still no arts funding

An April 10th blog from a local architecture firm features a Q&A with Mayor Todd Gloria, where he said the following:

I think this is a renaissance period for art and culture and sport in San Diego. We have built a new football stadium, Snapdragon Stadium in Mission Valley. We’ve opened [or revitalized] The Conrad, The Joan, The Shell, Jacobs Music Center, Mingei, a new contemporary art museum in La Jolla. All this was done in the last five years, which is extraordinary and really representative of what I think our city’s capable of doing when empowered by its philanthropic and public-side partners.1

Mere days after this interview was posted, he introduced his FY27 proposed budget. If you haven’t been living under a rock in San Diego, you may have heard something about the proposed arts funding cuts—maybe you even read my little essay about it.

read part one

Then, after a full week of budget review committee hearings, most of which he declined to attend2, he released the May revise without restoring any arts and culture funding. Not a penny! He even said this when asked why restoration of those funds wasn’t on the table:

ABC 10News reporter Gabe Salazar asked Gloria if there was any chance funding could be restored.

“No, and that’s regrettable. Arts are very important. I have a very long and positive history with our arts community. It pains me greatly to recommend this reduction. But in this environment, where we’re trying to close a nine-digit budget deficit, we have to be very specific and focus on the priorities of San Diegans – and that’s keeping people safe, repairing our roads, housing our homeless, and building more homes that people can afford,“ Gloria said.

So many of us have written about the economic impacts of arts and culture and the moral implications of cutting this funding. There is one point I haven’t yet seen made that I think is worth making:

Think about cities with roughly similar populations that we like to compare ourselves to3: Philadelphia, Seattle, Denver, Dallas, Jacksonville, Columbus. Every one of those cities dedicates funding for arts and culture, and every one of them is facing the same economic headwinds and deficits faced by San Diego. Many are reducing allocations; some have restricted funding streams guaranteeing the funding—none of those are cutting every cent from their grant programs. Cutting the entire grant program is a choice to fetter the soul of the city until the miracle of “enough” funding is realized.

budget specifics

Budget questions still unanswered that likely (hopefully?) have a great explanation4:

• Why does the City do consumer protection? Why not the state?

• A 25% increase in workers’ compensation for FY27 is really high. What are we doing to city employees?

• What is the plan to lower the payouts from police misconduct? How do you project expenses for future liabilities caused by purportedly well-trained City employees maiming folks?

I have really tried to identify additional savings in this budget, but I bailed out of the business school with merely a minor in accounting and am way out of my depth. However, broadly speaking, here are where I would be okay seeing cuts:

• No outside consulting contracts. No consulting engagements! The Chief of Police says he needs a marketing firm in order to recruit better; the golf courses need a consultant to develop a business operations plan; stormwater needs consultant support for levee operations and engineering studies. But, the City employs some well-paid experts as full time staff in departments like Communications, Performance and Analytics, and Engineering & Capital Projects. This seems like an opportunity to find some cost savings.

• The City started hassling even more homeless people through a much-touted deal with Caltrans, where the City is able to access the highway and freeway encampments typically managed by the state. A pretty damning report demonstrates the inefficiency of these sweeps, and they aren’t our responsibility anyway, so stop doing them. The budget proposes adding two FTE Code Compliance officers in Environmental Services and increasing overtime in the Police department, all in support of this Caltrans DMA that has not driven meaningful impacts, exceeds the amount that Caltrans will reimburse, and is not within the purview of the City anyway.

• You have a police officer recruiting crisis, so as many roles as can possibly be filled by civilians should be filled by civilians. Councilmember Von Wilpert said something to the opposite effect in a BRC hearing last week, and it was really disconcerting: “I don’t think a civilian can ever replace a police officer ever.” To be fair, that was in the context of front desk roles, but I’d imagine it’s easier to recruit for civilian service roles than officers, too, and they make so much less money.

• Lots of talk about the reining in of police overtime, which is great for many reasons, not least of which is that first responders should probably be well-rested. Rein it in more!

• According to this budget, parking tickets are a core service, public restrooms are not. I would be very curious to see the total cost of parking enforcement (salaries, and fleet maintenance, and court costs, and administrative costs) vs. the actual revenue earned from related fines and fees. I would especially like to see that ratio when it comes to newly-implemented Balboa Park parking rules.

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political bravery

I understand that, when you’re on the dais, saying something like “cutting public safety” or “consolidating infrastructure jobs” sounds like such a frightening political taboo as to guarantee the end of your career if you even consider verbalizing those options. But they are options, and choosing not to verbalize them limits our shared conception of what is possible.

Similarly—I am continually perturbed by City leadership’s willingness to refer to the 2024 sales tax failure as a mandate that the City “live within its means.” The sales tax, proposed in the midst of a contentious presidential election year, failed by a minuscule margin. It was a regressive measure presented to voters alongside economic uncertainty and a romantic vision of a 1,000 bed homeless shelter.

Finally—our City Council and Mayor face a difficult comparison on the east coast. Enter New York City: a municipality that entered 2026 with a budget deficit twice the size of the City of San Diego’s entire budget. Yes, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is getting a lot of well-deserved credit for cutting bloat and inefficiencies to fill ~$1.6 billion of that gap, but he also deserves credit for building a relationship with Albany and Governor Hochul. Most of the $12 billion gap was filled by increased revenue directed by New York State, and that would not have happened without his intentional efforts to that end all year. On our end, Governor Newsom reduced some homelessness funding allocations and was met with this tepid response from the Mayor. I understand that the states are drastically different, that NYC’s contribution to the state GDP is significantly higher than San Diego’s contribution to California’s GDP, that Mamdani’s fixes rely on some short-term fixes and one-time cash infusions. And yet, the comparison will persist.

I’ve seen Facebook comments from a lot of smug Republicans trying to say this is an impact of “one-party rule in California,” with the implication that we should instead vote for Republicans, famously in favor of both government spending and creative expression. I promise you—the pendulum is not swinging to the right on this one. It’s swinging left.5

It feels very much like we’re being told to throw up our hands and accept that the needs of the people do not actually drive the fiscal priorities of the community. It is a major bummer, and it feels like I’m shouting into the void. sos

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I am an employee of an arts institution in Balboa Park, San Diego; the views expressed here are my own as a museum worker, fundraiser, arts patron, and resident of District 9.

the reality of the arts in san diego

Picture this: you live in the United States, where arts and culture is understood not primarily as a public good, but as an economic engine growing at twice the rate of the overall economy. The President, a man who has explicitly promoted his ideological view of culture and artistic expression, has twice pursued the full elimination of the IMLS, NEA, and NEH. The trickle-down effects are massive—one of the two agencies in your state responsible for moving funds from those federal agencies into the bank accounts of actual artists and arts organizations, California Humanities, immediately loses over 90% of their funding.1 Institutional funding opportunities contract as the economy becomes more volatile; private philanthropy shifts on personal whims; intentions of likely patrons to travel to the United States diminish. Admission revenues never returned to 2019 levels, the cost of doing business continues to skyrocket, and the building you work in feels like it’s crumbling around you.

The City of San Diego, where you live and work, is once again facing the reality of a structural budget deficit for the upcoming fiscal year. For the last two years, in recognition of the budget realities, we’ve asked for funding to remain flat. Sure, you and your peer institutions were promised 10% of discretionary TOT funding for arts and culture in 2012, and that promise has never materialized, but you were slowly making progress.

The Mayor, the City, and the County of San Diego alike continue to tout the pursuit of public-private partnerships and private philanthropy. Arts and culture is the ultimate public-private partnership, and it already works, so surely we can expect some funding to remain in place. Right?

….

Right?

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The proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 in the City of San Diego, with a total budget over $6.4 billion and a projected deficit of $128 million, cuts funds for arts and culture by over $11.8 million. That amounts to an 85% cut to save 0.18% of the budget and close 9% of the budget gap.

Arts and culture organizations in Balboa Park are in double jeopardy—cuts to some of the most consistent, dependable annual funding we receive, combined with depressed earned revenue because of the implementation of paid parking in Balboa Park. Triple jeopardy—arts organizations with physical spaces, like in Balboa Park, are massively intertwined with a network of roving art groups, so every cent in lost funding is likely to impact multiple organizations. Film festivals, ballet companies, choirs, youth ensembles—so many nonprofits, receiving reliable city funding, being hosted at nonprofit arts venues who also received city funding. Non bis in idem, the culture workers scream.

So. We’re short money and something has to give. Hear me on this!

If a budget is a moral document, and the budget is legally required to be passed balanced, plus the adopted budget is never the actual budget, then increasing budgeted funding for things like police overtime2 is a short-sighted tactical misstep that is also structurally unnecessary.

And, you know what, just from a strategic decision-making perspective? The community of artists, cultural practitioners, and nonprofit workers affected by this proposal are, on balance, familiar with the prospect of dwindling funds and making ends meet— I genuinely believe that as much as a 35% cut would not have resulted in backlash with any sort of meaningful momentum.

“But it’s a deficit! The arts are a luxury, and jobs are on the line!”

There are people within the city limits who are currently employed and will not be come fiscal year 2027—that is a fact. Constant discourse around the explosion in hiring middle managers, pay raises, and pensions mean the city will reckon with layoffs somewhere. The outstanding question is from where they will be cut. I love municipal government; in fact, I love bureaucracy! I don’t want city workers to lose their jobs. But I really don’t want the emerging professionals, the arts educators, and the frontline fixtures of the institutions that make this city a great place to live to lose their jobs. That is the weight of the question on the table. Considering that the city will be paying off pension debt3 until it’s been underwater for one hundred years, there is a strong fiscal argument4 in support of cutting city staff, rather than the already underpaid nonprofit professionals who facilitate artistic inquiry and expression.

Some will go further and ask why the city should allocate any funding for art. It’s a fair question! People who care more about the economy than I do have well addressed the utility argument that the arts and culture sector is an economic engine, yielding positive externalities with a high enough return on investment that it is worth tossing some money towards it. This is true! But art also matters as an end in itself, and people deserve an explanation for why. Artists and the art-adjacent, myself included, have a tendency to state that art does all sorts of things, that any individual should just understand the intrinsic value of the arts. So!

Art is good because:

1. Art is the ultimate expression of freedom—to imagine and create requires it.5

2. The fact of art reifies existence. Emotional or ideological reactions aside—seeing it, hearing it, moving through it, proves that we exist.6

And, arts organizations matter because:

1. Great art needs more than talent—it always has. Artists need spaces in which to create, and places to perform; artists are kids who become creative adults because of their youth theater, ballet, and orchestra, or see a museum for the first time on a field trip; artists need confidence, and a place to stay

2. Being surrounded by arts organizations enriches the quality of a person’s life, even if they never become a patron or artist themselves. 7

Public funding for the arts is good because:

I’m actually not going to do a list this time, I’m going to do a Summa Theologica-style argument à la St. Thomas Aquinas, because that’s a good intellectual exercise.

First, government will always impose bias onto any activity funded, because the decision to fund or not to fund must rely on ideology and oppression.

Second, private wealth is a better fit for arts and culture support than municipal funding.

Third, local government should only focus on core services, and art is not a core service.

So, public funding for the art can never be just.

Sed contra, President Roosevelt said “As in our democracy we enjoy the right to believe in different religious creeds or in none, so can American artists express themselves with complete freedom from the strictures of dead artistic tradition or political ideology. While American artists have discovered a new obligation to the society in which they live, they have no compulsion to be limited in method or manner of expression.”8

First, the U.S. Supreme Court established in National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley (1998) that the agency can develop create standards for the welfare of the general public which do not amount to viewpoint discrimination. This is further addressed in the next section, as San Diego’s funding model is particularly insulated from partisan influence over the development of culture.

Second, arts and culture is already massively reliant on private philanthropy, and it should not be exclusive with public funding. Private philanthropy does not necessarily have the good of a community in mind; public support does. Private philanthropy can become inextricable from the mission of the organization; when public support becomes inextricable from the mission, it is a successful public-private partnership. Private philanthropy can pull an institution’s reputation down as scandals break; public funding gives a stamp of approval, a vote of public confidence, to institutions without the gravitas to thrive through only private philanthropy.

Third, art is a core service. There will always be another pothole to fill, another parking ticket to write, another initiative to manage, and those things take money. Why even bother spending some of it to make this a place worth living in, right? But having a Museum to host the historic collection of Alica Keys and Swizz Beatz also takes money. Keeping Balboa Park and Chicano Park vibrant takes money. Having cultural assets to make a conference at the Convention Center engaging for all visitors takes money. Without culture, what makes a city distinct from an industrial park, or a dumping ground, or a wasteland of survivalism?

So, public funding for the arts is a good and just system. 9

Local public funding for the arts is particularly good, because:

1. Local agencies can allocate both funds and endorsement to lesser-known organizations and under-resourced neighborhoods. This is a super 21st century Republican Party point of view, for those keeping score at home. Local politics are often, in theory, more insulated from partisan politics—the San Diego City Council is elected in technically nonpartisan elections.

2. The City of San Diego’s funding model is particularly effective!
   There are two in which the City of San Diego primarily disburses arts and culture funding - Operational Support Program (OSP) and Creative Communities San Diego (CCSD). These initiatives grant critical, largely unrestricted funds to 501(c)3 nonprofits per an independent panel of local and regional leaders in the sector. Unlike many grantors, year over year funding amounts are very stable. Funding received in year one doesn’t mean you can’t apply for another three years, like many institutional funders; the city actually intends to provide reliable and consistent general operating funds.

Do we want to live in a world with great art?

If you’re with me to this point—art is an intrinsic good, public funding for art is generally good, and local public funding is generally that much better—then the end of the story is about intentionality, vision, and promises made.

If a budget is, in addition to being a practical tool for management, a moral document that maps the values of a community, then the budget put forward today paints a bleak picture of how our leaders imagine the future of San Diego. The proposed budget does not reflect a politics of care, and investment, and responsible stewardship, nor does it meaningfully move the city towards fiscal strength. The budget before the city council is a budget premised on a politics of fear. Fear of danger, within and without the City’s purview; fear of risk, to reputation, safety, and distribution of power; fear of reprisal and critique; fear of and for the future. There is so much of which to be afraid, and pressure to regress and conserve from every angle, so I know why this is on the table; I also know that fulfilling futures, lives worth living, do not materialize without intention. 10

Call this a temporary cut all you want: it will be a harrowing climb to get back to where we were, if we ever do, and we will lose talent, public standing and institutional knowledge in the process. The Mayor has used the phrase “structural budget deficit” dozens of times in the last two years; if it is a structural deficit, and the city is explicitly pursuing structural solutions, then this is not a temporary cut, it is a structural one. As the City Council votes on the budget, they define the foundational structure of the City—without supporting the cultural infrastructure that makes life fulfilling, a city is just concrete and rebar.

“The actions that a state and its many operational entities take that affect the cultural life of its citizens, whether directly or indirectly, whether intentionally or unintentionally, together constitute the effective cultural policy of that state… The government’s responsibility is to provide equal opportunities for citizens to be culturally active on their own terms.” - Kevin V. Mulcahy, “Cultural Policy: Definitions and Theoretical Approaches,” 2006.

Fin. Tell me why I’m a liberal arts idiot who doesn’t understand the budget! Knock me down a peg.

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On February 5, 2026, someone who hates me struck a successful blow in the fight against my sanity by adding me to the DCCC email list. In the twenty-eight days which since elapsed (it took me a couple of days weeks to write this), I received 96 fundraising emails. (Note - as of publishing on March 22, I am sitting at 162 emails.)

96 emails over 28 days? For the algebraically challenged like myself, that’s a cool 3.5 emails, on average, per day. Every seven hours I can expect a new email, although they sure do stack them during my waking hours. See below for a mere fraction of the unending missives:

AOTD: DCCC

In my new section, AOTD (acronym of the day), I present brief introduction for those blessedly unfamiliar with the dee-triple C:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is one of the “Hill” committees1, groups of elected leaders within each party who work to elect and re-elect their party nominees. The leader of the DCCC is a House Democrat (the sixth-ranking, apparently? that was news to me) and is currently Rep. Suzan DelBene of the Washington 1st. The Republican House equivalent is the Republican National Congressional Committee, with which I have zero familiarity. I’m sure they’re doing their own nonsense over there, but I like to criticize what I know.

The DCCC recruits candidates to run for the House of Representatives, which means they also raise money to fund the campaigns of those candidates. Out-raising the NRCC feels very important in every election year, but obviously this year feels especially important. I don’t actually know how important it is, so I looked it up—while there is good research demonstrating a relationship between campaign spending and voter outcomes, I couldn’t find anything specifically demonstrating the DCCC wins more seats if it’s better funded than the NRCC in a given election cycle. I sure would like to see this question answered: To what extent does relative success in election cycle fundraising among competitive “Hill” committees impact election success? Sincerely - if the NRCC has raised $500 million and the DCCC has raised $250 million by Election Day, should we expect Republicans to win twice as many seats?

“Of course it’s not that simple, dummy.” Well, sure! That’s my gut instinct too! But I want to see it explored from this direction, because it informs the core of my forthcoming screed:

Diagram of a Heinous Fundraising Email

First of all, I have to pick one. Given that I have 96 options, much to consider.

Do I select one which utilizes tactics that would be illegal in any just world? Or perhaps one which promises a 400% match that probably doesn’t exist? Maybe one that purports to be a personal plea from Hakeem Jeffries himself!

“All three! All three! ALL THREE!” I hear you chanting in the stands. Noblesse oblige.

Email #50

Sender name: DCCC Membership Services via DCCC
Subject: Hey, your membership requires activation
Content highlights:

1. An image which appears to be a mock-up of the referenced membership card, featuring the man we apparently anointed king of the party, Hakeem Jeffries. It notes “2026 DEMOCRATIC MEMBERSHIP STATUS: NEVER” in case I wasn’t sure.

2. DT is “stockpiling "$2 BILLION from MAGA donors,” which a very, very high number that I hadn’t seen in earlier emails—how doth the DCCC propose to overcome such an insurmountable disparity? Maybe you ask Tom Steyer to help and stop hitting me up for $3 every seven hours?

3. “We hate to beg” seems to be patently untrue. See the “Subject Line Hall of Fame” below.

Questions raised:

1. I’m sorry, are they fielding a lot of requests from folks who want to be card-carrying members of the Democratic Party?

2. They would mail me a physical membership card asap? Like, someone on staff would take a portion of the $15 I’d give them to print and mail me a physical card identifying myself as a member of the Democratic Party?

3. Hey, I don’t have a membership, because that isn’t a thing, so it probably doesn’t require activation. As a deceptive subject line, THIS is a good example of something that would be illegal under the CAN-SPAM Act if we lived in a just world.2

Email #69

Sender name: DONALD TRUMP ALERT via DCCC
Subject: message for: #19324798
Content highlights:

1. GIANT BOLD RED LETTERS saying “9-HOUR DEADLINE: 400%-MATCH UNLOCKED UNTIL MIDNIGHT”

2. Red background block of text with a black and white photo of DT. This makes everything extra scary!

3. In a request “straight from Democratic HQ,” a mysterious entity referred to as “Top Democrats” have “gone ALL-IN on taking back the House—they’ve unlocked a QUADRUPLE MATCH on all contributions until midnight tonight!”

Questions raised:

1. How on earth could this match be possible? FEC limits on contributions mean it would require a pretty massive group of donors to coordinate their giving

2. Even if the match was real, why would they leverage a 400% match for an ask of $3? How would anyone know if the match was real?

3. More important than either of the above: is this transparent marketing ploy effective in raising funds that would not come in using honest tactics? Do those realized funds justify using tactics which broadly deepen distrust of party infrastructure?

Email #77

Sender name: Hakeem Jeffries
Subject: please read, don’t delete
Content highlights:

1. Full paragraph of bright blue hyperlinked text. Twice! With a big-ass block of bios of people I don’t know in between!

2. Asking specifically for a $12 contribution and highlighting the Red-to-Blue candidates.

3. Signed “Keep the faith, Hakeem” including a headshot in case I forgot what he looked like.

Questions raised:

1. Why is the House Minority leader begging me to open his emails?

2. Why are we making entire blocks of text hyperlinks?

3. This is as close to a good email as I’ve received, so the fact that it made the “Heinous Emails” section is telling. 3

Honorary Mentions

Emails #51 and #98 both feature subject line “Eva, Brenda, you, Doug” in addition to this sick chart:

Email #131 is a doozy of a guilt trip, featuring subject line “We hoped to avoid sending this email” and opening with “We asked once. We asked twice. Now we’re asking for a fourth time!”

Email #87 provides a similar example of the DCCC’s tendency to include distinctly specific numerical goals in their emails, like requesting 669 democratic gifts of $3 to raise a whopping $2,000.

Subject Line Hall of Fame

• Please.4

• Pleading with you

• re: dummymandering

• Support is FALLING drastically

• is there ANYTHING we can say?

• We’re pleading with you

• A, B, C, D, F???

• Your $3 support really matters (#19324798)

• We don’t see your name on our list of 2026 Democratic donors.

• we’re downright BEGGING you

Big Picture from a Big Sample Size

Do these emails answer a single question about what the DCCC is, or what they do, or the value of their work? Honestly, I can’t say for sure—because no one in their right mind would read all of them. If the sampling I took is any indication, then no, there is no helpful information contained within the messages. If that sample isn’t indicative of the mass of the messages, then it is indicative that the throw every possible message to them at every possible opportunity strategy isn’t educating people the way they’d hoped.

RE: The CAN-SPAM Act: Yeah, yeah, I see the argument that all political messages are protected speech, and to that I say: time to grow up, Constitution. The Framers, with their myriad skills and existential faults, did not foresee that every political actor in the country could one day buy some emails and stream hundreds of missives into every single second of their fellow citizens’ waking hours. Even more fundamentally, I do not concede that every legislative remedy at the federal level is unavailable because it would violate the First Amendment, as it would only require content-neutral restrictions on political speech.5

Diagram of an Effective Fundraising Email

Just because I can, I’d like to highlight two political fundraising emails I read that didn’t leave me with a worse perception of the sender than I’d had before.

I love this email. I wish I had written this email. It doesn’t hurt my eyes to look at, it doesn’t contain any Randomly Capitalized words, it fits in one screenshot, it offers gift amounts that I know would make an actual difference at scale, it has an incredibly clear story and ask, and I came away having gained something from reading the email—in this case, information detailing the reality of fundraising challenges faced specifically by progressive candidates.

Local to me, I honestly find Rep. Jacobs to be refreshing. Some would think ‘granddaughter of billionaire” should disqualify from any sort of “progressive” label, but her legislative record is pretty solid. What I appreciate most is how she communicates to her constituents, exemplified by the above. Similar to the AOC email, Jacobs goes out of her way to explain to recipients why they’re being asked for money. These two sentences justify my time spent reading the email, because it makes clear a piece of information that is unclear to many:

The reality is, people don’t really enjoy supporting candidates they don’t feel can win, so a weak finance report throws cold water on any momentum they may have had. Plus, it can be like blood in the water for an opponent—if they know someone isn’t raising enough money to compete, they’ll treat it as an opening to escalate, spending more and pushing harder.

How hard would it be, really, to make even one of the four daily emails a bit more informative and a little less “give us three dollars or find your democracy in ashes”?

Opportunities for Improvement

Now, if someone sent me 96 emails about something I believed in, or was interested by, or associated some value with, or informed me of something, or a combination therein, that’s a reasonable number of emails! Alas, the DCCC refuses to accommodate these requests. Instead, they continue to oscillate between oversimplifying and obfuscating reality in a never-ending barrage of self-deprecation and bad graphic design. This is bad for the party’s electoral positioning.

Even those of us who understand Duverger’s Law and who accept, however begrudgingly, that moving the machine of the Democratic Party to the left offers a chance for electoral success along with harm-reducing progressive impact, don’t want to work with the party when they keep pissing everyone off!

These are my top five Very Important Professional Enhancement Recommendations for the DCCC’s digital fundraising team:

1. Learn from the successful new guard, like AOC and Jacobs. Let go of the legacy strategy and get with the times. Write copy like the recipient is capable of understanding the world in which they live.

2. Increase the emphasis on the impact of the DCCC. After reading however many of these, I still have no idea of some critical information:

   1. I know how much the NRCC has raised, because they tell me once a day. How much money has the DCCC raised?

   2. How much money do they think they need to raise?

   3. Why should I give to the DCCC instead of, or in addition to, a specific campaign? What makes the DCCC so worthy of my attention and funds as to justify such a massive portion of my inbox?

   4. Who are these Top Democrats with the magic power to unlock 400% matches at will?

3. I know they have more data about me than they’re letting on. For the love of God, use it. Segment me out of email types I haven’t responded to in the past, target me regionally, use my giving history to vary the ask amounts they’re using—these are all at the ready, just awaiting deployment.

4. This year, the DCCC needs to be massively dedicated to collecting data so that, in future cycles, they can actually demonstrate why it matters which Hill committee wins the fundraising battle.

5. Bank some political goodwill across the whole ideological spectrum by legislating against their own fundraising emails. Fix this massive gap in the CAN-SPAM Act and save us from the pain of the ignored unsubscribe.

I’m going to unsubscribe now—it remains to be seen if they’ll listen.

It took me nearly four weeks to finish writing this. Please tell me if you liked it, and, if you didn’t, please tell me that as well, as I need to be knocked down a peg.

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disclaimers: this is a joke, these are solely my independent views, they aren’t all winners, i refuse to be held to account for any of my statements, etc etc etc.

how does this titan of corporate industry, now one of the most powerful people on the planet, still regular…

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Buy on Bookshop.org

quick summary: There’s a different Kinga for every day of the week, to say nothing of the OG Kinga, radio silent since handing over the reins. There is also a man imprisoned in Kinga’s closet. Seven chapters, seven POVs and a very high re-read value.

quick opinion: This is the type of fiction that has disproportionately low star ratings because people felt they “didn’t understand it” or “weren’t smart enough to get it.” I think that does those readers, the novel, and literary fiction on the whole a disservice. Since when did a book have to make sense for it to be a literary masterpiece? Have you ever read Faulkner?

quick review: I love this quirky book and how Oyeyemi decided to handle dissociative identity disorder as a plot. There is no prescription, or shame, or external force driving change - best exemplified by Kinga-D’s note (p. 99) that they will only tolerate a psychiatrist who accepts all seven splinters of this person as they are, instead of the heralded “integration” of Kingas A-G.

quick analysis: A New New Me feels like a face on the same prism as Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi and The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. du Bois. A New New Me reflects a lighter turn than Freshwater (also an exquisite novel), but tie them together at just the right angle with the right beam of light and they refract a multidimensional picture of the Black experience of self and identity, especially through a post-continental interpretation of double consciousness. I don’t know if this is anything beyond a passing thought, but I can’t escape the association.

quick footnote: I would like to see this turned into a one-woman play à la Sarah Snook’s turn in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Credit me when it hits the West End.

quick interpretation: Diego Velasquez, The Toilet of Venus ('The Rokeby Venus'), 1647-51.

2:00 p.m.: The fullest room I’ve seen at 202 C Street yet. Filled with arts and culture professionals, seniors, the Redwood Bridge Club, youth dancers, and high school students, among others, a typically frigid room overflowed, echoed, and sweltered.

2:15 p.m.: Before we begin in earnest, a comment. The misandrist in me (I’m 27, I’m allowed to be a little bit of a misandrist) feels that men should not be allowed in public if they are unwilling to learn how to whisper correctly. Why am I hearing the bass of your voice as you attempt to hold covert conversations in the back of the standing-room-only Council chambers? (I jest, I jest. Don’t dox me for misandry).

2:16 p.m.: We’ve been called to order. Before we get to the good stuff, though, let’s level out the tone with a deeply bureaucratic presentation about the City Council’s bond issuance obligations so as to avoid actions by the SEC. This is definitely the most important part of the meeting agenda, but I, along with everyone else in the room, do not care.

2:20 p.m.: I wonder how the officials of Allen Park feel being used as the case study for accidentally misleading investors and being investigated by the SEC.

2:22 p.m.: As the lovely city staff continue their very boring yet critical presentation, some background. The City of San Diego has flirted with a structural budget deficit since at least 2008. As the City Council and the Office of the Mayor engaged in the budget process for fiscal year 2026 (beg. July 1, 2025), they faced a massive structural deficit of nearly $250 million. Again, revenues and expenditures have been mismatched on-and-off for decades, but the combinations of the ending of COVID-19 emergency funding, the second Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies and federal funding clawbacks, and the City’s ongoing pension litigation exacerbated the issue in forecasts for FY26.

2:28 p.m.: They’re almost done! Anyway, throughout the spring of 2025, various City leaders attempted to mitigate the deficit largely with one-time actions and increases in revenue generation. The most controversial of these revenue-generating proposals? Paid parking at City owned properties—namely, beaches and the crown jewel of San Diego, Balboa Park.

2:31 p.m.: One of my favorite City Council frequent fliers, “Allegedly Audra,” makes comment regarding the boring informational item. My one response? Marxists don’t generally care about investors, so that’s an odd conflation to toss at the highly market-oriented City Council. I do sincerely appreciate the 4-5 folks who comment at every single meeting—it’s incredible and always an enlightening reflection of thoughts outside of my sphere of influence. Also deserving of a shout-out is the virtual commenter who reminded everyone that San Diego was once called “Enron-by-the-Sea” because of the pension fraud that continues to plague the city balance sheet.

2:36 p.m.: Lots of the most vocal folks in San Diego are entirely disillusioned with this City Council. Beginning with our now-Mayor’s association with ill-fated 101 Ash St. deal while he was on City Council and ensuing settlement as Mayor, extending through pension litigation, more real estate failures, wildly divergent perspectives on housing policy, to now with a variety of recent local issues, the current political class in San Diego has earned intense ire from a small, vocal group of residents. I am not “disillusioned,” per se, but I would like to see a higher caliber of politician in a city this size! It becomes glaringly obvious at these meetings that, despite its size, San Diego’s politicians are not as prepared for their roles as their counterparts in comprable cities may be. To be a bit more blunt—it is clear that most elected officials in San Diego have not had experience in lower-stakes elected offices, so enter City Council out of their depth regarding the breadth of issues requiring significant subject matter knowledge.

2:48 p.m.: We begin! City staff on the frontlines of developing this policy have been put in the line of fire—one of the policy advisors for the Mayor was booed in a Balboa Park Committee meeting, which I found very rude considering that she is not, in fact, setting policy.

2:51 p.m.: City staff is getting into the meat of the proposal now. The gist of the matter is that very few concessions were secured by community groups or local citizens between the initial proposal of the presentation in July and the presentation being given today. A number of comments over the past few months have rejected the plan outright, decrying that the imposition of any barrier to entry to a public park is an inequitable and damaging policy. A much less vocal subset is in support of the plan as currently proposed as a necessary step of the city’s Climate Action Plan to, among other things, drive the City towards more sustainable modes of transportation.

3:06 p.m.: The Office of the Independent Budget Analyst is balanced and consistent. Their comment this afternoon amounts to, in my eyes, saying that the City put themselves in this predicament and that they do, in fact, need to fill the budget hole they left for themselves three months ago.

3:09 p.m.: Public comment, baby! The pinnacle of local civic engagement. I will not summarize all 120 comments (send in some web forms, folks. This meeting is going to be so long.), but I will note the best comments. First, a yeller! Council President Joe LaCava does have a little bit of a paternalistic streak, which is most obvious when he tells public commenters “This is your first warning.”

3:12 p.m.: I am personally of the mind that paid parking is an inevitable future in San Diego. The value of the land is too high for the city to continue to incentivize a car-centric city, and I have been pushed, against my impulses but aligned with statistical evidence and well-reasoned theory, towards the fact that free parking is, in fact, a hidden burden on the city and residents anyway. I love my car! I love my solo commute time. But I also took public transportation as a high school student in Denver ( a very similar city facing a very similar budget deficit), and it provided wonderful, consistent, clean and safe options for me at every age for every event. I’d love to see San Diego transit invested in to a similar level, which requires folks like me to bite the bullet and pay some higher taxes and fees—I just wish the city’s leaders had enough foresight to recognize this and thoughtfully implement a progressive fee structure that works with the needs of residents and ensures the future of Balboa Park.

3:20 p.m.: The current public speaker has identified one of my primary critiques of this specific proposal—it is a recessive tax, “hastily proposed,” being implemented under the guise of parking management but for the express, primary purpose of generating revenue. In fact, the City spokespeople and their collateral materials have continued to tout that this is a policy to benefit the Park and facilitate better parking management, while being explicit both on the dais and in private conversations with stakeholders that this is a revenue-first policy. That is, at best, an unintentional disconnect in messaging; at worst, it’s intentionally obfuscating the intent of the policy proposal to the public.

3:25 p.m.: Peter Comiskey, Executive Director of the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, has 8 minutes to comment thanks to folks from local cultural institutions ceding time to his comment. Peter and BPCP has made four consistent asks of the City over the three-month development of this plan—lowering all-day fees from $6 and $12 to $5 and $10, respectively; offering a minimum of four hours free parking; free parking for Park volunteers and staff; and rolling out the City resident rates on day one of paid parking. One of these four requests seems to have been incorporated into the current proposal: staff and volunteers have been promoted to level 2 and level 3 lots, instead of just level 3.

3:30 p.m.: Public comment continues. One of the most consistent groups to have organized against this policy: the Redwood Bridge Club. They continue to turn out in huge numbers, signs and all.

3:37 p.m.: Anyway, I think some implementation of paid parking is the future of the park. Some foundational assumptions I hold: A dedicated revenue stream to fund improvements to the park is way overdue, as the City has deferred maintenance for decades. Greenhouse gas emissions from car-based transportation exacerbates climate change, and cities have an obligation to prevent climate change whenever possible. The City of San Diego faces a massive, ongoing structural budget deficit. The City already purchased hardware to implement paid parking, like meters and kiosks. Failure to generate the projected parking revenue will result in mid-year service cuts.

3:45 p.m.: Given those assumptions, I anticipate that this policy will pass today. The City Council isn’t just trapped between a rock and a hard place—they built themselves into a room with rock walls, a granite floor, a concrete roof, and reinforced steel beams throughout. Half the Council seats are up for election next fall. Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, who represents the district that houses Balboa Park, shared in the Balboa Park Committee meeting a few weeks ago that he cannot support the current proposal. This will probably come down to LaCava or Lee changing their votes—Moreno and Campbell are already opposed.

3:52 p.m.: Now, in an appropriate scheduling conflict, I am going to therapy. I hope they’re still talking when I’m done!!

5:14 p.m.: I’m back, and they’re still going :) We have moved to virtual public comment and the commenters continue to passionately ask Council to vote no on item 201. I think there was a missed opportunity for climate action organizations to lobby for thoughtful implementation of paid parking as a critical aspect of city planning for climate change.

5:16 p.m.: Oh, one virtual commenter just said that the City Council, along with the County supervisors and state, are all in alignment on the insidious “not a conspiracy theory, look it up…” United Nations sustainable development goals. That’s a new one for me! Didn’t know those were being treated as a secret plot to disenfranchise people of their cars or whatever.

5:17 p.m.: Oh, and another anonymous coward of a virtual commenter just made some truly heinous, racist comments about Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera. That was unpleasant.

6:04 p.m.: I went to buy dessert trays off Facebook Marketplace for my wedding and have summarized below my recollections of the comments made while I was driving.

• Council President Joe LaCava really has a paternalism problem. When he comments from the dais, there is such a heavy air of condescension towards his constituents thats hard to stomach.

• Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera (I love my home, District 9) is wonderfully principled and consistent. I never doubted that he would move forward, he’s been exceedingly clear about his priorities toward City residents, and I just have this sense that he means well.

• Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee is really competent, in my view. He asks the right questions and has a good sense of fiscal responsibility balanced with an equity lens.

• Councilmember Jen Campbell is such an interesting politician. She’s termed out as of next fall and had some health issues earlier this year that made her seem more checked-out than she is today. She will not support the proposal if it will be implemented without the resident portal being available.

• Councilmember Marni Von Wilpert is the rising star of San Diego politics and I am confident she will flip a redistricted 48th District if voters give her the opportunity. It’s like she was built in a lab to be a darling of the Democratic Party. (If you’re reading this, Von Wilpert campaign staff, hire me.)

  • I feel awful for the poor Mayor’s Office staffer who was assigned to this project - when pressed by Von Wilpert, she said they have committed to exploring annual passes for all the groups who spoke at City Council in the brief period from now until proposed implementation on Oct. 6, 2025. Von Wilpert seems skeptical, to put it lightly, that all of the discussed commitments will be adequately considered in this timeframe.

  • When questioned about payment options at the kiosks, City staff confirmed that the kiosks do not accept cash, only coins and credit cards. Notable, given that Von Wilpert led the charge to ensure equity at grocery stores by banning digital-only coupons, and that the kiosks were purchased in July.

  • A City staffer let slip an interesting sentence, paraphrased “Given the revenue impacts, we didn’t consider that option.” Once again, I am forced to ask—parking management, or revenue generation? Methinks we are misaligned!

6:22 p.m.: We’re going to recess for staff to '“do some calculations.” (There actually might not be a big enough pension in the world to get me to work for this City, which is a testament to why the pensions are such a big deal.)

6:40 p.m.: They’re still on recess, so I went back and detailed some of the previous sections. I do think it’s odd that they didn’t schedule a special session to begin at 1:00 p.m., considering how many public commenters there have been every time this issue has been docketed in the last three months.

7:01 p.m.: We’ve been called back to order! They’re always late, but that was a long recess. Staff and Council have come back with an even more convoluted plan, with possibly no actual alignment. Council President Pro Tem Lee has requested the implementation today be tied to implementation of an annual or quarterly pass becomes available.

7:05 p.m.: Councilmember Vivian Moreno’s first comments of the session—she reiterates her concerns about all of the fee and rate increases facing San Diegans today, and mentions this one has a specific and tangible impact on San Diego residents. I also appreciate that Councilmember Moreno mentions the variety of offerings in the park—not only as a green space and recreation area, but as a unique home of a myriad of cultural institutions. I can’t shake the feeling that Balboa Park is a unique enough asset that it won’t follow established patterns of consumer behavior, so I’m glad to hear that mentioned.

7:09 p.m.: Councilmember Henry Foster III takes a shot at Councilmember Campbell’s assertion that her colleagues passed an “unbalanced budget” in violation of state law. Councilmember Foster asked City staff to confirm, on the record, that yes, they did pass a balanced budget. Feisty!

7:12 p.m.: Councilmember Foster declares, in no uncertain terms, that budget shortfalls encountered today because of backtracking by his colleagues will not be balanced on the backs of district 4, and that he will work with Councilmembers Raul Campillo and Sean Elo-Rivera to ensure it isn’t balanced on the backs of districts 8 or 9 either. My interpretation: the concerns shared today are valid and worth consideration, but the drastic inequities faced by residents in these historically underresourced districts must outweigh the loudest voices in the room.

7:14 p.m.: Whitburn is adamant that the people most affected by this policy will disproportionately be residents of district 3, and he will not support anyone paying to park at the crown jewel of San Diego. The students of San Diego High School and the seniors of the Balboa Park community groups are especially important in his comments here. He also notes that most of his constituents would rather see

7:17 p.m.: Councilmember Von Wilpert notes a realization she had during the recess—Balboa Park is asked to take dual roles as both a centerpiece of local tourism and as a local recreation space for residents. This realization, spurred by public comment (go democracy!) has driven the Councilmember to her current level of support for an adjusted proposal.

7:21 p.m.: Council President LaCava is trying to get a motion on the floor—the goal is to pass the policy contingent on availability of annual and quarterly passes and staff/volunteer placards, while also pursuing short-term solutions.

7:23 p.m.: As the City Clerk drafts the motion, the IBA shares a very high-level fiscal impact of about $1 million if implementation is delayed to January 1, 2026.

7:24 p.m. Councilmember Elo-Rivera takes the opportunity to emphasize his belief that, while action needs to be taken today, he remains committed to finding ways for city residents to stop subsidizing the tourist activities of nonresidents.

7:26 p.m.: Councilmember Whitburn requests and receives clarification that staff will also pursue solutions for the San Diego High School students.

7:27 p.m.: We’re so close! After a few more clarifications, there is a vote on the floor, and it passes, 6-2-1 (Campillo absent).

7:29 p.m.: After 5 1/2 hours of public comment and deliberation, there is paid parking in Balboa Park—kind of. The city has an incentive to get this implemented as close to October 6 as possible to maximize revenue, but there remains a lot to be figured out, and the concessions made today will result in a mid-year budget adjustment a few million dollars wide. I will update with reports from our local papers as they’re made available in case a single person reads this.

Was this at all interesting? Where was I wrong? Are we human? Or are we dancer?