We just wrapped up our annual series on what we learned in 2024! We answered some big questions, followed scandals and helped San Diegans understand their community.
If you missed any of it, here’s a short recap to get you through the holidays.
Grab some cafecito and lets jump in.
Everything We Learned in 2024
To kick off the week, we started with our South County reporter Jim Hinch. He joined our team in the fall and hit the ground running.
Newly-elected leaders want more for cities that have largely felt ignored by their northern neighbors. Big projects are finally coming to life after decades of empty promises and developers are paying attention to southern neighborhoods.
While attention isn’t a bad thing, and more housing is more housing, Hinch writes that already some residents are getting left behind. Read more here.
Meanwhile North County must grapple with the fact that the ambitious plan to move the tracks underground and away from eroding cliffs is slowly chugging along.
As Tigist Layne writes, “disagreements over tunnel routes and the realities of funding infrastructure projects mean the process will be long and complicated.” Read more here.
Sacramento reporter Deborah Brennan reminded us that California’s plastic bag ban increased plastic pollution. Legislators set out to ban the flimsy grocery bags that were polluting our environment, but instead allowed stores to sell thicker, reusable bags.
The only problem is, shoppers didn’t change their habits. The only thing that changed: we threw away thicker plastic bags. Read more here.
Will Huntsberry recapped why the city and county don’t play well together during emergencies. “Everyone knows bureaucracies bumble. But in a disaster, bumbling is not so much an act of slapstick comedy as an act of violence,” he writes. Read more here.
San Diego Unified had a bad year, Jakob McWhinney writes. We learned that the school district’s problems with sexual misconduct extended to the top. Read more here.
And to wrap it all up, MacKenzie Elmer explained why your water bill is so high — and why you shouldn’t expect it to come down anytime soon. Read more here.
More Chisme to Start You Week
Who doesn’t love breaking news on a Friday before the holidays? As you might have guessed, our South County reporter was glued to the phone asking what everyone wanted to know: Why did Nora Vargas quit?
If you missed it, County Supervisor Nora Vargas abruptly resigned on Friday.
A lot of people were shocked. Many speculated as to the reason why. And others lined up to take her spot. Hinch has everything you need to know. And if you want more chisme, and you’re a Voice of San Diego member, you can read Scott Lewis’ Politics Report.
Lewis writes, “I spent all day on the phone with insiders, colleagues, other journalists and political observers trying to nail down the REAL REASON she was leaving. All of the theories I got came up short.”
One thing I heard: she’s happy.
Note: We are taking a few days next week to spend time with our families. If you are subscribed to the Morning Report, you’ll get the newsletter on Monday and Friday only. We have some great stories for the new year, so get excited! As always, if you have feedback or ideas you can reach me at andrea.lopez@voiceofsandiego.org.
Jimmy Carter was not our best President, but he was the best man we ever elected President. SEE: NYT’s OP ED today on the views I share. While Jimmy Carter rejected the untold vices of our society, we did not. While he held himself to a higher moral standard, we did not. The NYTs has it right and not coincidentally, Jimmy’s favorite book is Moral man and immoral society by Reinhold Niebuhr Yes, he micromanaged the Oval Office and beyond and while this may have worked as Governor of Georgia, it didn’t work for the United States of America. I personally believe that Jimmy was in over his head. The unprecedented crushing landslide of 1980 was a blow to a man of the cloth. But America does not elect saints. We elect sinners.