San Diego, CA
Morning Report: Connections Emerge Between Chula Vista Superintendent and Builder
New documents show that the superintendent of Chula Vista Elementary School District and a company he pushed as a prospective district contractor have been connected since at least 2018.
Al Renteria, the operator of Dr. Build, donated $100 to Superintendent Eduardo Reyes’ campaign for school board in 2018.
Reyes, allegedly pressured a district employee multiple times to award a contract to Renteria, as our Will Huntsberry revealed earlier this week. The district employee who made the allegation is also under investigation for allegedly having an unusually close relationship with a separate company.
A district spokesperson has repeatedly not answered questions about how long Reyes and Renteria have known each other. The spokesperson previously said they have no personal relationship.
“The idea that Dr. Reyes would be influenced by a publicly disclosed $100 contribution is preposterous,” the spokesperson wrote.
Read the full story here.
Two D1 Candidates Push for Delayed County Budget Vote
A quiet campaign to delay the county’s annual budget vote got a lot louder on Wednesday but also didn’t seem to get any more likely to succeed – at least directly.
Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre and Chula Vista Deputy Mayor Carolina Chavez, who are both vying for the open District 1 supervisor’s seat, argued that county supervisors shouldn’t approve a budget until the South Bay seat is filled.
One big complication: A now politically divided County Board of Supervisors would need to vote to agree to formally shift a budget timeline now scheduled to end with a vote by the end of June – and Supervisors Joel Anderson and Terra Lawson-Remer told Voice of San Diego they don’t want to do that.
But also: District 1 candidates may get their wish anyway. While Lawson-Remer doesn’t want to change the county’s budget timeline, she also doesn’t expect the political divided board to pass a budget by the end of June. She predicts the winner of the District 1 race, widely expected to be decided in a July 1 runoff, will be the deciding vote on the county’s budget.
Read the full story.
The Learning Curve: What Trump’s Cuts Mean for One University
UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla is calling attention to how funding cuts proposed by the Trump administration could impact the university.
In the email sent to staff on Tuesday, Khosla wrote university officials had received notices of the disruption of funding sources to around 50 UCSD researchers. The university has also seen a “concerning rise,” in delayed payments for projects not paused or cut.
The actions pose a “significant financial risk to the university,” Khosla wrote. Still, they were “unable to predict exactly what the losses will be,” he continued.
The university leader also laid out a series of actions the school is taking to deal with the shortfall, Jakob McWhinney writes in the latest Learning Curve.
Read more here.
Save the Date: Politifest 2025
That’s right, Politifest is back, baby!
Mark your calendars for Politifest 2025 on Saturday, Oct. 4, at University of San Diego. We’ll be back with a great lineup of speakers and panel discussions.
In Other News
- The San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce has a new CEO: Chris Cate, a former San Diego councilmember. Axios San Diego spoke to Cate about what’s next and what this means for the Chamber. (Editor’s note: Chris Cate currently serves on Voice of San Diego’s board.)
- National City has replaced security guards with police officers at its library. (inewsource)
- It should come as no surprise that newly built homes are hard to come by in San Diego. A new report found that last month the region only saw 50 developments of single-family homes, condos and townhouses. (Union-Tribune)
- Chula Vista and the Port of San Diego are celebrating more access to the bay with a new park near the Gaylord development.(KPBS) Also, the Port is planning to increase parking rates along the bay. (NBC 7)
- Speaking of fees: The city of San Diego’s Environmental Services Department will recommend to the City Council that the city’s new monthly trash fee be $53. (NBC 7)
- In 2018, a couple called on police to get their son help. He was making threats to drive his sports car the wrong way on the freeway. San Diego police said they couldn’t do anything. Later that day, he followed through and died after colliding with a van – the woman and daughter in that car died as well. Following several lawsuits from both families, SDPD has made policy changes to how officers respond. (CBS 8)
The Morning Report was written by Will Huntsberry, Lisa Halverstadt and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.
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The Official Result
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The Official Result
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The Official Result
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The Official Result
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The Official Result
County leaders are keeping their options open for a future county-backed tax hike as a citizens coalition pushes a November sales tax measure.
Officials in late April quietly extended a contract with consultants tasked with researching and poll-testing potential county revenue options for a Board of Supervisors subcommittee led by Chair Terra Lawson-Remer and Vice Chair Monica Montgomery Steppe. The extension is for up to two years and the price tag remains up to $320,000.
Other county supervisors’ offices told Voice of San Diego they weren’t notified of the change – and one is now working on a policy proposal to force public updates on subcommittee-directed contracts.
County spokesperson Tammy Glenn said staff directed the contract extension “in consultation with the subcommittee” and based on prior board approval last September to create the Sustainable Fiscal Planning Subcommittee. The item allowed the subcommittee to hire and pay consultants up to $500,000 to explore multiple options to increase county revenues and taxes.
An initial January 2026 contract called for Chula Vista-based Ironwood Public Affairs and four subcontractors including a prominent local Democratic campaign consultant to survey county residents, prepare revenue estimates for potential tax hike options, conduct focus groups and outreach and submit a report by May 1.
On April 30, county staff amended the contract with Ironwood to “deliver any requested ballot measure language, report, and presentations no later than June 30, 2028.”
Five days later, a coalition that includes labor groups and advocates submitted signatures to the county registrar’s office for a proposed countywide sales tax hike projected to raise $360 million annually to fund healthcare, child care, solutions to the Tijuana River sewage crisis and public safety. The registrar’s office has since confirmed the measure qualified for the November ballot.
Lawson-Remer has rallied behind the sales tax proposal and argued that a “local revenue measure” could shield the county from Trump administration-backed cuts. The county has projected that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could cost the county $300 million annually.
In a statement, Lawson-Remer’s office noted that a board majority voted last September to create the subcommittee and hire a consultant.
“With the Trump Administration threatening healthcare, food assistance, behavioral health, and other core services — and federal decisions being announced, reversed, paused, challenged, and revived in real time — the county and Fiscal Subcommittee has a responsibility to plan for multiple scenarios, including federal cuts, state shortfalls, taxpayer savings, state advocacy, and whether any local funding option does or does not materialize,” Lawson-Remer’s office wrote.
In a separate statement, Montgomery Steppe also pointed to board approval of the subcommittee and its work “evaluating fiscal risks and options to help inform future Board decisions.”
A few months after the September vote to approve the subcommittee, the county hired Ironwood Public Affairs led by former county staffer Victor Aviña. Aviña’s company subcontracted with prominent Democratic campaign consultant Dan Rottenstreich’s company Amplify Campaigns, polling firm FM3 Research, Los Angeles revenue forecasting firm Economic & Planning Systems and Los Angeles-based law firm Kaufman Legal Group.
Glenn said the county has thus far paid Ironwood $96,000 for planning tasks that the initial contract said should be completed by early this year.
The county has yet to provide documents to Voice that the contractor submitted to the county about its work a month after a public-records request.
Spokespeople for the county’s three other elected supervisors said this week they weren’t notified about the changes to the contract.
Supervisors Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond, the two Republicans on the board, have criticized the lack of transparency surrounding the subcommittees and consultants at least two of them have hired.
At an April board meeting, Desmond argued that subcommittees shouldn’t be allowed to spend county money or secure contracts without a review by the full board.
And Anderson has pushed for reforms to increase transparency for subcommittees that have met behind closed doors. The board on Thursday unanimously approved changes to make more of those meetings more public.
Anderson’s office said he is now working on a board proposal that, among other changes, would also require updates to the full board on work that outside consultants are doing for subcommittees. He expects to bring the proposal to the board in August.
“There’s no possibility of secrecy when a vendor/contractor reports to the entire board,” Anderson wrote in a statement.
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