Larry Turner, the police officer running against his boss’ boss, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, hasn’t reported raising any money yet but the mayor’s friends have taken notice of his potential.
One of the leading political PACs working to help Gloria get elected, New San Diego, paid a private investigator $5,000 to look into whether Turner actually lives in the city of San Diego as required by the city’s Municipal Code for candidates running for mayor. In a letter sent Feb. 6, longtime elections and ethics attorney Bob Ottilie wrote that Turner does not appear to have established valid residency within the city of San Diego. Turner disputes it.
The facts: City law says you must be a registered voter within the city of San Diego 30 days before filing papers to run. Turner registered as a voter living at an address downtown and that was the address that would count when he filed papers.
Turner and his wife also though own a home technically in El Cajon but he says it’s more of an Alpine-area. He admits that’s where he voted in 2020 and 2022. Turner says the downtown location was his home until he moved to Ocean Beach in July.
“We live in OB. We go back to the house in El Cajon/Alpine when my parents are in town and we stay out there a little bit,” he said. But he plans to raise his two kids, ages 1 and 2, in Ocean Beach.
“We love it; except for people not picking up their dog poop,” he told me.
The downtown address is key, though: Ottilie reports that a private investigator named Lawrence Hamilton was hired to look into the issue and found no evidence Turner and his family actually lived at the downtown condo. The investigator tracked vehicles at the El Cajon address and reports never seeing them near the downtown condo. And searches that would have shown utilities or other connections to the downtown condo never turned up Turner’s name.
Turner brushed it all off as a political attack.
“I can get all the rent and utility checks. I had mail sent there. Friends and neighbors saw me come and go, etc. This is just a cheesy attempt by the mayor to get Genevieve [Jones-Wright] more votes March 5 because everyone believes he can beat her in the general,” he wrote in a follow-up text to our conversation.
Even Ottilie’s letter acknowledges that Turner lived in San Diego before purchasing the place near Alpine. Turner said after his time in the Marine Corps, he bounced around the city a lot and bought the home in East County for his parents. They bought it in late 2019 and, when Covid hit, they ended up staying in the house and a trailer they parked there while they did work.
That downtown condo: That condo is owned by Giorgio Kirylo, a Marine Corps veteran like Turner, who is often with the candidate. Kirylo rose to some fame with the public comment protests at the county of San Diego during Covid and he had a particular hostility to former Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, whom he compared to the notorious traitor Benedict Arnold.
Most of Kirylo’s content is about the mental health crises he’s seeing in the streets around his downtown condo. But then there was his reel about the rodeo at Petco Park.
Noticing animal-rights protestors at the park, Kirylo decided to mount his own counter-protest by buying 25 “protein-style” cheeseburgers from In-n-Out and eating them and doing pushups after each one. “I did not eat the lettuce because lettuce is for my food and is not for me to eat.”
“Unfortunately, things did not turn out well for me,” Kirylo said in his Instagram reel. “Eventually, I got real sick. I felt like less of a man.”
More from Turner
We took the chance to talk to Turner for a bit about the campaign so far, including the new challenge he faces to make it to the runoff from Geneviéve Jones-Wright, an attorney and former public defender, who ran for district attorney. Here are some of his comments.
On Jones-Wright: “Honestly, no bullshit, she’s a very cool woman and I like her. I get along with everyone. Sometimes people don’t like me, but when people talk to me, they’ll see I’m an OK guy. I like hearing their lived experiences and where they think there’s flaws. I am huge on criminal justice reform — we come at it from different perspective.”
Really, you want criminal justice reform? “The police department’s relationship with disadvantaged communities needs repair. They have a long history of bad experiences with the police department. I can see it from the other side a little bit. There needs to be better communications. It’s the job of the police department to make it right no matter who’s to blame. We need a lot more community officers to build good will and be at all the meetings and I’m one of the few able to go to all the meetings and it makes a huge difference it build trust.”
Public Power Takeover Gets an Official Opponent
Dispatch from MacKenzie Elmer: Public power proponents under a group called, Power San Diego, are gathering signatures to ask voters to municipalize energy in the city of San Diego. In short, they want to force the city to purchase all the SDG&E lines and systems and run distribution of electricity as a city function.
Volunteers are doing the signature gathering so it’s going to be tough to qualify it for the ballot. But the company is paying attention.
Campaign disclosure documents show SDG&E formed Responsible Energy San Diego to fight that effort on Dec. 14 of last year with the company being its top funder.
“Responsible Energy San Diego is a coalition of business and Labor leaders, including SDG&E, who believe it’s important for the city to focus its resources on addressing priorities such as road repairs, aging infrastructure, and housing affordability, instead of a risky ballot measure requiring taxpayers to take on billions in debt to create a new government-run utility that has no plan, budget or verifiable cost estimates,” wrote Matt Awbrey of Matters Strategies, LLC, a spokesman SDG&E has hired to represent them on the campaign, in an email.
Awbrey also said the San Diego Imperial-Counties Labor Council is a key co-chair of the committee.
Scott Crider, a senior vice president at the company, and Brittany Syz, an SDG&E employee, are listed as principal officers. Public contribution filings show only SDG&E has paid anything into the campaign thus far, totaling $300,000 as of Feb. 2.
“What they leave out is what is the risk of staying with SDG&E. That is a risk we know,” said Dori Bruggemann, senior campaign coordinator for Public Power SD. “That’s going to result in rates increasing 10 percent for the next 5 years. We know solar will continue to nose dive because of attacks on solar from for-profit utilities.”
Bill Powers, who has been pushing a public takeover of the grid for years, is also behind the Public Power San Diego effort. His other group, Protect our Communities Foundation, tried to push the city to end its franchise fee contract with SDG&E four years ago. The city, with no other bidder, ultimately signed up for another 20 years with the company, a subsidiary of Sempra, a natural gas exporter.
At that time, some City Council members had concerns about the cost to buy the grid from SDG&E, which is what it would take to municipalize. The City Council is studying what it would take to go fully public. The first results of that study suggested a public takeover of the grid would save San Diegans money in the long run.
One Note
Friday marked 19 years since Voice of San Diego put up its first stories online, Feb. 9, 2005. Sometimes people mistake me for a founder of the organization, but I was not yet an employee that day. I started freelancing shortly after the launch and joined the team in October 2005.
Some years have been better than others. But none of them have been easy. Never once has a product taken off and filled our bank accounts with surpluses. Never once has a massive unexpected donation changed our perspective – though some smaller ones have helped.
It has always been a daily, weekly, yearly adventure and it has always been different than any day, week or year before. But we have seen one thing relentlessly improve: Our number of donating members. We are nearing 4,000 donors. If you’re getting the Politics Report, you probably already are one.
However, if you would like to do more and help us celebrate 19 years of public service journalism, our goal is to raise $10,000 in the next 48 hours. To make a gift to support another 19 years of investigative reporting, newsletters, podcasts and events you appreciate, click here: http://vosd.org/anniversary19
It was great to see everyone at the live podcast recording at Modern Times Thursday. The acoustics there weren’t ideal but the content turned out well if you want to listen to this week’s show. I wasn’t excited at all to talk to my old friend Andy Keatts. Nope. It was fine. You can email me feedback and ideas at scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org.
This is going to be a bit strange coming from me and posting this in an organization like VOSD. I am urging that the conservatives in the San Diego region get serious about running a qualified centrist candidates for mayor and city council.
The ones they are in the habit of nominating have zero chance of winning. They have the “Deer in the Headlights” look if you ask them questions about anything outside of the one or two things they have MAGA slogans for.
Our system works best when there is a back and forth on ideas and policies. Having a one party government is a recipe for that government going off the rails. That is what is happening in the Mayor’s office and City Council. There is no credible push back. They do not have to make a serious defense of their policies. The results in Homelessness, Roads, Infrastructure, Pension, Taxes are all the result of the lack of any need for justification.
The only check on the system is the voters. I am hoping that this November that the voters deliver that badly needed check by voting down ALL of the proposed Taxes and Bond issues. This will deliver the wake up call that the city is not meeting the needs of its people.
Every day there are more people interested in working from home. Either they want a better work-life balance or they want to start their own business to increase their earning potential. ge In this article, we explore a list of possible incomes that can be made from home.
Let’s go … https://WorkBalance27.blogspot.com
I don’t know if this is legit, The actors in the video seemed overly happy.
I’m no fan of SDG&E, which has been price-gouging citizens for decades. But look at the City of San Diego’s maintenance of its existing infrastructure–roads, water pipes, storm drains, etc.–and ask yourself how it would maintain a power grid and what the consequences of that neglect would be.
I completely agree as bad as SDG&E is, a city replacement run by this mayor would also not be good considering it’s track record on water issues, from releasing water (from previous rains from Hodges) without any attempt to divert, and then raising water rates 20% in two years with a portion of the cost due to imported water.
So… it’s kind of early for Gloria to start his slimy style of campaigning. He must be worried. He should be worried.
Here is another mayoral candidate. http://www.dannytri.com
I’m a democrat who voted for Todd Gloria. My mistake. Never again. Anyone else for mayor has my vote.
http://www.dannytri.com
1 Why are you running, and what makes you the best candidate? (150 words max)
I am running to change the direction of City Government from one owned by the developers to one beholden to the citizens of San Diego. I am motivated by the idea that the noblest motive is to serve. It is my desire to bring new solutions to recurring problems. When I am elected, I will implement long term solutions that will allow me to serve as Mayor and retire from public service knowing that my service made a difference.
I am the best candidate because I have spent my life advocating for the citizens of San Diego; I am not a career politician. I have no desire to continue in public office after I have been elected Mayor. For those reasons I will make decisions that will not further my political career but will be what I consider to be in the best interests of my fellow citizens. (147 words)
2. What are the top 3 issues facing the city? (150 words max)
1. Reducing the Cost of Housing in San Diego.
2. Solving the Homeless Problem.
3. Reducing the expense of running our government.
3. What are the first 3 things you would do in office if elected or reelected? (150 words max)
The highest priority in my administration is to stop all projects that involve the sale of city owned land. I would lease city land, using the Port District model of stewardship in administering the use of our land. All rezones would be approved with the developer selling the rezoned land to the city.
I would institute a 10% pay cut of all salaries in city government that exceed $150K. I would put into effect a hiring freeze on all positions where the base salary is 150K or more. I would eliminate and consolidate departments that have high overhead. I would use the savings to hire more employees who provide service not supervision.
All new hires in the City government would be enrolled in Social Security. I would liquidate the current pension program by not covering anymore employees. Eventually the City will pay off the multibillion-dollar debt that keeps growing. (148 words)
4 Do you support a 1-cent general city sales tax increase, and/or a half-cent county sales tax increase that would fund transportation? Why or why not? (100 words max)
The way to control government spending is to control expenses not raise taxes. If the City had adopted a policy of leasing their land when the Port District started it, the City would be just like the Port District relying only on lease payments not taxes.
Fiscal responsibility starts with a mayor who will cut salaries and pensions. San Diego is required by law to balance its budget. Instead of selling our land to balance the budget, lets reduce the cost of government. Raising taxes only increases expenses by encouraging new costs. (92 words)
5 What should the city do to combat its housing crisis? (150 words max)
The price of housing doubles every ten years because the value of the land increases.
The solution to both problems is to stop selling city owned land and lease it like the Port District.
I will build a low-income high rise apartment complex on leased city owned land. I will require that the units have four private bedrooms, 2 full baths and a kitchen. The lease payments will be predicated on a percentage of the gross rents over 60 years. The winning bid will have purchased the right to use the land at less than 25% of the cost of a comparable project. At the end of the sixty years the land comes back to San Diego and we can do it again.
This will provide a comparable sale for a leasehold estate. It will demonstrate the feasibility of building low-income housing that pays for itself without using government subsidies. (150 words)
6) How should public safety and civil liberties be balanced when it comes to homelessness enforcement, behavioral health policy and police surveillance? (100 words max)
Public safety and civil liberties cannot be thought of as a scale in and out of balance. This is an illusion created to confuse the voters as to the core problems we face in San Diego.
There is no comparison when addressing unfair laws that criminalize poverty and poor healthy policies that fail to address the core issue of healthcare.
Police surveillance has nothing to do with poor health policies and the homeless.
The solution to these problems is leadership that has a desire to address each of these issues as separate problems with unique solutions. (97 words)
7 Recent flooding has brought new attention to failures of city infrastructure, and how the effects of climate change can disproportionately impact poorer neighborhoods and communities of color. How should the city combat this? (100 words max)
A short-term solution is to educate and involve the Citizens of San Diego to take responsibility for their own streets and drains. A neighborhood watch program that cleans the sewer grates of leaves and debris before the streets floods reduces the load on our city employees.
The real problem is poorer neighborhoods do not have large campaign donors who can influence politicians when they prioritize spending on infrastructure. The older pump stations are located in the poorer neighborhoods. Giving priority to their replacement instead of the more affluent areas of town would be the tide that raises all boats equally. (100 words)
8 San Diego faces a big budget crunch, along with a nearly $5 billion infrastructure funding shortfall. Where would you propose cutting, where should more revenue be sought, and what else should the city do? (100 words max)
The major cost to our budget is personnel salaries and benefits. Reduce the salaries of the mayor and all elected city officials and cut their staff. Institute a hiring freeze on all positions that have a base salary of $150K or more.
Pensions are a cost that will bankrupt the city unless we stop it now. It is a privilege not a career to work for the government in a leadership capacity. Put all new hired employees on social security. Let those positions that pay more than allowed for coverage by social security take care of their own retirement. (98 words)
Daniel Smiechowski
Oh, the irony of SDGE’s PAC being called Responsible Energy San Diego, trying to pretend that its negligence didn’t cause the two largest wildfires in San Diego’s history. Can we please force PACs and ballot measures to accurately reflect what they are? I’m looking at you, “Taxpayer Protection Government Accountability Act,” which decreases taxes only on corporations extracting Lithium from beneath the Salton Sea and will basically prevent Imperial Valley from benefiting at all even though the Lithium extractions will likely harm the area environmentally and infrastructure-wise. A better name for SDGE’s PAC would be “Corporate Greed San Diego.”