San Diego County residents interested in holding their government to account can apply to join its civil grand jury, a watchdog group that investigates local public agencies and issues.
Nineteen people will be selected for a one-year 2024-2025 term that starts July 1, 2024.
Members work Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and are paid $25 a day, plus mileage expenses. Jurors commit to serving at least 32 hours, or four days, each week, although they get holidays off and can request more time off.
The demographics of the county grand jury have in recent years skewed much older and Whiter than the county’s overall population, county data shows. Just over half of the 17 members selected for the current body were 65 or older, and more than three quarters were White. They skewed even older in the few years prior.
The jury’s work typically culminates near the end of its term, with the release of reports throughout the spring. That means the current 2023-2024 jury, which was seated this summer, has yet to produce any.
But in reports issued earlier this year, last year’s jurors issued recommendations on housing, homelessness and other issues affecting San Diego County.
They analyzed efforts to boost housing and recommended some familiar solutions. They criticized the city of San Diego’s controversial plan to use developer money from wealthy neighborhoods to build infrastructure in low-income areas, and they urged it to consider a mileage tax to help fix the worsening problem of funding road repairs.
The recommended streamlining the process for getting homeless people into supportive housing and called for more public bathrooms in downtown San Diego.
They echoed calls for scanning everyone entering jails for drugs, including deputies. And they advocated for greater oversight of the agency that has relatively unchecked authority over San Diego’s bayfront.
To qualify, applicants must be adult U.S. citizens who have lived in San Diego County for at least a year and can speak and write English.
They’re not eligible if they hold elected public office, currently serve as a trial juror in court, have been a grand juror in court since July 1 or have ever been convicted of a felony, malfeasance in office or another high crime.
The deadline to apply is Jan. 12. Superior Court judges will then nominate a pool of prospective members, and 19 members and 11 alternates will be chosen at random in June.
Find the application packet here: https://sdcourt.ca.gov/sdcourt/jury2/grandjury
