The San Diego City Council overruled several of Mayor Todd Gloria’s line-item vetoes in next year’s budget. Then, we have a conversation with renowned activist and organizer Dolores Huerta about the ongoing mass deportations. And the shake table at UCSD was rocking Monday, find out why. Also, hear about why transit advocates are concerned SANDAG could move to limit options on its proposed Del Mar train tunnels. Finally, a new development in San Diego County is the first-ever fire-resilient community in the country — hear about where and what it costs.
Advocates want new Del Mar train tunnels electrified
June 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM PDT
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Tuesday, June 24th.
The San Diego City Council is overriding several of Mayor Todd Gloria’s line-item vetoes.
More on that next. But first... the headlines….
THE U.S. BOMBING IRANIAN NUCLEAR SITES IS CREATING MORE FEAR AND UNCERTAINTY FOR IRANIAN-AMERICAN SAN DIEGANS WHO HAVE FAMILY IN THEIR HOME COUNTRY.
BIBI KASRAI SAYS SHE FLED IRAN WITH HER FAMILY WHEN SHE WAS 17 YEARS OLD. SHE HAS CALLED SAN DIEGO HOME SINCE 1996. SHE HAS BEEN TRYING TO HELP FAMILY AND EVEN STRANGERS FIND RESOURCES TO LEAVE IRAN FOR THE LAST FEW WEEKS.
“I was like ‘Who doesn't have a place to go? Who doesn't have a car? Who doesn't have fuel?’ and trying to match them. It was chaotic. We have not slept a wink whether we are inside or outside of Iran. It’s been very tough.””
LOCAL CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS’ ARE ALSO REACTING TO THE U.S. DROPPING BOMBS IN IRAN. REPUBLICAN DARRELL ISSA PRAISED THE OPERATION IN A STATEMENT ON X CALLING IT QUOTE BRILLIANT. DEMOCRAT SARA JACOBS CALLED IT QUOTE UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND AN ESCALATION OF RISKS.
Thousands of San Diego-based service members are currently in the Middle East. The aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and five other San Diego ships are among the US military assets in the region, according to U-S-N-I News.
The Vinson and its strike group deployed in November. In March, the ship was ordered to the Middle East. Its deployment was extended last week.
Other San Diego-based ships in the region include three guided-missile destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser.
The County Board of Supervisors will deliberate and adopt its budget today (Tuesday).
The county isn’t facing the same kind of cuts as the city of San Diego. Its 2025-2026 fiscal year budget includes some staffing cuts. But it’s an increase overall from last year.
The county says it’s monitoring Washington, D.C., as possible federal cuts could impact some county programs.
Last month the two democrats on the board proposed tapping into the county’s reserves as a safeguard but that did not pass.
From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.
Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
THE SAN DIEGO CITY COUNCIL VOTED TODAY TO RESTORE SOME FUNDING IN THE CITY’S 20-26 BUDGET THAT MAYOR TODD GLORIA VETOED LAST WEEK..
REPORTER JAKE GOTTA SAYS THIS CAPS OFF A BUDGETING PROCESS THAT STARTED BACK IN DECEMBER.
Earlier this month, Gloria received the City Council’s approved budget for the next fiscal year, which added more than 30 million dollars to his proposal. Last week Gloria returned his line-item vetoes to the Council, cutting nearly 5 million dollars that the Mayor said would put the city at financial risk.At the Council meeting today, Gloria echoed these concerns.Should this council choose to override my veto entirely, you are endorsing a level of risk that I cannot support and that I will not support.That budget will not carry my signature.Still, Councilmember Henry Foster, the budget chair, introduced two motions to override the Mayor’s veto. One that would have restored all the funding, which failed, and a second to address council priorities like brush management and community projects - that one passed.And with that, the long budget process is over. Jake Gotta, KPBS News
She marched for civil rights, women’s rights and for people who pick our fruits and vegetables. She even co-founded the renowned labor union United Farm Workers with Cesar (Say-Zaar) Chavez. And at 95…Dolores Huerta (Wear-thaah) remains active in public life, speaking at a Los Angeles ICE raids protest earlier this month. Huerta spoke with reporter Amita Sharma about today’s political climate.
That was labor activist Dolores Huerta with Amita Sharma.
ON MONDAY STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS AT UC SAN DIEGO SAW HOW A TEN-STORY BUILDING, MADE FROM COLD FORMED STEEL, WOULD REACT IN A 6.9 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE. THEY SIMULATED IT ON THEIR OUTDOOR SHAKE TABLE. SCI-TECH REPORTER THOMAS FUDGE WAS THERE.
The building sitting on the shake table was made from a recycled steel called cold formed steel. And when the shake table started to move the upper stories swayed back and forth. The trained eyes of the engineers saw the building make a twisting motion they didn’t see coming. The shake table mimicked the force of the Loma Prieta earthquake which hit San Francisco in 1989. Structural engineering professor Tara Hutchinson said they will turn up that force in later tests to see how the building reacts to a quake that’s 50 percent more powerful. “That would be a very rare earthquake but we want to generate the data to understand what would be the behavior of the building under that very rare event.”Researchers hope a successful test will allow construction of taller structures made from cold formed steel. Thomas Fudge, KPBS News.
TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS ARE CONSIDERING RELOCATING THE TRAIN TRACKS IN DEL MAR AWAY FROM THE COLLAPSING BLUFFS. BUT METRO REPORTER ANDREW BOWEN SAYS RAIL ADVOCATES FEAR THE PROJECT COULD LOCK IN SLOWER AND MORE POLLUTING TRAINS TO LOS ANGELES.
BL: I take COASTER down here. I take Metrolink to visit my girlfriend in Orange County. I love taking it — beats driving through traffic and having to deal with that, especially during peak hours. Peak hours driving sucks on the 5.AB: Brian Legal lives in North County and is a big fan of riding the train. I meet him on a hiking trail that overlooks the single track along the Del Mar Bluffs.BL: I think it's just how convenient it is, and the beautiful scenic views that are in Socal's rail network and just being able to hop on a train and see all my friends who live in San Diego or up there and get a good ocean view on the way.AB: Being a train rider in San Diego is not easy. These are the only tracks that connect San Diego to LA and the rest of California. They're often congested, or totally closed due to landslides and emergency repairs.BL: Yeah, even in the past month, I've visited my girlfriend twice, and I had to take the Amtrak bus, the bus bridge, in order to get there — which is very inconvenient because Amtrak costs more, and you have to hop on a bus, and it's always full. It sells out a week in advance, you can't just hop on.AB: Del Mar is one of the rail corridor's worst pinch points. So SANDAG, the county's transportation planning agency, is considering relocating the tracks — possibly into underground tunnels. Which raises an important question: Will those tunnels be big enough for electric trains?AR: Electric trains are pretty much the most efficient way to move anything on land, and they're more energy-efficient than other zero emissions alternative.AB: Adriana Rizzo is a member of the grassroots organization Californians for Electric Rail.AR: The biggest benefit is for passenger service. So electric trains accelerate faster, so you can have faster for trips. … They can also go faster, so you can have these trains going up to 110, 125 miles an hour without any of the specialized upgrades you need for true high-speed rail.AB: Currently, all the trains on this corridor are pulled by diesel locomotives, which are slower, noisier and more polluting. SANDAG found electric trains would cut the travel time between Oceanside and San Diego to less than a half hour. That's faster than driving, even when there's no traffic. But electric trains would require a wider tunnel through Del Mar to accommodate the overhead wires that power the trains. And a wider tunnel would be more expensive.MD: Part of our shared use agreements, in particular, is to make sure that travel times are not increased.AB: Mary Dover is a spokesperson for the North County Transit District, which owns the train tracks and will have to maintain them, whether SANDAG reroutes them through Del Mar or keeps them in place. Dover says electrifying the trains would come with a big upfront cost to install the overhead wires. Some residents also don't like how those wires look.MD: Also from a maintenance perspective, making sure that we're at least aware of the costs that we will incur in the maintenance of the life cycle of this infrastructure.AB: Caltrans released its state rail plan in January. It aims for a transition to all zero-emission trains… but it leaves out the San Diego to Los Angeles corridor from its plans for electrification. Instead it imagines trains powered by batteries or hydrogen fuel — technologies that are slower and less proven. Rizzo says even if there's no money to electrify the trains today, SANDAG should at least leave the door open to electric trains in the future.AR: They're not going to be building another one of these tunnels for the next 100 years. So if they make these tunnels too small to save a little bit of money, basically they're making a decision now about whether this corridor will ever be electrified. And it seems really foolish to make that long-term decision based on a small margin of what is already an expensive project.AB: For Brian Legal, electric trains in San Diego would help bring back ridership that's been lost due to the constant delays and track closures. Caltrain in the Bay Area electrified their trains last year to resounding success.BL: Every quarter they've seen more riders take it, quarter after quarter. And I don't expect that to slow down anytime soon. And seeing that and wanting to bring that down and give that a shot will, I think, improve the lives of everyone. It will take traffic off the roads. It will improve the experience of everyone, not just people on the train but everyone commuting downtown and back.AB: SANDAG is currently scoping out what it will study in an environmental impact report. It's accepting comments on its preliminary study through June 30. Andrew Bowen, KPBS news.
WITH PEAK FIRE SEASON NOW UNDERWAY, THE THREAT TO HOMES IS AN EVER-PRESENT DANGER -- ESPECIALLY IN HIGH-FIRE DANGER ZONES.
NORTH COUNTY REPORTER ALEXANDER NGUYEN TAKES US TO THE DIXON TRAIL DEVELOPMENT IN ESCONDIDO, WHICH IS CERTIFIED AS THE FIRST FIRE-RESILIENT COMMUNITY IN THE NATION.
When Kevin Walton moved into his newly built Dixon Trail home three months ago … He didn’t know that he’d be among the first dozen or so families to live in a fire-hardened community.“We only learned that after the fact.”Walton called it a bonus.“For a brand new house, that’s perfect, because we would have wanted to add at least some of those elements, like the indoor sprinkler system, but we didn’t have to, it’s built in, so total bonus.”In addition … the roofs are fire rated, the vents, gutter screens are made from metal to prevent embers from catching the roof on fire.The eaves are stuccoed, the doors and fences are made of metal, and the windows are double-paned and heat-resistant.There is also a 5-foot perimeter around the home where no landscaping is allowed.That’s why the nonprofit Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety declared the community “wildfire prepared.”In a demonstration … homes NOT built to I-B-H-S standards burned within 40 minutes. Alexander Nguyen, KPBS News
EVEN WITH THE FIRE-RESILIENT FEATURES, THE HOMES ARE PRICED SIMILARLY TO OTHER NEW HOME DEVELOPMENTS IN ESCONDIDO.
That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great day.