By Mat Wahlstrom
Consider what can be accomplished in four years. High school, college, military service, medical residency, a term in political office, a vehicle lease, can all be encompassed in that time. So it is fitting to reflect that four years ago today was the kickoff of the Midway Rising scheme, when the San Diego City Council's Land Use and Housing Committee voted unanimously to send it to the full council as their “recommendation” of the three proposals winnowed by Todd Gloria’s staff.
Here is the link to the original write-up of that meeting by Jennifer Van Grove in the San Diego Union-Tribune. (Full disclosure: one of the public comments she reported was by yours truly, so
judge for yourself how well this project has aged.)
It was already clear that the fix was in for Midway Rising. La Prensa revealed a week before the committee’s vote that the couple behind its development team had been the largest individual contributors to Todd Gloria’s 2020 political campaign.
It was five months after the council’s approval that La Prensa revealed the Midway Rising team was promoted to the council by a union leader — who did not disclose that she was the wife of
one of the team’s lobbyists. And it was just over a year after that vote that the development team informed the council that the hotel for union workers and union-built middle income housing units key to securing union support were being jettisoned as unfeasible — without a peep.
Covering the ground between then and now, there’s the synopsis by Michael Smolens published just days ago in the U-T. It’s sadly laughable how crooked the Midway Rising scheme has been from the get-go. Because what appears to have been accomplished since 2022 is an unprecedented flexing of state party machinery to gut five decades of landmark state environmental law (CEQA) — while shielding everyone involved in the Midway Rising scheme from liability claims related to CEQA — on behalf of a municipal party machinery that was rebuffed twice by the California Supreme Court for violating CEQA.
I won’t flatter myself that Gov. Newsom either reads or cares what I have to say. But surely he must have a campaign advisor pointing out that his failure to veto SB 958 and SB 344 would
bring a stink of official corruption to the media’s attention in covering his 2028 presidential ambitions. And I can’t imagine there is anyone currently in the White House who wouldn’t
contemplate federal prosecutions for graft by public officials or even a RICO investigation.
The governor really should consider if being complicit in Todd Gloria's self-dealing is worth it.
Thx so much, Mat, for keeping us focused on Midway Rising’s checkered past and our need to insist — through letter-writing, commentaries, and public comment at council meetings — that the City Council craft a lease agreement that best serves all San Diegans, not billionaire (25 times over) Stan Kroenke and his partners, who have flexed their money and connections to buy their way (so far) out of legitimate environmental reviews of the proposed project’s negative and irreversible impacts.
Here’s the root problem – the Gavin Newsom/Scott Wiener/Todd Gloria cabal will not rest until they get what they want.
There is only one lasting solution – vote these crooks OUT in a manner that shows anyone else who is even thinking of doing the same what will happen to them.
At this point it doesn’t matter if you align with any of these 3 on any other issues – this most basic issue is the mother of them all – will they do what their constituents want, represent them and accept their expressed will, or will they continue to feast on the payola of the special interest groups in clear violation of the law and the spirit of our representative democracy ?
I think we all know how they are going to act. It is up to us to stop them in the only way we can – vote them and their cronies out of office, sending a clear message that we have had enough and aren’t going to take it anymore.
It’s either that or be constantly on guard against their unending avarice.
To call Gavin Newsom a “crook” (without legal evidence) plays into the hands of Republicans — who are not immune from this kind of Midway Rising shenanigans (remember Ash Street?) — and the MAGAistas. This is NOT the “mother of all issues,” so sorry we have to disagree. I’d say the party that wants to bring fascism to America is the mother of all issues and Newsom to his credit has stood up to this authoritarianism like no other Californian. Besides neither Gloria or Newsom are running for anything right now, but Weiner is up in San Fran. Send his opponents money and support.
To ignore what’s happening on the national level is placing your head firmly into the sand. It’s to your detriment and to those who count on you for support to ignore our slippage into a neo-Nazi regime.