Politics Report: Time for the Mailbag | Voice of San Diego

I don’t think I would have predicted that Rep. Scott Peters would be the first prominent San Diego Democrat to suggest that President Joe Biden should end his re-election campaign, but that’s the way it is.

This may not be just a San Diego story, but San Diego will be sending dozens of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August. And if all the excitement about Biden making way for a new candidate somehow reignites, those delegates will suddenly have a historic task.

One of them told us he remains fully behind Biden. Regardless, it will not help his re-election when Biden’s biggest fans and the media many of them follow have openly expressed that he is incapable of running a decent campaign.

That’s all I have on it, but I find it fascinating.

Mailbag

Last week I asked you to send me any questions you have or anything you want me to respond to. You sent a lot of things, thank you very much. Some of these will take longer for me to answer. Here are some that are easier.

Where is Lopez?

— JS

I got a bunch of them. My colleague, friend and editor-in-chief of Voice, Andrea Lopez-Villafaña, was on vacation for a few weeks. Rest assured, she is healthy and continues to have a good relationship with Voice. I still speak to her almost every day. When she returns to work, I’m sure she will have a lot to say about what she’s been through, but you’ll have to wait a little while.

I was blown away and still think about the story you told us some time ago when you and your daughter were coming back from a Padre game. Does she still feel the same? Has anything in her life over the last year changed this (at least in my eyes) rather gloomy analysis of her views on life in a metropolis?

— GS

Last year my daughter and I went to a Padres game. She’s wearing a Luis Campusano jersey (she’s a catcher) and knows as much as any 11-year-old here. It was a great night.

As we left the game, she said something that I’ve talked about at all sorts of events and podcasts (though I’m not sure I’ve ever written about it?).

Your opinion on cities: We always talk about how we have a lot in common, but she said she thinks I’m more of a “beach and city type” and she’s more of a “mountain and country type.”

When I asked why, she said the cities were so dirty and there were so many suffering people.

She’s right, I love cities. My mom took me to San Francisco when I was eight. As we left the BART station downtown, I looked up and was hooked for life. Trips to New York and later Madrid, Barcelona and Hamburg definitely turned me into a city person. I find them exciting and the energy of people doing things and going places makes me competitive and intrigued.

I still remember the first time I went to New York City as an adult with a real list of work-related tasks for the day – ride the subway with purpose, eat a sneaky lunch, finish my meetings, and stroll through Central Park. For me, it was a dream come true to be in New York with a purpose, walking around and acting like I was meant to be there.

It hurt me a lot that I had a child who I let think of cities like this – limited to the saddest aspects of what we have to deal with here.

So what is the update? She’s much more interested in surfing now and participated in the San Diego Junior Lifeguards program this summer, so she’s been at the beach a lot and I think it’s safe to say she’s even more of a beach girl now than she used to be.

And as for cities? “I still think downtown is disgusting.” In some ways, I don’t think she considers Petco Park, Waterfront Park and other downtown cultural and architectural attractions as “downtown.” But I still have a lot of work to do to restore the “city” brand.

Should the City of San Diego reinstate the City Manager model…?

–RS

The Strong Mayor system has replaced the City Manager system in San Diego. Does anyone really believe that the Strong Mayor system is an improvement?

-SCH

This year marks 20 years since San Diego voters approved the transformation of city government from a city manager to a “strong mayor.” Voters agreed, and two years later the city implemented the proposal, making the mayor the city’s top government leader, responsible for most of its employees.

In city manager forms of government, the mayor is merely a presiding, voting member of the city council. The mayor and council get to vote on who becomes city manager and then serve as trustees, casting deciding votes and providing official input on cities’ direction and priorities.

The new approach was designed to make city government more attuned to the public and the drive to achieve great things. The mayor could respond more directly to concerns about how the city was functioning, rather than having a manager and other trustees in between.

The city council should also be “strong.” It should have a new council president and an independent budget analyst. The council president should have the same power as the mayor previously had. The council should be freer to find legislative solutions to the city’s problems.

Oddly enough, while reformers wanted the mayor to no longer preside over City Council meetings, he still wanted to preside over one type of meeting: closed sessions. I still wish I knew exactly how those conversations went when someone insisted that the mayor be allowed to conduct the council’s business in its most sensitive areas of responsibility.

So was it good to change it? I get asked that question about once a quarter at an event. Former supporters of the government change plan are among the first to say they were wrong and that it hasn’t improved the way the city functions. On the 20th anniversary of the vote, perhaps it would be good to give them all a formal opportunity to speak.

I must say that I really appreciate the independent budget analyst. It is nice to have a well-resourced, almost journalistic body that explains and examines staff plans and proposals in detail, while being accountable only to the council as a whole and to the public.

But the city does not seem to me to be any more impressive or more efficient than it was in 2004. Nor does it seem to be much more capable of achieving great things and providing excellent services.

But I don’t see any chance of changing that. The energy and resources it would take to set up a committee or initiative to reform the charter are enormous, and I don’t sense the will of the grassroots to mobilize them. And I think that while there might be some benefits to switching back, it will always be about the people in those roles.

Any good leader can rise up and then become influential in any power-sharing system. Nathan Fletcher would likely have been the same leader as a “strong mayor” as he was as chairman of the County Board of Supervisors. If Kevin Faulconer had become supervisor and eventually chairman, he would likely run things much like he did as mayor with his thousands of city employees.

The latest deal from Dealmaker

Volunteer and negotiator Steve Cushman, who has advised many San Diego mayors over the years, has a new job this summer: to be the lead negotiator for the proposed mega-shelter lease.

After strong backlash over the city’s original lease, Mayor Todd Gloria’s office last month signed a contract with the experienced commercial real estate executive and owner – who does not have a broker’s license – to provide “consulting services on general real estate matters.”

The contract calls for Cushman to provide services “valued at most $24,999 over the potential full five-year term of the agreement” to help the city “secure and negotiate a lease for a property to be used for homeless services that can house up to 1,000 individuals.”

Gloria spokeswoman Rachel Laing said Cushman will receive $1 a year, with the city covering the cost of required insurance for consultants, totaling $7,000 this year.

Over the past few weeks, Cushman has been in regular negotiations with the owner of the large warehouse in Middletown that Gloria plans to turn into a large shelter.

“The mayor’s directive from day one was not just to me, but to the entire city staff, that it had to make sense as a real estate deal,” Cushman said.

Why Cushman? “We enlisted Cushman’s help because his lifelong experience in real estate is an asset to the city,” Laing wrote in a text message. “He also brings credibility and the trust of community leaders, having dedicated his time and efforts to preventing and addressing homelessness – from his role as chair of the (Downtown San Diego Partnership) Committee on Downtown Homelessness to his service as (past) president of the Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank.”

The city lacks contracted outside real estate agents. The city has not done business with outside agents since revelations about the city’s nightmare scenarios in the past involving real estate agents and their initially undisclosed payments. Laing argued that Cushman’s long-standing commitment of time, money and effort to homeless services made him “the opposite of the ‘volunteers’ or consultants whose work for the city resulted in personal financial gain.”

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