San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Nora Vargas shocked the county’s political world on Friday by abruptly resigning just one month after she won re-election to a second four-year term.
Vargas, who has faced a torrent of online vitriol and other threats since being elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2020, cited unspecified “personal safety and security reasons” for her departure.
The first Latina elected to the board, Vargas, who was born in Tijuana and raised in both Mexico and the United States, was also the first bi-national supervisor and the first Latina elected Chair. Along with fellow Democratic supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, she flipped the board to Democratic control after decades of Republican dominance.
Though lauded as a pathbreaker, Vargas also made numerous enemies on the board and presided over a series of high-profile setbacks for key county initiatives. Her recent re-election victory over an underfunded and virtually unknown Republican challenger was accompanied by increasingly vocal criticism from a wide range of constituents.
What’s next? Supervisors are expected to decide at their next meeting on Jan. 6 whether to appoint a replacement for Vargas or schedule a special election to fill her seat. Meantime, local politicians in her district are already mulling a run to replace her and political observers are bracing for uncertainty in county government at a time of national and local political upheaval.
More politics: Our Scott Lewis spent all day on the phone with insiders and political observers trying to nail down the real reason behind Vargas’ departure. He ended up with a lot of theories. Read the Politics Report here. (The Politics Report is only available to Voice of San Diego members. To become a member, click here.)
Editor’s note: We’re taking a few days off. We will be back with more stories on Friday.
Rising Water Costs Is a Never-Ending Story
To wrap up our What We Learned This Year series, environment reporter MacKenzie Elmer explains why water bills in San Diego are so darn high.
And unfortunately, the price shock people are feeling now excludes some projects outside of San Diego that we will be on the hook for, Elmer writes. Here’s what we learned about water and why it’s so expensive.
Everything we learned in 2024. The train tracks in Del Mar won’t be moving underground anytime soon. San Diego Unified’s problems with sexual misconduct extended all the way to the superintendent’s office. South County is drawing a lot of growth, but some are worried that could lead to displacement. California’s plastic bag ban backfired. And the city of San Diego and county don’t play well during disasters.
Read all the stories in our What We Learned This Year series here.
VOSD Podcast: A Convo with School District Board Members
On the latest episode of the VOSD Podcast, hosts Scott Lewis and Jakob McWhinney sat down with San Diego Unified School District board members Shana Hazan and Cody Petterson.
They dug into the district’s budget deficit, sexual misconduct issues and much more. Listen to the full episode here.
What’s Going to Happen in Sacramento?
What will a crackdown on theft and drug crimes mean for jails and drug treatments programs? Could the Coastal Zone be open to more housing development? How will California fight policies from President-elect Donald Trump’s administration?
Our Deborah Brennan is gearing up for what is going to be an eventful 2025.
California’s lawmakers will have plenty on their plate on their return from the holidays, she writes in the latest Sacramento Report. These are the three things she will be watching next year.
Read the Sacramento Report here.
San Diego’s Newly Housed Outpaced Newly Homeless Last Month
For the first time since March 2022, the number of newly housed San Diegans outpaced the number who became homeless for the first time in November.
The Regional Task Force on Homelessness reports that 950 people exited homelessness last month while 894 people accessed homeless services for the first time.
The shift follows the release of Task Force data in early December showing a nearly 30 percent year-over-year spike in formerly unhoused people moving into homes that was eclipsed by the number of newly homeless San Diegans.
In Other News
- Local environmental advocates celebrated the last-minute passage on Friday of federal funding legislation that includes $250 million for further upgrades to a cross-border wastewater treatment plant that advocates hope will finally clean up the Tijuana River’s ongoing sewage crisis. (Fox 5)
- Employees of Sweetwater Authority voted on Friday to become members of the powerful International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union, which represents roughly 820,000 employees in telecommunications, utilities and other related fields in the United States and Canada. Sweetwater employees, who previously had been represented by their own in-house union, voted 47-18 to join the more powerful international union amid stalled contract negotiations and what employees claim is a pattern of mismanagement and harassment by supervisors at the agency. Authority administrators deny they have mistreated employees and say they hope to reach a contract agreement soon.
- Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre led a delegation of local political and community leaders to Washington, D.C. last week in a last-ditch effort to persuade federal officials to declare a state of emergency for the Tijuana River’s ongoing sewage crisis. (Fox 5)
- Oceanside will open its first safe parking lot for homeless people in February following approval last week of a $229,000 one-year contract with a local non-profit service provider. The lot, expected to be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., will provide space for up to 30 vehicles. Staff members at an adjacent LGBTQ service center will provide additional services. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Jim Hinch and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.
“Everything we learned in 2025.”
so, you’re into prognostication, eh.
“Everything we learned in 2025.”
TWO days and this silly little typo still isn’t fixed — i guess y’all ARE taking time away.