Two South Bay mayors will race for the open seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Chula Vista Mayor John McCann and Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre will appear on the runoff ballot July 1.
With 11,000 votes still to count, McCann, a Republican, had won 44 percent of votes. Aguirre had gotten 32 percent of votes counted.
Two other Democrats in the race, San Diego City Councilmember Vivian Moreno and Chula Vista City Councilmember Carolina Chavez, garnered too few votes – 13 percent and 8 percent – to overcome the frontrunners’ lead. Three other lesser-known candidates split the remainder of the vote.
McCann will come up short of the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright.
What’s at stake: Tuesday’s special election was called following the surprise – and so far unexplained – resignation in December of former District 1 Supervisor Nora Vargas. The district includes the cities of Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and National City as well as portions of southern San Diego and the unincorporated area of Bonita.
A Democrat, Vargas helped to wrest the Board of Supervisors away from generations of Republican control when she was first elected in 2020. Since her departure, the Board has been split evenly between two Democrats and two Republicans.
The winner of Tuesday’s special election will determine whether the county continues on its current leftward path or reverts to Republican control.
Reactions: “I’m very humbled, very thankful of the volunteers we’ve had and all the supporters we’ve had and all the people who voted for me,” McCann said Tuesday evening at an election night watch party at Karina’s restaurant in Chula Vista. “We’re excited that we will be in the runoff and we know that will be a tough battle. We’re going to continue to be on the ground talking to people, listening to people and finding solutions for South County.”
Aguirre issued a statement from her own watch party at Novo Brazil brewery in Imperial Beach. “It’s a clear message,” she said of her likely advancement to a runoff. “Voters want a Supervisor who fights on the side of working people, gets results on the sewage crisis and pushes for the more affordable San Diego County we need.”
Aguirre on Tuesday evening previewed campaign themes she likely will emphasize: “This runoff is a clear choice between Democratic values that put working people first, and a Trump Republican agenda that would be a complete disaster for all of San Diego County,” she said.
McCann said he was “fully prepared” for a runoff election and planned to focus his campaign on his record in Chula Vista.
McCann said he had helped to make Chula Vista “one of the safest cities in the county,” reduced the number of homeless people on city streets and brought “thousands of new jobs” via signature economic development projects such as a soon-to-open luxury hotel and resort on the city’s redeveloped bayfront.
“I’ve been a leader to help elevate the image and job growth in Chula Vista, where Chula Vista is an economic engine for the region,” McCann said. “I want to make sure we create innovation and jobs in all of South County.”
Voices of South County voters: Our Jim Hinch spent the morning talking to voters in Chula Vista, San Ysidro and Imperial Beach about what brought them out to the polls.
Though turnout was low – 15 percent as of 8 p.m. Tuesday – voters who went to the polls said they were driven by pressing issues in the region, including the Tijuana River sewage crisis, homelessness, the economy, public safety and protections for immigrants amid a Trump administration crackdown on undocumented migrants.
“Things are not getting better,” said Lionel Jasmin of Chula Vista as he prepared to vote Tuesday morning at Chula Vista’s City Hall. “In our church we see people struggling and food programs being affected by budget cuts in Washington…I’m here for my civic duty.”
Read the South County Report here.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon in EdTech-Land
In recent months, President Donald Trump’s directive to eliminate the Department of Education has sparked outrage among many in the education sphere. The department serves important oversight functions, like policing Title IX infractions. For example, just last year, the feds slammed San Diego Unified’s handling of reports of sexual misconduct.
And though the department only provides around 10 percent of funding for schools across the country, that funding is directed toward the most in need, like economically disadvantaged students and those with special needs. The department also distributes more than $100 billion in financial aid, loans and work-study payments to college students each year.
On Tuesday morning, Education Secretary Linda McMahon spoke to a crowd of educators and techies at the ASU+GSV education technology conference at San Diego’s Grand Hyatt hotel.
During the half-hour chat, McMahon said that cuts were targeting bureaucracy, not funding. She insisted that federal education funding would continue to flow to states despite the potential elimination of the Department of Education itself. McMahon also made other news, like pledging to preserve a renowned federal student testing program and spelling out a possible role for private enterprise in the future of the federal education system.
Special Podcast Episode: The Sagon Penn Story
One spring evening in 1985, two police officers stopped a truck in the southeastern San Diego community of Encanto. Within minutes, the stop had escalated. As baton swings flew, more than a dozen witnesses gathered. Then, shots rang out. The incident left one officer dead, another officer and a civilian ridealong severely injured, a young Black man in a yearslong legal limbo and a city reeling.
Forty years later, education reporter Jakob McWhinney spoke with Peter Houlahan, author of the book “Reap the Whirlwind: Violence, Race and the Story of Sagon Penn,” about the incident, the figures who drove the story and the aftermath.
Song of the Week
SLACKER, “Velvet Worms”: It’s all well and good to write something political, but at the end of the day it has to actually sound good. Bad songs are often made even worse by political pandering. Luckily for SLACKER, “Velvet Worms,” rips. It’s an under two minute anti-capitalist punk jam that feels both nonchalant and scathing.
Read more about the Song of the Week here.
Like what you hear? Check out SLACKER Wednesday, April 9 at Whistle Stop.
Do you have a “Song of the Week” suggestion? Shoot us an email and a sentence or two about why you’ve been bumping this song lately. Friendly reminder: all songs should be by local artists.
In Other News
- San Diego County supervisors are set to vote today on whether to postpone the county’s annual budget approval deadline – after deciding to postpone their previously scheduled Monday vote.
- Despite the prospect of significant cuts, supervisors voted Tuesday to proceed with behavioral health expansion plans. (Union-Tribune)
- San Diego rescue crews pulled a woman from a storm drain in Poway on Monday. The 59-year-old woman did not survive. Her family had reported her missing since April 3, but she was last seen in downtown San Diego, the Union-Tribune reported.
- The Board of Supervisors approved a request by Sheriff Kelly Martinez to put up to $760,000 in U.S. Department of Justice grant money into a contract with a company that will process DNA tests from rape kits. The contract approved by the board is what’s called a no-bid, meaning it was only offered to one company rather than put out to a competitive bid process. (Union-Tribune)
- A waiver issued Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security fast-tracked the construction of a segment of border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border near Jacumba, side-stepping environmental regulations. (AP)
- DOGE has axed funding for a Covid-era wastewater testing program that allowed scientists to analyze samples taken from three local treatment plants for the amount and type of viruses shed by county residents. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Jim Hinch, Jakob McWhinney and Lisa Halverstadt. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña and Scott Lewis.
“…the ASU+GSV education technology conference…”
are we readers supposed to know what that stands for? how ’bout reporting the full name *one time* before going to the acronyms — like all the stylebooks say.
15.04 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot. That amounts to almost nobody voting! And then most of you fools criticize me for running again for SDCC D2. I honestly believe America is mentally insane.