County Board of Supervisors District 3: A Critical Contest
San Diego’s most important race in terms of its political impact has to be for control of County Supervisorial District 3.
It’s also the most controversial, with a vulnerable Republican incumbent, and two Democrats seeking support from both activists and the liberal establishment in their party. Now there’s even the taint of a scandal about one of those Democratic candidates.
How many other electoral contests have you heard of where a “peace pact” was negotiated and publicly announced between two candidates prior to the election?
Three of the most influential figures in San Diego’s liberal coalition sent a message to Democrats Friday: After the primary, no more fighting over the county’s District 3 seat.
County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, Democratic Party Chairman Will Rodriguez-Kennedy and Labor Council Executive Secretary Keith Maddox sent the letter to “Progressive Allies” and announced a “Unity Breakfast” at party headquarters on Friday, March 6, a few days after the primary election. Both Democrats seeking to unseat Kristin Gaspar pledged to be there and to make their support known for the one who makes it through the primary to face Gaspar one on one. (It’s also possible, though far less likely, that Gaspar will be the one who doesn’t advance to the November general election.)
Democrats now outnumber Republicans by 25,000 voters in District 3, but there is a good chance the top two in November will feature one candidate from each party.
Supervisor Kristin Gaspar’s position is the best chance the Republican party has for keeping control of County government. Shifting demographics, her adherence to the Cult of Trump, and a perception that she’s bored with the job are all factors working against the incumbent.
Shortly after being elected to her current position, Gaspar ran for the 49th Congressional seat, ending up in 5th place. She was reportedly considering another run for the House of Representatives, but backed off the idea.
She’s tacked hard to the right, hoping to get some of that MAGA mojo working for her. A focus on federal issues like immigration made her attractive to Fox News. Two meetings in the White House with the president as he denounced immigrants and California’s sanctuary law haven’t thrilled some constituents.
If I lived in the North County, I’d vote for a cheeseburger over Gaspar.
Fortunately for residents of cities of Encinitas, Solana Beach, Del Mar, Escondido; northern areas of San Diego from San Pasqual south to Tierrasanta and Mira Mesa, University City and Scripps Ranch they have viable choices.
Because there’s much to tell here, I’m deviating a bit from the format I’ve been using to examine other electoral contests in San Diego. I’m also going to say up front that I have a bias in this race. More on that later...
Escondido City Council member Olga Diaz has more than a decade of experience operating as a minority of one in an overtly hostile and reactionary setting. She was Escondido’s first Latina councilwoman, motivated to get into politics by a proposed ban on renting homes to undocumented immigrants.
Diaz owned a coffee shop in town at the time and the issue was so divisive that she started getting insults from people because of her Mexican heritage.
In 2014, she challenged incumbent Sam Abed for mayor, losing by a substantial margin. It was an ugly contest, where then-union UFCW leader Mickey Kasparian mailed out flyers denouncing Diaz as a “sell out.” Conservatives from her district launched an ill-fated recall campaign, seeking to get her off the City Council.
In 2016 Diaz cast the deciding vote at a California Coastal Commission meeting where executive director Dr. Charles Lester was fired. Those against the move, including billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer delivered a petition with nearly 10,000 signatures asking the commission to “put coastal protection before the demands of special interests.”
This week, the Coast News broke a story alleging the Escondido councilwoman supported Republican Gaspar’s 2016 campaign on the down low. Ethics complaints filed with the San Diego County Democratic Central Committee are asking them to reconsider whether Diaz should keep her rating as a “qualified” candidate.
At the heart of this mess is Republican consultant Jason Roe. Alert readers might remember Roe’s involvement with the fight against raising the minimum wage in San Diego.
From the Coast News:
“Olga reached out and said that she wanted to be helpful,” said Roe. “And so, she started to feed me information about things that were going on within Dave Roberts’ office, within the Democratic Party Central Committee, generally as it related to the campaign. Kind of just keeping me in the loop on what was going on.”
Roe and Diaz both said that they met during the political skirmish over the Escondido Country Club housing proposal, in which Roe worked for the owner of the project and Diaz supported the project. That owner of the development, the Beverly Hills-based Michael Schleisinger, is now a campaign contributor to both the Diaz and Gaspar campaigns.
Though they met in the context of the County Club fallout, the relationship did not end there.
This story, assuming it pans out, is an eeeew moment. It’s one thing to not like a Democratic candidate (Dave Roberts in this instance) and it’s another to rat out your party.
In this election Roe is a consultant for Kristin Gaspar, and he clearly was delighted that this old arrangement might see the light of day.
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The Union-Tribune has done an admirable public service in publishing interviews with candidates for all the major offices in San Diego, giving readers the opportunity to see where those seeking to serve the public stand on a variety of issues.
I’ve included links where available in each candidate’s profile and I urge you to read them. The transcripts include “uhs and ums” so there would be no misunderstanding about context.
(The term “money quote” in my listings of candidates means I’ve picked something out from the UT interviews that seemed to characterize the candidate.)
Link to Union-Tribune Interview with Olga Diaz
Money Quote:
I believe strongly that, uh, my years of experience and the wide range of topics I’ve had to address as an elected official in North County prepared me for this position. I don’t think it’s an entry level elected official position. I think you have to have some experience to be able to navigate the complexities of local government in this area. Uh, and that’s why I feel that I’m the strongest candidate.
In addition to that, I’m also bilingual. Um, very many times if there’s any kind of news coverage that needs to happen in Spanish, uh, at least for the last decade, I was usually the person taking the interviews, writing the op-eds or whatever, trying to make sure that the Latino community was adequately communicated with. Um, I feel like strongly that that is an important component of, uh, the change that is coming to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Um, I’m very proud to have been, um, the, the connection to the Latino community as we move our way into the census.
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Democrat Olga Diaz is an Escondido City Councilmember, and Interim Dean of Counseling at Palomar Community College.
Why she’s running, via an interview with Alianza North County:
“When my term is finished in 2020, I will have served on the Escondido City Council for 12 years. In that time, I have gained the expertise in local government issues that only comes from experience. I now know more about sewer systems, road repaving, public finance, public safety, housing, general plans, plan amendments, zoning, and density than I thought I ever would.”
“These issues might not be clear and obvious for most people, but as a policy maker, it is important for us to learn about all of these issues and make them accessible to people. The expertise which I have gained from 12 years in local government has value and it’s a value which I can bring to the County Board of Supervisors. I believe I have helped the City of Escondido to navigate through some difficult and complex issues; I believe I can do the same for the people of Escondido at the County level.”
“The land use decisions made in District Three are made primarily by incorporated cities. When it comes to an issue like housing, we need to realize there are ways in which all of these jurisdictions can help the situation and have it be beneficial to them.”
“Most, if not all, public agencies own land,” Olga explained. “I want to take an inventory of all these lands, whether they are owned by cities, the county, or water boards or school and hospital boards. We identify which of these lands are developable and place the lands in a trust or under a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA). Then, these developable lands are ‘donated’ to build affordable housing for people. Once the projects appreciate in value and can be sold out of the Trust or JPA, the proceeds from the sale help to pay back the jurisdiction for their donation.”
Organizational Endorsements: A dozen local Democratic clubs, Escondido Firefighters Union, Run Women Run, IBEW Local Union 569, Ironworkers Local 229, UA Local 230, San Diego County Probation Officers Association, San Diego Deputy District Attorneys Association, San Diegans Against Crime, Teamsters 911 San Diego, Engage San Diego Action Fund, Climate Defenders Action Fund.
Funds Raised: $113,062.21 (through 12/18/19)
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Kristin Gaspar declined to be interviewed by the Union-Tribune.
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Republican Kristin Gaspar was elected in 2016, narrowly defeating scandal tarnished Dave Roberts. She was an Encinitas City Councilmember and Mayor before moving up.
Gaspar has been in the news lately advocating for more infrastructure for cars and less for other modes of transit. She hate-hate-hates unions, who are spending mucho dinero to defeat her.
Why she’s running:
I am so proud of the progress we’ve made during my first term on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
When I ran, I promised to focus on the things that matter most to each of us in our communities. Since taking office, I have worked to help those who are most vulnerable in our society: the elderly, the formerly incarcerated, those struggling with mental health or addiction, and our homeless population, while protecting taxpayers and keeping our communities safe.
We are turning things around using innovative approaches that focus on results but we have much more work to do.
Money quote (From the Coast News):
“I think it’s important that we talk about the union influence because that’s what’s really going on. They’re driving up the cost of every contract.” said Gaspar. “They’re making it to where all the new work big construction projects in this town are project labor agreements. You’ll hear the term PLA, but the PLAs exclude nonunion shops for bidding on projects. I think that’s wrong. I promote fair and open competition that keeps the price of our projects as low as possible in an area where these projects are very expensive.“
Gaspar said little about what she felt about Diaz. As in her campaign’s emails, she instead zeroed in on Lawson-Remer, who has raised far more money than Diaz so far in the run-up to the primary. Foreshadowing her electioneering messaging that has already come out in some campaign emails, Gaspar cast Lawson-Remer as a radical activist.
Organizational Endorsements: Republican Party of San Diego County, San Diego Asian-Americans for Equality, SD County Medical Society, SD Deputy Sheriff’s Association, North County Association of Realtors
Funds Raised thru 12/31/19: $379,450.11
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Link to Union-Tribune Interview with Terra Lawson-Remer
Money Quote
I think this is a perfect opportunity for a public bank, a county public bank focused on affordable housing. So it would do a couple things, which is one, we could finance affordable housing at lower rates because we would be able to take the risk capital, and if we take the risky position in a development project, then we’re going to reduce the interest rate and therefore reduce the cost of construction.
It wouldn’t be that risky for the county because if we end up with housing, great. You know, that’s the thing we all need, right? So from our point of view, it isn’t as much of a risk as it might be from an investor’s point of view. So we can reduce the cost of construction. But I think it actually leverages much more than just making it less expensive to build. It also, if we’re doing things at scale, we can start requiring, um, new approaches that do look at economies of scale, like prefab housing that look at, uh, in, you know, in requiring environmental lead standards because it would be public money. And so then we can put constraints on it.
We can use it as a pot to incentivize, uh, more creativity from the private sector who’s bidding for projects once they know that there’s actually going to be a buyer on the other end and they don’t need do one house at a time, that they might be able to do 30, 50, 250 houses a time. It helps incentivize them to be more aggressive in trying to reduce costs because they know there is a market for that. Right now, there’s no market.
I met Democrat Terra Lawson-Remer when she was organizing for “Flip the 49th,” the successful effort to rid northern San Diego of Congressman Darrell Issa’s brand of baloney.
Only then did I realize she was the daughter of Larry Remer, now a political consultant, but back in the day (I mean waaay back) he was co-editor with me at the San Diego Door.
When she decided to run for office, she reached out to me to help with her campaign. Later on her dad --my old friend-- asked me to consider writing about the campaign in this blog. I said no to both requests for a variety of reasons.
Now it’s time for me to write up this contest, and I want to be clear about this: I would vote for her in a heartbeat, but I don’t happen to live in D3.
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I love that Sup. Gaspar has cast Terra Lawson-Remer as a radical activist.
It’s totally true. Like when she made the news in 1997 as plaintiff in a successful challenge of San Diego’s curfew law. Like when she and another activist rappelled seven stories down the side of the Plaza building to hang a banner from the 11th floor with “Bush” with an arrow pointing in one direction and “Truth” with an arrow pointing in the opposite direction.
Lawson-Remer challenges injustice; Kristen Gaspar abides it.
Her involvement in local politics goes back to the 1990’s, when she worked in the office of the-City Councilman Juan Vargas.
Along the way she’s picked up a Phd, a law degree, and a whole bunch of wonky policy stuff that makes my head spin when I read it. She worked on environmental policy for the Obama administration, as well as for Amnesty International.
As co-author of the 2015 book Fulfilling Social and Economic Rights, Lawson-Remer won the 2019 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.
Previous winners of the Grawemeyer Award for Improving World Order include Mikhail Gorbachev, honored for his 1988 address to the United Nations which led to the effective end of the Cold War and paved the way for the democratization of Eastern Europe and the Baltic republics; Trita Parsi, for his work toward reducing tensions in the Middle East; and Dana Burde, for her work examining the influence foreign-backed funding for education has on war-torn countries and how such aid affects humanitarian and peace-building efforts.
When Trump was elected, she dropped everything and started organizing.
Alas, Terra Lawson-Remer has also been touched by “scandal.”
Lawson-Remer, one of the two Democratic Party candidates for the officially nonpartisan race to unseat Republican incumbent Kristin Gaspar, initially listed herself as an “Economist/Environmental Attorney” as her ballot designation. But Judge Taylor ruled that, because Lawson-Remer is licensed to practice law in New York and not California, she must remove the title from the ballot…
...“I am honored that our campaign is the No. 1 target of a Republican Super PAC,” she told The Coast News. “We’re being targeted because they know we will put the public interest over special interests in San Diego County. My dedication is to serve my community in every possible way.”
Plaintiffs who support Gaspar and Lawson-Remer’s Democratic Party challenger in the race, Escondido City Councilwoman Olga Diaz, brought the legal challenge.
Organizational Endorsements: San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council + 7 local labor unions (Incl. SEIU, which represents County workers), SD County Democrats for Environmental Action + 10 Democratic clubs, LGBTQ Victory Fund, Equality California.
Funds Raised thru 1/1/20: $138,737.69 [plus $243,000.00 from ‘friends of TLR sponsored by local 89]
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