They cussed, they threatened, and — in a few cases — they actually said what they meant (oops!). It was quite a year for quotable San Diegans. Here’s a look back at the most memorable things they said in 2018:
And Now a (Surprising) Word From Our Fearless Leaders
“You better shut up before I bitch slap you,” — Then-Sen. Joel Anderson to a female lobbyist in a Sacramento bar. Anderson was reprimanded by the Senate Rules committee after the incident.
“What a shit show.” — Tom Lemmon, the leader of the Building Trades Council, had an elegant and accurate reaction to the saga surrounding the effort to put a Convention Center expansion measure on the ballot.
“I’m tired of hearing the tweets and the idiocy that’s coming out of certain quarters, from government officials that ought to know better” — County Supervisor Ron Roberts, who lashed out at an advocate who suggested the county could do more to help the homeless crisis.
“Awful lot of people voted Democrat without knowing or caring who was attached to it.” — Perennial candidate Mike Schaefer on how he won a seat on the Board of Equalization.
A Children’s Treasury of Marijuana Moments
“Everyone I talked to was either high or wanted to get high.” — Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina, recalling his 2014 door-to-door campaigning.
Indeed, opponents of marijuana really brought their A-game to the June 6 Imperial Beach City Council meeting:
“We have people coming into our emergency department, into our clinic, because they’re smoking too much marijuana — vomiting, vomiting, vomiting. They can’t control that.” — Dr. Matt Dickson of the South Bay Urgent Care clinic
“What is going to happen to our kids when their dreams are stolen?” — Baron Partlow, San Diego resident and activist
“So don’t be blinded by the bling-bling. There’s not a lot of money that will be generated here. … People will dazzle you with brilliance and baffle you with bull poop.” — Dante Pamintuan, Realtor
Diane Harkey Earned Her Own Section
The Republican congressional candidate and former Board of Equalization member deserves her own section.
In March, she told talk radio show host Carl DeMaio that the nation’s leaders — tasked with setting health care policies, funding the government and declaring war — should create a curfew and buddy system at night, according to the U-T.
“I never went out anywhere after 8,” she said. “Nothing good happens after 8 in Sacramento or in D.C., I guarantee you that.”
Then in October, KPBS’s Andrew Bowen attended a rally in support of repealing the state’s gas tax increase and captured Harkey turning up her nose at bicycling and buses. She seemed outraged at even the idea of dirtying herself among the masses.
“This is just fraud. It’s forcing you to take bikes, get on trains, hose off at the depot and try to get to work,” she said. “That does not work. That does not work with my hair and heels. I cannot do that and I will not do that.”
Awkward Moments, Courtesy of the U-T Editorial Board
This fall, the opinion side of the Union-Tribune newsroom published the transcripts of their endorsement interviews with officials from around the county, and they produced some remarkable moments. Two of them stand out:
First is the painfully awkward interview with then-San Diego City Council President Myrtle Cole in which she talked her way around nearly every contentious issue. At one point, the editorial board pressed her on whether she’d support rent control and an aide interrupted her to say, “You don’t have a position yet.”
Cole’s response: “Yeah, that’s my position.”
About two weeks later, San Diego Unified School Board trustee Mike McQuary couldn’t remember the name of his opponent.
MCQUARY: Who’s in the… who’s in the runoff with me?
U-T: I’m sorry?
MCQUARY: No, I’m sorry. Yeah. No, Michelle. That’s right.
U-T: Yeah. Marcia Nordstrom, right?
MCQUARY: Right, right.
The Best of the Rest, Hamantaschen Edition
“Just eat your hamantaschen & pipe down” — local political activist Ashley Harrington via Twitter, after I poked fun at the strange murals at the landmark Jewish deli restaurant known as D.Z. Akins.
“Residents have been labeled with the acronym NIMBY (not in my back yard). That is just not the case. We are residents against development whether it’s Low income/affordable housing or another multimillion dollar condo development.” — This website opposing a development in Point Loma is for once refreshingly honest and straight up admits the goal is to never build anything, ever.
“I can’t just simply hand Boltman over to another fan – it’s not that easy. The issue is complicated by the liabilities, expenses and responsibilities of just anyone stepping into the role … [like someone] doing something inappropriate and ruining Boltman’s great legacy … a risk I’m not willing to take.” — Chargers mascot Dan “Boltman” Jauregui, on his future following the team’s move to Los Angeles.