Practice Management

San Diego: America's Enron-By-The-Sea?

By Dan Hull

Although it's changing, historically San Diego minorities (women, Latin Americans, Asians, blacks, gays) haven't done enough to secure and keep a voice in politics. They need to step up even more.

In the California Primary Election today, the City of San Diego will hold primaries for Mayor, City Attorney and four City Council districts. However, at a time when San Diego is in the news so much for its financial and image problems--mainly due to its pension scandal caused by public decision-making behind closed doors--the candidates themselves seem to reflect a business as usual mentality in the region.

None of them are very interesting, with two exceptions:

One is Mike Aguirre, a lawyer's lawyer and activist incumbent City Attorney trying to hold onto his job. In any other major city, the moderate Democrat Aguirre would be considered another talented if somewhat vindictive and paranoid crusader, well worth tolerating for his energy, ideas, smarts and focus on the public good. He'd be Bobby Kennedy-esque, almost lovable. He's been productive in methodically dissecting and addressing the city's troublesome pension issues (discussed below).

In San Diego, however, Aguirre is controversial, polarizing, and hated by both the Republican majority and many Democrats; he's bravely re-made the City Attorney job into the independent voice and investigative arm it ought to be. It's great fun watching Aguirre and his staff battle a slack-jawed City Council--like seeing Hells Angels with degrees from the Kennedy School gunning up their Harleys and shooting up the town.

The other candidate is George George, an unassuming but compelling retired fireman and Everyman running for City Council in my district. He's pitted against a slick young Newt Gingrich-style pol named Carl DeMaio, who talks like a game show host with a degree in economics from a bad junior college in New Jersey. I will vote for anti-politician George George--not because he's a Democrat, but because his sincerity is real and touching, and DeMaio is painfully embarrassing to be around.

But mainly, I like both Mike Aguirre and George George because they are both "anti-politicians", which San Diego needs, needs badly, and has needed for decades. Here's why:

You've heard, of course, of the San Diego "pension scandal". A wake-up call for "America's Finest City". A blow to its previously squeaky clean image and an understandable insult to scads of business and military retirees who live here in the near perfect climate. In a nutshell, it arose from 2002 votes by the Pension Board and then the City Council which in effect lessened funding requirements for the San Diego City Employee's Retirement Pension Fund--but increased benefits, including to some members of the Pension Board. Much of this was not disclosed to the public.

And the public here is mainly a mild, honest, well-educated and Calvinist people. Even the "radicals" here are Mr. Rogers polite and well-behaved. Here, we like to think that politically the city is morally superior to, say, rough-and-tumble Chicago or Philadelphia. I know, or am familiar with, a few of the people involved in addressing this and other San Diego political issues. I've had a place here for nearly 10 years, and early on got involved with local boards and candidates for office. The people of San Diego are smart, non-confrontational, very civic-minded and well-meaning. Volunteerism is a big deal here.

So there is nothing actively "evil" about San Diego--any more than lawyers and judges are "evil" when they ignore or forget about the rules of conflicts of interest, bias and full disclosure because not bothering with those things is "what people have always done" or not done. My take: historically, for over a century, San Diego has lacked true "pluralism". It's everyone's fault.

Although it's changing fast, minorities (women, Latin Americans, Asians, blacks, gays) haven't done enough to secure and keep a voice in regional matters. They need to step up even more.

For generations, the same conservative class (Democrats, Republicans and Independents)--a mix of generic white guys and their talented but subservient professionals with great ideas and initiative--have ruled the region without much challenge, and without looking out for everyone ruled. And can you blame them? They needed other voices, and when they didn't hear them, human nature took over.

If you are interested in the San Diego loss-of-innocence issue, see the interview in the Voice of San Diego, a liberal but usually fair daily on-line magazine, and Roger Lowenstein, the former WSJ reporter and Pulitzer-prize winning author, with a new book, "While America Aged: How Pension Debts Ruined General Motors, Stopped the NYC Subways, Bankrupted San Diego, and Loom as the Next Financial Crisis." And here's another book on America's finest if somewhat lost city in paradise: Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See, provocative but insightful, published in 2003.

Full post as published by What About Clients? on June 04, 2008 (boomark / email).