San Diego Establishment Must Be in Shock at How Poorly Measure C Is Doing

There is some anguish in the office towers of the city today, the day after the election, about what is happening in the Midway District.

Indeed, San Diego’s establishment must be in shock at how poorly Measure C is doing. At the most recent vote tabulation, there’s only a 623 vote difference between the “Yes’s” and the “No’s.”

Which is an 800-some vote loss since earlier in the day when the time the San Diego U-T posted its returns. Which means the margin of “victory” is slowly being eroded.

Measure C could actually lose. It’s the measure, of course, that would have eliminated the 30-foot height limit throughout the Midway District, some 1300-plus acres.

The city’s establishment was banking on its passage, which they see as crucial for the go-ahead for Midway Rising to begin their redevelopment of the sports arena area.

In fact, Midway Rising spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on its “Yes on C” campaign, including expensive mailers that misrepresented their own redevelopment project sent through the area. (How is that even legal?)

The elite network of developers, financiers and politicians really expected C to pass — easily. So easily, it seems, that there was no grassroots or “on-the-ground” campaign to ensure its victory. During the last week, a company was hired to nail up “Yes on C” signs around town. But it was a company, not neighbors or community folk.

In sum, San Diego’s establishment really believed Measure C was a cakewalk. They looked at the 2020 vote count of Measure E — an earlier version of C — which passed with a 57% win. Then it was thrown out due to the city’s failure to adequately study the environmental effects of the high-rises being planned. Which led to Measure C being placed on the ballot by the city council.

They felt so secure with that 57% figure from two years ago, that they didn’t mount any kind of real effort, except for interviews by Chris Cate, the termed-out lone Republican on the council, who had — along with Jen Campbell — maneuvered the measure to the ballot by convincing their council colleagues that it was all for the good.

Mayor Gloria was all for it – so the Cate-Campbell sell probably wasn’t that difficult. Gloria’s largest contributor when he ran for mayor was chosen to lead the redevelopment of the sports arena site, Midway Rising. So, it was all set. Measure C would pass, Midway Rising would go to work and visions of 10-story buildings and all that money were dancing in their heads.

But, in a classic David versus Goliath battle, small grassroots groups formed to stop Measure C. One group, Save Our Access, went to court to block C, while another group, a real grassroots group called Keep the Coast 30 took to the streets and internet with a 2-month campaign. The campaign was created to awaken San Diegans to the 50th anniversary of the original 30-foot height limit record vote in 1972, when 63% of San Diego voters passed it.

Other groups also came out in opposition to Measure C, like the Sierra Club, which in a very rare move, took an organizational position on a local initiative and came out solidly against it. A few politicians running for office came out publicly against it, as well. And a few media pundits and columnists took notice of the upsurge of opposition, like Michael Smolens at the U-T and Scott Lewis at the Voice of SD.

Donna Frye, a former city council member, came out against it, and in fact helped to energize Keep the Coast 30 with her early support for the group.

Die-hard activists with Keep the Coast 30 held signs and banners at key intersections and on-ramps during the last several weeks of the election campaign. They braved the wind, the rain and the darkness in their efforts to get the word out to vote “no” on C.

These activists, some of whom have been fighting to preserve the height limit west of I-5 much of their adult lives, have caused this anguish in those lonely office towers today. Plans may have been smashed and all that money spent on consultants gone to waste if in fact C crumbles.

In the end, the voters are smarter than the pols and their consultants about this local matter. And there was a “voter revolt at the coast.”

Perhaps they believed that the Midway was truly part of the coastal zone and deserved to have a community-wide protection.

Perhaps they didn’t believe the lies being spread about Measure C being the panacea for everything from affordable housing to dealing with the houseless to curbing crime and erasing traffic gridlock.

Perhaps they just wanted something better than what the establishment was pushing.