South County Report: Aguirre Goes to Court in Supervisor Race

Two weeks left in the race to fill a vacant South County seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors – and the knives are out. 

The candidates and their supporters have been trading increasingly heated and personal attacks as a July 1 voting deadline looms. 

Today, Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, the Democrat in the race, upped the ante by going to court. Her campaign sued the city of Chula Vista, alleging the city has stonewalled the campaign’s efforts to obtain public records related to Aguirre’s Republican opponent, Chula Vista Mayor John McCann. 

The lawsuit accuses city officials of failing to respond to an April 29 records request for a clemency letter McCann wrote in 2020 to then-President Donald Trump on behalf of a local businesswoman serving a federal prison sentence for fraud. 

After Trump freed the woman, she and her brother, a Chula Vista cannabis entrepreneur, embarked on a second fraud scheme, for which a judge sentenced both siblings in April. 

“McCann appears to be using taxpayer resources to try to run out the clock [on Aguirre’s request for a copy of the clemency letter] so the truth doesn’t come out until after most voters have already cast their ballots,” the lawsuit alleges. 

McCann’s response. In a statement to Voice of San Diego, McCann said the suit was nothing more than an effort to distract voters from recent revelations that Aguirre had failed to pay her property taxes and other debts.

“This phony lawsuit is an attempt to hide the fact that Paloma Aguirre refused to pay her property taxes for over four years on her beach condo,” McCann said. “Aguirre will raise your taxes, but she still won’t pay her own. How can we trust her to manage San Diego County’s $8 billion budget?”

McCann also pointed out that Aguirre’s suit is premature because the city is still gathering records to respond to her request.

A city spokesperson said it is city policy not to comment on pending legal matters. 

Public agencies are required to respond to records requests within 10 days to notify the requestor whether the agency has records relevant to the request. After that, agencies are required to make documents “promptly available,” but the law sets no deadline. 

Officials in Chula Vista’s City Clerk’s office responded to Aguirre’s records request 10 days after it was filed, saying the city needed more time. Since then, the city has extended its deadline to produce records four more times, according to an Aguirre campaign spokesperson. 

The latest extension was until July 3. City officials say they need the extra time because Aguirre’s records request was large and complex. 

In addition to requesting the clemency letter, Aguirre’s campaign requested McCann’s travel and expense records during the entirety of his service as a Chula Vista Councilmember or Mayor (he was first elected to the Council in 2002); all correspondence between McCann and the developer of a proposed landfill in Otay Mesa; all correspondence between McCann and the businesswoman’s brother; and correspondence between McCann and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin prior to Zeldin’s April visit to view the Tijuana River sewage crisis. 

Campaign attacks. The lawsuit is the latest salvo in Aguirre’s ongoing effort to make McCann’s relationship with the convicted businesswoman, whose name is Adriana Camberos, a central issue in the supervisor race. 

Aguirre’s campaign has attacked McCann relentlessly for writing the clemency letter and later receiving tens of thousands of dollars from Camberos and her brother in support of his 2022 campaign for mayor. 

McCann has said he wrote the clemency letter based on a sincere desire to help a constituent and did not solicit the campaign donations. 

Aguirre’s lawsuit reads like a campaign ad itself. The suit retells the Camberos saga in its opening paragraphs and accuses McCann of lying about his connection to the siblings. 

McCann “is deliberately using his position as mayor to delay the city’s response to a public records request, in an effort to conceal damaging information about his efforts to lobby Donald Trump to release a convicted fraudster who later donated to his political campaign,” the lawsuit says. 

Notable timing. Aguirre’s lawsuit just so happens to have landed in court the same day Aguirre and McCann are scheduled to meet for their only pre-election debate. 

The lawsuit also follows a week during which McCann ramped up his attacks on Aguirre for failing to pay her property taxes and other debts. 

In social media posts and ads mailed to voters, McCann and his supporters say Aguirre’s record of unpaid bills is the real issue in the race because it calls into question Aguirre’s budgeting skills. 

Aguirre has described her debt problems as similar to financial challenges faced by many working-class residents of District 1. She says she is current on a county-approved plan to pay her delinquent property tax bill. 

The Trump factor. Election observers often bemoan candidates’ preference for simplistic attacks over substantive engagement. On its surface, Aguirre’s lawsuit seems like another of those attacks. 

But the war of words in the supervisor race is less simplistic than it seems. The candidates’ attack lines – McCann-equals-Trump; Aguirre-equals-tax-dodger – reflect two distinct bets about what District 1 voters really care about. 

Aguirre invokes Trump non-stop because she believes this race ultimately hinges on Democratic voters’ partisan loyalty and ongoing alarm at national political events. Democrats outnumber Republicans in District 1 more than two to one. 

McCann makes the opposite bet. It’s a local race and he has focused on local issues, portraying himself as a better fiscal steward and promising to keep costs down. 

The Trump connection (however tenuous) doomed former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s attempt to unseat District 3 Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer in November. Will it do the same to McCann? 

That’s a fascinating question, and one I intend to explore after voting results are in. Sources in the community tell me Trump is not the bogeyman he once was, especially for many Latino voters. 

We’ll know the answer in two weeks. Until then, expect the attacks to keep coming. 

Other Issues I’m Watching 

The Chula Vista City Council tonight will decide whether to renew faith-based nonprofit CityNet’s contract to run the Chula Vista Village at Otay homeless shelter, which opened in 2023. I’ll be reporting later this week on how Chula Vista’s response to homelessness compares to other South County cities’. Homelessness ranks as one of voters’ top concerns in the District 1 supervisor race. 

The National City Council also meets tonight. Councilmembers will vote on the city’s proposed 2025-26 annual budget, which includes dipping into $1million in city reserves to cover a shortfall between revenues and expenses. Expect a lively debate. (All debates in National City are lively these days.) 

Also expect lively debate over another National City Council agenda item: A proposal to rezone a property at the corner of Sweetwater Road and Orange Street to limit the property to residential use only. The property has been the subject of a bitter feud over city officials’ purported role in a controversial gas station proposal that was rejected by the Planning Commission last year. 

How expensive is housing San Diego? Community colleges are resorting to building their own to house faculty and staff. The Southwestern College governing board voted on Monday to explore partnering with housing developers to build affordable housing for college staff.