Federal government shutdown could delay CalFresh benefits
Good Morning, I’m Lawrence K. Jackson….it’s THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23RD>>>> [THE FEDERAL SHUTDOWN COULD DELAY CALFRESH BENEFITS]More on that next. But first... the headlines…#######
SAN DIEGO CITY COUNCILMEMBERS ARE CONSIDERING A BALLOT MEASURE THAT WOULD TAX VACATION HOMES.
THE PROPOSAL FROM COUNCILMEMBER SEAN ELO-RIVERA TARGETS SECOND HOMES THAT ARE KEPT VACANT MOST OF THE YEAR AND HOMES THAT ARE RENTED SHORT-TERM ON PLATFORMS LIKE AIRBNB.
SER: The vacation home operation tax is about restoring fairness and balance in our housing market. It's pretty simple. If you live here, you're actually in the clear. If you use your home as a business, it's only fair to contribute to the city's services that make that business possible.
THE REVENUE WOULD GO INTO THE CITY'S GENERAL FUND TO SUPPORT SERVICES LIKE POLICE, FIRE PROTECTION, LIBRARIES AND PARKS.
THE COUNCIL'S RULES COMMITTEE WILL TAKE UP THE TAX PROPOSAL AGAIN IN JANUARY.
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IN OTHER HOUSING NEWS, THE COUNTY WON’T BE MOVING FORWARD WITH ADVOCATING FOR STATEWIDE RESTRICTIONS ON FOREIGN INVESTORS BUYING SINGLE-FAMILY AND ENTRY-LEVEL HOMES
THAT’S BECAUSE THE SAN DIEGO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS VOTED TUESDAY TO REJECT SUPERVISOR JIM DESMOND’S PROPOSAL
HE SAID THE GOAL WAS TO GIVE SAN DIEGANS A FAIR SHOT AT OWNING A HOME AND TO PRIORITIZE LOCAL HOMEOWNERSHIP
DESMOND SAYS IT WAS MEANT TO FOCUS ON LARGE CORPORATIONS AND NOT INDIVIDUALS
OPPONENTS SAY THE WORDING OF THE PROPOSAL DIDN’T DIRECTLY CALL OUT CORPORATIONS BUT INSTEADS CITES FOREIGN ADVERSARIES
OTHERS OPPONENTS SAY THE LANGUAGE EXCLUDED CERTAIN MINORITY GROUPS
IN A STATEMENT AFTER THE VOTE, DESMOND SAID “I WILL KEEP FIGHTING TO MAKE SURE THE AMERICAN DREAM DOESN’T BECOME SOMETHING ONLY CORPORATIONS AND FOREIGN INVESTORS CAN AFFORD
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START YOUR ENGINES SAN DIEGO!
NASCAR JUST REVEALED THE STREET COURSE FOR NEXT YEAR’S NASCAR SAN DIEGO WEEKEND
THE 3 AND A HALF MILE STREET CIRCUIT IS ON NAVAL BASE CORONADO AND HAS 16 TURNS, ONE BETWEEN WHERE TWO AIRCRAFT CARRIERS DOCK.
ACCORDING TO THE ATHLETIC, ITS THE FIRST TIME NASCAR HAS RACED ON AN ACTIVE MILITARY BASE.
THE COURSE IS ALSO THE LONGEST ON NASCAR’S 20-26 SCHEDULE.
IT WILL BE HELD IN JUNE 2026.
From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
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THOUSANDS OF SAN DIEGANS MAY NOT GET THEIR FOOD ASSISTANCE BENEFITS NEXT MONTH… REPORTER ALEXANDER NGUYEN SAYS IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHETHER THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN CONTINUES PAST TODAY
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CALFRESH 1 :54 SOC
Nearly 400-thousand people in San Diego County receive CalFresh benefits, which is California’s version of the federal food assistance program.
Because of the government shutdown, those benefits may not be coming next month.
Feeding San Diego C-E-O Robert Kamensky calls it an unfolding crisis.
“When the benefits disappear, they're going to be over 400,000 people added into the hunger relief network.”
On Wednesday, Governor Gavin Newsom announced he will deploy the National Guard and free up 80 million dollars to help food banks … in anticipation of the increased demand.
The 80 million dollars is coming from CalFood.
San Diego Food Bank CEO Casey Castillo says it’s funding to help food banks buy food.
“What the governor did is he's advancing those dollars so we can utilize them now to respond to the increased demand.”
Both the Food Bank and Feeding San Diego say they’ve seen an increase in demand from federal workers and military families.
AN/KPBS
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A NEW REPORT THIS WEEK SHOWS NATIONAL CITY HAS ADDED HUNDREDS OF MORE AFFORDABLE HOMES IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS.
SOUTH BAY REPORTER KORI SUZUKI SAYS THAT’S A FRACTION OF WHAT THE CITY WILL NEED TO MEET ITS HOUSING GOALS BY THE END OF THE DECADE.
NCHOUSING 1 (1:10) SOQ
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In 2021, National City leaders set a goal of adding a specific number of homes across income levels. In order to meet targets set by state and regional planning agencies
Four years later, planning officials say they’re seeing some slow but consistent progress, especially when it comes to homes that are more affordable for working-class people.
At the City Council meeting Tuesday night, Acting Community Development Director Martin Reeder said developers have already built over 300 affordable homes – and 700 units in total. But the city still has to add thousands more by 2030.
“Our original number was 5,437. So we're only at 4705. We still got some work to do. We are working on that.”
City officials grumbled about the size of their housing targets. Mayor Ron Morrison said National City faces an unusually high bar because of its strong public transit and a good balance of jobs and housing.
“Because we did smart growth, we get the huge numbers and the cities that did dumb growth, they get rewarded for it.”
During the last planning cycle, which ended in 2020, National City wasn’t able to meet any of its housing goals. Five other cities across San Diego County also failed to meet their goals, including Oceanside, Solana Beach and El Cajon.
Kori Suzuki, KPBS News.
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAS A FOOTHOLD IN ALL ASPECTS OF OUR LIVES. SCI-TECH REPORTER THOMAS FUDGE HAS THIS LOOK AT HOW SOME SAN DIEGANS ARE MANAGING A-I IN OUR SCHOOLS, OUR WORKPLACES AND IN THE GAMES WE PLAY.
AIWORK
BROLL
This video we’re hearing is the work Sora, one of the features of ChatGPT. Among others it shows a pot-smoking elf and a hyper-aggressive security guard. They are characters in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, created by Dungeon Master McAuley Buhlis. He plays the video to help get the game's players into character.
McAuley 1406 “Doing things that are either relevant to their background. Relevant to what they’re going in the campaign. And then I edit that into an intro video that I play before our session so my players can see their character in the world.”
McAuley learned to use artificial intelligence while working for Amazon Web Services. When he got into DnD, ChatGPT became his editor buddy who gives him ideas, based on his game scenario, and helps him come up with stories set in San Diego.
AI isn’t going to replace McAuley unless his DnD friends really would rather hang out with an algorithm on weekend nights. But is making him a better dungeon master - the kind of outcome we’d like to see in our workplaces? Will AI help us work better or replace us? That’s a question Hugo Villar has spent a lot of time with.
Villar 22:45 “We need to figure out how to use it and how to enhance the human experience by allowing it to do certain tasks. That will require rethinking large aspects of our society for sure.”
Villar is dean of extended studies at UC San Diego. He says routine jobs that require lots of attention to detail are on the list of professions - already being replaced by AI.
Villar 7:46 “Computer scientists are being replaced by AI because higher skilled programmers can use AI to do what was the realm of having hundreds of programmers doing individual pieces of the code to create the software.”
He says blue collar jobs are certainly in demand for building and maintaining the many data centers and other infrastructure that support AI. But expect that to also change in the future.
Villar 10:00 “Eventually they will also be affected at the time when AI merges with robotics because that’s an entire different set of things. And there the tools will become intelligent and will be able to do all sorts of things that right now we need a human being to deal with.”
AI may be a modern solution for mundane tasks… but at UCSD it’s taken a socratic turn to help students learn, with an AI chatbot named Kennan. He is designed to draw out students with questions. Kennan is the work of Paul Hadjipieris. We asked the Bot to write a history essay for me.
VIDEO OF RECORDED TEXT
2086/16-21-15 It’s designed in a way to give you a little nudge. And it says I understand that writing essays can be overwhelming sometimes Tom. But we really want you to develop your own skills, and it’s against the academic guidelines for this course, but I will brainstorm with you.
Then I say, OK. How did the cold war start?
2086/16-21-50 Great question Tom! The start of the cold war was a major turning point. And then it asks you some questions.
Broll, shift to Paul
Hadjipieris is an adjunct history professor and an education specialist at UC San Diego. He says today’s students regard AI in many different ways.
PAUL HADJIPIERIS/EDUCATION SPECIALIST, UC SAN DIEGO
2085/16-05-14 “They’re a mixed bag. Some students are interested and excited to use it. Their skills are a little more advanced. Others haven’t touched it.”
UCSD has created an artificial intelligence major in Computer science and engineering. But Hadjipieris says it has made AI literacy a goal for students in all fields. He’s been part of a group of faculty that’s created a curriculum to help students achieve that. When it comes to AI’s role in learning, he gives the example of a student who was expected to analyze a very large number of sources for a term paper. She used AI to summarize them so she could focus on the two that she wanted to examine more deeply.
2085/16-07-08 “And I think the learning happens not from the amount of sources but the quality of the analysis.
Creating a place for technologies like AI is nothing new, says Hugo Villar. He chooses to see the glass half full.
VILLAR 23:03 “We shouldn’t be scared about that. We did it before in different times in human history. So I am optimistic. We will find things where humans are still needed and they have a place.”
Dungeon master McAuley Buhlis says he thinks we need some guardrails to protect people, but he hopes AI can help people with the day to day and make life a little bit easier.
SOQ.
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GOOD NEWS IS BLOOMING AT THE TIJUANA RIVER COMMUNITY GARDEN.
GARDENERS WHO HAD RECEIVED EVICTION NOTICES WILL GET TO STAY.
THAT’S WHAT GROWERS HEARD AT A RECENT MEETING WITH SAN DIEGO COUNTY SUPERVISOR PALOMA AGUIRRE.
GARDENUPDATE 2A :05
“I just wanted to make it very clear to them that the garden will continue no matter what.”
THE AGENCY THAT MANAGED THE GARDEN FOR THE LAST 20 YEARS GAVE GROWERS 60 DAYS TO LEAVE OVER CONCERNS ABOUT CROSS-BORDER POLLUTION.
THE COUNTY OWNS THE LAND AND IS LOOKING FOR A NEW GARDEN OPERATOR.
A FORMAL SEARCH IS UNDERWAY.
THE DEADLINE FOR ORGANIZATIONS TO APPLY CLOSES FRIDAY.
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That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Lawrence K. Jackson. Thanks for listening and subscribing and most importantly supporting public media. Have a great day!
