The June 2 primary election is less than two weeks away, and South County is living up to its reputation for bruising politics.
Just in the past few weeks I have witnessed or heard about:
- A shouting match that nearly turned into a physical confrontation over one endorsement.
- An effort to rescind another endorsement that critics say Democratic Party leaders tricked party members into approving.
- Multiple harassment claims filed against a school board member as part of what critics said is an effort to derail the board member’s re-election campaign.
- Allegations that a labor union with hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend is serving as an unaccountable slush fund for local candidates.
- And – hat tip to Tammany Hall – allegations that another candidate offered to buy voters a beer then help them fill out their ballots.
I’ll be reporting in greater detail on some of these issues in the coming days. For this week’s newsletter, I want to focus on one City Council race in Chula Vista that seems emblematic of candidates’ willingness to hit new lows in campaign tactics.
Local politicos’ social media feeds have been buzzing with controversy over a campaign poster created recently by Angelica Martinez, a former teacher and current member of a Sweetwater Union High School District Parent Advisory Council who is seeking to unseat District 2 Councilmember Jose Preciado.
The poster features a photograph of Preciado doctored to include an attack message imprinted on his t-shirt: “Failed Leadership. Crime is Rising. No True Representation for Families.”
The message wasn’t the problem. Critics objected to the photo, taken several years ago at a time when Preciado, who said he has struggled with his weight, weighed more than 600 pounds.
Since then, Preciado has lost more than half that weight and does not resemble the image in the photo. Preciado said the photo, which Martinez posted on social media (and later removed), was a blatant attempt to make fun of him for his physical appearance.
“Is a disagreement on a policy matter so much that I have to be…belittled?” he said. “I find it despicable.”
In response to a request for comment made Tuesday, Martinez asked for a list of questions and said her campaign “focuses on public safety, homelessness and the cost of living, and I don’t like the broken promises from the incumbent.”
A day after I sent Martinez a list of questions, she said she needed more time “to provide thoughtful and accurate responses rather than rushed statements.”
She did not respond to a request to speak by phone.
Preciado is a Democrat. Martinez is a Republican backed by fellow Republican Carl DeMaio, a state assemblymember who has thrown his party into turmoil by mounting an insurgent effort to yank it further to the right.
Candidates distort images of opponents in attack ads all the time. But there was something about the effort to fat-shame Preciado that struck onlookers, including Preciado’s other opponents in the race, as especially juvenile and offensive.
“It’s shameful,” said Russ Hall, a former chair of Chula Vista’s Planning Commission who also is running against Preciado. Hall recently switched his voter registration from Republican to decline-to-state in protest of what he called his former party’s growing extremism and electoral incompetence.
“There is a severe lack of humanity and common sense in doing this,” he said of Martinez’s ad.
Perhaps seeking to distract from the public blowback, Martinez followed up by filing an ethics complaint against Preciado last week, accusing him of bullying her during an argument outside City Hall following a Feb. 2 City Council vote on a new city sanctuary policy.
The city’s Board of Ethics dismissed the complaint on Wednesday with minimal discussion.
Preciado said a final irony of the Feb. 2 incident is that, directly following the Council meeting that evening, Martinez showed up at Preciado’s monthly meeting with constituents at a nearby senior center.
She asked questions, participated in the discussion and, at the end, joined a group photo with Preciado and other meeting attendees. A photo from the meeting shows Martinez smiling steps away from her campaign opponent.
All of this could be filed under amateur-hour small-town politics – except Chula Vista is not a small town anymore. And the issues confronting the city’s 2nd Council District require more than amateur governance.
Martinez, in fact, is right that crime has risen in the district. Preciado acknowledged the trend and blamed it on homeless encampment sweeps in Chula Vista that have displaced homeless people into surrounding neighborhoods.
He recounted several disturbing incidents, including a homeless person throwing a hammer at police and a high school student stabbed while waiting to catch a bus on Broadway.
He said he recently joined other councilmembers in approving a study of police resources that he said would help ensure all parts of the city receive the level of policing they require.
“This is my district and we’re going to work through this,” he said.
Hall, Preciado’s other opponent, said he disagrees with Preciado on most issues. But he said credible candidates don’t need to insult people to win arguments.
“We’ve suffered from not having [public] debates or forums in this race,” Hall said. “A lot of this stuff gets exposed when you put candidates in front of people and they have to be accountable to their words and actions.”
“If you’re solid on your background and your record and you have integrity and honor, you don’t do this.”
In Other News
National City Councilmembers this week moved closer toward identifying budget cuts and sources of new revenue as they stare down a possible $16 million deficit in next year’s annual budget. At a budget workshop Monday, councilmembers discussed freezing dozens of currently unfilled staff positions, scaling back overtime, increasing some service fees, applying for grants, scaling back a city meals program and more aggressively pursuing economic development opportunities as ways to close the budget gap. The city must adopt a budget by June 30.
The Chula Vista Elementary School District agreed to pay $3.3 million to settle a workplace retaliation lawsuit filed by a former principal who said the district hired a private investigator to tail her and later demoted and retaliated against her after she took a leave of absence for surgery to treat carpal tunnel syndrome. Savannah Sturges, the former principal of McMillin Elementary School, referred questions about the settlement to her lawyer, Andrew Hillier. Hillier said district officials “significantly harm[ed]” Sturges then told “falsehood after falsehood after falsehood” in an effort to conceal their mistakes. A district spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Soccer prodigies, put on your cleats. German soccer powerhouse FC Bayern announced it will launch its first United States soccer academy for promising young players at Chula Vista’s Elite Athlete Training Center. Details about when the academy will start and who will be eligible to participate are still in the works, said Chula Vista Mayor John McCann. Chula Vista “will now help develop the next generation of elite soccer talent,” McCann Said.