There are several revealing moments in the our profile of Kevin Faulconer, but try to shake this image: the lanky Republican walking through supporters’ lawns to take down campaign signs the morning after losing a seat on City Council to Michael Zucchet in 2002.
Things worked out OK for the councilman, though. Faulconer’s become the safe, steady second-choice time and time again, which could give him the advantage in our current state of shell-shock post-Filner. The first instance of this pattern wasn’t without controversy – a discrimination complaint that ultimately went nowhere – but for the most part, even former political rivals have a hard time saying a bad word about him.
It’s led to some pretty choice endorsements — Jerry Sanders among them — which illustrates his tendency to follow others’ lead. Meanwhile, David Alvarez has collected his share of high-profile endorsements by opposing popular measures and people (again, Sanders among them) to stick up for the city’s underdog communities. That’s one of the five things we covered with NBC 7 in our video explainer this week.
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Along with Nathan Fletcher’s wrenching KPBS interview about his experience with childhood abuse, it’s been a heavy week getting to know the candidates on a personal level. We saw a hint of that from Alvarez during a key moment in our debate Tuesday night, when Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis asked about racial profiling.
But even with our no-rules, no-BS setup, there were still a few topics the candidates clearly didn’t want to touch — like charging for trash pick-up and parking at the beach.
Oh, but they’re MUCH more excited to tell you about their infrastructure plans — or in Fletcher’s case, plans to have a plan. It looks each of the top three wants to actually make moves on recommendations in a 2011 report addressing emergency response woes in the neighborhoods that need it most.
But when it comes to investing in neighborhoods, where is that money supposed to be coming from? We fact-checked pension savings claims made by Fletcher and Faulconer and found them to be a little too optimistic. Mike Aguirre wasn’t satisfied with our ruling. He followed up with his own.
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As if any of us had forgotten why we’re in this special election mess to begin with, the Los Angeles Times ran a somewhat out-of-the-blue story retelling former Mayor Bob Filner’s resignation from the perspective of City Attorney Jan Goldsmith. In the piece, Goldsmith called Filner’s exit a “de facto impeachment.” VOSD’s Scott Lewis questioned that:
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Goldsmith wasn’t pleased.
Really though, this is all water under the bridge. Time to move onto more pressing matters, like who got Filner’s vote.