Perspective

We were going to take some time to complain about our busy week in this post. We wanted to get involved in the community a little so for the past couple of years we’ve volunteered to help pass out, door-to-door, our Rolando Beach community newsletter. Also, in preparation for election day, we volunteered to deliver 90 April Boling for City Council yard signs to the homes of supporters in the east San Diego area.

Well, that’s all come to a head this week as on top of everything else we’ve got going on, we are trying to accomplish the aforementioned with a nasty head cold that is descending into our chest in the midst of a 95 degree heat wave. Good times.

Yeah, we were going to whine a little until we were reminded of some other community organizers and the trials they face on a daily basis.

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.

The Beers with Demo Election Guide

Beers with Demo is proud to endorse Ms. April Boling for 7th District City Council here in America’s Finest City. April is a CPA and owns a small but successful accounting firm here in San Diego. We got a chance to meet here last Saturday and she seemed a very pleasant, down-to-earth and earnest person.

As you may know, San Diego has put itself in a terrible bind with its underfunded pensions to the public employee unions and with her opponent, Marti Emerald, garnering the support of those very unions, we are very skeptical that Emerald will do anything to buck the current system of the unions calling the shots down at city hall.

April is a very strong supporter of Prop. 13 and against raising taxes which is just city hall’s way of passing responsibility for their ineptness and corruption on to the citizens who didn’t want or ask for this unholy mess.

And while Emerald believes that the illegal immigration issue is something for the Feds to deal with (not an entirely unreasonable stance, by the way), April is committed to ending the city’s de facto “sanctuary city” status. (It should not be the primary responsibility of municipalities to enforce federal law but neither should there be a tacit or silent recognition of illegal immigration by this city while hiding behind the its-not-our-job façade).

The only two propositions on the ballot that we really care about are the two eminent domain ones… 98 and 99.

Yes on 98

No on 99

Prop. 98 sets a higher bar for eminent domain than does 99. 98 allows you to challenge your case in court where the final decision is taken out of the hands of the very public agency trying seize your property. There are simply too many loopholes and exceptions for taking of private property in 99. In fact, the independent legislative analysis says that a Yes vote on 99 means, “In a limited number of cases, government would no longer have the authority to take a single-family home." Emphasis on limited. Its no surprise 99 is backed heavily by the developers.

Unfortunately, 98 is getting beat by 99 in the polls in large part because of false information being spread regarding rent control. The 99ers want you to believe that rent control would be eliminated immediately if 98 passes. This is a lie. Landlords will not be able to raise the rent on existing tenants. Once the tenant leaves, the landlord will be able to raise the rent to market rates on the next tenant but will be restricted by existing rent control laws from raising them further while that tenant resides there.

We would like to see them eliminated altogether but believe 98 is an entirely reasonable step in the right direction. Unfortunately, people don’t bother to read the actual ballot language.