Bonnie Dumanis' more than three decades of public service have earned her a hefty annual pension of $268,800. The former district attorney is now running for a County Board of Supervisors seat, and last month The San Diego-Union Tribune uncovered that she had hired a legal team to look into whether she could continue collecting her pension even if she wins a seat on the county Board of Supervisors, where she could earn a sizable salary as well. Dumanis' political consultant told the U-T that despite the inquiry, Dumanis never intended to accept a county supervisor salary. But records obtained by the U-T did not mention that she planned to decline her salary. Lawmakers had largely banned "double dipping" — simultaneously earning a public pension and a government salary — but the practice is back for most elected officials in California, thanks to laws passed quietly in two recent budget bills. On Wednesday, Dumanis held a meeting with reporters where she again said she will not accept a salary if elected. On this week's podcast, hosts Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts discuss Dumanis' strange explanation for why she didn't say she wouldn't collect a salary on top of her pension while her lawyers were fighting for her right to collect a salary on top of her pension. She said it's because her official campaign – which everyone thought was officially announced in September  – doesn't begin until March. "I have not announced formally yet," she told KUSI. "But I have always intended to not take the salary of a supervisor and just keep my pension, which I have earned after 35 years of service." Also on the podcast, Lewis is seething over ReserveCalifornia, California State Parks' new online system for reserving camping and lodging reservations. He says it's the worst. Pushing for a Different Kind of DA's Office Geneviéve Jones-Wright, a Democrat and public defender running for district attorney, joined the podcast this week to discuss her reform-minded campaign. She said the district attorney's office needs to shift from its tough-on-crime mindset and instead spend some resources on building community trust and preventing crime. "The district attorney's office should be looking at other ways to address public safety," she said. "I think that when you're constantly focusing on convictions, you don't have the right focus." Jones-Wright had harsh words for former Dumanis and the County Board of Supervisors. She called the way in which Dumanis stepped down and promoted a preferred replacement, whom the board appointed to the interim position, a corrupt succession plan. "This is a democracy," Jones-Wright said. "This is not a monarchy. We don't have a queen who sits on the throne and says you know what, this is the person that's going to succeed me, this is how this is going to happen." She also talks about her stance on the prosecutorial and prison reforms in initiatives like Prop. 57 and Prop. 47, her take on the death penalty and more. Hero of the Week This week's hero is the San Diego Unified School District, which this week reversed course and will no longer send debt collectors after parents who are late to pay their children’s school bus fees. A recent Voice of San Diego story revealed that in the 2014-2015 school year alone, the district referred 380 parents to a collections agency. Goat of the Week The city's water department gets goated for its initial dodging of responsibility for overblown water bills received by many residents, a problem the city later acknowledged was likely its fault.

Later, Tronc. This week, Los Angeles billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong bought The Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune from Tronc, a Chicago-based media publishing company that owns papers across the country. On a new episode of the Voice of San Diego Podcast, hosts Andrew Keatts and Lisa Halverstadt discuss what the paper's new owner might mean for San Diegans. The U-T has changed hands several times over the last decade. Each new owner has made big shifts at the paper, changes that were often most visible on the editorial pages, or with the investment in its staff and coverage areas. There seems to be a wave of cautious optimism washing over the city as Soon-Shiong takes the reins. So far, the billionaire has talked about the important role that strong, local journalism plays, and he's signaled that he intends to let the papers preserve their missions and independence. Also on the podcast, Halverstadt and Keatts talk about pot, and how the legalization of it is disrupting local government and playing a role in this year's top law enforcement races. Saldaña Push for a Progressive County Vision In the second half of the show, the hosts talk to Lori Saldaña, who's running for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors' Fourth District, about the issues motivating her. Saldaña talks about her change from an Independent to a registered Democrat after her outspoken criticism of the local Democratic Party's handling of the sexual harassment allegations against former Mayor Bob Filner. She also offers her take on the turmoil in the local organized labor movement surrounding sexual harassment allegations against Mickey Kasparian and gives her thoughts on affordable housing, homelessness, public health, the county's cannabis ban and more. She also addressed how she would handle being the lone progressive on the county board if she wins. She said she's confident she can get buy-in from the rest of the Republican supervisors on issues like clean energy and affordable housing. "What I intend to bring forward is not just policies that will be voted down by colleagues," she said. "I can find some common ground. Not a hundred percent of the time, but certainly on some issues that are important." Hero of the Week This week's hero is VOSD contributor and freelance journalist Kelly Davis and the attorneys at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton who represented her pro-bono after she was hit with a demand from the county to give up notes, interviews and recordings linked to a series of investigative stories about the stunning death toll in San Diego-area jails. Goat of the Week The city's water department gets the goat this week. Residents facing exorbitant water bills have recently inundated the city with complaints, and the city's handling of the issue has been lackluster at best.

San Diego's new police chief says he has a new approach to building community trust. Selected last week by Mayor Kevin Faulconer to succeed retiring Chief Shelley Zimmerman, Assistant Chief David Nisleit will take the helm of the San Diego Police Department next month. Nisleit sat down in the podcast studio with co-hosts Andrew Keatts and Scott Lewis to discuss the status of the department's staffing shortage, his plan to engage the community in a conversation on racial profiling and his hopes to recommit to community policing. Along with hiring more police officers who are native to the region, Nisleit plans to focus his efforts on building trust with community members. One of the main areas of focus surrounds growing concerns of racial profiling. The San Diego Police Department recently faced backlash after a San Diego State University study found some evidence of bias in the department towards Hispanic and Black drivers who were three times more likely to be pulled over. But records later obtained by Voice of San Diego showed that a draft copy of the study was far more aggressive than the one presented to City Council on November 2016. Zimmerman has previously said that enhanced training will help police officers ignore their natural biases, but Neislet wants to take it a step further. "We're going to be very transparent about it," Neislet said. "We do need to look at this and if there's a way we can improve that perception or improve that reality for folks, then it's my job to make that happen." He said he took the findings of the SDSU study seriously and looks forward to new data the department will collect as required by a new state law taking effect on July 1. "We're doing a lot of training, and the whole areas about cultural diversity, implicit bias, non-bias policing, procedural justice," he said. "I'm very aware of the disparities especially when it talks about searches and so some of the variables that we need to look at is to kind of get more into depth of of how that came about."

The November 2018 ballot is going to be packed. On this week's podcast, hosts Andrew Keatts and Lisa Halverstadt discuss some of the proposals that will likely be put in front of voters this year. Next week, a City Council committee will hear a pitch from the San Diego Housing Federation to put a $900 million bond measure on the ballot. The Housing Federation wants to raise property taxes to fund roughly 7,500 subsidized apartments for homeless people and other vulnerable, low-income populations. That many new units won't solve San Diego's housing crisis. But if the measure passes, it could house a significant portion of the city's chronically homeless population. A measure to hike the hotel tax to fund a Convention Center expansion, homeless services and road repairs will also be on the November ballot. Halverstadt talks about potential opposition to the pitch from two construction groups that could make passing the measure a challenge. Also on the podcast: Keatts and Halverstadt note that half of Voice of San Diego's staff is sick, which makes running a news website interesting, and chat a bit about the new chief at the San Diego Police Department. Plus, Keatts is still trying to get used to the fact that City Council races are no longer decided in June thanks to last year's Measure K, which requires a November runoff between the top-two vote-getters in the June primary. Zapf: Prop. 47 is a Problem and the Stalemated Vacation Rental Debate San Diego City Councilwoman Lorie Zapf is running for re-election in District 2, which includes Point Loma, Ocean Beach, Bay Ho and Bay Park. In the second half of the show, Zapf joined Keatts and Halverstadt and shared her thoughts on home sharing, homelessness, the city's possible redevelopment of its Sports Arena land, density in Bay Park and more. Zapf  had a lot to say when it comes to Proposition 47, legislation passed in 2014 that mandated downgrades of certain misdemeanor crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. She said the passage of Prop. 47 correlates with the city's increase in homelessness, and has also caused an increase in crime and open drug use on the streets. She said there are a few fixes, including tweaking the law so that chronic repeat offenders can more easily face jail time. On the City Council's failure to pass policies regulating vacation rentals in San Diego, Zapf, who's pushed for strict regulations on home sharing, said she thinks the issue may have to be taken to the voters in order to get anywhere. "On that particular issue, it seems to be a stalemate," she said. "But what's happening is our neighborhoods are just completely falling like dominoes. And there are turnstiles of tourists living in single-family residential neighborhoods." Hero of the Week Former San Diego Padres general manager Kevin Towers is our hero this week. He helped lead the team to many victories, and died of cancer this week. Goat of the Week San Diego's business subsidy program gets goatted this week. The city doesn't track it well, or have a good system of determining who deserves special assistance, and the benefits rarely go to the city's poorest communities.

Something's up with San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer. He kicked the year off with a tenacious State of the City speech where he acknowledged the city's shortcomings on homelessness. A week after, he showed up at the Metropolitan Transit System’s board meeting to support Democratic City Councilwoman Georgette Gomez’s successful bid to be the new chair.   And just a couple of days ago, Faulconer tapped political guru Kris Michell as the city's new chief operating officer. Although Michell is no stranger to San Diego politics, her new position marks a major change for the role, which has generally gone to technocrats rather than political operators.   On this week's podcast, hosts Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts discuss the big changes at City Hall.   "The mayor is really trying to infuse the operations now with more of his priorities, with more of his will," Lewis said. Scott Sherman also joins the first half of the podcast via telephone to discuss his new proposal to appoint San Diego City Council presidents by seniority. Scott Peters Might Run for Mayor Rep. Scott Peters is not a fan of President Donald Trump. "The Trump administration is eviscerating everything," he said. The third-term congressman, who's running for reelection in the 52nd District, stopped by our podcast studio this week to talk with Lewis and Keatts about Trump, net neutrality, the Convention Center expansion, marijuana policies, immigration and more. He called Trump's proposed border wall "boring and a waste of money," and he also discussed the possibility of running for mayor of San Diego. "I'm totally considering it," he said. "I've been working really hard on this town. I love the town. It's my home. I care a lot about it. And in Congress, it's my mission to serve San Diego as much as it is to serve the country."

Something's going on with San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer. He had that whole "different approach" in his big State of the City Speech last week. And Friday, he visited the Voice of San Diego podcast studio to record a special interview. Here it is. In his words, this is what's happening: "Look consensus is important, results are more important. I am choosing results over consensus," he said. We got as much in as we could from him on everything from homelessness, to the Convention Center expansion, to the future of Mission Valley and short-term vacation rentals. But we had to start with the big news of the week: the new leadership on the board of the Metropolitan Transit System. Georgette Gomez, a member of the San Diego City Council got the votes. She wasn't the only one who wanted the job, though. And she got it largely because of Faulconer, who, out of character, showed up at MTS. If it was a poker game, Faulconer pushed a big stack of chips onto the table everyone else folded. We asked him why he would do that for such a progressive Democrat. "I like working with her," he said. "I probably shouldn't say too many nice things, because you know then I'll ruin her cred with the progressive community. But, look, she's a fair, determined, direct individual. I think you want that on boards like that." On SoccerCity vs. SDSU West: We asked if he was still as supportive of SoccerCity as he was when he endorsed it. "I am," he said. Is there any shot at the two sides negotiating again? "There's a shot. You know this is politics, this is the art of the possible." More immediately: He also addressed the ongoing negotiation between the city and SDSU about where the university can play football. The lease is up this year and it seems like the university wants the city to extend the lease and keep operating the stadium. But the city loses about $7 million a year operating the stadium and there is pressure to shut it down. Faulconer insisted he was only going to make a deal for the short term. "But for the short term, 'How do we have something that makes sense puts the city in a financially better position?' and I'm confident we can get there." About the Convention Center and hotel-tax hike: The mayor says this is the most important issue before voters this year. We talked to him about how much the measure has changed and asked why it got so much more flexible. He acknowledged that the reason that the hotel tax hike was going forward as a ballot initiative was to perhaps take advantage of the recent California Supreme Court ruling that seemed to indicate citizens initiatives do not require the same two-thirds threshold for approval of new special taxes that normal ballot measures do. And that hotel behind the Convention Center?  The partnership that controls the land called Fifth Avenue Landing on the bay side of the Convention Center is planning a hotel. If it is approved, then the long-planned design of the expanded Convention Center can't be built. We asked the mayor how that would be settled. "That's a subject of a lawsuit. I would just phrase it this way: resolving lawsuits are always of benefit."

When Mayor Kevin Faulconer gave his State of the City speech last week, he acknowledged some hard truths. On homelessness, he confessed he and past leaders let the problem fester far too long. "We pursued universal consensus while homelessness continued to rise," he said. "We tried to please everyone at the risk of helping no one. Those days are over." In this week's podcast, Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts analyze the mayor's State of the City speech. Faulconer recognized his own role in the type of not-in-my-backyard politics that makes it hard to get things done, saying everyone wants to housing and services for homeless people, but no one wants those things in their own neighborhoods. And the mayor drew a line in the sand in support of the city's ongoing effort to clear the streets of homeless encampments, saying the city would "no longer tolerate the use of a sidewalk, a riverbed or a tarp as a home." Also interesting was what the mayor didn't say. Faulconer barely brought up the search for a new police chief or the future of the former Chargers stadium site. Lewis and Keatts also sat down with the mayor Friday for an in-depth interview that will appear in the Voice of San Diego Podcast feed soon. Stay tuned. Bryan Pease is best known for his animal rights activism. An environmental attorney, he's been in the national spotlight for his work to protect seals at the La Jolla Children’s Pool. More recently, he made headlines as one of a group of protestors arrested in Barrio Logan when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump came to town. In the second half of the show, Lewis and Keatts talk to Pease about his City Council run to represent District 2. The attorney has run for political office before, but those failed campaigns were short and less serious. This time, he says he's for real. He said he supports rent control, a revamped Section 8 housing voucher program, better tenant protection, banning whole-home vacation rentals and increasing both the amount of affordable housing developers are required to include when they build a new project. "There's also obviously a huge homelessness and housing crisis in San Diego and San Diego City Council has been really dragging its heels on implementing some very basic tenant protections and policies that other, similarly situated cities have," he said. Pease also thinks it's time to talk to marine biologists and other experts about the best way to handle SeaWorld's captive orcas. "I'm in favor of whatever is best for the orcas," he said. Hero of the Week The hero this week is David Hilton, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientist and researcher who died from cancer earlier this month. Hilton was a renowned geochemist. Goat of the Week The Union-Tribune's Greg Moran this week revealed that the San Diego County Sheriff's Department spent nearly $900,000 to provide security while President Donal Trump's border wall prototypes were built in Otay Mesa. The federal government is the goat this week for forcing the Sheriff's Department to spend so much money protecting eight slabs of concrete.

Congressman Darrell Issa’s sudden announcement Wednesday that he would not be seeking reelection was a doozy. It sent Republicans scrambling to propose possible stronger GOP candidates for the 49th District, largely viewed as the most vulnerable Republican seat in the country. In this week's Voice of San Diego Podcast, hosts Scott Lewis and Ry Rivard talk about Issa's big news, and what might come next for the congressman. As it turns out, Issa might not be ready to be put out to pasture quite yet. The Hill reported that the congressman has been mulling the possibility of running in the neighboring 50th District, which includes Alpine, Ramona, Valley Center and other cities in northeast San Diego County. Much of the area was part of his district in the past. The 50th is currently represented by embattled Rep. Duncan Hunter, who's under federal investigation for questionable campaign expenses. "So there's a seeming plan, or possibility of a plan, that Hunter is going to implode and Issa, who was about to implode, is going to come into the implosion and, I don't know, save the day?" Rivard ponders. Rivard and Lewis also discuss the details of the new push to expand the Convention Center and the startling things District 2 City Council candidate Jennifer Campbell said about homeless people. Fletcher's Meandering Political Path Nathan Fletcher is running for County Supervisor. In the second half of the podcast, Lewis and Rivard talk to the former two-term California State assemblyman about his two failed mayoral bids, and how he left politics after that only to return again. Fletcher said he wanted to become a businessman, but when he tried, he would wake up thinking about needle-exchange programs and mental health services for veterans. He said getting back into politics felt like something he had to do. Fletcher also talks about his stance on policy issues like pensions, unions and more. And Rivard and Lewis can't help but revisit Fletcher's infamous switch from Republican to Democrat, and the flack he continues to get for it. Fletcher said there are very few vestiges of conservatism left in him. "I was scarred by my time in the legislature in the sense of having to deal with $42 billion dollar budget deficits," he said. "I'm always going to be fiscally responsible and want to have prudent reserves and those types of things. But I don't think there's anything in the Democratic Party that's out of line with that with that type of change." Hero of the Week Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher is the hero this week. After Voice of San Diego contributor Kelly Davis revealed the San Diego Police Department's practice of taking DNA samples from minors without convictions, Gonzalez Fletcher sponsored legislation to ban the practice. Goat of the Week Councilwoman Myrtle Cole is the goat. She was one of five local elected officials who appeared at an event with local labor leader Mickey Kasparian, 10 months after he was accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault and gender discrimination. Cole said she was not aware of the allegations against Kasparian when she attended the meeting, even though the allegations have been covered heavily in the news and discussed intensely by local Democrats.

A cannabis-driven cultural shift is upon us, folks, and in this week's podcast, hosts Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts sort out its significance. The two talk about taxes on pot, the City Council's regulation and permitting of the budding industry so far and ponder what California's new law means for medical marijuana, the black market and delivery services. And yes, Lewis and Scott also discuss the big pot memo. Weed people panicked this week when Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the “Cole Memo,” an Obama-era rule that instructed U.S. attorneys to mostly be cool to the states that have legalized marijuana despite it still being illegal under federal law. It isn't yet clear how Sessions' nixing of the memo will play out. Whether U.S. Attorneys will crack down on dispensaries in San Diego and other California cities that have implemented legal marijuana is still a big question. It's also in the realm of possibility that Congress could take up the issue. And then there's the potential financial effects. "I think the most immediate impact might be on the investment world that's still dabbling, and still a little worried about federal law," Lewis said.  Campaign Interview Kickoff The 2018 ballot in San Diego is taking shape. Along with the list of confirmed and  potential local ballot measures, a handful of seats are up for grabs. We'll do our best to interview many of the regional candidates in the Voice of San Diego Podcast this year. Up first is Jordan Beane. The 33-year-old is running for the City Council, trying to unseat Councilwoman Lorie Zapf and represent District 2, which includes Ocean Beach, Bay Ho, Pacific Beach and other coastal communities. Beane spent nearly five years working for the Chargers when the team split. His pivot to politics was something that had been in the back of his mind for awhile. Beane said one of his key areas of focus is the housing crisis, and what a sitting Council member can do to help solve it. He said allowing faster and easier permitting to increase the housing supply and incentivizing housing diversity is an important step. And in District 2, a coastal region known for its hardcore NIMBYism and dislike of density, he said "gentle density," or building infill development on empty lots or possibly building two townhouses where there used to be one single-family home, could make increasing density more digestible. And in terms of the city's homelessness issue, Beane said he'd want to change the city's strategy of ticketing people who are homeless and using police force to keep them from congregating on downtown streets and sidewalks. "You are not going to solve this issue with sort of leaf-blower lower justice by moving these folks around to different areas of the city and hoping that the problem goes away," he said. "We just need the will to do it – to build permanent housing." Hero of the Week This week's hero is Martin S. Lindsey, an illustrator and designer who's working to document San Diego and Tijuana's most interesting culinary history. Goat of the Week Councilman Scott Sherman gets the goat. Sherman didn't like losing his chairmanship of the City Council’s land use committee. It was a political decision made by City Council President Myrtle Cole, and it's fine to be upset about that. But Sherman's proposal this week to start talks about changing the City Council president selection process to an annual rotating leadership selection process based on seniority is clearly motivated by his anger, not by what process is actually best.

We try – and fail – every year to convey to all our readers one basic truth about our annual Voice of the Year feature: It is not an award. We are not endorsing the views expressed by any of the people we include, nor are we declaring anyone a hero or a champion (though some of them inevitably reach the list by doing something heroic or award-worthy). We produce the list to chronicle who piped up and led important civic conversations throughout the year. Some people are in positions where leading major public discussions is their job; others are forced into it and would probably rather not have to (as was the case this year, when the family of a daughter who was brutally murdered years ago became a major voice in deciding the county’s next district attorney). For the podcast this week, we highlighted several of the people who appeared on our latest Voice of the Year list, including many who’ve appeared on the show over the last year or so. City Attorney Mara Elliott at one point came on the show and laid out her vision for a city attorney who no one notices much. Once elected, she was anything but, disrupting and shaping virtually every major policy debate in town. That’s why we named her the 2017 Voice of the Year. We’ve also pulled highlights from earlier shows featuring housing and refugee advocate Ramla Sahid, homelessness activist Mike McConnell and Loxie Gant, who went on the record this year to describe unwanted touching from a teacher at La Jolla High School, revealing the extent to which the school was aware of the problem but never told parents about it. It was also a big year nationally and locally for journalists to grapple with why we do what we do, and for the public to reassess its relationship with us. Scott Lewis was feeling pensive this week and wrote down some thoughts he had on the question, and shared them at the top of the show.