Artist's rendering of the new downtown central library.
Top political stories? There were so many … and so many were, in a word, bad.
by Arthur Salm / SanDiego.com
Vintage-wise, 2010 was pretty much a Two-Buck Chuck year for San Diego. But here we go:
10. Groundbreaking on the new central library. We’re actually building the thing. When people look back and assess this sorry era, they’ll be doing it from inside this great civic achievement, and they’ll be able to say that at least we did something right.
9. Sacramento lawmakers connive to come up with a bill that would approve the raising of the cap on downtown redevelopment to support construction of stadium for the Chargers. Yet another step toward the inevitable: No way is the Spanos family going to pay for a stadium when they can get us to do it.
9(a). Billionaire Philip Anschutz to purchase a 35 percent stake in the Chargers. Yet another step toward the inevitable: The Chargers are moving to Los Angeles. (Just covering my butt here.)
8. Talk of selling our seed corn gets serious. The Miramar Landfill sale, if it goes through, will just be the beginning. Hey, how about Balboa Park? Just think what we could get for it, not to mention the tax revenue a savvy entrepreneur could generate.
7. The prospect of the city of San Diego declaring bankruptcy is floated. And it doesn’t sink. The trial balloon isn’t shot down. They run it up the flagpole, and people start looking around at each other, wondering whether or not to salute.
6. Carl DeMaio’s media-saturated signature-gathering attempt to kill the Living Wage ordinance and hand city services over to private contractors blows up in his face when it turns out that many of the signatures were invalid. The people who haul our trash and maintain our parks and clean our public buildings will, for the time being, continue to make a (barely) decent wage.
5. The Contractors Strike Back: The passage of Props A and G. It’s all part of Eric Christen’s statewide crusade – with the help of local ally Carl DeMaio – against project labor agreements, which mandate decent job standards for construction work.
4. Proposition J, five years of emergency funding for San Diego schools, defeated. Schools now face even more catastrophic budget cuts. The kids come first … as long as they’re my kids. Yours, not so much.
3. San Diego voters also nix Prop D, a temporary sales-tax hike. Responsible grown-ups of various political persuasions said the money was needed for little things like police and fire services, libraries, parks and curbside trash collection, but the anti-government forces won out.
2. Bill Horn and Ron Roberts re-elected to the Board of Supervisors. The complete Republican domination (5/5) of the County Board, going on 15 years, will continue for at least another two. Term limits, where have you been?
And the number-one political story of 2010 for San Diego…
Donna Frye termed out of the City Council. Oh, yeah, term limits are such a good idea. Now we’ve lost the most reasonable, responsible, and hard-working Council member we’ve had since … since … well, name a better one. Ever.
{ 0 comments… add one now }