Okay, we know it’s election season, with the June 3rd Primary date less than a week away. So, why are Republicans Mayor Faulconer and District 6 Rep Lorie Zapf politicizing a proclamation today in honor of legendary skateboarder and native San Diegan Tony Hawk? The City is declaring Thursday, May 29 as “Tony Hawk Day” in San Diego.
And Faulconer and Zapf will be down at the OB Skateboard Park today at 11:00 am to host some kind of event. But why Zapf? She is running for District 2 – BUT SHE AIN’T THERE YET ! Why the heck will she be there – except to promote her candidacy against Democrat Sarah Boot.
If anyone ought to be there, it should be Councilman Ed Harris – who does represent District 2. Was he invited? Was Sarah Boot invited?
This politicization of a tribute that should be fairly non-partisan of a local doing good things by Zapf is disgraceful, actually. There are not Republican skateboarders and Democratic skateboarders – but her shameless effort to throw partisan dirt around our skateboard park ought to show folks where she’s at.
Zapf was trotted out earlier when the Lifeguard Statute was dedicated. Another effort by the GOP to get her name out there in the beach communities.
While Zapf will be at the Skateboard Park, real OB community leaders – Dems and GOP’ers – will be downtown at the San Diego Planning Commission hearing on the OB Community Plan Update.
Hawk is being promoted as a native San Diegan who has raised more than $5.1 million via his foundation to help fund 544 skate parks throughout all 50 states, which are used by 4.8 million skaters annually, according to his website. Hawk has worked with the American Red Cross, Make-A-Wish and other nonprofits. Hawk, 46, turned professional at the age of 14 and won numerous competitions. His performances helped build the X-Games into a major event and his Birdhouse skate company is one of the most popular in the sport.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
The only person that anyone cares about… Will Tony Hawk be there?
LOL – yeah, apparently he was there, so reports Channel 10News.
I have a lot of respect for Tony Hawk and what he does to help nonprofits and enhance recreational opportunities for children. However, I don’t understand why Ed Harris, OB’s Councilman, wasn’t invited to participate. And, why wasn’t the OB Town Council invited or notified of this event in OUR community – we would have loved to let the community know about this and encourage attendance. And, why wasn’t this scheduled to occur after school so that OB Elementary School kids could attend? This really does appear to be a political stunt and it’s sad that Mr. Hawk was used as a pawn in politics to grab a few headlines.
You ask “…why wasn’t this scheduled to occur after school so that OB Elementary School kids could attend?”. The obvious answer is that elementary school children cannot yet vote…..
Tony Hawk is there, and I’m sure could care less about the petty politics surrounding him. He’s better than that, and is probably just honored to have this nice gesture from the city.
But Frank is absolutely on the right track. Where is OUR D2 representative? Why is Lori here speaking at a podium as though she’s already been here? Why is this politicized at all?? Why can Lori swing by this highly publicized event, but can’t show up to a local town council meeting to meet our community leaders and local citizens?? Politics sure is lame sometimes.
Well….isn’t she just
S P E C I A L
Zing! Ow! Lorie is free to go to the OB Skateboard Park but not the OB Town Council.
I think it is great that our Mayor and our next D2 City Councilperson were here to honor the community work of Tony Hawk. The skate park was a great venue for this event.
I sincerely hope that the people of district 2 have better sense than to elect a corporate puppet like Zapf. But then again, I thought surely the entire city would have better sense than to elect a corporate puppet like Faulconer.
Why this skate park, RB? The City of San Diego is rather large, there were plenty of other places to do this. Hawk is obviously a good person but I can’t find anything that said he had anything to do with the Robb Field park. This was a bald political stunt and nothing more, Hawk was used and that is a dishonorable action by the mayor.
This was vintage Faulconer, he never cared what his District wanted, he is a political animal. Zapf had no business being at this event, I would not be surprised if the whole Tony Hawke day thing was cooked up for this ridiculous political show. But this is a microcosm of what to expect if those of us in this District allow her to be elected. What a sad arrangement that would be, Faulconer as Mayor and Zapf as our councilperson.
Ed Harris needs to speak up about this, he has nothing to lose and he appears to be a straight shooter.
I did not learn about the event until that afternoon. I was not invited to participate and my office was never informed.
That is incredible. Thanks Mr Harris for informing us just how low some will go in making things so partisan that the D2 office was not even informed.
I’d go one step further Mr. Harris, have you confronted the mayor about this? You may be a short timer but for the moment, this is YOUR District and as the Council member and as as a regular person who deserves respect, this should not go unchallenged.
I haven’t been there for a while. It was unsupervised for budget reasons. Safety was no longer the city’s job at the skate park. So did they bring in some temporary staff for the photo op?
So has anyone reached out to the mayor’s office to find out why Sarah Boot or Ed Harris wasn’t invited ?