Chris Cate

The Meter Play: How a $17 Million Contract, a Rigged RFP, and a Punished Whistleblower Built San Diegos Parking Meter Empire Published

Mayor Gloria expanded IPS Groups $17M parking meter empire into residential neighborhoods to backfill a $258M budget deficit. IPS Group (owned by Windjammer Capital PE) benefits from every expansion while communities lose both free parking and their share of revenue. A MathPolitics Special Investigation.

The Cheapest Yes Published

Sempra Energy distributed $75K across four intermediary PACs before the 2021 SDG&E franchise vote. Those PACs channeled $392K+ to the mayor and five of six YES-voting council members. All three NO voters received $0.

The Faulconer Machine Published

A Republican mayor of a blue city, 101 Ash Street, the stadium wars, and the donor class entrenching as the county begins to flip.

Southwest Strategies: Manufacturing Consent for Hire Published

Southwest Strategies (CEO Chris Wahl; rebranded Bodewell Group Feb 2026): 1,001 evidence-backed connections — 428 lobbying contacts across 27 city and county elected officials of both parties (2012-2025), 88 consulting clients, and $193,686.81 in disclosed political giving topped by $69,313.81 to the county Republican Party and $18,000 to the county Democratic Party. The public-affairs firm behind the Sports Arena, 101 Ash, and SoccerCity public-land deals.

Hecht Solberg: Making the Zoning Win Permanent Published

Hecht Solberg Robinson Goldberg & Bagley LLP (named partner and registered city lobbyist Paul Robinson): 691 evidence-backed connections — 178 lobbying contacts across 21 city elected officials of both parties (2012-2025) and roughly 95 land-use clients (the Irvine Company, Alexandria Real Estate, Vulcan Materials, Garden Communities, Sares-Regis). Robinson personally gave $59,948 across 61 bipartisan contributions and chaired the developer-funded Lincoln Club of San Diego County. The land-use law firm that converts a discretionary zoning approval into a vested legal right — shown in the 2020 Kearny Mesa Community Plan 9-0 upzone the firm lobbied for a mobile-home-park owner.

The Madaffer Axis: Two Firms, One City Hall Published

The Revolving Door: Regulators for Hire Published

Three San Diego officials — Marcela Escobar-Eck (Development Services Director then Atlantis Group), Gil Cabrera (Ethics Commission Chair then Airport Authority Chair and New San Diego PAC), and Frank Urtasun (Sempra VP then Housing Commission Chair then Port Commissioner) — who ran a city regulatory, ethics, or housing body and later lobbied or consulted the same arena, two of them rotating back into appointed office. A bipartisan revolving door, documented evidence-first.

The Permanent Money: Who Funds Every Side Published

Five unelected institutions — Sempra and its monopoly utility SDG&E, the Sycuan gaming tribe, the Building Industry Association, and the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council AFL-CIO — supply the money behind San Diego politics, funding both parties through party-committee conduits and sponsored independent-expenditure committees. SDG&E's signature outcome: the 2021 6-3 renewal of the gas-and-electric franchise it has held since 1920. The labor left wing is as structurally unelected as the utility/developer/gaming right wing.