U-T Editoral Board Endorse In San Diego City Races

In a complete surprise to everyone the UT's Editorial Republican Board followed suit with the San Diego County Republican Party in endorsing in all the city races.  Well, where the San Diego County Republican Party did not provide them guidance of an endorsement, then they were forced to endorse the Democrat.

• Mayor: Carl DeMaio best protects the Republican brand and they think can best beat Representative Bob Filner
• District 1: Ray Ellis "has the best shot at toppling the incumbent"
• District 3: Todd Gloria drew no Republican challengers
• District 5: Mark Kersey is the "single candidate [that] stepped forward in this district"
• District 7: Scott Sherman "recruited to the race by April Boling"
• District 9: Marti Emerald drew no Republican challengers

Read the editors sound reasoning here for Mayor and here for city council.

Lets look back to see how well the Union Tribune's Editorial Republican Board did in their 2008 endorsements for these same cycle (except of course it would not have included the additional of  District 9):

San Diego City Council (only a 33% win ratio)

• Lost - Philip Thalheimer, District 1 (Democratic Opponent)
• Won - Todd Gloria, District 3 (Democratic Opponent)
• Lost - April Boling, District 7 (Democratic Opponent)

Again, these endorsements matched the San Diego County Republican Party where there was a Republican in the city race.

Setting Sherri Lightner's Record Straight

There has been a lot of mail coming from Sherri Lightner’s opponent lately—firing plenty of attacks, but offering little, if any, substance. It seems that he is more interested in tearing down Lightner’s image than building up his own.

Since he does not seem to want to address any real issues, I thought I might take the time to compare Sherri Lightner with her opponent.

Neighborhoods

Lightner is actively involved with planning and community groups to understand the concerns of residents and stand up for important issues even while running her campaign [more]…
Where is Thalheimer?

Accountability/Openness

Lightner provides detailed answers to questionnaires, shares her political values and positions on major issues on her website, attends many public forums and debates, and has a plan for active public outreach…
Thalheimer ignores or refuses opportunities to answer questions from the public and often replies (when he responds at all) to questionnaires with one-word answers and no explanation.

Outsourcing

Lightner believes in a cautious approach to outsourcing to ensure proper oversight, no loss of service levels, and real savings to taxpayers [more]…
Thalheimer wants to outsource as many services as possible now.

Pension

Lightner realizes that there are no easy answers, that the grim reality may be that the City of San Diego is legally responsible for already-promised benefits, and that much of the funding for these benefits is dangerously invested in the stock market [more]…
Thalheimer thinks that halting the DROP program (which has already been eliminated for new city employees and may not be legally possible to end for older employees) is the silver bullet to solve the problem (GOP mailer, September, 2008).

Budget

Lightner believes that a line-by-line review of the budget will reveal costly and unnecessary expenses and programs that will not impact crucial city and neighborhood services [more]…
Thalheimer prefers to fund things he can “touch” (LJVCA Candidate Caucus, 4/23/08).

Economic Development

Lightner wants to partner with local universities and businesses to bring green industry and green collar jobs to San Diego in order to strengthen our economy by creating good paying jobs and create a new tax base [more]…
Thalheimer has not proposed any ideas.

Overdevelopment

Lightner believes we must ensure that roads, water, open space, parks and available transit be in place before runaway density overtakes us [more]…
Thalheimer says, “We must go up” (La Jolla District 1 Primary debate, 4/22/08).

Paid Parking

Lightner led the effort to prevent paid parking at the beach and on our streets [more]…
Thalheimer was first in favor of paid parking (11/23/07), then against it (4/22/08), and now…?

Regents Road Bridge

Lightner knows that we need results for fire and traffic safety now—many of which can be gained through building a fire station in south University City and improving traffic flow along the Genesee corridor [more]…
Thalheimer was first against it (2004), and then in favor of it (4/22/08), and then against it (La Jolla Village Community Association Forum, 4/23/08), then in favor of it again (5/7/08), and wants to spend millions of dollars and waste several years on designs and planning while ignoring residents’ current needs.

I-5/S-56 Connector

Lightner has signed on to Stop5Noise movement and opposes the removal or destruction of any residential property [more]…
Thalheimer refuses to rule out the destruction of private homes; has not signed onto Stop5Noise.

Code of Fair Campaign Practices

Lightner signed the pledge in March 2008 and has focused her campaign “on issues rather then untruths or distortions," as promised [more]…
Thalheimer signed in March 2008 as well, but has he really kept his word?

It is clear that we have a stark choice in this election. Sherri Lightner is the obvious choice if you would like a say in government, want to know where your councilmember stands (and why), believe that infrastructure should lead development rather than follow it, and is willing to roll up her sleeves and get her hands dirty with the details instead of glossing over big problems.

Come November 4th; let’s make the choice for Sherri Lightner!

Philly Boy Has Bad Money Sense

With the June election behind us lets look towards the November Election. Since the media is not talking about it, then I guess someone should at least remind people about the why Phil "Philly Boy" Thalheimer can't win in November.

We don't have to go back very far, just remember the infamous San Diego Union-Tribune story, besides the other ones listed below. Much of these are from his own words and why residents of District 1 should NOT vote for him:

1) Early on he invested all his money on margin, sold short and lost it all, plus another $30,000
- He said, "I didn't realize you could lose more than you had"

2) His first job as an orderly was tough for him, because he had a hard time relating to youth and
after two years his boss told him he was not empathetic and should find another job

3) He worked for the controversial San Diego Data Processing Center

4) He left his job with the City of San Diego over people skills
- He said, “I never liked working for other people,”
- Also quoted as saying,, “As much time as I spent in local government, I never felt like I fit.”
- Now Philly Boy wants to come back to city government

5) He lucked out with being able to run the Flight Training International, even despite himself.
- Even with in his own words he called his business plan, "flawed"

6) In his previous candidate statement he says, "Phil Thalheimer will use business skills to clean
up the financial mess," he said, "refused to accept one dime of developer money," and "I have not and will not take one penny of developer/lobbyist campaign contributions."
- Is his business sense something we can afford?
- Now that he found wealth as developer he is okay with their money.
- Looking through his reports, I now see plenty of developer & lobbyist money.

7) Flip flops on the Regents bridge

8) He spent over $1,000,000 of his own personal money on his last losing city council campaign.
- It seems he really didn't learn from his other past investment losses.

Sadly, the Voice of San Diego reported Philly Boy's company, Flight Training International is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration. People will be watching the results of the investigations.

Back in Town

After leaving town for a few days, I came back yesterday to see San Diego was literally crashing in on itself. I saw the national news coverage of the La Jolla landslide, but missed the internal politics. Seems that Mike Aguirre may have given the insiders (the Mayor, the UT, the downtown establishments) enough fodder to make him look like he has gone off the deep end. That, combined with the ugly UT story yesterday pointing out the cost of his pension lawsuits, marks the official start of the "Anyone But Mike" campaign. We Dems need to be careful and start looking for a real Dem candidate (read: NOT Alan Bersin), in case Mike really is in trouble or decides to run for Mayor.

Some pieces of gossip I picked up this morning:

1. New names being floated among Dem circles for Mayor of San Diego: Scott Peters and Bob Filner. Both are intriguing, but have some serious negatives. I heard both were being floated in circles at the San Diego Democratic Club Dinner this weekend. The beauty is, with Francis and Sanders duking it out, whoever the Dem candidate ends up being, s/he almost guarantees themselves a spot in the November run-off. In a Presidential year, you gotta believe a Dem has a great shot at pulling it out against whatever bloodied Republican makes in into the general. So, who is going to stand up and make it official?

2. I had a friend e-mail me about the Labor Council's Candidate training this past Saturday. I guess there were quite a few Republicans who came out for the pre-endorsement meeting. That should be interesting. Are we going to have Republicans looking for favor with the unions this go around? I guess appearing mainstream must poll well.

3. It looks like there will definitely be two viable Republicans running in San Diego City Council District 1 (Scott Peters is termed out). Lincoln Club endorsed candidate - Phil Thalheimer is facing opposition from millionaire-Republican Marshall Merrifield. This means Sherry Lightner may be able to get into the run-off just by being the Democrat in this swing district. Not an exciting candidate, Lightner lacks the polish you would want from a candidate in that district. But, I hear she has a substantial following in La Jolla and is willing to spend her own money. We will see, but it looks like another likely November showdown.