As a throng of VOSD Podcast nerds nestled into the Modern Times Beer + Coffee outpost in Midway, our pod crew was ready to dive headfirst into big city projects, taxes and fees.
But first, we brought up Voice environment reporter MacKenzie Elmer and a resident she recently profiled.
Jesse Preciado actually dove headfirst into rising floodwaters on his Southcrest street. The Jan. 22 rainstorm threatened his neighborhood homes. So he stripped down and got to work unclogging a vital storm drain. “I did the city’s job, I think,” Preciado told our crowd.
Now, he says, local media isn’t accurately capturing what’s happening in his neighborhood. “We’re struggling with [housing] vouchers and food,” he said. Preciado says he now spends a lot of his time delivering groceries for his neighbors.
Elmer, who reported in that neighborhood, and Preciado, who tried to save it, recounted the day of Jan. 22 to VOSD Podcast host Scott Lewis — and offered questions still unanswered by the city of San Diego.
Keatts Gonna Keatts
Lewis was stoked this week on the idea of taxes vs. fees. Co-hosts Andrea Lopez-Villafaña and Jakob McWhinney acquiesced. Our first audience game was the soon-to-be trivia mainstay, “Tax or Fee?”
Throughout the show, our crew, along with Axios San Diego (and former Voice) journalist Andrew Keatts, discussed big tax ideas facing voters this year: the “Mansion Tax”; Mayor Todd Gloria’s “Penny for Progress” general-use sales tax; and the new tax push by San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera to fund stormwater infrastructure.
Record scratch: Keatts broke some news during our show. The so-called “Mansion Tax” — to impose higher taxes on home sales over $2.5 million — has been pulled by the San Diego Housing Federation.
Back to stormwater, Keatts rehashed details from an intensely relevant 2021 story that concluded San Diego’s infrastructure deficit is largely a stormwater deficit. When asked, “What is the infrastructure deficit?” he answered in pure Keattsian fashion: “Like, conceptually or numerically?
Crack open your bubbly drink and join the party.