Marni von Wilpert

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 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 Race Switcher Published

The Trolley Question, Part 4: Parking Is the Revenue Published

The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority books 43% of its total annual revenue from activities that assume passengers drive to the airport or rent a car at it — $203M of $473M in FY25, audited. The Port of San Diego books 64% of operating revenue from bayfront land-access concessions. In 2019, SDCRAA signed a 10-year Airline Operating & Lease Agreement that gives airlines consent rights on transit/ground-access projects over $350M and commits up to $515M in airline funding for regional transit — $440M of which is contingent on regional matches not yet raised. COVID proved the exposure: FY19→FY21 parking revenue fell 56% while bond debt stayed fixed. Mayor Gloria appoints 3 of 9 voting seats on the SDCRAA board. SANDAG has run 15 airport-transit studies over 40 years and funded none. The AOLA expires in 2029.

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 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.