San Diego City Council District 9

The newly created San Diego City Council District 9 has, so far, attracted 4 candidates:

Georgette Gomez - From the Environmental Health Coalition
Araceli Martinez - Local attorney
Katherine Eaton - Local activist
Marti Emerald - City Councilmember for District 7

On the surface this race should be Emerald’s to lose. She is an incumbent, is slated to get the Democratic Party's endorsement, and will certainly get Labor's backing.

However, the dynamics of District 9 don't lend themselves to the traditional Labor campaign or the campaign Marti ran in '08. This is a wildly diverse district with many electoral wild cards that can twist turnout scenarios in cartoonish ways.

Resentment from some community members over Emerald moving into District 9 for an "easier" run is present. And there is stronger resentment from some members of the Latino community who feel that D9 was drawn to create more minority empowerment and not be a safe seat for an incumbent. Word on the street is that some heavy hitters in the community are actively seeking out other candidates and willing to significantly back them against Emerald. This isn't about being anti-Emerald but about whom can best represent the newly unified City Heights community.

This could explain Gomez candidacy coming from the left. A majority Latino district may need Latino representation.

Martinez and Eaton appear to be community based candidates that a district centered on City Heights desperately needs.

And Emerald has the experience.

We'll see whom else jumps in. Until then, this race is anybody's game.

NC Times: County Supervisor Pam Slater-Price to step down next year

Slater-Price, 67, represents communities from Solana Beach and Encinitas to Escondido and Rancho Bernardo. She is the District 3 representative on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors and has been elected to five terms as supervisor.

She will have served for 20 years on the board at the end of next year.

Read the article here.

SF Gate: Breaking! John Burton, 78, to run for another term as CA Dem party chair

California Democratic party chair John Burton, 78, hasn't officially announced it yet -- but he has made the decision to run for another term to lead the party in 2013, the Chronicle has learned.

Read the article here.

SDUT: Ban on labor-friendly contracts targeted for ballot

The proposed initiative would ban the city from so-called project labor agreements, which grant unionscontracts. The initiative is similar to a 2010 county ballot measure that passed with more than 75 percent of the vote.  preference on

Read the article here.

VOSD: Council President Open to Competing Pension Plan

Young said he was open to the City Council putting a competing pension plan on the June 2012 ballot. Republican and business supporters of a plan to replace pensions with 401(k)s for most new city employees are nearing the final month of gathering signatures to get it on the ballot. But the City Council can place measures on the ballot, too. Democratic mayoral hopeful Bob Filner has said he'd like the council, which is majority Democratic, to do just that with his still-unfinished pension plan.

Read the article here.

VOSD: The Mayoral Portrait Project: Bob Filner

The best way for us to deal with the job crisis in this economy is to greatly enhance the port's capacity for commerce. If we become a maritime center in San Diego, we're talking about thousands of well-paying jobs — jobs that we lost when the defense industry left that we've never recovered. This is the center of my economic development policy.

Read the article here.

SDCityBeat: Pension reform: us vs. them

“Retiree-health reform was agreed to by the unions, and there are significant other examples of the unions and the city working together to address the real fiscal issues that we all recognize we face,” says Mike Zucchet, general manager of the Municipal Employees Association, the union that represents the city’s white-collar workers. “Obviously… the initiative backers weren’t looking for consensus or cooperation. So, rather than going to the bargaining table, they went the campaign route.”

Read the article here.

SDCityBeat: Pete Wilson sinks

But even longtime San Diegans who regard Wilson as a positive political force should be rolling their eyes at his latest crusade.

Not long after the California Citizens Redistricting Commission (wedrawthelines.ca.gov) approved new district boundaries for the state’s legislature and congressional delegation, Wilson endorsed a campaign to have them overturned through a voter referendum.

If Wilson wants to be viewed as a statesman in his old age, he’s made a bad move. If, on the other hand, he wants to be seen as a bottom-feeding Republican Party hack: Success!

Read the article here.