OK, I pounded that last post out a bit too quickly. There’s some crucial follow-up fodder here.
In her letter to the Chargers’ representative, Mark Fabiani, Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox contends this:
Chula Vista is a City Manager form of government under our Charter. The City Manager runs this City. In November, you chose not to allow the person who runs our city, or the majority of the Council, to know what’s going on. Excluding our City Manager and experts in our Finance Department from the Chargers’ stadium finance study is neither in the team’s nor the public’s best interests.
This deserves a little perspective. First, this is somewhat comical.
After all, can anyone in town name who the city manager was in Chula Vista in November? I mean, Scott Tulloch was technically the interim city manager but he followed David Garcia, who had been forced out after only a short time in the position. And, of course, many speculated that Tulloch would be pushed out within weeks, which he was.
But that’s beside the point. The funniest part is that once Chula Vista actually had a manager, Fabiani and the Chargers did meet with him. They met with him less than two weeks ago.
I also talked to City Councilman Rudy Ramirez, who told me he didn’t share Cox’s opinion that the Chargers were holding back information from the city.
“I don’t know that they could have moved forward any more quickly. I don’t know we could have expected much more,” he said.
I think it’s clear Cox is upset she’s being left out of the loop. It has a way of getting to a mayor.
“I would appreciate having the update you said you provided to Mr. McCann last November also provided to me,” she wrote Fabiani.
So, here’s a question: Cox has, over the past couple years, been significantly weakened. Check that, let’s be clear: Her rivals have tasted political blood and are tearing her to shreds. It’s not just about this Chargers’ thing. It’s been happening for a while. She went to political war and lost. Can she somehow recover?
After all, the only thing worse than being left out of the loop is complain about being left out of the loop. It’s a vicious downward spiral. If you find yourself in the situation, you almost have to pretend that you don’t care about being left out of the loop and that you’ve got some way more interesting loop going on in your corner.
But if you let the spiral start, is it even possible to reverse it and get some mojo back?