funding.
• San Diego State University hired a new athletic director. (City News Service)
• The City Council closed a loophole Monday that let a developer build a Point Loma home above the much-loved coastal height limit. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• The United Kingdom opened a trade office in San Diego to give the country better access to the city’s life sciences sector. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• President Obama played a round of golf at Torrey Pines Monday morning, then went to a fundraiser at a La Jolla home and argued “by almost every measure, we can say and prove that America is better off than when I got started.” (City News Service)