Dozens of people in light blue shirts flooded the San Diego Council Chambers on Wednesday to oppose a proposed tax on second homes and vacation rentals.
Those people showed up to oppose Councilmember Sean Elo Rivera’s proposal to put an $8,000 tax on some vacation homes that failed. They weren’t San Diego residents – and they didn’t show up for free.
“We arrived from Los Angeles yesterday,” Amada Valle said, speaking in Spanish. Valle said she was paid a stipend to attend the meeting and was provided with transportation and hotel accommodations. She did not say who paid her.
She held a sign that read, “Keep San Diego Affordable: Say No to the Rental Tax,” but did not speak during public comment. She traveled from Los Angeles to San Diego the previous evening, she said, with 45 other people with an LA-based group called Urbano Strategies.
Valle said Jesse De La Cruz, founder and CEO of Urbano Strategies, invited her. According to its website, Urbano Strategies focuses on teaching Los Angeles residents how to be leaders in their neighborhoods.
De La Cruz did not respond to a request for comment.
An Instagram message obtained by Voice shows a Google Forms link titled, “Paid Civic Engagement Opportunity 1/28.” The message from the user says they are looking to bring in 10-15 people on Wednesday and pay $25 an hour, for four hours, to support Urbano Strategies.
Urbano Strategies wasn’t the only group present at the meeting. Another group, Save Our Services LA, also brought people to the meeting. A woman who declined to be interviewed confirmed that she was with Save Our Services LA, but referred me to another organizer and eventually, an Airbnb spokesperson.
LA Times reported Airbnb is involved with Save Our Services LA but Airbnb did not respond to questions from the Times about its exact role.
Stephen Russell, president of the San Diego Housing Federation, who was present at the meeting said his understanding is that the vacation rental industry brought people in and paid them.
“Some people admitted it to us,” he said. “The lady behind me did say ‘Yeah I’m getting paid, it’s not worth it’ – for the conflict she was having to experience, it wasn’t worth the 80 bucks.”
Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera proposed the tax on second homes and vacation rentals as a way, he argued, to generate revenue for the city and put homes back on the market. But he couldn’t rally enough votes at Rules Committee and the proposal failed on a 3–2 vote.
“The decision to recruit and pay low-income members of the public for fake ‘community engagement’ is an insult to the democratic process,” said Elo-Rivera in an email statement.
Airbnb did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
By noon, the individuals in light blue shirts began to file out of Council Chambers and got on to buses in a downtown parking lot near City Hall. The buses were operated by an LA-based service provider, Eagle Tours.