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 regularly fuck up his limp handshakes?

sorry did he just say “first lady… of the united states?” like it was a question?

how can he claim “zero illegal aliens admitted?” like, that is almost definitionally an impossible claim to prove

it looks like his dentures are going to fall out if he doesn’t constantly move his mouth. has he always done the jaw sliding thing?

fully botched is stock market line which is crazy - on top of everything else, the incompetence on his team is so stunning. how did they send him up there without having drilled this speech?

wow the repubes have really committed to standing every time he pauses for applause. you can actually see some of them looking around to confirm that yes, they really do have to keep standing

i’m going to give his team some credit here, and i’m going to give it to susie wiles, because i feel like she’s behind it - very strong tactical move to put the two most smug faces on the planet Earth behind him as he speaks. it’s almost hard to pay attention to the inane rambling - here i sit, very successfully rage-baited.

wow the hughes brothers have very clearly been emergency media-trained and damned if they aren’t all trying their best not to look too happy about being there. it’s not working! the poised faces lasted like 30 seconds

omg he short circuited on the hastily-written hockey honors language. that was a real peek behind the curtain.

oh my god, the crowd and the president and the camera crew can’t decide which veteran is Buddy. that is another wild gaff caused by incompetence, inexperience, or both!

harsh transition into what I think is supposed to be a super emotional story, but i actually didn’t follow what he said - and i’m pretty quick!! certainly about the heroism of an invited veteran, but AGAIN the camera and the people staffing the guests couldn’t decide which person was being honored. so weird, so easily avoided, and so rude to those guests.

megan is standing up already! damn!

the stories aren’t really landing at all - even the vets - he really doesn’t seem like he cares about this, even more so than usual

oh my god, is he looking directly at the supreme court justices while he talks about tariffs, he totally is, that is crazy behavior.

every time the president of the united says “congressional action will not be necessary,” the ghost of james madison is summoned to suffer once more in the soon-to-be-final resting place of the federalist project, washington dc.

i love the NYT live chat, it makes me feel like i’m in college again

oh hell yeah, we just got a close up of an old man having fallen asleep and then waking up on camera. classic

lots of folks clapping about the no-congressional-insider-trading law who are the perpetrators!!! both sides of the aisle baby!!!

my personal theory about the obsession with pelosi and biden and obama - we know he was a democrat for a while, probably a proximity to power thing in NY - i feel like he resents them and the dnc for not taking advantage of and elevating him while he was on their team, so he’s been pissed off and petulant

war on fraud led by fraud in chief (jd vance, professional scammer) is doge redux

i’m certainly not mad about the federal government supporting the families of people lost to violence and drug use (although it is a departure for the “small government” crowd, isn’t it) but it’s so weird to specify it like that

i think they are in violation of fire code, this room is full

it’s really easy to think that “the first mission of the united states is to protect american citizens not illegal aliens” is a reasonable thing to say and believe, but it just isn’t! that is a claim that falls apart under the most basic objections

sarah mcbride, ilhan omar, rashida tlaib - i like the seated yelling, go off queens

fuck the save act! so they love to tout the poll from pew that says 80 something percent of democrats support voter id - polls are as good as the questions, and the questions here were basic. good information for a pulse of national sentiment, insufficient information by which to make policy. if you EXPLAIN that you only get access to a ballot at all by proving your citizenship in myriad ways when registering to vote, then people become a lot less amenable to the idea that poll workers will not let them drop their presidential ballot in the box because they lost their drivers license that day. he is 100% reliant on treating the electorate like imbeciles and them believing it.

babe a rock can get a full ride to liberty university aim higher OH MY GOD ERIKA KIRK JUMPSCARE

after some weird interlude, he has named charlie! and erika stands, to chants of “CHARLIE” ringing through the halls of the us house, because i am actually being punished à la The Good Place.

team trump you should not allow this man to say “beautiful young woman” just from a strategic perspective, and jesus christ that is a horrifically graphic recounting of her murder in front of her parents and the entire country

he said there’s no crime in dc anymore which is interesting and still not true

brb looking up who is speechwriting team is because they are not impressing me

okay it was ross worthington and vince haley and they came to the second trump administration by way of the first admin under stephen miller, before that newt gingrich. so there’s that asked and answered

excuse me but to say little marco will go down as the greatest secretary of state in us history is violently ahistorical - oh, immediately followed up by the claim that the invasion of ukraine just wouldn’t have happened if he’d been president. ???

democrats! here’s my strategy for next year. all of you attend, everyone is assigned a number. every time he lies, one single person makes the most annoying sound they can - i’m imaging the buzzer sound adam sandler makes in Grown Ups - until they are removed from the chamber. repeat until democrats are gone and/or speech has concluded. this will also generate a prediction market around how much of the speech will elapse before all of the democrats have left the chamber, generating economic value. streamers will stream said event, providing entertainment to the masses and further generating revenue. clips of your silly noises will proliferate on social media, benefitting individual members of the delegation as well. i offer this to you for free

considering the average age of the attendees, why did the speech start at 9 p.m. eastern?

i like the ‘release the files’ pins and i do think everyone should be wearing one. blue team needs to coordinate!!

ew, a really callous joke that “no one wants to go fishing anymore” in reference to his illegal boat strikes off Venezuela. he’s murdered dozens of people in the open ocean and really does think its funny that anyone cares

i feel like there could be more jeering. i would like to hear more boos

the “guest of honor, come on in!” was almost appropriate for the men’s hockey team - it really feels so tasteless for everyone else. that is a person wounded in action because of your (illegal) capture of another country’s leader, and you’re gonna make him walk in partway though and stand? weird

going to research the history of the state of the union address brb

hey man fine we can all cheer for the cute old veteran while he gets the medal of honor, he’s had to stand up and sit down SO many times tonight

lets get congress to sundance see if we can’t bump up those standing ovation lengths

and a harsh pivot back to traditional SOTU language, where ross and vince get poetic with it in their best sam seaborn impression - i fear it simply does not sound right when he tries to express lofty ideals

my research leads me to the universe’s most consistent truth - all bad things can be blamed at least in part on ronald reagan. he’s the guy who started recognizing special guests (“Lenny Skutniks”)

and it’s over great yay

i am so brave for doing this on a night when he broke his own record for longest recorded SOTU. i shall now go listen to gov spanberger as a palate cleanser

tell me which thing i said that made you audibly exclaim “this idiot!” so i can apologize profusely and learn how to be better. alternatively, comment how brilliant i am, or something in between

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?