Democrats took home most of the city of San Diego’s major races Tuesdays and three new Democrats are set to join the City Council.
But the biggest fights they may have to grapple with may not fall within party lines, writes VOSD’s Andrew Keatts.
“Labor unions outside of City Hall are newly emboldened and new issues will be as contentious as ever, if not more,” writes Keatts. “Those fights, though, won’t always reflect party alliances. They are fights over issues like where things can be built, where vacation rentals can be, how to regulate marijuana retail stores and how to solve the homeless problem.”
Fights that cross party lines are becoming more common.
Last week’s scuffle over outgoing Councilwoman Sherri Lightner’s attempt to ban short-term vacation rentals in most residential neighborhoods in the city was an example, writes Keatts.
Only Republican Lorie Zapf, who also represents a coastal district, joined Lightner, a Democrat, in supporting the ban.
The proposal also faced bipartisan disapproval from Republican Councilman Scott Sherman and Democratic Councilman Todd Gloria.
There may be a partisan push from the left, though, related to the city’s Climate Action Plan and reforming SANDAG, the region’s planning agency made up of elected leaders from across the county.
One partisan issue that may continue is the spending, where increased pension payments have been straining the city’s budget.
The Union-Tribune reports that the city is facing budget cuts for the first time since the Great Recession aftermath. The cuts were not only prompted by the pension payments, but a slowdown in revenue growth, new labors deals that have been forged over the past two years and a June ballot measure that passed that requires the city to spend a minimum amount on infrastructure.
No decisions about what specific programs of services will be affected by the cuts will be made until spring.
Insular California
From immigration to climate change, many Californians fear that some of their policies may be at odds with those President-elect Donald Trump plans to enact federally.
In this week’s Sacramento Report, VOSD’s Ry Rivard digs into some California state legislators’ plans to try and shield the state from some unwanted federal policies that may come with the Trump administration. Rivard also looks into how plausible it may be for the state to have different policies than the federal government when it comes to issues like immigration.
Also, in this week’s state politics roundup, Rivard looks into new plans for Mission Valley and the Qualcomm Stadium site. State Sen. Marty Block said he’s going to try to figure out how to expand San Diego State University there.
• California is home to more than 2 million undocumented immigrants, reports NBC7. Campaign pledges on immigration from Trump have filled many of them with fear.
• A quarter of the 20 million Americans who have health coverage through Obamacare live in California. NPR asks what would happen to California’s Medi-Cal program if Trump goes through with the health care funding cuts he’s discussed on the campaign trail.
• The director of Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange, told the Union-Tribune that people shouldn’t make decisions about renewing their coverage or choose not to enroll because they’re worried about Trump repealing Obamacare.
Podcast: Election Post-Mortem
This week’s VOSD podcast dissected San Diego’s election results, which didn’t look much like the rest of the country’s. Democrats prevailed in many important races and San Diego voters favored former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over President-elect Donald Trump by 17 points.
With the help of Carol Kim, political director for the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council, and Jason Roe, a local Republican political consultant, Scott Lewis and Keatts broke down Tuesday’s results and delved into what that tells us about where county politics are heading.
• NBC7 reports that roughly 80 percent of San Diegan registered voters cast their ballots – more than in the 2012 presidential race.
Quick News Hits
• The operators of the Valley View Casino Center in Point Loma had been waiting to see what happened with the Chargers stadium downtown because they may want to open their own venue downtown. (Union-Tribune)
• It continues to be expensive to live in San Diego. (City News Service)
• Mental Health Systems, a nonprofit social-services organization that has been working with and receiving funding from San Diego County, has been wrought with issues. The most recent is a lawsuit from its former CEO over wrongful termination. (Union-Tribune)
• State regulators are fighting SDG&E’s plan to charge customers for the $379 million of costs left from the county’s 2007 wildfires. (Union-Tribune)
• To commemorate all the 230,000 veterans living in San Diego on Veteran’s Day, the Union-Tribune did an analysis of local veterans.
The Week’s Top Stories
These were the five most popular Voice of San Diego stories for the week of Nov. 5-Nov. 11. Click here to see the full top 10.
- No Public Money! And Everything Else in the Way of a New Chargers Stadium
Now that Measure C has been decided, those hoping to keep the Chargers in San Diego will have to craft a new proposal. Here are the four things that anyone hoping to put a deal together will have to grapple with. (Scott Lewis) - North County Report: Encinitas Thumbs Its Nose at State Law
Del Mar says no to slow growth, Encinitas says yes to a dead candidate and more in our weekly roundup of news from North County. (Ruarri Serpa) - ‘This Is My Home But My Voice Doesn’t Matter’
Refugees who’ve become legal residents. Immigrants who were brought here illegally as children. Parolees. High-schoolers. They all share a uniting factor: They can’t vote. We spoke to several San Diegans who cannot legally vote about how they grapple with paying taxes and investing in their community without having a say in how it’s run. (Gabriel Ellison-Scowcroft) - With Measure B Defeat, Lilac Hills Project Finally Hits a ‘No’ That Will Be Hard to Get Around
The measure that sought to approve the 1,700-home Lilac Hills Ranch master-planned development near Valley Center failed Tuesday. One expert says the developers will now have to figure out how to change the project in such a way that they can still meet their financial goals while doing something politically feasible. (Maya Srikrishnan) - Failure of Measures C, D Means More of the Same
The failure of Measures C and D means San Diegans will keep wrestling over a new Chargers stadium, a Convention Center expansion and hotel marketing money. (Lisa Halverstadt)