Morning Report: The Pitch to Reshape County Governance

Tomorrow, County Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer will ask fellow board members to advance a ballot measure to shift county governance to hand supervisors more power.

Bureaucrats have long wielded more power in county government than they do at City Hall – and Lawson-Remer’s proposal seeks to shift the balance of power.

Among the proposed changes: board votes on high-level county hires, a third term for supervisors and new auditing and budget review officials that report to supervisors.

Our Lisa Halverstadt delivered a rundown of Lawson-Remer’s proposals – and both arguments for and against them, including a couple beefs from a prominent supporter the supervisor wants to lead efforts to implement the changes.

You can read the full story here.

More Politics: Our editors explained just how big of a deal the reforms could be for county operations. They also got the results of a poll that asked voters if they would support the reforms. Read more in the Politics Report here.

Also On County Supes’ Tuesday Menu

The charter measure isn’t the only big item on the Board of Supervisors’ Tuesday agenda.

The board will also consider Supervisor Joel Anderson’s proposals to set guardrails for county-funded polling and increase transparency surrounding board subcommittees that have largely been meeting in secret. Halverstadt previewed Anderson’s polling and subcommittee proposals.

Also on the agenda:

• Lawson-Remer and Supervisor Paloma Aguirre are proposing an agreement with the Mexican Consulate to help fund legal representation to Mexican nationals under the county’s Immigrant Legal Defense Program.
• Anderson wants to standardize the county’s process for responding to Public Records Act requests to minimize delays in releasing records and differing timelines that can now vary by county department. Voice recently wrote about repeated county delays and attempts to avoid releasing records after formal requests.
• Lawson-Remer and Anderson want to reallocate funds previously directed toward public-private partnerships to provide sleeping cabins for homeless residents to expand a diversion program to move people out of homelessness. We wrote about how diversion works last year. 

Sacramento Report: Dems Bummed About Bummer Gov Race

President Donald Trump’s historic unpopularity has fueled excitement of a midterm blue wave among Democratic politicos nationwide. But to local voters, the shambolic race to replace Governor Gavin Newsom is a stone-cold bummer. 

The contest was shaping up to be a potential nightmare scenario for California liberals. A nearly endless list of Democratic candidates fractured voters, giving rise to the possibility of the unthinkable: two Republicans clinching the top two primary spots and advancing to the general, potentially shutting out Democrats from the race. 

The rapid resignation and dropping out of frontrunner U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell after allegations surfaced that he’d sexually assaulted multiple women reshaped the race. His withdrawal may give one of the other two frontrunners – billionaire Tom Steyer and former Congressmember Katie Porter – enough juice to squeak by Republicans. That should be good news for liberal voters, right? Not exactly.

Sacramento reporter Nadia Lathan spoke to multiple voters whose mood can best be described as “disheartened.” The sense that Dems have dropped the ball on governing America’s largest state looms heavy on their minds and is fueling a frustration with politics in general.

“I’m tired of being deceived. I’m not happy with any political party right now. I think people really need to make them accountable,” Becky Fredrickson, an independent who usually votes blue, told Lathan.

You can read the whole story here.

VOSD Podcast: Broken Promises

Speaking of the Governor’s race…on this week’s podcast, our hosts dug into the messy politics surrounding the contest and bravely asked the question – “Is something wrong with people who have the audacity and self-assuredness to think they should be California’s top dog?” Probably.

They also reviewed a couple of stories decades in the making. The first is about the city’s promise to build a fire station in southeastern San Diego. Eleven years later, firefighters are still working in a temporary tent. The other is about San Diego Unified’s promise to replace the plumbing at a southeastern San Diego middle school, which they’d included as a selling point in three successive bond measures. Fourteen years later, and that school is still springing leaks.

Pretty disheartening. Hey, I’m sensing a theme here. 

Listen to the podcast here.

In Other News 

• Reporting suggests the Padres are getting close to a sale of the franchise to billionaire hedge fund manager Jose Feliciano and his wife. Padres Nation the world over is now trying to read the leaves to figure out what this means. One thing seems pretty sure – it’ll cost them a pretty penny. Nearly $4 billion to be exact. (Union-Tribune)
• A defense attorney who specialized in representing cops accused of misconduct has been appointed to a San Diego Superior Court seat. (union-Tribune)
• A new 200-page study has found that replacing SDG&E with a publicly owned utility could save customers about $500 year. SDG&E, however, says it significantly underestimates the costs. (Union-Tribune)
• The boards of MTS & NCTD voted to increase fares up to 40 percent to stave off cuts to service as the systems grapple with massive deficits. If approved by SANDAG, the hikes will be the first in nearly 20 years. (City News Service)

The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt and Jakob McWhinney. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.

The post Morning Report: The Pitch to Reshape County Governance appeared first on Voice of San Diego.