Scott Lewis

Mar 26, 2025 | voiceofsandiego.org | Scott Lewis

The city of San Diego is going to raise hotel room taxes in May. The money was supposed to fund an expansion to the Convention Center, but that isn’t happening anymore. Anyone staying in a hotel in San Diego will soon see a higher tax on their bills. The tax ranges depending on how close to downtown you are, from 11.75% to 13.75%. So for example, if you’re staying in a downtown hotel and your room costs $250 a night, you’d see an extra $34 a night on your bill.

Mar 25, 2025 | voiceofsandiego.org | Scott Lewis |Lisa Halverstadt

We pulled this post from the Politics Report. The city of San Diego that it would start to collect the higher hotel-room tax prescribed in 2020’s Measure C. Measure C got a majority of support from voters but not two-thirds and opponents have argued that means it did not pass. But supporters have said it qualifies under the still open loophole that citizens initiatives can pass, even with special tax increases, with support of just a bare majority of voters.

Mar 24, 2025 | voiceofsandiego.org | Scott Lewis

We keep hearing about how things are getting more expensive, and there’s another item to add to that list: trash pickup. If you are a homeowner in San Diego, you could be about to pay $53 a month for trash pickup. That’s $636 a year. Anyone who lives in an apartment — about half of San Diegans — already pays private haulers for trash collection and that won’t change. But for about 235,000 families, their property tax bill will include a new line item for trash fees. It goes back to 2022.

Mar 18, 2025 | kpbs.org | Scott Lewis

The most sophisticated effort yet to create an independent La Jolla, separate from the city of San Diego ran into its first big obstacle, Monday. The Local Agency Formation Commission of San Diego, or LAFCO, sent a letter to the group pushing for secession alerting it that it did not collect enough signatures to go forward.

Mar 17, 2025 | voiceofsandiego.org | Scott Lewis

The most sophisticated effort yet to create an independent La Jolla, separate from the city of San Diego ran into its first big obstacle, Monday. The Local Agency Formation Commission of San Diego, or LAFCO, sent a letter to the group pushing for secession alerting it that it did not collect enough signatures to go forward.