S1: Coming up on KPBS roundtable this week , Trump has continued his tough talk on immigration. But on the ground in San Diego , it's been relatively quiet. We separate fact from fiction when it comes to immigration enforcement in the region.
S2: The fear is real , and I think people spreading these rumors have a good intention , but they're misinformed and they inadvertently cost more harm than good.
S1: Then California's plan for high speed rail faces new hurdles , as federal funding may be at risk. Plus , a look at other stories we've been following on the roundup. That's ahead on KPBS roundtable. Just over a month into his second term , President Donald Trump is continuing to call for mass deportations. That's left immigrant communities on edge , fearful of widespread raids. Those raids haven't hit the San Diego region just yet , but local advocates and some elected officials aren't waiting to provide resources and protection. Gustavo Solis is KPBS border reporter and has been very , very busy covering the latest on the immigration beat. Gustavo , thanks for joining our roundtable.
S2: Hello , Scott.
S1: To start , let's talk about Ice raids.
S2: Now , what we have seen is a few targeted arrests , right ? These are individuals kind of what it sounds like , right ? Ice has a list of people. They've had prior convictions and they go and arrest that individual , as opposed to a raids , which would be just a bunch of agents showing up to , I don't know , outside of a Home Depot or something and getting everyone they can. We haven't seen that in San Diego. Um , and to kind of verify and prove , I actually one of the stories I did was a ride along with these activists who do community patrols. They get up at the crack of dawn right around immigrant neighborhoods. If they see ice , they have protocols that they do. They kind of blast them on social media. They have a blow horn that they tell people to avoid the area. They've been doing that basically since the inauguration. They've seen two individual arrests up in the North County , but nothing that would be anything close to an Ice raid.
S1: That was a great story. You did. You got up at 5 a.m. , spent two hours riding around Linda Vista looking for ice with this , you know , patrol unit made up of advocates. You didn't find anything.
S2: I mean , it was we were fishing and we didn't catch anything. But that's kind of the point is to be out there. Right. And I asked that to the advocate straight up , like , did I just wake up at 5 a.m. for nothing ? Like , was there any value in this , even though you're not seeing eyes and the empathetic or the the answer was just yes. This is value like it is good for the community to see us out here. All the cars have a decal. They have group chats that number in in the five hundreds saying , hey , we're out here , we're looking. And I think it's very important to kind of see that because it's verifying what is and isn't out there , right ? The fear is there. People are afraid. People are anxious. They're seeing these newscasts of arrest up in Chicago and in the East Coast. And they think , man , maybe it can happen here. Maybe it is happening here. So I think it is very valuable to have somebody out there telling you what is and isn't happening.
S1: Well , right. Because we haven't seen raids , but we have seen a lot of rumors , as you were just mentioning. So like , tell us more about that.
S2: Yeah , they spread on social media. There's been a few high profile rumors. One was somebody took a picture of three Border Patrol vehicles parked outside of Rady Children's Hospital. The the caption said something like confirmed border patrol at the hospital. And that spread widespread fear among the communities. Uh , it wasn't a raid. It's actually very common to have border Patrol vehicles at hospitals because oftentimes migrants will get injured crossing the border. They fall from the border wall , they almost drown while swimming across. Uh , and they're in such bad conditions that they need to be taken to emergency rooms here in San Diego. So it's actually very common to see Border Patrol cars parked outside of hospitals and even inside hospitals to to kind of monitor the people they bring in. Other rumors have been , uh , Border Patrol cars parked outside a restaurants , uh , taco shop , a pizza shop. Oh , my gosh , the shop is getting raided. No , It's just two people going out for lunch in the middle of their workday , and they happen to work for Border Patrol and drive their official car. One of the advocates I talked to , actually , he saw it happen firsthand when he was in a park. San Diego Park Rangers have these , you know , green uniforms that kind of look like Border Patrol. And so people saw a guy in a green uniform and said , oh , no , la migra. Like , this is bad. We gotta watch out. And he was just in the park now with his kids , and he had to step up and verify. I was like , hey , no , that's San Diego. They don't do this stuff. They actually , because of their sanctuary laws , cannot legally ask us for immigration status. So the fear is real. And I think people spreading these rumors have a good intention , but they're misinformed and they inadvertently cause more harm than good.
S1: I mean , anyone with even a passing familiarity with social media knows that rumors spread like wildfire very fast , very rapidly. So that's almost to be expected , unfortunately , on those platforms. However , people often turn to news outlets to try to get clarity , to try to sift through those rumors and understand what's actually happening.
S2: People want to report the news , right ? There's a lot coming out of Washington. Immigration is a hot issue and people want to inform their audience , but they just do it in a way that's very hurtful. One example is here in San Diego , CBS eight. They ran a story with the headline Immigration Raids Hit San Diego County this weekend. That's a pretty unambiguous headline. Immigration raids hit San Diego County this weekend. That didn't happen. There were no raids in San Diego County the weekend that this story was talking about. The story itself even has a sentence saying , uh , federal agencies across the country are not providing how many arrests happened in which jurisdictions ? They don't know how many arrests happened in San Diego. But the headline says there's immigration rates in San Diego that I think it's an example of journalistic malpractice that does not inform the audience. That creates more anxiety than than not. And I think it's just a bad example. And look , I know there's a lot of stress on us to do the job right. We have deadlines. We have a lot of conflicting information we have to verify , but we have to step up and we have to do right by our audience. And unfortunately , not everyone has.
S1: I mean , what's the impact of something like that , a headline like that , a story like that , because there's been others as well , and certainly not just here in San Diego , but elsewhere around the country that can stoke fear.
S2: I think that's the that's the impact stoke fear , which we know that is one of the outcomes or that is the the how would you want to say the goals of the Trump administration is to create fear ? The border star Tom Homan has said , we want undocumented immigrants to be afraid in this country. We want them to be so afraid that they self-report and news outlets that do this kind of shoddy reporting are essentially doing that work of the federal government on their behalf.
S1: So we have not seen raids hit San Diego. However , like you said , there are targeted enforcement. There is targeted enforcement , targeted arrests. Let's shift the conversation to what happens to people after they're arrested.
S2: But that could not be further from the truth. I mean , yes , there are people who already have orders of removal as the official term , orders of removal , which is basically you've already gone through an immigration court and they have determined that you need to be deported. Most of the people that are arresting do not have orders of removal. So just like in a criminal case , if you're arrested , you need to be charged. You need to go before a court. And a judge has to rule that you either should or should not be here. That process takes a long time. So it's not like you can just grab somebody and deport them the next day. They have to go through , you know , they have due process protection rights just like everyone else does. So we haven't seen , you know , early on in the administration , we saw a big increase in the number of arrests. That has not translated to a big increase in the number of deportations , at least not yet. Right.
S1: Right. In terms of that due process , what's the importance of it ? What what sort of bad outcomes is it trying to avoid ? Because this is high stakes stuff. We're talking about deportations , taking people from their community , from their family , sending them , you know , across the border to a different country , very high stakes.
S2: We have a history in this country of deporting US citizens , like mistakes happen in this system. We we deport veterans all the time. people lose their case , not because of the strength of their argument or the quality of their evidence , but just because they didn't know how to present it in the right way. But we have examples of people losing their cases , not because their case isn't good enough , or they don't have the evidence or whatever reason. They lose it because they don't have legal representation , which goes into one of the biggest criticisms of the immigration justice system , which is that unlike criminal court , where you have a right to an attorney , if you can't afford one , one will be provided for you in immigration court. You have a right to an attorney if you can't afford one , good luck. The state doesn't provide an attorney for you , and a lot of people lose their cases because they have to represent themselves.
S1: Well , that brings up another story that you were reporting on about a free legal defense program for people in immigration court. What's happening there ? Yes.
S2: San Diego County in they approved it in 2021. It was actually the first border county in the entire country To have a program like this , a free legal representation program is mirrored , kind of like the criminal court system. The spirit of they call it universal representation , which means they don't look at the merits of a case before it's assigned. Like even if it's a really bad case , that's likely going to lose , you're going to get one anyway , just like you would in the criminal court. And that actually ensures that we're deporting the right people , right ? People with criminal convictions. Most of them are not going to have a way to stay in this country legally. If you give them a lawyer , you speed up the process because they don't delay , delay , delay because they don't have a lawyer. And you also just make it thorough like they had their shot. It was a good chance , better than most and they still failed. Good luck. There's no ambiguity that we deported the wrong person , right ? And then for the other side of it , I mean , I mentioned cases of U.S. citizens being deported. This program has prevented that. Like there have been people , San Diego residents who , for one way or another , maybe they're naturalized citizens and they lost their paperwork , find themselves in immigration court about to be deported. Lawyers in these programs help our community members stay in San Diego.
S1:
S2: They actually in 2023 , Joe Anderson tried to use that as a reason to limit the program and change it from universal representation to representing everyone except convicts. They pointed to examples of , oh , we're using county taxpayer dollars to represent murderers and and sex criminals and all these bad folks. All that is true. The context that he left out is that folks with criminal convictions represent 5% of all the people represented on this program. We're talking about a little small group of people. And even then , the program , like I said in the beginning , the what the what was presented to the public in 2021 , what the county Board of Supervisors approved in 2021 was universal representation that mirrors the criminal court system. So from the beginning , this has always kind of been the intention of the program.
S1: And as you said , legal representation may mean even quicker deportations for certain people with certain convictions. It's not something that would gum up the works. It's actually potentially representing the opposite of that. Now , this debate at the county Board of Supervisors is split along party lines , right ? Because we have two Democratic supervisors , two Republican supervisors. This is getting into a different story because there's an open board of supervisor seats.
S2: Nora Vargas vacated her seat. Uh , she's a Democrat. Uh , the concern. I don't know about concern , but the possibility is that a conservative leaning candidate will replace or win that seat. And who knows , maybe if the the majority flips , this program could be on the chopping block. Uh , maybe not end completely , but at least limit some of the scope of it. Um , I know our colleague Cory Suzuki is doing reporting on that race , and he has been asking the candidates about it , so I'm curious to hear what they say.
S1: A lot of the discussion around former Supervisor Nora Vargas leaving that seat was , well , eventually , probably soon , there's going to be a really important vote that comes up or an important issue that's debated , and the supervisor is just going to be split. And whoever wins this election , I mean , it's just such an important election that's happening.
S2: This is one of many , many programs that could fall along those party lines. And the future is kind of uncertain. Now , I will say there is state support for something like this. Uh , Governor Gavin Newsom recently okayed a $25 million , uh , statewide for programs like this. There's $25 million for folks who are already providing free legal representation to immigrants and deportation court. So presumably some of those $25 million could come to San Diego , which would kind of , uh , speak directly to one of the criticisms of the program is that they don't want San Diego County money to go in into representing these folks. Presumably state money could go into representing these folks.
S1: So you've been very , very busy , as I mentioned at the top. Um , and that's probably not going to change any time soon. I sit , like right next to you. I see you all the time grinding away. The stories don't stop. So looking ahead now again , we're only about a month into Trump's second term.
S2: So if you're listening to this and you have a story , please reach out. Uh , actually I'm working on one right now that we got that way about a tourist who ended up being detained for a month , uh , you know , stay tuned for that one , because that's a really , really interesting story. Um , I'm really curious to see how these policies out of Washington are impacting San Diego. Right. I think the AP did some interesting reporting last week on the fact that some immigration judges have been fired. Uh , there's an immigration court case backlog in this country. Part of the problem with our immigration system is that it takes 5 or 6 years to adjudicate an asylum claim. Firing judges is not going to help that. So I'm curious to see how many in San Diego were fired , how that impacts the case backlog. Um , tariffs are back , right. All Trump did last last month was pushed back a month. So at the end of February presumably there'll be conversations about are we going to get those tariffs between Mexico and the US. And that would really have a massive impact on our region. So like you said , I'm busy. There's no shortage of stuff to work on.
S1: Gustavo Solis is KPBS investigative border reporter. Gustavo , thanks for joining Round Table.
S2: Thanks , Scott. I appreciate you having me on.
S1: Up next , California's high speed rail faces new challenges as the Trump administration Announces its plans for a federal review of the program that's coming up on roundtable. Welcome back to roundtable. I'm Scott Rod. California's dream of bringing high speed rail to connect northern and Southern California has been years in the making. But the project , already beset by delays and budget overruns , now faces a new challenge as the Trump administration announced plans to review federal funding for the project. Colleen Shelby is a reporter with the Los Angeles Times and has been following this story. Colleen , welcome to roundtable. Hi.
S3: Hi. Thank you for having me.
S1:
S3: They'll basically be looking into the contracts of the project and just how it's handled overall.
S1:
S3: And that's what this specific compliance review is going to be focusing on. Um , this would be money to help with the ongoing construction that's so far been limited to that portion of the route.
S1:
S3: They they believe that every dollar has been accounted for under multiple federal and state audits over the past several years. Um , they they seem to be just going along as business as usual. Uh , there hasn't been any indication so far that they are shifting plans , uh , though , you know , until the compliance review is done and the Trump administration announces what their plans are , I'm not sure if we will be hearing of many changes , um , until that point.
S1:
S3: Um , the the announcement came after Republican lawmakers had sent a letter to Trump asking for an investigation. And it also followed Trump and some of his cabinet members signaling that this project is going to be , you know , a target for the new administration. Um , it's gone over budget. It's gone beyond the initial timeline that's been proposed. So it seems like the review is trying to , um , you know , sort out what exactly has occurred.
S1: Now , I want to dive into some of this history. So let's take a step back. High speed rail. This project has quite a long history. It's spanning now over 15 years. I'm wondering if you could give me , you know , a brief history lesson here. Yeah.
S3: Yeah. So in 2008 , the project was proposed to voters as a high speed rail connection that would link the state from Los Angeles to San Francisco in a pretty feasibly accessible way. It was supposed to be finished by 2020 , and was supposed to be a bit over $33 billion. Flash forward , the project is about $100 billion overbudget. It's well past the timeline. There's no single part of the route that's been completed , and the construction has been limited to the Central Valley , so we don't know when Los Angeles or San Francisco will be connected at this point.
S1:
S3: So the link from San Diego to Los Angeles is technically phase two , which would come after , um , assembling the line between Los Angeles to San Francisco. And right now , there's no timeline for when construction beyond the Central Valley would begin. So it's hard to even know when construction beyond the the initial line would start being San Diego.
S1: I see , so a piece of phase one is well overbudget and way past the timeline. So phase two , it's hard to even say , you know , put any sort of attachments to it. Got it. Um , well , as far as the first phase of the project , you know , with the line going from Merced to Bakersfield in the Central Valley , Ali , how far is that line from completion at this point and what work.
S4:
S3: Um , construction has gone into the , uh , track lean mode. So it was announced last month that , you know , they would prepare to start laying tracks. And then once that occurs , obviously there's testing and , um , you know , perfecting , perfecting that part of the line. So we'll see if that continues. If 2033 remains the , uh , the target date. But that's what they've been saying for , uh , for several years now.
S1:
S3: There's there's definitely leaders who , um , who want the the project to be defunded , who think that it's hurting the Central Valley. There's other leaders in communities who feel like the project is going to be integral to economic growth. Um , the authority has authorities pointed out several times that there's been more than 14,000 jobs that have been created from the construction project. And several of the communities there have , you know , business plans related to downtown areas connected to high speed rail. So if you know , the project were to be defunded , if there are more challenges , you know , you could see some people happy about it. You could see others that are upset. It's a mixed bag , I would say.
S1: Got it , got it. So so already some economic impacts being felt by the number of jobs that are being created. But also , as you said , some businesses that are making future plans , banking on this high speed rail coming , coming online and connecting more of the state and having it come through that part of the Central Valley. So again , that's the first part of the rail line from Risd to Bakersfield. Can you talk more about the future phases ? Maybe let's stick with just the one that will eventually get down to Los Angeles. How far how far is this line expected to ultimately cover.
S3: Um , last year , the entire line was finally cleared. Environmentally cleared for construction. Um , that was a pretty big hurdle. There had been a lot of pushback in certain parts of the line from Palmdale to Los Angeles , so that that was a big achievement on the authority side. But in terms of when construction would start , that's still unclear to me. The line should go. And , you know , the proposed line is supposed to go from Anaheim , Los Angeles , Palmdale , Bakersfield , up through Merced , and then , um , you know , through San Jose and San Francisco. But , um , right now it's still really unclear when , uh , when these next portions of phase one would begin.
S1: Let's go back to this federal review and the potential outcomes of it. What what is likely to happen if federal funding goes away , or perhaps is scaled back.
S5: If it goes away , or.
S3: If it's even scaled back , it's just going to add more challenges to the high speed rail , to the project itself , to completing it , because it's so overbudget right now , and there's tens of billions of dollars that have not yet been identified. But it's been , you know , no secret , even among supporters , that the project has had these issues with the timeline and with the budget. There had been discussions among people who supported among lawmakers , among them a state appointed peer group , excuse me , among a state appointed peer review group who advises the authority about , you know , looking at whether there's opportunity for public private investment , whether that private sector investment is something that's going to need to be relied on more heavily , since right now it's just state and federal funding that has really gone move this forward.
S1: Got it.
S3: Um , that they would just basically have to figure out different solutions. And that might mean that they try to lean more on taxpayer dollars , or they really focus heavily on getting private sector buy in. Um , Brightline West , the high speed rail that's supposed to connect Southern California to Las Vegas , is privately owned , for example. And , you know , it's possible that they at some point look at avenues outside of public funding for help.
S1: You know , this this call for a federal review is one of the first actions by Trump here in a second term. It's kind of remarkable that it's come so quickly. There is some history here , though , with the Trump administration , with with Trump himself. He you know , I saw a story in the LA times from 2019. That said , Trump in the High Speed Rail Authority. They're just not on talking terms. And so this goes some years back , I don't know , give me a little bit of history here. Um , just between Trump and his attitude towards high speed rail out here in California. Yeah.
S3: Yeah. And under the first Trump administration , um , Trump had tried to claw back dollars that the Biden administration ended up restoring. Um , so he's for some time has , you know , been pretty clear that he thinks that the project is wasteful and that it's mismanaged. Um , that was something he had commented on recently. He he seems to be supportive of the idea of high speed rail in general. Um , you know , he has talked about the need for high speed rail in the US , but this specific project is what he , um , he's taking issue with.
S1: You had mentioned private investment earlier. Let's dive into that a little bit.
S3: I , I don't know where exactly this would come from at this point. This seems to be a conversation that's being had right now , kind of in the early stages of what this would look like and who to even turn to at this point for help. But because the the project is so far over budget , I mean , we're talking tens of billions of dollars. Um , the need for funding outside of the federal government is pretty extensive , and it doesn't seem like that could all be compensated through the state. So if the federal funding pulls out , if there's no longer commitments from the federal government , you know , we may be seeing high speed rail authority really diving deeper into help from outside of public funds.
S1: Now , there will be a board meeting for California's high speed rail authority next week.
S3: There's a CEO report , there's a construction update. Um , that's what you would typically expect during these board meetings. I would expect. And you know , they address the compliance review because it would be the elephant in the room. But I don't know how extensively they will or , you know , if they will at all. They've , you know , commented on the fact that they welcome the compliance review. And it's possible that they might reiterate that , but I , I will be tuning in because I'm curious what's going to be said.
S1:
S3: There are projects such as Metro that have some links to high speed rail in Los Angeles. There are many transit projects that are tied into the Olympics as a goal. So there is definitely a concern that if the Trump administration pulls back now that it could signal , you know , other defunding elsewhere. And that's something that none of these leaders want to see right now.
S1: Something certainly for us to keep an eye on. I've been speaking with Colleen Shelby. She's a reporter at the Los Angeles Times. Colleen , thanks so much for joining us.
S3: Thank you for having me.
S1: When roundtable returns , we hear about some other stories we've been following this week in the roundup. Stay tuned. This is KPBS roundtable. I'm Scott rod. It's time for the roundup , where we take a look at other stories that caught our attention this week. Joining me in studio is KPBS producer Andrew Bracken. Hey , Andrew.
S6: Hey , Scott. So what stories are on your list this week ? I'll let you start.
S1: I got to start things off with this incredible New York Times investigation. And it looked at organ transplants and specifically the list of people who are waiting to get organ transplants. Now , most people think of this list and they think , well , the people at the front of the list will be the ones who are getting the organs that are needed , the highest priority. Right. And we're talking organ transplants like kidney , liver , heart , etc.. And there were more than 100,000 people on this list. Now , this investigation , which was astonishing , it found that in many cases , this list is a lie. That's how they describe it. They describe how essentially , the nonprofits that are running these organ donation programs and officials that oversee it , they just ignore the rankings , and the donations are often leapfrogging over hundreds or even thousands of people when they give out these organs. And they often go to people who are not as sick or maybe haven't been waiting nearly as long , or they're just not on the list at all. That's what The New York Times found. It's a great read , really troubling. I highly encourage anyone listening to check it out. Wow.
S6: Wow. And that's I mean , it just sounds so disturbing because the list definitely seems , you know , one of those things that's really like the difference between life and death for a lot of folks.
S1: So last year , The New York Times found that officials skipped patients on the waiting list for nearly 20% of transplants from deceased donors , and that was six times higher than in previous years. And the reason why these sort of , you know , this leapfrogging is happening is for expediency and essentially like favoritism. So these nonprofits that are managing organ donations , they're prioritizing like the ease and convenience of finding a patient , as opposed to the fairness of trying to find trying.
S6: To getting it to the right person.
S1: Getting it to the right person , getting it to the person who is at the front of the line. A lot of times , these nonprofits that are managing these donations , they have relationships with certain hospitals , and then those hospitals will have like unofficial lists of preferred patients.
S6: So , I mean , it kind of seems like a lot went into this piece. Like you said , it's definitely like a worthy read. Can you talk a little bit about what kind of went into their investigation ? I mean , it must have taken quite a bit of time , right ? Yeah.
S1: The New York Times does this great thing where they'll lay out their methodology for an investigation like this. And just that alone is an impressive read. So they interviewed over 275 people for this investigation. They were able to track down family members of loved ones who died after they were skipped over for organ transplants. So you're hearing from people who found out that their loved one was in line , but got skipped and then later died. And it's just I mean , it's such a heartbreaking read.
S6: It's crushing.
S1:
S6: The Oscars are this Sunday , and and I got to be honest , I have not seen. Still , I have not seen a lot of the nominated films , but one of my favorite things to do this time of year is to actually try to watch some of the short films. The Oscars have three categories of short films , I think. So they have documentary , short , um , live action and animated and some local theaters. Um , will show the shorts , the nominated shorts , and I highly recommend it. And the Digital Jim Theater downtown is showing the live action and animated categories. And I also believe the Angelika Film Center in Carmel Mountain is also showing those two categories. What I love about the short films is a you don't. You may not have the same opportunity to see them as some of the bigger Hollywood pictures that are kind of like in the movie theaters all the time , but also I feel like it's much more attainable. It's achievable to make a perfect short film. I think it's like making a like a perfect feature. 90 minute , two hour long film is like basically impossible. But a short film in 15 , 20 , 25 minutes there is. I've just seen some amazing , um , Oscar winning short films in the past , so I'm going to try to check it out. And I was kind of looking at the list of some of these categories and they're , you know , early on the show , you talked to Gustavo about the immigration system , and there is a short film that's kind of potentially a favorite for Best Live Action Short , and it's called alien. It's the word alien with the space after a , um , but yeah , it tells pretty timely story about a family kind of navigating the immigration system.
S1: Short films are awesome , but they don't get the kind of attention that they typically deserve. Some years ago , I went and watched all of the Oscar nominated shorts , all the live action ones , and I was blown away , in part because it's really tough to tell , like a complete and layered story in that short time span. So people should definitely check out that , that those short films that are playing , uh , locally. Speaking of locally , I want to talk about two local stories that came across my radar this week. One was from KPBS , Corey Suzuki. He covers the South Bay and Imperial County. This is a story he's been covering for a while. The Island post office , which is in Imperial County , burned down in February 2022. So we're coming up on the three year anniversary. That post office has still not been rebuilt. This is a small community. Niland is very rural , mostly low income. And what Corey has found is that the postal service has made very little , very little progress towards rebuilding. Despite these promises , saying to this community , Hey , we're going to get this thing rebuilt. We haven't forgotten you , but a lot of the people who live there feel forgotten. And , you know , some listeners may be wondering , well , what's the big deal here ? It's snail mail. That's , you know , it's probably just junk mail. Some of these residents have to travel 50 miles to pick up their mail. We're talking about medication , groceries , bills. A lot of that stuff's being delayed. So , you know , kudos to Corey for sticking with that story because it's a very important one. And I think the people of Niland don't want to feel like they're being forgotten completely.
S6: And Scott , this is one of the stories. I mean , I remember , you know , I think we've talked to Corey about this story and three years of it just that's really a long time to not see the progress on it. I do one thing I really appreciate about Corey and some of the other reporters is just putting Imperial County on the map , um , other parts of our county. It's like a lot of times our , our attention goes to to the urban center of San Diego. And one thing that always amazes me about where we live is just the range of , of diversity , of geographical diversity. We have a lot of rural areas with even within San Diego County , not even just Imperial. So I appreciate kind of him keeping the story. You know , again , he's covered this for more than a year or two now. Right ? And it's just kind of keeping it on the radar. Absolutely.
S1: Absolutely. Yeah. Another story , local story from Voice of San Diego. This was focused on National City. The headline was how a barber became the Edwin Mitchell again. The headline is how a barber became the unwitting owner of a cannabis company. I saw that headline and I was like , I gotta read this. It's an astonishing story. Um , you know , in a nutshell , this barber who was based in National City was approached by someone who came in to get their haircut and essentially said , hey , we might be interested in having you get involved in this cannabis company. The person kept coming back in and sort of was was trying to build this relationship with this barber , this this woman who kept cutting his hair. And she was intrigued , but also had her guard up a little bit. And eventually this person handed over papers and said , look , we're doing this sort of program. We want to get local people involved when we open this , this cannabis dispensary here. The parent company was based in San Francisco. This barber , this woman ultimately decided to jump in , get involved. And she was promised that she would get $1,500 a month for her involvement. It was sort of framed as like , hey , we're going to do something that would give back to the community if people get involved. Now , what she didn't realize is that she actually was listed as the 51% owner of this company. She found this out and was like , astonished and sort of , you know , very confused and was trying to figure out what the heck was going on. And what it comes down to is a lot of cities have programs where either they want to see equity based cannabis owners , where people who are coming from disadvantaged communities , or maybe people who were arrested previously for marijuana charges or a local ownership. And it appears that what happened here is this company was trying to get someone who was locally based to be the , at least on paper , majority owner of this company. And so it's a great story. It's it's long. There are a lot of twists and turns. I encourage people to go check it out again. It's at Voice of San Diego. Um , but a great example of how someone can just sort of get unwittingly wrapped up into something completely , you know , unaware of what was happening. Maybe it's a cautionary tale about really read deeply before you put your signature on something , but you have to feel for this barber who , you know , at the end of the day said , look , I don't care about the $1,500 I want out of this thing. And she's still struggling to to pull out.
S6: Yeah , that's what I was going to ask. I mean , what's the status now ? I mean , she she's still an owner at this point.
S1: Uh , as far as I know , as far as the story left off , it appears that she is she's still kind of struggling to get out of it. She's working with the city to see if they can help her out. Um , and it looks like the this dispensary may either be on hold or it may have hit some hiccups before opening. So it seems like there's still a lot up in the air. But , um , the story is just a wild one for sure. And it combines so many different things. But with cannabis dispensaries opening and more and more places , I've heard and seen similar types of stories where , um , practices that will take what are intended to be , you know , good things like local ownership , equity based programs and business owners or bigger companies figuring out ways to maybe shoehorn their business practices in such a way that it would allow them to open up locally , but maybe not meet the spirit of the program that the city has set up.
S6: Yeah , and there have been numerous challenges with the cannabis industry , right , like trying to be small business driven and things like that. And it just it not coming to fruition. I think in the last couple you know , in its first few years. Right.
S1: It's been a big struggle for the recreational , legal , uh , cannabis industry. Absolutely. All right.
S6: Um , it was a big soccer week in San Diego , I think. Um , and they had their first match last weekend , and they won. Um , I think the team surprised a lot of folks , and they beat the defending MLS Cup champions , the LA Galaxy two to nothing. And I think , you know , in that conversation last week , there was a lot of doubt about how good this team might be right out of the gates. It's an expansion team. You never know there. And , uh , our colleague Melissa may went out to CFC to talk with some of the players and the coach about the upcoming match. There's a home game. Their first home game is Saturday night at Snapdragon Stadium , and there's a lot of rising expectations now. So here's a little of what Melissa asked the SFC head coach , Mikey Vargas , about the team expectations this weekend.
S7: Yeah , expectations are this is going to be there's going to be ups. There's going to be downs. There's going to be , uh , really high highs as we had in Galaxy. And listen , we're going to we're going to trip and we're going to have stumbling blocks. But what I know is that the guys are going to stay committed to our style , play to our values and to who we are.
S1:
S6: I mean , generally I think the expectation is you don't it's not a great season , right ? Um , we have the San Diego Wave FC who kind of right out of the gate. They they found success on the field. I think there's some MLS teams. This league. MLS has just expanded so much. They started with ten teams I think in the 90s. And now San Diego's is the 30th team. But pretty recently Lafc , LA's newest team. In the last few years , they had a good first year. But it's still you know , it's an expansion team. They're kind of building out their roster. So we'll see. But it was a pretty exciting start. It was I don't know I always like when I see San Diego on national headlines like on ESPN and that's what it was. I think it surprised a lot of people. So yeah , Saturday night Snapdragon I'm actually going to go to the game , the game set for 730. But I think they're doing sort of an inaugural kind of pre-game ceremony to kind of hype up the fans and welcome everyone. So it should be an interesting time.
S1: Yeah , well , you're gonna have to report back on how the game goes and the atmosphere there. We're all going to be rooting for , uh , San Diego FC. I've been speaking with KPBS producer Andrew Bracken. Thanks , Andrew. Thank you. Scott. Thanks for listening to KPBS roundtable. You can listen to the show anytime as a podcast. Roundtable airs on KPBS FM at noon on Fridays and again Sundays at 6 a.m.. If you have any thoughts on today's show , you can email us at roundtable at PBS.org. You can also leave us a message at (619) 452-0228. Roundtable's technical producer this week was Brandon Truffaut. This show was produced by Andrew Bracken. Brooke Ruth is Roundtable's senior producer and I'm Scott Rodd. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend.
