Late Tuesday, the San Diego Democratic Party Central Committee voted to endorse City Councilman David Alvarez for mayor of San Diego. The vote followed an intense day of lobbying as Nathan Fletcher, the former Assemblyman, tried to stop an endorsement and Alvarez’ team pushed for it.
The endorsement is more than just symbolic. Alvarez will now be the Democratic standard bearer and can access the party’s ability to collect unlimited donations for certain campaign activities Alvarez’ team can coordinate. It was also a sharp rebuke of Fletcher and the elected leaders he had lined up behind his campaign.
Why Frye Lied
Former Councilwoman Donna Frye played a major role in the political demise of Bob Filner. An ally-turned-avenger, she spoke publicly for women who said the mayor had humiliated them.
But not at first. As she revealed in an interview with CityBeat, Frye wasn’t truthful with the public about her reasons for resigning early on from her job as head of open government with the Filner Administration. Her admission earned her a “Goat of the Week” award from one of our reporters during the latest VOSD Radio show.
Now, in an interview with that reporter (VOSD’s Andrew Keatts) Frye explains more about how she made her decision to not tell the whole truth. She accepted “full responsibility” for the choice she made, but “she said she crafted the cover story because she told many victims of Filner’s harassment, some of whom still haven’t gone public, that she’d keep quiet.”
Does she deserve the “Goat of the Week” award? Decide for yourself or listen to attorney Cory Briggs, another former Filner ally who worked with Frye to get him out of office: “maybe it was a slow goat week.”
More on Grading the New Schools Chief
We’re on a quest to figure out how to gauge the performance of Cindy Marten, the new superintendent of San Diego schools. First, we talked to community members. Now, we’re consulting experts.
The Day in the Mayor’s Race
You might expect ballot statements for mayoral candidates to talk a lot about leadership, accountability and trust. And they do. But they don’t often include this: “BOOM BABY!”
Yes, that’s part of one candidate’s ballot statement. We take a look at them all. (Eleven candidates made the cut to actually appear on the ballot.)
• Scott Lewis recently surfaced the details of that now-infamous meeting of local GOP honchos trying to figure out who they wanted to be mayor. Now, the LA Times digs deeper. Of note: Former Mayor Jerry Sanders reportedly bashed his predecessors in the private confab.
• The wife of candidate Kevin Faulconer has paid her city business taxes a bit late after our reporting discovered she’s missed the payment deadline.
Quick News Hits
• VOSD’s weekly Culture Report provides links to stories about a century-old library, a sculpture that could be on its way here to “heal” us after a tough summer, and the restoration of an iconic but sadly neglected collection of fun sculptures in Escondido.
• The U-T has published an obituary of pioneering LGBT activist Gloria Johnson, who died over the weekend.
• The LA Times finds reports of cheating at Southern California schools, including South Bay’s Mar Vista Middle School, which is going through transition.
• A new state law requires drivers to give bicyclists at buffer of at three feet, NBC San Diego reports.
• Back in the day, there were rumors that Prohibition-era rum-runners used Point Loma as a dropping-off point for booze.
Now, people try to pass other illicit substances into our fair city. Case in point: a man who allegedly tried to float to the United States on a duffle bag full of $23,000 worth of marijuana. NBC San Diego has the story.
So what’s next for the man? To borrow line from the movies, I suspect he’s all washed up.
Randy Dotinga is a freelance contributor to Voice of San Diego and vice president of the American Society of Journalists & Authors. Please contact him directly at randydotinga@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/rdotinga./i>
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