🇲🇽 It's Wednesday and Mexican Independence Day. ¡Feliz Día de la Independencia!

🌤️Today's weather: Coast — Cloudy, then sunny, high 71; Inland — Cloudy, then sunny, high 78

🎧 Sounds like: "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1" by The Flaming Lips

🎂 Happy birthday to our member Art T!

Today's newsletter is 989 words — a 3.5-minute read.

The city is considering a contract with a company that sucks up city documents and then uses AI to write new policies for lawmakers to vote on.

Why it matters: This would be a big jump in the city's AI usage and raises questions about the security of public data and whether we want robots drafting policies.

Driving the news: The city is in active talks with Madison AI to create an AI model that would run off the city's documents.

• Madison AI representatives met with city staff last December and followed up with a slide deck and video presentation that outlined their offerings. I obtained their pitch in a public records request.
• Madison AI's model runs off a city's "every single PDF and archived file that is the institutional knowledge of your organization" and "puts it to work," according to the video.
• The AI writes agendas and staff reports, helps staff prepare for elected officials' questions and drafts policy.

Madison AI didn't return a request for comment.

• It starts at $25,000 a year and is being used in cities across the country, including Culver City and Aspen, Colorado.

Zoom in: San Diego doesn't have a contract with Madison AI and isn't pilot testing it. City staff wouldn't do an interview with me, but spokesperson Anthony Santacroce answered questions over email.

• "The City is evaluating solutions from Madison AI that offer potential efficiencies for public records requests and legislative document information," he wrote.

Public records show the city appears very interested.

• At the end of last year, the city's IT assistant deputy director Serena Blanks wrote to Madison AI that she wanted to get the contract moving and said the last step was resolving data security.

Threat level: Uploading public documents to a third-party company raises concerns, says UCSD communication and data science professor Stuart Geiger.

• Madison AI states in its security overview that customer data is never used to train, fine-tune or improve AI models, but it also advertises sharing data in its promotional video.
• "Imagine being able to analyze data across neighboring cities or counties" and "eventually national-level analysis," the video says.

Using AI to write policies also degrades the collaboration that's part of democracy, UCSD communication professor Lilly Irani tells Axios.

• "They're treating creating policy like a manufacturer would treat creating widgets, where they want to cut costs, cut speed, cut labor," Irani says. "But this is democracy, and democracy means we've got to take time to talk to each other."

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Fifty-six percent of drivers say gas prices have raised their interest in EVs, according to HERE Technologies and SBD Automotive's annual survey.

Why it matters: As gas prices remain high, drivers increasingly see EVs as a way to save.

Charging availability is becoming less of a deterrent, too.

• 47% of drivers — up from 28% in 2025 — say there's a good number of public chargers; 85% of EV owners agree.
• California has the most chargers per 1,000 miles in the country after Washington, D.C.

Yes, but: Higher purchase prices are holding back some buyers, according to the survey. Kelley Blue Book says Americans paid $56,126 for a new EV in July — $6,200 more than the average car.

Once drivers go electric, most don't want to go back.

• 77% of EV owners say they'd likely replace their EV with another.

Go deeper: 2026 Here-SBD EV index

Tell a commuter

Axios Social Club brings together curious locals for good food, good conversation and a night out with people you might never meet otherwise. 

How it works: Take a quick quiz, reserve your seat and we'll match you with five fellow locals at one of our favorite restaurants. 

Here's the twist: You won't find out your restaurant or dinner crew until the day of the event. After dinner, all the tables meet up at a surprise afterparty. 

If you go: Join us Oct. 6 at 6:30pm in Little Italy. 

• Tickets are $15.99 per person. 
• Food and drinks are purchased separately.

👉 Come hungry. We'll handle the rest.

Twelve people were charged for operating what prosectors called "ghost" daycares in San Diego and El Cajon. Prosecutors say they collected federal subsidies despite serving few or no children. (AP)

• This is the first indictment from the Justice Department's new fraud enforcement division.
• The federally funded childcare assistance programs are intended to help low-income families afford childcare so parents can work or go to school.

🚨 ICE detained a father last week minutes after he dropped his 2-year-old daughter at a North Park Head Start program. His partner and advocates said he has a pending asylum case. (10News)

🚗 A suspected stolen Tesla barreled onto the Pacific Beach boardwalk on Monday and critically injured a 25-year-old woman. People on the beach chased the driver and detained him until officers arrived. (NBC 7)

⚾ The Padres' winning streak snapped at eight after a 9-3 loss Tuesday night to Colorado. But they're still 2½ games up for the final NL wild card. (Union-Tribune)

Forget the noisy lanes and fluorescent lights. Some bowlers like to get outside.

• The San Diego Lawn Bowling Club has been meeting in Balboa Park since 1932.
• There are no pins, but instead you try to roll your balls close to a small white ball called the "jack."

Interested? The club provides free lessons, hosts daily play and regular tournaments.

🇮🇹 Claire is here to tell you it's worth it to get through the entire Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante just to get to the last book.

👩🏻‍🍼 Kate is on parental leave.

This newsletter was edited by Hadley Malcolm.