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There’s a personal story behind every business. Some succeed. Some fail. Many do both. I Made it In San Diego will introduce listeners to the stories behind the city’s small and well-known businesses, and the people who made them what they are...

San Diego learned this week about the incredible power of the mayor. At a City Council meeting Monday, the mayor's proposed budget included $5 million for a special election in November. Voters would potentially weigh in on two big land-use issues – the expansion of the Convention Center and the future of the Qualcomm Stadium site. Although the City Council stripped the special election funding from the budget, the city attorney's office explained that Mayor Kevin Faulconer can veto specific changes and add in what he wants. And to override the mayor's changes, City Council need a supermajority of six votes, not just a simple majority. On this week’s podcast, hosts Andrew Keatts and Sara Libby explain what this means for the proposed special election and San Diego politics as a whole. In the second half of the show, Michael McConnell, a local homelessness advocate, joins the podcast to talk about a new poll he commissioned that found voters are far more likely to approve a hotel tax hike focused on solving homelessness than Faulconer’s plan. Even though there are still discussions about the different ways homelessness can be handled, McConnell says data has already found the best solution — permanent housing — and now the city just needs to fund it. “The debate’s over, and I think we could really come together and agree that we need to get people in permanent housing,” he says. “We just need to have a real will to do it.” Andrea Guerrero, executive director of Alliance San Diego, also stopped by the podcast to talk about how Measure L  – which voters approved last year, sending most citizen's initiatives and referendums to November general elections – is currently taking center stage in the special election debate. “We should be making these big decisions … when the most people are participating, not when a small fraction of the voters are participating,” she said. Hero of the Week Voice of San Diego's very own Maya Srikrishnan, who will be playing violin in Mainly Mozart’s “San Diego Makes Music” community collaboration concert Sunday at Balboa Park, is the hero this week. Goat of the Week The folks who got involved in the all-out brawl at the Observatory North Park during a concert are not cool.

Host Kinsee Morlan explains the silence, plays a trailer for Voice of San Diego's new "I Made it in San Diego" podcast and runs an episode from the podcast in which she's interviewed by San Diego writer and photographer .

Host Kinsee Morlan explains the silence, plays a trailer for Voice of San Diego's new "I Made it in San Diego" podcast and runs an episode from the Keep the Channel Open podcast in which she's interviewed by San Diego writer and photographer Mike Sakasegawa.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer wants to hold a special election in November, but this week opposition to the idea came out in force. The special election ballot would likely include the mayor's proposal to hike the hotel tax to pay for a Convention Center expansion and increased homeless services and road repairs, plus the SoccerCity proposal to redevelop Qualcomm Stadium. One this week's podcast, hosts Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts talked about the seemingly insurmountable challenges standing in the way of the two proposals. Just over the past few days, City Council members Chris Ward, Barbara Bry and David Alvarez all explained why they don't think either proposal meets the requirements for holding an expensive special election this year. (Councilman Scott Sherman, meanwhile, affirmed his support for a special election.) Measure L, which voters overwhelmingly passed in November, set a high bar for calling a special election, essentially saying city leaders shouldn't ever put a measure on the ballot outside of a general election unless there's an extraordinary exception. More people show up to vote during general elections, so opponents of a special election say the mayor's pitch goes against the will of San Diego voters. "It's fascinating watching this happening right in front of our eyes," Lewis said of Measure L's impact. "This is literally the tip of the spear right now." An Engaged Citizen Runs for Office Omar Passons is a local attorney who, for years, has been engaged as an activist and thought leader who often publicly voices his opinions on some of the region's biggest political issues. He joined the podcast this week to talk about his transition to political candidate — he's running for a seat on the County Board of Supervisors. Passons detailed his decision to run as a Democrat, his personal background and said he's championing "universal access to high-quality child care and preschool for every child in San Diego County." Passons also said the county could be doing more to tackle the region's housing crisis. He said county supervisors should be more actively involved in building subsidized, affordable homes. "That's an example of something where, if we are going to address homelessness in a meaningful way, part of what we need to do is to is to actually spend the money as an entity on building some of those modest homes," he said. Also on the podcast, Lewis and Keatts bemoan the lack of politicians willing to boldly champion the legal marijuana movement, they give an update on Lincoln High School's search for a principal and Keatts shares details about a poll he took that's floating the idea of a 2 percent hotel tax increase that would only fund housing and homeless services. Hero of the Week The San Diege city attorney's office gets the accolades this week for scoring a a $6 million state grant to fund its innovative Community Justice Initiative, a program that allows chronic, non-violent criminals with drug problems to avoid incarceration. Goat of the Week The Union-Tribne found that Mayor Kevin Faulconer and his aides met with SoccerCity investors 25 times between last January 2016 and this February. It's fine to meet with investors proposing a huge land-use deal for publicly owned land, but the mayor gets the goat for being so tight-lipped about i

Past attempts to expand the San Diego Convention Center have failed over the years – so what's stopping the mayor's newest expansion endeavor from flopping? Bob Nelson, a longtime public relations maven and former Port of San Diego commissioner, joined hosts Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts on the podcast this week to offer his insights on the storied Convention Center expansion saga. As a Port commissioner for six years, he has an insider's view of waterfront development deals since the Port is essentially the landlord and custodian of the region's tidelands. Nelson said Mayor Kevin Faulconer's proposal to hike the hotel tax to fund the expansion will be a hard sell, but  he thinks it has a solid chance, even with early opposition and other hurdles in its way. "I think it has a reasonable prospect of winning," he said. Nelson said there are a couple ways the mayor can get around one of the biggest obstacles – the fact that the land needed for the expansion is currently leased by someone else. "I think it's going to get down to whether or not they can make a deal with the mayor to somehow either join their interests ... or find a way to buy their lease out," he said. Nelson also talked about the relationship between the Port and city leaders, why he took on the Port commissioner role and why he's leaving now. Mara Elliott's Powerful Opinions When a new city attorney is elected, the political tides can change dramatically. Lewis and Keatts pointed out how City Attorney Mara Elliott has swiftly demonstrated the incredible power of her office to flip and form debates about local public affairs. In March, for example, Elliott wrote a memo declaring short-term vacation rentals illegal under city code. She recently told Lewis that she thought the memo would shake things up and spur enforcement. But it didn't. "It landed on deaf ears," she told Lewis. This week, Elliott issued another memo, this one throwing shade on SoccerCity, the private proposal to redevelop the Qualcomm Stadium site into an urban development with a professional soccer stadium. The memo pointed out there's no guarantee the developers would be required to build a public river park, something that's been one of the initiative's big selling points. Hero of the Week A group of parents at Gage Elementary who are pushing the district to be more transparent and responsive get the accolades this week. Goat of the Week Rep. Duncan Hunter gets a big fat goat this week for his response to a question about the assault of a reporter by a congressional candidate in Montana. When asked if it was appropriate to assault a reporter, Hunter told the Associated Press, “It’s not appropriate behavior. Unless the reporter deserved it."

Meetings of government agencies can be intimidating and unwelcoming, especially for a place like San Diego where people wear flip-flops without shame. So says Serge Dedina, the laid-back mayor of Imperial Beach. Dedina joined the podcast this week to talk to hosts Scott Lewis and Sara Libby about the importance of political "broing out." He said politicians could learn a thing or two from the casual community conversations that happen among surfers and other folks at the beach. He said he's been working on making Imperial Beach's city meetings more inviting and welcoming so he can get more of his working-class constituents to feel comfortable getting involved. He also sits on the SANDAG board, and said the regional transportation agency should do more to make its meetings feel more welcoming. "We need to bring some of that down-home San Diego bro-out culture back to our institutions so people feel like they have ownership," Dedina said. Dedina also talked about the poverty that plagues Imperial Beach, common misconceptions of the life on the border, his thoughts on the SANDAG reform bill and water quality, an issue that's especially important to the mayor. His other job is executive director of Wildcoast, an international nonprofit that works to conserve coastal and marine ecosystems and wildlife. Dedina stepped into the national spotlight recently after a huge raw sewage spill from Tijuana poured into the ocean and stunk up Imperial Beach and other coastal communities. Trash and sewage from Tijuana has long been a problem, but Dedina said this time the spill could have been as much as 250 million gallons of raw sewage, so large and stinky that there's finally a serious bipartisan coalition working to come up with solutions. "It's just just magnified the horribleness of what we'd experience before," Dedina said. "It was really, really abysmal." The new coalition is pushing to get Tijuana's aging sewage system upgraded, and to build infrastructure on the U.S. side of the border that could act as a backup and help mitigate the flow of sewage into the ocean. Also on the podcast, the shocking ease with which students cheat in online course recovery classes, the SoccerCity vs. San Diego State University statement showdown, "Papa" Doug Manchester's possible new role as "Papa Bahamas" and more. Hero of the Week Parents and students at Lincoln High are the heroes this week for organizing and speaking out against the prolonged search for a new principal. Goat of the Week Gompers Preparatory Academy gets the goat. inewsource took a deep look at alleged grade inflation at the lauded charter school.

There's dissension among the ranks of local labor groups. This week, national AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka announced he placing the San Diego Imperial-Counties Labor Council in a receivership, ousting its leader Mickey Kasparian. In turn, Kasparian announced that several local unions, including two of the largest, were leaving the Labor Council to form a new coalition called the San Diego Working Families Council. The news comes months after allegations of sexual harassment surfaced against Kasparian. Brigette Browning, president of the local chapter of Unite Here, a labor union that represents 6,000 workers in San Diego's hotel and hospitality industries, joined podcast hosts Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts this week to shed light on some of the issues behind the turmoil plaguing local labor. Browning explained why her union left the Labor Council in 2014. "I felt that the culture at the Labor Council had really changed, that you were no longer entitled to your own opinion and there was no real collaboration," Browning said. "And if you were prepared to accept directives, I felt like you were really treated in an unfair way, especially me as a woman. I felt like I was treated in a much different way than other people who took similar positions to me." Browning said her union is now ready to rejoin the Labor Council. Browning said she didn't think the new San Diego Working Families Council will hold much power, that the City Council should exert more oversight over Civic San Diego and she talked about Mayor Kevin Faulconer's proposed ballot measure to hike the hotel tax to pay for a Convention Center expansion, homeless services and road repairs. Browning said she favors a private project already planned for the plot of land where the Convention Center would be expanded over the mayor's plan. "I think the Fifth Avenue Landing project is a better project," she said. "I believe in keeping the park as open space is really important because I know that many of my members enjoy that park. I thought it was never really forward-thinking the way they developed the Convention Center expansion. I've thought for a long time it really should come over Harbor Drive rather than going back towards the water. The mayor hasn't even spoken to us, and we're the biggest union at the Convention Center. We represent 500 members there. I don't think he really intends to form a real coalition. I don't think he cares if it really passes." Also on the podcast, Keatts talked about emails that showed that bike commuting targets codified in the city's Climate Action Plan were totally arbitrary and unrealistic, and Lewis discussed the newsVOSD's Lisa Halverstadt broke about the departure of the city's homelessness czar. Hero of the Week The team of architects and developers behind Quartyard, a pop-up park on a formerly vacant, city-owned lot in East Village, get the nod this week for announcing that they'll relocate the park to another empty, city-owned lot nearby. The project was always envisioned as temporary and mobile, so it's nice that the project is moving forward as planned. Goat of the Week The San Diego Unified School District gets the goat, yet again. This time, it's for some news uncovered by VOSD's Ashly McGlone, who found that the early retirements San Diego Unified offered to teachers to save some cash in the short term will end up costing the district $635,000 over the long haul.

There's a big debate over who should buy electricity for San Diego. No other political decision on the city's horizon, in fact, will more dramatically alter public affairs than this one. San Diego Gas & Electric currently buys and supplies power for huge swaths of Southern California. But the power company's monopoly could be broken up if San Diego and other California cities decide to start buying power for their residents through a government-run agency known as a community choice aggregator, or CCA. In this week's podcast, hosts Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts explain why the conversation about electricity contracts is so important. The biggest component of San Diego's ambitious Climate Action Plan is getting all electricity from renewable resources by 2035. SDG&E currently relies heavily on burning natural gas. If the city does step up to take the lead on buying power, though, it's not as simple as just flipping a switch. There are some big issues to work through. One of those dilemmas, as Voice of San Diego's Ry Rivard explained this week, is the fact that California allows companies like SDG&E to keep making people pay for power even after they no longer use it. Another Hat in the Ring for Interim DA District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis is resigning in July to consider entering the 2018 race for the County Board of Supervisors. Dumanis has tapped Chief Deputy District Attorney Summer Stephan as her preferred interim replacement. But the Board of Supervisors has the ultimate say, so now former San Diego prosecutor Adam Gordon has thrown his hat in the ring for the interim DA gig. Keatts talks to Gordon about his reasons for wanting the job. Gordan said his main goal is to level the playing field when it comes to the 2018 election, which will determine the full-term district attorney. Gordon said if he's named the interim DA, he won't run next year because he thinks anyone who fills the role will have a huge unfair advantage. "To me, the moral principle behind this is having the voters be the people who decide," he said. "Because the incumbency is so strong." And special this week in the VOSD podcast feed is an in-depth interview with Summer Stephan. Also on the podcast, Lewis and Keatts parse the mass shooting in San Diego Sunday night and question why the San Diego Police Department was so quick to dismiss race as a motive, Keatts talks about the pending arrival of his baby boy and Lewis discusses why he makes his daughter, who's never known anything but the joys of on-demand television, suffer through watching commercials. Hero of the Week When Leeanne Ericson wasbitten by a shark while swimming at San Onofre beach, her boyfriend and others acted as quickly as possible to save her. The Union-Tribune detailed the whole harrowing ordeal and made it clear that their actions are a big part of why the 35-year-old mother is alive. Ericson and those who rescued her are legit heroes. Goat of the Week Freedom of the press is important, which is why San Diego attorney Cory Briggs gets the goat this week. Briggs sued inewsource, claiming the local nonprofit news organization has conflicts of interest stemming from its lease agreement with San Diego State University and its public media partner, KPBS. An appellate court ruled this week in favor of inewsource. A lower court has already ruled in favor of inewsource and SDSU, which argued that the lawsuit was an attempt at retribution for inewsource's investigative stories on Briggs.

An interview with Summer Stephan, the leading candidate to replace District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.