Category: Election

By Jim Miller

San Diego is on the national stage again.

As the final week of the dead heat mayoral showdown unfolded, Politico reported on “the battle for San Diego,” the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters pondered whether the race would be a harbinger of things to come in California politics, and the New York Times covered “a battle of ideology in a city unaccustomed to that sort of election,” astutely noting, as I did here at the San Diego Free Press during the primary, that this contest is “a test of whether yet another big-city Democrat can be elected by riding a wave of populism, much as Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York did last fall.”

And that test is happening because last November David Alvarez defied the pundits and political insiders and beat the prohibitive favorite, Nathan Fletcher, in the race to face Kevin Faulconer in the run-off to be San Diego’s next mayor. This was a seminal moment for San Diego—perhaps the biggest political upset in the history of the city.

Some local OBceans have decided to organized a bike ride through Ocean Beach to get the vote out for mayoral candidate David Alvarez.

Date: Saturday Feb.8th

Starting Point: Robb Field Park, Ocean Beach
– specific location is the first parking lot to the right when entering via car.

Time: 12pm – 2pm ride.

Ride will begin soon after 12pm.

After ride gathering with music and beer

Everyone is welcome, family friendly. This is in support of David Alvarez’s bid for mayor with specific focus on GETTING OUT THE VOTE IN OCEAN BEACH! All are encouraged to vote regardless of choice or party preference.

By Eva Posner / San Diego Free Press

It’s no secret San Diego is suffering from election fatigue. First there was the mayoral primary in June 2012, then the general in November. For reasons we all know, another race for mayor started less than a year later in September of 2013. The primary was held in November and we are coming up on the general on February 11.

Unfortunately there will be no rest for the weary, because no sooner will we know our next mayor than the battle for Congress will begin in earnest. And Governor. And Assembly. As well as ballot measures regarding the Barrio Logan Community Plan Update and likely the Linkage Fee. Maybe recreational marijuana or a minimum wage proposition as well.

By Erika Couric / Special to the OB Rag

Former federal prosecutor Sarah Boot is Run Women Run’s endorsed candidate for San Diego City Council District 2.

Boot left the U.S. Attorney’s Office to run for this seat and explains her motivation as follows: “I’m running for office because I’m passionate about public service and I’m committed to making my community a better place to live, work and raise a family.”

Boot has extensive experience in law enforcement prosecuting bank robbers, drug dealers and child sex traffickers. She also has private law practice experience representing local technology businesses, internet companies and non-profits. She has been a community leader for many years with much of her work dedicated to advancing the status of women.

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.”

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.

7 Seats Up for Election – One from each District

The date for this year’s annual Ocean Beach Planning Board election has been set: It’s Tuesday, March 11th – so mark your calendars.

The yearly Spring election is for the 2014-2015 term, and polls will only be open for that one day, from 4pm to 7pm and will be held at the Ocean Beach Recreation Center, 4726 Santa Monica Avenue.

Mail-in ballots are available upon request for voters who register in advance.

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.

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

Act I: the State of the City Address

San Diegans are about to witness a full-dress reenactment of our town’s annual civic ritual known as the State of the City Address. Article XV of the City Charter lays it out: On or before the 15th day of January of each year, the Mayor shall communicate by message to the City Council a statement of the conditions and affairs of the City, and make recommendations on such matters as he or she may deem expedient and proper.

You can catch a live performance at 6pm this Wednesday, January 15th at downtown’s historic Balboa Theatre. Alternatively, you can kick back in the comfort of your own living room and watch it on City-TV.

By Jim Miller

Meet Kevin Faulconer, man of the people. He’s running glossy commercials about how he’ll be “a mayor for all of us” and talking as if he’ll be the guy who will focus on neighborhoods that “have been under-served by this city for too long.”

His website and ballot statement have been scrubbed of any unpleasant reminders that he is a Republican backed by San Diego’s traditional power brokers, and he just can’t stop reminding us that there is “no such thing as a Democratic or Republican pothole.”

Like the Republicans at the national level who have decided that they can claim poverty as an issue while refusing to raise the minimum wage, extend unemployment benefits, or stop cutting services to the poor, Faulconer seems to think ….

…Has More Than Him Smiling

By Ernie McCray

It was like walking in on a “Who’s Got the Sunniest Smile” Contest as the room in this “David Alvarez for Mayor” gathering, was full of them. I joined right in with my ages old grin.

My smile shone brightly because David is an answer to a dream of what a San Diego mayor should be like that I first conceived when I moved to town in late August of ’62. I was barely a few months over 24 years old, ready to change the world for the betterment of all humankind. For most of the years since then, my dream of a mayor like David has seemed just like that: a dream.

I mean when I showed up on the local scene I thought I had escaped the small-minded non-progressive kind of thinking I had been subjected to growing up in Tucson. That notion changed when I turned my TV on and saw two men, Frank Curran who would later become mayor and Allen Hitch who wanted so much to be the mayor.

Here’s the first part for “Best of OB Rag” in 2008 – a story of the disappearance of the “Peace Sign” off of Bird Rock, and more on the Iraq war, the peace movement, the 2008 elections, torture, nuclear power, video from an alien invasion of OB in the Seventies, San Diego foreclosures and health care reform :