eeny, meeny, miney, moe

Still can’t decide who to vote for in the upcoming mayoral primary?  One thing’s for sure – this race should not be decided by the eeny-meeny method.  

Why not? because this is not merely a titillating race among mayoral candidates with a range of personal values, lifestyles, and world-views.  It's a particularly pivotal one, given the wide span of political perspectives among our four choices.

So to take some of the guesswork out of making your choice for our next mayor I’m providing the following list of observations.  I hope they will be food for thought.  

1) It’s not just you who are confused about who and what our city needs to get the potholes fixed, resolve our pension debt, restore community clout, and so on.  Hardly anyone has digested the effects and repercussions of the city’s switch several years ago to a ‘strong mayor’ government (more about that in my next commentary). 

And almost everyone remains in the dark about what voters can and should expect from a first-class, full-blown, chief-executive mayor.   It does not help that our current mayor has set the bar very low for his successor. 

 2) The mayor's race is further complicated by the fact that politics in San Diego have gone crazy in this political season.  At the start of the campaign season the lineup included one life-long Democrat (Bob Filner) toward the left end of the spectrum and three mutually-antagonistic long-time Republicans (Bonnie Dumanis, Nathan Fletcher, and Carl DeMaio) clustered at the right.

But the ground recently shifted under our eenie, meeny, miney, and moe candidates, prompting them to reconfigure their seating arrangements.

3) The kink that set off the rumblings.  Nathan Fletcher was spurned by his Republican Party teammates, his fervent declarations of party faithfulness and loyalty notwithstanding.  Barely pausing to lick his wounds, he emerged from the closet as a political indeterminate…independent…decline to state candidate, raising the question: did miney become meeny?   

4) Hold on!  It gets even weirder.  In a town like ours -- historically under the thumb of a good-old-boys-network of not-always-upstanding-but traditionally MODERATE Republican bankers, hoteliers, newspaper and sports team owners, land developers, and downtown boosters -- the San Diego Republican Party went ape and endorsed the most right-leaning, polarizing, ideological, off-putting candidate of all, Carl DeMaio.  People are scratching their heads.  How come they picked moe and not meeney or miney?

5) Could it be because of money? LOTS of money?  Unlike the other candidates, DeMaio has the capability of pulling in untold piles of cash from ultra-wealthy, super-conservative billionaires and political groups from all over the country.  He’s the ticket for the San Diego Republican Party’s once in a lifetime opportunity to enrich their coffers and catapult party chairman Tony Krvaric into the big-shots league!

6) Now here’s the funny part of this story.  San Diego’s aforementioned good-old-boys-network (of bankers, hoteliers, newspaper and sports team owners, land developers, and downtown boosters) got themselves all tangled up right from the start of the mayor’s race.  Which Republican should they choose to be an utterly compliant, suitably compatible stand-in for the current mayor?   Their first choice was Bonnie Dumanis.  She got the endorsement of Mayor Sanders, Councilmember Faulconer, Sheriff Bill Gore, County officials, former city attorney Casey Gwinn, and a long list of other old friends.

Why not DeMaio? because most San Diego king-makers understood that DeMaio was a separate breed of Republican who answered to much different drummers.

7) OK, now for the punch line.  San Diego’s good-old-boys-network of bankers, hoteliers, king-makers, etc. got tripped up by none other than former mayor Pete Wilson -- who may be getting on in years but still has a healthy appetite for state and national politics.  And a sharp eye for malleable talent. 

 Pete Wilson adopted Nathan Fletcher as his protégée, plucking him from an already well-padded and protected position as a staffer to Duke Cunningham (of course no one in that office smelled the blatant corruption …certainly not Fletcher…) and Wilson anointed Fletcher as the next mayor of San Diego. 

8) Whoops! Now you know why you’re confused?  DeMaio’s got the US Mint backing him up, fortified by the iron fist of Doug Manchester.  Dumanis has the usual old-time-cronies shuffling nervously in her corner and stripping off the petals: will she or won’t she? will she pull the plug? should she throw in the towel? in whose direction?  what’s her consolation prize for getting everyone out of this jam? state attorney general?

9) Meantime, the band plays on. Along with his strawberry blond, Fletcher is now waltzing with wily mentors and consultants, who have turned this military team-player into an independent matinee idol. 

He’s lately been seen waltzing with another chorus line of San Diego business executives, who were also blinded by political affiliations in their past lives but are now free at last to be middle-of-the-roaders, beholden only to moderation and the public good. 

 10) There’s a French moral to this story: plus ca change... Translated it means: The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

 Think about it this way: the same old guys who have traditionally run our city suddenly find themselves screwed by their own Republican Party.  They’ll do what they have to do to stay in control.  If it means calling yourself by some other name, that’s okay.   Labels don’t matter.  Control matters.  So will it be meeny, miny, or mo?  Which team player will step aside for the good of the good-old-guys?  

Let's be honest. Let's be truthful. And let's be direct.

Nathan Fletcher comes across as an attractive, appealing, handsome candidate who -- after a bruising and losing fight for the endorsement of the local Republican Party -- made a calculated decision to rebrand himself as a political “independent.”  

His switch in party affiliation has led a number of Democratic and other voters to ask themselves whether they should consider supporting Fletcher for mayor.  Perhaps the following information will help you decide.

The most heated exchanges in recent mayoral debates have been between Fletcher and his Republican rival Carl DeMaio.  The friction between them is clearly a personality duel, since their views and political perspectives on city issues, proposals, and problems are practically identical. 

In fact, Fletcher and DeMaio can be called two peas in a pod.   Aside from the differential in charm and sex appeal, San Diegans will find little to distinguish one from the other, should either of them become our next mayor.  

Here’s a shorthand way to think about it: if you would feel comfortable voting for Carl DeMaio, you should have no trouble whatsoever voting for Nathan Fletcher.  Or vice versa.  

As I said, two peas in a pod...with one notable difference.  

Fletcher has what appears to be an uncontrolled compulsion to cite his military experience at the drop of a hat.  It is uncharacteristic for veterans of combat to repeatedly broadcast their wartime record as a campaign tool to enhance their manliness and voter appeal.  Can you even imagine wartime hero President Dwight D. Eisenhower trying to seduce Americans with his combat prowess?  Enough said.

  To read a superb analysis of Nathan Fletcher’s political persona, I implore you to click onto Jim Miller’s article in today’s OB Rag newspaper: http://obrag.org/?p=58914 . It will be well worth your time.

  To hear Fletcher in action as he solicits the Republican Party for their endorsement, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsFZkNmm2v8&feature=youtu.be

  To read the full text of Fletcher’s letter in which he makes the statements listed below, click here: http://sdrostra.com/?p=25657

*  Family values are very important to me…I take very seriously my commitment to my wife and children.  As a Christian of strong faith, I take seriously my commitment to God… 

*  I have never voted for a tax increase

*  I have consistently stood up to labor — I have one of the lowest labor scorecards

*  I have been endorsed by Governor Pete Wilson, Joel Anderson, Mark Wyland, Martin Garrick, and the California Small Business Administration

* I…have taken the no tax pledge (aka “Taxpayer Protection Pledge”…authored by Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform.)

  To learn more about Fletcher family politics read the following autobiographical account about Fletcher’s wife Mindy.  For additional details click here: http://www.flashreport.org/blog/author/mindy-fletcher/

*  Mindy Fletcher is a veteran of Republican political campaigns at the national and state level having been a spokesman for Governor George W. Bush, the Bush 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee as well as Deputy Chief of Staff and Deputy Campaign Manager for Governor Schwarzenegger… 

*  In 1999, she became Press Secretary for the Bush-Cheney 2000 effort, where she worked closely with national and regional media, managed the day-to-day operations of the communications division and appeared regularly on national television and radio programs.

*  During the Florida Recount she served as the senior spokesperson for the recount effort. After President Bush took office in 2001, she became the first woman appointed Director of Public Affairs at the United States Department of Justice...In January of 2002, she became the Party’s chief spokesperson as Director of Communications for the Republican National Committee before she moved to San Diego in 2003…

  To see Nathan Fletcher’s decidedly conservative voting record click here: http://www.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/104432/nathan-fletcher

To sum up: I recommend we all heed the immortal words uttered by poor little Buttercup (courtesy of  Gilbert and Sullivan) to help us evaluate Nathan Fletcher's mayoral bid:

Things are seldom what they seem / Skim milk masquerades as cream… 

Black sheep dwell in every fold / All that glitters is not gold…

jackin-it

You have got to see this animated spoof of San Diego.  This uncanny snapshot of our city’s identity is a stroke of perceptive genius.  I urge you to click here  and, while it's loading, get prepared for a shock of recognition.

Then you and I need to sit down for a serious talk.

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

OK, now for the serious part.  Let's deconstruct the dirty little ditty you just watched (keeping in mind that your fellow Americans and global counterparts have also had the pleasure of viewing it on Comedy Central). 

It’s hard to deny: jackin-it-in-san-diego nails us on our sunburned heads with its spot-on depiction of our city as a picturesque, feel-good, simple-minded, trivial-pursuit vacation mecca -- exactly the branding painstakingly promoted by our high-powered hotel (aka “hospitality”) industry and ConVis (Convention and Visitors Bureau).  Think San Diego and up pops the zoo…palm trees…del Coronado (OK, not officially SD)…Gaslamp District…yachts and sail boats on an azure bay…Sea World…the clearest blue skies this side of heaven.  

And did you catch the scene with the priest?  He’s carrying a U-T newspaper and the headlines are screaming, Another beautiful week in San Diego!! Front-page news in paradise.  

Finally we meet the mayor, chief cheerleader of Oz.  Does he sell our city as a great place for business opportunities? diverse neighborhoods? university brain-power? ship-building industries? theater/art/music/dance? scientific research and development? green technology?  Nope.  His come-on is a titillating invitation for a sightseeing adventure to Old Town for warm tortillas...

Okay, I admit I’m putting an oversized squeeze on this crude, adolescent TV skit.  The South Park-Comedy Central crew is just having a good time with a recent spot on NBC news (to wit: A co-founder for Invisible Children was detained...for being drunk in public and masturbating, according to the San Diego Police Department*).

But guess what?  There’s actually a shocking moral to this story.  

Over the past decades and right up to today, people running San Diego (I’m referring to a lineup of weak-willed politicians, strategically-appointed officials, double-dealing lobbyists, self-serving newspaper owners, afraid-of-their-shadows board members, arrogant developers, lily-livered business owners, and so on) have indulged in ego-driven, happy-talking, short-lived, non-productive, under-the-cover, self-boosting, sneakily-abusive, publicly subversive activities.  They've dug a deep grave for ordinary San Diegans.   

Not that us ‘ordinary’ folk are off the hook.  We’ve been played, manipulated, lied to, and sucked dry by a long procession of city “leaders” and how do we respond? We turn a blind eye. We don't ask questions.  We comply.

Yesterday the mayor announced to the people of San Diego that he has finally solved the city’s horrendous budget problems.  Yesterday, the city council received the news and smiled in appreciation.  

It's a lie.  It’s a whopper.  San Diego is still jackin-it.  

* Corrected to provide a more accurate clue to the shenanigans in the video skit.  Still, in anyone's hands, it's hardly the most egregious act  ever witnessed in San Diego.

Who's on top?

Remember that old, old, old radio game show Can You Top This?  If you missed it in its first incarnation, don’t fret.  You can get an updated replay by tuning in to San Diego’s mayoral race.  Nowadays it's called Can Fletcher Top Demaio? … Can Demaio Top Dumanis? … Can Filner Top All Three? 

The spectacle of four mayoral candidates climbing over one another in a leapfrog contest to see who’s got the best two-minute answer to questions (posed by reporters or the usual set of candidate-forum panelists) that DON'T HAVE QUICKIE ANSWERS is not just embarrassing, it's downright useless, meaningless, and deceptive.

Frankly, I’d be happier if Demaio, Dumanis, Filner, and Fletcher forget about answers altogether.  What I’d like to know is what they think are the most important questions, issues, problems, and obstacles facing the city and the next mayor.  

I already know what’s important to me, but before I cast my vote in the June 5 primary I want to know what makes them sit up and take notice.  I want to know which one of them really gets San Diego issues.  Who among them recognizes what needs fixing?

I'll learn a lot more about their priorities and their values if they tell me what they believe is going wrong in our city.  

Political pundits like to say that the public only likes good news...voters want a positive message...nothing negative. 

Not me.  

I want a mayoral candidate with enough integrity and independence to ignore the happy-face talk coming out of the lame-duck mayor’ office.  I want to hear a thoughtful analysis of what each of our mayoral candidates thinks is going in the wrong direction.  Then I’ll  know in whose hands we might stand half a chance of making progress in our city.

An honest analysis of our city's problems would be the most positive message I can think of.

(For the San Diego version of Can You Top This click here.  It might take a second or two to load but it’s worth the wait.)  

 

Life lessons

Why do I feel as if our U-T San Diego daily newspaper is shouting at me?  Headlines are so big.  So BOLD.  They jump right off the page. 

Just take a look.  It’s back to kindergarten with color-coded newspaper sections.  The BUSINESS section is dollar bill green.  SPORTS is football brown.  LOCAL is bay blue.  FOOD is plum purple.  

And what do you make of those front-page editorials that hammer away at us, nagging with instructions to love and embrace this or that splashy downtown development project -- aka vision?  Move over world and national news, you're getting in the way!

I guess Doug Manchester and John Lynch, the new U-T newspaper owners, figure that readers can’t be trusted to make the ‘right’ decision about what’s good or bad for San Diego.  Maybe they’re worried that readers are just yokels, too unsophisticated to flip to the back pages where most reputable newspapers put personal opinions and editorials. 

I guess that if you’re wealthy and accustomed to getting your way in The World’s Greatest Country and America’s Finest City you can buy the major newspaper and slap your marching orders on the front page.  Under the flag.

On the other hand, I guess U-T owner Doug Manchester can’t help it.  He never pretended to be an honest-to-goodness purveyor of the public good.  As far as I know, he has no pretensions of virtue in any sphere, public or private.

And he’s not the first newspaper owner to be a ham-handed handler.  He’s just our city’s latest and most blatant contributor to a deviant newspaper tradition called mouthpiece journalism – using the daily newspaper to control San Diego’s political, economic, and/or social decisions.  It's not the same as yellow journalism.  But he’s still new at the game.

NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS.  

Despite the heavy-handed bludgeoning and over-the-top style of the new U-T, I’ve learned at least four useful things from its new owners.  Life lessons, you could call them.

          a) Being very rich doesn't necessarily mean you're all that smart.  What is means, basically, is that you've got a certain knack for making lots of money.  And for those who simply inherited their wealth, a knack for keeping it and making more.

         b) Some very rich people do happen to be pretty smart.  But not all…not by a long shot.

         c) Very rich people (smart and/or borderline) usually wield inordinate influence over elected officials.  By virtue of their wealth they have special access to meet and greet in private sessions with decision-makers.  They tend to make good headway in these sessions. 

         d) Finally, while it's true that the public is often in awe of the very rich, it's also true that smooth talk, unctuous flattery, bullying, and financial heft don’t cut the same cake with the public as with politicians.* 

*In the interest of historical truth we might make an exception for John Moores.  He seduced the public with the same finesse and success he used on our local public officials.  But enough looking back...

On to Doug Manchester.  His (dead-end, outmoded, elitist, tunnel-) visions for San Diego’s future are projections of his personal ambitions for greater power and wealth.  To manipulate the system to his advantage he should have done it the regular way -- behind the scenes, behind closed doors. 

He wasn't using any smarts by turning his newspaper into a missive aimed straight at the public.  In the fresh open air, anyone could see how blurry his vision is.

When the city's well-being is at stake, San Diegans clearly have enough common sense and backbone to resist.  This fact should be another life lesson.  It could be our not-so-secret weapon, the saving antidote against both the grandiose posturing of some rich folk among us (smart and/or borderline) and the wishy-washy, floppy, timid inclinations of some elected representatives. 

Public spunk – it's the secret elixir that could ward off the wealthy and powerful not-so-smarts wishing to run our city and pump up our could/would/should have been bolder elected representatives.  As always, it's up to us.  

Running on autopilot

ATTENTION NEXT MAYOR: San Diego is desperate for a leader who possesses the following four attributes –

1. Wide open eyes (to see the whole picture)
2. A truthful mouth (to speak with integrity)
3. A strong hand (to act with resolve) 
4. An outstretched arm (to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people)

History will be the final judge of our current lame-duck mayor and his tenure in office.  So far, the record reveals seven years of incompetent management, conflicted stewardship, revolving doors, political posturing, neglectful oversight, and willful failure to address (let alone acknowledge) the city’s crucial challenges. 

What’s been going on? The city is in arrears for almost a billion dollars worth of deferred maintenance on sub-standard city streets…buildings…sidewalks…storm drains...alleyways.  City facilities like recreation centers and libraries are in the pits.  Pension debt is over $2 billion – each year gobbling up bigger chunks of the city budget.  Water-main breaks plague our neighborhoods.  Skeletal crews of city employees have been spread thin and thinner.  You get the picture.

Wasn't our new “strong mayor” system of government supposed to turn our city around?  In his inaugural address our first “strong mayor” Jerry Sanders declared that the era of delay, deception, and denial was over.  But what did we get?  Less political accountability than ever before.  Less public access.  More pulling-the-wool-over the public’s eyes.  More passing the buck!  

Time to expose the down and dirty secret about what’s really been going on.  For the past seven years of this current administration -- that is, ever since our “strong mayor” form of government became official – city government has been running on autopilot.

Autopilot means no one is at the helm…in the cockpit…behind the wheel…pedaling the bike…minding the store...  

Running the city on autopilot has been a monumental swindle.  It's resulted in a hollow city.  It's caused San Diego to decay from the inside out.

Therefore, we're sending out an SOS.

ATTENTION NEXT MAYOR: San Diego is desperate for a leader (with wide open eyes, a truthful mouth, a strong hand, and an outstretched arm) who will use the position of  “strong mayor” to accomplish two fundamental tasks –

1. Appoint a professional, experienced, well-trained city manager as his/her right hand man/woman -- someone to run the day-to-day operations of the city and restore efficiency, accountability, oversight, and effectiveness to all city departments 
2. Forget the dead-end mindset that's been San Diego’s trademark for far too long.  Turn the city around.  Pour San Diego's pent-up energy and resources into our city's Infrastructure, Institutions, Individuals, and Innovative opportunities.  It's the magic formula for long-range health and productivity.  

COME ON NEXT MAYOR: You've got nothing to lose and San Diego has everything to gain.  Open your eyes.  Never speak with a forked tongue.  Make good use of the "strong mayor" toolbox.  And do right by all of us.

Swindle City

San Diego’s been my hometown for decades and I want the best for it, for my kids and grandkids who live here, for my co-workers and friends and neighbors, and for everyone else I share this city with, whether I’ve met them or not.  

That’s why I hate to admit that San Diego is, at its core, Swindle City -- the spitting image of a limited liability company where no one is held accountable for the actions of others and -- even worse -- where no one is held accountable for his or her own actions.  

In a Swindle City like ours, public resources are routinely transformed into private and/or political capital and profit.  Flowing throughout San Diego history is a non-stop stream of  grifters, scammers, users, and double-talkers.  Experts at shaking down the public.

Starting way back with the behemoth robber baron John Spreckels, our city has been ruled by business magnates, shysters, and seductive con artists who manipulated, controlled, and (mis)appropriated San Diego public assets to enhance their personal fortunes, financial and political.  

Do these names ring a bell?  Aggressive entrepreneurs like Reuben Fleet, 'Pappy' Hazard, and Jim Copley.  Defrauders like John Alessio and C. Arnholt Smith.  Changeling politicians like Pete Wilson and Roger Hedgecock.  Ponzi-schemers like J. David Dominelli and Nancy Hoover.  Underworld dabblers like Dick Silberman, Allen Glick, and Bob Peterson.  Ruthless top officials like Susan Golding.  Greedy wannabe potentates like Alex and Dean Spanos, John Moores, and 'papa' Doug Manchester.  

Not a single mensch among them.

And always, the city’s second-tier elected officials (our city council) are putty in the hands of the masters.  They go along…acquiesce…play the game…protect the hustlers… perpetuate the scam.  

And always, the public never sees it coming.  

But it's back!  It's happening again!  This time two big-time swindles are in the making.  An historic double whammy. 

The first is the initiative on the June ballot with the flimflam moniker, Comprehensive Pension Reform.  It was created by mayor Jerry Sanders and council members Carl DeMaio and Kevin Faulconer.  This ballot measure leaves in place self-serving abuses of the old pension system while scamming the public with a $94 million bill to install an alternative, inferior pension system.

Yet, dutifully signing on to this scam are 3 out of 4 mayoral candidates: Nathan Fletcher, Bonnie Dumanis, and the aforementioned DeMaio.

But stop the presses!  Our termed-out mayor has just given birth to the biggest pull-the-wool-over-your eyes sham of all! 

Today, (he says) I delivered some terrific news about San Diego’s fiscal recovery: After years of cutbacks, we see the light at the end of what has been a very long, dark tunnel. The city’s decades-long structural budget deficit is history.

The depth of this deception takes your breath away.  But the bar has been set very high in our city for hucksters, tricksters, con men, scammers, and fibbers.  This one is surely going for the gold. 

Details and explanations to come.  Meantime...psst...I know a bridge you can buy... 

When no news is BAD news

Popular wisdom is wrong on this one: no news is bad news.  And distorted news is worse.  

The Union-Tribune -- mainstay newspaper for generations of San Diegans – has been stashed deep inside the vest pocket of developer-extraordinaire Doug Manchester, known far and wide as the most ruthless, take-no-prisoners, narrow-visioned bull that ever ravaged a proverbial china shop. 

The paper’s new hyperbolic motto: The World’s Greatest Country & America’s Finest City seems to be in keeping with the hyped-up ego of its new owner.  

(Not that Manchester is the only local fellow with delusions of grandeur.  Candidate for mayor Nathan Fletcher has plans to rebrand our modest hometown The World’s Most Innovative City).

No, I’m not saying we should throw in the towel.  If there’s anything I learned growing up in NYC that applies to us here and now, it’s this: if you want to keep yourself and the people you care about safe and sound you better keep your eyes wide open.  You better know what’s going on down the street.  Around the corner.  And the next block over, too.

What I am saying is that public ignorance is dangerous to the public health. Keeping tabs on our city and on the people who run it may be getting harder, but it’s as crucial as ever.   So I’ll do my part as well as I can and I’ll count on you to keep me moving in the right direction.

======================

Starting with law enforcement: there’s a new and threatening game on today's streets and it's a far cry from the old days when kids were spoon-fed the myth about your friendly policeman (click it, you’ll like it).  This ditty’s advice was always a little iffy, depending on the color of your skin.  But given the changing role of our police force, it's gotten a lot iffier…for all of us.

Here’s my advice: try not to be fooled by the kind-faced policeman who parades as our benevolent mayor because you can bet that our city is right in the thick of it.  Tiny Tim must be turning in his grave over the following brief sampling of current events, in and out of San Diego:

·      A little-known but influential private membership based organization has placed itself at the center of advising and coordinating the crackdown on the (Occupy) encampments. The Police Executive Research Forum, an international non-governmental organization with ties to law enforcement and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has been coordinating conference calls with major metropolitan mayors and police chiefs…(San Francisco Bay Guardian)

·      1400 members of the Los Angeles Police raided a park Wednesday morning and removed or arrested all of the Occupy LA protesters…the LAPD use a 'Bat Cat' bomb squad vehicle to remove protestors from trees and hundreds of officers dressed in Hazmet suits removed the tents and other personal belongings from the park…(examiner.com)

·      (At Occupy San Diego) in the middle of the night…with few cameras around, officers in riot gear swept in and arrested 51…(VOSD)

·      San Diego police arrested East County activist Ray Lutz for trespassing on private property at Civic Center Plaza Tuesday afternoon after he set up a voter registration table and refused to remove it…(SDUT)

·      David Bejarano (former San Diego Police Chief; US Marshall; Co-owner of the private security firm Presidential Security Services; 2010 candidate for SD County sheriff; current Chula Vista Police Chief) has ended his relationship with (Veritas) an outside security company that was linked to a plot to smuggle Moammar Gadhafi’s son…(Veritas) specializes in clandestine operations, armed combat and provision of weapons…and lists Chula Vista Police Chief David Bejarano as its executive vice president for law enforcement training (SDUT)

·      San Diego Police Chief Bill Lansdowne and Executive Assistant Police Chief David Ramirez appeared at a City Council committee hearing…to answer questions about a string of officer misconduct cases in the department… (and then our Police Chief claimed he was out of the loop about troubled people in his department like officer Anthony Arevalos, who was just convicted of eight felonies and four misdemeanors) VOSD

 Last piece of advice: keep an eye on who's running the new game in town.  They're big time players who carry guns. While they’re watching out for us they also take good care of one another.  The problem is, who is watching them?

Make the call, already

Gotta hand it to the guy -- New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg knows how to lay it on the line.  “The difference” he recently told an audience at MIT “between my level of government and other levels of government is that action takes place at the city level." 

Of course he’s right.  That's the beauty of local government.  It takes place in the here and now.  City politicians take a particular action (positive, negative, good, bad) and sooner or later the results show up in your neighborhood, around your corner. 

Back to Bloomberg.  Whatever else you want to say about him, this guy's not shy about how he uses his power.  And he's not coy about who's in charge of what goes on in his city.  As he informed the Cambridge, MA citizens, “I have my own army in the NYPD.”  

Back to OCCUPY.  Last week I wrote that mayors across the country consulted with one another about how to manage and/or quell OCCUPY activities in their cities.   Concurrently, police chiefs and federal agencies were doing the same thing.

Back to San Diego.  This may explain why our own Mayor Sanders managed to keep a straight face when he denied participating in conference calls with other mayors.  

Maybe what he really meant to say was that he let the city's Chief of Police Lansdowne do the talking for him, which would be consistent with his power under our newish 'strong mayor' form of government.  Under San Diego's new rules the SDPD is the mayor's right hand...if not his own army. 

Which brings me to the conference call I WISH had taken place.  

I wish that all mayors who felt so threatened by the OCCUPY activities in their cities (never mind that they've been essentially peaceful and lawful public assemblies, marred only occasionally by minor problems) were holding serious powwows over the ACTUAL common threat to cities across the country.

I wish that these mayors would come together to discuss the unprecedented number of cities possibly facing bankruptcy (yes, even San Diego) and understand that there's a connection between municipal financial failures and the Occupy Wall Street message.  

These mayors should compare notes on how their city's practice of gambling in the stock market destabilized their municipal pension funds and created unsustainable pension debt, leading to crushing financial crises in their cities.  

I only wish San Diego's mayor was kidding about how he didn't participate in OCCUPY conference calls.  As our city's top leader he owes it to us voters to act like a prime-time mayor should.  He belongs on the phone with other mayors.  And I don't mean talking football! 

My final wish for the day: I wish that Mayor Sanders would seize the opportunity in his waning days in office to set an example of good leadership for San Diego's future 'strong mayors' and start the ball rolling with the following small but crucial step to revamp our dysfunctional city finances:  

I wish he would initiate a conference call to mayors across the nation with the agenda of getting city employee pension funds OUT OF THE STOCK MARKET and back into stable and dependable public investments.

Now that would be an honorable and productive use of the phone wires! 

Who let the cat out?

Mayors across the nation seem to be quaking in their boots as large groups of remarkably decent and polite OCCUPIERS assert their constitutional right to assemble peaceably -- for the distinct purpose of expressing deep discontent over perceptions that government domination by a fabulously wealthy and powerful elite stratum of corporate and Wall Street monied interests produces negative public consequences. 


The overall discipline and good nature of the people in the OCCUPY movement (there are at least 400 ‘occupied’ cities across the nation) continue to be a marvelous, even miraculous, thing to behold.  

Still, it’s understandable that city leaders get nervous when unusual things happen within their jurisdictions, particularly if those things threaten to disturb or in any way recalibrate the status quo.


So maybe it’s only to be expected that a certain degree of conspiring has been going on.  Let me clarify that: conspiring not by the perpetrators of the OCCUPY movement but by the nation’s mayors and experts in law enforcement.  Plus other movers and shakers, as well.  

This is not idle speculation on my part.  It turns out that a series of conference calls and other communications have been taking place over the past months among mayors, law enforcers, and security-minded agencies on how to respond to (snuff out?) OCCUPY-related activities and events.  

The hapless mayor of Oakland inadvertently let the cat out of the bag in a recent interview when she acknowledged her participation in at least one conference call with the mayors of 18 other cities across the country.  The purported purpose of these calls? to trade notes, discuss best practices, share information, indulge in mutual therapy and moral support…simple things like that.  


What about certain confirmed conference calls from Homeland Security and the FBI to local police chiefs and mayors?  Therapeutic?  Guess again.  


Another high-powered caller on the communications circuit was a formerly obscure (at least to me) Washington, DC-based policing think tank known as PERF (Police Executive Research Forum).  They're on record as a coordinator of conference calls among 40 city police chiefs.  Their contribution?  Tactical and planning advice on cracking down on the OCCUPY movement.  

Maybe it's just a  coincidence, but here’s what happened: within days of these therapeutic and PERF conference calls, in more than a dozen cities, using the same police tactics (riot gear, middle-of-the-night clampdowns), and similar legal justifications (zoning, health, sanitation, curfews) -- law enforcement officials swept through and forcibly evicted OCCUPY gatherings and encampments in cities across the nation.  

Yes, San Diego was one of the pack, in lockstep with New York City, Portland, Denver, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Atlanta, Oakland, and others.

Collusion to deprive citizens of their constitutional right to peacefully deliver a message the "establishment” disapproves of?  Behind-closed-doors-coordination of political crackdowns?  Granted, this is pretty chilling information.  But wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall during one of those conference calls…??  Stay tuned for updates.   

Also stay tuned for a description of the nation-wide conference call I WISH had taken place.

Wanted, for Mayor or otherwise

San Diego could be a place that unfolds like a rose.  Look at our city’s assets: strong neighborhood cohesion, entrepreneurial vigor, accommodating social values, renowned academic institutions, unique geography of canyons and hillsides and coastline, diverse communities, great climate… 

Now look at the mess we’re in: galloping public debt, collapsing city streets, shrinking libraries, accretions of homeless people, cracking water and sewer pipes, scarcity of good jobs, practical jokers passing themselves off as journalism moguls...

So here’s my question: How can it be that there is NOBODY in a position of responsibility in the city of San Diego who is willing to be open, frank, truthful, and honest with the public about the facts of life in our wilting city?  

Isn’t it odd that there is NOBODY in a position of responsibility who risks saying: 

I’m fed up with useless lip-service, let’s get serious about our shrinking public services and imploding communities.  

Time to stop fooling around the edges, let’s get started restructuring our crushing financial debt.   

You gotta be kidding about a 500-foot tall bayside erection.

Ditto for a pumped-up $800million super bowl-sized downtown football stadium.  

Isn’t it peculiar that there is no one in a position of responsibility, or in a political campaign vying for a position of responsibility, who will step up to the plate and speak the truth? 

Isn’t it mortifying that the public is an absolute loser when it comes to effective political leadership in San Diego?  

Despite it all, I'm an optimist.  So who’ll help me put the finishing touches on the following ad for Craig’s list? 

WANTED, FOR MAYOR OR OTHERWISE

 A public-spirited leader who genuinely cares about San Diego and is eager to make a positive contribution to the city and to the people who live and work here.  

• Must be experienced, smart, energetic, and thoroughly willing and able to tell and face the truth
• Must be reasonably independent of political, monetary, and ideological ties that bind...inevitably
• Must be bold enough to tell it like it is, call a spade a spade, and take the lead in the process of digging our city out of the muck
• Must not be a procrastinator, bully, or higher-office seeker
• Must revive and elevate the stature of ‘public servant’
• Must go along with the metaphor of San Diego unfolding.  Like a rose.