The race to fill a vacant seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors is entering the home stretch – and an onslaught of high-dollar contributions is powering the candidates’ final sprint toward a July 1 voting deadline.
Big-dollar checks are flowing into campaign accounts daily, including a recent eye-watering $250,000 contribution from an electrical workers union to a committee supporting Democrat Paloma Aguirre and $50,000 from the developer of a controversial proposed landfill to a committee supporting Republican John McCann.
Political analyst Mason Herron, who tracks local campaign spending, said he can barely keep up with it all.
“Money is flowing in thick and fast – and confusingly,” he said.
Why it all matters: The District 1 supervisor race will tip the partisan balance of power on the County Board of Supervisors. The board is currently split 2-2 between Democrats and Republicans.
Read about the biggest donors.
All of a Sudden, Everyone’s at the Tijuana River
In other supervisor race news, Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre on Thursday brought in yet another political celebrity to visit the Tijuana River and experience first-hand the river’s ongoing sewage crisis.
This week’s visitor from Washington, D.C. was the Senate’s star filibusterer, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.
“I am here because this is not a local problem,” Booker said alongside Aguirre at a press conference near the river. “I’m here because this is a national disaster.”
Though Booker’s current Senate committee assignments do not give him authority over Tijuana River issues, he said he agreed to Thursday’s visit to draw more media attention to a problem that he said had become the nation’s worst environmental disaster since Flint, Michigan.
Booker’s visit follows on the heels of a recent high-profile visit to the river by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin. That visit spotlighted mostly Republican leaders in San Diego County – including Chula Vista Mayor John McCann, Aguirre’s opponent in a current race to fill a vacant seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
“As long as we’re all rowing in the same direction, that’s what matters,” she said.
Op-Ed: How the System Failed One Homeless San Diegan
Earlier this month, San Diego police shot a homeless man multiple times after he allegedly swung a hatchet at desks and computers at the Pacific Beach Public Library.
Staff at The Compass Station in Pacific Beach knew that man. In an op-ed, Caryn Blanton of Shoreline Community Services, which operates the drop-in resource center, writes that staffers there repeatedly tried to help the man as his condition deteriorated. He cycled in and out of hospitals, jails and programs.
Blanton argues that police were forced to step in because other systems failed the man as he unraveled.
Related: Our Lisa Halverstadt and contributor Peggy Peattie last year produced a series on homeless hospital patients repeatedly discharged to the street, including a woman struggling with addiction and mental health challenges who ultimately died after leaving the county psychiatric hospital.
In Other News
- The South Bay Union School District board voted earlier this week to close an Imperial Beach elementary school and to reassess whether it needs to close two other schools. (Axios)
- San Diego Unified is seeking feedback on a new cell phone policy for its students. (NBC 7 San Diego)
- The city of San Diego this week countersued some victims of the January 2024 floods, claiming that they failed to maintain drainage on their properties. (NBC 7 San Diego)
- The elevators at a 407-unit affordable housing complex in East Village have regularly broken down since the facility opened and now a legal settlement requires nonprofit Father Joe’s Village to keep them running. (KPBS)
- The Prebys Foundation is providing seven $1 million grants to seven local institutions to support biomedical research in San Diego as the sector faces significant federal cuts. (Times of San Diego)
The Morning Report was written by Jim Hinch, Tessa Balc and Lisa Halverstadt. It was edited by Scott Lewis.