The Good, the Bad....

… a quick spin around what’s been happening in San Diego and California, recently.

Two Goods actually: Our endorsed candidate for City Council District 7, April Boling, finished roughly 2 percentage points above her next closest competitor, Marti Emerald, 47-45 in a field of 4 but since April did not win a majority of the votes she will run-off against Emerald in the general elections in November. Frankly, we were surprised by the results. Boling was virtually unknown going into this campaign against the widely recognized, Marti Emerald, who had been on T.V. for years here in town as a consumer watch dog-type reporter.

We credit April’s mailers which stated very clearly her positions and conversely exposed Emerald’s dubious stands on taxes, Prop. 13 and the endorsements of the public sector labor unions which is not the “positive” here in San Diego it may be in other cities.

On to November!

And two days ago, a judge ruled that Blackwater Worldwide could open its training center in Otay Mesa despite San Diego Mayor, Jerry Sanders’ attempt to first require public hearings on the project. (For more backround, read here).

Folks, for those of you not familiar with this subject, we’ve broken-out our B.S. decoder ring to put in plain English what Sanders was trying to do. What Sanders was attempting to accomplish with these “hearings” was a 3-ring political circus that would give air time to all the anti-War, anti-Bush and anti-Blackwater kooks, loons and clowns that would’ve crawled out of their holes long enough to “raise grave concerns” over the true nature of “what will really be going on inside that facility”. He was hoping that Blackwater would fold like a lawn chair from all the negative publicity – but they didn’t – good on’em.

Sanders caved to political pressure at the expense of the defense of U.S. naval assets and both he and the city attorney, Mike Aguirre, got spanked. The two ought to be ashamed of themselves.


The Bad: Prop. 98 got shotdown but the limp, ineffectual, maintain-the-status-quo on eminent domain Prop. 99 passed. Because of all the loop-holes and exceptions contained in 99, a homeowner is no more secure in his property than he was before. The voters bought the lie that rent control would be eliminated once 98 passed and the rent control scare is what doomed this Proposition.

Prop. 99, backed heavily by developers and something called the League of California Cities, only appeared on the ballot in response to the much stricter Prop. 98. The current President of the League happens to be our very own city councilman, Jim Madaffer, who in an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune in January took exception to questions regarding the League’s sincerity in wanting tighter restrictions on eminent domain. Madaffer claimed that 99 would not necessarily prevent local government misbehavior but said that is why the League is interested in further reforms. Well, now it appears Jimbo has changed his tune because yesterday he said the League was not interested in any further reforms, that the voters had spoken, and that “any further restrictions should be left to individual cities” Liar, liar!

This post is running way too long. We’ll pick it up below.