Roundtable: San Diego Election News; Not Much Middle-Class Housing; Suing Hillary Clinton

Voters will get a couple of pounds a ballot material in their mailboxes in November causing the city an extra million dollars. San Diego is finally building housing again but not for the middle class. Patricia Smith files suit against Clinton for the wrongful death of her son. I am Mark Sauer. The roundtable starts now. Welcome to our discussion. Joining me at the roundtable are David Garrick . A reporter Alison St John. And Dana Littlefield . If you printed at summer reading list already don't worry San Diego residents can look for to getting a two volume sample ballot in the mail soon. Two initiatives to raise hotel taxes and other things take nearly 200 pages to explain. First, looks at the city ballot will be a little less heavy and one place. That is a listing of Kenneth for district 1. That was the only race we thought that was a contest a and now someone dropped out today. We had another one on District 9. This one is the Q1 because it could have let the partisan balance on the Council. Because Barbara did so good in June it was fully expected she would win in November so the Democrats are pretty confident they were going to make a majority and they just submitted that. You is so going to be on the ballot so he could still win but he has suspended his campaign and will not raise money which means there will be no mailers. So really does look like the big question with the Council flip. That will continue. You will have a Republican mayor in a Democratic-controlled city Council and then we have a 50-50 race for city attorney. Why did he drop out? I think it was because it was difficult to raise money. Typically the Republicans do well in June. For her to get 40% of the vote in November when their more friendlier the Democrats how can she news. I think it was difficult for him to ask for money from people with a straight face. Also I think the only way to win would be to go really negative. I think Ray Ellis is a good guy. He's worried about his legacy. He doesn't want to do the negative stuff he would have to do and probably end up losing anyway. Let's shifters are we talked about this decision this week to print and mail these huge our initiatives. It is almost 200 pages that's coming to an your -- mailbox near you. Why did we decide to do this this week? There was a proposal on the table to not have the assistance initiative. There is two citizen initiatives. There were 12 things on the ballot are called ballot measures. The to be thought about not having the full text [ Indiscernible - multiple speakers ] the Republican the subject. If you're going to raise hotel taxes to build a football stadium, there's amount of detail that go into such an agreement or go so for the average voter it is a lot to digest and understand. It makes me wonder if the people are quite so willing to sign the petitions when they C-1 in think this is what we are letting ourselves and for. [ Indiscernible - multiple speakers ] How many pages is a going to be. You stay in County and all sorts of stuff coming. The argument was made in some council members said they could be posted online. Anybody wants to read them. We do have a bite who heads the budget committee. Basically [ Indiscernible - multiple speakers ] his argument was this is a modern age. Almost everyone has access to a computer. They will the copies on all 36 library branches and it will be available at the city clerk's office. If you have the devotion, I think you can [ Indiscernible - multiple speakers ] I think -- the libraries have computers. Even though not everyone has Internet access and if you don't you can go to the library. He was outvoted in the fatwas this is a really important thing that could affect the city's future and people should be able to read it in should have -- there should be no barrier to the access to it. Even though $1 million is a lot I would not want to do that it isn't the budget is one $.3 billion. So $1 million is relatively not a lot. Let's break down these initiatives. Let's turn to weather Chargers. What are the voters being asked to decide? They are being asked to raise the hotel tax to be among us -- the highest in the nation to pay the cost for the convention center and then there might be a stadium combined with.net would be funded partly with money from that tax and partly by the NFL and the Chargers and licenses in a typical things. I would -- it raises the hotel tax, charges contribute $650 million. $600 million to the convention center and Bonser pay back my hotel tax revenue. That is a mouthful. We have this other initiative or go Compared to the second when that is easy. The other one is known as the citizens plan. [ Indiscernible - multiple speakers ] Kori tried to come up with a plan as is described to me where everyone would have to do the right thing but they would still get a good deal. The hotel industry, the Chargers, Senegal state and it will have an opportunity to do that if the charges leave Mission Valley and move to the welcome center. So that was the goal. Unfortunately when you try to create something like that when you set up a bunch of rules and mechanisms, it is really complicated. Is not aligned use document. The reason is because it is a land use document and this is it. Lets to the high points. It requires motorists approved public funds for downtown stadium, eliminates a tourism marketing district, prohibited waterfront expansion of the convention center, and encourages University use of that welcome sight -- QUALCOMM site. Hasn't there been criticized as parts of it being unlawful by the city attorney? He ripped it to she shreds -- shreds. He said it would create problems for the city. He disagrees and says that it's in the clear so if seems like there are so many concerns it's hard to believe they could all be false. A main one is the citizen initiatives are supposed to be a topic and this is not. How many people haven't made up their minds yet? Most people are pretty clear already. How many people could actually change her mind as a result of these taxes? When I see people and I talk about the sub the percentage of people know that there are initiatives on the ballot is maybe half the people. They know the Chargers are looking for the stadium but the idea that something will be on the ballot -- I think a lot of people have not made up their minds because they don't know -- that was a difference between the start -- the potential of shrinking and not including the full text of these. Cory Briggs was concerned. Even though the city would write what was apparently an objective ballot statement that it may be it would be biased in some way so he expressed concerns about it. I don't know what will that played and he was concerned about it. The threshold of the majority is going to be very tough for both of these. The city attorney says it will be two thirds. Lets move on to other topics. How to visit to find a place to live here in San Diego? Fewer than 3 to 10 residents can find a place in San Diego. We've heard about the housing crisis for a long time now is that worse than ever hear? I think what the focus of the story was that affordable housing people talk about it and you assume this is for people who are lower income and related to raising the minimum wage. The fact of the matter is that the middle class is very hard to afford a house in San Diego. I discovered that the construction industry is finding it hard to build homes for the middle class. Because affordable houses and construction companies are would like to go partly because of the investors for the Haiyan so who was getting squeezed in this picture it is the middle class again. Just a fraction of the houses that the middle class demand is being built in terms of new construction. Whereas the top right of the market is getting one-hitter 50%. There is a balance happening. I think a lot of people are relating to this. What are some of the hurdles to that. To getting and hitting that that user be Lebron's. The building industry Association says of the studies that show that 40 and some people say 40% in -- there are going that it's not so much the profits that there went to offer it is the public regulations that are raising the price of houses. With private companies and is difficult to check that because you don't know what the profits are. The percentage spent a regulation are a smaller portion because it is a flat amount. So it's a bigger part of it and more glaring. The fact that you spend 100,000 on regulations -- [ Indiscernible - multiple speakers ] They would argue we need to satisfy our investors and investors know they're going to be big profits. It is the market. Can this be affecting the people looking for starter homes? I decided middle class will stay there forever but people were just trying to move up if there aren't starter homes what do they do? Even though the building industry says that it did get enough permits very very few just a tiny sliver of them were actually affordable and under $1 million. So that does raise questions is a possible to find a move-up home if you are young family. How does that change the complexion of who lives here? There are all sorts of jobs Adobe all that much. Where the workers were to come from? They have the commute to have to lower jobs are entry-level jobs are jobs like a teacher or police officer. Even companies are think this is a major issue for San Diego's economy because if they want to start company it is very hard -- even those of us in the media knows it's hard to bring in fresh talent because if you don't live here it's not going to be easy to afford a home. Another hard part is these families don't see the children grow and they are starting a have a family and they want to buy a house here. Abuse or not people from out of the area and they can't aboard -- afford to stay here. We to have a bite on this. We have Matt Adams. Out of the 10,000 that were produced last year you had only 229 single-family homes were produced that could be sold that $500,000 or less. The market that is now being met or service is the market of working middle-class families. Is making that same point. The building industry would claim that it's not our fault it is just incentives are there. there are some efforts going on in Sacramento right now with Governor Brown. There are so many competing interest groups that even that measure is having trouble getting through. Even though we know this is really a crisis. One of the point in your story that brought this into sharper relief was the city of Carlsbad. What has happened there recently regarding the construction of modern income? I think the coastal cities are in a particular different situation. They are required by state law to have a housing element, which says yes, we will agreed to build December of homes. In order to meet state law they have have that plan. It looks good when you have a plan but what is happening is that they are building very few of the low income homes. Hardly any of middle income homes. The top income homes probably have new construction and Carlsbad are way behind their goals. It is not uncommon. Many cities are like that or go the city of Encinitas don't have a housing element. The construction industry has a valid point in think we just cannot get a place to build their homes because some of the cities are blocking us. On the other hand, I think it is true to say that even when there are homes been proposed that are higher density, piercing no we don't want that even though they have committed to certain number of homes. You wonder about the projections of how much we are going to need. Doesn't the market start raising the ball to the point that maybe this growth is not going to happen because it is expensive to live here. We saw that the price of a new home -- the number the number of homes that were being sold fell. It suggest that we might be on that tipping point where the prices just are too high. I think a lot of people are looking at this with certain amount of cushion. San Diego is so much less expensive than LA and San Francisco. I'm glad you brought that up. I saw this morning on a fellow it says go home in Palo Alto $2.5 million. That is a medium priced home. You have to be a millionaire to live in that city. It is remarkable. At some point you think where near that bubble again? I am not in position to put that at some the comments suggest that perhaps what are the reasons that housing prices are high is because of investments from other countries who are seeing the nicely as extremely stable investment compared to China and are pouring money into our housing market in the hopes that it will pay off for them. Maybe that's where some of the money for the housing is coming from. It will be fascinating to see . We will shifters now with less than 90 days until the election. Hillary Clinton has been sued by the parents of two men killed in been gone the and 2012. One is a San Diego woman whose son was killed in the infamous attack on the US Embassy while working for the State Department or go Dana, what is the federal lawsuit? It is a wrongful death suit. Essentially it means to my parents the mother of one of the victims of the attack and the father of another. They are both pursuing saying essentially that Hillary Clinton is at fault for those deaths. They are also some other causes of action that are mentioned such as defamation and negligence. So essentially what is being said here is because of her email scandal that we've all heard so much about that essentially they say the plaintiffs say she was reckless with confidential information that because of that circumstance that they say she created that led to these attacks and therefore she is responsible. That suit says the parents are claiming their highly probable that these emails about the Benghazi facility found their way to terrorist and form powers. They don't have any evidence. That is true. Essentially, their state because the situation existed, where Hillary Clinton had her emails on this private email server that it is highly probable that she shared information or used that server to distribute information about the location of these Americans in Libya. They could of been intercepted. Right. So there is nothing in the lawsuit that I read that is definitely. As we know in all of the investigations that have taken place since because it, there's nothing that says definitely this happen. They are staying not only it could of happened, but that it probably did happen. They have looked into this a little bit. We've had -- it or nine hours of Hillary Clinton herself being on the stand and their conclusions were no culpability. Let's talk about the parents that are bringing a lawsuit just a Smith long been in the public eye blaming Clinton for her son's death at the GOP convention here. So she's again one of the parents of these Americans that were killed. As you just stated, she has been very vocal about her blaming her for what happened to her son. Not only to Hillary Clinton but to President Barack Obama as well. So I guess the largest pot for jihad to convey that message was recently at the Republican national convention. So she is continuing here with this lawsuit saying that they are -- Hillary Clinton is that far -- at the fall. Sean Smith grew up here and then you have Tyrone Woods. His father, Charles would -- Woods is one of the plaintiffs. Then you have another person Glenn Doherty who had some connections as well. Esaus like his mother is not blaming Clinton and all. You talk to her. Yes, I did talk to her. While she did not want to get into the politics that surround this issue are these issues. She did have some nice things to say about Hillary Clinton. She did say that she felt that Clinton was a good Secretary of State. However, she did make some comments about -- it does not as though the government is not at all a responsible for what happened to her son. She believes there are eight are working underneath Clinton that may hold some responsibility here but did not go into a lot of detail. These lawsuits are politically motivated. Did you get that vibe? Do think there's Republican operatives encouraging people? Represent my next question because we should talk about Larry who is attorney. He is the attorney who filed this lawsuit and the founder of an organization called freedom watch and that is what I described as a conservative organization. He has for many years and decades highly critical of the Clintons. I don't think there's a lot of question here that there are politics involved in this lawsuit. That said when I spoke to him he was adamant that this is a situation where these parents are hurting and they want answers for what happened to their children. So he was very quick to say to me and very much living on the wording of the lawsuit. This is what I am saying and this is what I mean and this is about justice for the families. He has a little bit of a baggage. History Barack Obama. There is a little bit of political baggage are. We know where he stands. Let's talk about some legal observers who waited on this lawsuit. Fox news that they lack merit. Have you seen some of that? I have seen some of that. In the lawsuit itself there is language in there that says -- part of the cause of action that is claimed in a Soo is that there was some defamation here by Hillary Clinton against the to my parents who are named as plaintiffs in this case. It says specifically that her rhetoric involving those problems -- parents were ramped up or underscored once this campaign the underway for presidential campaign, underway. You Camberley divide the two things. What she did or did not do as secretary of state and what she is saying according to the plaintiffs in the suit now that she's running for president. Just a couple of seconds left no chance in this goes to trial? I hate to make those claims, but I think this one might have a hard road ahead. Okay. Very good. But does wrap up another week of stories at the KPBS roundtable. I would like to think my guess -- my guests. thank you for joining us today at the roundtable.