BS Summary: This article contains 16 faulty reasoning types, including Politically Left Leaning Bias, Framing Effect, and Hasty Generalization, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 46.7% saturation with 611 hits. Analysis detected 1,640 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,309 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 62.7% and a BS Rank of 70% (6,686 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 69.50% of the article peer group.
If you like political intrigue, this week in Chula Vista politics was awesome.
An oversized government reform package pushed (and rushed) by one of the most influential labor unions in South County politics flamed out in grand fashion.
My colleague Jim Hinch has written about it very well (more on that below) and very comprehensively, but this political case study is worth exploring from multiple angles.
First, what was this package and who was pushing it?
LIUNA 89, which represents construction workers and skilled laborers, was driving the reform — and that itself was strange, because the government reform package would not have benefited LIUNA’s members directly at all.
The package was doing a lot.
It would have given the city’s ethics commission new power, brought more transparency to lobbying, given municipal labor unions new bargaining power, granted a potential third term to city councilmembers and (here was the lightning point) massively raised councilmembers’ pay, while keeping them as part-time civil servants.
What’s LIUNA’s interest in all that?
I can’t tell you the exact motivation of LIUNA leaders, but this much is obvious:
If this measure had gone through, all the major players in city politics would have owed LIUNA.
Cops and firefighters, both generally beloved groups in Chula Vista, would have new bargaining power, courtesy of LIUNA.
The councilmembers would be getting more than $100,000 per year for a part-time job, courtesy of LIUNA.
Chula Vista has a lot of development on the horizon and that is where LIUNA did stand to directly benefit.
The next time LIUNA members wanted something — such as project labor agreements — they would have had a powerful argument with all the powerful players: Remember what we did for you lately?
That doesn’t put those players in your pocket, but it gives you a lot of leverage.
There was more to the measure, of course, like ethics and lobbying reform and an extension of term limits, but the material benefits to municipal labor unions and councilmembers were conspicuous.
LIUNA also pushed this measure at the last minute, just before the deadline to get a question on the ballot, and in a way that, whatever the intent, bypassed a great deal of public input.
That’s where Jim came in.
The outer-lying cities of San Diego — even the biggest — have a serious dearth of local news coverage.
In news deserts, big-deal reforms like this one can slide by without anyone noticing.
Powerful forces count on it.
And to be clear: I’m not saying these reforms were good or bad.
I’m saying they were a big deal.
Jim saw that very clearly and he covered it with tenacity, writing about the reform measure multiple times well before it died this week, even when no one else was paying attention.
“He literally single-handedly put that issue on the table,” former Chula Vista City Councilmember John Moot told me.
“He didn’t just do a good job, he saved the city.”
OK, John, calm down.
“Save the city” may be a little strong.
It’s hard to quantify the effect of reporting like this.
Other news outlets did their job, too.
They showed up in the last few days, when Mayor John McCann mobilized his opposing faction.
But there is absolutely no doubt that good reporting gave this issue enough oxygen early on so that it could burst into flames on Tuesday night when the community finally had its say.
Housing: A Response to a Respons e
Reflection of an apartment building on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, in the East Village neighborhood of downtown San Diego.
/ Vito Di Stefano for Voice of San Diego
Nothing invites heated discussions quite like housing.
Between the wonks, the NIMBYs and the monopoly men, it can all get very annoying.
I am admittedly apt to get sucked into these debates, but a new data point on apartment vacancy rates truly does deserve attention.
Apartment vacancy rates have soared due to an apartment building boom and it’s important we figure out whether that has slowed or reversed the insane cost of housing — or if it’s done almost nothing.
Ain’t nothing wonky about the price to live.
After I wrote about these vacancy rates , the president of a company that manages a bunch of rental properties by the name of David Malcolm wrote a response .
Malcolm said the building boom has made a difference.
Many companies, he wrote, are now offering two months free rent, a “de facto 16.7 percent reduction on annualized rent.”
Malcolm — unlike me — argued for a retrenchment in policies that have allowed developers to “build, build, build.”
(It’s more than a little interesting that such a retrenchment would likely mean Malcolm could stop offering those two months free rent.)
But enough of all that; I’ve received a response to the response!
Ryan Clumpner, a political consultant and until-recently commissioner on the San Diego Housing Commission, wrote to the Politics Report reacting to the offer of two months free rent that Malcom wrote about.
That’s great news!
Just one problem.
A potential renter must show that they can comfortably afford the full monthly rent, before any discounts, rather than the annualized rent after concessions.
Apparently this is how the elite insiders think about affordability, not as easing the burden on those most impacted by high costs, but as a bonus offered to high earners just for being high earners.
They’d rather take a loss on vacant apartments than lower the rent to reflect the true market rate, and fill those homes with people who can afford that rent on slightly less income.
That practice de facto prohibits qualified applicants of lower incomes from ever accessing the discounted rent.
These are the folks most burdened by the cost of housing and inflation.
Yet ubiquitous industry practices ensure the benefits of the recent development boom are concentrated among the top earners and blocked from trickling down to the people we promised to help.
Clumpner essentially argued that the “de facto” decrease of two months rent doesn’t open up the building to people with less income — which is what ideally it would do.
Because the rent is still technically the same, only the same higher earners qualify.
In other words, higher earners are benefiting most from all the building.
He cited statistics that show rents have increased much more on the low end than the high end.
From 2020 through 2025, rent [in Section 8 voucher apartments] increased an average of 83% among landlords renting to low-income voucher holders.
During the same period, the overall rent in the region increased by only 34%, and as Malcolm points out, renters at high incomes are even seeing declines in housing costs.
Welcome to the “K-shaped economy” where everything gets sharply more expensive for the poor as the well-connected rich get richer at breakneck speed.
It’s true that what Mr.
Malcolm calls the “build, build, build!”
agenda of the past decade, which I cheered at every turn, has not delivered the affordability we promised.
Yet it’s a smokescreen to claim the cause is a lack of underground parking at a cost of $60,000+ per apartment.
The real cause?
Large-scale landlords like Malcolm are adopting practices to ensure the benefits of new housing trickle down as slowly as possible, without regard for the broader impacts to society and our local community.
The reclusive ownership class that Malcolm represents rakes in vast profits from the scarcity of affordable housing options.
We have a shortage of affordable housing, not reserved private parking.
Have questions, comments, concerns, tips for the Politics Report?
Hit us up.
I’m at will.huntsberry@voiceofsandiego.org.
Scott Lewis will be back next week.
The post Politics Report: A Big Union Loss in Chula Vista appeared first on Voice of San Diego .
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