Meet San Diego’s theater organ player, whose music creates a time machine to the 1920s

By Drew Sitton | Times of San Diego

There are old car people. There are aquarium people. And then there are theater organ people.

San Diego has its own.

“You either get it or you don’t,” said Russ Peck, who is known as the preeminent expert on theater organs from San Diego to Los Angeles. “It’s just what turns you on, and this thing… I just love these, I love playing on ‘em. Working on ‘em. It’s a way of life.”

In 1970, Peck heard his first pipe organ while at a music hall in Downey. The only song he had memorized on the piano was “Porky Pig at the Ice Show.” He played it over and over until he was forced to stop. Then, he spent years bugging his parents to get him an organ.

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Morning Report: Arizona Eyes Tijuana’s Sewage

by Voice of San Diego

A state-backed Arizona finance authority is considering a plan to fund a wastewater-to-drinking water facility in the Tijuana River Valley.

The goal? Pipe the purified water back to Mexico, and in exchange, ask Mexico to hand over some of its Colorado River water. It is one of several ambitious concepts backed by a $1billion Arizona fund aimed at identifying new water resources for the drought-stricken state.

But navigating the legal and environmental nuances of cross-border sewage is messy. The reality is that it’s incredibly complex to try to treat another country’s runoff on U.S. soil, our MacKenzie Elmer writes.

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San Diego’s forgotten beer giant: How Aztec Brewing helped shape a city

By Debbie L. Sklar | Times of San Diego

Founded in 1921 during Prohibition, Aztec Brewing Co. was created by American investors who established operations in Mexico in order to serve U.S. consumers who could no longer legally purchase alcohol at home.

Mexicali, just south of the border, became part of a wider regional network where travel, trade, and nightlife flowed between the two countries despite Prohibition restrictions.

When Prohibition ended in 1933, Aztec relocated its operations to San Diego, establishing a large-scale brewery at 2301 Main St. The site sat within the city’s industrial corridor near what is today Logan Heights and the Barrio Logan area, then primarily defined by manufacturing, rail activity, and warehousing rather than formal neighborhood boundaries.

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Weeks of debate and negotiation culminated Tuesday with the San Diego City Council adopting a compromise budget that includes last-minute moves to boost flood prevention and partially restore hours at libraries and rec centers.

The final budget pays for some new expenditures by pairing up police officers in patrol cars more frequently versus having them patrol alone — a change opposed by the city’s police chief.

Other late additions include money for an engineering team that analyzes bike lanes, a bridge in western Mission Valley and two police sergeants — one focused on graffiti and another on registering sex offenders.

The council, which debated the final budget during a contentious public hearing that lasted more than five hours, also came within one vote of eliminating a city contract for automated license plate readers.

The $2 million in savings would have allowed full reversal of Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposed cuts to hours at nine libraries and 24 recreation centers. A full reversal would have cost $3 million, but the final budget includes only $900,000.

In the final budget, four library branches would have their Saturday hours cut in half: La Jolla, Point Loma, downtown and Rancho Bernardo. Two other branches would lose their Monday hours: University Heights and Allied Gardens.

For recreation centers, weekly hours will be cut to 40 at La Jolla, Pacific Beach, Cabrillo, North Clairemont, Ocean Beach, Carmel Mountain Ranch, Hilltop, Tierrasanta, Scripps Ranch, Mira Mesa, Rancho Bernardo, Allied Gardens, San Carlos and Serra Mesa.

The four council members in favor of canceling the contract for license plate readers were Kent Lee, Henry Foster, Vivian Moreno and Sean Elo-Rivera.

They said license plate readers do more harm than good by putting residents under surveillance and providing data that could potentially be used for immigration enforcement.

After the proposal was rejected, Elo-Rivera called it a mistake.

“We’re leaving $2 million in resources on the table that could be opening more rec centers, opening more libraries and opening more parks,” Elo-Rivera said. “I think that’s a shame, and I don’t think we’re safer for it.”

Councilmember Marni von Wilpert said license plate readers help get criminals caught and make the city safer.

“We can go back to the old way of policing if we want, but there will be consequences,” she said.

Von Wilpert was joined in opposition to canceling the contract by Stephen Whitburn, Raul Campillo, Jennifer Campbell and Joe LaCava.

The issue also divided the speakers who attended Tuesday’s hearing.

Larry Webb, leader of a resident group called the Coastal Coalition, said license plate readers are crucial to the city’s understaffed Police Department.

“Eliminating a proven force multiplier will only worsen the challenges,” he said.

Khalid Alexander said the council’s choice was between supporting police with the readers or supporting residents with the kind of crime prevention that comes from better neighborhood services.

“We request you support the people who are begging you to support programs that prevent crime and that you defund the police,” he said.

The mayor didn’t announce Tuesday night whether he would sign the budget or possibly use his line-item veto power to reverse some of the last-minute changes. An announcement was expected Wednesday.

Another contentious issue was making officers share patrol cars to reduce gas and vehicle costs.

Councilmember Henry Foster praised the move, despite concerns raised by the city’s independent budget analyst that it could raise costs for overtime and slow response times.

“Officers don’t show up by themselves,” said Foster, contending that it makes sense for officers to travel together to incidents serious enough that multiple officers respond.

Police Chief Scott Wahl said he would grudgingly figure out how to implement the change, which the labor union representing city police officers has supported.

“We’ll do our best to try to make it work,” Wahl said. “If it was an idea that I thought was a good one, I would have proposed it.”

Deputy City Attorney Leslie Fitzgerald said it was unclear whether Wahl would be required to actually implement the change.

“Although the city charter gives the council the authority to adopt the budget and make cuts, the charter also gives the police chief the power and authority to operate and control the Police Department,” she said.

Other last-minute additions included $750,000 for a program that helps small businesses, $900,000 to help council offices fund community events and $200,000 to restore a position devoted to promoting San Diego as a setting for movies and TV.

The final budget includes $2 million to clear flood channels, responding to a request from Fire Chief Robert Logan.

The council also restored funding for the Office of Child and Youth Success, expanded a wellness program for city lifeguards and funded 24-hour security for a storage site on 20th Street for homeless people.

The council showed some spending restraint Tuesday when it chose to place $1.7 million in excess cash from the ongoing fiscal year into the city’s relative sparse reserve fund.

It’s the first time the city has contributed to the reserve fund since 2023. The fund will now rise from $207 million to $209 million — about $80 million below where the independent budget analyst says it should be.

The council’s vote marks the climax of one of the most controversial budget seasons in many years, with officials trying to close a $146 million gap just one year after making unpopular cuts to close a $250 million deficit.

Arts funding had been expected to be the most controversial issue during final budget negotiations, but proposed cuts of $11.8 million were mostly reversed Friday with a deal redirecting $6 million in convention center expansion funding to arts and a $3 million philanthropic donation.

Other controversial issues during budget season — such as proposals to wipe out the popular December Nights holiday festival and cut neighborhood crime prevention programs — got reversed by the mayor last month.

The final budget includes layoffs, but the chaos of so many last-minute decisions prevented city officials from providing an exact number Tuesday evening. Many employees will also be forced to take unpaid furloughs.

An employee whose position is eliminated in the final budget told the council Tuesday that such cuts come with consequences.

“I’m not here to save my job,” said Marc Frederick, a program manager focused on city real estate. “Based on my experience, the quality, quantity and efficiency of these transactions will go down.”

Following a lengthy and at times combative process, the San Diego City Council will vote Tuesday on the fiscal year 2026-27 budget during a special session.

The proposed budget is based largely on Mayor Todd Gloria’s May revisal, which found additional revenue sources to help preserve some library and recreation center hours, shoreline bathrooms and “December Nights,” compared to the initial proposal.

“Even in a difficult budget year, we continued looking for ways to protect neighborhood services responsibly,” Gloria said. “My May revise restores targeted services in some of our historically underserved communities while still maintaining our focus on the fundamentals for San Diegans: keeping you safe, fixing infrastructure, reducing homelessness and building more homes.”

Gloria’s proposed additions include protecting recreation center and library hours in Council Districts 4, 8 and 9, Monday hours at Carmel Valley Library and preventing the North Clairemont Library Branch from closing, protection of staffing support for December Nights planning and operations, another $500,000 for youth drop-in centers, and allocating opioid settlement funds toward treatment and support programs through UC San Diego and the San Diego LGBT Community Center.

However, arts funding could still be gutted based on the May revise. Last week, City Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee was joined by Budget Committee Chair Henry Foster III with County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe and representatives of the Prebys Foundation to announce a public- private proposal to restore San Diego’s arts funding, which would have the foundation put up $3 million for arts and culture programs slashed in the current proposed budget.

“Arts are essential to our city,” Lee said. “Music, film, artistic expression — this is what makes us human, and it’s what transforms a city into a community. Our arts programs create jobs, attract visitors and help define what it means to be a San Diegan. This is not about funding some abstract luxury, it’s about protecting one of San Diego’s greatest strengths.”

The proposal also would adopt recommendations from the city’s Independent Budget Analyst’s office to shift $6 million from San Diego’s Transient Occupancy Tax — essentially a hotel tax — to arts programs, as well as restoring $1.3 million in grants.

“Arts and culture belong in all of San Diego and this funding supports local artists, small businesses, jobs and the community spaces that keep our neighborhoods connected,” Foster said. “In District 4, the San Diego Black Arts and Culture District shows why this work matters by honoring history, creating opportunity and making sure culture isn’t forgotten. As budget chair, I truly believe this proposal is a responsible way to protect funding that matters to our residents and our local economy.”

It would cover around $10.35 million of the nearly $12 million cut under the proposed budget as the city looks to tighten its belt around a $118 million structural budget deficit.

“Our investment is intended to encourage the city to restore arts funding, honor the competitive grants process already underway and strengthen regional support for arts and culture,” said Grant Oliphant, CEO and president of the Prebys Foundation. “For decades, San Diego’s artists and cultural organizations have been promised a reliable source of public funding. It is time to deliver on that promise, and today marks an important step forward.”

Gloria said new sources of revenue to cover the non-art additions include an increase in tourism occupancy tax — charged to those who stay in the city’s hotels — and a $4.3 million boost to revenue by recovering rent from the city’s golf courses.

“Every private golf course in San Diego pays rent for the land it sits on,” he said. “Our public courses sit on public land owned by the people of San Diego. The new legal guidance allows us to properly account for the value of that land, and to make sure the public benefits when the courses succeed.”

George Duardo, president of the San Diego City Firefighters, said some cuts slated for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department were worrying — such as bomb squad staffing, the community resource officer, the recruitment and retention officer, fire information officer position and fire academy instructor.

“While (it’s) good the city found additional money in the budget, it is unfortunate that it wasn’t directed to reverse the proposed cuts to Fire- Rescue staffing and operations,” he said. “We are hopeful the council and mayor can truly make public safety a priority and not compromise fire staffing and response times via the cuts on the table.”

Council members will also have to weigh significant decisions made Monday evening, when the council voted unanimously to end paid parking at Balboa Park by the end of the year and reduce trash fees for single-family homes.

Paid parking will end on Dec. 31 and the trash fees will be reduced to $38.75 starting next year for the “typical” 95-gallon bin bundle — a number adjusted for inflation from the initial proposal in 2021. Those using 65-

or 35-gallon bins will pay “proportionally less.” That amount will increase to $39.91 on July 1, 2028.

The decisions Monday mean the city must find the lost revenue — or slash existing services — from somewhere else. A possible reduction of services includes the elimination of bulky item pickup and delay of an electric vehicle rollout.

“Today’s City Council action reflects a compromise reached to protect the city from prolonged litigation and the risk of even deeper financial consequences that could have resulted in far more significant cuts to core services,” Gloria said.

“Faced with the potential total loss of more than $150 million and the prospect of additional cuts to police, fire protection, libraries, parks, and neighborhood services, I supported a compromise that helps protect the city’s financial stability and allows us to avoid a much more damaging outcome.”

The city will immediately stop selling yearly passes for the parking, will stop selling quarterly passes on Sept. 30 and monthly passes by Nov. 30. Those who have already purchased a yearly pass will get a prorated refund from the city.

Single-family refuse pickup is funded by the city’s general fund, which all residents pay into through property tax — whether they rent or own a single-family home, a condominium or an apartment. The city takes away 300,000 tons of trash and 150,000 tons of recycling, compostables and yard waste annually.

The San Diego City Council will convene at 1 p.m. Tuesday to discuss and vote on the budget.