S1: This week on roundtable. The City of San Diego needs to build more housing , and there's a new plan to help do that.
S2: San Diego is really only tinkering around the edges there. All of these incentives for , you know , bigger and taller apartment projects are only applying to two sites that have already been cleared for apartments and condos.
S1: There are some concerns about how it's going to work and how quickly new units could be built. So there's a lot of different little parts come together. And I think the mayor is hoping that , you know , as a group , they'll make a difference. Don't go anywhere. Roundtable is coming up next. Welcome to Kpbs roundtable. I'm Matt Hoffman. The city of San Diego needs to build more housing , and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria says that actions taken by the City council this week will both boost the supply of homes and reduce the cost of living. But some are arguing that a new set of incentives for developers will only worsen the economic divide between high and low income earners. Joining us to make sense of everything that's happening at City Hall right now are David Garrick from the San Diego Union Tribune and Kpbs Metro reporter Andrew Bone. I want to welcome you both back here to roundtable. So let's just jump right into this , David. We have this new set of incentives. It's aimed at getting more housing built faster. But just a month ago , David , this same city council rejected a very similar proposal from the mayor. We know that this is being called the Housing Action Package.
S3: Some really harsh critics had said , and Council President Shaun Rivera was able to broker a compromise by setting some limits on where low income housing could be built as part of one of the key incentives. That was a big , controversial one.
S1: And we'll get into that pretty soon , too. But also to get this housing package 2.0 , as it was called , passed , deals had to be made , as David just alluded to. And Andrew , you say that actually the most ambitious part of this plan was removed.
S2: That's the step before it goes to the City Council. And at that time , it included a provision that would allow a property owner to redevelop a home into a maximum of ten units , even if that site is zoned for single family homes. There were lots of different sort of asterisks , you know , included in there. So some of those ten units , you would have to rent them below market rate. So , you know , setting a certain affordability level to them. But this faced a very , very fierce wave of opposition , primarily from homeowner groups who say , you know , I bought into a single family neighborhood expecting that it would stay that way. And I don't want townhomes or even small apartment buildings in my neighborhood. This is what , you know , I expected when I bought my home , and I'd like it to stay that way. So there was , you know , a really fierce opposition to that particular proposal. It's it's a local implementation of a state law called SB ten. And so the Planning Commission hearing all of that opposition ultimately decided not to recommend including it into this larger package of housing reforms. And the mayor said , okay , well , we'll put this one on the backburner , move the rest of the package forward. And , you know , maybe at some point in the future will take another look at SB ten and see if we can come up with a compromise that more folks can live with , that.
S3: SB ten was not embraced by any other city in the state , so if San Diego had embraced it , it would have been the first and only city in the state to do it. So it's not unusual that there's backlash. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. And actually , you know , I think there's maybe one county in California that has implemented some. Yeah , some version of SB ten. But San Diego was really the , you know , first to have a real go at it. And I think that really speaks to how single family zoning in California and a lot of big cities and small towns and everything , single family zoning is kind of a third rail in politics. Homeowners are a very powerful and vocal and politically active and organized constituency for the mayor , for local city council members , for state legislators. And so , you know , winning them over on this quest to build more housing and , you know , trying to get more , smaller scale multifamily housing projects in neighborhoods that have up until now been exclusively single family homes is something that's , you know , San Diego is really only tinkering around the edges there. All of these incentives for , you know , bigger and taller apartment projects are only applying to sites that have already been cleared for apartments and condos , nothing that would otherwise be restricted to a single family home.
S1: Go ahead. David. No.
S3: No. And I think big picture. I think it's easy as a reporter , I shouldn't speak for you , Andrew , but for me to empathize with both sides , because you hear the neighbors and the people who own single family homes , frustrated that they don't want to see any proposals that can damage neighborhood character and change the area where they bought a house and want to live. But you also empathize with the city officials because they need to find ways to create more housing. And , you know , it's hard , as you're pointing out , Andrew , when you're around the edges , it's really hard to make meaningful changes and to to generate the kind of new housing developments that are really going to solve the housing crisis.
S1: And so this major proposal is out of it. That was a big piece of this , but it's still being touted as like kind of a big deal by the mayor , by some council members. So I guess , David , maybe like a top line , like , how is this going to make more housing , these new incentive ? And , as the mayor says , make it more affordable.
S3: I wouldn't say that there's one particular star of the show. It's a bunch of different efforts that are sort of small that the mayor hopes will come together to create more housing. For example , one of the key things as an incentive for developers to build more single room occupancy apartments , and those are basically considered the lowest rung on the housing ladder above homelessness. We've lost a lot of those in San Diego in recent years from gentrification downtown. Another element is an incentive for developers to build more student housing for university students. Another incentive would encourage developers to take over underutilized parking lots and put housing on them. Also , underutilized commercial sites. One of the most innovative elements , I think , someone would say , is that in San Diego's Promise zone , which is in sort of southeast San Diego , there's an incentive there to have scrap yards and other sort of environmentally unfriendly businesses be converted to housing more quickly than they would otherwise be converted. So there's a lot of different little parts come together. And I think the mayor is hoping that , you know , as a group , they'll make a difference.
S1:
S2: This is essentially an amendment to a program that was approved in 2020 under Mayor Kevin Faulconer that allowed an apartment building to be bigger and denser and taller than it otherwise would , would have been allowed. One thing that I think didn't get quite as much attention , but could actually have a really big impact on on some people , is the portion of the package that was called discontinuing harmful uses or something like that. So it's essentially take Barrio Logan where you have , you know , after decades of sort of open , free and open zoning in this neighborhood , you had junkyards and industrial uses that emit a lot of pollution and noxious fumes and everything right next to homes. So we have this really sort of bad mix of people living , and then also these sources of pollution that have really negative health impacts on the people who do live in there. So for a while , the city was sort of letting these , you know , harmful uses , as they call them in this policy to continue. And essentially what they did is , you know , we're setting a clock. We're giving you I can't remember exactly how many years it was , but , you know , let's say ten years or 15 years to wind down your business in this particular location where we have decided this is going to be a residential community , not an industrial one. And after that point , once the once time is up , you need to either convert this property into housing or sell it to somebody else who will do that. You know , people in Barrio Logan have been complaining about the environmental injustices that they're , you know , that residents there have been facing for many , many decades. And this policy will actually , at some point in the future , create a Barrio Logan that is free of industrial pollution and uses. And you know , where people can probably have much better health , health outcomes and a better quality of life.
S1: So we're actually talking about doing some actual rezoning there , too. And David , you know , this is where I get a little bit confused with this. This was a very long meeting , like three hours , a lot of residents speaking out against this proposal. And one main issue was something you talked about at the top of the show , this complete communities and this idea of developers being allowed to build mandated affordable housing units somewhere else , like if they build an apartment tower and they're mandated for X number of affordable units , they can build them not in that apartment tower , but like literally somewhere else. Isn't that what killed this proposal last month the council members were complaining about ? I mean , what sort of happened here ? Because it sounds like that this is still in this new policy.
S3: Yeah , this was the hot topic and it was a key compromise. I think I would argue that the critics who were comparing this to redlining from the 40s and 50s and also to aggressive segregation were probably overstating things. But but I understand their concern. The idea was that this is already a really generous incentive for developers , but the rules under the incentive are that if you're going to build market rate housing with this really great incentive to build these giant towers , that you're going to have to put the affordable component right , the percentage of the units that are for low income people on the same site , and this thing that they approved this week would allow them to build the low income units on a separate site , in a different location. And I understand people are concerned about that. But the way that was written was that it would have to be in either a high income neighborhood with a low income units or built or a medium income neighborhood , and they added on and the compromise some even more aggressive restrictions and if it is a medium income neighborhood or medium resource neighborhood where it would have to be would have to be close , would have to be within three miles of the market rate project. So I really feel like the council managed to come up with a fair and reasonable compromise where it's really not going to lead to aggressive segregation and redlining. But but I can still understand someone who wants to be really the letter of the law. Those those units they think should be built on the exact same site. You want to mix low income people and high income people in the same area. Studies show that there's more prosperity that way. So I can understand why there were still objectives , but it seemed like a pretty reasonable compromise.
S1: Andrew , we know that this was definitely a hot topic here. What are some of your thoughts ? Yeah.
S2: You know , I think among the changes in addition to , you know , not letting somebody use complete communities to build a tower in La Jolla and then offload their affordable housing obligations to , you know , Encanto and requiring those two projects to be closer together. You also , the developer , will also have to ensure that the unit , the affordable units built somewhere else , have the same types of amenities that their project is including. And this is a bit open to interpretation. There wasn't a whole lot of clarity written into the code. So essentially what it says is , you know , they have to have similar amenities as determined by the San Diego Housing Commission , which is the agency that distributes local affordable housing dollars.
S1:
S2: You know , are we going to stop at , you know , the the affordable units have to have dishwashers in in unit laundry if those amenities are included in the market rate project , does it also extend to swimming pools. Does it extend to , you know , having a staffed mail room or a reception lobby , you know , outdoor recreational space or gyms , like you said. So there's a bit of , you know , interpretation that will have to take place there. And , you know , I'm really curious to know , with all of these limitations and , you know , policies that will discourage developers from building the affordable units separately from the market rate units , are any developers actually going to figure out a project that can make that equation work , or are we just going to continue to see the complete communities projects , including both the market and the market rate and affordable units in the same building ? Because trying to figure out this really complex , you know , system where it has to be a certain distance and you have to have the same amenities and the similar size and construction materials and everything like that. Is it just going to be so complicated that developers say , you know what , we asked for this , but ultimately it's not going to do us much good , so we're going to continue building things the old way.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs roundtable. I'm Matt Hoffman. This week we're talking about the passage of Mayor Todd Gloria's Housing Action Package 2.0. This week. I'm speaking with Kpbs , Andrew Bowen and David Garrick from the Union Tribune.
S2: So let's say you have an affordable housing project in a moderate resource area. So , you know , meets that requirement that we were just talking about. And it's about 90% funded. They need , I don't know , $20 million. And they've got $18 million and they need an extra 2 million. And then a developer comes along who says , well , you know , I've got this complete communities project that I'm building here , and I could get it to pencil out a whole lot easier and faster if I didn't have to include the affordable units in my project here. So you , you know , you affordable housing developer , I will give you the extra $2 million so that you can complete your finance. I'm just making these numbers up , by the way. It's not really based on any real projects , but but you know , I'll give you that extra 2 million so that you can finish your financing and actually break ground on the affordable housing project. And then , you know , I can break ground on my , you know , market rate housing project. So , you know , this this offsite affordable housing option would have a developer using complete communities essentially pay another affordable housing developer some money. And then , you know , both projects can actually finish. You could even say have five complete communities projects in one neighborhood. And then they all pool their affordable housing obligations together and then build one project that has , you know , those two units from that project and the four units from this one , everything into one project. And , you know , maybe you could build that without even any public subsidy. I mean , this does open up a lot of opportunities for developers to experiment and try different ways of getting , you know , getting to ultimately the final goal , which is actually breaking ground on the housing , opening those units up and , you know , letting our community grow. And so , you know , there's there's a lot of risk in letting private developers take credit also for the affordable housing that may have otherwise been built. Anyway. Um , but , you know , perhaps those units , those affordable units could get built faster because they don't have to wait for all the public subsidies to come together. And , you know , they could actually take some money from the the private sector and , you know , finish their projects.
S1: Sounds complicated. It is. And it's the thing I don't understand either is we know that San Diego is like a very desirable area. And David , it's maybe one of the most desirable , like in the country. So I just generally don't understand why incentives are needed for developers.
S3: And I think sometimes that they can build in Texas or another state with less environmental regulations and , you know , lower other regulations on traffic and mitigation and those kind of things , they find those areas more appealing. Land here is also more expensive. So there's a lot of things working against San Diego and also San Diego's incomes , even though we're considered , you know , I guess a well-to-do city compared to other cities with housing prices like we do , the incomes don't don't match up as well. So they don't have this idea they can build these high luxury apartments and they'll get rented out in 10s because we just don't have the fortune 500 companies here that they do in other cities.
S1: So let's get into the why all this change is needed or sort of why it's happening. We have a clip here from council member Kent Lee , and it's from the San Diego City Council meeting earlier this week. The fact.
S2: Is we.
S4: Are significantly behind on housing production. Our home prices are rising at one of the highest rates in the nation. While only 62 total units of moderate income housing were approved in 2021 and 2022. We are even further behind on developing very low income housing , where 645 units have been permitted. Just 1.5% of the 27,000 plus units required to meet state guidelines by 2029. At this rate , the city's annual production will have to more than triple to more than 16,000 units per year and stay that high for six years , a pace that the city hasn't achieved in any recent memory.
S1: So it sounds like there's a big hill to climb there. David. And then Andrew.
S3: But I talked to some developers who say it's coming. They're saying that developers are starting to understand the program better and that , you know , it took a while to grasp it , to talk to lenders , to have the lenders grasp it , to find appropriate sites that would work for it , but that there's about to be a flood in the city. Data looks like that may be true , that that maybe we're going to see a huge flood of these giant towers under complete communities. I don't think it's going to solve the whole problem , but I think it may make a significant impact on the problem. And if it continues to , to grow at the pace that some of these developers are predicting , maybe in six , seven , eight years , it will make a big difference.
S1:
S2: I mean , it takes a really long time for housing to get built and then an even longer time for the housing market to sort of figure out , okay , how fast can rents grow if we have this huge influx of , of , uh , of , of new units online ? Um , at what point do developers decide , you know , we're asking these , like , really exorbitant rents here , and we're not getting the kind of interest from renters because a lot of them just can't afford it. So maybe we need to lower our asking prices a little bit. Or maybe we need to ask , you know , applicants will will offer them incentives like a free month's rent or something. You're starting to see that in a lot of other cities in the country that have actually turbocharged their home production a lot faster than San Diego has. And , you know , even nationally , when you see the growth in the inventory of homes , there has been an actual impact on the sort of median or average rent prices. So , you know this , it's going to take a very long time for all of these policies , you know , to increase housing production , to actually trickle down. And I hesitate to use that word because it's sort of a it's used pejoratively , you know , to say , well , this is just trickle down economics and everything , but there is a market in housing. There is a relationship between supply and demand and price. And so , you know , it could take a while for us to really know the true impact of what complete communities and some of these other incentive programs are on the actual cost of housing. But , you know , and to David's point , I think , you know , we may not be seeing this huge surge in in building right now , but we're also probably going to continue to grow economically. There might be , you know , more companies that choose to locate in San Diego and , and add employees here. And also , you know , employees that can now work fully remotely. And maybe they're coming down from San Francisco or , or Los Angeles to find a , you know , a maybe slightly more affordable home in San Diego. And programs like Complete Communities could sort of be the release valve. So we have this influx of population and the development community , the building industry is able to respond to that increase in demand for housing here by actually , you know , increasing the supply and having a greater match between those two things.
S3: And I think one thing for people to keep in mind is that that they get frustrated when they see that all the new units being built are , are very expensive high rent units. But when people move into those units , it opens up older buildings , apartment buildings built in the 60s , 70s and 80s. There's more vacancies when people move into these units. So even though the ones that are being built might not be affordable to you , when someone who makes more money than you moves into one of these units , you can move into their place. So there is a silver lining.
S2: Yeah , we all need to recognize the housing is an ecosystem. It's not like a 1 to 1 transfer all the time. And the other thing is housing is generally the most expensive. The day that it opens , the the homes that were built 20 or 30 years ago may have been considered luxury housing then , but they've sort of aged into a greater level of affordability. As you know , the newer housing then gets built and that's suddenly now the luxury housing. So you know , there's it's housing is complex. I think that's the big takeaway here. Uh , complex policies , complex economic systems that that ultimately it's really hard for the average person to understand. They just want to find a place that they can rent that they can afford. But , you know , if we're really going to get democratize the policymaking here , then I think we all need to really learn a bit about how these things work. And , you know , pay attention to the details and , and , uh , you know , acknowledge that these problems are hard to solve. And , you know , if they were easy , they would have been fixed by now.
S1: Right ? Exactly. Step one is listening to this segment , and we're going to have to wrap it up there. I've been speaking with David Garrick from the San Diego Union Tribune and Kpbs Metro reporter Andrew Bone. And both of you. Thank you so much for helping us understand this a lot more.
S2: Thanks , Matt. Thanks for.
S3: Having me.
S1: When roundtable returns were getting an update on the civil case against former San Diego State punter Matt Araiza. That's next on roundtable. Welcome back to Kpbs roundtable. I'm Matt Hoffman. Earlier this week , a woman accusing several former San Diego State football players of rape has agreed to drop former punter Matt Araiza from the civil lawsuit. Arisa also moved to drop his countersuit for defamation against the woman. The lawsuit had accused the star punter and other Sdsu football players of raping the then 17 year old. It happened allegedly at an off campus party back in October of 2021. The lawsuit is moving forward , but without Matt Araiza as he looks to restart his NFL football career. Kpbs reporter Alexander Nguyen has been covering this story , and he joins me now. Alexander , welcome back to roundtable.
S5: Well , thanks for having me.
S1: Great to have you here , Alexander. Okay , so we know that lawyers for Matt Araiza , they've announced that he has been removed from this civil lawsuit. It sounds like a big development.
S5: For example , we learned what was on some of the videotapes that the police obtained during their investigation. We learned that on those tapes , Araiza was not in any of them , according to the DA's office. And we also learned that , according to his lawyers , that , you know , cell phone data shows that he was not there at the party during the time of the alleged rape. So it's only natural that he gets dropped from the case.
S1: And when you say videos that the district attorney had , that's videos of this alleged sexual assault. Yeah.
S5: Yeah. So during the investigation , they found several video cell phone footage of the alleged incident.
S1: And we know that Arisa was not the only one accused here. And we know that that lawsuit will still be moving forward. Just not with Arisa.
S5: It is still slated for February trial , but with a rise of being dropped off , obviously he's the biggest named defendant of the four. I don't know what's going to happen. We did try to reach out to some of the lawyers , but they did not get back to us. So we really don't know what's going to happen.
S1:
S5: However , he did talk to the Union-Tribune and to our partner , ten news , and with the Union-Tribune. He said that the lawsuits cause for the plaintiff has been mounting ever since. Matt Arisa countersuit or for defamation ? I believe it's up to $20,000 now and to ten news , he says. That is a mutual agreement and neither party admitted any wrongdoing , and the settlement has no bearing on what happened that night. So we you know , as far as I know , she still maintains that , you know , what she said happened , happened.
S1: And what about from Arise Camp ? Are they saying that this is like total vindication , even though it's clear that , you know , the plaintiff's not saying that.
S5: He says basically says , yeah , that this is vindication. He's been innocent all this whole time. The criminal case against him was dropped and dismissed because there's lack of evidence. And he says , you know , I've been innocent this whole entire time. I'm , I'm looking to go back to my life and NFL career and pursued my passion.
S1: And you mentioned criminal case there. And just to be clear , this was a civil trial.
S5: That basically means they can bring this case back in a future date if there's enough compelling evidence for them to convict. So basically , when they dismiss the case , they say there was not enough evidence for a conviction. Hmm.
S1: Hmm.
S5: And because there is no criminal trial , this is how she's going to get justice.
S1: And Arisa has agreed to also drop a countersuit that he had against this alleged victim. But he said that he may file a lawsuit against her attorney , or at least the possibility there is open.
S5: So that's basically it's defamation. Now , when you get defamation , you have to prove a lot of things. One of them is that he knew that it was not true and that he says anyways , that is the main crux. There's several other points , so I don't know whether the lawsuit will be filed or not , but he has always said that he will filed a lawsuit against Dan Gillian for defamation.
S1: And Gillian is the attorney for the alleged victim. I'm here. Correct. And we know that Arisa held a press conference this week , and in that he said that he's looking to resume his professional football career.
S5: He's been , you know , keeping his skills up. And we know that he practiced with the New York Jets , whether or not he has any other practice with other NFL teams. We don't know. And we don't know if any other NFL teams are looking at him. But based on his talent and based on everything that he's done with the Aztecs , I think he does have a shot of getting back to the NFL , whether during the time that he's been out of the NFL , that if his skills has regressed or not , that's going to determine whether he's going to come back to the NFL.
S1: It seems like he certainly wants to do that. So we know that this civil trial is expected to begin in February.
S5: There is a lot of things that needs to be proved in order for defamation to be awarded. One of them is that someone made a false statement. That statement was published , which certainly it was. And that statement caused him injury and that the statement was false. And the person who said it knew it was false and , you know , and it did not fall into a protected , privileged category , which it basically if he is a public figure , if he is a politician , something like that. So the argument against defamation for arise would be that he is a public figure at that time. So we don't know. I mean , it'll be interesting to see what the argument is for defamation.
S1: But are you hearing that this civil trial will actually happen , like there won't be a settlement ? And if that does happen , I imagine we could learn a lot more about these allegations.
S5: I don't think a settlement is happening anytime soon. As far as I know , it's still a docket. We haven't seen any filing for a settlement , any filing for dismissal by the other defendants in this case.
S1: I've been speaking with Kpbs , Alexander Nguyen and Alex , thanks for being here today.
S5: Well , thanks for having me.
S1: And if you're in need of confidential support or help , the National Sexual Assault Hotline number is 800 656. Hope that's 4673. Coming up on roundtable , producer Andrew Bracken joins us to talk about some other stories from this week in the roundup.
S6: CNN announced their hero of the year , and it was a San Diegan.
S1: Roundtable is back in less than two minutes. You're listening to Kpbs roundtable. I'm Matt Hoffman. It's now time for the round up. We have producer Andrew Brackett here with a list of some other San Diego stories that he's been following and watching. What's up ? Andrew ? Hey , Matt. Okay , so I gotta know we're about ten days out from the holidays. From Christmas. That is , if people choose to celebrate. You got all your shopping done. I know you have a couple kids. No.
S6: No. And now it's getting to that zone. We do celebrate Christmas. And so yeah , it's getting into that danger zone. Danger zone. But getting close. Yeah.
S1: Well hopefully you just need a couple small things , right ? You don't need to whole Santa. Santa doesn't need to go crazy right now.
S6: I don't know yet. There may be some sort of express , you know , shipping expedited shipping scenarios in my future. I'll just say that.
S1: Well , whatever you got to do to make it work. Uh , okay.
S6: It's from Axios , and this is a national story , but it just found that there's been an increase in the number of mortgage free homes , nearly 40% of homes today. They don't have mortgages. And that's up some 5% over the past decade. And I guess that kind of makes sense. You know , I think there are a lot of baby boomers who are maybe getting older. Maybe they've owned their own homes for a long time. Also , you know , a lot of these people probably bought homes during those times of very low interest rates , which we haven't seen. But I just thought it was interesting with this housing discussion , you know , we've seen big sales declines all over the nation , but particularly here in San Diego. We're seeing that. But again , prices are still very high. We know very high. But we'll see. You know , maybe mortgage rates will come down next year and then this number will decline somewhat.
S1: Well , I know a lot of people are closely watching those home prices hoping that they would go down. Well , I guess if you're selling up.
S6: There are a lot of awards we're hearing a lot about , you know , end of year celebrations , things like that. CNN announced their hero of the year and it was a San Diegan in.
S7: The 2023 CNN hero of the year is. Doctor Quinn Stewart.
S6: A San Diego veterinarian , Quynh Stuart. He has been helping pets of the unhoused for several years now. He founded a nonprofit called Project Street Vet in 2020.
S1: I've seen one go viral for some of his videos.
S6: He's been doing it for many years. I think he started up in Modesto and then moved down to San Diego around 2015 , but he won the CNN hero of the year. With that came $100,000 prize , which he then announced he was going to split with the other nine semifinalists. Oh that's nice. And then his organization also will get an additional I think it's like a $300,000 grant along with that award. But it was just nice to see. Yeah , I mean , someone from San Diego getting that national recognition and really giving back to the community in a meaningful way.
S1: And we definitely know that a lot of unhoused people , they have pets , too , and they definitely need to be taken care of. And we know that , like the Humane Society and the county , like they'll do some events where they help out , but this guys goes out on the streets and provides just literally like that. You know , that care right there when they need it. If you look him up you can see his videos online.
S6: Well , also , I mean , you know , as a dog owner , these pets are , you know , a part of our families. And , you know , if we struggle then they're going to struggle with us. So providing that care I think is a really neat , really neat story. And just cool to see that recognition. Absolutely.
S1: Absolutely. And cool to see San Diego on that national stage. Okay.
S6: They announced their first ever player signing and it's a San Diego product. His name is Darren Ferry. He's a 17 year old goalkeeper and he was just on actually the the now defunct San Diego Loyal soccer team. Before that. He's also played with the US under 17 national team. So it's still a while. This is their first signing. I think there's a lot of limits to , you know , who they can sign now. They don't really take the field until the beginning of 2025 , so there's still a lot of time there. But it's kind of exciting to see that there's a lot of youth soccer in San Diego. There's a lot of youth talent , and I think this team is going to make try to tap into that. Yeah , I think that's very cool.
S1: We know that he was on The loyal , so he was a local guy. On the loyal playing soccer. And you know I'm sure he's extremely talented. But you got to think that there's some sort of , uh , you know , reason why they signed him first as a San Diego guy to maybe bring , bring more people to those games. Yeah.
S6: Yeah. No , they're making big investments into developing homegrown talent. And yeah , this is maybe just a symbolic kind of nod to that as they start signing players and build out a team. Well , if you're.
S1:
S6: Yeah. All right. What else also sports related. Yeah. I mean , same sport soccer. I just thought this was interesting. Point Loma Nazarenes , their women's soccer team won the Division two national championship. Simulations got this from NBC San Diego , which said they didn't even allow a single goal during the NCAA tournament , which that one. But they're that school's first national title , so that's pretty cool.
S1: And in.
S6: Any sport. Yeah , that's what it says.
S1: Well , that's very cool. Congratulations to that school , that program. And maybe they'll get number two next year. Back to back. All right. What else.
S6: It's the holiday season. It's a really important time for businesses. And this is a story you actually reported earlier this week that Pet West you know , is closing during this really crucial holiday time period for businesses there. You spoke with Carolyn Shoe's owner , Olivia Campos. And here's a little of what she had to say.
S8: This Saturday and Sunday. We are like waiting for customers and we don't see customers. If you can see there are no people walking , no cars , no nothing is like we don't have a customer.
S1: And she was right there on San Ysidro Boulevard. So just like a block or two away from the border and pet west as the pedestrian walkway to and from Mexico , that gets very busy. It's closed. And she was talking about on Saturday. Sunday closed on Saturday temporarily , and it's still closed. And immediately they saw that , you know , lack of customers and just people not being there. And this is their busiest time of the year where they make all the sales for the slow months. And this year is really tough. The owner was telling me she has panic attacks , thinking about what's going to how she's going to make it.
S6: Well , I was also thinking about just what they went through during the pandemic and the closures there and how they were impacted , she says. The last.
S1: Four years have just been. Rough.
S6: Rough. Yeah , so this on top of it and I know , you know , Customs and Border Protection , they're saying it's a temporary closure due to the large number of migrants that have been coming through. So hopefully they can reopen in time for this holiday season. Yeah.
S1: Because a lot of those businesses down there now , I will say we went by the outlets. They seem pretty busy still. Um , but obviously I'm sure they'd be a lot busier , uh , if Head West was open. All right. What else.
S6: I knew ? Sources. Crystal Nebula wrote a piece about Sandag looking to increase employers per. Participation in transportation programs for the ideas to get employers to incentivize their employees to take other ways to work other than their cars. And they've increased funding to , I think , $2.3 million and are reaching out to employers to kind of get them to sign on. And some of these , you know , I guess these employers will do , you know , transit.
S1: Pass or something.
S6: Like that , money for transit or for setting up car pools or van pools , things like that , but just ways to to make it easier for employees to get to work. And , you know , I always think about this new work world we're in where people are also working remotely and how that kind of plays into people not commuting. And in her piece , she didn't mention that , you know , remote workers are actually more likely to drive alone when they actually go to the office than employees who do not remote work at all. I thought that was interesting. I think that makes sense.
S1: I mean , I would if there was like a shuttle here that came and picked you up for the morning , the carpool. I would do. That.
S6: That. Yeah. I mean.
S1: It makes sense. It would save you money and I would save emissions. And but it'd be interesting to see , you know , follow up to this some reporting like what is that $2.3 million from Sandag doing.
S6: I mean , they had about $600,000 for the program initially , but I think yeah , they're hoping , like I said , to see more employers sign up for that. Okay.
S1: What else you.
S6: Got ? This week , la mesa City Council voted to stop plans to implement digital billboards along the eight. They're , um , they got quite a bit of backlash from groups. I think there was a group called Keep La mesa beautiful that really fought hard against it , and they kind of left the door open for maybe implementing it in the future. But for now , they're going to be no digital billboards along the eight. They're you know , they did reference I think the CBS eight's covered this. UT has covered it. They did say , you know , this will take potential revenues away from the city , but it was unclear exactly how much.
S1: If you go to la mesa and you drive down the eight. Yeah. You can't miss them. And they're all like casino billboards. I mean , it's like come to and then there's like another one if you watch this and it's like there's a ton of billboards. Um , but yeah , I guess I know maybe they wanted to digitize them. I will say though , like when I'm thinking about like and I said casino , but like going to Vegas and the digital ones , you are like more drawn to , like , what is that ? What is that up there ? Yeah.
S6: I guess I'd like to see , you know , information like does it impact driving. You know , because I mean , I definitely pay more attention to them. I have to say , when I see those.
S1: I remember driving by Allegiant Stadium in Vegas , the Raiders stadium. Oh my God. It was the biggest billboard I had ever seen. And I was like , what ? Like I was not paying attention to the road.
S6: Really distracting for sure.
S1: But no digital billboards for now. Okay.
S6: He jumped on some reporting. Originally it was from the Washington Post , but saw a major increase in home schooling , and there was some data from the Washington Post that said it increased by about 88% over the past five years in San Diego County. And some of that does seem to me to make sense. Like , I have heard stories of people when the schools went remote during the pandemic , that just kind of stayed , did their own thing that homeschooled. But this is sort of a larger investigation into what that means. And it's still a small percentage , I think , of students , you know , but it is an interesting trend in education.
S1: And as you sort of alluded to , there's all sorts of other avenues that can impacted by this. And it makes me think of like , I just did a story about increases in whooping cough cases with the county , and they've been saying that over the last few years. They've noticed that , you know , the mandated vaccinations for some students have been slipping a little bit , whether it's vaccine hesitancy or just people forgetting about updating their their mandated shots. Now , they didn't provide numbers , but they said that they've noticed. And maybe some of it has to relate to this , because if you're homeschooled then you don't have to get those required shots to go to school. So you got to wonder about that. That piece of absolutely right. Okay. And one more. And this is holiday themed , right. Yeah.
S6: Yeah. So this is a holiday event. But I say it's one to be avoided. But that's definitely like my you know that's an editorial there. Fox five San Diego. You know it had a little write up about this santacon and it's coming to San Diego Saturday , December 16th. It starts at noon and it's downtown. I don't know if you know what Santacon is or if you've experienced it or heard about it , but to me it's something of like a holiday nightmare. It's people get dressed up in Santa suits and usually involves bar crawls and drinking. And as you can tell , I'm probably not a huge fan of that.
S1: If you just look up Santacon San Diego , it's just the seas of people dressed up like Santa Claus. Uh , and they're hanging out. Um , but we've had Comic-Con. We've had some other cons , but Santa con , that's the one.
S6: It's like a bar downtown. So you can you can go tomorrow if you got your Santa suit. Just.
S1: You know. Well , we know we probably won't be seeing you at that event. So you still got to do your holiday shopping.
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S1:
S6: Thank you. Matt.
S1: That's going to round out roundtable for this week. We appreciate you being here with us. If you have a question or comment about anything you heard this week , leave us a voicemail. (619) 452-0228. You can also email us roundtable at pbs.org. If you missed any part of the show , go ahead and check out the Kpbs roundtable podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Roundtable is produced by Andrew Bracken , Rebecca Chacon , and Ben Read. Locke are our technical producers , and I'm your host , Matt Hoffman. Thanks so much for being here with us. Have a great weekend.
