Politics Report: The Race That May Change the City Council

Everyone (a few of us) is abuzz (got a few calls) about this sharp divide on the San Diego City Council and the vicious (they were fine?) comments about Sean Elo-Rivera’s latest year as City Council president.

I’ve asked a few people what it really means to have four City Councilmembers that upset with the president. I didn’t get back much. It obviously signals some dysfunction but I haven’t heard of an idea the city hasn’t been able to move on because of it.

That said, the four members of Council who didn’t get their way certainly signaled they were ready to make a change the moment the balance shifted and the unsaid part of that was the race to replace Monica Montgomery Steppe. Her vote was crucial to Elo-Rivera’s re-election as the presiding member of the Council and now she’s gone.

They clearly assume the mayor’s preferred candidate, Chida Rebecca Warren-Darby has a good chance to take the seat and join them to oust the president. Warren-Darby has the mayor’s support and for years has served as his director of boards and commissions. It’s been her job to make sure everything from the Balboa Park Committee to the Ethics Commission have enough people serving on them.

The early race is going differently: Montgomery Steppe’s former chief of staff, Henry Foster, has jumped into the race and made a huge splash already. The other four Councilmembers, the ones who support Elo-Rivera, (Joe LaCava, Vivian Moreno, Kent Lee and Elo-Rivera) immediately endorsed Foster as did the largest union of city employees, the Municipal Employees Association and another city union, AFSCME Local 127, the blue-collar sanitation workers, etc.

Warren-Darby got support from Gloria, Councilwoman Marni Von Wilpert and Councilwoman Jen Campbell.

But she whiffed on two clubs: Black and African Women Rise held an endorsement meeting. Foster and Rev. Shane Harris attended but Warren-Darby was a no show.

“I was sorry she did not attend,” said Alyce Pipkin-Allen the founder and co-president of the group. They ended up endorsing Foster.

“For me, the main thing that went into it was that Monica Montgomery Steppe endorsed him immediately and that was good enough for me,” Pipkin-Allen said.

Dems for Equality also endorsed Foster.

Harris is knocking on doors: Shane Harris is no also-ran. If the race goes to a runoff, in June, just a few thousand people are likely to vote. You can knock on that many doors and Harris already has done 350 he said.

“Poverty has to be a top priority for anyone running citywide. Too many people are one or two checks away from losing their home, even if they own it,” he told me. He also wants to recruit a new grocery store for the neighborhood along with senior housing. He said he has been alarmed at the soaring rate of seniors becoming homeless. He doesn’t think this is anything close to a race just between Warren-Darby and Foster.

“I have a longstanding history and legacy in the district. People know me. People want to connect with the next councilmember — not just be told via mailers what they should do,” Harris said.

That’s something of a shot at Foster, who is racking up the kind of endorsements that turn to money and that turns into mailers.

Foster doesn’t see the divide on the City Council as defining the race.

“I’m not looking at this as a divide with the council. I want to sit down with each and every member and gain their support,” he said. But he echoed his former boss, Montgomery Steppe by emphasizing that the Council must be strong in contrast and as a check to the mayor.

I asked him specifically about his review of the mayor’s performance and he explained how much he respects the mayor and how well he knows him but he again emphasized the different roles of the Council and mayor. He ended with this “There’s room for improvement.”

That’s about as spicy as I could get.

I could not reach Warren-Darby.

Bigger Debate May Be About the Upcoming Sales Tax

Harris said his interview with the Municipal Employees Association went really well but they told him they couldn’t support him because he does not support a plan the mayor and Councilman Raul Campillo are cooking up to present the public with a chance to raise the sales tax another percentage point within the city of San Diego.

The revenue for the city it would generate would be substantial and could help fund some of the services and improvements Harris said he wants to see in the district. But he’s a hard no.

“We are experiencing a disaster of inflation and people are already stretched far enough. The residents of D4 are at the front of that and I don’t want my residents paying more,” he said.

That was decisive: MEA has no higher priority than the sales tax increase and so their nod to Foster would indicate that Warren-Darby either didn’t support it or was non-committal.

Foster is all in.

“The city needs to fill its vacancies and take care of our most essential asset, which is our employees who provide core services for our residents,” he said.

FAA’s Turn to Reject Sunbreak Ranch

In early October, Jorge Rubio, the deputy director, airport management for the city of San Diego’s Department of Real Estate and Airport Management wrote to the Federal Aviation Administration about Sunbreak Ranch, the plan to build a camp on thousands of acres somewhere to shelter homeless residents.

He described the plan, a population of more than 250 people in a campus with many different services. The facilities and temporary housing would stay for more than three years at Brown Field Municipal Airport located just north of the border in Otay Mesa.

The FAA was not having it. In a letter back to the city, Cathryn Cason, manager of the Los Angeles Airports District Office reminded the city of the history of the federal government’s transfer of the land to the city of San Diego.

“F.A.A.’s longstanding policy is that residential use, which includes accommodating people experiencing homelessness, permanently or transiently, on federally obligated airports is not permissible and is incompatible with airport operations,” she wrote. She went on to cite the violations to the city’s agreement with the U.S. government it would entail and how it would jeopardize future federal funding for the city.

“Please understand, it is not FAA’s intent to show disregard for the homelessness crises, only to ensure that use of Airport property does not become the solution to the crises,” she wrote.

I asked George Mullen, the founder of the Sunbreak Ranch movement for comment but he didn’t respond.

Not site dependent: Mullen previously dismissed the Marine Corps rejection of Sunbreak Ranch by saying both that the Marines could change their mind and that Sunbreak Ranch was not “site dependent.” In fact, the Brown Field land provided a great option, he wrote.

My take: After I wrote very critically of Sunbreak Ranch last week, one reader accused me of having a bias against it and writing my opinion and so let me be clear: Yes, that’s correct, I don’t like it.

As I wrote, I believe even if it were a real proposal with realistic possibilities, I can’t imagine people voluntarily wanting to go to a camp in a still undetermined place in the county. And so if they didn’t want to go, then they would somehow have to be forced and that is some dark stuff.

It’s not real, though, and so Sunbreak Ranch just serves as a foil to any real ideas or proposals to give people a safe place to be while we ask and force them to leave public spaces.

I got lots of positive comments — thank you. But many pushed back, so I wanted to respond to a couple main points they had.

“Why do you call it remote? It’s not remote? It’s not a desert!” I got a version of this response from several people who took issue with my description of Sunbreak Ranch as being remote.

“Although it could be located anywhere, Miramar or South Bay are hardly ‘remote,’” wrote reader RS.

The federal government has now rejected both these sites. Even so, I think the land they identified in Miramar is remote. Maybe 15-20 miles from downtown doesn’t seem like a lot when you have a car. If you’re homeless, you likely don’t have a car. Being out there would feel remote. You can feel remote camping on Fiesta Island.

But again, Miramar is not available. Neither is Brown Field. I think as all these sites fall, they will have search even farther out into desert.

“Sunbreak Ranch is not a site in the desert. It has the same terrain and weather that many developers turn into million dollar homes or townhomes,” wrote reader KM.

Much of San Diego is a coastal desert zone. I’m not just talking about Borrego when I say desert. But again, there’s no site! How can you defend the site’s terrain and weather when there’s no site?

This is my main problem: As long as it’s a mirage in the desert, it will always be there as an alternative to whatever iterative proposals people don’t like that don’t make the homeless people disappear completely.

Midway Height Limit Vote on Passes Court Test

You remember the city voted in 2020 to lift the coastal height limit in the Midway Community Planning area, from Old Town through the Sports Arena land. A judge rejected it saying the city had not properly studied the impact of the height limit being eliminated and, in particular, how taller buildings in that area would affect views.

The city appealed but decided to put it back on the ballot for November 2022. Voters again supported it and opponents again sued.

This time, a judge denied their petition. Read it here.

If you have any feedback or ideas for the Politics Report, send them to scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org.