Who gets the last laugh? It's time to decide

Well, what do. you know? The Union Tribune announced that Todd Gloria is their choice for mayor.  No surprise here!

San Diego's growth machine—the entrenched coalition of influential players who profit handsomely from urban growth and development (our banks, hotels, convention center, newspapers, shopping centers, sports stadiums, building trades unions, realtor associations, builders and developers)--continues to exercise outsized control over local political decisions.  

The U-T acknowledges that Barbara Bry would be a superior mayor/manager of San Diego at a time when we are in desperate need of professional and ethical management.  

But… Barbara Bry is not a member of San Diego's old-boy network.  And Todd Gloria is. 

 

He's a tried and true pinch hitter, adept at scoring the deals and policies that typically enrich our city's lobbyists, campaign donors, unions, and business elites--usually at public expense.

You can count on him to work hand in glove with the entrenched brotherhood of San Diego's growth machine.  His record makes that clear.

 

Here's are some observations* I made in the past.  They are even more relevant and applicable today:

 

There's a short video you should watch.  It showcases our city’s top politicians strutting their stuff as hotshot Top Gun naval aviators.  

It’s a droll skit.  You’ll chuckle watching the honorable men I recently wrote about as they bond in a boys-will-be-boys ritual. 

 

But most of all, this doozy of a video spotlights why -- in the hands of our current politicians and the people who prop them up -- San Diego is destined to stagnate as an underachieving, plodding, also-ran kind of city.

 

The video was produced by the San Diego Taxpayers Association for its Golden Watchdog and Fleece Awards Dinner.  

 

For example, notice who’s in charge.  It’s none other than the honorable Jerry Sanders, cast as the swearing officer barking marching orders to a pair of compliant underlings.  

 Yup, our city’s rogue top cop -- the same aw-shucks guy who spent close to eight years as mayor overseeing the deterioration of San Diego’s public infrastructure, planning, municipal departments, workplace security, city finances, truth in government, and workers’ morale – is still running the show.  

 

And who are those minions kowtowing “Yessir!” to big boss Sanders as they vie with one another for his favor?  They sure look a lot like our top political leaders, the newly-elected honorable mayor Kevin Faulconer and our honorable city council president Todd Gloria.  How cute and winsome they are as they deliver their lines on cue.

Okay, we know it’s a spoof.  The trouble is, the joke’s on us.  While we’re giggling, the guys who write the script, the ones who call the shots in our city are laughing … all the way to the bank. 

 

Picture our developers and their anti-regulation growth machine, our hotel moguls and their oversized “hospitality” industry, our sports team conmen luxuriating in taxpayer subsidies, our swarm of banker/ lawyer/ investor middlemen drinking lustily from the trough of public bond debt, our taxpayers association, Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Partnership, special financing district mafiosi… slicing, dicing, and dividing the spoils.

 

In contrast, picture San Diego’s usual supply of political "leaders" --sunkissed, puckish, avuncular, lightweight, uninspired, shortsighted, chicken-hearted individuals, handpicked by the guys who’ve been writing the script for decades as they "yessir!" their sponsors. 

Sure, we've got a sense of humor.  But check the end of the video where the short guy says to the tall one, “You can be my wingman anytime.”  It’s an ambiguous buddy term involving support, protection, and the password to the exclusive old boy network.

 

But tell me, is it really a laughing matter when conflicted city officials work hand in glove to keep one another in business?  Is it really humorous when San Diego’s elite private establishment assumes ownership of city officials and writes the scripts and agendas and laws that control the city’s future?

On the other hand, wouldn’t it be a blast if San Diego citizens commissioned our own pack of wingmen to help hook us up with dedicated, public-minded, smart, and courageous political figures?  Just the thought of it brings genuine joy to the heart, doesn’t it?  For starters, we could raise our standards several notches and demand a lot more integrity and intelligent action from the people we elect to serve us.  Maybe then, the public would finally get the last laugh.

 

(*The original commentary can be found at http://numbersrunner.blogspot.com/2014/04/who-gets-last-laugh.html)

 

Mayor mayor on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?

I know what you’re thinking: we’ve got plenty of time to make up our minds about who to choose to be San Diego’s next mayor.  No rush, right? Wrong!

San Diego City Hall (circa 1874)

Let’s get the timing straight.  The primary election is coming up sooner than you think—the date is March 3, 2020.  Then the top two winners will face off in the November 3 general election.

Now, let’s get the candidates straight.  The frontrunners for mayor are Barbara Bry and Todd Gloria--both are Democrats.  Civic activist Tasha Williamson is also in the running–for some voters she represents a protest statement.  There’s also Republican candidate Scott Sherman—he's the disgruntled candidate who voices cynical disgust for city government from his seat on the City Council dais.  Additionally, there are several also-ran names to choose from.

Above all, let’s get this straight: the mayor of San Diego may not be a hot item on the national agenda, but here at home the position of mayor could be--no, SHOULD be--a very big deal. 

That’s why it boggles the mind that nearly every past San Diego mayor (present mayor included) can be described as a nondescript, mediocre, banal, unremarkable, complacent, fly-by-night, tunnel-visioned, utterly forgettable minor league political figure.

(To be fair, Mayor Pete Wilson brought some innovative touches to the office before he went on to greener, though more conservative, pastures.  


Mayor Roger Hedgecock seemed promising until he tripped over his own feet and skidded off the rails.  


Mayor Susan Golding had hints of verve until her overweening political ego practically bankrupted our city's finances.  

Mayor Bob Filner coulda been a contender, but it was not to be.  Did I miss anyone?)

For San Diego, the cumulative impact of settling for second-rate leaders is painfully clear.  Take a look at the persistent state of our bleeding financial budget, understaffed city departments, failing levels of performance, and zero accountability.  It's hard to miss the fact that current mayor Kevin Faulconer (just another pea in the pod) has proven himself incapable of taking care of basic city business, much less tackling San Diego's complex, ever-growing problems.  

Wouldn’t it be great if we could elect a competent, stable, independent, trustworthy, responsible, well-informed, honorable leader... a mayor with integrity and a dependable moral compass?  It could be a game changer.

We may be in luck this time.  There is ONE candidate who could fill the bill.  

Barbara Bry is the only candidate running for office who meets the criteria for competence✔ stability✔ independence✔ trustworthiness✔ responsibility✔ knowledgeability✔ honorability✔ integrity✔ and a dependable moral compass✔

Looks like a good start, doesn't it?

I've become convinced that for a fighting chance to wrest political control away from San Diego's business-as-usual power brokers and bend the benefits of good public policy toward the residents of our city, the odds for a good outcome lie with Barbara Bry.  The sum of her attributes is abundantly more vote-worthy than the scorecard for any of the other mayoral candidates.

Of course, nobody’s perfect.  Barbara Bry earns demerits when it comes to her public demeanor.  She scores low on the charisma scale.  She’s no smooth-talker.  She’s not fiery, not the cheerleader type.  She doesn't qualify for membership in San Diego’s entrenched good-old-boys club. 

What you see is what you’ll get: a down-to-earth, practical, realistic mayor with sharp business skills, lots of common sense, and no negative baggage… no hidden conflicts of interest… no secrets in her closet.  She understands that communities and neighborhoods must be the primary beneficiaries of city policies and decisions. 

Not long ago I made a practical suggestion: forget the fancy stuff... the bells and whistles... the silly-talk about sexy streets and world-class status.

With the right mayor in office--someone with integrity, strong management skills, and a nuts and bolts approach--we could see real progress toward meeting the needs of our neighborhoods and residents, along with securing a stable future for the city.  

Who can deliver? Not Todd Gloria--he's got a documented, reprehensible record of betraying his constituents and the public good.  

Not Scott Sherman--he has scant respect for city government and treats the public with contempt.  

Not Tasha Williamson--she speaks with authority on police abuse and overdue social reform but running the corporation called the city of San Diego takes a whole other bag of talents.

Way back last March I asked these questions: Is there time for Barbara Bry to grow? Spread her wings? Expand her scope? Be a risk taker by speaking truth to San Diego voters? Emerge as a multi-dimensional public-minded political leader?

Nine months later, my informed conclusion is that Barbara Bry is our best bet for San Diego's next mayor.

San Diego’s mayor: past, present, and future (part 4)

Mayoral candidate Cory Briggs (CB)

Once upon a time in the city of San Diego a much-heralded and wondrous happening took place.  

From a crowded field of mayoral candidates (including three sturdy Republicans--Nathan Fletcher, Bonnie Dumanis, Carl DeMaio), voters chose to elect a brash, iconoclastic, independent, politically progressive Democrat to become the city’s mayor. 

That person was Bob Filner.  It was the first and only time in recorded history that an authentic liberal came to power in San Diego.  

Personally, he was a flawed agent.  Politically, his record was clean.  But before the public had a chance to see what our city could become with progressive-minded people in charge, he was run out of town.

Today there’s another brash, iconoclastic, (seemingly) independent, (sort of) politically progressive candidate running for mayor of San Diego.  His name is Cory Briggs.  Over the past couple of decades, attorney Briggs has been laboring at loosening the stranglehold of San Diego’s old-boys-club over city politics. 

In an ironic twist to this tempestuous tale, the former-mayor Filner was in the process of confronting the same entrenched powerbrokers before he was ejected from office.  

In another ironic twist, CB and TG--the two politically liberal male candidates now running for mayor--were pivotal participants (alongside fellow-travelers who lurked behind a lineup of outraged women and powerful business interests) in the friendly fire that brought down the aforementioned ex-mayor, who lacked a civilian army capable of advancing his cause or of defending him from the onslaught.  Depending on what is really motivating CB to run for mayor, he, too, may be vulnerable to similar deadly assaults.  

It’s a hot potato.  Before we drop it, there are a few related questions that still need honest answers from the candidate:

1. Filner's personal proclivities were not an area of concern for CB.  So what triggered CB's lethal attack? 
2. Was CB (like Todd Gloria) suffering the agonies of thwarted personal ambition, having been spurned by the new mayor?
3. Or might it be that CB was simply doing friends a political favor by getting rid of this mayor in order to speed up Nathan Fletcher’s second attempt to take over the vacated mayor's seat?  
4. Whatever the motivation, was CB’s choice to overthrow the mayor a rational decision?
5. When he and his partners held a press conference to call for the mayor's resignation, did anyone have a backup plan?  Or did CB spontaneously mount the diving board, hold his nose, and jump... to hell with the consequences?  

In other words, what can we deduce about the political judgment of a mayoral candidate who helped precipitate Plan A (a palace coup) without a Plan B (after storming the Bastille, what comes next)?  After all, coups have consequences.  

Keep this in mind: in the aftermath of the political crusade to bring down a duly-elected mayor, the city suffered six years of failed leadership, deteriorating public services across the city, and a score of needless deaths on the streets.

Does CB, in some way, share responsibility with other actors in this riotous plotline for what would come after they achieved their short-term political goal?

And yet… Cory Briggs may be the perfect candidate for the 2020 race for mayor in San Diego.  He's one of an exceedingly small group of San Diegans with a reputation as an advocate for the public good.  He’s got a tight combination of guts, smarts, ability, and stamina that props him up in the face of the political and financial power brokers who have traditionally shaped San Diego’s politics and policies.  

As a leading candidate in the mayor’s race, his presence will open the debate to a full range of city issues and force other mayoral candidates to confront controversial subjects they might otherwise try to avoid. 

In this moment in time, and for these reasons, CB qualifies as this season’s “it man.”  

Of course, being a perfect candidate does not automatically lead to being a good mayor.   CB has a proliferation of warts.  Are they harder to tolerate than those of his blemished opponent Todd Gloria? Or Barbara Bry?  What do they tell us about the odds of CB becoming a good mayor? 

Here’s a sampling of what we're looking at:

• CB has zero experience in elected political office,  He claims that his legal battles with the city have educated him about running the city: “You have to know how the gears work to know where to put the monkey wrench.”  But being a good mayor calls for leadership and professional management skills (fatally lacking in our current mayor and his appointees).  CB’s lack of a political record means we have nothing to go on in those crucial areas…
• CB says he will shatter the establishment and shake up the status quo.  Yes, he has achieved some success through skillful lawsuits against the city. But the litigation process focuses on winning.  It deals in short term goals and strategies.  Running a city involves long-term, multifaceted thinking and planning.  Ideally, it involves respect for the public good.  Does CB have what it takes to switch from blocking bad projects to creating proposals that serve the long-range broad public interest?...
• CB has many admirers within the environmental and planning communities.  He also has unforgiving detractors who accuse him of turning his back on them in client negotiations and settlements.  Their gripes often spin around the notion of trust.  Lack of trust in a lawyer or mayor poisons the waters…
• CB has undergone in-depth investigation (some call a public reaming) in the past few years by Voice of San Diego, public radio station KPBS, and its collaborative arm inewsource.  Their reporters wrote exhaustively about CB's business practices, ethics, and use of self-created nonprofit organizations as plaintiffs when launching lawsuits.  CB’s wife did not escape allegations from the same investigative outlets.   A vendetta by San Diego’s tourism industry, a prime target of Briggs’ lawsuits?  Noxious fumes from the office of former-City Attorney Jan Goldsmith?  These past investigations have an upside: CB comes to the mayor’s race with few, if any, unexamined ghosts cowering in his closet…
• CB takes a contrarian position on the current rage known as build-baby-build.  He calls out the mayor, along with other pro-density housing advocates, for misleading the public with claims that higher density housing projects will alleviate the city’s affordable (workforce) housing crisis.  Is his approach an opportunistic wooing of neighborhood and community groups (aka “nimbys”) or has he widened his focus from litigating civic misdeeds to creating broader neighborhood-centered policies?...
• CB calls out the mayor for misleading the public about the severity of the city’s crumbling infrastructure and unconscionable missteps in alleviating our homelessness crisis.  CB is inexperienced in overseeing city administration issues like these.  And could he come up to speed on the city's pension debacle (yes, it's baaaaack) that once again might raise the specter of municipal bankruptcy?...  

• CB wields his brand as crusader for public accountability and open government, and as advocate for the voter class over the donor class.  He publicly challenges most of San Diego’s powerful business mainstays: the Chamber of Corruption (that’s his spelling), Downtown Partnership, Civic San Diego, Taxpayers Association, Tourism Authority, Hotel-Motel Association, BIA, and prominent public relations/ lobbying groups.  A good mayor needs the judgment to know the difference between working with these special interests and working  for them.  

But there have been troubling signs…

• CB hopped into bed three years ago with a consortium of land development honchos: master manipulator Steve Peace, JMI Realty’s John Moores, SD Chargers special council Mark Fabiani, land developer Fred Maas, and Chargers honcho Dean Spano, authors of  a ballot initiative called “The Citizens’ Plan for the Responsible Management of Major Tourism and Entertainment Resources.”  (This initiative would have given the go-ahead to public financing of a new football stadium, imposed privately-managed “improvement districts” throughout the city, and expedited open-ended SDSU redevelopment in Mission Valley--all without public environmental review or control! Hardly the hallmark of transparency and public interest advocacy.)

• CB added his name to this deceptive “citizens’ plan.”  When he joined the team did he forget there is no vaccine against fleas?  His participation cast doubts about the depth of his judgment and commitment to the public interest.  Fortunately, voters exercised wiser judgment and rejected the initiative…

• CB will be a valuable catalyst in the mayor’s race, that's for sure.  Beyond that, the prognosis is murky.  CB stares down the same black hole that once engulfed ex-Mayor Filner: the absence of essential supportive scaffolding.  Yes, a successful mayor requires strong executive skills.  But it's even more crucial to be surrounded by a skilled team of expert advisors with training and commitment to run a city efficiently and humanely.  Without that, the city inevitably suffers.

*********************************************

There you have it: mayoral candidates Todd Gloria, Barbara Bry, and Cory Briggs--warts and all.   As I said in the beginning of this 4-part series: it's up to them to put their best feet forward and publicize their particular strengths, records, accomplishments, and goals.   My contribution is to round out the picture by providing an unadorned sketch of what may lay ahead.

But we're not quite done.  Tasha Williamson has also declared her candidacy in San Diego’s 2020 race for mayor.  She's a welcome addition, someone to enrich and expand the debate by bringing new perspectives to city issues.  I’ll be writing about her shortly.  

So far, no Republican candidates have revealed themselves. If and when that happens, you’ll read about them here.

Parting question: ...is that all there is?  The pool of choices in San Diego’s 2020 mayor’s race is still woefully shallow.   Despite plentiful rainfall this winter season, San Diego remains a sparsely-endowed political desert.   

Surely there are a few good men... and women... sufficiently qualified to jump into the race.  Why settle for good enough?  How about electing a NOTEWORTHY mayor?  Wouldn't that be a revolution in America's finest city!

San Diego’s mayor: past, present, and future (part 3)

 Mayoral candidate Barbara Bry (BB)

Here's a fact: San Diego is a big small town in which--at one time or another--most everyone gets into bed with most everyone else (figuratively speaking, of course, but literally sometimes).  

So when we question who’s got easy access to whom, we’re not just being nosy.  The in-and-outs of political bonding can tell us a lot about how political deals and decisions are made, or which way a vote will go.  

That's why it's important to keep an eye on endorsements, business partners, personal associations, and so on.  Didn't you learn this as a kid? birds of a feather… peas in a pod… lie down with dogs….

In a less complacent city than ours, alarm bells would be ringing over conflict-of-interest pairings that, here in San Diego, don't even raise an eyebrow.  

For example, there’s the domestic financial symbiosis between State Senator Toni Atkins, housing advocate and promoter of “smart growth” high-density development and spouse Jennifer LeSar, favored recipient of much-sought-after committee appointments and nonprofit housing contracts.  Clients of LeSar Development Consultants in our region include the SD Housing Commission, El Cajon Housing Authority, Monarch Group, and Affirmed Housing Group.

Then there’s the politically adventuresome dynamic duo of State Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez and her recent spouse County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher.  Their double-fisted grip on the local Democratic Party facilitates who gets--or gets locked out of--crucial party funding and party endorsements.   Sometimes even who gets targeted for the trash bin.
  

Headed for the trash bin, according to this week's headlines, is school board member Kevin Beiser.  He’s running for City Council against fellow-Democrat Wendy Wheatcroft, the founder of a nonprofit coalition called San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention who once exposed the fact that the National Rifle Association gave a high rating to Nathan Fletcher. 

Shortly after it was created, her Gun Violence Prevention nonprofit did a somersault and endorsed Nathan Fletcher for County Supervisor (are 501c-4 nonprofits free to publicly endorse candidates? I think not).  

Wendy Wheatcroft--whose campaign treasurer previously worked on Fletcher’s mayoral campaign--has recently been gifted with an official endorsement by Gonzalez-Fletcher.  It's a wide bed, after all.  [It's been suggested to me that a Gonzalez-Fletcher endorsement has not officially occurred.  If I was mistaken, I regret the error.]

As for Kevin Beiser... looks like he’s toast.  Maybe he deserves it.  Maybe not.  Maybe there are newsworthy others who will also be pulled down in this drama.  Maybe not.  Maybe one day we'll know the whole story.  Probably not.  But as we already observed: most everyone's a kissing cousin in our small big town.   

Which brings us to the matter at hand--San Diego’s 2020 mayor’s race.  

***************************

At first glance, Barbara Bry could pass for the girl next door.  But look again—she’s no pushover.  

Four decades ago BB was a business writer for the LA Times.  Between then and now she has immersed herself in the magical universe of venture capital, business innovation, and entrepreneurship.  It's a high-stakes, risk-filled, public-private cosmos, populated by angels with wads of cash in search of biotech, biomed, software, wireless, and telecommunications jackpots—keepers of the keys to the kingdom yet to come.

BB has a business degree from Harvard. She was founding editor and CEO of the online news outlet Voice of San Diego and, later, of the aborted San Diego News Network.  Her company Blackbird Ventures invested in early stage technology companies. She created an organization called Run Women Run to inspire and train “pro-choice” women to enter political life.  

Just two years ago she took her own advice and ran (successfully) to become San Diego councilmember in District 1.  Her self-identification as a business woman working to empower other women is her lucky token.  She's tossing it into the ring in the bigger race for mayor.

BB has a couple of campaign advantages over her opponent Todd Gloria in the mayor’s contest.  First, her focus on business will bring a degree of support from Republican voters.  And second, her political record is thin.  While TG has to answer for a wart-filled record during eight years on the city council, BB's paper trail is scant.  There’s not much to answer for.

Not to say that she’s blemish-free:

• BB succumbed to the seductive lure of political sirens and, with barely half a council term under her belt, decided she was ready to take over the reins of city government and steer the future of San Diego...
• BB falls back on hackneyed key words to define herself: fiscal discipline; tough decisions; stand up to special interests; fair treatment for all; comprehensive solutions; forward-looking leadership; uniter.  Also: problem-solving skills; entrepreneurial mindset; consensus builder; pragmatist... 
• BB has a campaign slogan: “I mean business.”  The question of voters is, whose business?  The Let's-Run-Government-Like-a Business meme doesn't translate well for ordinary citizens in the real world.  Private businesses frequently fail, dissolve, go bankrupt, or relocate overseas.  Entrepreneurs say they embrace failure, but failure is a luxury city government cannot afford...  

• BB has a history of cohabitation in the world of big-scale real estate development.  Her previous spouse was San Diego developer Pat Kruer--former California Coastal Commissioner and founding partner of Monarch Group, a private real estate entitlement, development, investment, and management firm.  BB’s daughter is a partner at the Monarch Group…
• BB renewed her connections to the world of real estate development via her current husband and business partner Neil Senturia--successful real estate developer of office buildings, condominiums, and hotels in Los Angeles and San Diego and loquacious founder and CEO of numerous diverse technology companies: “I have the sense that, at some level, the concept of profit has become a dirty word, I’m resentful”...

• BB’s fundraising network ranges from the city’s hi-tech/ bio-tech universe to more grounded sources like real estate developer Jennifer LeSar, the Ace Parking family (one of the city’s prime-site land owners and likely beneficiary of the proposed paid parking lot in Balboa Park, should the Jacobs Park Makeover Plan ever come to fruition), and Convention Center expansion cheerleader Bob Nelson…
• BB was an early proponent of the San Diego’s 2010 switch from a city manager form of government to the current (and in urgent need of revision) strong mayor system...
• BB supported the dubious switch of the city's pension plan to a 401(k) plan.  The Supreme Court has just thrown our costly pension mess back to the city to resolve. It's a hot potato that no city official wants to touch.  The next mayor may have to...

• BB’s chief of staff is Jamie Fox.  She was previously deputy chief of staff for convicted-and-later-acquitted councilmember Ralph Inzunza...then director of communications for ex-councilmember Kevin Faulconer...then campaign manager and chief of staff for Todd Gloria throughout the roiling days of Bob Filner’s tenure in the mayor’s office.  Now that her new boss BB is running against TG in the mayor’s race, is it unreasonable to speculate on latent conflicts of interest in her heart-of-hearts?… 
• BB’s chief policy staffer is Victoria Joes.  She was policy advisor for Mayor Jerry Sanders and director of housing policy at the well-connected firm of Jennifer LeSar Development Consultants.  It's a small world, after all...

• BB calls herself a business-savvy decisionmaker.  But cheerleading for SDSU’s open-ended expansion dreams for Mission Valley--a vision that entails a new stadium, thousands of housing units, office buildings, research facilities, magically created at no cost to taxpayers or students--is premature, at best... 
• BB lends her name to what looks like a bad business plan for the Mission Valley-SDSU (No city control over basic details. No bottom line about the price the city will accept for the sale of this coveted public land. No binding environmental agreements. No heads-up about traffic impacts. No assurances about creating the promised River Park. No timelines. No definition of “key deal points.” No financial guarantees).  It enhances BB's claim as a risk taker but could undermine her standing as a protector of the public interest... 
• BB prided herself for having “confidence” to stand up to the mayor by opposing the “Soccer City” development proposal on the site of Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley and supporting the alternative SDSU West ballot initiative (which won voter approval).  But neither proposal passed the smell test.  Wouldn’t a good mayor have opposed both ballot choices and gotten to work on a comprehensive public planning process?... 
• BB’s support for the expansion of the downtown Convention Center falls into the same category.  A good mayor would be wise to be skeptical about who the ultimate beneficiaries will be—the tourism industry? or the public footing the bill…

• BB’s leadership role as a city councilmember is being squashed by the mayor and council cohorts.  She joined fellow Democrats in calling for a national search for a new police chief and had to settle for a secret selection process and in-house appointee by the mayor.  She took the lead on regulating short-term vacation rentals and was sabotaged.  She stepped forward to regulate dockless scooters and was cast aside by the mayor and councilmember Mark Kersey.   She gets scant support from the new contingent of “minority” women now on the city council…
• BB went along with council decisions on granny flats, reduced parking requirements (she subsequently reversed her stand), and the mayor’s loosey-goosey proposal for a Community Choice Aggregation (energy) business plan.  She shows she can be a team player.  Can she develop the political clout to call more of the shots?… 

Could it be that BB hasn’t yet gotten her political sea legs?  Could it be that she hasn’t yet figured out San Diego's political universe?  Could it be that her trusted advisors aren’t doing a good enough job looking out for her strategic and political interests? 

  

The primary election for mayor is one year down the road.  Is there time for Barbara Bry to grow? Spread her wings? Expand her scope? Be a risk taker by speaking truth to San Diego voters? Emerge as a multi-dimensional public-minded political leader?

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Our final installment looks at mayoral candidate Cory Briggs.

Mayor Mayor on the Wall

PART I

Blue ties red ties

We'll start with a trick question: Is Mayor Kevin Faulconer the mirror image of President Donald Trump?  No, of course not! you'd probably say.  

Kevin Faulconer is a pleasant, if unremarkable, go-along-to-get-along San Diego city councilman turned mayor: 

"…born and raised in Oxnard California… learned to speak Spanish in grade school…  San Diego State University… member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity… one year as Student Body President of Associated Students. He and his wife Katherine, a small business owner, live in Point Loma with their two children. Before running for office… executive with the public relations firm NCG Porter Novelli and volunteered  on the Mission Bay Park Committee…" (see Wikipedia)

Red ties blue ties

You might say that Kevin Faulconer is a lightweight Republican who goes down nice and easy in a city like San Diego.  He is decorum incarnate – never an unguarded sneer, never an unscripted rant.  

You might even say that he mirrors Melania Trump more than the Donald.  Melania's insouciant aura serves as a glamorous distraction from her husband's crude and reckless nature.  Likewise, Faulconer's low-keyed persona serves as a disarming distraction from the leadership vacuum on the 11^th floor of City Hall.

Kevin Faulconer's problem is that he's an embarrassment to his constituents.  For how many years did the Spanos syndicate manipulate and extort this mayor?  How many times did they slap him silly while he kept coming back for more?  

But Faulconer's problems go far deeper than being dumped by the Chargers. We've got a mayor who is incapable of taking clear, decisive stands on big civic issues, whether it's a sports stadium, or Convention Center, or racial profiling by city police officers, or actualizing strong environmental programs.  He walks on eggshells, even over keeping our police force out of the immigration enforcement business.  He shuns the stage at city demonstrations and marches.  Ribbon cutting events, that's where you'll usually find him.  (So who can explain why he ignored public outcry and readily mounted the stage to meet and greet at the super-conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) conference held in San Diego a couple of years ago?)  

We've got a mayor who, since the day he stepped into office, has neglected the city's festering problems of relentlessly worsening homelessness; rising poverty levels; looming budget cuts; a housing crisis that turns rent and mortgage payments into a monthly scramble… 

We've got a mayor who issues limp declarations of Action! Accountability! A New Day in San Diego! in response to the ballooning backlog of street and road repairs, or spiking pension obligations and chronic threat of municipal bankruptcy, or burst water mains and standstill traffic in already overburdened neighborhoods (laughably slated for increased density and development).

In his latest State of the City address the mayor's to-do list is a hodgepodge of sound-bites.  But where are the concrete remedies?  For him, Action means making the city an Official, Regional Autonomous Vehicle Pilot Location.  For him, Accountability means installing jagged rocks under freeway overpasses to get rid of homeless sleepers.  

For him, A New Day in San Diego! might mean the Camp Hope approach of clearing the homeless off the streets and stowing them in a tarted-up tent city at the Mexican border, out of sight and out of mind.  Will this mayor really give his blessings to our very own Hooverville? 

We've got a mayor who has not delivered the goods.  Pleasant though he may be, he lacks the independence, imagination, backbone, and political moxie to do right by our city.

PART II

Once upon a time when I was an active player with the League of Women Voters, the powers-that-be convinced the San Diego public that it was time to become a dynamic metropolis like Los Angeles or Chicago or even New York City.  So voters agreed to replace our purportedly provincial city manager form of government with a strong mayor system.  

Back then the big worry for the LWV was that – in a politically low-energy city like ours – concentrated power in the hands of a strong mayor would decrease public accountability and invite corruption. 

Back then we also worried about how trading in an independent, professional city manager for a political appointee to run city departments, operations, contracts, budgets, and workers would work out.  Turns out we were right to worry. 

Our first "strong mayor" was Jerry Sanders.  He never succeeded in being his own man.  During his two terms in office he dutifully kept the city exactly where it had always been: in the hands of an ossified downtown fraternity of hoteliers, developers, bankers, and assorted business interests.  He persists to this day as a well-compensated mouthpiece for the Chamber of Commerce. 

Our second "strong mayor" was Bob Filner.  He was willing and able to express his independence, imagination, backbone, and political moxie to promote a politically liberal agenda for the city.  But he proved too undisciplined for his own good.  And too threatening to old-guard Republicans.  

As it turns out, he was also too threatening to self-professed progressive Democrats like then-councilman (and current California state assemblymember) Todd Gloria and then-San Diego/Imperial Counties Labor Council secretary-treasurer (and current California state assemblymember) Lorena Gonzalez and her clandestine mayoral ambitions for then-close companion (and current husband) Nathan Fletcher.  In an unprecedented palace coup, the city's first bona fide strong mayor was unceremoniously drummed out of office.

Our third "strong mayor" is Kevin Faulconer.  He's a chip off the old Sanders block.  We are back to waiting for the basic benefits promised to us when we gave up the old city manager government and brought in the strong mayor system – things like transparency, accountability, government efficiency, and dynamic governance. 

We were promised we'd know where the buck stops… we'd know who is in charge.  Do you know who's responsible for what goes on in our city?  Do you know who's in charge?  Do you ever think to pick up your phone to call your mayor?

PART III

We'll wrap up with the trick question: Is Kevin Faulconer the mirror image of Donald Trump?  Of course not! you'd probably still say. There's a world of difference between a public relations puppet and a dangerous, unstable, bullying megalomaniac. 

But look again at the uncanny similarities.  You'll see that neither is doing right by our citizens.  You'll see that, so far, neither deserves the public trust.

Here's the big difference: our mayor is within reach, right at our fingertips.  We elected a "strong mayor" to be in charge, to be accountable, and to be responsible for what goes on in our city.   

We voters need to check our own mirrors, if only to remind ourselves that we elected our mayor to do right by our city.  And it's our job to hold his feet to the fire and not let him forget that HE is where the buck stops.