Aerial shot of Mission Bay, the heart of District 2. Photo by Phil Konstantin / Flickr
My coverage of the 2018 general election will focus on the City of San Diego over the next few days, starting with the City Council and moving on to ballot measures. Today’s topic is the District 2 contest between Lorie Zapf and Dr. Jen Campbell.
Let’s face it. For a city with a seemingly bright future and a terrific climate, if you had to pick a color to represent San Diego’s mood, it would be dark gray. When progressive things happen, they get tripped up by a petulant group of land speculators and scam artists entrepreneurs.
From an economic and political point of view, the “May Gray” is a year-round state of mind for all-too-many of us. All the promises of prosperity made over the past half-century compared to the ever increasing number of people who are economically challenged amount to a solid argument for why “trickle down” is a myth.
Entirely too much energy is expended on the Big Shiny Things coveted by our local gentry and not enough on the structural and people problems facing us. Now, thanks to a split in the ranks of the developing class, we’re supposed to be concerned about which group gets the rights to re-do the last generation’s Big Shiny Thing in Mission Valley.
One can only hope they’ll be distracted enough with their quest for gold and glory not to notice or understand the fundamental shifts happening in the electorate. As they say at the beach, surf’s up. And there are successive blue and brown waves headed our way.
I don’t think we’ll see much of this in 2018,–mostly because those kinds of choices aren’t the ballot–but the groundwork is being laid for 2020 and beyond. I believe some of our “safely” incumbent Democrats will face primary challenges in the next election.
For now, too many of our local ballot choices are between the mediocre and the mundane. Given the realities of creeping authoritarianism under the current batch of DC dimwits, we have to make some less-than-optimal choices.
Staying home on election day is not an option.
District 2
Communities: Bay Ho, Bay Park, Morena, Midway, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, Point Loma
Much to almost everybody’s surprise, City Council District 2 has become a key partisan battleground. If Democrats can flip this seat they’ll have a veto-proof supermajority.
In recent decades, council incumbency has made re-election a given. Incumbent Lorie’s Zapf’s failure to garner more than 43% of the votes in the primary has pundits wondering whether this is about to change.
The big issues in D2 are development, short-term vacation rentals, and the homeless population. Many of the neighborhoods in the district have a strong sense of community identity, with active town councils and other civic organizations playing a prominent public role.
A superheated housing market has driven real estate developers to look for ways to get around height limits and other measures limiting density. An amazing amount of residential property in the areas near the ocean has been converted into vacation rentals, changing the character of those neighborhoods. And there is animosity bordering on the kind of “other hating” coming out of the Trump administration toward the ever-growing numbers of unhoused humans.
Total Registered Voters 87,080
Democrats 31,982
Republicans 22,462
No Party Preference 27,074
Other 5,562
Lorie Zapf (Incumbent Republican)
Website | Facebook | Twitter
Total amount raised by candidate thru July
Lorie Zapf for Council 2018 — 2017 + 2018 = $415,694*
Issues: “Working to Improve Our Neighborhood Quality of Life- Delivering Real Services – Fiscal Responsibility – Cleaning Up Our Parks & Beaches”
Organizational Endorsements: Republican Party of San Diego, San Diego Police Officers Association, Associated General Contractors – San Diego Chapter, California Restaurant Association PAC, Lincoln Club of San Diego County, San Diego Downtown Partnership, Building Industry Association of San Diego County, San Diego County Apartment Association
OB Rag: The Sins of Lorie Zapf Part 1, Part 2
Union-Tribune: How Lorie Zapf could serve 20 years on the San Diego City Council
Voice of San Diego: Being on the City Council Doesn’t Look Like Much Fun
Incumbent City Council Member Lorie Zapf doesn’t list the local GOP’s blessing on her page of endorsements, although she certainly hews to the party’s line on most issues affecting San Diego. Perhap’s that’s because her district has nine thousand more registered Democrats than Republicans.
She became the D2 representative in 2014 after her home was redistricted from D6, and because that move reset the term-limit clock, Zapf is now running for an unprecedented (since 1992, anyway) third term.
From a D2 pre-primary profile I wrote:
Zapf would like us all to believe the criminal justice reforms, especially Proposition 47, are responsible for the increase in homelessness in San Diego. The cost of housing versus what people get paid apparently has nothing to do with it. And she’s really big on spinning anecdotes to fit the myths conservatives love to share about the failures of the system.
*An Independent Expenditure committee has amassed $300,000 from the Chamber of Commerce PAC and the Lincoln Club in support of Zapf.
Dr. Jen Campbell (Democrat)
Website | Facebook | Twitter
Total amount raised by candidate thru July
Dr. Jen Campbell for City Council 2018 –2017 + 2018= $135,537*
Issues: “Ensuring that the City Government is putting Residents First – Tackling our Homeless Crisis – Facing our Housing Shortfall – Addressing Climate Change”
Organizational Endorsements: San Diego Democratic Party, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Sierra Club, Climate Defenders Action Fund, League of Conversation Voters, San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council, San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council, Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, The Victory Fund, Run Women Run, Equality California, San Diego Democrats for Equality, San Diego Democrats for Environmental Action, San Diego County Young Democrats, Clairemont Democratic Club, Pacific Beach Democratic Club, Point Loma Democratic Club, San Diego Labor Democratic Club
Union-Tribune: San Diego City Council candidate Jennifer Campbell on the issues
OB Rag: Dr. Jen Campbell’s Candidacy in District 2: Is She the Cure?
San Diego Reader: Now Jen Campbell’s going after Zapf’s seat
Dr. Jen Campbell
Dr. Jen Campbell bested two serious challengers in the primary, and, in case it isn’t obvious from her list of endorsers, she’s backed by just about every part of San Diego’s Democratic establishment.
Campbell’s pounding away at what should be considered gross negligence of her duties by the incumbent.
From Brett Warnke’s profile at the OB Rag:
“Zapf is just ineffective,” Campbell said. “She missed 400 votes in 2 years. She’s been there how long? 8 years! She’s just not interested in the details. Her constituents contact her–they tell me this–she’s just not there. However, I get things done, I don’t sit around and do nothing. Zapf brags about how many streets have been paved. Baloney.”
Her challenge in this election is turnout. If enough Democrats are energized by Dr. Jen’s candidacy, she’ll ride to victory in November based on partisan registration alone.
However, San Diego’s City Council elections are technically non-partisan. The real life consequence for a Democratic challenger taking on a Republican incumbent is the tendency of apathetic people who make it to the polls to vote for the name they recognize. And the Second District’s Democratic-leaning neighborhoods are great about showing up.
I know some of San Diego’s Democratic clubs, along with Indivisible chapters have been going door-to-door in support of Dr. Jen’s candidacy. I have also heard in recent days about fundraising for an independent expenditure committee to offset the war chest that the Lincoln Club and the Chamber of Commerce have gifted her opponent.
Dr. Jen is a Democratic activist–and she’s worked hard it–who’s decided to make the leap to being an elected official. Let’s hope she can be as diligent as an office holder as she has been with the party.
Tomorrow: District 4-Will the Election Be a Victory for SouthEast San Diego?
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Doug Porter
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Several years ago I expressed disappointment with a previous Democratic candidate for this seat (one I supported) because that person had the same perspective as Zapf about adding housing supply. I am not in the business of telling people what it means to be progressive. But I do feel strongly that we need candidates who understand and appreciate that our housing crisis means that Morena Boulevard – where there will be a trolley line between two of our region’s largest job centers – must take significant housing supply. I feel the same way about my own community of North Park and, frankly, virtually all of the communities in San Diego’s inner ring/along our trolley investments.
Of the 87,080 registered voters in the Second Council District, only a few hundred pack the anti-growth meetings that scare political leaders away from taking action. I am not encouraging a dismantling of the Bay Park community. I am not calling for turning Bay Park into Manhattan. But we need leaders who will take strong positions – especially around housing – and then fight for those positions.
I’d be very interested in a follow up piece that clarifies what Campbell means when she cites “facing our housing shortage” as a key platform area of hers.
Omar, my read of your comment is that you would like the elected representatives of District 2 (and elsewhere I assume) to not follow the desires of those who voted for them, but instead take the position you feel they should. I would hope any elected representative would take a few hundred people who show up at a meeting seriously, and not assume everyone who stayed home took the opposite position. And quite frankly, your thinly veiled insinuation that someone needs to support building any housing, even with no community dialog, to be requirement to be a progressive is confusing, at best.
I am really concerned by simplistic YIMBYism positions like yours. YIMBYs seem to feel its okay to use shaming tactics against concerned residents who love their city and want to have a voice in how it evolves. I don’t get what about community process is so scary to you and other YIMBYs. I have attended many land use meetings in Uptown (where I live) and I have never experienced anyone who is against new development, especially housing. What I experience is local people fighting to make projects be a better fit in the community, and on the other side developers, land owners and lobbyists (such as Circulate San Diego) fighting the community to let developers build whatever they want.
Land Use is important and complicated, and quite frankly improved by a diversity of voices. I quite frankly find the use of housing-washing as offensive (and transparent) as green-washing. Both homes and the environment deserve to be treated with respect and not used as a tool for developers and politicians. I agree we need to build housing, but I quite frankly feel we need to preserve a democratic process more.
Roy, I’d like very much to know what specifically in my post you feel was a “shaming tactic.” My view of housing is not simplistic any more than your view is whatever negative stereotype I might come up with. We need more housing. And while I do not assume that all 80,000 voters in district 2 who stay home take the opposite view, I think it is inappropriate to assume that a small subset of any district ought to be able to dictate how we address this crisis. Elected leaders are elected to lead and that must mean tough decisions at times. I understand your perspective that you have never been at a land use meeting where the people were anti-housing or development. I happen to have been at several over the years so perhaps some of this is just a difference of our respective experiences.
I will do my best not to make assumptions about you that are not stated in your reply and I’d appreciate very much if you consider not making assumptions about the specifics of what I think based on my being in support of more housing.
Also, I do not think that this is only true for Morena Blvd, nor was I making a prediction about exactly how much housing supply should be there. But for a candidate to include addressing our housing crisis as a core part of her platform it is more than reasonable to ask for greater clarification as to what that means to the candidate.
Omar, I did not mean to imply your post had shaming tactics within it, but instead it has been a frequent strategy used by YIMBY types. Such as TY did in a response to my post, suggesting I was working to deny people an opportunity to own a home in SD, simply because I was engaged around the Truax House situation, trying to get a more transparent and better land use outcome. I find this simplistic polarizing strategy inaccurate and counterproductive.
Regarding the issues I did have with your comment, I was bothered by your suggestion the people that show up at community meetings should be disregarded because you feel they don’t see the situation the same as you. I realize this may not be an accurate reading of what you wrote, but I did have a few other people read your comment, and that is how they interpreted it. I feel democracy is significantly about showing up: showing up to vote, showing up in a representative’s inbox, showing up at a community meeting, showing up at a protest march, etc. I of course agree political leaders can help lead/teach people to evolve their feelings about a situation. But I would hope the politicians would be open to evolving their positions too,
Regarding the the issue of building more housing, like you I feel its complicated. I don’t know if it matters that by increasing the height limit on Morena the City would, in a sense, be taking the view from houses that currently “own” it with the current height limit, and are giving it to the future owners of the residential towers that would be built on Morena. I have no idea how to address this, but to call those homeowners selfish NIMBYs is both disrespectful and counter productive. Maybe the loss in value to their home will impact their retirement, or maybe it will just break their heart. Seems to me the situation, like so many others, requires open respectful dialog that has a chance of leading to creative solutions.
So to say it one more time, I am really tired of the YIMBY argument that if someone doesn’t support letting developers build whatever size building they want wherever they want they are selfish and greedy. That is just not accurate, we are suggesting many complicated issues come to play in making wise land use decisions.
In my view, we need to stop screaming past each other. I have a good friend in Bay Park who I admire, I respect, and I disagree with on this issue. Doesn’t make him bad or me insincere. I am not saying Morena needs 60 feet or even 50 feet to help, nor even talking about the height limit at all. My point is that the candidate for public office on the progressive side needs to be held to explain her actual views so people can make an informed choice. We need more homes. In Bay Park, in North Park, in Azalea Park, etc, etc. I am a former land use attorney, but I didn’t receive a bunch of money from developers as a candidate (not that I think that matters) nor now. We need every San Diego community to be better about this issue because it has huge impacts. I cant help what someone reads into my comment. As someone who had to drive 7 hours to see my mom because she couldn’t afford San Diego and as someone who has friends who are priced out of even renting a decent place, I make no apologies for wanting more housing. But I want to be more earnest, more decent, and more open about the actual facts of getting that supply. I hear you, and hope we aren’t just I a spiral of conflict on this.
Omar, I’m not in a “spiral of conflict” with you on this, it seems like in many ways we are in agreement. But I do feel, for what I perceive as cynical reasons, some people and organizations are trying to create a false conflict around this issue. Clearly a city can’t be frozen in time, but at the same time it can’t be overly and simplistically reactive to changing times. I think we need to see everyone (residents young and old, renters and property owners both, as well developers) as stakeholders with a valuable and useful role in the dialog and the decisions.
I should add, with so many people voting, any decision is going to be supported by some and opposed by others. Your contention that I think a politician should ignore the people who voted them in could be easily reframed to suggest that you think a politician should ignore anyone who did not vote for her. Or the many people who took no position either way. In truth, we have a representative Democracy and whoever is elected represents the whole district. My point is merely that we have a crisis that will not be addressed without more homes of varying price points and in a variety of locations and given that the candidate expressed a desire to address this I’d like to know what she has in mind.
The 30 foot height limit is a big deal in D2 and it cost Zapf some support when back in January she told a bunch of realtors she was fine with raising the height limits along 2 of the trolley stops. And the community really gave her hell, then she changed her position. Whatever density needs to come to the Morena area, it cannot violate height limits.
“I have attended many land use meetings in Uptown (where I live) and I have never experienced anyone who is against new development, especially housing.”
Man Roy, you’re going to be a little embarrassed when you see what one “Roy McMakin” said in a 2016 article about a small .46 parcel of land that the city was potentially going to build housing on.
“We are up for a fight to get this parcel as part of Maple Canyon… says Roy McMakin, president of the group Friends of Maple Canyon.”
Weird that in 2016 you were literally fighting more housing being built. It’s almost like you say you’d like more housing, just not specifically in your backyard.
(Also in that article you’re quoted as saying “Given many folks are retired, they are often thinking beyond the time they will live here” yet you’re actively working to deny future generations the opportunity to buy housing in a city that’s already outrageously expensive (unless of course you were lucky enough to buy a home before housing prices took off, coupled with Prop 13 that ensures you’re passing on the costs of basic infrastructure to new residents, renters and working class San Diegans through higher sales taxes)
https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2016/jan/06/citylights-neighbors-want-parks-city-wants-houses/
TY, while it seems somewhat silly on my part to respond to someone who would use the fact I posted a comment with my name to do “research” on me, but would post anonymously. But I am doing it to correct your many misstatements.
The City was never going to build housing on that site you discuss in your comment. It was property the City purchased with gas tax funds to build an approved, but un-built, “parkway” connector between I5 and 163 in the early 1960’s. Over the years the City leased the structures on it as residential units, an AIDS hospice and to Father Joe’s. It then was put on the draft Uptown Community Plan as a future park connected to Maple Canyon Open Space. And then, it quietly appeared on a list of City properties that were going to be sold. At the same time it became clear the main structure on the property was on a list of potential LGBT historic sites. Known as the Truax House, it was the site of San Diego’s first AIDS hospice.
The community, including me, became quite involved, trying to get Todd Gloria, who had oversight over the situation as the property was in his district as council member, to do right by the situation.
What the community, and myself, wanted was for the house to be put for sale with requests for RFP (Request For Projects) hoping to see something meaningful to happen on the site, as well as preserve the Truax House. The City could have sold the property below market as the proceeds from the sale had to go back to the gas tax funds. That isn’t what happened, but the Truax House has been somewhat preserved.
What I would have liked to see happen would have been the preservation of the Truax House (with a community meeting room), creation of affordable housing elsewhere on the site and a trail as a useful additional connection between Maple Canyon, Bankers Hill and Little Italy.
How you chose to interpret that as me fighting to not adding housing to my back yard is simply a fabrication on your part.
I have no idea if you spew this simplistic YIMBY “gotcha-shaming” nonsense out of personal interest or if you work for a for-profit or not-for-profit developer lobbyist. But it’s not only entirely inaccurate, it’s counter productive if you care about this city and are interested in helping it grow in a positive way.
But with that being said, I would welcome your constructive thoughts as part of the dialog.
Right on Mr. Passons! Sometimes it is indeed the job of our representatives to facilitate change that is necessary in light of population level needs (change being hard for all of us to embrace right away). Their job I think is partially to educate their constituents. And sometimes hard decisions must be made that do not make everyone happy. The times of moneyed interests getting a bigger voice in our political process has got to go. Many candidates do not want to take a solid transparent stance on any controversial issue because they are playing the election game. I for one want to know exactly what I am voting for. Trust me and the other voters – we realize no candidate matches our personal world view 100%. But I want the info to pick the best fit and I always respect someone who is truthful.