Now that the count looks to be pretty much complete, I think I can say one thing for certain: Republicans cannot blame their loss in the District 1 City Council election on Barack Obama.
That's not to say they aren't trying. In explaining away the District 1 loss, Duane Dichiara -- who ran Republican Phil Thalheimer's campaign -- had a great quote: "You can build the best sandcastle on Earth but if a tsunami comes, it's not going to survive."
He said he wouldn't have done anything differently. Thalheimer said that as well.
I think we'll have to study the results from across the city to see whether the Obama wave really affected the other areas of town, but I think the Republicans are doing themselves a disfavor if they truly hold to the belief that some kind of unavoidable national enthusiasm for the president elect left them helpless in local elections.
Let's look at the results.
The District 1 race is the easiest to analyze for this because it was the only City Council race that was actually contentious in 2004 and 2008. And, for comparison purposes, we are lucky to actually have the same Republican candidate. And we have one other advantage in analyzing this: Phil Thalheimer, the Republican in question, ran an anti-establishment, (or as Sarah Palin might say: maverick) in his previous campaign. He railed against developers in '04 and spurned the Lincoln Club.
This time, Thalheimer ran as a much more traditional San Diego conservative Republican. Developers were cool again and the Lincoln Club worked its butt off for him. So we get to see how that evolution in personal campaigning worked out for him.
As the count stands now in the 2008 race, (and if the count changes, it will be quite minor) here's where we're at in the District 1 race:
| Sherri Lightner | 39,945 votes | | Phil Thalheimer | 37,120 votes |
So, what was the count in 2004, when Democrat Scott Peters won re-election despite massive spending by Thalheimer against him? | Scott Peters | 38,087 votes | | Phil Thalheimer | 31,535 votes |
That means at least 7,443 more people voted in this election in District 1 than did in 2004 in the same district. Obama bump? Did the new prez bring a bunch of new Dems to the polls for Lightner? I'm not seeing it. Looks like Thalheimer -- who ran as more of a Republican this time -- increased his vote count by 5,585 over his 2004 showing. Lightner only got 1,858 more votes than Peters did in 2004. Seems like, if anything, the Republicans were actually able to do better this time in District 1. They just got out campaigned. Friday, November 21 -- 4:50 pm
So the last post, in which I pivoted off some comments by City Councilman Ben Hueso to plea with readers to stop stigmatizing renters, generated some pretty passionate responses. I'm going to deal with a few of them now.
First, reader Larry, who's never had much patience with me, directs some of his signature irritation toward Hueso.
Come on, Scott. Do you really think that Hueso has the intellectual capacity to differentiate between those who have to rent vs those who choose to rent?
Yes, Hueso is smart enough. But here's the thing: The housing market panic we're in the midst of now was caused in large part by the fact that there was little or no difference between those who have to rent and those who choose to rent. Lenders, Wall Street and politicians created a system wherein the assets and wages of potential mortgage borrowers became unimportant when deciding whether to help people buy homes.
Anybody could get a loan for a house no matter how much money they actually made. Everyone therefore had the opportunity to choose whether to buy or not. You didn't even have to prove how much money you made to buy a home.
In this new reality, the price of the home became unimportant as well. Greedy lenders hooked buyers by adjusting the payments to whatever level they needed to ensure that the borrower could make them -- at least for a while. Because of this obsession with homeownership, we pushed people to take on these loans, some of which didn't even require payment of the full interest of the loan.
Some justified this by praising this culture of ownership, like our city councilman just did, and talking about how the community benefited when more people were "owners." But really, saddling people with loans they had little chance of being able to pay back was far from a public service. It was near criminal. And the victims are being forced from their homes in droves right now.
A loan is not a loan if, at some point, the lender doesn't plan on getting paid back. And they did plan on getting paid back. It's just that all these people obsessed with promoting homeownership had no plan to give the people who were expected to pay these loans off more money.
Hence the ongoing crisis and the panic. We're supposed to be shocked that this money just isn't there.
Well, if you are, you have no business leading this country out of this mess.
Now, about homeownership. A few readers turned to the old mantra about the American dream of owning a home.
Reader Homeowner had this response:
Take a trip around District 8. Look at the areas that are primarily rented and those that are long term homeowners, particularly in the South of the District. There is no comparison of the standards of the neighborhoods. Homeowners generally take significantly more care of a neighborhood they are invested in. Encouraging home ownership for people intending to stay for long periods of time is a great strategy. The current financial meltdown has created an atmosphere of unmatched opportunity for particularly first time buyers who thought that they would never be able to get on the homeowner ladder. Scott, HYPER sensitive. [Hueso] stated a simple fact that neighborhoods with owner-occupied properties are generally better maintained, creates a higher buy in to long-term community buy in and "pride of ownership". I have never heard "pride of rentership" banded about.
I never thought of that. Apparently some neighborhoods are better off than others.
Wild.
To be sure, "pride of rentership" was exactly what I was promoting.
Of course owning a home has its benefits. And, of course, a world where everyone owned a home and took care of their neighborhoods with the pride of an owner would be a beautiful one.
My point was that only those who have the assets and means to purchase a home can benefit from owning a home. And the community will only benefit from that if these people can afford to stay in those homes.
I agree -- wholeheartedly. We must work to create this world where more and more people own and they are invested in the community. Encouraging people to buy homes they can't afford and artificially keeping home prices at unaffordable levels doesn't accomplish that. It would be better, in my mind, if we focused on priming the economy and creating jobs and raising wages to the point where more people could afford to buy a home. And, in the meantime, we let home prices settle to a realistic level.
This may not raise the percentage of homeowners as fast as some dream, but it's more sustainable.
Unfortunately, the focus over the last several years was not on building infrastructure, creating jobs, innovation or making the economy stronger. The focus was on manipulating home loans to artificially boost home ownership and trap people into unsustainable personal finance conundrums. And this was the culture of a few years ago that Hueso was talking about so nostalgically.
We shouldn't be nostalgic about it. We should find it repugnant and never let it happen again.
Finally, many readers ripped me personally.
Yes, it's true. I'm a renter.
Reader Basic Civics challenges my "absolute" declaration that renting right now is more economical than buying.
It is hard for me to buy that Hueso genuinely views renters as inferior constituents and I wonder if you, a renter, are just being a bit sensitive about the matter. However thought I would illustrate something about your use of absolutes. Renting is a rational choice for many but so is owning... Take for example the following... a house (same floor plan as mine) on my street recently rented for 2400.00 a month or 28,800/yr. The annual nut on my house 8 doors down is 38,400 (including p tax). The tax benefit on my house (yes I am in a high bracket) is approximately 10,400. So effectively my cost of ownership is 28,000/yr or 8 hundred less than I would pay for renting the same house (which actually has nicer landscaping). I bought at the highpoint (in 2005) with a conservative loan (fixed rate).
I'm the one being sensitive? Look, Basic Civics is not who I am talking about. This person is in a very high tax bracket. Basic Civics could afford a traditional fixed-rate loan to enable the purchase of what sounds like a single-family home -- all this, apparently, at the height of the housing market no less.
This is not the type of person I'm talking about. If these homeowners can afford to stay in the home for 10 years or longer, they almost certainly will be OK. Unless we have a Japanese-style mega housing depression. I agree. They may in fact be better off in the ultra-long term than had they avoided buying a home.
Basic Civics employs the common response to my argument about the disparity of rental rates to home prices. It goes like this: Though rents are demonstrably cheaper now than monthly mortgage payments, the federal income tax break one realizes from paying mortgage interest more than bridges the gap.
In response, I would still argue that the money renters save monthly can be invested in safe interest-bearing accounts and that, over time, have the possibility of turning out much better than the declining value of the asset Basic Civics owns. But, that's just a different calculation based on a different view of the future. It assumes a further deterioration of the housing market where homes like Civics' continue to lose value.
We'll know in the future who was correct.
I was worried about those who aren't as well off as Basic Civics. I'm talking about the people who still can't afford to take on a fixed-rate traditional loan for a home right now. The last thing we need to do is try to somehow bring back the excesses of the past few years where we lured them into homeownership with the incentive of low rates and low initial payments.
And this, I'm afraid, is exactly what politicians like Hueso seem to be longing to do.
Thursday, November 20 -- 10:27 am
Councilman Ben Hueso, a leading contender for council president, had an interesting thing to say yesterday. I'm going to pull from Survival:
[Hueso] said the city has put effort into increasing homeownership rates in the city of San Diego, rates which he said had historically been among the lowest in the country. He equated increased homeownership with increased civic-mindedness, neighborhood safety and pride of ownership.
And Hueso said this foreclosure crisis "threatens to undermine years and years of hard work" to get residents in homes and help them "realize the American dream."
Local government, Hueso said, should play a large role in promoting homeownership in the city of San Diego.
"We don't want people to necessarily become renters," he said.
But yesterday, Gentry of the Housing Commission said he wanted to be careful in these foreclosure plans to not just push someone into homeownership who shouldn't be there.
Catch that? Any of you out there renters? Well, you're a loser, uninterested in civic mindedness and neighborhood safety -- at least according to Hueso.
Can we get past this, please? Right now there is nothing wrong with renting a place to live. In fact, rental rates are still much lower now than the cost of paying a mortgage every month. You can rent a place in a fine single-family home in a coastal neighborhood right now for a monthly payment that wouldn't be enough -- or would barely be enough -- to purchase and own even a foreclosed townhouse in eastern Chula Vista.
There's no reason right now to take on a mortgage. And for those who have mortgages, becoming a renter again should not be so horribly stigmatized. It would be a rational decision considering the fact that they own an asset of rapidly declining value. Even if the banks, compelled by the government, lower the loan repayment conditions, in many cases they're merely delaying the necessary payments, not eliminating them.
So you have people being persuaded by Hueso and others to stay in locked into a ridiculous mortgage when it may be not only rational but much better for their quality of life to move into a rental home.
This obsession with homeownership and all of these supposed benefits pushed thousands into houses and condos they couldn't afford and left people vulnerable to parasitic mortgage brokers who played on their desire to be part of this mania.
Renting is a rational choice right now. Politicians who call their constituents bad neighbors if they don't own, on the other hand, are not being rational at all.
Wednesday, November 19 -- 4:15 pm
As you know, I've been rather obsessed with the fiscal health of the city of Chula Vista for some time now.
Every time I've had the chance to talk about it with Mayor Cheryl Cox, she has said that the main hope for the city's future was the prospect that Gaylord Entertainment would follow through and build this big beautiful convention center and hotel on the bay front. Despite its cost, the project would generate sales and hotel-room taxes that, she said, would do as much to save the town as anything for which they could hope.
Today, we learned, Gaylord is now gone-- dumping Chula Vista as if it were an overeager high school kid too desperate to be attractive, and too psycho to be sexy. Or maybe the poor kid just couldn't find the gas money to drive to the dance.
These must be stressful nights for Mayor Cox. She went to war with City Councilman Steve Castaneda, helping to raise money to crush his re-election hopes and sparring with him in public at every turn. She appears to have lost. Castaneda won re-election and will be running for mayor no doubt. The other Chula Vista City Council seat up for grabs has a Democrat -- another potentially hostile colleague of Cox -- up in the count tonight by a mere six votes. Six votes. Even if Cox's ally overcomes this meager margin, it may take a legal battle the city can hardly digest.
So the mayor's top political enemy is stronger than ever. The mayor is weaker than ever and her signature project -- this convention center -- has just been taken off life support. The city manager she stuck with before cutting loose is gone. People are going to be laid off. Services are going to be cut. And even that won't make the financial problems go away.
If the mayor still has allies in Chula Vista, she needs them to rally. She's drowning.
Monday, November 17 -- 7:38 pm
OK, it's time to wrap up the Winners and Losers of the 2008 election. I have a couple more entries for the next few days.
 First, it's time to wrestle with these two: City Councilwoman Donna Frye and Mayor Jerry Sanders. Were they winners in the last election? Or did they come out weaker?
Obviously, Sanders won reelection in June. Frye has two years left in her term. So, personally, they aren't going anywhere.
But they both were keenly interested in the last election. Ever since I asked for your thoughts on the Winners and Losers this round, I've gotten tons of emails arguing that Frye was a big loser in the election and others that said Sanders was the loser. It's a little hard for my big brain to square that. There's really no way, in my mind, that Sanders and Frye were both losers coming out of the Nov. 4 election. If one lost, it would be logical to conclude that the other won.
I think I'm going to come down on the middle. They both lost and they both won. But they come out of the election in much different places than they were before.
Let's start with the mayor. No doubt he was hoping that April Boling won in District 7 of the City Council and that Phil Thalheimer won in District 1. They lost and so the mayor lost. I also don't think he's all that excited about having Carl DeMaio on the City Council. Some Republicans heart the young wonk, DeMaio, but others think he's a powder keg that will blow up in their faces.
And while we're at it let's talk about this obsession over Republicans vs. Democrats on the City Council. I believe, and have argued for some time, that the supposed split between them is artificial. Right now, the two biggest buddies on the City Council are Jim Madaffer and Scott Peters, a Republican and a Democrat respectively. They agree on pretty much everything. DeMaio and Frye have teamed up too? The interparty admiration and intraparty warfare is not exclusive to either side.
I would bet $100, for instance, that the mayor is much more excited to work with Todd Gloria, a Democrat, than DeMaio. There are only a couple of votes a year that break down along party lines. More often than that, there's a deeper and more nuanced split: establishment vs. reformers; labor vs. business (which is not always the same as Dem vs. Rep); and sincerity vs. game playing.
Maybe you all can help me come up with a new way to describe the real division on the City Council. Is it just Rep. vs. Dem? No way, right?
But I digress. The mayor clearly had other hopes for how the City Council elections would turn out and the two big races went against him.
On the other hand, the mayor was engaged in a prolonged political death match with the city attorney. The mayor will march live for four more years. The city attorney is cleaning out his office. This is a big win for the mayor who says he's desperate to have a lawyer at his side to advise him and his staff on the big issues -- that Aguirre has provided only obstruction, if that, over the last couple of years.
This is a win, however, that comes with a price: Now the mayor has no excuse. Aguirre has been a fine foil for the mayor. Hiccups and hindrances can be blamed on the city attorney. At least, they could.
Now it's a whole new game. The mayor will have fewer excuses to get things done. We'll see if he does. Sure he can blame the City Council, and a more labor friendly body may oppose his privatization initiatives and any hopes for a new pension system. But a good leader could forge compromises in tough times with a City Council that sincerely accepts that we're in a financial downturn.
As for Frye, the calculation is similar. Did she come out stronger or weaker with the election results?
Well, before the election, she seemed to be working hardest for City Council candidate Stephen Whitburn, in his bid against Gloria (again, if the only thing that mattered on City Council was party affiliation, Frye would have no reason to get in this race as both Whitburn and Gloria are avid Democrats).
Obviously, Whitburn was beaten pretty handily in the race. And now Gloria might not be so happy with Frye. Though I doubt he'll hold much of a grudge, Gloria probably won't support Frye for City Council president. Whitburn would have.
Frye also donated to Aguirre's re-election campaign. She may not have knocked on doors until her knuckles bled for him, but she did support him. And now he's gone.
These two are losses.
On the other hand, Frye endorsed Sherri Lightner and Marti Emerald in their bids and was supportive of them. Think about who those two are replacing: Peters and Madaffer. They may work together like peas and carrots but those two have been anything but Frye's friends on the Council. Now two Democrats are replacing them and they appear at least open to listening to Frye. She's got a whole new group of potential friends.
This is a win.
Frye, along with City Councilman Kevin Faulconer, also shepherded Proposition C to the ballot. This set aside a portion of the budget to ensure Mission Bay and certain parks were protected.
This is another win.
No, Frye and Sanders did not get everything they wanted out of the last election. But they both got a couple of things they did want. And now they are both in a position to take advantage of it.
We'll see if they do.
Monday, November 17 -- 4:14 pm
I took a bit of a break from the Election Winners and Losers series of posts, as you've probably noticed. I want to see what happens today, when the Registrar of Voters is expected to give us pretty much the last -- if not the last -- dump of numbers from the ongoing vote count. I would assume that today we'll have clarity about who won that vitally important City Council seat in Chula Vista and whether April Boling somehow caught up to Marti Emerald in the 7th District City Council race.
 | | Kevin Faulconer waits for his leader. |
But for now, let's talk about the big issue coming up -- finally -- for a real public discussion: who will lead the San Diego City Council as its president. For months, we've had just behind-the-scenes speculation. We might actually get some of these people's thoughts on the record for once. First off, there do not appear to be enough votes to nominate someone now as council president. Councilmen Kevin Faulconer, Brian Maienschein and Donna Frye all signaled last week that they would not support letting the current City Council decide who's going to lead the future City Council. Tony Young is sending similar signals. That's four votes against nominating someone right now. With an eight-person City Council, and with Scott Peters, the current prez, saying he's "personally" against choosing a City Council president now before the four new members are sworn in. But the discussion will be interesting. There seems to be somewhat artificial worry about what would happen in the time between when Prez. Peters leaves and when the new council convenes. After all, who would run the meeting? Faulconer, Maienschein and Frye think that the City Clerk could open up the Dec. 8 City Council meeting and the first item she called up would settle the question. I suppose there could be some awkwardness if two or more members of the City Council want to be the ones to put out the first motion. But I'm not sure why the city clerk is in a bad position to do that. Anyway, last week when I talked to Faulconer about his wins with Propositions C and D, I took the opportunity to get his thoughts on the council president situation. We know he's against having the current council weigh in on who will lead the next council. But what about the role of the council president? Would Faulconer be joining Carl DeMaio and Frye in their effort to defang the council president -- to keep him or her from being able to set the docket in the future? "I think with any new system we have to take a look at what's working and what's not. Let's have the discussion and see where it goes," Faulconer said. OK, well, did he share Frye and DeMaio's frustration with the supposed games that Scott Peters played if they wanted to get something he didn't like on the council's agenda. Faulconer, a Republican, said Peters, a Democrat, always worked well with his issues. And Faulconer pointed to Proposition C to make his point. Peters opposed Prop. C, which set aside a portion of the city's budget for Mission Bay and other park maintenance. But, regardless of his opposition, Peters put the measure on the docket for the council to approve or keep off the ballot. "I think Scott really tried to for the most part work well with the folks and get things on the docket," Faulconer said. With Young also signaling that he's against the DeMaio-Frye reform, and Ben Hueso almost certainly hostile to it, it probably is going to have some difficulty passing. However, Frye and DeMaio have many other much less-significant ideas that should be considered. How this plays out over the next two months will determine in large part what City Hall is like for the next couple of years. Monday, November 17 -- 2:11 pm I got an e-mail today from Luis Monteagudo, the communications director for County Supervisor Greg Cox. He wanted to clarify something about my post below. The county, he said, might not be cutting off the supervisors' slush funds.
In your post today, you made it seem like the County Board of Supervisors had already decided to end the Community Projects program. You said it’s "Done. Outsky. Dried Up."
Just to be clear, the Board has not voted on this yet. When Rob Davis talked to Greg on Election Day about this, Greg was acknowledging that the County, like all governments, is going to be facing harsh economic times and that one of the things that will be looked at is cutting the Community Projects program. But Greg’s quote as it appeared in Rob’s post was "It’s done on an annual basis when there’s surplus revenue. I don’t think there’s going to be surplus revenue next year."
The Board will be looking at several proposals during the upcoming months as it works on the next budget. But again, no decision has been made yet on any proposals or on Community Projects program.
OK, let me see if I have this straight: The Community Projects program is dependent on surplus revenue. There's not going to be any surplus revenue. But that doesn't mean there won't be a Community Projects program.
Thursday, November 13 -- 2:37 pm Can you hear that? Close your eyes. Listen close.
I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure it's the sound of government bean counters shrieking.
Governments are always trying to push a pig through a small hose. There's always a deficit. There's always a volley and then the budgets get put to bed and no one ever really knows how the crisis was handled. But there's something different happening now. There's a palpable realism buttressing some of the news lately. Over the past few days, we've been treated to a host of revelations about the poor shape of local municipalities' finances. Some have been more subtle than others.
The loudest shriek actually came several weeks ago when the mayor warned of a steep drop in revenue and a $43 million gap between what the city planned to spend for the last few months of the year and the amount of revenue that is actually going to come in.
Since then, we've gotten other indications that people are really worried in a way that's unprecedented in recent times. Did you not notice, for instance, County Supervisor Greg Cox's quiet disclosure -- during the cacophony of Election Day no less -- that he and his colleagues would be cutting off their $10 million slush fund distributions this year?
This is nothing short of shocking. Hundreds of organizations around town of various merit just lost thousands of dollars they've gotten for years -- doled out by individual supervisors like kings demanding tribute.
Done. Outsky. Dried up (at least for now). Unbelievable. Cox undoubtedly is looking at next year's budget numbers and getting a little antsy. He clearly does not want to have anything to do with the recrimination that would come if he tried to cut services but also tried to maintain the stream of funds they send to their favorite nonprofits around town.
These are the funds that have made Supervisor Pam Slater-Price an opera star and sent her colleague, Ron Roberts, to China. All the supervisors enjoy immense gratitude when they hand out the money to all kinds of groups -- from those refurbishing ball parks in the East County, to those run mobile health clinics. Make no mistake, for the supervisors to forego this privilege, there must be something ugly in their books.
There' s more. In case you missed it, check out Kelly Bennett's story from the other day. Local cities get a big part of their revenue from sales taxes and a big part of the rest from property taxes. All of the officials she talked to from North County to South are worried.
Now we have the pension system back in the news. Again, it was never the health of the pension system that was the worry. What worried us was how much it cost to keep it healthy. And it's one thing to have declining revenue -- it's another, quite troubling, thing to see costs rise at the same time. That's exactly what we're talking about here. If the value of the city's pension system plummets, and stays down, we'll have to pay more each year from the city's budget to keep the system healthy.
That would be fine if, say, there was a ton of money coming in from, say, a mania in the housing market.
Yeah. This is going to be a rough ride.
Wednesday, November 12 -- 5:04 pm This pause in our winners and losers tracking brought to you by some news.
Two very different potential City Council members for Chula Vista are separated now by only 50 votes. Pamela Bensoussan, a Democrat, is only down 50 votes in the latest update of the vote counting released by the Registrar of Voters tonight. When the count paused this weekend, Republican Russ Hall led Bensoussan by 119 votes.
And the vote count in District 7 of the San Diego City Council just tightened quite a bit as well, though Republican April Boling still trails Democrat Marti Emerald by 452 votes. Boling already conceded and it looked to be pretty clear when, this weekend, the vote count had Emerald up 24,036 votes to 23,207 -- a difference of 829 votes.
Boling's new count, however, made up nearly half that gap. Tomorrow night's release of new numbers should come close to settling this -- unless it just gets closer.
Monday, November 10 -- 6:27 pm We'll be back with more election winners and losers soon. But first, if you have a moment to stop by, we are pleased to have a great host for Café San Diego today.
 | | David Flores |
Not long ago, Kelly Bennett wrote this excellent story about David Flores, a San Ysidro architect. Flores helped shape that community from something that was on its way to becoming a busy, unfriendly international intersection into a neighborhood that could be livable and functioning. He's starting the conversation today with an answer to a simple question: When you realized you wanted to get involved and help your community, what did you do first? If you have some left, give him your attention for the day. I think he has a lot to offer. Monday, November 10 -- 7:55 am
Jennifer Tierney had two jobs this election: Get Sherri Lightner elected in the 1st District of the City Council, and do the same for Todd Gloria in the 3rd District.
Jobs well done.
While Republicans complain about the blue tsunami that wrecked their sandcastles, it's important to note a couple of facts: The moment the registrar of voters released the results of many absentee votes sent in days and weeks before the election, Lightner had a strong lead over her rival, Republican Phil Thalheimer.
This means simply that no wave of new Obama voters was needed at all to put Lightner over the line. She won with the voters who vote every election and who used to be reliably Republican in the 1st District.
Republicans should internalize this and learn from it rather than writing off their loss as the unfortunate consequence of a nationwide Democratic stomping.
Tierney worked to make this happen. She is not your average San Diego political consultant. She actually lives in Virginia and -- even in a polarized political environment -- she still works for both Democrats and Republicans, having orchestrated the wishes of liberals like Lightner and Gloria and Republican District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.
She had no easy task in the District 3 race. The local Democratic Party and the Labor Council were bizarrely at odds over the race, which pitted two pretty liberal candidates against each other. The party ended up spending thousands on the race. Again, this was somewhat bizarre, considering how close the race in District 7 turned out to be -- money spent there shoring up the victory would not have been wasted.
Tierney's job in this confusion was to help Gloria make it clear he was a Democrat but also that he was perhaps slightly more moderate than his opponent, Stephen Whitburn. This would allow him to stay on top of Democratic enthusiasm but also garner the votes of some of the few Republican or center-right voters in the 3rd District.
It worked. And it worked even though Whitburn spent a bundle of his own money in the race and his passionate supporters, including City Councilwoman Donna Frye, worked extremely hard for him.
District 3 was going to go to a Democrat no matter what. Maybe someday, a new Republican will appeal to the district, but for now, it's hard to imagine. Given that, the district was lucky to have two eloquent and passionate men racing against each other -- testing and challenging each other -- for the post.
Gloria, it turns out, was lucky to have Tierney.
Sunday, November 9 -- 7:35 pm
So far we've had two winners (the Labor Council and Kevin Faulconer) in our ongoing account of who won and lost in Tuesday's election. Remember, obviously some candidates won, some lost. But for this, the winners are the people who proved their mettle. Or they are the interest groups that are now better off or more powerful after the election. And I'm looking for your participation. Your e-mails so far have helped (there is currently a debate about City Council Donna Frye raging in my inbox -- did she come out stronger after Tuesday? Send your thoughts).
After two winners then, let's talk about some that didn't come out so well Tuesday night.
Losers: The Tigers of the San Diego Republican Party. Who are the Tigers? The actual Republican Party of San Diego, led by Tony Krvaric. The Lincoln Club. And, finally, Coronado Communications, whose consultants -- Duane Dichiara and Jennifer Jacobs -- are like San Diego's representatives of the movement that was supposedly creating a permanent Republican majority nationwide.
The Tigers are so named because they are brutal. They are hunters. They look at the world the way it is -- not the way they want it to be. It's survival of the fittest. They exploit frustrations and divisions hoping that more people end up on their side than the other. But they still believe you can brutalize your opponent from 9 to 5 and have a beer with them at 6 p.m.
Dichiara and Jacobs ran April Boling's campaign in District 7 of the San Diego City Council. The Lincoln Club campaigned on her behalf as well. She lost. They ran Phil Thalheimer's in District 1. The Lincoln Club sent mailers. The club sent so much junk in the mail, in fact, many seem to think that multiple mailers came sometimes in just one day. Yet Thalheimer lost. The two fiery consultants ran the campaigns of two Republican candidates for Chula Vista City Council. The Lincoln Club joined them and flooded Chula Vista homes with angry mailers. One of their council candidates definitely lost. The other race is too close to call.
Dichiara and Jacobs ran Chula Vista City Councilman John McCann's run for state assembly. McCann lost.
In Chula Vista, trying to challenge City Councilman Steve Castaneda's reelection, the Lincoln Club oddly thought it was a good idea to focus on the district attorney's prosecution of Castaneda that ended in his acquittal and made the prosecutors look like imbeciles. Everyone in Chula Vista knew about the trial and knew about his acquittal. Trying to pretend like he was guilty was not going to work and it was simply not fair.
The Republican Party and Lincoln Club miscalculated on nearly all levels (though the Lincoln Club did support Kevin Faulconer and Donna Frye's successful Proposition C).
I asked Dichiara for his thoughts.
He gave me one sentence:
"You can build the best sandcastle on Earth but if a tsunami comes, it's not going to survive," Dichiara said.
But Dichiara did win in District 5, in June. There, Carl DeMaio is poised to take his new City Council seat. He won in the primary and then was able to promptly get to high ground.
Friday, November 7 -- 7:36 pm
OK, I'm going to take a quick break from my "Winners & Losers" series below to point a couple of things out. The U-T is really in classic mode today.
This is just classic. The newspaper is currently trying to hawk T-shirts emblazoned with its front page and the news of Barack Obama winning the presidential election:
Limited edition t-shirt of the November 5th San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper announcing Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States. The November 5th edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper included.
So the paper is now trying to capitalize on the event it did all it could to prevent from happening (granted, that's not much, considering that its teetering influence is limited to San Diego, a now-blue county in a blue state). Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt the back of the shirt has a picture of the editorials they ran pleading with the public to elect John McCain. Nor does the shirt display one of the many cartoons from Steve Breen -- like this one -- that communicated how excited the country's enemies were at the possibility Obama would be elected.
Update: I forgot to mention two other hilarious things about this. First, the shirt is $33.99. Yeesh. And it doesn't ship for at least 21 business days. Yeeeesh. I don't think the free prizes offered on cereal boxes take that long.
The U-T was really on a roll today.
Here's the front page of the local newspaper's website:
Let's think about this for a second. First off, is there some kind of quota? Is the paper saying there should be a certain number and that we've come up "short?" Probably not, but that's kind of weird. Secondly, the truth is a bit different. There are 10 elected officials at City Hall. The mayor, the city attorney, and the eight members of the City Council. Currently, before the new group takes charge, there are six Democrats and four Republicans running things at City Hall. Four City Council seats were up for election this year along with the mayor and city attorney. Let's look at what happened now that all the elections are done (assuming the count in District 7 preserves Democrat Marti Emerald's lead over Republican April Boling). - Mayor's Office -- The mayor, a Republican, won reelection. No change in party holding office.
- District 5 -- The seat was held by a Republican. He was replaced by a Republican. No change.
- District 1 -- The seat was held by a Democrat. Not always the most liberal guy, but still a Democrat. A Democrat is replacing him. No change.
- District 3 -- The seat was held by a Democrat. She is being replaced by a Democrat. No Change.
- District 7 -- Jim Madaffer, a Republican, held the seat. He is being replaced by a Democrat. Add one to the Democrat column. Subtract one from the Republican column.
- City Attorney's Office -- Democrat Mike Aguirre is being replaced by Republican Jan "I'm Not Political" Goldsmith. Add one to the Republican column and subtract one from the Democratic column.
- Net change: None. I know, shocking.
Friday, November 7 -- 3:14 pm
Our next Winner in this year's election is City Councilman Kevin Faulconer. Yes, he was one Republican that had a couple of reasons to smile Tuesday.
In the final month of the campaign season, the San Diego Association of Realtors, the Lincoln Club and a group of hoteliers dumped tens of thousands of dollars into the campaign to support Proposition C, the measure that would ensure that lease revenue from around Mission Bay is protected for maintenance and projects at Mission Bay and other city parks.
The measure was sponsored by Faulconer and City Councilwoman Donna Frye. It's fair to say that if you have a citywide measure and it can get support from Frye, Faulconer and a bunch of Realtors and hoteliers, you can expect an easy passage, and Proposition C was no exception.
It's an issue Faulconer's been working on since before he was a City Councilman. He had to take on the U-T editorial board on the matter.
Behind it all is a simple fact that the hoteliers long ago recognized: The city is in financial trouble. Carve out your piece of the pie if you can and hold on for the ride -- hence, of course, the hoteliers successful advocacy of their own Tourism Marketing District last year.
But Faulconer got to protect a big jewel in his district. At the same time, he watched Proposition D, the ban on booze, pass. This was a triumph for Faulconer. He had waffled on the booze ban years ago. But watching that melee Labor Day 2007 on Pacific Beach pushed him into the camp wanting to ban booze. He got a temporary one-year ban through and then he and his colleagues decided -- and looking back, it was brilliant -- to confirm the decision by having it put on the ballot. In this instance, Faulconer set himself up to win both ways: If the booze ban was repealed by voters, he would have gotten credit for letting people decide. But since it passed, he looks like he was on top of the public opinion from the beginning and they validated a tough call.
He had to take on the politically powerful grocers and liquor groups. And he'll have some very grateful neighbors. There will be some residual anger from those who will long miss the chance to have a beer and throw horse shoes on the beach. It's a shame that has been lost. But the people passionate about that simply don't vote as often as the homeowners and residents in the beach community that pushed it through.
Faulconer gets a lot of love from them for the move.
He's a Republican and he was a winner Tuesday. They are not easy to find.
Thursday, November 6 -- 1:04 pm Alright, I'm going to begin a series of posts on the winners and losers emerging from Tuesday's election. It's not going to be the obvious stuff. I mean, of course the winning candidates were winners and the ones they beat were not.
This is more forward-looking -- what interests have positioned themselves better. Which politicians now have more power even though they may not have been in a campaign?
This isn't going to be in any particular order as I'm hoping you'll participate and let me know of some I might be missing. So if I tried to rank them, I'd hate to have you mess up my rankings.
But to begin, clearly one of the biggest local winners in the 2008 election is the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council. Hands down, they almost ran the table.
After the June primary election, I spoke on a panel next to Lorena Gonzalez the secretary-treasurer of the Labor Council.
She is political to the bone. The Labor Council's governing board put her in charge with an obvious political agenda. And she hired our own former reporter, Evan McLaughlin, to execute it. This year was her and her team's first big test.
The panel's moderator wanted us to test our political acumen and predict if Barack Obama would win the presidential election. I hedged, saying he had a good chance. Gonzalez said no, that union members, for one, would have trouble supporting him.
She was obviously wrong. So she missed one point. But I think we can say after this week that her acumen is pretty strong.
The union of union's political operatives, directed by Gonzalez, focused heavily on the hotly contested 78th Assembly District. They won. They worked hard grooming and helping Marti Emerald in the 7th District City Council race. They won. They did the same for Sherri Lightner in District 1. They won. They made the risky decision to take a side in the race between Todd Gloria and Stephen Whitburn in District 3. Both are solid labor-friendly Democrats. The Labor Council chose Gloria. He won.
Unions and the Labor Council came out in force for the Chula Vista City Council candidates they preferred. The South Bay city is quickly becoming the most interesting story in the county. Steve Castaneda was one of the Democrats to get the unions' support. He won. Pamela Bensoussan, the other, is still waiting on a final tally from the race. Her opponent is currently up in the count by 119 votes. So probably unlikely there.
Yes, the unions lost something Tuesday -- though stay tuned.
Tuesday's election was a defining and dramatic win for Gonzalez and McLaughlin, along with all their staffs and allies: people like the leaders of the hotel employees union who have gone from newcomers to the San Diego political scene in 2004 to true power brokers.
Let's go ahead and throw the teachers union into this account as well. It is not part of the Labor Council, but it was a winner nonetheless. The union orchestrated a shocking ouster of incumbent School Board Member Mitz Lee and, combined with the election of its ally Richard Barrera, the union now has an influence over that body unseen in years.
Finally, the city of San Diego's municipal employees unions got just about everything they could have wanted as well.
So labor won on the biggest stages in town. Congratulations. Now comes the hard part. Budget numbers don't come in one language for business-friendly Republicans and another for labor-friendly Democrats. The city of San Diego, Chula Vista and the school district are going to get hammered in a language everyone understands when we finish calculating the extent of the financial and revenue crises that have arisen.
The newly minted Democratic policy makers might be more willing to raise the property and sales taxes these government agencies depend on to cover the bills they have to pay. But property taxes depend on property values. And sales taxes depend on, well, the rate of sales of goods and services. Both of these aspects of our economy are collapsing with no end in sight.
Labor union leaders wanted to influence as much as possible while our public servants grapple with this. We'll see what that influence means.
Thursday, November 6 -- 10:26 am
In case you missed it, here's a link to my analysis of the rise and fall of Mike Aguirre, the man who made the City Attorney's Office something all San Diegans actually had heard about.
A lot of people have asked me what I think he'll do when he leaves office. Many are joking that he will go down to Chula Vista and run there now that the South Bay city has decided to have an elected city attorney.
I keep responding the same way. I think he'll go away for a while, grow a huge beard, lose 10 pounds and then he'll show up again. He was a force in the city when he was just a lawyer and he'll get out those big poster boards again and start writing tough letters like the old days.
He still has a lot of friends and he's got a good former title to add a bit of credibility to his future stances. Write him off at your own risk.
Thursday, November 6 -- 10:03 am So we just got the absentee ballot dump from the local races. Although everyone at Election Central is straining to see the first batch of numbers, they really shouldn't worry. We'll probably have three hours or more to parse these numbers while the registrar counts the ballots cast today.
That's right, it's going to be a late one.
County officials say it may take up to four more hours to get any updated numbers on local races.
But a couple of points worth noting: The Democrats are down in Chula Vista. Now, these are the absentee ballots, which in the past have had a Republican tilt. We've seen numerous races like this tighten after the initial absentee dump. But at the start of the counting, Chula Vista City Councilman Steve Castaneda is down against his Republican challenger, Scott Vinson 52.6 percent to 47.1 percent. And Democrat Pamela Bensoussan is trailing Republican Russ Hall in Chula Vista's other City Council race.
Labor groups and business alliances flooded the South Bay city with money and activists trying to sway the city's politics at a crucial time.
We'll pay attention to that. But remember, this is an election about Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox as well. She and Castaneda are at war. There's really no other way to put it. If Castaneda loses, no one will be happier than her.
Update at 2:15 a.m.: Castaneda is now leading in the count. With 50 percent of the vote counted, he has a 51 percent to 49 percent lead.
Wednesday, November 5 -- 2:15 am So, this is the dead zone -- the many hours between when you're tired of stories about turnout and interviews with the Registrar and when local results finally come out.
I hear there's a national election going on too -- maybe we all can tune into that as East Coast results come in to help pass the time.
But before that, I thought you might have fun with this. I'm trying to think back on the Top Ten Classic San Diego Moments in the local campaigns over the past year. You can undoubtedly help me add to this list or find better ones than I can but here's my 10:
No. 10 -- Marti Emerald speculating about getting a second job (or third) if she wins because of the "nothing salary" the City Council job pays.
No. 9 -- April Boling supporting the rights of people who want to drink on the beach. I just still have trouble squaring that one up.
No. 8 -- County Supervisor Ron Roberts to KPBS Reporter Amita Sharma about what would happen if his tax -- Proposition A -- to fund fire facilities and equipment fails today: "I'll be hoping beyond hope that we don't see something disastrous over the next couple of years. That would be the day I would wake up and feel San Diego you ought to be ashamed," Roberts said to Sharma.
No. 7 -- The classic humanism of this moment.
No. 6 -- Luis Acle, incumbent school board member, failing not once, but twice, to get enough signatures to run for re-election leaving freshman board member Richard Barrera completely unopposed.
No. 5 -- This "debate."
No. 4 -- Carl DeMaio scrambling up a grassy hill to put a campaign sign up -- all the while supposedly unaware that this was his opponents lawn.
No. 3 -- "I did not say that. I said, 'Fuck You, Steve.'" -- the mayor to our own Andrew Donohue. Don't forget the ancillary gem: when Fred Sainz denied his boss could ever have said that. "Laughable."
No. 2 -- Ah yes, remember when the mayor's campaign manager recruited -- or tried to recruit -- Eric Bidwell, the proud pot smoking anarchist, to get him to shovel some dirt on the mayor's rival, Steve Francis, at a debate? Classic. The U-T's Matt Hall had a good follow up story on this.
No. 1 -- City Council Candidate John Hartley: "It all started because I had to take a leak." This was in a campaign mailer, remember. Now, that means that he had to plan this out. He probably even had some help from his campaign consultant and others. They actually sat there and thought: Hmm. We should start this sentence out with 'I had to go to the bathroom.' ... No, no, that's no good. Let's really show we're Joe Lunchbox. Go with 'I had to take a leak.'
Send me your own list at scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org or one you think should replace the ones above.
Tuesday, November 4 -- 4:08 pm I had a chance just now to speak with Council President Scott Peters about how his colleagues should choose his successor and the role that person should have. Carl DeMaio, an incoming City Council member, and Donna Frye, are working to gut the power of the prez.
First off, Peters defended his decision to docket a discussion of the new council president Nov. 18. This will allow the lame-duck council members to potentially saddle their successors with a new president. Remember my point on this: The power of the council president comes from the support he or she earns from his or her colleagues. If the new members of the council, though, aren't allowed to choose the new president, it takes away that person's credibility as the president.
Peters said he doesn't necessarily want the old council to choose the new president on Nov. 18. But he said, he had no choice but to put it up for discussion then.
"It's not my decision to make to not let the council talk about it -- to not let this council have any input," Peters said. He said the discussion of who would be the new council president had always taken place in mid-November. Never mind that always means just twice three times as we've only been grappling with this since the strong-mayor form of government came to be in 2006. Correction: This is the end of Peters' third term. The process of voting him president has occurred three times -- not twice as I originally had.
He said he didn't feel comfortable making the decision to change that and leave the current council out of the discussion. I asked him whether he wasn't making a kind of decision just by putting it on the docket now.
He said the council could always decide just to put off the discussion for the new group to handle.
"They don't have to take any particular action on it," he said.
At this point, I switched to the role of the council president. Remember, Frye sent me two examples of instances in which she asked to have something (two issues regarding employee retirement benefits) put on the council's docket for discussion and Peters had "ignored" her.
What was up with that, I asked Peters.
First, Peters said those were the only two instances he and his staff could find when a colleague had asked him to put something on the docket for discussion and had filled out the appropriate forms and had been turned away.
Then he said the reason was that those issues were "in litigation."
"There's nothing you can do about DROP or retirement benefits if they're being litigated," he said. He said he told Frye that and then referred the matter to the city attorney for his input. He said the city attorney never responded.
Then he got adamant. He said he's made a point to put everything on the ballot that has been requested.
"If you have the forms filled out in time so that the public and council can review it, we try to make sure it is heard," Peters said. He added, as an example, that he didn't necessarily want the council to debate its support or nonsupport of the controversial Proposition 8, which would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to be married in California. He said the council meetings are "business meetings" not "political rallies" but he put his instincts aside and allowed the discussion to go forward.
Finally, I asked him if this was the best process. Let's assume, I said, he's fair and equitable and effective. What if someone not so admirable takes the post and isn't fair and does play games? Should they have this power?
"It's really important for a council to select someone to do this," he said. "I have to find a majority on the council that trusts me. The first time I start messing with the process I'm going to lose support. That's the watchdog on this."
This is productive, I think. What do you think about what he said?
P.S. Here's a copy of Peters' own memorandum on the issue.Tuesday, November 4 -- 11:47 am Score. Councilmen Brian Maienschein and Kevin Faulconer and Councilwoman Donna Frye have issued a memo expressing their "strongest opposition" to the idea that the current City Council might appoint a new council president or a temporary "presiding officer."
Remember, a couple of the almost-completely lame, lame-duck members of the City Council -- and those hoping to install Councilman Ben Hueso as the next council prez -- have been angling to do this before the new City Council is seated.
The new City Council, of course, should decide its own president. After all, the only merit behind the idea that the president should have any power above his or her colleagues is based on the idea that they earn the support of their colleagues -- not lame-ducks trying to leave their mark on their successors.
It was logical to think Faulconer and Frye would want the new council to have a say -- they'll get a vote no matter what. But it's noble for Maienschein to essentially advocate that he not be involved in this decision.
Here's Faulconer, Frye and Maienschein's argument:
Council precedent and the principles of sound governance and democracy advise against the participation of departing council members in the selection of leadership for the new council.
They face a bit of a problem. At the first City Council meeting after the new council members are inaugurated, someone will have to run the meeting. Both the current council president and his deputy -- Scott Peters and Jim Madaffer, respectively -- will be gone. There'll be no one to run the meeting.
They suggest that Liz Maland, the city clerk, open the meeting and direct everyone to the first item: the election of the new council president.
And throwing a bone to City Councilman-elect Carl DeMaio and Frye, the memo suggests that the docket should also include "any proposed changes to the Permanent Rules of the City Council."
We all know what that means.
Of course, further illustrating the irony of all this: It's up to Council President Scott Peters to decide if this should indeed be discussed.
I called to get his thoughts on this before I had even heard of this memo. His aide said he'd return my call tomorrow. I will look forward to it. And it will give us something to talk about while we wait for the big news of Election Day.
It may not seem like a huge deal considering everything happening Tuesday, but the fact is, few things will affect the way the city runs as much as who is council president or what role that person has. And the decision will be made in coming weeks.
Monday, November 3 -- 6:31 pm |
Scott Lewis on Politics
The Scott Lewis on Politics blog, abbreviated cleverly as SLOP, is a collection of observations, insights and the occasional scoop on public affairs in San Diego. Please feel free to e-mail Scott at scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org.
A little recognition.
Friday, November 21 -- 4:03 pm
It doesn't look like the mayor has the City Council votes to shut down libraries and rec centers.
Friday, November 21 -- 2:02 pm
The first day a store opens, shoplifters have a field day.
Friday, November 21 -- 11:43 am
SURVIVAL IN SAN DIEGO
Retail and construction sectors lose a combined 10,000 jobs over the year in San Diego County.
Friday, November 21 -- 5:43 pm
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Time to pony up.
Thursday, November 20 -- 7:20 pm
CAFÉ SAN DIEGO
Follow up to your responses and questions.
Thursday, November 20 -- 7:07 pm
COMMENTARY: SLOP
It's not looking like he did.
Friday, November 21 -- 4:50 pm
COMMENTARY: RICH TOSCANO
Home sales have exploded in low-priced areas of San Diego even as they decline in pricier neighborhoods.
Thursday, November 20 -- 11:13 pm
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