Flip Flops Are Good

Based in San Diego, CRI CFO Hub is a team of finance and accounting experts providing solutions from CFO to back office support. Deploying on either an interim or ongoing basis, they scale with your business. With a team comprised of expert CFOs, controllers and accountants with years of experience spanning a wide range of industries, engaging with CRI CFO Hub taps into this collective experience, helping you to translate financial information into actionable intelligence. To gain access to a team built specifically for the unique requirements of your business, visit CFOHub.com. 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 3, 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.

on Wednesday. Let's hear it. We are here today with some good news for thousands of San Degans and visitors who enjoy visiting Mission Bay Park. Beginning this Friday, the city will reopen the 13 public restrooms that were closed last month as a part of our fiscal year 27 budget and keep them open through the remainder of the year. So in January, you're going to have to hold it again. But for the remainder of the year, all the bathrooms are going to be open in Mission Bay. So do you guys want to know just how much money they had to come up with to do this, the massive amount? of dollars that they had to cobble together to be able to pull this off. $100,000. It was $200,000. That's all they needed to get the bathrooms open. Who doesn't have $200,000? Well, I could have paid that. For a city, look, yeah, you guys, okay, for a normal person, yeah, that's a lot of money. It's like a fiscal drop in the municipal urinal. It's not even a drop. It's like a little like molecule of money. in the whole system. They took it. The council members were able to come up with it just in their own budget. Pocket change money. Like, wait, I have $50,000. They're discretionary funds, right? So they get to kind of use it for whatever discretionary needs throughout the community arise. Yeah, what they determine is needed. And for some reason, hadn't thought that bathrooms were key. Okay, I did. pledge yesterday that when this news came out, I wouldn't be a jerk about it. And I would acknowledge like something good happening, people changing their mind and not being a jerk about it. I did say that, right? Yeah, but I feel like you get like a half pass because this is just a temporary measure. Okay. So I get half. You said it, it depended. 50% of your jerkness. Yeah, you said depending on what they do, on what they announce. Because it was very secretive. Like, oh, we're going to have a press. An announcement. An announcement. Yeah. So a little bit of background. So this weekend, I did a politics report about Donna Fry, former city council member, had sent the mayor and city council a picture of poop. As one does. As one does. Do you make a PRA that? She sent it to me. It's verifiable. Was it disturbing? It was distinctively not like dog poop, you know? Like, and... Describe it to us in detail. It wasn't giving dog poop flags. Put it up on the screen for our YouTube viewers here. And she's like, you got to just fix this problem. Open the bathrooms. There's money out there. This is a dumb thing to do. You're going to cost the city more. cleaning up this stuff, bad relations with tourism, all these things, then you're going to gain from these cuts. And I talked to council member Jen Campbell because we'd heard about Raoul Campillo, but he doesn't represent that area. And I asked Campbell, like you represent this area, is it bother you that there's like these other council members coming into your area and being like, here's what should happen?

And she's like, yeah, this is a violation of etiquette etiquette at the city council and people should know better. And then Raul Campillo scheduled another press conference to keep beating this drum. But that was for Thursday, the day we were recording. And so the mayor and Jen Campbell got one together for Wednesday and said, we're going to open them. Campillo was going to have a press conference with, there was a pediatrician who had done an op-ed in the Union Tribune about people needing places to go to the bathroom, the poor kids, all that stuff. And... then he was going to have her speak at this press conference and a couple others to like really drive home they needed to open it. The mayor and Jen Campbell and Joe La Cava, city council members, put together a press conference right before that, say we're going to open them and then, you know, stole his thunder, I guess. But so then he went off and, you know, claimed partial credit for it. I think rightly he saw a leadership opportunity there. But I got to get back to like, Are you, what a stupid thing to have happen? I'm sorry, I'm not, I'm not a period. This is not kudos, Scott. Okay. And then you have to dial that back down 50%. What's 50% of stupid? Let's start with this. I admire when public officials change their minds and do the right thing after getting evidence. you know, in a way that makes them compelled to do something different. Scott Lewis fan of flip-floppers. Yes, I do. I think there's to be more room in public affairs for flip-flopping. But this just, I will go ahead and say that it's crazy that this was even a thing. Like, how would you, like, why did they do it in the first place? Why did they think it was going to be okay? Then why did they stick? to it for so long. Like if it was just a few hundred thousand dollars, they could not find it somewhere. They'd chucked, they literally got it in the couch cushions of the city council to be able to pull this off. And, and now they're like, okay, we got it. But there was probably hundreds of people that were inconvenienced for apparently no particular. There was a, there was a moment there when Joe Lakoff is speaking. And he's like, you know, this obviously, you know, came as a shock to the community. But like. This has been part of our budget documents, like, since we've been talking about it. Like, people should have known all along that this was happening. Okay. I was like, I don't think anyone reads this. Yeah, we did, right. We did, yeah. You... reported in the budget, one of the core things they were doing was closing bathrooms. They did not say which ones, and they never made it clear. And then to go and choose that, I think it was an interesting choice. They probably looked around the city like, where's the most equitable place we could do it? Let's not just do it in the, you know, underserved areas or whatever. I get it.

But if the document, the budget document had said, we're going to close half the bathrooms in Mission Bay, I guarantee you there would have been more discussion about it. And it's just crazy that they didn't see that this would be a problem. Right. And I think it's, I also think that there needs to be more room for changing your mind in politics. But I also think this situation. also coming shortly after the Balboa Park parking situation, which was obviously unique because it was connected to the settlement that happened. But like Todd is going out time and time again saying we need to be able to like do these hard things because our budget is really messed up. But then like you do the hard things and then you figure out a way not to do them multiple times. And so I think it's just like. really going to create a credibility issue. If like you say that we need to do these things and then time and time again we see that like, oh, if I just complain about it and up on Instagram, then it turns out we don't actually have to do it. I think it's, I think there's like this naivete that like you can stick with something and it'll blow over. And they're not quite gauging what will blow over and what won't. And I think they clearly have to re-gauge that. They have to redo their barometer for when something's going to hit that critical mass of having to change. I think they should just like leak stuff to voice of San Diego. Yeah. Trial balloons is actually a long, you know, experienced way to gauge whether something's going to be a big deal or not. So where did they find this money aside from the two council members? So 50,000 from Jen and... Joe. I'll just read this. And I actually think a breakdown of what all of these things are would be a very valuable service for a local journalism entity. The reopening is funded. This is from Mayor Todd Gloria. The reopening is funded through a combination of community projects, programs, and services, CPPS allocations from Joe Likava's office and councilmember Campbell's office, together with general fund resources freed up by Friday's news of higher than expected state grant funding. So you could do like a master's thesis about literally every one of those like concepts in that sentence. Just because, but it's, but it also like they, if they wanted to find the money, they could have. They decided for months that they weren't going to. And then it finally hit like that critical mass of being upset. All right. Well, welcome the Voice of San Diego podcast recording in the Alice and Doug Diamond studio. Very excited to introduce you to that family that made this possible. It is in partnership with News Radio 600 Kogo. I'm Scott Lewis. Andrea Sanchez-Viafanya is here, Bella Ross, Jacob McQuinni. Thank you all. And thanks so much for listening. Make sure you check and see if you are subscribed on our YouTube channel. It's ticking up.

The numbers are ticking up over there. We're going to be collecting tens of dimes soon every day there. Coming up on the show today, if a lawmaker doesn't vote in Sacramento, it's bizarrely hard to figure out if they just didn't show up or abstained or what. We'll talk about the San Diego legislator who does this the most. And it's back to school week for many kids too early in the season. But we'll get back to that. Unfortunately, the students who need the most help are not getting it. Jacob will explain why special needs kids are so likely to get untrained substitute teachers when they show up to school. All that and more coming up. So to underscore how kind of small of an amount it really took to open these bathrooms back up, the city of San Diego recently fined more than that amount from advertisers at Comic-Con. We talked about this a little bit a while ago, how little the city actually enforces their restrictions on advertising on buildings. And this year, they stepped up their game. They more than doubled the amount of fines that they issued for advertisers who were putting up what are illegal advertisements on buildings. They also issued a huge dollar fine to Marvel. Yeah, $160,000 to Marvel. for their gas lamp sign. What was the Avengers? The Avengers. Yes. And the signs are a big part of the Comic Con experience now. My son and I were, it was just really cool in a way to see downtown like that. But the sign ordinance in San Diego is no joke. And that's why there's so few billboards here compared to other cities. And it's one of those treasured laws that someday will get altered maybe, but it's got its fans. But yeah, this is the consequence. And again, yeah, one company's fine was enough to fund almost the whole bathrooms for the rest of the year. Like, what are we doing? It is incredible how that fine. kind of rolled out, too, because even before Comic-Con started, Development Services, the Department of San Diego, started issuing fines. They actually warned this company not to put up this display, which literally covered the gas lamp quarter sign. It even put, like, fake columns around the legs of the sign. And so this first day, they said, hey, you can't put that up. We're going to fine you. Company said, I guess I don't care. And so they find them $10,000 on Tuesday before Comic-Con with a warning that it would increase. The next day, I guess because they wanted to issue them a warning again. They fired them, they find them $10,000. And then Thursday, it increased to $20,000. Friday, it increased to $30,000. And Saturday and Sunday, it increased to $40,000, and then $50,000, making $160,000. This is, I mean, this is...

great news to me. It's like it filled, it filled Jacob with like so much warmth and happiness inside. Well, I feel validated because I wrote like a screed in the morning report about how we should be finding these people to into bankruptcy essentially for defacing our beautiful city with their horrible superhero signs. Not the gas lamp sign. And it's worth noting that the city changed its municipal code just six days before the first citation to raise the daily maximum from $1,000 to $10,000 for these fines. So I don't know if that aligns with your morning report, if that's hashtag impact. But, I mean, they woke up. But they did tell the Union Tribune, or they would not confirm to the Union Tribune. This was initially reported by Philip Mulnar over there that. they would not make the connection between that in the budget crisis. Yeah, I can't make that connection. I think the thing about this just shows how valuable those advertising spots are. Like they're clearly calculating the fine into, or potential find, into their advertising budget. And it just shows just how big of a spectacle this is. Hundreds of thousands of people passing by those signs probably. I don't know, 5,000 people taking photos and posting them, you know, with with unmeasured reach on social media with that background, you know, like there's probably just an incredible value there. And for the city to be able to charge that much and fine and then them just like not. really seem to care just shows how much value they're just kind of leaving on the table still. So it seems like they should probably just formalize this. But I'm telling you, to change this sign ordinance is to wait into some like really like old feelings in San Diego. So I don't know how soon that'll be. You mean if someone were to take on? like, okay, we're going to allow these types of advertisements, but you're going to have to pay $300,000 for one thing. Yeah, do you guys remember the Chargers plan for the stadium downtown? So it was 2016, they did a nominal plan about what they would do. If you really wanted to keep the Chargers, you could raise the hotel tax and build them this palace downtown, right? And part of it was like a giant digital sign that they wanted to put up, like this really, thing and it would take like I think it was like a small but kind of significant story how much of a legal challenge it would be to like put that digital sign up like it was a it is and the Padres mess with it every once in a while like there's there's going there's always this this attempt to create some kind of because they think they could get a bunch of money I there's every year there's a proposal to you know solve some of the budget crisis with like allowing more digital signage, digital billboards, all kinds of things. And every year, the sign people are like, where you, you've woken me. I will not allow it. Who are the sign people? I'm kind of one of them. I mean, I think it's kind of. So you are the one who's awoken. I think it's kind of cool. We don't have like, like, you go to like some cities. It's just billboard city. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like Salt Lake City is just bananas. Like the billboard lobby in Salt Lake City is like the, there's like the Mormon church and then there's the billboard people. And like, and I think it's just, it's, it's, it's, you know, that's too bad because it's such a beautiful, beautiful place. And like we kind of, we have like six billboards in San Diego and, you know, they, it's nice in a way. But I think there has to be some way to get a little bit more value. And remember, they proposed changing all the six or ten billboards that San Diego does have into digital billboards that they could change. And in exchange, the city would get a share of the revenue. But even that was too much for the signed people. I mean, I do think there is a way to ring more revenue out of this, which is to find them more. Even this year, they issued outside of the Marvel. Gas Lamp Quarter Sign, they issued $48,500 fines. That's more than double what they issued last year, which was $22,500. Or no, I'm sorry, $19,000 last year. And all of those fines were for either $500 or $1,000 a day, which, again... They have the ability to find them $10,000 a day. Yeah. I mean, they could be making, they could open new bathrooms. I, wow, don't be crazy. I'm in now. It's actually... like crazy how much of a can of worms this issue is because on one side you have this whole thing about like the city is fighting tooth and nail even just to keep comic on here so the idea of like really cracking down with these fines like i could imagine does not make this a particularly attractive destination for a convention like that But also, obviously, there's a balancing out that needs to happen. It also just raises all these questions that I've not yet been able to answer. And maybe somebody who listens to this podcast can help me answer them, which is, like, is this sign or, you know, with the gas lamp sign, is it being paid for? Are they paying the association to use this space and then also paying the fine? Or are they basically committing an act of vandalism and just like throwing an advertisement on top of this sign without consulting anybody? You'd be so awesome. That's sort of what I wanted to picture. Like that's what I wanted to be real. Like them just like going out, cruise going out at like 3 a.m. or something just like being really quiet and installing it. I think the city should call them and say like, all right, let's talk. Like how much how much do you? Are you paying for this? Where's your, like, limit? Let's make a negotiation, and we'll fine you that much. Well, because, like, if they only paid the $160,000 fine, like, that's a steal. I'm sure they pay the hotel and the sign owners. But, like, I think I endorse your effort to figure that out. Well, yeah, and also, like, you know, in the case of Marvel, they worked with, like, an advertising agency. So there was definitely, like, money flying around. But theoretically, if they were to start allowing these kinds of signs, maybe even just for special events.

like have permits, like the permit cost would have to be lower than the fines. And like maybe that's a tradeoff the city doesn't want to make. Maybe they're like, maybe we could just keep fining you guys at the wazoo and like get our bag. Well, so Comic Con this year and the city announced that they were staying in San Diego until at least 2030. Now this happens every few years they re-up or they renew. And you remember like 2020 and 2019, like Comic-Con was making another over the last 20 years, several times have made the point that if the convention center doesn't expand, that they're not going to be able to stay here. You know, Wonder Woman was part of the presentations for the hotel room tax increase that was going to expand the convention center. Wonder Woman will never live that down on this podcast at least. passed the tax and they didn't expand the convention center and there's no timeline for them doing that. And yet they did extend Comic-Con here until 2030. And so I think part of what's happened with Comic-Con is that it used to be very much more convention center focused. And now it's... It's part of so much of downtown. Like, it's Fifth Avenue is basically entirely Comic-Con for that period. The Hilton, the Marriott, all of them are now... And so extricating Comic-Con is like taking a tree with more roots out. It's harder than if it was still limited to the convention center. So I think part of the space needs, which I think is a bigger lesson about the convention center. Like we've said for so many years, it has to be a continuous convention center expansion. I think everything is proving that, in fact, not only is that not happening. But we probably should have endorsed the idea of non-contiguous expansions of the convention center more clearly. Like, that's clearly what the Comic-Con and other entities are dealing with and adapting to. And it makes it more part of the city if it's non-contiguous. You want there to be a convention center Alaska and a convention center, Hawaii? No, a convention center, Gaslam, a convention center East Village. Yeah, like, the Chargers, by the way, said that for... 10 years and everybody kind of blew them off and they were right like the city was never going to expand the convention center on its current footprint and they should have done a non-contiguous expansion and I think it's kind of funny that everybody laughed at them and now that's true I think that's a good point because like if you were to imagine a world where Comic-Con is just in the convention center and that's it like you lose all of the other life that is tied to it. And it is, like I walked down there just to take a walk and see what people were doing. And it's alive and everybody's on the street. And it's really, actually really nice. Yeah. I know I'm, I live in my own experience. And my commentary is based on my own experience. But I think it's just absolutely bananas that we open schools.

August 10th in San Diego. That's just, they would save millions of dollars, and I would love somebody to do this calculation. If they, instead of opening in August, kept schools open through June when it's cool in San Diego, and not in August when it's the hottest it gets. Like, keeping schools cool in August has to be just a massive cost. And every year we get messages, we hear stories of people who walk into their classrooms first week of school, and it's like boiling hot. Yeah. Well, maybe it's not a massive cost because none of their AC were. Yeah, well, fixing it and maintaining it and keeping it going for the hottest period of the year. Never mind September and October, which are also hot. But I think, and so I, and it's also the peak of summer, it's just, it's such a wild time to make kids go back to school. And I don't know why they, you know, upped it. So do you want the district's explanation for it? Oh. You got one? I have it, yes. I don't want to know, actually. I just want to complain. So this was when they first made this calendar transition, right? Yeah. The calendar transition allows the first semester to end prior to the start of winter break. This will provide students an opportunity to fully enjoy the winter break, free from the obligations of end-of-semester projects and exams. Ending the academic year earlier also provides more instructional days prior to standardized attestments such as CASP, AP, SAT, and AC. What's more, the change aligns with community college calendars for students who are unduly enrolled and or attending specific summer programs or college orientations that begin in June. And this is kind of the explanation, more time to prep for tests, a more complete semester prior to winter break. It's kind of the explanation that's shared by a lot of school districts up and down the coast. What do you think of that? I don't like it. I mean, I feel like I... It's not persuasive. I used to go back to school in like later August and would still like complete the semester before winter break. Yeah, I just, it seems like before Labor Day is itself. The last week of that before Labor Day seems like it should be the, all right, summer's over. You know, there are some states that have like state laws that disallow you from starting school before Labor Day. I think Minnesota is one of them. I'm into that. Let's talk about that. But anyway. They started school, and... You sound like you're the one going to school. I don't understand why you're so upset about this. Yeah, you don't have your kids around. I love my kids. This is the best time with kids is the, like, hard summer where, like, my daughter's, like, her surfing is, like, really taking off, like, and now she's...

Stuck in school. It's fine. We have a charm life. Whatever. Just withering away in a classroom instead of building her surfing career. My son's birthday is in mid-August and it used to be well before school started and now it's well into school. He's very upset about that. Having a summer birthday sucks though. You don't get to celebrate their classmates. It's fun like going to school and everybody's telling you happy birthday. I never experienced that. Why, Bella? Because I have a July birthday. Okay, those are fake problems. I get it. Those are like gravy problems. But there's real problems at the schools. Jacob did a story, I think, shocked or just kind of jarred a few of us. And some of the kids are going back to school who need the most help. are running into a situation where they're just not getting it. So tell us what you figured out. Yeah. So this story was kind of a long time coming. I'd been speaking to some parents for a while about this deep frustration they had with the fact that their kids had substitute teachers for pretty much the entire school year. And these are parents of kids with disabilities. Specifically, these two parents were kids. who attended ESN classes. These are called extensive support needs classrooms. And they are classes for the kids who require the most, right? I need the most support, right? So think kids with serious medical conditions, kids who are non-speaking, maybe have, you know, significant levels of autism, stuff like that. And naturally, you would assume that these are the kids who most require teachers who are... not only qualified, but certificated, have a whole bunch of training and understanding not only how to deal with maybe like the medical issues kids have, but also just how to most effectively teach them, right? Now, all classes have what are called paraeducators that are sort of AIDS, but in addition to that, you know, a trained teaching professional is really vital to making sure these classes run smoothly. So I... got some information from the district that showed that 21 schools had classrooms, had special education classrooms where there were substitutes for at least 50% of the days in the school year. So that means that more than half of the time in a school year, these classrooms... did not have, you know, regular classroom teachers, but substitutes. That already on its face is pretty troubling, certainly, again, because kids with disabilities require a lot of support, and they require folks who know how to work with them. And they thrive most when there's a degree of stability. You know, if there are substitutes, that stability is kind of, you know, thrown all over the place, right? Especially because there are... requirements that folks without teaching credentials can only work as a substitute in a special education classroom for a month at a time, 20 working days. So what these kids were actually experiencing wasn't necessarily a long-term sub, but it was, you know, a rotating door of new subs, many of whom were not qualified to teach these classes. We're not certificated. So...

In addition to there being a whole lot of subs, these subs just did not have the credentials needed. The majority of the time, these were teachers that were uncredentialed. That means maybe they didn't go through a training program. They don't have a credential from the state, certificating them to work with kids with disabilities or just to work with kids as a full-time teacher. they had special education credentials even less of the time. So while maybe 40% of the days that these subs were in classrooms, they had teaching credentials, only about 20-ish percent of the days that these teachers were in, these subs were in classrooms, did they have special education credentials? Is the district treating this with any kind of urgency? Yes, I mean, I think yes and no. Certainly, district officials acknowledge that this is something that's really troubling to parents. And parents described really, really pretty horrible conditions, right? Kids moving backwards in their education, kids being left out on the playground after recess. But what the district really points to is that this is a national issue, that there are more kids with disabilities in schools all the time, and that there's a shortage of qualified special education teachers, particularly teachers who teach these ESN classes that I mentioned earlier. And so for them... You know, they basically say we're doing our best, but there just aren't enough people in this pool of teachers that are qualified for these positions. And so every year we end up with vacancies. Every year we start with vacancies. The district is going into this school year already down for ESN teachers. So the first day of class, there are going to be some kids in these ESN classrooms who... encounter a sub who, again, may not have the training needed to teach these classes. And I think it's a really important thing to acknowledge that a lot of these subs are doing their best. But this is one of the most, if not the most difficult position to hold in a school. You are dealing with kids with sensitive medical issues, dealing with kids who may be exhibiting some extreme behaviors. In order to know how to deal with that, you kind of have to have not only the experience, but the training. So it's a very, very difficult situation for teachers and for parents and for kids. Yeah. It's tough. You had? I was just going to say, I think it's also important to recognize, like, I've known a lot of people over the years who were substitute teachers, and not only a lot of times are you not qualified to deal with these, like, ma to severe cases, but, like, You know, a lot of subsidies are kind of just, like, showing up at a school for the very first time. So they, like, don't even really understand the landscape. And it's not to, like, say that these people aren't good at their job. But this is, like, a very, like, you're adjusting in a lot of different regards, not just to, like, the...

individual needs of these students that might be greater than other students. But also, like, having potentially never been to a campus before and showing up, like, I had friends who, like, were doing, like, summer assignments like this and showing up and just, like, feeling like they had absolutely no idea what to do. But, like, these are the only assignments that are available. I spoke to some folks at teachers, substitute teachers, who... described a really frustrating situation in that, you know, one of, there's maybe no better pool of people to become permanent teachers than substitute teachers, right? They may have some of the certifications, they may have some of the training. But sometimes these folks end up in classrooms, they have no business being in. And there is, like, nothing that will chase you out of the education profession quicker than, like, a nightmare experience in a classroom that you are not prepared to be in. You think it went very poorly. You know, maybe you had really... bad experiences with parents. I mean, so everybody in these situations is losing out. And particularly, I mean, I think in these sorts of stories, the... We should be focusing on the kids. These are the kids. These are the folks who have the most to lose. But that doesn't mean that subs aren't losing out. It doesn't mean that teachers aren't losing out. And it creates a really difficult situation for the other teachers on a campus. It creates a very difficult situation for the aides in these classrooms who are now tasked with trying to keep together this situation that is kind of bursting apart at the seams. Great reporting. Hopefully we can see some improvement there and more people want to get into it and they're able to hire them. So if you're not sick and tired of seeing our beautiful faces on YouTube, if you're watching us on YouTube, you can actually come and meet us in person. We're hosting another Meet the Beat. These are events that Voice of San Diego hosts so that you, the reader, can get a chance to meet the reporters and hear from them. about the work that they're doing and stories they're working on. So we're hosting one with Jim Hinch, our South County reporter. He's going to have a lot to talk about. It's free to the public, open, and Thursday, August 27th at 5 p.m. You can sign up at voice of san diego.org slash events. We had some donations here. Yeah, we had some donations. So let's start. We've got Josh. He said, it's better his voice San Diego. Then private equity-owned papers. We should put that on a shirt. No names. No names. No names here. Luis said, we need real and objective journalism in San Diego. That's what we're trying to do. And Posey said, Voice of San Diego provides informative and balanced reporting on all things pertaining to San Diego. This is my main source of news. Let's go. Love it. Wow. Nervous. I got you, though. We are now on YouTube. If you're an audio listener, as we keep mentioning, don't worry. We're still going to have all the audio podcasts for you. But if you want to watch us, you can search Voice of San Diego on YouTube and make sure you smash that subscribe and like button.

Smash. Andrea. What is an NVR? No vote recorded. Okay, so what is that? That is when a member of the legislature chooses to abstain from a vote or maybe is absent, just doesn't vote. There's no vote recorded for that individual. Right. So if they don't vote, if they're in Honolulu, it would be an NVR. If they don't want to vote because it's a sticky issue. NVR. If they're... They don't want to piss off a colleague. They don't want to take a position? NVR. NVR. Maybe there's a conflict. Maybe they're involved in the issue. NVR. So this was interesting. Our Sacramento reporter, Nadia Lathen, did a piece about how many NVRs and who in San Diego, the representatives of San Diego in Sacramento, how many of them they each do in that. And David Alvarez, your rep, he had the most 400 NVRs. And he said the vast majority of these, quote, I was not in Sacramento. I was in the district or perhaps ill. Something like that. But 400 NVRs. Now, the problem of NVR is like being absent is one thing. And we've seen like campaigns revolve around how many absences, you know, a legislator has. Those, those ads against Nathan Fletcher in 2012 when he ran for mayor were a big deal. Like he had missed so many votes and they had pictures of empty chairs and stuff like that. The chairs are just haunting. Yeah. And then in March alone, Alvarez missed 127 votes. That's more in a single day than Assembly member Chris Ward, Catherine Blakespeare, the senator, both Democrats accumulated over the entire two years. So he said, hey, thanks for letting me know, right? He said, I couldn't remember what I was doing that day. And he also didn't realize that. you know, not counting, not voting, his absences counted as NVR's, what he told, told Nadia. So she's actually been looking at a lot of different data. So previous week, she looked at like how often, which legislators are voting yes more often, which ones are voting no more often. So she used an analysis from Cal Matters Digital Democracy Project done by Andrew Chan. And it is really fascinating. And I think, like, it has implications because, like, having an NBR, you know, allows someone to not take a position. So you could vote yes and say you're supportive of something or vote no and, you know, say you're opposing it. If you have an NVR, it's still kind of counts as a no, right? If something needs 41 members of the legislature to vote yes and doesn't get that 41 because a certain number of people chose not to vote, you're still. kind of playing against this bill, but not in a way that, like, anyone can come at you for. Yeah, or you're, you know, there used to be that, like, you could vote present or whatever just to, like, show, I'm not, it's not that I'm not working. I'm just too scared to vote on it. Right. It seems very in keeping with the general vibe of the Democratic Party right now to not vote rather than take a stance and just say no. Yeah. So, I think that's that, like, for instance, we've got this.

State bill, 958 has been coming up a lot about the height. Remember, everybody's so crazy about this bill. It's going to be like a huge deal. You have like 99 ways to kill a project using the California Environmental Quality Act. This would take away like two of them, you know, related to like studying whether they actually studied the height impact as much. But. it's going to be a sticky kind of vote for somebody like Tasha Burner, who represents the coast, represents Midway in the assembly. And so if she decides to be absent that day, it would count the same as if she decided not to vote. And it would count the same as, you know, yeah, like you said, like there's, it's, it's sort of a way to oppose, but not, like, actually opposed. So I'm not saying she'll do that or anything. I'm just saying, like, there should be a little bit more clarity when somebody's not voting, like, what the status actually is. I kind of had a hard to believe that, like, an ally here trying not to upset would, like, look at the NVR and be like, all right, we're still cool. Yeah, exactly. Like, I feel like, obviously it's, like, a little bit less so because there's that level of ambiguity of, like, were they present? Were they not? Like, what's actually going on. That's the thing. Like, that's what Nadia wrote. Like, there's no way for you to know. why they didn't vote unless you ask them, which is what she did. And when she reached out to David Alvarez, like for one of them, he said, um, like he was absent for something that was a big priority of his in his district. And so, you know, he was in Chula Vista working on establishing a four year university for the region, which is obviously something he's been working on for a long time. And like, he missed some votes. But, you know, people in his district really care about that. And so, you know, That's like one of the reasons, but maybe he also didn't want to get into a sticky situation. Who knows? He also said in there that some of his no votes recorded come from a desire to communicate that he can be, he's like persuadable almost, which was really interesting. It's like, I haven't foreclosed on the possibility of voting for a bill like this, but I don't like it in its current form. So maybe come talk to me and we can figure something out. I mean, that doesn't really seem how. Like how I would approach that. Seems like maybe you should do that before you're voting on the bill. Exactly. It seems like if there's conversation to be had, maybe have it before the bill. I also will say it is kind of shocking how many votes are taken in one day. Yeah, that was shocking. On March 20? How do you even process that? Holy cow. I would feel honestly just like so. guilty as a legislator if I like miss for basically any reason and like one day of work and didn't vote on 127 things and that's just like that's just one day of missing me we all need to miss a day of work sometimes that's how I I would be too like the concept of voting would seem such like a privilege to me like you get to weigh in on the law like I'd be like I'm going to do each one I can, right? And I would think about each one, try to make a difference. But I think maybe there's so many thousands of them that they're just like, okay, I got a prioritizing. Yeah. Sitting there voting on. All right, check it out. We'll get the Sacramento report. Nadia does a great job each week. And we'll see, I still think there's some midway rising stuff cooking. We'll see if there's more legislative action there.

Thanks for listening to The Voice of San Diego podcast recorded in the Alice and Doug Diamond studio in downtown San Diego. The only podcast that will do whatever you would like with your sign if you're promoting an action hero movie. Put it in here. Like we'll do it for much less than $10,000. Maybe. We'll do it. And it's in the Alice and Doug Diamond studio. So we're the most popular public affairs podcast that you should consider for your Marvel studio advertising campaign. I'm Scott Lewis, the CEO, editor-in-chief, Advoys, San Diego, Andrea Sanchez, Villafana, is the managing editor. Bella Ross is our social media producer, Jacob McQuinnies, our education reporter. And Matt Scravee is the producer of this show. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week. Our next in-person Meet the Beat event will be held Thursday, August 27th from 5 to 6.30 p.m. at the Chula Vista Public Library. This event will be hosted by Jim Hinch, Voice of San Diego's South County reporter and facilitated by Andrea Sanchez Villafanya, managing editor for Voice of San Diego. Join us for a discussion about Jim's latest investigations and bring your questions for an open audience Q&A. This event is free and open to the public. Make sure you reserve your spot for free at voice of san diego.org slash events. The city of Chula Vista Public Library does not advocate nor endorse the views or positions expressed by the users of its facilities.