Voters will choose Supervisor Nathan Fletcher’s replacement, starting with an Aug. 15 primary, the county Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday.
That would be three months from Fletcher’s scheduled resignation. He was accused by a former Metropolitan Transit System staffer of sexual harrassment and sexual assault while he was the agency’s chair. He has said he entered rehab and will resign when he’s finished.
A general election will be held Nov. 7, unless a primary candidate earns more than 50 percent of the vote.
The four remaining members of the Board of Supervisors could have appointed someone to complete Fletcher’s term through 2026. In the end, no one seemed to come especially close to securing the three votes that would have been required from the board’s two Democrats and two Republicans.
“None of these options are ideal and it’s unfortunate that we have to go through these processes,” said Board Chair Nora Vargas.
The board heard hours of public comment before deciding to schedule the special election. The most extensive debate between the supervisors came when Supervisor Terra Lawson Remer requested extra spending from the County Registrar on voter outreach, to combat historically low turnout during special elections.
“I’m very concerned about an election in the middle of summer in an off-cycle year, and we could end up with 10 to 15 percent of voters at the polls, and that’s not democracy either,” she said.
Her request was not included in the county’s action. Michael Vu, assistant chief administrative officer, said the registrar’s budget already accounted for robust voter outreach consistent with state and federal election law. Supervisor Jim Desmond said he was uncomfortable with any impression the county was putting its thumb on the scale, and Vargas said Vu could return to the board if his budget proved insufficient.
- San Diego Councilwoman Monica Montgomery Steppe has already announced her candidacy. So has Janessa Goldbeck, a leader of a veteran-focused nonprofit and LGBTQ activist. We expect more candidates to emerge in the coming weeks.
- Re: the Fletcher saga, MTS has hired a Bay Area law firm to perform an independent investigation into Fletcher’s conduct, 10 News reports. MTS board members previously pledged to make that investigation public. And Grecia Figueroa, the woman who has accused Fletcher of harassment and assault, spoke up for the first time publicly since filing a lawsuit against the former supervisor. In a blog post, Figueroa says that it’s no wonder women hesitate to speak out after an assault, based on the treatment she has received, as FOX 5 reported.
Proposed Labor Deals Include Long-Wanted Pay Hikes for City Workers
More than half of San Diego city workers will receive a substantial pay increase over the next three years if the City Council approves proposed deals with the unions representing the city’s white-color and blue-collar workforces.
The Union-Tribune reported this week on a proposed 22.8 percent wage hike by July 2025 for roughly 6,500 city employees that the newspaper explained will “sharply shrink salary gaps as large as 30 percent between those workers and their counterparts” in other local governments.
The backstory: The city has in recent years struggled with staffing shortages fueled by both the pandemic and the aftershocks of past city pension reforms that halted across-the-board raises and pensions for new employees for years. Those past decisions have long put the city at a competitive disadvantage with other local governments that did offer pensions and raises.
Latest from the ’Tube
We’ve got the latest video here hot off the YouTube press: In this segment of the VOSD Podcast, hosts Scott Lewis, Andrew Keatts and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña discuss San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s stance on homelessness and how he’s trying to communicate that through a proposed new ordinance to ban camping.
Also in this segment, our editors dug into the big redevelopment project being proposed downtown — to revamp six blocks, including City Hall and the blighted California Theatre. This all leads to the surprisingly vexing question: What’s a “young explorer” anyway?
Watch the clip here or listen to the pod where you get your pods.
In Other News
- Fox 5 San Diego reports that the city finally has vacation rental rules on the books after years of failed policymaking that led us to declare the issue a San Diego Special. The Union-Tribune also revealed that some Mission Beach vacation rental owners are already at risk of losing their licenses to operate in the city after its discovery that some may have provided inaccurate information to try to get those licenses.
- The Department of Defense announced Tuesday that the Biden administration is sending 1,500 active-duty troops to the border to back U.S. immigration authorities ahead of the lifting next week of Title 42, a pandemic policy that allowed the U.S. to expel migrants. (CBS News)
- Times of San Diego reports that a Navy veteran is now leading the group overseeing San Diego’s annual Holiday Bowl football game.
- A San Diego man pleaded guilty earlier this week to a misdemeanor count for his role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach, City News Service reports.
- The Union-Tribune reports that county supervisors unanimously voted to request state approval of a plan to address a behavioral health worker shortage with tuition assistance, a loan forgiveness program and other tacks using $75 million in county Mental Health Services Act funds.
The Morning Report was written by Andrew Keatts, Will Huntsberry, Lisa Halverstadt and Nate John. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.
Correction: This post has been updated to correct Michael Vu’s title. He is the assistant chief administrative officer for the County of San Diego.
So we’re going to spend untold millions to have an election just 3 months before the general election. And it’s only because the 4 remaining supervisors won’t do their job. They are pathetic.
Is Michael Vu really the current Registrar of Voters for the County of San Diego?