This week, San Diego City Councilman Kent Lee joined the pod squad for a live show in North Park.
Cozied up to the beer fermenters in Original 40 Brewing, VOSD Podcast hosts Scott Lewis, Andrea Lopez-Villafaña and Jakob McWhinney spilled the tea on all manner of local public affairs. Because that’s what the people came for, right?
Lewis — following a lengthy yet totally fine break from the show — dug into the Chula Fast Pitch investigation we broke last week. The crew recapped how the story came to be, where the investigation stands now after the fake nonprofit got booted from its two stadium vending gigs and what’s next for the story.
Our crew questioned Lee on San Diego’s cost-of-living crisis, the widespread challenges of housing, homelessness and new street camping ban. Plus, the big, complicated question of how to redevelop a six-block area around City Hall. A recent proposal included a new City Hall, as well as hundreds of affordable housing units.
In this episode, we also took questions from the audience. (You can always ask our crew questions by emailing me at nate@vosd.org.) They wanted to know about the redevelopment, too. Lee said “it’s too early to tell” whether the full, unified redevelopment ‘dream‘ is viable. He noted — similar to housing and utility prices — everything has gone up. The finances are shifting, in other words.
“Is it still an opportunity? … I think so,” Lee said. “Whether it’s going to deliver what we hoped for to start off with … I think the reality is that there are folks looking at it and thinking to themselves, ‘This isn’t going to work, given the math.’ I think that is a stark reality we are facing.”
We also played audience games!
Speaking of Live Shows
Politifest is coming up quick. Our schedule is filling up every week. You can see details and register now at the Politifest site.
We’ll have two days, two locations, lots of journalists (from Voice and CalMatters) and bigwigs and fun. We’ll see you there.
Can someone please tell me what does that kid Kent Lee know and who does he think he is? Dan Smiechowski an old man knows nothing and is the first to seek truth. Dan is a candidate for San Diego Mayor except voters only choose to elect those who know everything.