It’ll be a mere media blip when we look back on the special election as a whole, but quite a stir kicked up over the candidates’ college transcripts this week.
The U-T reported Monday David Alvarez and Kevin Faulconer had supplied college transcripts (key: We now know Faulconer is especially well-suited to represent the beach communities, given his stellar grade in advanced surfing), while Nathan Fletcher’s campaign declined.
When Voice of San Diego managing editor Sara Libby argued the request was absurd, some of our commenters complained it boiled down to transparency. But how much did we learn about Alvarez’s and Faulconer’s respective abilities to lead with these documents?
One would hope the candidates’ plans for the city might offer some more insight. Lisa Halverstadt put together a useful readers’ guide, and we’ve started to dig into the feasibility of each, beginning with Alvarez. Sure, crummy streets and sidewalks are a major issue in San Diego, but would voters get on board with raising taxes to fix ’em? Alvarez’s platform depends on it.
For what it’s worth, Assemblywoman Toni Atkins is all in. She penned a passionate endorsement-cum-op-ed touting Alvarez’s record on City Council and commitment to preserving community in his district.
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While “neighborhoods” has reached buzzword status for most of the campaigns, Mike Aguirre continues to dwell primarily on pensions. Why? Because it reminds people of his one term as city attorney, which, as you might remember, didn’t end all that well. This week’s San Diego Explained touched on a few other things that set Aguirre apart.
To be fair, he’s not the only one talking about pension reform. Fletcher made a claim a couple weeks ago that city employees now benefit from 401(k) plans without Social Security. We gave that blanket statement a False.
Tough couple weeks for Fletch, what with the objectification and zombie attacks. Yes, you read that right. David Bauer of Sacramento created a new PAC, Zombies for Responsible Government Opposing Nathan Fletcher for Mayor 2013 (whew!), with links to the Lincoln Club.
It was a more traditional kind of political attack (those trusty mailers, etc.) that lost the Lincoln Club a major supporter this week – Yehudi Gaffen, chief executive of Gafcon. “The people of San Diego deserve better,” Gaffen said in a letter to VOSD.
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Now for the leftover Halloween candy of mayoral news.
Nerds, unite! VOSD member Ben Katz weighed in on a critical but largely underdiscussed issue for the future of the city: information technology. The next mayor’s got to pay attention to beefing up software development, Katz argued, seeing as these models dictate how San Diego functions.
And Libby brought about an incredibly important innovation in election rhetoric: “brotos.” That’s pretty much the only way to describe accurately the pictorial documentation of this man-centric race. Libby recapped three moments we could’ve used some ladies in the running.