Del Martians Sling Mud

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That sounds like pretty tragic music, Scott. What's going on there? So this is a point, a post from... Ensignitas, Save Encinitas Now, the Instagram feed. You know somebody's serious when they're trying to save their community. Now. It's usually like a general, an actual, like, genuine threat to their community. And judging from the music, they're trying to save it from something really sinister. Yeah, so this is a, it's a post by Save Insanitas Now, and it's somebody driving along a road. And. Mind you, there's literally no traffic, but there's people parked along the road. And it says, this is what the shortage of parking at Fox Point Farms has done to the entrance. of the Encinitas Ranch. A few years ago, this was just a beautiful drive through a golf course with zero parked cars. And then it lists the politicians that made this atrocity. Now, so remember, the awful thing that's happened here is that there are cars on a road. And they're not even in the road. They're just on the side of the road. Now, what would have done, what would it happen to their brain if it had been? somebody complaining because there was a bike lane that eliminated those parking spots. It would have been like, which do we like least, right? So I couldn't help myself. And I was like, oh my God, there's, I commented. Oh, my God, there's. parked cars on the road. I'm really glad you beat me to that because I was scrolling on Instagram and I saw that and I'm like, they're trying to make me mad today. And then I saw your comment and I was like, okay, I can just like this comment. It's been taken care of. Do you have any responses to your comment? No, just, I got a lot of likes, but there was a, there was the Fox Point Farms itself responded and said, so Fox Point Farms is a regenerative farm. Yeah, but it's also, it has like a, yeah, it has like some music. There's housing. There are, there are legitimate, like, traffic impacts. It's like farm to table. Community events. I mean, I, when I first moved to San Diego, we lived, like, kind of in this area. Yeah. And. The traffic is terrible. It always has been, so I am somewhat sympathetic to the arguments constantly about traffic, but also I'm like, you want all of the parking and no traffic and then no cars parked on the road. I don't think you can have all of these things. Yeah, they wanted to be past door. So the Fox Point Farms responded and said, you mean having to glance at parked cars and parking spaces on a public street next to a golf course is the price you have to pay?

We know nothing prepares you for that kind of hardship. That was spicy. Yeah, it's bad. And there is a great argument for like if years ago it was just to drive through a golf course and there were no parked cars there, then why was there parking there in the first place? Maybe there shouldn't have been parking. Well, that's like not even true. Maybe a bike lane would have been a better use of that space. Sorry, but yeah, I remember driving down. Quail Gardens. And there was always people parked along that road for like various farms and things. I don't know. It really does not seem that different to me. I guess if you were really looking for it though. Welcome to the Voice San Diego podcast recording in the now famous Alice and Doug Diamond Studios in partnership with News Radio 600 Kogo. I'm Scott Lewis, CEO and editor-in-Chief of Voice San Diego. I've got Andrea Sanchez Villafana. Hello. Bella Ross, our social media producer. And Jacob McQueenie, our education reporter, what's up, sir? How did you do? Thanks so much for listening. Make sure to check and see if you are subscribed to the Voice San Diego YouTube page. You can put us on in the background while you're doing the dishes or whatever. So it's a great new page. Great job to our producer, Matt Scraby, for setting that up. All right. Coming up on the show today, the city of Del Mar asked for criminal investigation into a fairgrounds official and the California Attorney General, but the city manager wanted to make sure you understood that nobody's accusing anybody of anything. It's just a referral. Hey, maybe you could consider a criminal investigation here. Just suggesting. They're just hanging out. Just suggesting. And the city of San Diego allowed the owner of a gas station downtown to renovate the whole property, drive through all kinds of stuff without bringing it up to new city zoning standards. That's the thing. Like you can be grandfathered in with your old system. But if you rebuild you got to do the new rules, but not for this guy. We'll explain. All that and more coming up. Stay tuned. All right. We wouldn't be a show this month of the Voice, San Diego podcast, if we didn't discuss the bathrooms in Mission Bay. So I just had one last point to make. So Richard Bailey, the city council member or city council candidate for District 2, which would cover Mission Bay, was making some impact, some waves on social media with his... videos about how they one of the bathrooms they closed they just built

And if you go to Mission Bay, you can see a lot of new playgrounds. Go to the Super Bloom. Have you been a Super Bloom yet? I think I went to a meeting there once. Did like a coffee shop? We went for NHJ. Yeah, yeah. It's a great spot. But right there next to Super Bloom, they're rebuilding a basketball court and a playground. It's in the De Anza Cove North area. And so it'd be fair to wonder. why the city's building new things while not being able to keep up and open, it's things that already built, right? Well... Let's go back in time. Let's explain. It's class with Scott. So I don't think people realize this, but there is a really impactful ballot measure from 2008 that's finally starting to have some visible impacts on Mission Bay. So in 2008, Donna Fry and Kevin Faulkner combined and pushed forward a ballot measure that... was basically set to try to save and make Mission Bay better. So Mission Bay is one of the biggest parks in the region. And the idea was that all these hotels and other commercial establishments around Mission Bay... They pay the city rent. None of that land is stuff they own. The city owns all of that land and the city collects rent. So SeaWorld, for example, pays rent a large part based on how many people go to SeaWorld. And so there was a big dispute between the city and SeaWorld about who or how much they were going to pay over the pandemic when nobody went to SeaWorld. They settled that and a big chunk of money came to the city. Everything above $20 million that the city collects is split, 75% of it is kept within Mission Bay called the Mission Bay Improvement Fund. And so that goes to this list of capital projects, playgrounds, parking lots, comfort stations, all of these things that are needed, as according to the Mission Bay Master Plan and development plan for Mission Bay. This fills those buckets so that they can build those things. And so Mission Bay, that park goes all the way down to Rob Field, goes all the way up to De Anza Cove. And this year it's going to fund like rewilding projects. They're going to turn a lot of areas back into marsh. There's a lot of areas. And there's all these playgrounds going and all these comfort stations being built. The problem is it's just like the schools. They can build stuff. They're just not. funding the actual operations of those things. And so that's why these things like playgrounds are getting built while the operations aren't really happening. Now, I still think it's bananas that they couldn't figure out a way to keep restrooms open. And there's more and more discussion now about what people are doing. I talked to a Parks employee the other day who said, like, yeah, people are just like,

they're doing their business, just like you predicted, outside of the actual, you know, closed restrooms. And it's like this is, and they're still going to have to clean all that up. What are we doing? What's the difference, yeah, between just cleaning the bathroom on the inside. Right. So what is, I mean, is a comfort station just a restroom? Is that just a euphemism for a bathroom? Yeah, that's the, yeah, that's the city way. I don't like that at all. We're obscuring what's actually happening in there. What would you prefer, like, defecation location? Yeah, just like a shitter or something. Right. Well, one thing I want to bring up, since we're talking about this again, I don't think I've brought up recently, is when I had reported initially on that more than 30 public restrooms were going to close in this new budget, like, the amount of money that's actually being spent to maintain the restrooms is, like, very small potatoes. I feel like in the whole scheme of the budget. So here it says the proposed closures total of proposed, which did come to fruition, total about $2.86 million in savings. But just under a million of that is from closing the Nealgood Day Center. So like. So we're talking about a million dollars. Yeah, like, you know, a little under $2 million to maintain 30 restrooms in this city, which, I mean, that seems like a small price to pay. I feel like we should be able to move things around to make that happen. But who knows, I'm not a, I'm just a critic over here. It's an actual drop in the bucket. Apparently, we don't know anything. That's why I keep coming to the conclusion that it has to be just. Like, it's just the mayor trolling. Like, he's just trolling the city. Like, this is what you get. Because I can't understand it. It's the same thing with the fire pits. Like, they're just, it's such a small thing that you only do that to make a point. You don't do that because you actually are trying to save a million bucks. There's got to be a way to pull that together. Point taken. I didn't know this, but Market Street in downtown San Diego. is now a place where you're not allowed to have a driveway. Like it's a new city code, new city law, not new, but the current city law says you cannot have or cannot build a driveway on Market Street. So old driveways are theoretically okay. Yeah. But no more new driveways. No more new driveways. No more new driveways. That's it for you. And the concept of city zone, I think it's important to remember. It doesn't, if you change the zoning of a property, it doesn't mean that person has to change that property. It means that if they do something or you change a code or something, it means that when they do something to change it or it changes ownership, they have to like update it usually to some new thing. So Barrio Logan has all these new zoning requirements and new things that are going to happen there. But it could take decades before they actually start to happen because. Properties need to change hands. People need to want to build things on them, and that's when they would have to conform. So that's all a way to intro this topic. So our intern, Naomi Granada, did a story this week, pretty fascinating about a gas station downtown. So what was the story? It's so interesting. I've driven past this gas station before in this whole little area, and...

I've never actually stopped there, so I never really thought about it. But reading her story, it is fascinating. So this gas station's on Market Street, and it's got not one, not two, but seven driveways. Market Street didn't where? Market Street and 16th. Yeah. And so this is how she describes it. This is where all the driveways are. So it's got seven different driveways, which all lead to the same gas station. There's three from Market Street, two from 16th Street, and two from 17th Street. So if you're a pedestrian, someone riding your bike around this area, you're kind of like... swerving through all the cars turning into this gas station. Yeah, and that's one of the principles underneath all this, right? Like that city's trying to lower to get to zero the number of car to pedestrian accidents that happen. And these are the areas where those things happen. People are coming in or driving into a gas station. Somebody's trying to walk on the sidewalk right there. that sort of thing. Right. And so this man, Joseph Brickho, applied to expand this gas station. And so this would be considered new construction. Now, this man comes from a family, you know, entrepreneurs who own other gas stations. Readers actually might be familiar with the story that our South County reporter Jim Hinch wrote a while back about a very controversial proposal in national city to build a gas station that like included a drive-through and all these crazy. things I don't even remember what homes yeah and so from that there's like these wild allegations about mayor Ron Morrison's assistant and all this crazy things but so this individual proposed to you know do a massive expansion and kind of went on for a long time with city staff that city staff were like you know requesting changes of his project specifically because it no longer you know conform to the new city policies and especially keeping pedestrian safety in mind. What did he want to do? You want to put a drive-through, a few other things, right? Yeah, like a big, big gas station project. Yeah, I wanted to double the size of the convenience store and add a, which is just so funny to me. Yeah, it is a... Like, isn't a gas station the perfect opportunity to, like... Stop, stretch your legs. Well, no, I think. Like, I don't know. I think, like, gas stations and 7-Elevens are turning more into, like, little mini fast food places, right? They're, like, especially 7-Elevens and such. So I think that's probably the concept. Like, get your, get your tequito and your hot dog. Sure, but, like. There is no way that the minimum wage worker at the gas station will be able to grab my bag of hot chitos quicker than I will. It just seems like the silliest. I have this down to a science. Yeah, dude. I know how to pick up a bag of hot chitos. There is, I mean, they're not really throwing things into a friar. There isn't as much like hot food preparation going on. Obviously, it's increasing, but it's just. There must be a market, Jacob. You need to accept it. Like, they just, I just need a quick DC.

Well, I don't know. I think if you did it right and I think other places have, you can pull up and you can... You can get served. Get your needs taken care of it. Have you been to the drive-through liquor store in Claremont? No. It is the definition of serfdom. You watch some person like running around this store like, oh, yes, the high shoes. Oh, these, we don't have the sour ones. I'm sorry. Oh, you want the half pint of Jamison? Yes, sir, yes. And they're running around. It is like, it is a demoralizing experience. You drive through that and halfway through you're like, I am a bad person. This is, this is a comment on my. view of humanity that I'm willing to park the car I feel like there's like a lot of things angles of this that could be demoralizing because I'm like thinking I'm like okay well I think that there is maybe nobody in this community who has seen me at my worst more than my local 7-Eleven guy. And so I'm like if I could avoid a little bit of that by like going in my car. A hat and sunglasses and just like that might be appealing. Get your kind of Ben and Jerry's. Yeah. We need these moments of being humbled though. Like we need to be put on the human level to look somebody in the eyes and for have them to be. to have them be able to see that our soul is broken from the night before. Yes. This is a connection with the real world. I need two, five-hour energy. Here's where I'm at right now. I need an emergency. I need an electro lid. Okay, well, I don't think that's what Branco. I don't think that's what Branco had in mind. This is a more like suburban design, though. It feels like this is the part of like East Village downtown, and it's a drive-through convenience. Okay, go on. No, yeah, yeah. So Naomi wrote that the owner's own traffic consultant found that like adding all the traffic from the drive-through lane would also put pedestrians and cyclists at greater risks. And so that's why the city staff just kept like asking for adjustments and what they really wanted was for him to get rid of some of these driveways. He didn't want to do that. And so he found a way to. work around them. He decided rather than spend the money to change the plans, to spend the money, get a lobbyist. $15,000 on a lobbyist to put in some hours with city council members and the mayor's office to see if, you know, minds could be changed. And they did make a little compromise. Yeah, they did. They removed a couple of the driveways, but I mean, the vast majority of the stuff that was included in the projects that were, or the plans that were rejected, kind of stayed the same. And so while he gave a little, the city gave a whole lot more. You know, they ended up approving plans that they had rejected prior. Well, just the staff said don't approve this when it went to the city council. The planning board said, don't do it.

And then the city council was like, yeah. Yeah, only two council members voted no, that was Joe Likava and Sean Nila Rivera. But the graphics and the story of like the staff presentation, I feel like you could tell. that staff really wanted the city council to vote no by just the first graphic we have here it's like all these like bright red arrows showing where all the cars could come in in different directions and like i can't even looking at it like imagine what that must look like in real life playing out. Like you could tell staff are really like, we hate this project. And then like on top of all of this, like to go back to the pedestrian cyclist threats, you know, Vision Zero was supposed to be seen through by 2025. Vision Zero to eliminate all traffic deaths. And traffic deaths are currently higher than they were when we started. So we are nowhere near that goal. And so it's just very. interesting to think that there was this case where, you know, it just seems like such a... What's the word that I'm looking for? It just really like goes in the face of the entire ethos of this plan. And so to like have it go in front of this political body and have them like kind of just like push that to the side is very interesting. And I mean, to highlight just how messy this process was, you know, the final time that the... plan went before the city council staff did actually recommend approving it. As Naomi's story notes, quote, despite the fact that the proposal was unchanged from the one they had rejected the previous July. So, I mean, this is just an incredible degree of messiness that not only flies in the face of, you know, the city's, you know, purported attempts to reduce traffic violence, reduce traffic deaths and injuries, but also flies in the face of the city's own. you know, regulations. I mean, it is really a wild story that highlights just how much, you know, all of these plans have to play by inside baseball rules. And you could, you could say, like, what do we care about a few driveways and such? I think that's fine. I think what really resonates with people is that. There are rules, and there are some people figure out a way around the rule. And it's not consistent when that happens. And if you hire and make the right connections, you can get that done. And I think that's the core story. Yeah. And I think it is fascinating, too, when you look at the different sides here, right? One is like, do we want to reduce people getting run over by cars in our cities? Or do we want to drive through gas station? I mean, these are the stakes. Like, do you want to be able to get your protein bar while sitting in your car and still being able to listen to your podcast? Or do you want to not get like flattened by a suburban, you know?

Well, that's stark. That's stark. One thing I think that I don't frankly understand that well, and I think a lot of people in the public don't understand that well is the role of lobbyists in city government and what that actually looks like. When we're talking about, you know, like city council members being lobbied by this $15,000 paid lobbyists, like what does that mean exactly? I think this is an important point. government is and I've always like joked I deserve like a like a master's degree just because it's I've gone through so much to understand all what zoning is and what public finances and what all of these different things are that are so complex and so lobbyists are people who have gone through that as well and they understand how that works every single thing you want to do in the city has a logic, a rationale. Somebody wants to build a house or a shopping center or somebody wants to improve this or that or change something that's going on or put a stop sign somewhere. You on your own are going to have to like... figure this path out and it's very difficult difficult and if you have a lobbyist they can get it done so lobbyists do a lot of cool and important things to improve the city and i think like but the but the problem is is it's not There's no, like, public lobbying group. You know what I mean? There's no, like a public defender office that, you know, where you can go if you don't have these resources to have somebody teach you and help you through that process to get something special done. Every single gas station or building project has this. They can go, and I'm sure that this guy had an actual story. Like, hey, this is an important. place to get gas and this is an important benefit to the community and this is why this needs to happen and they're able to get an audience in front of the city council and city staff and pull something together and i think that's the the hard part is that that's just not available to everybody with their own ideas of what they'd like to do at a park or to their house or and so you know It's not that lobbying is bad. It's just that there's only a few people who get to use it. Well, the lobbyists who they hired, you know, described this to Naomi, this decision. as like a common sense decision on the city council's in. He said, this is Jim Medaffer, the former, the lobbyist hired and he's also a former city council member. He said, quote, when you make a political decision, you have to weigh the alternative. While staff says this is not a pristine or perfect, according to a planning document, you have to have common sense. It was previously conforming and the council made the decision and approved it. And I think that element that you just pointed out is really important to highlight. One of the reasons

lobbyists get such a bad rap is because there is this revolving door, right? There are people who serve in public office, who then come out and use those connections to lobby people based on, you know, clients that they're getting that are paying them to try to get done what their clients want done. I mean, Jim Medaffer is a former city council member who is now lobbying people who do the job that he used to do on behalf of clients who want, you know, certain things. He does a lot. Obviously, his lobbying helped here. To your point, they put together a list of 150 people, I think it was, people who signed a survey or whatever, saying that this gas station would be good, that it would revitalize the community. And they turned people out to the city council meeting. And so, you know, to your point as well, there is this power imbalance that is difficult to... to let go of. And the revolving door makes everybody feel kind of slimy about it. My main association with this gas station is that I drive past it pretty often and I notice it every time because the sign is broken and all of the gas says it's a dollar and 11 cents, which is not just the best deal in town if it was open, but also angel numbers. It seems lucky to me when I drive past it. But I guess it's an exceptionally unlucky site. Yeah, all right. One last point. So he mentions this as a political decision. I just want to clarify, like, the city. Council is not supposed to make political decisions about building you know, requests. The city council will often say, like, they have no role. They are only supposed to analyze whether it conforms to the rules they've passed. You're not supposed to, it's called quasi-judicial. You're not supposed to decide whether you like a project or not. You're supposed to decide whether it conforms to the laws that you've passed or whether it's violating something. And so when you say like, oh this is a political decision you have to like go to common sense no you're supposed to decide specifically that it's not a political decision, that it either conforms to the rules you've passed or not. And this one clearly didn't, but they gave it an exception. Politifest is back on October 3rd. We are working day and night trying to book everybody and get everybody set up. We've got city council debates. We've got Steve Hilton, the governor candidate's coming. No word yet from Xavier Becerra. We'll see how that goes.

He dodged the press the other day. He's not very excited about public comment right now. But we'll offer our stage fair. It's a great stage. It's a fun stage. An opportunity to compare and contrast with the Republican opponent. Also, like, who doesn't want to come to San Diego? Yeah. Bring your popcorn, guys. It's going to be good when he agrees to join us, obviously. We're bringing together all the politicians. It's called Election Showdown. Attendees will hear from candidates across San Diego. And then weigh in on who they would think would most effectively address the biggest issues in the city and the county and the region. You can go to vosd.org slash pf26. Vosd.org slash pf2. 26. That's Politifest 2026. So we've also gotten some donations recently. Saul says, quote, Scott Lewis surfs occasionally. I think I know which Saul this is. I was going to say, you know this guy? Should we investigate this? He's, look, he's my doctor surf friend, and he can surf on, like, he has all these weird hours. And so he can surf on, like, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And he's like, hey, you want to go? It's like Tuesday at. seven or 10 yeah it's like you want to go surf i'm like i got stuff man casual flex you have doctor friends who surf yeah he's he's not that cool okay uh we got another comment from laneda that says i love to support small businesses and good journalism a small business we are yeah that's fair I love it. And Craig says to support ongoing journalism that holds politicians and governments to account. So remember we're also on YouTube. If you are an audio listener, don't worry. We're still going to have that version for you. But if you want to watch us, you can search Voice of San Diego on YouTube and make sure you subscribe. Smash that subscribe and like button. So earlier this week, the Delmar City Council took a break on their summer vacation. Right now, they're in recess, summer vacation vibes. And they said, you know what? So something urgent came up. Let's go in. We need to meet right now, special meeting. Okay. And the conversation and outcome was fascinating. And joining us now in the studio is Ms. Tegasley, North County Reporter, to talk about it. Hi, guys. Hi, Tiggis. So you told me, hey, they're having a special meeting. Yes. And it's odd. It was very odd. What was going on? I wasn't expecting it because, like you said, they were in a month-long summer recess, and they had a meeting, and essentially, the city council decided to call for investigations into two state officials. the California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a Delmar Fairgrounds board member, Mark Arabo.

What prompted these requests for investigations? Yeah. So in July, July 9th, specifically, the city council received this letter from a resident named Deborah Barnes. And she essentially asked the city to look into concerns she had about potential conflicts of interest between AG Rob Bonta, this. board member, Mark Arabo, and this super controversial housing project that's proposed for Del Mar called Seaside Ridge. Barnes was concerned that Arabo and a member of the Seaside Ridge team had this connection. And for context, Seaside Ridge is this housing project that developers want to build on Del Mar's North Bluff. But Del Mar does not want it at all. They say they don't need affordable housing there. And they are actually working on an affordable housing project on the Delmar Fairgrounds. So that's where the board member comes in. And essentially, Barnes, this resident says that Arabo's real estate agent at one point was a member of Seaside Ridge's team. His name's Brian Giltenen. And she thinks Arabo should have publicly disclosed this when... the city of Del Mar and the Fairgrounds started talking about potentially building an affordable housing project. So just let me jump it. So Seaside Ridge is not all affordable housing, right? No, it's around 249 units and only some of them are affordable. Around 45 units are lower income, 40 units are moderate income. And at the heart of this is like Del Mar is required like every city. to make room for affordable housing. And so if they don't do it here, they need to do it somewhere else, which is why they would prefer it be at the fairgrounds. Exactly. In fact, in their housing plan that they created for the state, it actually identifies this. North Bluff site where Seaside Ridge is trying to build as Del Marr's contingency or backup in case the Fairgrounds project falls through. And that's kind of where the city's concern comes in and why Barnes letter they say. cause them to take this action. They say essentially that there may be some interest in wanting the fairgrounds affordable housing project to fail because then that would require the city to likely move forward with the Seaside Ridge project. So where does the A.J. Banta come in? This guy just like shots fired. Yeah. So Attorney General Banta, you know, he has a history of being...

critical against cities who are not making way for housing. You know, the state is pushing that. And so he sends warnings to cities, things like that. He keeps an eye on cities and make sure they're approving these projects. So back in December, he sent his first warning letter to the city of Delmar, specifically about Seaside Ridge. And he says, you know, you keep rejecting this project. According to state housing law and something called the builder's remedy, it looks like this project should qualify. And... What Barnes letter says is that Banta's warning letters didn't start coming in until Arabo, the board member, and Brian Giltenen from Seaside Ridge started contributing to his campaign back in 2024. Now, Arabo and Seaside Ridge's team have responded to all of this. And one of the things they've said is it's not illegal to make... campaign contributions it's not uncommon for public officials and residents to have connections to support each other's campaigns well also like this is funny this there's there's often this scandalization of like normal you know, commercial relationships. Yeah. We, by the way, have a long history investigating Mark Arabo and all kinds of stuff. So I, you know, there's a lot of things here, but. If you have a real estate agent, let's be clear, they're the ones taking money from you. Right. You are buying something with their help and they are taking money out of that transaction. Yeah. They're not giving you money. Right. And that's a crucial difference. It's like, it's not like this guy is giving Mark. are about money and he's then making a decision it's the opposite mark is giving him in a in a normal real estate transaction and people have you know realtors they have right dentists they have like all kinds of stuff i think what's really interesting about this there's like four stories going on yes there's clearly clearly there's a worry in the fairgrounds world about the del mars future as a as a horse racing place yeah and and And if they build affordable housing there, it's going to be one more, like, you know, obstacle to horse racing continuing there. Yeah. And then there's the question of affordable housing in Del Mar.

And, you know, this balance of where it goes and them always wanting to point to like it doesn't, we don't have to approve affordable housing anywhere because we have a plan for it here. Yes. And if that's taken away, then they're going to be forced to accept it somewhere else. And then there's the question of just like the whole ethics of horse racing and stuff and how long that goes. And there's just, there's like all of it convening into this one special thing. My favorite thing from your story is the city manager. of Del Mar. So you asked them. And this is Ashley Jay Jones, Del Mar City Manager. She sent you a quote. And she said, In no way is the city accusing anyone of wrongdoing or suggesting that any action against any individual or elected appointed officials should be taken. Okay, you convened a special city council meeting for the express purpose of requesting a criminal investigation into these two people. And you're saying in no way is the city accusing anyone of wrongdoing. What? Right. You don't get it both ways. Exactly. Maybe in a very, very semantic sense, but I'm like, guys, like, we can read what's going on. Yeah, we can see what you're doing. They literally sent investigative referral letters to the district attorney, Summer Steffen, and the U.S. attorney, Matt, or Adam Gordon, to investigate these state officials. And in the letters, they say, we urge you to investigate. this situation. Yeah. So it's all there. But, hey, we're not accusing anyone. Exactly. Just putting it out there. Just putting it out there. Just put your criminal investigators on this case. So, so what comes now? Honestly, it's interesting. I'm kind of waiting. I reached out to the Delmar Fairgrounds and I didn't hear back. I mentioned that the board member also responded. So did the Seaside Ridge team and just want to say that he denied all the allegations. They both did. He said he didn't even know that. this real estate agent was part of the Seaside Rich team when he bought the house. So now I think we just kind of wait to see what the Delmar Fairgrounds board does next because this isn't the first time that they've kind of been... you know, going back and forth about this project, there's been a lot of tension already because it's a big project. And the Fairgrounds board is worried about how it'll impact their operations. So now with this action, you know, I suspect that they won't take it well, but we'll see how the board responds and how it's going to impact this potential project on the fairgrounds. Well, fascinating stuff. Great story. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

But music is a way. It can make you feel things. You guys have finally, I think, finished. Finally. Our Voice of San Diego Summer IRL playlist. Our inaugural summer playlist. Of San Diego music. So do you want to give us a sample? Yeah, I mean, I can, just to begin, this started because Jacob and I were driving an hour to Oceanside to go hang out with LARPers for a video. So we were in the car for a long time and you can see that video. So you know LARP has taken on a new meaning. The kids say it to mean like. Poser. Yeah, like you're like acting differently than you would normally or something. Like I'm LARPing as a podcaster. This is real LARPing. This is like live action role play. Medieval battle sport. Yeah. Yeah. Did they have actual swords? Yes. I mean, have you watched the video? Yeah. Okay. Well, yes, they have actual swords, but they're covered in foam. I mean, it's, what's amazing about it is... Okay, wait, wait. An actual sword is not covered in foam. Well, they're larping as having actual swords. Right. But they are building all of these weapons, you know, these battle axes or like maces, even, you know, arrows that are all covered in foam. It was a very delightful experience, and I actually would like to go again. So that's what we do. the community is we go and investigate the most important things going. And then we make playlists. Yes, exactly. To be like funny like side comment, somebody had, we made a playlist submission form and somebody was very upset in that form saying that we need to be doing real journalism and not making playlists and to go to journalism school. And I said, I did that. Yeah. This is a journalistically informed playlist, actually. All right, let's sample. Give me one highlight here. Okay. So first maybe let's just mention what our theme was. So we wanted to come up with the theme. And, you know, in this world of endless digitization, it seemed like IRL summer was an obvious one. You know, music that was not only summery, but also made us, like, feel like we wanted to be out. with the people, with our people, you know, experiencing everything that San Diego had to offer. And so we went into developing this playlist, curating this playlist, both from submissions from our wonderful readers and from our ideas, with this sort of like North Star. What to us creates an IRL summer? Right. And so I think that my pick for a sample, which... I think would be, I'm choosing one that I didn't already know that I was introduced to by the playlist. Was this song Patchwork Sky by Poor Thing? It's kind of like a dream pop-esque song. If anything, this was kind of like straddling the line of IRL summer because it was very kind of like in the clouds. But it's a good song and I think that we were applying the theme very generously.

All right. Cool, cool. Yes, very kind of like cranberries, 90s dream pop vibes, I would say. We also have a second sample that didn't make the playlist specifically for our podcast listeners. Would you like to elaborate on this, Jacob? I think that, you know, the San Diego Bonifides of this song are very strong. It did not make the podcast for the playlist for taste reasons, but I think it is a song worth celebrating, very uniquely San Diego. Yeah, and I've told a lot of people about it, so frankly I should probably have put it on the playlist, but you tell us if we made the right call. This is Contact by DeJango. Well, that was San Diego. Well, that was that... I mean, it was San Diego. Like, do you not care about San Diego? Comic-Con? No, I don't care much for Comic-Con. But also... The mayor. The Mediterranean weather... call out was pretty fabulous. That's stretching, really a rapper's job is to stretch the limits of rhyme. And that felt like a very unique example of that. Yeah. So I have one selection to play for you. This is a submission from a reader. And one that I think will actually be pretty recognizable to a lot of folks from a musician that I don't think people really realize is from San Diego.

All right, so that is Lil Rob with his hit Summer Nights. There was a... And made the playlist. It made the playlists for sure. Yeah, there were a couple of like, you know, categories kind of, but I think one of the smaller categories was songs that like are... fairly popular, but people might not know have San Diego roots. Yeah. So there's discovery both in terms of, I would say, I was putting together to the YouTube links yesterday, and the vast majority of the songs have like less than 30 views on YouTube. And then like there's like, four or five that have like 15 million views. Okay. So we've covered a lot of ground here. All right. So how can people see the playlist, the summer in real life playlist? Well, it will be on the Voice of San Diego website, but you can also stream it on Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube. Great. Well, good job. Thank you.

Thanks for this in the voice of San Diego podcast recorded in the Alice and Doug Diamond Studios in downtown San Diego. It's the most popular public affairs podcast recorded in the Civic Core. of San Diego's downtown. I'm Scott Lewis, the CEO and editor-in-chief, Advoys, San Diego, Andrea Sanchez Villafani's, our managing editor. Bella Ross is our social media producer, Jacob McQuinnies, our education reporter, and Matt Sgraby is the producer of this show. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week. Voice of San Diego is bringing together local politicians to go head to head at Politifest Election Showdown. Attendees will hear from candidates across San Diego and cast their votes for who would most effectively address the biggest issues facing our community. This event takes place Saturday, October 3rd, 2026 at the University of San Diego Joan B. Crock School of Peace Studies from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Last day for early bird pricing is September 1st. You don't want to miss out. And if you're a student, Students with valid ID are free. To look at pricing here to get more information, go to vosd.org slash pf 26. That's vosd.org slash pf 26.