Politics Report: Padres Do Some Polling

This week, the Padres sent out a statement about the city of San Diego’s decision to raise parking meter rates around Petco Park during major events.

If you owned thousands of parking spaces around downtown, you’d probably charge more than $2.50 an hour for them during big events. But the increase was big and unexpected – jumping to $10 per hour and no free time after 6 p.m. It’s one of those stories that penetrate beyond those of us who follow this stuff deeply to the normals. They were shocked.

The Padres jumped on it.  

“The city made this decision without meaningful input from key stakeholders, including the Padres organization. We have not yet received information regarding how the new parking revenue will be reinvested locally but look forward to better understanding the city’s plan,” a written statement from the team said.

It was a pretty normal statement, but it had a touch of irritation and the same theme the Padres have been hitting for months. It was very similar to the comment the Padres’ CEO Erik Greupner made in a harsh letter to city leaders in March when the City Council fist started discussing a major increase to the minimum wage for tourism workers, which had included workers at Petco Park.

Greupner was frustrated the city would push the Padres to pay more. They already pay stadium workers higher than minimum wage. As tenants of a city facility they pay the mandated living wage, now more than $21 per hour. They felt targeted.            

“And yet, despite our long-standing relationship with the City, we received no prior notice that the City was going to target us with this proposal until it was announced publicly — one week before a committee hearing to consider it,” he wrote.

That’s when things changed: Something has happened to the team, to its partnership with the city.

For its part, the team is setting attendance records and baseball people now widely expect it to compete for a National League championship and World Series appearance. Now the people who work on the Padres’ off-field presence in San Diego public affairs appears to be gearing up to make it a political actor unlike anything we have seen since the team orchestrated the passage of the ballpark vote and the reinvention of East Village.

The Padres are a major institution and have been for decades but their under-the-radar politics could now be something we see overtly in more spending, endorsements or positions.

Monday, a reader got a poll from Competitive Edge Research and Communication that seems to offer a glimpse into what the Padres may be thinking.

One question: “How appropriate, if at all, is it for professional sports teams to take a stand on local political issues that could affect their business operations?”

Another: “Are you aware or unaware that the City Council is considering adopting a minimum wage increase from $17.25 per hour to $25 per hour for all tourism employees and workers for any organization operating a hotel, convention, event center, stadium, arena, amusement park, or zoo in the city? Do you support or oppose this proposal? Do you think the Padres should actively support this proposal?”

And my favorite: “Regardless of the minimum wage issue, suppose there was a candidate for local public office that you generally disagreed with and opposed. If the Padres organization endorsed that candidate for local public office, would that worsen your opinion of the Padres organization or would that make no difference to you?”

The Padres didn’t want to talk about their political aims or position.

Insiders say there’s a big discussion ongoing about whether the Padres and others will push for an easier minimum wage increase or scale to manage – maybe ramping up over time. Or will the team join with hotels and others to push the issue to a referendum.

But it does feel like it’s more than just about the minimum wage thing. The Padres seem to be communicating they feel like they’re being left out of too many conversations. Spending on politics can often change that.

Nathan Fletcher, Vindicated?

Friday San Diego Superior Court Judge Matthew C. Braner officially dismissed Grecia Figueroa’s sexual harassment lawsuit against former County Supervisors Nathan Fletcher. Braner did not rule that Fletcher did not harass Figueroa. He ruled that she had so horribly withheld or tainted or skewed the evidence that killing the case was the only valid sanction against her.

“As set forth above, Plaintiff engaged in a pattern of preserving only the evidence she believed was helpful to her case, while actively deleting, or knowingly allowing to be
deleted, evidence that was likely detrimental to her claims,” Braner wrote.

And so it’s over. Or is it? Figueroa told us her lawyers were already talking to people who could help them with an appeal.

Is Fletcher coming back? After Figueroa filed her lawsuit, Fletcher vanished from public life. In one week, in 2023, he went from being the most prominent, most influential and most promising political leader in San Diego to just gone. After that he never made a public appearance, gave an interview or was even seen beyond his image in social media posts from his wife, Lorena Gonzalez.

The Union-Tribune quoted Fletcher’s attorney that Fletcher may make a public appearance.

“‘We’ll see,’ (Sam) Sherman said when asked about Fletcher’s potential return to politics. ‘We’ll be coming out with things in the future.'”

The two questions we always had about case were simple: What did Fletcher do to Figueroa or with her? And why did the Metropolitan Transit System fire her?

Start with the second question. We’ve had a lot of information about why MTS fired her. Then, last month, Braner dismissed the case against MTS, saying the agency’s leadership justifiably fired her for performance problems. That decision belied any assumption any of us had that “power dynamics” legally prevent a top leader of an organization from having clandestine sexual encounters at the office with a low-level employee. The judge has essentially concluded there’s no issue there nor did that have anything to do with her job performance.

The judge gave Figueroa the opportunity to speak.

“Thank you, your honor, first I’d like to say, respectfully, that I find it disrespectful to invalidate my experience and call abuse of power an affair,” she said.

That was the core question. The first one. Did he assault her? In American politics, we are well beyond caring about marital fidelity. But we’d like to think hurting someone, assaulting them at work, at a public agency, would be too much.

Her claims, however, of assault were the biggest victims of the way Figueroa handled her evidence and arguments. When a fuller picture emerged of what she said to him and what they did, the claim he attacked her without consent suffered. And now Fletcher intends to make her pay with an ongoing defamation case.

So no, it’s not over. But he may be back soon and ready to talk about it.

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