Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts talk about Tuesday's big election and speak with David Loy, from the ACLU, which has questions for police about how far they pushed protestors away after the demonstrations against Donald Trump.

Today, Tribune Publishing announced it would stake its future on artificial intelligence and a new name. In a special quick podcast, Scott Lewis called up futurist Amy Webb to talk "tronc."

Has the historically conservative San Diego Union-Tribune editorial page shifted to the left? Mathew T. Hall, the new editorial and opinion director at the San Diego Union-Tribune, joined the podcast this week to talk about some of the paper's recent surprising political endorsements. But Hall wasn't ready to let co-hosts Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts paint the U-T's changing editorial page in such black and white terms. "That's just not how we view things," he said. "Right, left, liberal, conservative – those are titles and labels that others use and clearly use a lot, but that's not how we view things and that's not how we're going to be making our decisions." San Diego lawyer Cory Briggs also makes an appearance on the show. Briggs, who's part of the coalition backing the Citizens' Plan, breaks down the initiative that in part rethinks the city’s hotel-room tax system, prevents a waterfront expansion of the Convention Center and paves the way for a new stadium. "One mistake people make is thinking the Citizens' Plan guarantees a stadium," he said. "The only thing the Citizens' Plan did to assist the Chargers is to authorize the use downtown next to Petco Park." Briggs also shares his thoughts on local media, provides insight into the North Park Jack in the Box case and more. Also on the podcast, Lewis and Keatts talk about mayoral candidate Ed Harris' about-face when it comes to building housing near transit. Hero of the Week The San Diego Unified Board of Trustees, which voted to change the name of the Robert E. Lee Elementary, gets credit for finally getting rid of the offensive name. Goat of the Week San Diego Unified School District also gets dinged this week for missing its local hiring goals when it comes to bond-funded construction. District officials adopted a project labor agreement for its bond program and made big promises to hire local workers. There's been some shortcomings.

In this episode, we tried for a debate between candidates for the obscure but important board and got this instead. ◆◆◆ This week, we're running the latest episode of Good Schools For All—Voice of San Diego's education podcast—in place of VOSD Radio. Good Schools For All is one of four shows currently offered offered by the Voice of San Diego Podcast Network. Our podcasts cover news and politics, education, arts and culture and more. To learn more about the Voice of San Diego Podcast network, click here. To subscribe to Good Schools for All on iTunes click here. Get the RSS feed here.

Both Ray Ellis and Barbara Bry took different routes to the same place: They both oppose public money for a new stadium to host the city’s restless professional football team. Ellis and Bry are in a brutal contest in San Diego’s District 1 City Council race. Ellis and his allies say Bry’s support of the so-called Citizens’ Plan leaves her open to criticism that she supports a tax hike and a plan that helps clear the way for a downtown stadium. Bry called Ellis a liar. This week on the podcast, we lay it out. Neither one of them has the upper hand in the race to prove who is more committed to not subsidizing the stadium. Also, this seems to be a bad sign for public support for the Chargers plan. I also interviewed Malin Burnham, the civic leader and philanthropist who, at 88 (!), has written a book — a memoir of sorts. We talk about leadership. Burnham has also given up on his long fight to move the San Diego International Airport. He does have a new idea, though, he’ll lay out to anyone who’s interested: Develop a new international airport that is complementary to what we already have. Where would that be? Why, Camp Pendleton. Check out his reasoning.

Businessman Peter Farrell says a lot of interesting things: Of course carbon is a greenhouse gas but we’re not emitting enough of it to change the climate. The climate is just changing but not that much. If sea levels are rising, maybe insurance companies should stop providing policies to people in Miami Beach. Australia, he says, does health care better than the disaster that is this country’s Affordable Care Act. And maybe wealthy people like him should not collect Social Security. Farrell is a colorful, smart and very conservative scientist and businessman, and he sat down with me for an interview that sometimes seemed more like an argument that I enjoyed. Farrell founded the San Diego-based company ResMed, which manufactures the apparatuses that have helped millions with sleep disorders and sleep apnea. He told me why he’s so passionate about free trade and why he preferred to make his product in Singapore rather than in this country. And he also explained how hard it was to turn ResMed over to his son, who is the current CEO. You’ll also want to hear what happened when he confronted Mayor Kevin Faulconer about his Climate Action Plan. Faulconer listened politely but Farrell says Faulconer’s wife agreed with him that the mayor’s plan to cut carbon emissions was a futile effort. “There’s no impact at all of CO2 on the climate, end of story,” Farrell recounts Faulconer’s wife, Katherine, as telling her husband. I asked the mayor’s office if they wanted to challenge Farrell’s memory of the exchange and did not get a response. Farrell is one of San Diego’s globetrotting business leaders — the kind of tycoon whose views on politics, climate change and “political correctness” can influence presidential candidates. You might find his statements offensive or inspiring but here they are for you to consider.

Matt Strabone often starts his day with some version of this tweet: The local attorney joins this week’s podcast to explain why he’s so adamant about the need for strong regulations when it comes to campaign financing. “Spending money is conduct, it’s not speech,” he said. “I think most people, maybe even the staunchest libertarians to some extent, would agree that disclosing campaign contributions is good for our democracy.” Lewis and Keatts also have an update on the magical-sounding money robot that U-T owner Tribune Publishing recently announced. The company has been touting a new digital strategy that will turn content into cash, and Poynter has the details. Also on the podcast, Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s recent short-lived presidential prediction, why the candidates for city attorney LOL’d when they saw Keatts pull up to a recent debate and why at least one guy doesn’t want you to call the Chargers’ convadium a convention center expansion. Hero of the Week The city of San Diego, Westfield and Civic San Diego get the honor for finally (four years late) finishing up the new Horton Plaza Park. The historic fountain looks especially nice and it’s all better late than never, especially when it comes to public space. Goat of the Week Mayor Kevin Faulconer had a link to his re-election Facebook page from the city’s website. You can’t do that. That’s a goat move. Subscribe to the VOSD Podcast on iTunes or get the RSS feed here. Stream it here.

Folks from all walks of political life have aligned against a

potential November ballot measure that would hike the sales tax by half a cent to pay for

freeway expansions, transportation projects and more.

The San Diego Association of Governments, the regional planning

group made up of representatives from 18 cities and the county

government, decided Friday to ask voters to approve the half-cent

sales increase. If passed, it would raise about $18 million

for a cornucopia of transportation and land needs.

There are a lot of people who don’t like SANDAG’s plan, so hosts

Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts talked to three of

them.

Kristin Gaspar, the mayor of Encinitas and a candidate for the

District 3 county supervisor seat, said she’s opposed to the

measure, in part, because of the way SANDAG is couching it as a

slick sales pitch to cities and voters.

“SANDAG has basically taken all of the buzz words that poll high

with voters and they’ve shoved them into this draft ballot

statement,” she said.

Nicole Capretz, executive director of environmental advocacy

group Climate Action Campaign, called it a “regressive sales tax to

fund a transportation future that unfortunately is mostly focused

on freeway and highway expansion.”

And Brian Brady, director of Stop Taxing Us, said any attempt at

new taxation should be opposed, this one in particular because of

how much money SANDAG wants to put in its coffers.

Also on the podcast, Lewis and Keatts talk about USA Today owner

Gannett’s offer to buy Tribune Publishing, the

owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.

They brought on one of the foremost analysts of the newspaper

industry, columnist Ken Doctor, to help them parse through the news

and understand the recent uptick in newspaper consolidation.

Hero of the Week

Shades Oceanfront Bistro has been a mainstay in Ocean Beach for

13 years. The owner recently announced that the restaurant would be

closing this fall.

Goat of the Week

The city of San Diego has a 30 percent vacancy rate based

on budget and staffing in its 911 dispatch service. The staff

shortage likely played a part in the long 911 wait times experienced by the parents

of a newborn baby fatally injured by their family dog.

Subscribe to the VOSD Podcast on iTunes or

get the RSS feed

here. Stream it here.

We did something different this week.

Wednesday was April 20, a day that's grown into an annual holiday for cannabis counterculture. So for the show this week we set up a live podcast – or potcast – delving into all the policy details of marijuana legalization.

Yes, you could say we got into the weeds of the issue.

Our panel of pot experts included Kimberly Simms, a lawyer on the front lines of medical marijuana, Alex Kreit from Thomas Jefferson School of Law and Amanda Chicago Lewis, the national marijuana reporter for BuzzFeed News.

If you missed the event, though, sadly you will not get the chance to hear the whole thing because, well, something went wrong with the recording and it isn't suitable for full release. (If you want a copy of the file despite its poor quality, email us and we'll send it to you).

Hosts Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts made the best of things by rounding up some of the highlights from the live event. They helped fill in the blanks and tried to clear up some of the haziness surrounding new laws regarding both medical and recreational marijuana in California.

Last fall, state lawmakers passed the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act, or MMRSA, which will change the way medical marijuana is regulated in the state once it's implemented over the next few years. One of the major differences under MMRSA will be the shift from the nonprofit, collective model that now exists, making medical marijuana more of a straightforward for-profit industry.

There's also a measure that will likely be on the November ballot that looks to legalize recreational marijuana in California. Even it it's passed, local municipalities will still be able to ban both medical and recreational marijuana and, of course, the federal government still classifies marijuana as an illegal drug.

As both medical and recreational, or "adult-use"– the preferred nomenclature these days – marijuana is slowly but steadily mainstreamed and commercialized, there are social justice concerns to consider. Amanda Chicago Lewis, following up on an article she wrote, discussed how communities of color have been disproportionately punished for marijuana, and now they're not the ones benefiting from its legalization.

"The law enforcement lobby has a very big influence over how cannabis is being legalized in every single state," she said. "They're very nervous. ... about turning this drug into something legal and what could potentially happen and especially about people who were willing to commit crimes suddenly becoming zillionaires, but these laws really don't make sense."

She said not allowing people who have drug felonies on their records to participate in the legalized marijuana industry is essentially discriminatory against mostly black people who've been punished more than white people under current drug laws.

Lewis and Keatts also talked about the possibly of de-scheduling pot, the issues that come with the federal government's lack of leadership and the country's accelerating acceptance of the drug.

At the live event, Simms summed up that shift nicely. She said its time for government officials to reflect the current zeitgeist when it comes to pot.

"We're all responsible for making sure that our elected officials know how we feel about this issue and that cannabis users are your neighbors or your attorneys or your CPAs or your kid's soccer coach," she said. "We are everywhere and we should not be marginalized anymore and it's time to regulate it and figure it out and come out of a cannabis closet."

Also on the podcast, Lewis and Keatts are outraged by 98 botched cases at the city attorney's office uncovered by the U-T and they dish on the new convadium renderings released by the Chargers.

For the last eight years, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith has been adamant that he does not make his decisions politically.

He even chastised Voice of San Diego for seeing things through “a prism, and it’s political.”

He has rarely talked about his own personal political outlook. “I didn’t like George W. Bush. I really like Mitt Romney. I used to like [New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie,” he told CityBeat in 2014.

Last week, though, he unleashed his inner political fire. He was warming up the crowd for presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who would be following him on stage at the Town and Country Resort.

“We believe in jobs, freedom and security. You know something? The Democrats don’t believe in these values,” Goldsmith said. The onetime libertarian endorsed tough border security and said the country was headed toward a cliff if it didn’t elect Cruz.

That they don’t believe in freedom or security might be a surprise to the Democrats Goldsmith works with on the City Council. And he should probably fire the Democrats who work for him if they, you know, don’t believe in security. After all, a big part of the city attorney’s job is law enforcement.

We sampled some of the best hits of Goldsmith’s fiery speech for this week’s podcast. We also interviewed Mary Walshok, the associate vice chancellor for public programs and dean of extension at UC San Diego.

The topic? Leadership.

This week seems to have a lot of people in San Diego asking where the leadership is as San Diego wrestles with giant decisions and punts many of them to the ballot.

Walshok, who wrote the book “Invention and Reinvention: The Evolution of San Diego’s Innovation Economy,” said we have always been like this but the region has been fortunate to make big, forward-thinking land-use decisions at the right time.

She broke the news that her team at UC San Diego and the Downtown Partnership will be releasing a major report on downtown’s place as the future of innovation in San Diego.

She said San Diego has saved itself often by making strategic decisions about how to develop big parcels of public land and creating “propinquity” — areas of the city where people with similar ambitions and visions can work together and build new industries.

“When we talk about downtown right now, it has that promise. I’m not one to judge does expanding a ballpark or convention center intrude on that promise but I would hope that any plans to expand those larger lower-wage facilities would not prevent us from growing an innovation economy in the various neighborhoods contiguous to downtown,” she said.