And the Beat Goes On

Sorry I’ve been off line for a bit, my frequent reader. I’ve been battling migraines which leaves precious little time except to get my day job (which often extends into nights and weekends) done. I’ll try and post a few before the all important, probably won’t change much June Primary.

Change much like City Hall’s reaction to the latest shoe/minor atomic bombshell whichno-one seemed to notice dropped last month by the SEC. A month ago the SEC charged five former San Diego officials, including “Former-by-virtue-of-having-been-defenestrated-by-then-mayor-Dick-the-Murph-Murphy” Michael Uberuaga, for fraud in misleading Wall Street investors over the City’s finances while raising a quarter billion in bonds. Gee, isn’t that what Mike Aguirre’s been saying since the beginning of time: That a City the size of San Diego doesn’t go down the financial tubes merely due to incompetence, good intentions gone awry or lousy breaks? That it takes the determined, deliberate effort of a large number of people more willing to break laws and violate ethics than risk their jobs and careers by telling people the truth about how badly they’d screwed things up? Aguirre has been saying there is a culture of such corruption at the top reaches of San Diego government for years. And been pilloried for it. Usually by those in the top reaches of San Diego government—and those who benefit from them being there.

I’ve waited for the last month to see City leaders—on the Council, in the Mayor’s office—express the sort of outrage they should over these SEC charges. What the SEC is telling San Diego is that its body Bureaucracy and Politics is infected, diseased, corrupt. And the City has, in the last month, done nothing to bleed any of these noxious humours from its municipal blood, or even acknowledged just how damning the SEC action is.

Of course, this is the same City that has seen three councilmembers indicted for corruption, two convicted, and a Mayor resigning in failure and responded with a “business as usual,” put a nice, former cop in the figurehead position and life goes on.

Is it any wonder the City is still out of the bonds markets, months after Jerry Sanders announced he saw the light at the end of the bondless tunnel?

Lucky Star

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Mike Aguirre must have been born under a lucky star. Which will serve him well through June though it might go into eclipse by November.

The City Council doesn’t like him, the entrenched city bureaucrats don’t like him, the city labor unions don’t like him, the cops don’t like him, the Chargers want him to fall in the bay (right in front of where they’d like that new, downtown stadium, if possible, the Union Trib loathes him, the Mayor is sticking pins into his little Mikey voodoo doll and the public has become progressively less enamored with him. (Rumors that his dog has declared “undecided” in a recent poll appear unfounded—I don’t think he has a dog. I do hear that his fish is looking at him with suspicion, however….)

And a recent Competitive Edge poll (the local gold standard on the public pulse) shows Mike Agonistes losing to all three of his major competitors: Judge Jan, President Peters and, well, Brian Maienschein—a guy so blandly nice that its hard to even come up with a handle for him. (Note to self: Call W on this one. He’s always got a good nickname or two…) Goldsmith beats him by 23 points, the other two by less than half that.

Conventional wisdom has Agonizing Mike surviving the June primary with maybe 25% of the vote, enough to win in a field divided between Aguirre and everybody running as “Not Aguirre.” But then he goes bye-bye come the November big show.

Not so fast. The assumption here is that those who will vote for different candidates to replace Aguirre June will rally around the second place winner in the fall—which, according to the CE poll, seems to be how likely voters are currently thinking.

But likely voters are still seeing June as a race between Aguirre and his competitors. It’s not. The race is now between Goldsmith, Peters and Maienschein. And, according to the CE poll, Goldsmith is in the lead in the race for second—but not so far out in front (17.6% to Peters 14.2% to Maienschein’s 9.5%) that he’s a juggernaut. With attorney Dan Coffey dropping out of the race and endorsing Peters, if his 2.1% of supporters throw in with Prez Peters he and Goldsmith are almost tied.

Had Jan Goldsmith been allowed to challenge Mike Aguirre Mano-a-Mano without the other wanna-be Mike whackers piling on Aguirre’s plight would have been dire indeed. Given the abysmally low voter-turnout likely in June—consequence of the early March Prez Primary—which would favor a more conservative candidate like Goldsmith, Aguirre might have been turned into a lame duck before the June Gloom had cleared.

But it’s not. Peters and Maienschein, both realizing their paycheck ends this year, decided a) they didn’t like Aguirre enough to run; and b) they might be able to beat him. (And, if either was the only candidate against Aguirre in June, they might have—though Peters was and is clearly the more logical City Council candidate to take vengeance on Menacing Mikey.)

So now if either hopes to advance to the title bout in November they have one job: convince the anti-Aguirre voters that “Mr. Ferret” (as a Republican assemblyman Goldsmith’s major accomplishment was to unsuccessfully push a bill to legalize the private ownership of the furry little rodents) is not the guy to take on Mauling Mike. That means they have to aim their energies at making Goldsmith look bad.

For both Peters and Maienschein this means showing San Diego voters that Goldsmith is a) an outsider originally from Poway (where he was Mayor) and who had to move his residency from Coronado to Little Italy so as not to appear the carpet-bagger he is); b) that Goldsmith is an outsider from Poway (where he was Mayor) and who had to move his residency from Coronado to Little Italy so as not to appear the carpet-bagger he is) who has had almost no experience in local San Diego City politics; and c) that Goldsmith is an outsider from Poway (where he was Mayor) and who had to move his residency from Coronado to Little Italy so as not to appear the carpet-bagger he is) has the worst hair in San Diego politics. Peters can also throw in that, being a Democrat, he is the safe Democratic alternative to Aguirre compared to the other two Republicans.

Goldsmith, meanwhile, is taking the high road of running against Aguirre as the generic establishment candidate. But if he doesn’t pay attention he could well be pulled down by the hounds of ambition nipping at his heels. Which could yield the unusual result of having two Democrats running in a City-wide general election for a higher office—Peters and Aguirre. Which, also, could also be the best chance for anti-Aguirreistas to remove him from office.

Come fall the political landscape changes dramatically. Especially if Barrack Obama is the candidate. Come November the combination of an energized Democratic base (and the city is now majority Democratic in registration) and depressed Republicans base (at least conservatives, of which San Diego has more than its share) uninspired by their party nominee could translate into a surge of voters more inclined to go Mikey should he be running against establishment Republican Goldsmith. If Peters is the opponent it becomes much murkier.

And, probably, nastier, as all the city’s dirty political laundry gets recycled yet again.

My money (all $7.39—don’t let my kids know or they’ll raid Dad’s wallet…) is that Aguirre survives into a second term by another narrow margin.

Duh!

Duh

My two big “Duhs” of the week. (Part of my award-winning series of insightful journalistic excellence entitled “Duh!”):

First, the front page  article in the NY Times yesterday  morning on how the bonds markets has been gouging cities and states on bonds fees due to the significantly lower credit ratings Wall Street gives City Hall than Corporate Headquarters.

Duh.

Of course the Bonds Industry sticks it to local governments.  They do it for the same reason the best and the brightest of the Wharton School and the Harvard School of Business gave us the S&L debacle of the 1980s, the Dot.Com debacle of the 1990s and the Sub Prime Debacle of the 2000s.  They did it because they can.  Wall Street is all about money, of course, but it is all about short term money, with every bonds trader and fund manager dreaming of one thing:  hitting the big bonuses for moving the most paper, worthless or otherwise and getting to retire as a modern feudal lord to a summer house in the Hamptons.  If you can get there quicker by screwing Main Street USA, be it consumers with jumbo, “yeah you’re going to default on this sucker someday but by then I’ll be promoted and it won’t be my problem” loans or City Halls from east to west with higher borrowing costs on bonds.

Funny thing about that.  The free market says credit ratings and the cost of borrowing money should be a function of risk.  So who is more likely to default on a loan – a municipal government or a corporation?  That’s right, corporations.  So why do they get charged less for loans?  Because the Bonds markets figured out years ago that municipal politicians, playing with taxpayer money, would be less likely to kick up a fuss about being gauged at the Bonds spigot than corporate leaders held accountable by irate share holders.

They screwed the cities and states for the simplest of all reasons: they could.  And they did.

Duh.

And then comes this from the Center for Policy Initiatives report on campaign contributions to local political races.  Brace yourselves:  Real Estate developers ponied up around 20% of the million plus dollars contributed in 2007 to the 2008 Mayoral and council district races.

Who’d a thunk it?  Real Estate developers want to curry favor with the people who, if elected, would craft the ordinances and policies dictating how real estate can be developed in San Diego.

Duh.

The surprising thing to me in the CPI report is actually what a small percentage of the total  contributions the development industry constitutes.  I mean, come on developers.  You stand to make tens of millions of dollars by turning Otay factory lands into compacted housing developments and cramming in  thousands of additional  residential units into the I-15 & I-54 corridors.  At least have the good manners to contribute real money to the political campaigns and not a paltry few hundred Gs.

I mean,  I’d like to think that if San Diego government is for sale, it at least goes for a good, hefty price….

Duh.

Charter Reform This

Egad how complicated can you make charter reform. What to put on the ballot? When to put it on? Come on, guys, it’s not that complicated. Here is the four-step plan to simple San Diego charter changes:

1. Mayoral Veto: The UT had to have published one of the most inane editorials it ever has (and believe me, the competition for the title in the annals of UT lore is intense) last Sunday when it lambasted the City Council for refusing to accede to the Mayor’s ultimate dream scenario of requiring a super-majority to veto Mayoral actions.

“The flimsy pretext for this unwarranted delay was that a six-vote requirement to override the mayor’s veto would constitute more than two-thirds of the eight-member council.”

So sayeth the oracles of the UT.

Exsqueeze me? Not wanting to adopt a 75% override super-majority is a “flimsy” excuse? So what now? The UT’s Bowtie Bob Kittle disinters Jimmy Madison from his crypt over in Montpelier and slaps the corpse around for having the temerity for putting a two-thirds veto Congressional majority into the Constitution as opposed to the three-quarters required for ultimate weighty issues like, say, amending the Constitution? How dare Mr. Madison, et. al, constrain the power of the energetic and noble executive.

A Super-Mayor (as opposed to just a run-of-the-mill Strong Mayor) would provide one-stop convenience shopping for the powerful economic interests that dominate the downtown scene. So, of course, the UT would love to see a Mayor with a super-majority veto shackling the City council. At least, that is, a Mayor who conforms to the UT’s editorial board positions which, often as not, align all so nicely with those of the downtown money crowd (which, given the paper’s dwindling readership, seems to be their principle subscribers anyway).

I wonder what the UT’s position on the veto would be if a social progressive like a Donna Frye was Mayor. Hmmmm, let me think…

UT, get over it. Ain’t nobody this homie knows of that requires a super majority for a legislative veto. The Council’s veto should be set at two-thirds. Which, of course, means the council has to be expanded to at least nine districts, with six necessary for the veto. And which leads me to suggestion….

2. Council Expansion.: The proposed nine council districts is better than the ridiculous even numbered eight council districts the Strong Mayor reform package left the city with. Going to nine districts will reduce the number of people each councilmember is trying to represent from 163k to 146k. But this pales in comparison to the level of personal representation afforded citizens of, say San Francisco, whose 11 supervisors represent around 70k citizens each or Chicago, whose 50 (yes, 5-0) Alderman represent around 50k each. In other words, San Diegans are vastly underrepresented.

Okay, significantly increasing the size of the council adds to costs (staff and salaries, etc.) and to complexity (more people trying to reach agreement). So, what? How about we abolish the council entirely and just have a mayor—maybe a wealthy one like Steve Francis who will foreswear his salary—running the show? Boy, that would save the moola. And, of course, flush the whole concept of democracy down the porcelain fixture.

I’d like to see a council of 11, 12, 15 or 18 (which makes the 2/3 veto majority math easy). That would increase representation (and, potentially, diversity) on the council. So what if that would also render the current council chambers obsolete. They keep saying City Hall is outdated and needs to be replaced. So do so and build a new one, big enough to accommodate the needs of San Diego in 2008 as opposed to 1974 when the current City Hall was built. Which brings me to suggestion….

3. Build a new City Hall and don’t build it downtown. Why is “downtown”– a place most San Diegans seldom go to–the nexus of City municipal life? Could it be because the rents and land there is are cheap it would be foolish to move City Government somewhere else? Could it be because downtown is centrally located and convenient in terms of traffic and parking for most San Diegans to reach? Could it be because it places City Hall within easy walking distance of all the developers, bankers and lawyers representing these said and other special interests who can afford to maintain tony downtown offices precisely to lobby City Government?

Gee, I wonder which one it could be?

How about we sell all the City’s downtown property and disperse the mechanisms of City government around the City itself? Downtown San Diego has always been more of a wish than a reality anyway. Why is Normal Heights or Clairemont any less advantageous a locale for the seat of governance of a sprawling Uber-burb like San Diego? There are these thing called phones, fax and the internet which, I hear, makes communication over vast distances (like, say, Linda Vista to Mira Mesa) very doable these days.

Put the main City Hall, and its council chambers someplace truly central, like Kearny Mesa or Tieresanta. Have each councilmember’s office and staff located in their own district so their constituents can find them as opposed to the downtown suits. And put the Mayor in a really big RV and have him or her tool around town, doing each day’s business in a different district.

Okay, the last one is a little pie in the cracked sky. But why keep all the representatives of the City in the same building every day? They should be in the communities they represent. And access is power, something, interestingly enough, mayoral candidate St. Francis of the City acknowledges when he’s suggested the Mayor’s office be moved to City Heights or some such . Why do you think the very first battle in every new administration, be it mayoral or presidential, is who gets the office closest to the chief? You keep city government downtown and,–Surprise! Downtown money interests get disproportionate influence.

Finally….

4. Fix the City Attorney conflict. An elected City Attorney cannot faithfully serve both the people who elects him or her and the members of City Government as the interest of the People and the Government often conflict. This puts the CA in an untenable position: either be a lapdog of the Mayor and Council (as past CAs were and which the Council and Mayor would like the current and future ones to be) or be a public advocate at odds with the very City Government he or she is called upon to represent. So, as I’ve advocated before, split the job. Create a new position of City Counsel to represent the City in legal affairs and turn the CA into something more akin to the County DA—a watchdog representing the legal interests of all members of the community. Do that or simply abolish the elected status of the CA and return the position to that of Council/Mayor appointment. You can’t have a good watchdog and lapdog at the same time. (Well, actually you can as my ninety pound shepherd-collie-Afghan mix attests to, but you get point.)

There are other tweaks that can be done (like having truly independent City Auditors appointed by a “blind” panel of public citizens and a truly independent City Ethics Commission. But these are my Big Four for Charter Reform.

Then again, why fix anything? I mean, things have been running so well in San Diego government for so long, if it ain’t broke……

Orange You Glad I didn’t say Derivatives

You’ve got to love San Diego City Council meetings. They drag on and on (like the nine and a half hour marathon session last December 4) about items of municipal minutia so mundane that even the most wonkish of policy wonks find their thoughts drifting to their next session of “World of Warcraft.” But buried in all this mundanity are often items of extreme importance. Which, of course, the press and public, overwhelmed by the sheer boredom of it all, don’t pick up on.

Like last Monday’s session. And Docket ITEM-200: Variable Rate Debt and Derivatives Workshop for the City Council.

Sounds enticing, doesn’t it? Like going over your insurance portfolio with your sixty-two year old, loves to talk about fly-fishing and vaguely smells of Lysol agent.

So last Monday the council sat through a long, monotonous presentation on how the city, should it EVER get back into the bonds markets, could pursue various options in reducing short term borrowing costs. All presented in the clearest of businesseeze readily comprehensible by any Ph.D. in economics with a five year post-doc in esoteria.

At the end of the presentation a motion was put forward to bring this topic before the City Budget committee next month to continue consideration of the high-falutin’ investment strategies—using variable rate bonds and derivatives to offset up front financing costs—with an eye towards recommending their adoption by the full council.

And then Donna Frye pointed out the five ton orange elephant in the room.

Orange, that is, as in Orange County which, more than a decade ago, went belly up when the similarly sophisticated investment strategies they had pursued came tumbling down.

Frye asked the workshop presenters to go over the risks of variable rate borrowing. You remember the concept: low initial rates that can skyrocket if conditions change? The kind of borrowing millions of Americans engaged in to afford their overpriced homes? What do they call that market, now? Oh yes, that’s right.

Subprime.

So there is the San Diego City Council all hellbent on signing the City up to engage in volatile interest rate borrowing without even the slightest peep of protest.

Except for Darling Donna.

After going over the risks associated with the scheme the council was being recommended to buy in to Frye then asked which of those risks would be present if the City continued to borrow under traditional, fixed-rate terms. The answer, of course, was none. So Frye asked the obvious question: why should a City bludgeoned out of the bonds markets because of its incompetent financial management even consider reentering those markets using riskier strategies than it ever used before?

The response of her fellow council members was deafening. Or, better said, deaf. The council over road Frye’s motion to reject the proposal out of hand as the snakiest of snake oil and referred the matter to the Budget Committee for further review. From whence it will emerge, months from now, to be considered and adopted by the full council during yet another marathon, bore the world into submission session, no doubt.

So why would the Council even consider getting the City into borrowing strategies which have the possibility of putting the City essentially into the same position as millions of homeowners (homeowners, that is, until the repo orders come down) who were caught in the subprime swamp? Why, for the same reasons that drove millions of Americans into that swamp in the first place.

San Diego, for all the smiley faces Jerry Sanders and many council members try and put on it, is still in a world of financial hurt. The City faces a three hundred million dollar, five year budget shortfall which will get worse as the economy continues to stagnate, is still a billion dollars in the pension hole and has hundreds of millions of dollars in backlogged building and repair projects thanks to its being locked out of the bonds markets for almost five years. Things are getting so tight that there is even talk of privatizing the crown Municipal Jewel, Balboa Park, which needs two hundred million dollars that the City doesn’t have for basic repairs and deferred maintenance.

If and when San Diego returns to the bonds markets it will need to hit those markets hard and heavy, borrowing as much as possible at the cheapest rates as possible. At least, that seems to be how the Council is trying to position the City. Borrow billions now at cheap entry rates, fix things, make everyone happy and then run on that goodwill for a higher office when term limits are reached. That also seems to be the underlying strategy of the Council. And when, in three or five years, the new financial house of derivative and variable rate cards collapses the perpetrators will be off to Sacramento or the Port District or some other home for former San Diego politicians.

Lovely.

But at least these decisions are made right out there in the open, right between “Requests for Continuance” and “City Council Budget Priorities for Fiscal Year 2009.”

With no-one paying attention.

Maienschein Steamroller

Maienschein? Councilman Maienschein? The kind of competent but blends into the City Council crowd Maienschein? That’s the one who’s now joined the dogpile on Mike Aguirre?

OK. Wonders never cease.

Now, if you’d said Peters, that would be a different story. While I’ve disagreed with Councilman P repeatedly over the years he a) has the gravitast; and b) has the high profile to run against Aguirre — something many have thought and continue to think he should do. Peters is probably the only municipal figure of note that could give Aguirre the Avenger a run for his political money.

But Maienschein? Nice enough guy, but here’s what his candidacy will do: he’ll split the anti-Aguirre vote with Judge Jan, Disgruntled Dan and whomever else hops on the pile. If Alan B. decides to sit this one out, Maienschein, with his built in voter constituency, is best positioned to come in second to Aguirre in the June primary. And Mike mauls him come November for being a member of the very City Council that got San Diego into the mess Mike’s been railing against for the last four year.

Jeez, Aguirre. How lucky can you get?

Pot, Kettle and All That Jazz

Kern? John Kern?

After two weeks of unrelenting attacks, the Union Tribune Editorial Board delivers its coup de’grace on the front page of Sunday’s Insight section. And who do they chose as the trigger man?

John Kern?

John Kern criticizing Mike Aguirre is like Nero criticizing Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.

Look, John Kern is a nice guy. I met him a few times in a professional capacity; he was erudite and polite. People I know and respect know and respect him. Bottom line: he’s a decent guy. Just like Boyscout Dick Murphy is. Just like many of the other political players in San Diego who always seem to be in political waters over their head like they were in a municipal version of “High School: the Musical.”

But he’s also the guy who presided, as Dick Murphy’s chief of staff and political fixer, over the greatest political failure and municipal meltdown in San Diego history. Kern has always insisted that Murphy’s maladies were the product more of media madness and political hysteria than real issues. But Kern, with decades of political experience both behind the scenes and out on stage, should realize that politics—like most of the good things in life—exists ninety-five percent between the ears of the perceiver. Political reality is whatever people think it is.

And the political reality is that San Diegans think Dick Murphy was the greatest civic disappointment since the Chargers got run over by the 49ers in Superbowl XXIX.

Kern blasts Aguirre for contributing to a paralysis at City Hall but the paralysis started on Kern’s and Murphy’s watch. They were the ones who ignored the handwriting on the fiscal Molotov cocktail known as the pension debacle. The result: a failed administration and a badly damaged city.

So what credibility does that leave the man who brought you—and managed–Dick Murphy?

Come on, UT editorial board. You can assassinate character better than that.

Aguirre: The Wrath of God

I don’t know if Werner Herzog was being prescient or just coincidental with his 1972 masterpiece, Aguirre, the Wrath of God but, by golly, the metaphorical film makes a fine metaphor for our own embattled City Attorney. At least, his many municipal and media detractors would have one think so.

Described by Wikipedia as “a vision of madness and folly,” the Herzog film follows an ill-fated conquistador named Lupe Aguirre as he leads a detachment of misplaced Spanish soldiers into the deepest, darkest New World jungles wasting wealth and lives on a vain quest for glory and non-existent gold. Substitute misplaced Spanish soldiers with San Diego City government, the jungles of the new world with the even more dangerous jungles of downtown San Diego politics, lives lost with lives ruined by Aguirre witch hunts (can you say pension board?) and lost gold with failed lawsuits and you’ve pretty much described Aguirre’s detractors description of his tenure.

Just read the paper.

Indeed, the Wiki-writer characterized Lupe Aguirre as “an oppressive ruler, so terrifying that few protest his leadership. Those who complain are killed.” Can’t you just see the UT Editorial board write the same thing? And of modern Mike’s ill-fated quest for gold? Alex Roth’s Sunday piece hit that piece on the head. Or was it just another in a long line of UT hit pieces?

Cry Demagogic/Schizophrenic and Release the Dogs of War

Sanders calls Aguirre a demagogue, Aguirre calls Sanders, politically speaking, nuts. And any pretense of even the coolest collegiality between San Diego’s bombastic embattled City Attorney and its Strong Mayor In Name Only is now so much polluted bay water flowing under the Coronado Bridge. Admittedly, things have been heating toward the boiling point in the two men’s relationship ever since the accusations of incompetence and corruption were being hurled by the two over the Sunroad debacle. And now it’s open war, with any sign of a truce or détente not to be seen.

Now Aguirre could arguably have been said to have fired the first shot of this conflict on September 7th when he posted his equivalent of Luther’s ninety-five theses on the Mayor’s and Council’s door: a short list of fourteen remedial steps the City still needed to take to return its financial house to order and reenter the bonds markets. While many of Aguirre’s proposed steps make sense even to the Mayor, Aguirre’s blasting of the Mayor and Council for not taking more decisive actions over the last two years was a guaranteed hackle raiser. But, by my reading, the Mayor’s September 28th response to Aguirre’s proposals was, if anything, more personally directed and personally critical than anything in Aguirre’s maligned missive. But, bottom line, there was more bonhomie and collegiality at this week’s meeting between North and South Korea than in the Aguirre/Sanders memos combined.

Told Ya I Told Ya So

The fallout from Jerry Sanders’ gay marriage flip flop keeps falling as Jerry’s falling out with conservative Republicans intensifies. Check out the U-T Article on East County Republican politicians taking Sanders to task. East County — a seat of conservative reactionism? Who’d have thunk it…..