November 2022 Guide for San Diego Board of Supervisors Races

There are Board of Supervisors choices on the November ballot for people living in County Districts 4 and 5, and they are perhaps the most impactful decisions a voter can make. 

County Boards of Supervisors in California’s system represent a layer of governance/administration with enormous power over how money gets spent and how power is employed in property recording and assessment, law enforcement, judicial administration, tax collection, public welfare, public health, water conservation, and flood protection. 

The five-member elected Board of Supervisors serves as the county legislature, while operating as an executive branch in the oversight of employees, and in a quasi-judicial capacity as the ultimate arbiter of the local planning process.

San Diego County government has been dominated by Republicans in recent decades. While some of these officials have been environmentally conscious, mostly we’re talking about miserly reactionaries concerned with enriching real estate interests and making life miserable for citizens in need of public services.

All of this began to change as term limits and voting districts drawn up by non-elected officials came into being over the past couple of decades. Nathan Fletcher’s election to the Board of Supervisors in 2018 was the beginning of a new era, and in 2020 Democrats constituted the majority in that body. 

Old habits die hard, and there are parts of the County government which have successfully resisted changes in the way they operate. San Diego’s out-of-control sheriff's department has yet to emerge out of the stone ages and has political clout. It’s an institution so defensive about its existence that only the tiniest changes in how it operates have occurred, especially in comparison to other parts of local government. 

Meanwhile, people are dying in jail, the organization is actually poor in fulfilling what the public perceives to be its mission (solving crime), and the county pays out over and over and over again for poor conduct.  

District 4

District 4 is centrally located and is the most diverse of the Supervisors districts. It includes Lemon Grove, La Mesa, Clairemont (Bay Park, Bay Ho, Clairemont Mesa, North Clairemont), Hillcrest, Balboa Park, North Park, Bankers Hill, Old Town, Mission Hills, Normal Heights, University Heights, Oak Park, Webster, Valencia Park, Encanto, Bay Terraces, Paradise Hills, Skyline, Kearney Mesa, Linda Vista, Birdland, Serra Mesa, Civita, portions of Grantville, City Heights, Rolando, Azalea Park, Chollas Creek, Rolando Park, Kensington-Talmadge, Mid-City, Montezuma Mesa, SDSU Mission Valley, Crest – Dehesa, Spring Valley, Casa de Oro & Mt Helix, Rancho San Diego.

(Note: An asterisk next to a name *indicates incumbency)

If you live in District 4, your ballot choices are:

Nathan Fletcher* Democratic Party Endorsed Candidate
Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
Media profile worth reading: 2022 election: Q&A with Nathan Fletcher, District 4 San Diego County supervisor candidate
My two cents: Fletcher’s initiatives mark him as the most impactful supervisor in decades in San Diego. Gone are the days when the government entity charged with most social services was hostile to the people it was supposed to be serving; people tend to forget that applying for food assistance just a few years ago meant having inspectors come to your house to check for moral turpitude.  (Which was sometimes defined as having antiwar posters)
Fletcher paved the way for a democratic majority on the board during his first two years, finding ways to get things done previously considered impossible.  Since 2020, they have orchestrated reforms in community-based programs for seniors, low income families and children, along with ending the decades-long denialism about climate change.
Since much of what the board has done is undeniably popular with voters, the opposition to Fletcher as leader has amounted to the typical GOP playbook consisting of misinformation, smears, threats, and “wink-wink” acts of stochastic violence. (His City Heights home was seriously damaged by arson.)  

Amy Reichert - Republican Party Endorsed Candidate
Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
Media profile worth reading: 2022 election: Q&A with Amy Reichert, District 4 San Diego County supervisor candidate
My two cents: Her claim to fame was a role in organizing opposition to public health measures taken during the pandemic. Now she’s running for office based on the premise that “everybody hates Nathan.” 
It’s the same brand of hallucinatory politics that believed that Gavin Newsom was susceptible to a recall election and is willing to believe that Anthony Fauci is somehow to blame for the pandemic.
KUSI loves this woman; she gets special treatment with interviewers throwing softball questions her way designed to get the soundbites they’re seeking. Beyond being opposed to Nathan Fletcher, Reichert’s campaign takes on a distinctly generic tone. 
She seems incredulous about her opponent not ending homelessness all by himself in his four years in office. Apparently that swipe doesn’t apply to Republicans who might have also been in office. She can bob and weave with the best of them, like responding to questions about the environmental emergency by boasting about her son’s degree in environmental science from San Diego State University.  
But the real bottom line any concerned voter should be concerned with is Reichert’s refusal to admit that Donald J Trump lost the 2020 election. It’s a “both sides” question for her, and by buying into that bullshit, the rest of the MAGA agenda can’t be far behind. 

District 5

District 5 is one of two supervisorial districts predominantly containing unincorporated communities. It is the biggest district in San Diego, covering over 51% of the entire county. It includes the cities of Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos and Escondido, Camp Pendleton Marine Base and the communities of Fallbrook, Bonsall, Valley Center and Borrego Springs. Also included are the Indian Reservations of La Jolla, Los Coyotes, Mesa Grande, Pala, Pauma/Yuima, Rincon, Santa Ysabel and San Pasqual.

If you live in District 5, your ballot choices are:

​Tiffany Boyd-Hodgson - Democratic Party Endorsed Candidate
Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
Media profile worth reading: Tiffany Boyd-Hodgson hopes to oust incumbent in county’s Fifth District 
My two cents: The early read on Boyd-Hodgson campaign was that she had a serious uphill slog to defeat an incumbent politician with a long local pedigree. She seems to be gaining traction, as local Republicans are now paying attention to the D5 Supervisor race.
Her campaign comes out of owning a small business and serving as a Director on the Vallecitos Water District board. Issues include reproductive choice, common sense gun laws, climate science, water source diversity, affordable housing, mobile homes and rent control protections.
The North County Leadership Council Opposed to Boyd-Hodgson for Supervisor 2022, sponsored by the Lincoln Club of San Diego County, quickly surpassed a $100K in donations after registering on August 12. Any time you see the words “Lincoln Club of San Diego” associated with opposition to a campaign, a blizzard of hit piece emails is bound to follow.
What’s making the GOP so nervous? Maybe it’s the growing revulsion to the party’s stances on women’s health care in the wage of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade. Maybe it’s the distinct stench coming from the moral rot found within the party’s national leadership. And maybe they’re just trying to make sure that voters with a history of voting for anything with a R next to the candidate’s name are sufficiently motivated to show up at the polls.  
With Boyd-Hodgson, what accusations will be forthcoming? Perhaps it’s her science background; after all, hating on science and facts IS GOP dogma these days. Maybe it will be her (imagined) extreme leftist stances, which hasn’t kept nearly four dozen local elected officials from endorsing the campaign.

Jim Desmond* - Republican Party Endorsed Candidate
Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
Media profile worth reading: Incumbent supervisor faces scientist for North County district
My two cents: Fourteen 14 years on the San Marcos City Council (including 12 years as mayor) and the power of incumbency give Desmond a leg up when it comes to name recognition. During the height of the pandemic he was the go-to guy for conservative outlets looking for interviews with somebody not frothing at the mouth.
He says his priorities for the coming term include crime control and public safety, ensuring high quality public health services and combatting homelessness. Desmond says the county should streamline permitting processes for housing development which is a cutesy way of saying “build, baby build” in the backcountry.
Most recently. Desmond has been shilling for construction companies raising money for an entity misnamed the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction. “Fair employment” apparently means having the “right” to bypass protections for workers on government funded projects. 
What this is really about are companies opposed to City of San Diego Measure D, which would allow (not mandate) the use of project labor agreements on city construction projects. In 2012 anti-union forces successfully waged a campaign prohibiting project labor agreements as part of a larger effort to weaken the influence of unions. If you want to know why this is important, look at the correlation between union membership and income inequality in recent years. This should tell you everything you need to know about Jim Desmond.
He is best known for being the front line defense (i.e., run to get airtime on KUSI) for communities in unincorporated areas fighting efforts to house paroled sexually violent predators. As is true with homelessness, there is no easy solution to the challenges involved, but at the risk of sounding politically incorrect, I should note that Not In My BackYard ends up being the same as Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key.

Previous voter guides:
(More coming soon)

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California’s DC Delegation
State Senate races
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