San Diego, CA
Morning Report: Chavez, the Business Candidate
In our final installment of Q&A’s with candidates in the special election for Board of Supervisors, our Jim Hinch speaks to Carolina Chavez, a Chula Vista City Councilmember.
Chavez was born in Tijuana in the early 1980s and grew up on both sides of the border. She started her career as a reporter, but then went on to work as an economic development liaison for several Baja California mayors.
Chavez has also served on the board of directors for the San Diego Chamber of Commerce and emphasized her ability to bring businesses — and “good actors” — to the table in her interview with Hinch. Chavez also said she valued input from community members.
When asked why she was running for supervisor, Chavez said she understood San Diego’s binational identity better than any other candidate — and would work to center that worldview in her policymaking.
She also spoke on San Diego’s “super sanctuary” policy, homelessness, housing and the meaning of political parties in 2025.
Read the full Q&A here.
Federal Public Health Grant Cuts Hit San Diego County
San Diego County learned last week that the Trump administration will likely pull back $40 million in public health grant funding.
The three impacted grants support more than 90 county positions in County Public Health Services focused on disease prevention and lab duties. They also fund $8.4 million in county-contracted work on vaccines, wastewater testing, rapid response epidemiology testing and more. Some of the grant dollars have also backed a new county public health lab that’s set to open in May and a mobile public health lab.
County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer assailed the cuts in a Thursday press release.
“We’re not talking about theoretical grants. We’re talking about the people who track outbreaks, test water after sewage spills, and sound the alarm when something’s wrong,” Lawson-Remer wrote in a statement. “This is how we protect lives.”
Lawson-Remer’s office said the county may now be “unable to equip or staff” the public health lab as planned. She also warned that vaccinations in homeless shelters, an updated county public health data system and the jobs of frontline disease investigators are also now at risk.
The supervisor said that the county is “currently assessing options to preserve core public health functions despite the sudden loss of federal funding.”
California is among the states that sued the Trump administration earlier this week to try to save some of the grant funds.
About the City’s Shuttered Motel Shelter
Last week, our Lisa Halverstadt revealed that the city is on the hook for $77,000 in monthly rent through June for a now-former motel shelter downtown. The city opted to close the shelter for homeless seniors due to costly building issues which led us to wonder: Has the city tried getting out of rent payments since it’s no longer using the property?
Here’s all city spokesperson Matt Hoffman would say on the matter: “The city is actively working with the property owner on this transition.”
The city’s lease provides a process to forgo rent payments when all or part of the motel building needs major repairs, but Hoffman wouldn’t clarify if the city has tried to take advantage of it.
Hotel Investment Group CEO Darshan Patel, whose company portfolio includes the Little Italy motel and who signed the 2022 city lease, didn’t respond to questions from Voice this week.
A few readers noted that Patel’s company listed the Pacific Highway property as a redevelopment opportunity last July. Per the LoopNet posting, “preliminary plans call for a 24-story, 234-unit luxury apartment tower.”
In an email to Voice of San Diego last Friday, Patel acknowledged his company listed the property for sale with a year left on the city’s lease but noted that “redevelopment properties of this sort are in escrow for years before the transaction closes.”
At the time of the listing, Patel wrote, a possible city lease extension was still on the table, but the city decided against moving forward. As of last Friday, Patel wrote that he wasn’t aware of “what areas of the building the city is or is not utilizing” that might set the stage for reduced rent and defended the building he’s been renting to the city.
“It is an older building so maintenance issues are to be expected; however, we do not believe there to be any issues with this building that are greater than those of similar size and age,” Patel said.
In Other News
The Morning Report was written by Will Huntsberry and Lisa Halverstadt. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.
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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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