Sunday, October 21, 2007

The Week in Review

I usually wait until Monday mornings to post a wrap-up of the political rumors rolling around at the week's end, but I am headed out of town for a few days. Here are a few interesting morsels:

With all the buzz about Jerry Butkiewicz's potential run for Mayor at the CPI dinner on Thursday, a few juicy details about the dinner were left out.

I was shocked to see Republican candidate for Mayor, Steve Francis in attendance. He was definitely making the rounds and pressing flesh with labor leaders, enviros and other progressives. He looked eerily at ease in this left-leaning crowd. Less surprising, Republican candidate for School Board Scott Barnett was also seen in the crowd AND even bought an ad in the dinner book.

Also seen in the crowd, former Assemblyman Juan Vargas - sitting with Firefighter's Union Prez Ron Saathoff. I had heard the firefighters were courting him to run for City Attorney, maybe his sudden public appearance means something.

One of the funnier sites of the evening, was City Attorney Mike Aguirre standing up to be recognized when Donald Cohen asked all of the San Diego City Employees to rise for an applause. I don't think that is what Cohen had in mind.

Finally of note, I saw a very relieved looking Toni Atkins giving what looked like a congratulatory hug to Labor Council's political director Lorena Gonzales. If the press accounts prove true, Gonzales, who was planning to run against Atkins in 2010 for the 76th AD, will stay with labor and Atkins may have a free-ride for the Democratic nomination.

I got a call from a Republican family member of mine that lives in Tierrasanta, it seems Marti Emerald walked to his door on Saturday. Good to know she is walking, I had heard rumors about a back injury.

I hear there is a new potential Democratic candidate in San Diego's 1st district. Lobbyist and strong mayor proponent Adrian Kwiatkowski is allegedly considering throwing his hat in the ring.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steve Francis? Well that makes some sense in a weird way, I heard he's been making the rounds at some BID's trying to drum up either support or at least some second looks. Don't know how the Repub base is going to take that.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to see someone else is considering running for district seat 1 on the Dem side. I've meet Sherry Lightner on a couple of occasions, and she doesn't strike me as a serious candidate. In fact, she reminds me of Kathleen Blavit.

Anonymous said...

A family member from the conservative side of the aisle of mine had a door visit from Marti too. They aren't set on either candidate, but were highly impressed with her trouble shooting angle. They think the city needs someone at the council to ask more questions.

Anonymous said...

wow - it sounds like Marti is doing a lot of walking, and obviously hitting Republican households too. It doesn;t look like April Boling will have a chance against such a popular figure, maybe we should concentrate our efforts in the 1st

Anonymous said...

Juan Vargas for city attorney! Come on, Juan should be thinking about running for mayor. He would give both Jerry and Steve a run for their money.

Anonymous said...

I agree, juan vargas for Mayor. I can't think of a better candidate (well if Jerry Butkiewicz really wont run)

Anonymous said...

J Agatha

I hear that there is going to be debate in south county for the 78th and that San Diego Politico Blog is sponsoring. I was told that you have teamed up with something called the South Bay Forum.

Can you tell us if this is true? The venue is suppose to be Bell Junior High on November 5th.

I am told that all 4 major candidates are attending.
Marty, Arlie, Auday and John. I hope it is not a giveaway forum for Marty!!!!! David Valladolid and the other Latinos are supporting him. I hope they open their eyes.

If you are hosting the forum...I hope you will ask each of them about their positions on:

Public Safety..Specifically, state funding for police and fire fighter pensions and health benefits? Localities are going to be bankrupted by paying for these well deserved and earned benefits. We need to repeal prop 13 or figure out a new way to pay public employees the retirement plans they deserve with full medical benefits.


Public Schools vs. Charter? Hightech High is a publicly funded private school franchise (McCharter) for liberal elites. They just opened a site in East Chula Vista. Not on the westside where they would have to serve the working families. What a scam!!! They only serve about 10% of the poor, english language learners or special needs students at their current sites in Liberty Station. If each public school only had those demographics to serve ....I expect they would be as successful (or as fraudulent). Why is Marty Block supporting High Tech High? Why is he taking money from the Charter School Lobby in Sacramento?

What about Universal Healthcare and the single payer system? Where is the courage from our dems.? Arnold seems to be our hero here. I can's stand it.

And recently, MTS voted to discourge use of public transportation with a doubling of their fees by 2009. Ridership according to them is not going to suffer. Ridership...how about the working poor, students, and families who use all of the MTS resources for their survival. To go to work, to school, to access health-care. Ridership may not suffer because the wealthy may start using the bus instead of paying $ 4.00 a gallon of gas. Our working families will suffer. Meanwhile SanDAG and MTS are focusing all available resources on the 15 corridor. God knows we do not want the poor Poway residents do not have to waste another 10 minutes on the road getting to their anti-urban country-side retreats.

Oh well.

Please help us. With a strong progressive forum.

Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous,

I am the editor and publisher of this blog. And I do not know anything about San Diego Politico co-sponsoring a debate in the 78th AD. Would you like to tell me were you heard this? You can e-mail me at sdpolitico@gmail.com.

Anonymous said...

Forget Juan for mayor, why not Tony Young? or Ben Hueso for mayor? Really I mean Juan's got the pension baggage from his votes on the City Council, not to mention the Chargers Ticket fiasco, the Qualcomm City box fiasco and insurance money he took while denying compensation benefits to those who lost homes during the Cedar fire...

Anonymous said...

Yes I did attend the CPI event and purchased an ad in program. I saw many friends and met a bunch of new folks too.

As a candidate for office, for the first time since I was a Del Mar Councilman (1984-1988) I can state my own political views without any "filtering" from clients, board of directors, etc.

A wonderful sense of freedom!

School Board is by law a "non-partisan" office, and if there is any issue which should (ideally) be free of party politics it is our schools.

Safe and successful schools are critical to all aspects of our community.

SDUSD has about 140,000 students, 15,000 employees and a general fund budget of approx. $1.3 Billion.

For more information on my campaign see:

www.barnettforschoolboard.org

or feel free to email me at: scott@barnettforschoolboard.org


Thanks

Scott Barnett