Thursday, November 26, 2009

Dave Roberts Drops Out of the 50th

From the Desk of Dave Roberts
Thanksgiving Day 2009


Dear Friend,

This past Monday was one of the happiest, yet saddest days of my life. As many of you know, Wally and I have been foster parents for abused children for well over a decade. Years ago, we adopted our first two sons from the foster care system and we are in the process of adopting our third son. About five weeks ago, we were unexpectedly contacted by the San Diego County Department of Children's Services and offered two additional foster children, ages two and one year old, to bring into our home. These children are the half brother and sister of our youngest son. On Monday, we learned that these two young, foster children may become available for adoption and a permanent part of our family. In a short time, our family has almost doubled in size and we have come to love these two children, and they have quickly become an integral part of our family.

Keeping families together is an important value to us and we consider it important that we rescue these two children from their prior environment into one that offers love, a chance for a good education and healthy lifestyle. With our young children so new to our family, my campaign absences are unfair to them and Wally. While we could have hired people to help us, spending time with our newly expanded family cannot be done by anyone else. Parents all over the world are postponing their dreams for their children. I am in good company.

Therefore, after much deliberation and discussion with my family and advisers, I have decided to suspend my campaign for Congress. This decision was made after much thought and many sleepless nights. I thank each one of you who worked so hard to help launch and grow our campaign, particularly our oldest son Robert who accompanied me to many of our campaign events. I thank my advisers, supporters and other volunteers who have been with me from the start, opened their homes for events, and for Wally who shared my dream.

I have decided to refund contributions to all my supporters. Going forward, I will continue to work to build a strong Democratic Party in the 50th Congressional District and use my unique talents to forge bipartisan solutions whenever possible. I will continue to do this in my role as a Solana Beach councilmember and my other local, state and national positions. My hat goes off to both Francine Busby and Tracy Emblem who are still in this race. Once the voters decide next June who our Democratic nominee will be for 2010, I will work with them to defeat Brian Bilbray.

The mission goes on and our work to create jobs, reform healthcare and protect our environment does not cease with the suspension of my campaign for Congress. I will be working tirelessly with each of you to achieve our vision. My best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving! We truly have much to rejoice in my family with our children this year - it will definitely be a table full of lots of love and laughter.


With my sincere best wishes and appreciation,
David W. “Dave” Roberts

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

DeMaio’s Proposal Creates Open Season for Government Contractors, Harms Local Economy

Press Release from Labor:

DeMaio’s Proposal Creates Open Season for Government Contractors, Harms Local Economy

Proposal would ban policies to help local workers and veterans; repeals living wage; could hand contracting power to unelected city manager

SAN DIEGO – (November 23, 2009) – A proposed ballot measure supported by government contractors and Carl DeMaio handcuffs the City of San Diego from creating policies that promote hiring local workers or veterans for public works projects and hands over authority to the city manager to enter into contracts “at his discretion” without safeguards for nepotism, cronyism or favoritism.

Included in the proposal, which is supported by big-dollar government contractors, who filed a lawsuit earlier this year against CalTrans for its minority contracting program, are several provisions that hurt local taxpayers and workers:
• Bans local hiring policies.
• Bans policies to promote the hiring of veterans.
• Bans agreements that prevent strikes on public works projects.
• Bans policies to hire qualified workers.
• Bans policies that promote the payment of health care benefits to workers
• Bans policies that promote the hiring of ex-city workers who have experience providing a recently outsourced service, such as the policy the North County Transit District put in place when it voted to outsource its services this month.
• Allows the City Manager to enter into contracts “at his discretion” without safeguards for nepotism, cronyism or favoritism. If initiative to make strong mayor form of government permanent is defeated in June 2010, this authority would be in the hands of an unelected city manager.
• Repeals the City of San Diego’s Living Wage Ordinance.
• Creates new anti-competitive “Direct Outsourcing” process that would force services like trash or landfill management to be outsourced without letting city employees compete for their jobs. This new process conflicts with Managed Competition process approved by voters in 2006 and supported by Mayor Jerry Sanders.

“The only thing ‘transparent’ about Mr. DeMaio’s proposal is how badly he wants to hand out contracts to his friends in the government contractor industry,” said Lorena Gonzalez, Secretary-Treasurer and CEO of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council. “After making a fortune himself as a government contractor during the Bush Administration, Mr. DeMaio is trying to pass along his tricks to other big-dollar government contractors. But he’s doing it at the expense of San Diego’s taxpayers and local workers.”

The San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO, representing 189,000 firefighters, teachers, nurses and other workers who are making the region a better place to live and work. For more information, visit www.unionyes.org.