Monday, Oct. 20, 2008| I find the comments about City Attorney Mike Aguirre by San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne and Mayor Jerry Sanders to be inflammatory and irrational. Aguirre did not panic last year, he understood what most of us do, that San Diego has absolutely no disaster preparedness.
A few weeks after last year’s wildfires, there was a panic over a pipe bomb on Interstate 5. I was on the freeway after it was closed down northbound. I sat for over 45 minutes on the freeway, with my children, desperately calling people to find out why in the absence of Caltrans signs, police, radio announcements, that northbound I-5 and all the exits were so jammed it was impossible to go anywhere.
Now please tell me in the event a huge wildfire sweeps through the coastal zone, jumping Interstates 805 and 5, and State Route 52, at 2 a.m., that San Diego is prepared. It is not. My friends who were evacuated from 4S Ranch described how the freeway exits were blocked faster than they could get to them to get out.
Yes, Aguirre has been difficult to work with, Sanders and Lansdowne, but perhaps you should reflect upon your own conduct. I am extremely glad that he has been “difficult” when that means refusing to accept business as usual. Using an issue so emotive, so distressing, so critical as public safety to endorse Goldsmith (yes, you were) is despicable. I hope the electorate sees your actions for what they are. For both a former and a public police chief to act in this way shows how desperate the establishment is to maintain power. And I am so weary of being seen by that establishment crowd as a fool who will fall for their act.