Mail-in ballots will start going out on October 8th. Are you registered to vote? Are you prepared to vote? [Read more…]
City of San Diego Ballot Measures, 2018 General Election | Soccer City, SDSU West, or Bust?
The short version of this analysis is you need to pay attention to City Measures E & G, and could reasonably be expected to vote yes on the rest of them.
E & G are about the future of the stadium site in Mission Valley, and the only ones with pro and con groups; the rest of the City ballot items are just housekeeping or consensus agreements on issues. My remarks on those (H-N) will be short and sweet.
How we got here: After years of dicking around about wanting a bigger and better place for the San Diego Chargers to play, team owner Dean Spanos packed up his franchise and left town. [Read more…]
San Diego County Supervisor D5 | Michelle Gomez vs Jim Desmond: It’s Time for a Change
San Diego County is changing, and nowhere is that truer than in the North County, currently represented on the Board of Supervisors by Bill Horn.
Most of the five supervisors have been in office for more than 20 years. It’s been largely a white, male, Republican club brimming with alumni from San Diego State University.
After 23 years in office, supervisor Horn is terming out of District 5. And not a moment too soon. He’s long been the embodiment of what’s wrong with County government: gruff, unfeeling, and forgetful about who he was supposed to be representing. [Read more…]
San Diego County Supervisor D4 | Nathan Fletcher vs. Bonnie Dumanis: A Critical Contest
Tuesday, November 6 should be the beginning of the end of a status quo situation in San Diego that is just. plain. wrong.. All you have to do is vote.
I know, I know. Every campaign and every ballot measure says they’re The One, but this vote will –over the next few years– improve mental health care, help the homeless, and make our corner of the country a better place for all of us to live.
Much of the power over our lives by the government is vested with the five members of the County Board of Supervisors. Most of them have been in office for more than 20 years.
[Read more…]
San Diego’s City Council District 8 | Martinez vs Moreno: It’s Complicated
The district is a bi-polar political entity. Geography and long-standing loyalties both exert a significant influence on elections in the city’s southernmost political sector.
City Council District 8 is bisected by National City & Chula Vista. The north and south ends have a majority Latino population in common, but the external realities differ.
The forces of gentrification weight heavily on neighborhoods connected to the core city like Barrio Logan. The border with Mexico, along with the militarization that goes with it, looms over the southern end.
Overlaid on these different environments are family and personal connections. To understand the race for city council in District 8, a history lesson is in order. I’ve simplified parts of this story because the nuances are near-impossible for an outsider to discern. [Read more…]
City Council District 6: How Can Hough Hew His Way Around An Incumbent’s Advantage?
I’ll let you in on a little secret: San Diego is a lot bluer city than most people realize, meaning–as one politico told me recently–if you run the right Democrat, they can win just about everywhere.
City Attorney Mara Elliot carried every council district in 2016 except D5 Mark Kersey’s collection of north-central communities clustered along Interstate 15. There are roughly 130,000 more registered Democrats in the city than Republicans, who have sunk to third place–70,000 voters or so behind No Party Preference.
Fortunately for partisans on the right side of the aisle, San Diego’s City Council races are officially non-partisan. The words “Democrat” or “Republican” don’t appear on the ballot, making a high public profile a potential equalizer. [Read more…]
This Is How Democrats (Women!) Win | Video Worth Watching
Who says Democrats don’t have an agenda? Elissa Slotkin on the “pre-existing conditions” issue makes it real and personal. (h/t to AGD) [Read more…]
Climate Change, Clogged Drains, and Lorie Zapf
By Jordan Beane
On September 13th, the Union-Tribune released their interviews with our District 2 candidates, Dr. Jennifer Campbell and current District 2 City Councilmember Lorie Zapf. In Zapf’s interview, there were a lot of specific questions about the Climate Action Plan, it’s goals and more.
However, I believe the UT should have asked her a simpler question: Do you, Councilmember Zapf, believe in climate change?
Our Republican representative wants you to believe she cares about this existential threat and its impact on San Diego. She, along with the rest of the city council, voted to approve San Diego’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) in 2015. She mentioned the CAP in an op-ed. She even used the word “climate” in a tweet once (the only time she’s done so in 1,700+ missives). She and the Lincoln Club (San Diego’s version of the Koch Brothers) flooded the mailboxes of District 2 with the same two images of Zapf cleaning out the San Diego River, portraying our Republican representative as an environmental champion. [Read more…]
San Diego City Council District 4 | Cole vs. Montgomery: How to Make Black Lives Matter?
At the heart of District 4 are San Diego’s historically black communities, created in large part by property deeds limiting where people of color could buy or rent homes.
In 1969 a coalition calling itself BOMB: Black, Oriental, Mexican Brothers called a public meeting in Southcrest Park and began advocating for a civil rights advocate to be appointed to a vacated City Council seat.
The appointment and subsequent election of Leon L. Williams began a tradition of the District 4 seat being held by African-Americans. Five decades later, issues of race and repression are at the center of a contentious contest between a storied incumbent and her activist challenger. [Read more…]
San Diego’s City Council District 2 | Republican Zapf vs Democrat Dr. Jen: Is a Change Gonna Come?
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. [Read more…]
Jeff Griffith, Senate District 38 | Candidate Profiles for the November 2018 Ballot
Public service has always been a major part of my life. My father was a firefighter; I followed in his footsteps. I began my career 30 years ago in Ramona and am now a Fire Captain and a Paramedic.
I am not a career politician. My progressive beliefs developed early in my career as I saw the need for quality healthcare and came to see it as a right. I saw the power of unions to responsibly protect workers and working families. As a firefighter, it was easy to become an environmentalist and believer in climate change because of the lengthening fire season. That is why I am a Democrat, because the majority of Democratic Party values match my own orientation to the issues that are facing us.
San Diego Women Running for Office as Democrats
I’ve been searching for ways to highlight many of the local down-ballot candidates who readers might not be aware of. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by internet and tv ads touting big-name candidates for major offices, and when the time to fill in the ballot arrives, a bunch of unfamiliar names makes filling in many bubbles a crap shoot.
Today, I’m going to list women running for local offices as Democrats in San Diego County, along with basic contact information when available, going you the opportunity to learn more. While I intend to provide additional coverage on these candidates, there is simply no way I’ll get to all of them.
While there is nothing guaranteeing a woman running for office will be a better choice (every group has its outliers), I can say with certainty we certainly can’t do worse than we are these days.
[Read more…]
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