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City Attorney Ploy to ‘Slut Shame’ Woman Sexually Assaulted by Cop Backfires

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By Doug Porter

“Jane Doe” is one of thirteen women who sued the City of San Diego following the arrest of SDPD officer Anthony Arevalos for sexually assaulting women while on duty by threatening them with arrest. It was her courage in filing a complaint that triggered an investigation leading to an arrest of the officer.

Yesterday reporters with 10News revealed that taxpayer dollars, authorized by the City Attorney’s office, were used to hire a private investigator to follow and videotape Jane Doe over a 23 day period. The investigator’s report, uncovered during the discovery process, clearly indicates the intention to portray her as ‘wanton woman.’

Twelve of the victims have settled their lawsuits, with payouts totalling $2.3 million. Jane Doe has stood fast, even as City Attorney Jan Goldsmith has portrayed her in the news media as a gold digger.  The real issue at hand is the young woman’s demand that the city create an independent monitor at the San Diego Police Department to watch for corruption. She and her attorneys claim there were several reports and accusations Arevalos engaged in similar misconduct over a decade.   [Read more…]

Honesty Apparently Not the Best Policy for Kevin Faulconer

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The Republican candidate for Mayor of San Diego demonstrably and provably lies in his latest campaign ad.

By Andy Cohen

I will certainly be grateful when this mayoral campaign is over and we can begin to move on to the 2014 midterms. That sounds weird coming from a reporter/columnist that thrives on these election cycles. This mayoral special election has certainly been the gift that keeps on giving, providing endless material for all of us San Diego political observer types to offer up to hungry readers. Otherwise at this time of year we’d be struggling to find subject matter to fill our website with. For a weekly columnist that’s not always easy (but then again, as they say, if it were easy everyone would do it). For a daily columnist like my colleague Doug Porter, this mayoral special election is a godsend.

But what I’m tired of are the TV ads and the mailers that deliberately mislead their viewers; the voters of San Diego. I’m absolutely disgusted by the TV commercials that attempt to rewrite history.

In other words, the candidate ads that LIE.   [Read more…]

Faulconer’s Fantasy History TV Ad: “Times When Union Cronies Ruled San Diego”

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Faulconer is hoping that you just won’t remember that the pension scandal occurred under a Republican mayor 

By Jim Miller

As we head down the stretch run of the campaign to elect San Diego’s next mayor, Kevin Faulconer’s anti-union hysteria has reached critical mass.

In his latest TV ad a very serious woman’s voice warns us that despite the fact that “We need progress in San Diego,” David Alvarez wants to “take us back to times when union cronies ruled San Diego.” She goes on to warn us that Alvarez is being brought to you by “union bosses” who want “lavish pensions” and “no accountability” while “streets crumble” and “neighborhoods suffer.”

Cue the gritty black and white footage of San Diego in ruins.

While I have already dealt with Faulconer’s historically challenged and wildly misleading claims about pensions and the effect of Proposition B in last week’s column, it’s worth further reviewing the ridiculous nature of Faulconer’s faux history.   [Read more…]

Faulconer’s Game Plan for San Diego: To Hell With Those Citizen Gadflies – Build, Baby, Build!

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By Doug Porter

His plan is just perfect for sound-bite coverage. Mayoral candidate Kevin Faulconer rolled out his miracle cure for San Diego’s housing crisis focus on the homeless population on Wednesday and the local media dutifully reported his talking points without challenging any assumptions.  It should have been easy to ask a few questions; after all here were no specifics, facts or dollar figures cited.

Today we’ll take a look at some of those assumptions, with a big assist via remarks made by by former mayor Jerry Sanders at a panel discussion sponsored by Torrey Pines Bank. Candidate Faulconer’s plan is simply a gussied up version of “trickle down” economics. And by now hopefully you’ve figured out how that hasn’t worked for 99% of the population. What’s going on here is that the GOP candidate is hiding his true intentions behind a “feel good” press release about the homeless.

A 2012 report by the Center for Housing Policy does a good job of outlining the problem, which extends way past the homeless population. While nearly one in four working households nationally are defined as having severe housing cost burden, 37% of San Diego residents are paying more than half of their income for housing. Much of the working population is one mishap away from being homeless, so when you’re talking about housing in San Diego, you may as well talk about the whole problem.   [Read more…]

Alvarez Brings Neighborhoods Agenda to Carmel Valley

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Mayoral candidate criticizes his opponent for prioritizing industry, big developers over community groups.

By Andy Cohen

In an effort to reach out to a wider array of voters, and answering criticism that he is unfamiliar with the neighborhoods in the northern parts of San Diego, City Councilman and mayoral candidate David Alvarez ventured into Del Mar to discuss his plan for neighborhood and community development with representatives from various community groups throughout the northern reaches of the city.

There are more than 40 identified, unique communities in San Diego, each with different characteristics and different needs. To better address those needs, Alvarez called for a series neighborhood summits within his first 100 days in office, allowing each community group the opportunity to communicate directly to city staff and identify their priorities.   [Read more…]

Alvarez Draws Democratic Stars; Faulconer Attracts Reactionaries (Who Tear Down a Few Campaign Signs)

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By Doug Porter

The contrast couldn’t be starker.

A procession of nationally recognized elected Democrats has rolled through San Diego to endorse the candidacy of David Alvarez for Mayor of San Diego.

More than three dozen elected officials from around the state have endorsed his candidacy.  The candidate’s got some star power behind him, connections that could prove valuable in the future.

Exactly zero Republicans outside the Chamber of Commerce/downtown developer set  have stepped up to the plate for his opponent Kevin Faulconer. Only four elected officials from anywhere are listed on his endorsements page. After promising the endorsement of “dozens” of Democrats from around the city for a press conference yesterday, only four were willing to be named on the press release.   [Read more…]

The Liberal/Progressive Agenda Becomes Cool Again

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Todd Gloria’s State of the City Address paved a path for Dems, Alvarez to re-embrace a progressive agenda for San Diego.

By Andy Cohen

This has been a rather strange special election cycle. On the one hand we have a conservative, Republican candidate that can’t run away fast enough from the San Diego Republican Party—indeed, the Republican brand in general—who tries to sweep that identification under the rug at all costs. On the other hand, we have a progressive Democratic candidate who has seemed a little bit shy about brandishing his more liberal credentials.

That latter situation may have changed with iMayor Todd Gloria’s State of the City Address (no one, except for maybe GOP head henchman Tony Krvaric, expects Kevin Faulconer to claim the Republican mantle—at least not openly until after the election). For the first time since the 2012 mayoral election, a San Diego pol made the case for a complete departure from the Business as Usual crowd that is clamoring to return to power—and undermine San Diego’s elected government.   [Read more…]

Mayoral Race Polling, Pensions, and Plutocracy

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By Jim Miller

Last week a new poll by Public Policy Polling (PPP) funded by the Democratic Party came out that showed the race to become San Diego’s next mayor a dead heat with Alvarez at 46% and Faulconer just behind with 45%.

In another poll, Latino Decisions and the Latino Victory Project appraised Latino voters on the race and got radically different results than both the earlier Survey USA/UT-SD poll, a Republican Party poll , and the more recent PPP effort showing that Alvarez leads 75%-10% among Latino voters. The Latino Decisions’ analysis argues that, “Rather than showing a 46-45 result, with more accurate Latino data the PPP poll would show Alvarez leading Faulconer by 5 to 6 points.” Thus their evaluation concludes that outreach to and mobilization of Latino voters could put Alvarez over the top.

This was followed by yet another Survey USA/UT-SD poll yesterday that did not follow the Latino Decisions model but still showed Faulconer up by only 5%, an eleven-point surge in support for Alvarez since their last survey. So by almost all accounts it’s a tight race as we head toward the finish line.   [Read more…]

More Ad Wars: Sanders’ Billion Dollar Baloney, Lincoln Club’s Crummy Photoshop

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By Doug Porter

It’s hard to miss the Faulconer campaign’s warm and fuzzy broadcast ads featuring former Mayor Jerry Sanders. We’re told several times about how the Republican Mayoral candidate “saved” San Diegans a billion dollars through pension reform. We’re told this money can be used for needed projects in our neighborhoods.

Those assertions are fine examples of the ‘lots of baloney, served often’ strategy being used on Faulconer’s behalf.  Our ex-mayor is an excellent salesman, ready to sell you discount passes for the (toll-free) Coronado Bridge is you’re gullible enough.

Voice of San Diego revisited that oft-quoted one billion dollar figure yesterday in light of newly released information, deciding it merited no better than a ‘misleading’ rating.

Pension savings of $1 billion will come over decades and any contention that they can be put back into neighborhoods immediately, as Faulconer implied in November, is misleading.

  [Read more…]

David Alvarez is the Living Embodiment of King’s Dream; Faulconer, Its Antithesis

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By Jim Miller

This year our ritual celebration of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. comes in the midst of a contentious mayoral election.  And while some might try to bracket this year’s remembrance off from the ugly fray, that would be a mistake.  As I noted in an earlier column on this subject, remembering “a sanitized version of King as a vanilla saint who called on us to just move beyond our differences does a disservice to him and his legacy” because “[o]ur collective remembrance of MLK is most useful when it troubles us.”

And King would be deeply troubled to see where we are today nationally and locally.  Yes, the man who said, “one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring” would be profoundly disturbed by the fact that we are living in an era of historic economic inequality.

He would decry the reality that here in San Diego the wealthiest 20% of households take in half of all income in the region while more than 28% of working San Diegans earn less than a self sufficient wage and one out of five children in San Diego lives in poverty.   [Read more…]

The KUSI Mayoral Debate: Looking for Clues Between the Platitudes

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Left unasked was: ‘boxers or briefs?’ 

By Doug Porter

Just about the first thing the finalists in the mayoral contest did following their victory parties was to issue a joint statement announcing there’d be six (and only six) debates prior to the runoff election. Twenty some-odd bouts in six weeks during the first round campaigning (two of which were scheduled simultaneously in different parts of the city) were just too many. The term ‘debate fatigue’ crept into the local lexicon, and for good reason.

I attended the taping for the second of the six final face-offs on Friday hoping for some new insight into the mayoral race. The dictates of writing five columns a week make data collection always a pressing matter for this writer. After all, there’s only so many times you can point out that Kevin Faulconer is running from the Republican label, even as his campaign is orchestrated by the overlords of America’s Finest Plantation City.

I’d seen the ads, been disgusted by the mailers, pondered the contributors lists and gagged as I read the UT-San Diego editorials.. Now it was time to size up the candidates in a mano-a-mano situation. I’ll spare you the details, lest I seem unappreciative of KUSI’s broadcast involvement.

It is/was KUSI’s party: air time is 8pm on Monday (1/20).   [Read more…]

Gloria Does the Right Thing, Backs Alvarez for Mayor

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Despite laying out a vision for San Diego at his state of the city speech earlier this week looking very much like the one mayoral candidate and City Councilman David Alavarez might craft, the lack of a formal endorsement in the race by iMayor Todd Gloria was troubling for many Democratic Party activists.

Fear not. It was all a matter of timing. Gloria held off on the official blessing until this morning, issuing a full-throated endorsement of city councilman Alvarez, saying:

“This week, I put forward a progressive vision for San Diego to be a great city. It includes ending homelessness, increasing the minimum wage, aggressively funding infrastructure, and implementing a strong Climate Action Plan. David Alvarez is the candidate in this race who shares my vision and who we can count on to make San Diego great.”

The iMayor’s announcement pointed out he and Alvarez worked together to increase funding for affordable housing, update the Barrio Logan community plan, and increasing vital city services via the 2014 budget.

The Alvarez campaign noted that his opponent City Councilman Kevin Faulconer opposed all three of these measures, lest he disappoint his corporate downtown campaign backers.

Gloria will be on the road until next week, but was eager to release his endorsement, according to a press release from the Alvarez campaign. The two will begin making joint appearances soon.   [Read more…]

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