San Diego's mayor: present, past, and future

Part 1 of 4: Mayor Kevin Faulconer

Kevin Faulconer, San Diego’s 36th mayor, is finishing up his last term in office.  Recently, I was taken to task over my choice of adjectives when describing our mayor.  I was criticized for being too negative.

It’s true that I’ve called him a lightweight.  An embarrassment to his constituents.  An elected official lacking independence, imagination, backbone, and the political moxie to do right by our city.  I even referred to him as a chip off the old Jerry Sanders block.  

 Lately he's been parading around the country as a moderate politician destined for greater things (and who knows? one day he might take a tip from Nathan Fletcher--that other photo-ready manikin who knows tricks Faulconer's public relations firm never dreamed of--and get reborn as a barnstorming Democrat).
  

But ask yourself: what has Mayor Faulconer accomplished FOR our city? (uh...hmm...well...)

Now compare that to what has happened TO our city under his watch: 

• thousands of people grossly overcharged on their water bills… city departments using sloppy standards, rules, and procedures… faulty road repairs… unfunded sidewalk upgrades… 
•  lazy oversight of basic city operations… unmaintained city property… failure to monitor city contracts… frequent failure to compensate vendors … 
• inconsistent planning, permitting, and building enforcement policies… messy vacillation over deals to expand the Convention Center… humiliating miscalculations over the Chargers Stadium land deal… ditto for the Soccer City land deal… 
• years of inaction over the city’s vacant and abandoned downtown central library…misleading financial reporting of our employee pension morass… neglect and growing decay of San Diego’s centerpiece Balboa Park… 
• gross mismanagement of real estate deals… purchase of a skydiving center without prior appraisal… botched lease-to-own deal for vacant SDG&E/Sempra Energy headquarters… 
• chronic lag in city response to public complaints about potholes, sinkholes, missing streetlights, illegal dumping… skyrocketing costs at a Sherman Heights facility to store homeless people’s possessions… 
• unconscionable switchback policies to alleviate homelessness… preventable deaths on the streets from exposure, Hepatitis A… ongoing absence of secure public toilets… broken and abandoned shower facilities at the city’s sole day center for unhoused people who sleep on downtown streets…

This is what's happening to our city under a mayor who lacks leadership ability, management skills, and accountability.  

No one says we need perfection in our elected officials.  We're not demanding brilliance or purity.  

If you care about the quality of your daily life, your family's welfare, how your taxes are spent, the health/ safety/ wellbeing of the people around you, then good would more than suffice. 

So what would a good mayor would look like? 

Someone with the smarts, energy, ambition, and cunning to know how to kill two birds with one stone.  That is, someone who understands that promoting the greatest good for the greatest number of San Diegans would inevitably promote the greatest good for her/his personal political future.  It’s a win-win setup.

San Diego voters will elect a new mayor in 2020 (the primary election is March 4).  Frontrunners include Todd Gloria, Barbara Bry, and Cory Briggs.  Is any one of them good enough to be San Diego’s next mayor?
  

Before we answer that question or jump onto anyone’s bandwagon, shouldn't we have a three-dimensional picture of these candidates?  I’ll leave it to them to figure out how to put their best feet forward and publicize their own strengths, records, accomplishments, and goals. 
   

As for us voters, we can honor this year's Sunshine Week by checking out the next three installments of San Diego's mayor: present, past, and future.  They will deliver a candid look at the undersides of San Diego's potential mayors... unsightly warts and all. 

A mindful walk down a dark and slippery slope

Here’s what the Zen manual advises for a stress-free existence: notice… let it go… then smile. 

Truth is, I’m not ready for bliss.  And it’s not for lack of trying.  You know how it is once you’ve noticed certain things… how can you let them go?  Maybe tomorrow. 

Right now I can't help noticing someone’s big bad joke.  Here’s how it goes:

A guy walks into a bar, orders a beer on tap, and announces that the annual advent of Sunshine Week is just around the corner.  That’s the time when good-thinking people (journalists included) spend a few days promoting the public’s right to know what goes on behind the thick curtains of government.  Some call it transparency.  

The point of Sunshine Week is to remind citizens that we need and have the “right of access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business,” and moreover that the “meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies shall be open to public scrutiny.”  You could call it an indispensable tenet of democracy.

So the bartender says to the guy, “Bad timing, fella.  Last guy who walked in here with that kind of talk got the kishkes knocked out of him.  The bigshots concocted a chorus line of big and little ladies to nail him for ogling and they walloped him black and blue.  Poor schnook -- he may have been a great political liberal but everyone knows you're your own worst enemy if you're a lousy flirter.  He’s a pariah, now.” 

So the guy gulps down another home brew and says to the bartender, “Fooled ya baby!  I’m really here to report that Sunshine Week’s been rained out -- by executive order.  Your pretender-to-the-throne Todd Gloria just set the date for a City Hall book burning.  Who would've thought such an up-and-coming Democrat could be so… undemocratic." 

It's a true story.  The joke's on us.  Council president Todd Gloria waited till his next-to-last day as placeholder for Bob Filner’s vacated mayor’s seat to decree that city emails older than one year shall be automatically deleted. Discarded. Purged. Deep-sixed. 

Is this his idea of what a "strong mayor" is all about, making up regulations to deliberately shut out the public?  

DATE: February 27, 2014

TO: All City Employees

FROM: Todd Gloria, Interim Mayor

SUBJECT: Administrative Regulation 90.67, Electronic Mail (E-mail) Retention and Deletion On February 27, 2014, Administrative Regulation (A.R.) 90.67 regarding e-mail retention and deletion was implemented. As noted in A.R. 90.67, e-mails that are older than one year will be automatically deleted from the City’s E-mail Systems. To date, the City has not deleted e-mails and this has resulted in our City E-mail Systems being overburdened. This A.R. was implemented to address the storage capacity issues which, if unaddressed, would require the City to purchase hardware for additional storage capacity in the future.

On March 28, 2014, the Department of Information Technology will begin automatically deleting e-mails that are older than one year from the City’s E-mail Systems. Furthermore, e- mails will also be deleted on a daily basis if the e-mails are older than one year. E-mails deleted from the City’s E-mail Systems will be permanently unavailable unless City staff takes affirmative steps to retain them outside of the City’s E-mail Systems… 

The California Constitution states that “the writings of public officials and agencies shall be open to public scrutiny” but apparently certain people in San Diego don't think public scrutiny is such a great idea, after all.  

Surely I’m not alone in wondering whether Mr. Gloria et. al. (the City Attorney and a top city official signed off on this scorched-earth plan) have some serious personal concerns about the contents of City email communications, calendars, and memos from the time period before, leading up to, and during Bob Filner’s abbreviated mayoral stint in office.  

Does it make you wonder what might be lurking in these communications: fundraising shenanigans? issues involving the (former and/or newly appointed) police chief? impetuous amorous exchanges? permit improprieties? collusion to oust a sitting mayor?  Do you wonder why "the writings of public officials" are to be deleted before the public can lay eyes on them?

It's a dark and slippery slope, a new low for San Diego, when destroying public records becomes standard operating procedure. 

Fortunately, our new mayor Kevin Faulconer has the power to restore the City’s integrity by immediately rescinding Administrative Regulation 90.67.  We’re impatiently waiting and watching.