Joe LaCava

The Trolley Question, Part 2: Paying to Say No Published

Two SANDAG board members vote against the trolley extension. One has $14,100 in donations from her board's vendors. One has zero. The bought chair and the unbought suburban mayor both keep the trolley off the beach. The board geometry is the rot — and it is older than any check.

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 Money Machine: How a Lincoln Club-Founded PAC Buys Democratic Votes on San Diego's City Council Published

**A MathPolitics Investigation -- The Council Files, Part 1**

The Landlord in the Chair Published

The council president who controls housing policy is a landlord whose finances the disclosure system was not built to reveal. 33 Form 700 filings, zero behested payments, a former client receiving $2.87M in public funding, and an eviction registry cut at 0.0086% of the budget.

The Measure B Machine Published

The Price of No Published

Raul Campillo took $14,779 in post-election donations from lobbyists and developers — then voted against their interests on the biggest deals in San Diego. Three weeks after his dissenting votes, the Council President removed him from the committee where those votes were cast.

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.

On Saturday The Library Is Closed: How San Diego Chose The Budget Crisis Published

The Trolley Question, Part 3: The Two-Mile Gap Published

The 2010 Mid-Coast Trolley extension stops two miles short of Pacific Beach because the FTA cost-effectiveness formula fixed the UCSD/I-5 alignment in the 1995 DEIS / 2001 Record of Decision — before voters ever saw a ballot. The 2004 TransNet Expenditure Plan literally specified 'I-5 corridor from Old Town to UCSD/UTC, $660 million.' SANDAG staff internally revised TransNet revenue $1.3B downward 11 months before the 67% supermajority vote cleared the 2/3 threshold by 0.3 points — and never disclosed it. A sitting SANDAG Vice Chair served on the Working Group for a period the agency will not publicly disclose.

The Council Published

Your one vote is also four votes you didn't cast. The 6-of-9 override almost never comes.

The Gloria Machine Published

The machine changes party but not behavior: the same lobbyists and developers, now operating through Democratic officeholders.

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 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.

The Question Nobody Had to Ask Published

Henry Foster III was fired from the City of San Diego in 2016. Nine years later, as Budget Chair, he co-architected the elimination of his former supervisor's position. The city's ethics framework had no mechanism to surface the connection.

The Architect Who Burned the Blueprint Published

Joe LaCava spent three decades as a development consultant for Fortune 500 real estate companies, then built a political career as a leading champion of community planning oversight in San Diego. Once elected to City Council, records show he led reforms that weakened the very groups he once chaired — reforms shaped by a task force that was majority development-aligned. The Building Industry Association went from opposing him in 2020 to endorsing him in 2024.

The Gatekeeper's Ledger Published