South County Democrats have been at war with one another.
Now, with a crucial general election nearing, they are pinning their hopes on a peacemaker.
Democrats in the party’s South Area region, which encompasses San Diego County’s southern cities and unincorporated areas, recently selected Sherman Heights realtor and longtime party activist Rafael Perez as the party’s new South Area vice chair.
Perez, who last month lost a bid for San Diego City Council, will coordinate election efforts in a year when Democrats are hoping to extend their influence in numerous local jurisdictions and end their years-long shutout from South County mayoral offices.
A self-described “firm but fair” leader, Perez said he hopes to heal divisions among local Democrats, who over the past year have engaged in seemingly nonstop feuding over candidates, endorsements and the party’s fundamental values and strategy.
“Everyone is working toward very similar goals, and there’s not always consensus on how we get there,” Perez said. “That’s where I hope to be able to step in in this role and lead with integrity and fairness and the party’s values to help filter through the noise.”
Perez replaces former South Area Vice Chair Jason Bercovitch, who resigned last month after a video surfaced of him engaging in a shouting match with another party activist over a controversial candidate endorsement.
Perez said he hopes to avoid such dustups by following the rules and making sure everyone feels heard.
“Our party has got procedures and policies and everything else,” he said. “[My] role is to be that leader who is firm but fair and brings people to a good cause.”
A realtor for more than two decades, Perez said his experience selling houses south of Interstate 8 has given him insight into South County residents’ economic challenges and aspirations.
He also teaches real estate as an adjunct professor at San Diego Mesa College and Cuyamaca College.
He has served as board president of the Sherman Heights Community Center and helps to run the Sherman Cocina, which helps aspiring restaurant owners learn the food business.
And he’s a member of the PTA at his child’s elementary school – which might turn out to be the most relevant item on his resume for leading fractious South County Democrats.
“Peacemaking, we need that,” said San Diego County Democratic Party Chair Will Rodriguez-Kennedy of the southern region where Perez is assuming leadership.
Rodriguez-Kennedy said Perez is the right man for the South Area job at a time when key South County elections – along with a fraught national political environment – call for party unity.
“I found him a confident officer who people like, and he doesn’t tend to be a mean-spirited operator,” Rodriguez-Kennedy said. “He tends to be [a] fair-minded [person] who is not prone to outbursts.”
Perez said during his campaign to represent District 8 on the San Diego City Council – which he lost by roughly 1,100 votes – voters’ number one complaint was what he described as “a disconnect between what they perceived to be the focus [of elected leaders] and what [residents’] challenges and frustrations really are.”
Voters perceive that politicians are just looking out for themselves, Perez said.
What voters actually care about, he said, is “safety and potholes and crime and pollution.”
Perez said he hopes to steer Democrats back to those fundamentals and keep the focus on fundraising, supporting candidates and winning important races.
“By and large, the South Area encompasses a lot of working-class communities who need and seek voices that have their needs prioritized,” he said. “That’s who I’m fighting for and that’s who our endorsed candidates are fighting for.”
“I think [working-class people] would be better served with Democrats in office…Hopefully we have results in line with our values and we can build upon that.”
One More Step Toward Holocaust Museum
For years, Chula Vista resident Sandra Scheller has been laboring to fill a glaring hole in San Diego’s cultural fabric.
The city is one of the few large American cities without a Holocaust museum.
Later this year, Scheller will move one step closer toward her goal of establishing such a museum when a Holocaust education exhibit she is organizing at the downtown San Diego Central Library opens on Sept. 23.
The exhibit will feature roughly 100 items from Scheller’s personal collection of Holocaust artifacts, including a can of lethal Zyklon B gas used to execute Jews, Nazi memorabilia and life-size cutouts of Holocaust survivors, including survivors who settled in the San Diego area.
Scheller, the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, said she hopes the exhibit will inspire San Diegans to learn about the Holocaust, internalize its implications and advocate for a permanent memorial museum.
The exhibit is slated to run for two years in an exhibition space on the library’s second floor.
“We [have] never answered the question, where did the hate come from for the worst atrocity in the world, the Holocaust?” Scheller said. “The importance of educating people about the Holocaust never went away.”
Scheller recently hired an executive director for Remember Us the Holocaust (RUTH), the nonprofit she formed to manage her Holocaust collection and advocate for a permanent museum.
For the past six years, the collection has been displayed at other regional libraries, including in Chula Vista, though never for as long as the downtown San Diego exhibit is slated to last.
Scheller said she hopes the central, transit-accessible location of the downtown library will draw visitors from across the San Diego region and beyond, including schoolchildren.
“The survivors [of the Holocaust] have passed on, but people are getting educated from our second and third generation youth,” she said. “That’s the importance of a Holocaust exhibit.”
It should be noted that Scheller is a genuine South County character. Raised in Chula Vista, she went on to become a professional mime then taught theater arts to Cirque du Soleil performers. She now provides volunteer assistance to The Flying Cranes, an aerial ballet troupe.
Describing her nonprofit’s new downtown San Diego office in the historic Marston Building on C Street, she said she was delighted to learn the building is full of lawyers and “every private investigator you could imagine.”
She noted her nonprofit’s office space was formerly occupied by an architect who worked on the San Diego Convention Center and the Gaylord Pacific Resort in Chula Vista.
When she moved in, Scheller said, she found an old sign the architect had led behind.
It read: “Out of Small Places Come Great Things.”
Scheller just might see that Holocaust museum become a reality.
For the Record: While reporting a story this week about a possible increase in Chula Vista’s hotel tax rate, I reached out to Marcy Weaver, CEO of the Chula Vista Chamber of Commerce, for comment.
The tax increase under consideration by city officials could affect the Chamber both because it would impact local hotel businesses and because the Chamber currently handles tourism promotion in the city.
Jose Preciado, one of the councilmembers eyeing the tax increase, said he hopes additional tax revenue will fund a new visitors bureau that would coordinate the city’s tourism efforts.
Weaver got back to me Thursday morning and said she had been unable to respond the previous day because she had been hosting an all-day board retreat.
She provided a characteristically diplomatic comment on the possible new tax increase: “At this time, I have not had an opportunity to discuss this matter with our board of directors or determine the Chamber’s official position,” she said.
“We look forward to learning more as additional details become available and engaging in conversations with our board, members and community partners to better understand the potential impacts and opportunities.”