Two Fridays ago, I stood in front of hundreds of people at the California Working Families Party Convention. Elected officials, community organizers, labor leaders, activists, and advocates. People who believe a better future is worth fighting for and can be won. People who are done waiting on the Democratic Party establishment for the future our people deserve.

I’ve been a Democrat ever since I first registered to vote. If the Democratic Party is my political home, the Working Families Party is the room in that home where I feel most comfortable. It felt so good to be there.

More than 500 people attended the convention, and I left riding an even bigger wave of hope than I arrived on. And, for what it’s worth, I arrived on a big one, having recently attended Local Progress' national convening in Baltimore. If the Working Families Party is where I feel most comfortable in politics, Local Progress is my policy home. These are the folks I can be a policy nerd with. The main difference is our nerdiness starts from the heart, in a way your typical policy convening just doesn't allow.

My preference is always to spend my work time with and in community. But when I'm with other electeds, these are the spaces where I feel most at home. They bring me back to my days before city council, and they keep me connected to the belief that the movement work that inspired me to run for office doesn't have to end at the door of City Hall. The work I do now can be a continuation of it.

My four days with 1,000 progressives left me convinced that we are going to win. Not because it will be easy, or because there won't be setbacks. It is because of the people I met and the work they are doing while being perpetually outspent and discounted.

And before I even had a chance to write this, the evidence got stronger. Maybe the most significant proof yet.

Abdul El-Sayed won the Michigan Senate primary this week despite facing the entire Democratic establishment and nearly $70 million in outside spending. His victory is one more data point dispelling the notion that the progressive wave is limited to a few boroughs of New York. You don’t have to agree with these candidates in full or even in part, but it can no longer be denied — from historically progressive communities to the swingiest of swing states, a movement has taken shape and it is changing American politics.

I have a hypothesis for the success progressives are experiencing and it isn't only our unapologetic willingness to demand different and better for our people. It's the source of that demand that keeps being underestimated.

Love.

That was the crux of my speech, which I’m sharing below:

I don’t know about you, but I've been angry.

And it hasn’t just been because of what I’ve seen at the national level. It’s what I’ve seen in my city and in my district to the communities and people that I love and fight for. 

I’m angry about the father who was ripped out of his car dropping his kids off at school. I’m angry about the fascist influencers who knocked on the door of Somali daycare providers — women who devote their lives caring for other people's babies — demanding to "see the kids." I’m angry about the students in my district who struggle to see a future in the city they love because billionaires are trying to make human beings expendable and corporations are buying up neighborhoods.

And do you know what made me almost as angry as the fascist perpetrators of those injustices? The silence that followed… From Democrats. Because polls told them our people weren't worth the political risk or because campaign contributions were too tempting to deny. 

There's a word for that. Corruption. And I don't mean envelopes of cash. I mean a deeper corruption.  The corruption of politics itself. From what should be a mission fueled by love into a transactional game.

Again, this is not just about MAGA and their open air market of grifts. It’s the corporate wing of the Democratic Party.  The one that is funded by many of the same corporations as Republicans and had the audacity to try and tell us we must accept the party they’ll give us.

Working Families Party and this room exist because we refused to accept that deal.

So, yeah. I’ve been angry, but I know I'm not at my best when I'm angry. Anger burns. And anything that burns, burns out.

Thankfully, because of WFP — because of you — I can feel the anger being overcome by another feeling. Hope…

Do something with me. Think about the person you love most in the world.

Picture them.

For me, it's my son.

Hold that feeling.

Our opposition (MAGA and corporate Dems alike) looks at that feeling and calls it weakness.

What a mistake they’ve made.

It is not weakness that makes us shed a tear for a family torn apart by immigration cruelty.

It is not weakness that makes us shed a tear for a worker denied their pay and their dignity.

And it is not weakness that makes us weep for children on the other side of the world — children who are loved exactly the way I love my son.

Those tears come from love. And there is nothing stronger than our love for our people.

That love is power they can never match. And we are proving it.

And not just in New York with Zohran. The Working Families Party is proving it right here in California. Randy Villegas. Mai Vang. Jane Kim. The establishment spent millions to stop them and failed. Each of those champions is just one step away from governing. 

That's what happens when we tap into our love as the foundation for the political home we are building and inspiration for the world we are working to create. 

Think of the person you love most. The fires you would walk through for them. Now combine that strength from everyone in this room and everyone who we can organize around the ideas and values we are fighting for. 

That is a power that doesn't just win elections.

That is a power that literally changes the world.

It turns a neighborhood terrorized by ICE into one where people put their bodies on the line for one another and trust their neighbors to take care of their kids if they do not return home from work. It turns our crabs-in-a-barrel economy into masses taking to the streets for a general strike because we won’t accept billionaires trampling on our people any longer. 

Our opponents mistook our love for weakness.

Let's show them what it really is.

Thank you. I love you, I love us, I love the way we love, and I love the way we are going to win.  

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There's something about a hotel breakfast waffle iron that just hits different for a kid, especially a toddler.

This past week, I got to watch the pure joy an almost-three-year-old experiences when he realizes his hotel has a waffle maker, and that *he* gets to help make the waffles. Pour the batter. Turn the iron. And then the beeper. Oh, that beeper. Beni got genuinely amped about the beeper.

There were moments like that all week, like explaining the difference between syrup and honey after Beni insisted, with total confidence, that syrup is honey.

It brought me back to the morning after he was born. I was walking (but feeling like I was floating) toward the hospital cafeteria and wondering to myself: how do I spend every possible second with this amazing little human? Should I just quit my job? Can I quit my job? I just wanted to be with him, and Angela, and Lexi.

Obviously, I knew even then that it wasn't real. But it felt real.

And on most days, there are little moments I want to capture and bottle up. The way Beni asks to hold my hand when I'm driving him down to his grandparents' house, and the way his little hand feels wrapped around mine. The silly things he says. Watching him get excited about things the rest of us stopped noticing a long time ago.

But there's something about the extended, concentrated time of a vacation together that brings me back to the way I felt in that hospital hallway. It makes me wonder whether what I'm doing with my life is what I should be doing with my life.

Before I go any further, I should be clear. I feel incredibly fortunate to do the work I do. I get to work with amazing people who work incredibly hard, with a genuine desire to do the right thing and make our little corner of the world a better place. We get to do that in partnership with community leaders who have dedicated their lives to the same thing, and alongside folks in our neighborhoods who barely have enough time for their day-day-day responsibilities yet still make time to fight for their neighbors. That's an incredible gift, and I don't take it for granted.

And yet, I'd be lying if I said there aren’t times when I'm with my family and wonder what it would be like to have more time together. A more regular schedule. More of what I just got to soak up.

Look, road tripping with a toddler isn't all rainbows and butterflies. We had our fair share of meltdowns. I lost my patience more than once. There was screaming and yelling about things that didn't make any sense and couldn't really be solved in the moment, like wanting a snack we didn't have, or not wanting to drive anymore … on a road trip. There were plenty of deep breaths and headaches.

But that doesn't change . Time and again, on the longer stretches of driving, in mundane moments like breakfast, and in the special ones, like hiking in Big Sur, or the Santa Cruz boardwalk, or watching his amazement at the crabs in the tide pools, I kept landing in the same place. It wasn't just a moment I wanted to bottle. It's time I want to expand.

I don't know what I'm going to do with that feeling. But I'm not going to ignore it, either. I'm not going to pretend it's not there. As I think about the future, I want to keep it at the front of my mind, so that I'm honest with myself about it as I chart the course for what is next. Realistically, I don't think it's a feeling that can ever be fully solved for. But I don't want to act like it's not a thing I think about.

Maybe the story here is the one we all already know. Time is fleeting, time with our little ones is even more fleeting, and we should soak up every moment we get. Or maybe there's something bigger here. Something about the way we spend our time in this country, where time with the people we love is so often the first thing that gets traded away. Especially in cities as expensive as San Diego, where so many families are working harder and harder just to stay.

I'm going to keep thinking about it. And I'm curious how you all wrestle with it. Because this isn't just a parent thing. It's different and probably more acute for parents, but all of us have people we love and wish we spent more time with. All of us have things that make us feel full and that we would love more time to do.

Let me know what you think.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep sitting with this feeling, keep appreciating the little moments, and keep looking forward to the next stretch of real, extended time with Beni, Angela, and Lexi.

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There’s a thing young people do that I am consistently inspired by. They look out for other people. Not because of ideology or partisan affiliation, but because it’s the right thing to do. They do it in a way that seems to get chipped away at over time. They haven’t been conditioned to believe that the necessities are only for some people to have or that the only way they can have what they need is if others go without.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to spend my whole adult life being reminded of the generosity of youth.

Before I was a councilmember, I ran a nonprofit focused on young people. Before that, I organized with a community that never stopped fighting for youth — for better food in our schools, for young people’s access to transportation, for a justice system that doesn’t throw kids away before they’ve had the chance to become the best version of themselves. Before that, I helped organize young people into a congressional campaign. Before that, I was a law student who worked at legal clinics at schools. Before that, I was a teacher. And before all of it, for nine years, I was a coach.

———

That work with young folks was enriching, inspiring, educational, and always felt important. So in the fall of 2018, when I saw a posting for a new executive director of the San Diego Youth Development Office, it didn’t matter that I wasn’t actively looking for a job. Sometimes you see a job and you know it’s yours.

The office had a strange history. The community had demanded it for years in response to a tragic increase in youth violence that followed the City’s disinvestment in youth programming. The city finally created it, and then, the mayor who brought the office into existence (Bob Filner) fell in scandal and the office vanished from the city’s official work. For five years it survived as a small nonprofit project. Then it went dormant. It was my job to bring it back to life.

Once I dug in, I brought my board three options:

1. We could rebuild the office exactly as it had been;

2. We could recreate it as a nonprofit for the city to eventually absorb; or

3. We could become the organization that put young people in position to demand the city build a real office for young people, and then refused to leave: standing guard over it so it could never again be quietly erased.

My strong preference was option three. Thankfully, my board let me run in that direction.

———

From there we started building a team. The first team was young people. Some had been with me on my long-shot community college board campaign: Fabiola and Miranda. From UCSD came Katherine, Thomas, and Tyler. From San Diego State, Warsan. We met in study rooms and library corners and coffee shops, because we couldn’t afford an office. Despite some bumps in the road, the team was awesome.

We created a vision — “a San Diego where every young person has what they need to be happy, healthy, and prepared to reach their potential. We built a platform and called it a “Youth Bill of Rights.” We got to work.

We needed a name that fit what we were becoming, and I got to find it alongside my then-fiancée, now-wife, Angela, and her team at Mixte Communications. We landed on “Youth Will___”. We loved how open it was. The potential of young people, what they will accomplish when somebody finally backs them. And the other meaning, too: the will of youth. Their willpower and all the force that comes with it.

The first half of the mission came faster than I expected. With the two young leaders who succeeded me, Warsan and Safia, out front making the case, the city funded the Office of Child and Youth Success in the 2021 budget. In 2022, its first director was hired, and we got to watch it officially launch. The office we had demanded into existence was real.

By then, I was no longer part of the “we” at Youth Will.

My plan had always been for me to hand the organization off to youth, but the moment I decided to run for City Council, I knew I had to plan for that handoff. A 3-5 year plan became a 12-month plan.

Plenty of people doubted it would last as a youth-led organization. Some of that doubt came from people who’d never done movement work and couldn’t picture young people running anything. But some came from people who do believe in youth leadership, but worried, out of love, about putting that much weight on young shoulders. The doubt wasn’t all cynical.

This spring, any doubt was proven wrong.

Facing a deficit north of $118 million, Mayor Gloria’s proposed budget moved to eliminate the Office of Child and Youth Success. This despite it being a tiny office that had already pulled $2 million in federal dollars toward child care on city land, written the city’s first Child & Youth Plan with hundreds of families, and helped bring the Youth Commission back to life. The May budget revision didn’t save it.

Thankfully, Youth Will’s young leaders were there every step of the way.

Liliana — who interned for Youth Will back in 2020, then interned in my District 9 office — spoke with passion and clarity about why the Office of Child and Youth Success is so important. Her co-leader, Claire, penned a powerful and fearless op-ed that cut to the core of why the proposed cuts were so frustrating and would be so harmful. They were joined by the youth they were helping develop and another young leader of a youth organization, Nicole, from Our Time to Act. Nicole showed what solidarity looks like, elevating Liliana and Claire and never allowing their advocacy to be dismissed, even if they were not in the room.

Three young women, unapologetically speaking truth to power — in fact, to the most powerful person in the city.

This is the exact vision we’d written years earlier, when the Youth Development Office became Youth Will. They weren’t alone; they had real adult allies, like my friends Erin and Courtney, helping guide them. But the young people led. And their clarity charted the course for others to follow behind them.

When the City Council adopted the final budget, the Office of Child and Youth Success survived. Youth Will was built to make sure the prioritization of San Diego’s young people could never again be quietly cut from a budget. It did exactly that.

———

People assume the goal of a career like mine is the next office. It isn’t. It’s impact. It’s the work of today actually making things better for people tomorrow. From that perspective, some of the best work I’ve ever done happened back in 2019 in those library study rooms and coffee shops, next to young people organizing for the future.

Watching Liliana and Claire and Nicole and their comrades reminds me that impactful work doesn’t require a special title or position. And that is liberating to me. I can stand on my values — “ten toes down” as Liliana would say — because being in a particular position was never the point. The work is the point. And the work lives outside the office I sit in or any office for that matter. The work lives alongside the youth.

The work Youth Will has done makes me proud. But pride just scratches the surface of why I am so grateful to still be able to work in partnership with young folks. Youth provide me the invaluable gifts of inspiration and freedom. Inspiration in knowing there are people looking out for others with no agenda beyond a belief that what is right is right. And freedom in knowing there is work that exists alongside the people who inspire me most.

Youth will and they just did.

The night before, the Registrar of Voters posted the unofficial final results of the June Primary. Measure A lost, 53 to 47. We lost. I hate losing, and I believe San Diego would be better off had it passed. But good policy doesn’t guarantee a win, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what this loss has to teach us.

Turns out Jalen Brunson has a few of the answers.

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Lesson 1:

Losing isn’t a reason not to try.

Jalen Brunson has been in the NBA since 2018. Every season before this one ended in a loss, short of his goal. He kept working because the goal was worth it.

The morning after Election Day, I had two conversations that capture why we started this effort last summer. One with a friend who is a lawyer married to a medical resident. They are trying to figure out how owning a home in San Diego could ever be possible. Another conversation was with a group of young people who love this city and just want to know if they’ll be able to afford to stay.

They are why Measure A existed. Firefighters, hotel workers, teachers, students who want a future here, but can’t see it. A city is only as bright as the future its people can see for themselves, and that starts with a stable place to live. I believe housing is a human right, and that hoarding what others need is wrong. All of that is worth fighting for, even if you take some Ls along the way.

Lesson 2:

The final score matters more than the halftime score.

The Spurs led the Knicks for 72% of the NBA Finals. They led the Knicks by 29-points in Game 4. What did that get them?

Not much besides being on the wrong end of the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history.

Measure A finished just below 47%. More than 150,000 San Diegans voted yes, despite opposition that outspent us more than five to one. In less than 9-months, over two million dollars was spent to fight the idea that homes should be lived in, not hoarded and held empty or flipped into mini-hotels.

On election night we were down more than sixteen points. It looked like a blowout. Then the count went on, and as more younger voters, renters, and working San Diegans were counted, the margin closed, and closed, to six and a half. The ballots counted after election night broke majority “yes.” The further the electorate got from the oldest, wealthiest, most conservative slice of a June primary, the better we did. We didn’t finish the comeback, but we were the team storming back.

There’s a wonkier lesson layered in there, too. The calendar was probably the opposition’s best supporter. Voters over 65 turned out at more than two and a half times the rate of voters under 35. Nearly 178,000 young San Diegans got ballots and never returned them. I assure you, that’s not because they love the hoarding of homes. Younger voters tend to vote at a much higher rate in November. Would we have won in November? I won’t say we would have. But the data says we very well could have.

And this is where I get excited and start thinking about what we can accomplish in the future. The voters who sat out June are the future of this city. Voters younger than 50 are a majority of San Diego’s electorate. They are more likely to rent, more likely to be crushed by the cost of childcare, more likely to want exactly the sort of change we’re fighting for.

In a June primary, they don’t vote like the majority they are. The 18-to-34 vote is a sleeping giant that is underperforming now, but big enough to decide every fight that matters the moment it wakes up. The 35-to-49 vote is the most underappreciated bloc in the city. Turn them out when it counts, and there isn’t enough real estate money in the country to stop us.

Conservatives and corporate Democrats spent Election Night celebrating both the failure of Measure A and what they were calling the death of San Diego’s progressive movement. The former was a sad demonstration of taking pleasure in an outcome that was bad for San Diegans. The latter was wish-casting much more than it was data-informed analysis. We know where we performed well and who we performed well with.

Our opponents can be Wembanyama and think they’ve won it all before the full story is written, which brings me to …

Lesson 3:

You can’t shrink your opponent. You can only outwork them.

Jalen Brunson couldn’t change who he was up against. On the other side was a 7’4” phenom in Victor Wembanyama, rightly presumed to be a future all-time great. He couldn’t shrink him or trade for him. The mismatch was just a fact.

What Brunson controlled was everything inside his 6’2” frame. That means his work, his skill, his mind, and the example that pulled his teammates up with him. He controlled it so completely he beat the giant anyway.

We can’t change the money spent against us. There will always be a Wembanyama across the floor when working people fight for their fair share. We don’t get to pick a smaller opponent and I don’t want to. We want to beat the big guys to make things better for everyone, especially those with the least. What we do pick is how good we get at what we do. The job isn’t to wish the money away. It’s to get so good at our game we win regardless.

Lesson 4:

No celebration in the streets without time alone in the gym.

When the Knicks broke through, everyone showed up. Rich and famous in courtside seats, the crowds in the street, the whole internet. At the Game 4 comeback, it was Taylor Swift and Mariska Hargitay (shoutout Benson) jumping up and down like kids. But none of that happens without the part with no crowds and no cameras. Asked where his confidence came from, Brunson pointed to his work: "My confidence comes from my work ethic. Every time I had the ball, all I could think about is all the hours in the summer... making this a reality. So, whenever I had the ball, I'm just thinking about just me alone in the gym."

The viral moment is the return on the investment of invisible work, never the substitute for it. For those of us on the side of social and economic justice, that work is our organizing. That means knocking on doors, having conversations, and building relationships over time. That’s our summer gym.

And it’s the best answer to the things we can’t control. For example, the ballot title. Measure A started with the same title it carried in other cities: the “Empty Homes Tax.” For the overwhelming majority of San Diegans, that title makes plain it isn’t a tax you’ll pay. On our ballot, a local judge, prompted by a Republican former councilmember, changed it to the “non-primary homes tax.” That is vague enough to make working people wonder if it meant them. Into that doubt the opposition poured piles of money for mailers, ads, and a whole campaign built on lies. Military families were told they were at risk, every household told it faced a $10,000 hit. All of that was false.

The gap between “empty homes” and “non-primary homes” is exactly where the lies took root. When the wealthy can’t beat an idea, they rename it and lie about it. The only thing that beats a million-dollar lie is a neighbor you trust at your door. That trust is earned through work.

Lesson 5:

Everyone has a role. We need everyone to play it.

Almost none of these Knicks were supposed to be there. Brunson was a second-round pick his old team let go. The player who grabbed the rebound that iced the title was on the roster when the team was a last place laughingstock. Twelve guys played in the final game. Everyone had a role, and everyone played it.

Our movement works the same way. It doesn’t run on a star. It runs on the volunteer knocking doors, the union contributing hard-earned resources, the neighbor correcting a lie, the parent who brings friends to a meeting.

For Measure A, there were teams of volunteers talking to voters at the same time Alliance San Diego Mobilization Fund had their crew canvassing. City workers, domestic workers, teachers, and laborers contributed meaningfully to the cause. San Diego’s fast-growing chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America leaned in hard to fight for the most progressive tax proposal anyone in San Diego can remember making it to the ballot.

We came within single digits of taxing empty homes against the money of the national real estate industry because a lot of people played their roles. We needed even more. The good news is that we have more.

What I’d do differently.

TLDR: a lot.

I need to own my part in the loss. There are multiple things that I need to own, but I’ll focus on one here — I should have slowed down.

You might recall this idea of taxing empty-second homes started as a bigger idea to tax vacation homes, including empty homes and full-home, full-time short-term vacation rentals. We couldn’t get the full proposal through committee, but saw a path for the trimmed down version and thought it was worth pursuing. However, while the campaign felt like a continuation of the same fight to some of us in our coalition, that was not the case for everyone. I probably should have stopped a bit longer to make sure the broadest coalition possible was ready for a June ballot measure fight.

We couldn’t stop the title from being changed. But we chose June over November, and that narrowed our margin for error. We had reasons, including not wanting to step on our County partners’ childcare-revenue effort, and our polling showed a June win. But our polling used the “empty homes” title and didn’t factor in the crazy money the realtors would spend. If I had it back, I’d think a lot harder about which election we picked.

Let’s get in the gym.

There are no shortcuts. Jalen Brunson didn’t wake up a champion. Comebacks aren’t luck; they’re a muscle built when no one’s watching, so it’s there when everyone is.

It’s the same in politics. Zohran Mamdani didn’t go viral out of nowhere. He was out on the streets organizing and talking to everyday New Yorkers years before anyone called him a phenomenon.

That’s our work now. Money will always show up to fight progressive revenue, progressive leaders, and any win for working people. We won’t out-raise our opposition. We can out-organize them. That means more conversations, over more time, in more neighborhoods, in more languages. Face-to-face beats dollar-for-dollar, but only at scale, and that comes from work.

The conditions that made Measure A necessary are still here. So is the coalition that fought for it. We’re the 6’2” guard everyone says is too small, and we just got counted out. You know what comes next.

Will San Diego be a place where working people can see a future for themselves, or won’t it?

I know which one I’m fighting for. So let’s get back in the gym.

Dear Mr. Feliciano, Ms. Jones, and the new ownership group of the San Diego Padres,

New Year’s Day 2023 was a typical day off for my family. My wife and I slept in. We took our dog for a walk on the beach. I tried to start the year off right with a long bike ride. Then I received a text message from the greatest sports owner this city has ever known, and one of its most inspiring philanthropists.

“Happy and healthy New Year wishes Sean … let’s find a convenient time this month to discuss homelessness and what we can do together, Peter.”

That was Peter Seidler, the late owner of the San Diego Padres, reaching out on a holiday to ask if we could work together on an issue he and I both cared deeply about.

Ego flows in abundance in the world of philanthropy. Too often, wealthy individuals arrive convinced that they alone hold the answer to vexing societal problems. And too often, their support comes with strings attached.

Peter was not like that. Despite having spent years learning about the problem, he still asked questions and seemed genuinely interested in what was being done and working in other places. He treated the work the way he treated the Padres: refusing to give up until the goal was accomplished.

Peter and I did not have a lot in common. He was a private equity guy whose grandfather and mother owned the Brooklyn Dodgers and moved them to Los Angeles. My dad sold cars and moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles with his single mother.

Despite our very different lives, we agreed that there are few things that bring people together like a sports team. The Padres are part of the social glue that builds community in San Diego, regardless of our individual differences.

Sadly, Peter died later that year. His work lives on, both on and off the field. The Padres are still battling for a title, with his investments in the roster defying San Diego’s “small market” label. Off the field, Seniors Safe at Home — a program he and I dreamt up together to keep vulnerable seniors from falling into homelessness — is still running and saving lives by providing targeted support and resources to vulnerable older adults.

I tell you this because the partnership Peter began is the standard. It is what is possible when sports team owners understand that their club does not just play in a city. It belongs to one.

I won’t pretend the years since Peter’s death have lived up to that standard.

While the Padres are still contributing to worthwhile causes, the general feeling of meaningful partnership has eroded. Last year, as decades of being under-resourced came to a head with the City of San Diego facing a budget deficit of more than a hundred million dollars, we proposed an updated cost recovery framework for special events, including those at Petco Park. The Padres are among Major League Baseball’s leaders in attendance. They play in a city-owned, publicly funded stadium. Asking the franchise to more fully cover the public’s costs of providing the support necessary for the Padres to profit from events was not radical. It was responsible and necessary to avoid cuts to essential city services. I was surprised and disappointed to see Padres representatives speak publicly in opposition.

I was even more disappointed when the Padres took a public position against our proposal to modestly, but meaningfully, update the minimum wage for tourism and hospitality workers. These are some of the same people who staff Petco Park, clean its concourses, serve its concessions, and make game day work for every fan who walks through the gates. Our desire was to see some of San Diego’s hardest workers get just a bit closer to being able to afford to live in the city they help run. Padres leadership spoke out loudly and very publicly against our efforts.

Those positions cost something. Not just politically. They cost trust in our ability to see the Padres as a partner. Quite simply, partners working in good faith don’t publicly oppose a city’s efforts to be more fiscally responsible and more committed to the financial stability of working families.

Recently, the pattern has become even more concerning. In the midst of yet another very challenging budget cycle, our City’s Independent Budget Analyst pointed out an increase in the City’s use of tourism tax revenue to subsidize Petco Park operations. I asked a simple question in a budget hearing about whether a $3.9 billion enterprise should be subsidized by a city considering cutting library hours and eliminating arts and culture programming. The Padres responded by publicly calling my question “misguided” and accusing me of trying to “distract” from the city’s fiscal issues. They then began lobbying against the idea.

I have a responsibility to not be intimidated out of asking hard questions when the stakes for our city are so high.

I will also note the irony of an organization that has raised ticket prices while reducing payroll insisting that rising costs are not a reason for the city to update its cost recovery framework. The Padres understand exactly why the city has needed to do this. The team is responding to the same pressures. It is simply choosing to respond by passing costs along to their fans rather than sharing more of their record-breaking value with the city that made that value possible.

Last week, the Padres celebrated Petco Park being named Sports Business Journal’s 2026 Sports Facility of the Year.

This is an honor earned by a stadium built with substantial public investment that the City of San Diego is still paying the bill for. The Padres are celebrating the value of that public investment while lobbying against contributing more to it.

Your ownership is an opportunity to reset this relationship and rebuild trust.

What that repair could look like is not theoretical. It is happening across town.

San Diego FC, before they had played a single match, started showing up in neighborhoods that I represent and the city has long underinvested in. Dedicated team staff met with me and other elected officials, with nonprofit leaders, and with community members to learn about needs and opportunities and to build trust and earn respect. They have not slowed down since.

In the past year, they delivered a stunning renovation of the basketball courts at Colina del Sol Park in City Heights — San Diego’s most diverse neighborhood. They did the same at Willie Henderson Sport Complex, a very important space in one of San Diego’s most neglected communities. Volunteer events organized by FC to clean up parks and plant trees have drawn dozens of staff, including team executives, and well over a hundred community members at a time because the club is involved. Their Right to Dream Academy is building pathways for young people from across our binational region to attend college and, for some, to professional sports.

Undoubtedly, FC’s commitment to the community is bolstered by the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation being part of the ownership group. There is literally no group of people with deeper roots in San Diego than the native people of this land. I am encouraged that Sycuan is part of your ownership group too. The institutional knowledge of investing in community partnership is right there. The model is right there.

The Padres could replicate it. Imagine every park in this city becoming a jewel that gives the same amount of pride we feel walking into Petco Park. Imagine youth baseball programming in communities that the city has neglected, building the next generation of academic and athletic stars. Imagine continuing and expanding Seniors Safe at Home. Mr. Seidler and I once had conversations about in-game calls to action where fans could chip in to keep seniors housed and the Padres would match what was raised. That conversation could be revived.

These are not asks that require a new business model. They are asks that would continue the work that Peter Seidler started.

I also want to say something about what your ownership means beyond baseball.

As just the second Latino owner in MLB and the first Black woman owner in the league’s history, you are both making history. There are few “old boys’ clubs” like the ownership of major professional sports franchises, especially Major League Baseball. Your purchase of the Padres is an extraordinary accomplishment.

In a moment when the very idea of representation is under attack in this country — when Latinos are being told we can be detained for the way we look or for speaking Spanish, and when successful Black Americans are watching hard-earned success be undermined and erased — your acquisition of the San Diego Padres for a record-breaking price is something more than a business transaction.

It will be a moment of pride for the Latino community in this city and across this country to see a Boricua from Bayamón in the owner’s box. I imagine it will be similarly inspiring to San Diego’s Black community, and to Black Americans everywhere, to see you in your role, Ms. Jones.

My wife and I visit my wife’s family in Bayamón every time we go to the island. Our son will grow up knowing his primos are from the same place as the man who owns his hometown team. That matters to us. It will matter to many families.

The Padres just sold for $3.9 billion — a Major League Baseball record, and nearly five times the $800 million Peter Seidler’s group paid in 2012. That is more than $3 billion in appreciation, built over fourteen years in this city, on San Diego infrastructure, sustained by San Diego fans and supported by San Diego’s workers.

In the same month this sale was announced, the City of San Diego published a budget proposing an 86.6 percent cut to arts and culture funding and millions in reductions to funding for parks and rec, libraries, and youth programs. The cuts fall hardest on the communities with the highest concentrations of low-to-moderate income residents.

In that same budget, the city’s operational expenditure supporting Petco Park increased by 71.8 percent.

This is not your ownership group’s fault. But you arrive at a moment that demands honesty about who this city is currently being asked to work for, and who it hasn’t been working for.

A $3.9 billion sale, achieved on the back of a publicly subsidized and owned stadium and publicly provided services, in a city slashing critical and beloved programs. That is a story San Diegans can read for themselves. The question is what story comes next.

So here is what I am asking.

Be a partner. Not a tenant. A partner.

Specifically:

• Let’s rewrite our Joint Use and Management Agreement. Turn it into a covenant of true partnership rather than a transactional contract.

• Cover the full public cost of the events you host at the stadium we built. Petco Park events depend on public services. The Padres and those who profit from those events should cover the costs.

• Stand with the workers who make Petco Park work. When their wages and working conditions are at stake, the Padres should be in the room helping rather than at the microphone opposing.

• Invest in this city the way San Diego FC is investing in this city. Parks. Youth programs. Neighborhoods that need a partner most. The model is across town and it works.

• Continue and expand Mr. Seidler’s work on homelessness. Bring fans into it. Make Petco Park more than a place to watch a baseball game. Make it a place where the city’s biggest problems get worked on collectively by the people of the city.

Forty thousand people in a ballpark singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is one of the few things that still unifies us in 2026. In this moment, not even the national anthem can bring people together the way that song does. There is a reason for that. Baseball is special. It belongs to all of us. And the team that plays it in our city belongs to all of us too.

San Diego is ready to welcome you. We hope you are ready to be the partner our community wants and needs.

Sincerely,

Sean Elo-Rivera

Councilmember, District 9

City of San Diego

Below is the rough text of what I shared. I’m posting it because the community asked for the anti-Muslim hate and Islamophobia behind this attack to be named. That naming deserves to be heard in full, not in fragments.

I want to begin by saying to the families of Amin Abdullah, Nader Awad, and Mansour Kaziha (Abul Ez): I am so deeply sorry. There are no words that can make this right. There is no statement that can fill the empty seats at your tables, in your homes, or here at this masjid.

Imam Taha said that evil and good are not equal. And that evil is repelled by the best of us. Amin, Nader, and Mansour were the best of us. And they repelled evil.

Amin Abdullah (Brian Climax) was the security guard who heroically prevented further casualties. He shot at the suspects as soon as he saw them, until he ran out of bullets in his magazine, and then he reloaded. He radioed the school to go on lockdown in the middle of all of it. He was a father of eight. He stood between gunmen and a building full of children, and because of him, more than a hundred babies went home to their parents last night.

Mansour Kaziha (Abul Ez) was the caretaker of the Islamic Center and its building manager. He was one of the first to call 911 yesterday. He was tracking the shooters when he was shot. He helped break ground on this Center in 1986 and spent his life building this place. At the end, he gave his life defending it. Time and again, I have heard from people who I know well and care about deeply how central a figure he was in their lives.

Nader Awad was a community member and a neighbor. He heard the initial gunshots from his home and rushed to the Masjid. He lost his life in the attack. His wife teaches at the school. He prayed here every day. And when his community needed him, he did not hesitate.

These are not just victims. They are shuhada. They are martyrs. They are the reason that the image seared into every San Diegan’s mind right now is not an even worse tragedy beyond words — it is the image of children, tiny hand in tiny hand, single file, walking out alive.

To the children who walked out of that school yesterday, and to your parents: we love you. You are home here. You will always be home here.

I have been thinking about that image since the moment I saw it. And I have been thinking about my last visit to this Center, just a few weeks ago.

Before I left, I met a Muslim Girl Scout troop. We took a picture together. They were perfect.

I sat with that memory — my eyes welling with tears — as I waited alongside my staff to know if the children inside were safe.

I sat with the truth that a mosque in San Diego needs armed security to begin with. That Muslim children in this country grow up under a kind of watchfulness that many other children do not. Amin was the answer this community had to a threat it should never have had to plan for. And yesterday, he gave everything he had to that answer.

I know I was not alone in waiting. While the parents of the children rushed to the Center with a panic no parent should ever feel, so many of us watched and waited holding our breath.

Parents all over this city, in that one breathless moment, were not asking whose kids those were. They were ours. All of them. San Diego’s babies.

It is often said that once you have a child, your heart lives outside your body. Yesterday, San Diego’s heart was outside of us. In that moment, I think we found, in our collective terror, something about who we are.

We are family. In the sense that your children are mine to worry about. That my safety is bound to yours. That when this community hurts, San Diego hurts.

And we have to be honest about something else we found.

The children who were hiding from gunmen in their own school have parents who, as students at the same school, were themselves subjected to threats and terror after 9/11. Two generations of Muslim children in this city, made to fear for their lives at school because of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate.

Earlier this year, Somali daycare providers in San Diego — many of them Muslim — were threatened and harassed because of racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic attacks coming from the President of the United States.

That was unacceptable then. It is unacceptable now. Our neighbors deserve better. Our children deserve better. Our family deserves better.

This was anti-Muslim violence. And it did not appear from nowhere. It grew in the soil of dehumanizing language. Language about Muslims in our country, and language about Muslims abroad, in Iran, in Lebanon, in Gaza.

When we allow any human being to be spoken of as less than human, we open a door that evil can walk through. Evil walked through that door on Monday.

I say this as a Jew whose family survived dehumanization. I say it as a cousin and nephew of my Muslim family. I say it as a friend to Muslims across this city. Our safety is bound together. It always has been. That is what family means.

If you are here tonight to stand with the Muslim community, thank you. And let us all commit to more than presence. Let us commit to action. That means speaking up and speaking out when we hear Islamophobic and anti-Muslim rhetoric — whether it comes from someone in the White House, or from someone in our own house.

I think the highest goal for a community is to become a family. A big, diverse family, just like San Diego’s Muslim community.

When I think about the Muslim community in San Diego, I think about family. I think about how central family is to this community. How Muslim families here take care of their elders, raise their children in faith, gather around tables, show up for one another in ways that the rest of us would do well to learn from. And I think about the members of this community who, over the years, have become chosen family, including the godmother of my son.

We are not going to get there without naming what divides us. And we are not going to get there if we do not also name the love that has always, against every effort to deny it, bound us together.

Tonight, we grieve. Tomorrow, we get to work. And we do it the way Amin, Mansour, and Nader showed us. We run toward each other.

Thank you. May their memory be a blessing. May their memory move us to action.

Last week, Monday through Friday, during Budget Review Committee hundreds of San Diegans showed up at City Hall and shared their vision for our city. They also shared their frustrations about what is on the chopping block and that those who benefit most from San Diego do not contribute a fair share.

They waited hours to speak for one minute. They came for libraries and parks and rec centers, for arts and culture, for the workers who deliver every service this city provides. They came to say that San Diegans, and a better San Diego, are worth fighting for.

They are right. And the fight is bigger than this budget.

Why This Keeps Happening

On a per-resident basis, San Diego is one of the least-resourced major cities in California. That isn’t an accident, and it isn’t only about deferred maintenance or past mistakes. It’s about who is and isn’t being asked to contribute for this city to function.

Wealthy corporations generating enormous profits here pay significantly less than they would in many comparable cities. Tourists who enjoy our beaches, parks, and public safety services contribute less through our Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) than visitors do in other California destinations. Wealthy investors who profit from holding homes vacant while families struggle to find housing have faced little accountability, though Measure A this June could begin to change that.

San Diego is beautiful, our people are even better, and people from all over desire to visit and do business here. We are sitting on an untapped reserve of resources that could fully support San Diegans having the city we deserve.

Meanwhile, the people who actually live and work here are being asked to absorb cut after cut to the services that make this a city worth living in. That math has never worked. And it could get much, much worse.

The Immediate Threat

The Lincoln Club — a conservative political organization that has spent years defending the rich and powerful at the expense of everyday San Diegans — is pursuing a ballot measure to repeal the trash fee for roughly half of San Diego households. If it qualifies and passes, it would return San Diego to the days of having half of city residents pay for trash collection while half do not, and blow a hole of more than $120 million annually in the city’s budget.

The consequences would not be limited to the Environmental Service Department that would be gutted. Layoffs would hit across every part of city government —firefighters, librarians, lifeguards, park maintenance workers, street repair crews, and the attorneys who defend the city in court.

No corner of San Diego would be untouched. Civic arsonists are willing to light the city on fire to advance their political agenda, and the people funding this effort can afford to insulate themselves from the consequences. Working families cannot.

This is not a side debate about one policy. It is part of a larger fight between everyday people and the wealthy and powerful groups who have run San Diego for too long over whether our city will have the resources to function as a city people can rely on.

What We Can Do Right Now

Even with these structural problems, there are responsible choices available in the current budget that could put more than $9 million in ongoing resources back on the table. I intend to fight for each of them.

• Recalibrating how revenue from San Diego’s world-famous golf courses flows back into Parks and Recreation could responsibly provide up to $5 million to prevent cuts to staffing, programming, and facilities.

• The proposed budget includes a $2 million subsidy for public safety operations during Petco Park events. That corporate subsidy is drawn from the same fund that previously supported arts and culture grants. The Padres recently sold for a Major League Baseball record $3.9 billion. Redirecting that handout back into arts and culture is a choice we can make.

• The city is also proposing $2 million for automated license plate readers, expanding 24/7 surveillance of everyday San Diegans. Those resources would be better invested in youth programs, libraries, and opportunities that support children and families directly.

• Last week, we also identified savings from vacant Police Department positions and proposed redirecting those funds toward youth programming. The Police Chief and Mayor’s Office agreed during the hearing, and I appreciate that step.

The unfortunate reality is, even taken together, these actions will not solve decades of underinvestment. But together, they protect some of the services and spaces that make a city feel like a community while making better use of the resources we already have.

What Comes Next

The next few weeks matter enormously both for what we save now and for the larger fight ahead.The mayor releases his revised budget on May 13. From there, the budget is in the Council’s hands. Our next evening budget hearing is Monday, May 18 at 6:00 pm. The Council votes on the final budget June 9th.

One tip: it’s easy for those of us in elected office to tell you we support beloved services and programs. The catch is whether or not we’re willing to identify where the resources should come from, especially if it means taking on powerful interests. Don’t let us hide from the choices we need to make.

If you showed up last week, thank you. If you haven’t yet, there is still time. Follow along here, share this with your neighbors, and let all of us on the Council know you expect a budget that reflects the city San Diegans actually want to live in.

This city is worth showing up for. Last week proved San Diegans know that already. The next month is about turning that energy into action.

— Sean

P.S. I want to know what you will be fighting for over the final few weeks of this budget season. Where do you think we should look for resources? Let me know with a comment below.

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Work was at car dealerships, which are not exactly a kid-friendly environment, and not what most people would call “fun.” But I loved those days. They were a chance to spend time together when time together was hard to come by, and a chance to see what going to work actually looks like.

We’d get ready together in the morning. He’d put shaving cream on my face and I’d “shave” with the back of the razor. On the lot, he taught me to show respect to everyone regardless of what job they were doing. I watched how hardworking people find ways to have fun within the confines of getting the job done. I saw my dad succeed in a business with a bad reputation by stressing honesty, integrity, and pride in his work.

Those days shaped the way I think about and show up for work. Over time, being his little sidekick evolved into actually doing some work — cleaning up the showroom and lot, washing cars, even a little sign waving, which I liked the least. The memories are still vivid.

Politics might be one of the few professions with a worse reputation than car sales.

Which is part of why it matters to me that Beni comes to understand why I do what I do and how I try to do it.

Last Thursday gave me one of those mornings.

It started with breakfast for “Dining Out for Life.” I joined Councilmember Whitburn, City Attorney Ferbert, and staff from the LGBT Community Center at one of dozens of sites where folks were dining out in support of The Center’s health and wellness programs, including HIV services and prevention programs. And then a news crew showed up to cover the event and Beni made an unplanned cameo in their segment. Quite the morning for a toddler, and we hadn’t even made it to the office yet.

After breakfast, I brought him with me to City Hall so my in-laws could pick him up on the way to SeaWorld. He ended up sitting in on my meeting with the City Attorney.

A morning sitting still had built up some energy that needed somewhere to go. That somewhere turned out to be my office, and that energy expressed itself primarily through basketball. And, because he’s a toddler, that meant basketball played his way. At one point he looked directly at me, in the middle of a meeting with the City Attorney of San Diego, and yelled:

“You sit down!”

I sat.

Parenting is humbling.

I stepped out with him for a few minutes to let my chief of staff, Molly, and City Attorney Ferbert get a couple of sentences out without a toddler providing commentary. But after the meeting, we got a little time together. It was just the two of us in the office, passing the ball back and forth, watching him practice his slam dunks, hanging out.

I don’t know what, if anything, Benicio will remember about mornings like this one. Probably not much. He’s two and a half.

But I know what I remember from the days my dad brought me to work. I remember the shaving cream. I remember the respect he showed to every person on that lot, no matter their title. I remember understanding that my dad was someone who took pride in doing things right even when the world around him didn’t always reward that.

I want Beni to have something like that. The chance to see his dad show up for work, take it seriously, treat people well, and try to do something that matters. And I want the time with him, especially when time together is hard to find.

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Within months, the owner of the car dealership where my dad worked had stopped paying him. Stability in a new place turned into insecurity with nobody to turn to. Not good.

One of my core memories from that summer is going with my dad, on the bus, as he looked for work and tried to keep our family afloat. That bus was our only way to get to a better place.

That summer is one of the reasons public transportation matters to me the way it does. It’s also one of the reasons why, years later, when I chose working alongside community over practicing law, I was so passionate about organizing and advocating for public transportation.

My first day working at Mid-City CAN, one of the organizing campaigns I oversaw was the Youth Opportunity Pass — an effort, already years in the making, to provide no-cost transit passes to San Diego youth.

The case was simple and it was inspiring. Access to transportation should not be the barrier to a young person achieving their potential. Moms and grandmothers had started the effort with that goal in mind for the young people they loved. For some, the bus offered a safe way home from the extracurricular activities that open doors and create health and happiness. The kinds of activities that become inaccessible when the walk home from school isn’t safe enough. For others, it was jobs or internships too far to walk to, when affording a car and all its related expenses was a far-off fantasy.

I once watched a mother cry as she described telling her son he could not play summer football because she could no longer afford his transit pass. That moment comes to mind all the time when I think about what access to transportation means.

From my first day on the job until my last, and then with the young people I worked with at Youth Will, the campaign for Youth Opportunity Passes was a constant. For over a decade, the community never gave up, because access to the transit system was just that important.

And then I found myself on the other side of the dais with an opportunity to help push that boulder over the top. I was on City Council and changes in elected leadership at the County and throughout the region meant we finally had the voting power to fund the program and demand implementation. Casting the “yes” votes to make Youth Opportunity Passes real and seeing that program come online is one of the most vivid reminders I have of the good we can do on this side of the legislative process.

So when a proposal comes before our board that asks the people I watched fight for years to get onto the bus to pay more to stay on it, I take it personally. That is why, yesterday, when the MTS Board of Directors voted to approve changes to our fares, I voted no.

Here is my explanation:

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“In progress” is not “in place”

I know MTS faces a real fiscal cliff. Public transportation is grossly underfunded in this country and transit agencies everywhere are staring at the abyss. That is why I recognize that a fare adjustment may eventually be part of the answer. But “part of the answer” is not the same as “the first answer.” That is essentially what was in front of us.

Since I began as an MTS board member in January 2021, I’ve pushed MTS to aggressively pursue non-fare revenue before asking riders to pay more. Advertising. Joint development on the land we already own. Naming rights. Partnerships. State legislation that would give this region access to more progressive revenue tools than a sales tax. I’ve even asked if MTS could operate tour buses with the goal of bringing in revenue from tourists that could help subsidize the rides of everyday San Diegans. (Hey, no bad ideas in a brainstorm, right?)

Many of those strategies, excluding the tour buses (although I still think it’s worth some thought), are currently described by MTS as “in progress.” And I sincerely appreciate the work that has gone into that progress. But “in progress” is different than “in place.” And “in progress” is not good enough when the people being asked to close the gap are the working families who have nothing left to give.

Before I ask a working mom in City Heights to pay more to get to her second or third job, I need to be able to look her in the eyes and give her an honest answer to one question: did we do everything we could to keep that money in her pocket? Today, I didn’t believe I could answer with a “yes.”

A false choice, not a mandate

In recommending the fare increase, our CEO pointed to a rider survey that says riders would rather pay more than see services cut. Of course they said that. Our riders depend on MTS. The consequence of reduced service could be the loss of their only transportation option. Their response was not a mandate. It was the answer to a false choice.

Here’s what we didn’t ask the riders: Whether they’d rather pay more, or have the wealthy pay their fair share? Whether they’d rather pay more, or have the tourists who ride our buses and trolley contribute more? Whether they’d rather pay more, or have their transit agency be the most innovative in the country at generating revenue from the assets it already owns?

I suspect we would have gotten very different answers to those questions.

Let’s talk about “subsidy”

At one point in yesterday’s debate, the word “subsidy” was raised — as is often the case when we talk about public transportation in this country. Let’s talk about that word.

It is true that public transit is not a self-sustaining enterprise. But neither is driving. And too often “subsidy” is only ever used in one direction. When we talk about the bus rider in Southeastern San Diego or San Ysidro or City Heights, we talk about how much her trip costs the public. When we talk about the commuting executive driving solo from Rancho Santa Fe or Del Mar, we don’t use the word at all. And it doesn’t matter that the road under him, the public safety he depends on, and the hugely expensive infrastructure that makes his commute possible are all public investments paid for by everyone. For some reason, nobody calls that welfare.

The woman boarding the 7 bus before sunrise to clean a downtown office is already helping to pay for the luxurious car trip of the executive who works in it. Now, we’re considering charging her more for the privilege.

That’s the part that doesn’t sit right with me.

The people who will never feel a fare increase live in neighborhoods where the public investment in their commute is already enormous and is never threatened. A fare hike is a flat, regressive charge collected at the farebox from the San Diegans with the least ability to pay it, to subsidize a region and a system that was designed and built for people far wealthier than they are.

From frustration to anger

Here is the part where I move from frustration to anger.

While we debate whether working families can afford this, Republicans and Corporate Democrats keep ignoring that the corporations that use our streets as their business pay almost nothing back.

Uber and Lyft run a private transportation service on roads built and maintained by the public. Alphabet — the parent company of Waymo, which is planning to roll out driverless taxis in San Diego and run a for-profit experiment on our streets — was recently identified by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) as one of four corporations that, together, avoided roughly $51 billion in federal income tax in a single year. ITEP also reported at least 88 of the largest corporations in this country paid zero federal income tax in 2025 … on more than $105 billion in profits.

Are you mad yet? Because I am.

The public built the streets. The public funded the infrastructure. The public trained the workforce. And when the bill comes due, we send it to the woman on the bus, rather than the billion-dollar corporations whose business model depends on the infrastructure she’s being asked to pay more for.

We are being asked to raise fares on the people who can least afford it, in a region where billion-dollar corporations use our public streets as their private business and pay almost nothing back. That is a choice. And it is a terrible one.

Tax the rich, support the community. Support the community, tax the rich. However we say it, it’s a helluva lot better than what we’re doing now.

A vote for the community, not against MTS

It feels important to note that my “no” vote was not a vote against MTS or the people who work there and make the whole operation possible. It was a vote for this agency doing the harder, more creative work before sending the bill to the people riding at 5 a.m. to keep this city running.

Thirty years ago, I was the kid on that bus, watching my dad try to keep us afloat. Ten years ago, I was the organizer sitting with mothers fighting to keep their kids on it. Today, I’m a councilmember whose job is to make sure this city works for them and that when the hard choices come, they are not the first ones asked to pay.

Yesterday, I couldn’t do that job by voting yes.

We also have something more important than the beautiful geography and weather. Genuinely good, hardworking people. People who build things and people who care for people. People who teach and nurse and cook and drive and clean and fix. People who love their families and their neighbors and their neighborhoods. People who, against real odds and real pressures, choose to stay.

And yet…

There is a gap in this city that has gnawed at me since the moment I started to see it. It’s the gap between what San Diego is and what San Diego could be. And every day I spend in this work, I feel more urgency to close that gap.

Visitors come here and fall in love. Just about every San Diegan has seen it. You’re in a different city and you tell someone you’re from San Diego and they respond with “I love San Diego. You’re so lucky.” Or maybe someone comes from out of town and spends a weekend, and by Sunday afternoon they’re telling you, “God, I’d love to live in San Diego.”

Meanwhile, the people who actually live here are saying something different. They’re saying: “God, please let me continue to live in San Diego.”

That distance — between the dream and the daily reality — is not an accident. It is the result of choices. Choices about who this city is built for, who it invests in, and who it asks to just keep their head down and keep the machine running.

There are parts of this city where life expectancy and household income are amongst the highest in the nation. And there are parts of this city, sometimes just a few miles away, where people live shorter lives and earn less.

The gap isn’t just in how San Diegans live. It’s also in what we have.

We have Torrey Pines — one of the finest municipal golf courses in America, a point of genuine civic pride.

And we also have a park bathroom in my district that is burned down and stays burned down and equipment at playgrounds across this city that is bandaged with caution tape.

We have corporations that extract millions upon millions in profit from this city. And we have workers — from firefighters to hotel housekeepers, construction workers to librarians — who are busting their asses for every dollar needed to just to stay here.

If you’re reading this, then you probably know all of that. What I want to change now and what needs to change now is our willingness to accept this gap as just the way things are in San Diego. As though these conditions are as fixed and inevitable as our geography. They are not. The status quo is a choice. And choices can be unmade.

The thing I love most in this world was born in this city.

My son, Beni, is a San Diegan. I love that he was born here because of what San Diego is. And while I have spent almost my entire time in San Diego working to make it better, my son being a San Diegan makes me want it to be better than it is today, with a force I didn’t fully anticipate before he arrived.

He deserves to grow up in a city where the parks are beautiful and the libraries are open and the rec center down the street is somewhere a family actually wants to spend the day. Where the roads are safe to walk and bike and the air is clean. Where the people who take care of him and teach him and keep his neighborhood running are treated with dignity and can afford to live nearby. Where, when he grows up and starts figuring out what kind of life he wants to build, this city is one of the places he can imagine building it.

Every child in San Diego deserves that. Not just the ones born into the right zip code.

That is not a radical vision. I think it is an obvious one. The question is why we keep failing to build it.

I think part of the answer is this: we keep having the budget conversation without first having the vision conversation.

Every year, the city releases a proposed budget. Every year, there are hearings and modifications and votes. And every year, the conversation centers almost entirely on numbers — what gets cut, what gets funded, what the gap is between revenue and obligations. Those are important questions. But they are also the wrong place to start.

A budget is not a math problem. It is a values statement about what a city believes matters and who it believes deserves investment and a roadmap that should bring us closer to where we are trying to go. When we treat it as nothing more than as a spreadsheet exercise, we make technically defensible decisions that are humanly indefensible.

We cut across the board because it feels neutral, without asking why some departments are perpetually operating with nothing left to cut. We defer maintenance because there is no ribbon to cut, without asking who lives in the neighborhoods where the deferred maintenance piles up. We make choices by default rather than by design.

I’m not making an argument against hard choices. Hard choices are coming. There is no way around it. The budget the Mayor releases will force real trade-offs, and pretending otherwise would be exactly the kind of dishonesty I’m asking us to move away from.

But here’s what a vision does: it makes hard choices navigable. It gives us a filter.

Let’s think about libraries. There may be a version of this budget conversation where reducing library hours is the right call — not as a concession to a spreadsheet, but as a deliberate choice to concentrate resources so that every library that is open is actually excellent. Clean. Safe. Well-stocked. Staffed by workers who have the bandwidth to answer questions, help a job-seeker update a resume, and run a toddler storytime that costs a family nothing and creates a memory that lasts a lifetime. That is a very different conversation than “we’re cutting Monday hours to close a gap.”

One decision moves us toward the city we’re trying to build. The other just makes the city a little smaller. The vision is what lets us tell the difference.

Here is what I know is true: you cannot build toward a destination you have never named. No talent, no grit, no resourcefulness is enough to close the gap between what we are and what we could be if we haven’t first decided, in the most explicit of terms, what we are trying to become.

San Diego has amazing assets and even better people. I believe we have limitless potential. And we will continue to fall short of it as long as we let the budget process be a negotiation among competing line items rather than a deliberate act of building toward something better.

So before the Mayor releases his proposed budget, I want to name what I think we should be building toward. Not as a policy platform. As a vision. As an answer to the question I think is essential:

What city do we want to be?

I want us to be a San Diego that works for the people who make it work.

Where every family, in every neighborhood, can afford to live, feel safe, and be proud of the city their kids are growing up in.

It means libraries, parks, and rec centers that feel good to spend time in. Roads and sidewalks that are safe. A healthy environment. Workers who are treated with dignity and respect. And young people who can see a real future for themselves here.

And it means making honest choices instead of kicking today’s problems to tomorrow’s bill.

That is the standard I intend to apply to every budget decision this cycle.

Not: does this balance the spreadsheet. But: does this move us toward that city, or away from it? Does this close the gap, or widen it?

The budget that drops this week will tell us something about what our city’s leadership believes San Diego is for. I intend to say clearly what I believe it should be for and fight for the decisions that reflect that.

Beni deserves it. So does every other kid growing up in this city right now.

And so do their parents, who are working so hard .

What’s your vision for San Diego? What San Diego do you want us to be? Let me know in the comments below and share this with your people so they can also weigh in!

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But the ocean — just like life and work in politics — is nothing if not unpredictable. And sometimes the manageable rhythm is replaced by rough and relentless surf. The waves aren’t just big — they won’t get you to shore. They close out before you can get to the right position. They toss you around underwater like a rag doll. And they don’t care at all if you’re ready for the next one to come crashing on your head. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Pulse is fast, breaths are short. The steady forward progress that is so easy to find on normal days succumbs to survival mode until you can make your way to shore and get your feet planted.

That is where I was a couple of weeks ago. The emotional weight before, during, and following my vote against the IHRA definition of antisemitism. The rollercoaster ride of pushing to get the Empty Homes Tax on the ballot and position the campaign for success. The relentlessness of what the Trump regime is doing to my community. The general, persistent pressure of trying to do right by the people I serve. And all of that leading to me not feeling like I was pulling the weight I should at home. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

And then we came to Puerto Rico for a long-awaited family vacation. As is always the case when I get to the island, my pulse slowed and my breathing steadied. On most days, there was sand on my feet, salt on my skin, and I felt the welcomed heat of the Caribbean sun rather than the unnatural shine of City Hall’s fluorescent lights.

Puerto Rico has been woven into my life in ways I did not fully anticipate when I first visited nearly ten years ago.

The first time, I came alone. Angela and I were in the early days of dating and I was still guarding my heart. I had learned enough about myself to know that I love hard and need to protect myself. In that moment, doing that meant immersing myself completely in work — to the point of being nearly blind to what was right in front of me. Puerto Rico forced me out of that and corrected my vision. It was just me on that trip, exploring the island and my thoughts.

Over the course of that week, I became very confident that Angela was someone I was safe to be fully myself with — that my sensitivity, my desire to care for the people I love, would not be exploited or weaponized. That I could lower my guard and not regret it.

I came home ready to be the person I needed to be to build something real with her.

Puerto Rico has grown to become a more and more important part of our story ever since.

For Angela, the island is roots. Her family’s history is there — in the campos (fields and countryside) where sugar and tobacco were grown, in the culture and music and food that shaped who she is. Each trip has been an opportunity for her to know that history more deeply, to feel the place where her family comes from. Watching her do that alongside her parents — and now watching our son begin to develop his own relationship with this island — brings me more joy than I know how to articulate.

I have not explored the places where my own ancestors are from. I’d like to, but I don’t know if I ever will. There is something powerful about knowing that Beni will grow up familiar with a place where a significant portion of his family has roots. That he will know the ocean and the food and the music and the places and, most importantly, the people. That Puerto Rico will be, for him, not just a place on a map but a place where memories live.

For me, Puerto Rico offers something else too. My mother’s parents were both born in Central America. She spent half her childhood in Mexico. Everywhere I have been in Latin America has felt familial and at least a little like home. Puerto Rico feels more than a little. The warmth of the people. The abundance of my comfort food, plátanos. The warm sun and the turquoise water — the key ingredients in the recipe to recharge my battery.

On the last full day of our trip, Angela and I got tattoos.

The first were done in Gurabo, just outside Caguas, at a shop called Tatuan2te. The artist, Malia, is young and extraordinarily talented. She spent hours working with Angela to create the perfect designs for her pieces: a coqui (a small, nearly omnipresent frog that is beloved on the island) and an homage to her family’s roots in the campos.

I wanted something that represented my connection to the island and my own culture. I settled on a plátano tree — the source of both my comfort food and some of Puerto Rico’s most beloved dishes. Malia took the time to design something delicate and detailed and then executed it perfectly.

The second tattoo was done in Santurce, at La Lágrimita, a studio inside a shop called Publica Espacio. Angela and I have visited that shop together since our very first trip to Puerto Rico. We’ve bought t-shirts and art and children’s books that became family favorites. We have always admired the work of the tattoo shop’s owner, so I felt comfortable walking up and asking if they would be willing to turn an idea I had into a permanent part of me.

The artist listened to what I wanted and came back with a drawing that put a huge smile on my face the moment I saw it. Angela had the same reaction when I showed her.

“Cada verano contigo.” Every summer with you.

It is an adaptation of the Bad Bunny album title and artwork for “Un Verano Sin Ti” — “a summer without you.” The version I asked for feels like a snapshot of what I have when I am with my family in Puerto Rico. It also captures an aspiration and maybe a bit of a dream.

,

Some of the fathers I know count the summers they’ll have with their kids while they’re still kids. It’s a way of driving home the point that our time with our children goes quickly and we need to make the most of it. Counting summers is particularly resonant with me because I have always loved summer. I love the long days and warm weather. I love the ocean being warm enough to jump in without a wetsuit. I love that there are songs of the summer and crushing ice-cold beers while sitting and eating outside. I love baseball and the permission to be playful that comes with summer. All of this has even more meaning now that Benicio — a summertime baby — is part of it. And because I love summer so much, I’m always melancholy as it ends.

This is another reason I love Puerto Rico. In many ways beyond the weather, it always feels like summer to me. The warm water and cold beers, baseball and banging music are all omnipresent on the island. Every trip we take there is a chance for me to steal some more summertime with my family — the people I want to spend every summer with. Cada verano contigo.

My tattoo is a way of making the joy of our extra summers a permanent part of me.

Angela was supportive of the tattoo from the start. Her one question was whether I was sure I wanted it somewhere so visible given what I do for work. There are constant questions about what I’ll run for next, and Angela knows how some of the people who ask those questions think about what an elected official should and should not look like.

I told her that at this moment in time, I do not think three smiling hearts are going to disqualify anyone from public office — especially given who currently resides in the White House. But more than that, I wanted the piece on my forearm because I want to be able to see it all the time. It makes me happy.

But as is almost always the case, Angela had a point, and her question is worth sitting with because it points at something real that I am constantly wrestling with. Being an elected official means that almost everything — including things that have nothing to do with governance — gets run through a political filter. In 2026, the conclusions drawn aren’t just talked about. They’re shared for seemingly everyone to see and weigh in on. They’re dropped into comment sections whenever I post anything. My style. My appearance. My individuality. The art I choose to put on my body. All of it becomes subject to the question: what will people say?

I largely understand why. I accept being held to a higher standard in the ways that matter. Scrutinize my decisions. Hold me accountable for my votes. Judge me by how I serve the community I was elected to represent. I signed up for all of that.

But I reject the idea that the standard should extend to the superficial or the personal; to the parts of me that have nothing to do with governance and everything to do with who I am as a human being.

Before I am anything — especially an elected official — I am a person. A dad. A husband. A son. A brother. A friend. Someone who loves plátanos, my cultures, and my family and wants to memorialize that love permanently, on his body, in a place where anyone and everyone can see it.

I have made a deal with myself about this work. I can absorb the criticism. I can handle the confrontation and even the venom that comes with trying to upend the status quo. I can hold my nose and swallow the negatives that are simply part of the job.

What I will not do is allow the preconceived ideas of what an elected official is supposed to look like or act like strip away the parts of me that make me me. In fact, as I think about how I’ve responded as more people weigh in on things about me that I believe are irrelevant to whether I am fulfilling my duties as a councilmember, I realize I am probably rebelling against that pressure. I entered office without any tattoos. I have five now. All meaningful. All parts of the story of me.

My first tattoo was a family crest on my forearm. It was designed by a friend who took Angela’s and my family histories and turned them into art. The initial response from a high-profile elected official when he first saw it? “What did you do to yourself?!”

I don’t like that it is considered normal in my line of work to treat it as abnormal to etch your family’s history and name into your arm. When I first ran for office, I wanted to do it as my full self — with my heart on my sleeve, unapologetic about who I am, where I come from, and who I want to be. I didn’t necessarily think that would ultimately mean literally having a bunch of hearts on my arms. But I’m very happy they’re there.

Benicio saw the tattoo yesterday morning, before we left for the airport. He smiled when he saw it. I can’t wait to be able to explain the meaning behind it. Ideally, while we’re catching our breath in Puerto Rico’s perfect water.

I am a Jew. I always have been a Jew and I always will be. Nevertheless, I still get nervous walking into Jewish spaces.

A few weeks ago, Rabbi Michael Rothbaum invited me to speak to his progressive congregation, Dor Hadash. I knew from what he had told me that it is filled with people whose values align with mine. I even recognized a few faces when I walked in. If there is a Jewish space where I should feel immediately, unquestionably at home, it was that one.

I still had nerves on the drive over. I still felt them when I walked through the door. I still felt them as I sat and listened to Rabbi Mike speak — the familiar and still uncomfortable feeling of being simultaneously at home and uncertain about whether I was truly seen as belonging.

No matter how connected to a Jewish sermon I feel or how much I love matzo ball soup or how many times my dad has told me about Sandy Koufax, I have felt this way for a long, long time.

Identity has always been complicated for me. I come from a multiethnic, multi-religious family. My 23andMe results look like a collage.

And yet even within the communities that should have been most fully mine, I was never quite sure I was enough. Not Jewish enough. Not Latino enough. My Spanish was limited. My Jewish schooling was incomplete. I carried an ethnically ambiguous appearance and never knew, walking into a room, how the people there would read me — or whether they would accept what they found.

I spent years letting that insecurity keep me out of rooms I had every right to be in.

Something shifted in law school. A student tabling for the La Raza Law Students Association kept telling me to just join. When I finally accepted his invitation, I found the Latino community I had been longing for and a family I hadn’t known I was missing. The student who recruited me became my best friend and then my best man.

What I found in that experience was more than belonging. It was permission that I eventually learned to give myself — to walk through doors that had my name on them.

It took time. But I came to understand that my fears of being “enough” were self-imposed. I also realized something that has since become unshakeable: my identity is mine. My faith is mine. Nobody granted it to me, and nobody can take it away.

I was well aware, walking into last Tuesday’s council meeting, that I could be the only vote against adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

Regardless, I was not equivocating. I knew what I believed and why. I had asked the proponents clear questions and not received clear answers. I had read the testimony of one of the definition’s own lead drafters, who wrote that he watched it be weaponized for fifteen years and never intended it for government adoption. I was aligned with the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights — an organization of hundreds of rabbis and cantors — and with Rabbi Rothbaum himself, who asked me to share his words with the Council that night.

I also knew the issues wrapped up in the vote were not hypothetical for me in the way they might be for others. Last summer, I wrote a very personal piece sharing why, as a father, a Jew, and a councilmember, I am appalled by the brutality in Gaza. The leader of the organization that championed the resolution we were voting on published a response conflating my demand for dignity for all people with support for terrorists and calling me a feeder of antisemitism for writing it.

That is exactly the sort of thing I believe the IHRA definition enables.

The meeting was extremely heavy. There were hours of public comment. The chambers were filled with people wearing kippahs and keffiyehs, holding Israeli flags and images of Palestinian children.

At one point, a man I know well stood up to speak in opposition. He is the grandson of Jews who fled Europe, and it was his experience growing up in a Jewish family that moved him to be there and use his voice. I could feel the weight he was carrying — the knowledge that people in that room would see his words not as conscience but as betrayal.

It moved me to tears. I felt the same weight and the same resolve to speak my conscience.

Some time before the vote, I met with the leader of the group that had championed the definition — the same person who had accused me in writing of feeding antisemitism. She began the meeting by telling me that I have no relationships with anyone in the Jewish community.

I asked her bluntly if my family and friends count.

I understood what she was attempting. She was suggesting my identity is conditional — that it can be revoked by someone with more institutional standing, that belonging must be earned on her terms.

A younger version of me might have been shaken by that. The person who spent years standing outside rooms that should have been his, waiting to be told he was enough.

I am not that person anymore.

What she said angered me and made me sad. Not because it threatened how I see myself, but because it revealed how a difference of opinion rooted in love for all people could be answered with an attempt to strip someone of their identity. My moral objection to the punishment of innocent people — especially children — grows directly from my Jewishness. From a history of persecution that taught my family, across generations, what it means to be targeted for who you are. From a faith that demands the repair of the world, not the protection of some people in it at the expense of others.

To be Jewish is, to me, to inherit a mandate for justice that does not have qualifiers or asterisks.

I could not in good conscience vote to adopt a definition that I knew from personal experience could be used to punish or silence that kind of moral witness. Not when the goal is to make it harder to stand on the side of all people rather than just some.

It is worth being clear about who brought this definition to our Human Relations Commission. The first person listed as a presenter is a proud MAGA supporter. Whatever one believes about the definition itself, that is the political company this effort chose to keep — a movement that has made a safe harbor for fascism, Nazis, antisemites, and bigots of every variety.

I will not let fear of being a lone vote or fear of being told I don’t belong push me into alignment with that. Not last Tuesday and not ever.

When the clerk read the result — “the motion passes 8-1, with Councilmember Elo-Rivera voting no” — I knew, despite what the vote tally showed, that I was not alone.

Much of what has come after confirmed that. There were people in the chambers, including a couple from the other side of the debate, who immediately expressed appreciation for my sharing my experiences and respect for my willingness to vote the way I did.

I’ve also heard from people I deeply respect who told me the vote mattered to them, that it said something they needed said. Someone sent me a message of gratitude, and I found myself writing back:

If you are one of the people who reached out — thank you. You’ve reinforced something that might sound like a cliché but is one of the most important lessons for those of us who want to be in the business of fighting for change.

We are never alone when we do the right thing.