Politics Report: The County Reform

Next week the county Board of Supervisors will debate putting a measure on the ballot best known for its provision that would allow the supervisors to run for a third term.

But you should watch the discussion with more in mind: This would be a historic shift of power and it’s the latest in an effort to wrest some of the control of day-to-day operations away from the bureaucratic leaders who have dominated it.

The leaders of the county’s bureaucracy have dominated county operations, though, because of how badly it used to run. County supervisors used to directly meddle with managers and operations. There’s even a specific law prohibiting them from tampering with the official in charge of handing out contracts. Laws like that come from scandal.

So the question this week is if County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s proposal is a necessary rebalancing of power at the county, allowing voters to see and influence county operations more, or whether it would unlock some of the chaos of the past.

The big questions: Forget the term limits. It’s no doubt a big deal but it’s a stark question you can decide however you want.

Lisa Halverstadt did a great job breaking down all the elements of the proposal from Lawson-Remer and a coalition of supporters of the reform.

Supervisors want more say in how the county operates. The change achieves this in three ways: giving the supervisors their own budget analyst; giving the supervisors final say on top managers the chief administrative officer hires; and reforming a law that prohibited supervisors from “interfering” with county operations.

The budget analyst is not a small deal. Right now the county’s chief administrative officer controls the budget and any changes to the budget the supervisors request. It would absolutely change the dynamic to have a new team reading, analyzing, explaining and proposing different options.

The other two are more controversial proposals. The supervisors not allowing the chief administrative officer to decide her top staff is an unambiguous vote of no-confidence in her leadership. A longstanding feature of board-executive power dynamic is that the board gets to hire and fire the executive but then the executive has some latitude to deliver on expectations as they see fit.

But the more interesting change is the question of non-interference.

Democrats, unions and progressive activists have been methodically pursuing reform to the county for almost 20 years. Scandals in 1980s and financial chaos in the 1990s had led county leaders to install a fierce technocratic bureaucracy focused on management excellence, fiscal conservatism and efficiency. It was not politically neutral though, it was institutionally conservative.

In 2022, as the dam started to break, the county’s lawyer issued a confidential memo addressing questions he had been getting about the so-called non-interference law that says no member of the board shall give orders, instruct or interfere with any officer or employee reporting to the CAO.

The supervisors, at that time led by former Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, felt they were running into a kind of deep state in the county that wouldn’t respond to the changes they wanted. Lonnie Eldridge explained that was by design.

The San Diego Evening Tribune in 1984 wrote series of articles about the “county in chaos.”

The central claim was that supervisors were treating county employees as their own reports. The newspaper urged reform. “County staff members complained privately that board members routinely summon them to their private offices and ordered pet projects begun or studies undertaken,” wrote the LA Times in 1984.

Neil Morgan, one of the founders of Voice of San Diego, wrote a special editor’s note about the series in the Evening Tribune. “These problems cannot be solved overnight, because they have been years in building — years during which many San Diego County citizens knew things were going awry, but felt helpless to change the course.”

That year, voters approved the non-interference clause. The district attorney was empowered to enforce it.

Now Lawson-Remer and her allies want to change it. Here’s how Halverstadt describes the new proposal:

“The changes would clarify that board members can get information on county policies and activities, get help preparing initiatives if requests are made to the CAO and give input on hiring and dismissal of certain county managers.”

Poll shows support: The Laborers Local 89 shared a poll showing voters are into the change 78 percent of respondents would support a question that emphasized the creation of an ethics commission, independent budget analyst and auditor and term limits.

“For the nearly 5,000 working men and women we represent, accountability comes from transparency, oversight, and responsible governance. This measure strengthens independent oversight and transparency, while maintaining reasonable term limits that balance experience with accountability,” said Valentine Macedo, the business manager and secretary-treasurer of the union.

Old guard says pump the brakes: Dianne Jacob, former supervisor, said she doesn’t understand what the problem is they’re trying to solve. “This is nothing more than a political power play under the guise of more transparency and accountability,” she said.

Peter Seidler’s Investment Pays Off

In the world of sports, everyone is always looking for umbrage – something to be offended about. Something to put on the bulletin board to rally the team. And in 2023, Padres fans got what appeared to be a doozy from Colorado Rockies owner Dick Monfort.

In an interview with the Denver Post, Monfort groused about what his counterpart in San Diego, Peter Seidler was doing. That year was the height of Seidler’s spending. There wasn’t a star free agent in Major League Baseball that Seidler wasn’t interested in signing. The Padres, a supposed “small-market” team suddenly had the third-highest payroll in the league.

“That puts a lot of pressure (on us),” Monfort told the Denver Post. “What the Padres are doing, I don’t 100% agree with, though I know that our fans probably agree with it. We’ll see how it works out.”

They were vague comments loosely communicating that Monfort thought what Seidler was doing was unsustainable and we loved taking umbrage.

And now we see how it worked out: Friday news broke that the Padres ownership has come to terms with Puerto Rican businessman José E. Feliciano and his wife Kwanza Jones.

That was interesting and for the next few weeks, I think we’re going to learn a lot about Feliciano and Jones. (This Princeton Alumni Weekly piece is a bit fluffy but offers some insight into the kind of people they may be in San Diego – if they’re here much at all.)

The really interesting news for this first day though wasn’t the buyers, it was how much they were paying. They are buying the Padres at a reported valuation of $3.9 billion – a record shattering price for a Major League team. Steve Cohen bought the Mets in New York for $2.42 billion in 2020.

Seidler and his partners bought the team for $800 million in 2012. The Padres current owners will walk away with a 387.5 percent profit or 11.6 percent per year.

Decent.

For many years, it wasn’t just Monfort but lots of people described the spending Seidler was doing as reckless or unsustainable. When he died, people said it must have been his consciousness of his mortality that made him uniquely willing to spend.

Or it could have been just a wise and awesome investment that will now benefit his family for generations. It certainly wasn’t risk free and when he was borrowing money or otherwise outpacing revenue, he probably made some friends and colleagues nervous. But we don’t need to remember him as a saint or reckless spender seizing at life’s joys before he left.

He saw a chance to create something cool and he went for it.  

Who’s Got the Money in the 48^th?

Dispatch from Mason Herron: The race for the 48th Congressional District is one of the most closely watched not just in California, but nationally — and the amount of money pouring in to campaigns reflects that.

This week we got the latest round of fundraising figures from the major candidates: Brandon Riker (D), Ammar Campa-Najjar (D), Marni von Wilpert (D), and Jim Desmond (R).

For the most recent quarter (Q1 2026), Marni von Wilpert led the field with $520,715 raised, followed by Brandon Riker at $382,659. Jim Desmond and Ammar Campa-Najjar were close behind, bringing in $275,874 and $277,146, respectively.

Here’s where they currently stand in terms of cash on hand—the amount available to spend:

• Riker (D): $1,089,814

• Desmond (R): $1,064,356

• von Wilpert (D): $545,798

• Campa-Najjar (D): $456,365

On the surface, Riker appears to be in the strongest position, with Desmond not far behind. But there’s a bit more going on here.

The biggest factor is that the vast majority of Riker’s total — around $856,000  — comes in the form of loans to his own campaign. That’s different from a contribution. A candidate can repay a loan (even to themselves) but once money is contributed, it’s gone. So the loan money is available to spend, it is inflating his numbers. Whether he actually intends to deploy that money is something only his campaign knows.

Desmond’s numbers are fairly routine. He’s consistently raised in the low- to mid-six figures, and this quarter was no different, bringing in $276,000. As the only notable Republican in the race, he has a clear lane to consolidate GOP donors and could see an uptick following a recent endorsement from President Donald Trump.

Ammar Campa-Najjar came out strong, raising nearly half a million dollars in his first report, but his totals have declined each quarter since, including $277,000 this most recent period. That likely reflects early access to “low-hanging” donors when the Democratic field was thinner, before the passage of Proposition 50 made the race more attractive and drew in additional candidates.

Marni von Wilpert had her strongest quarter to date, bringing in $520,000. If you set aside Riker’s self-loans, she narrowly outraised Campa-Najjar and Riker combined. She’s also the only candidate whose contributions have grown each quarter (again, excluding Riker’s loans).

The most telling signal may be how PAC money is starting to line up behind von Wilpert.

In Q1 2026, PAC contributions to the three Democratic candidates broke down as follows:

• von Wilpert: $108,250 (27 PACs)

• Campa-Najjar: $16,000 (7 PACs)

• Riker: $1,000 (1 PAC)

Her first-quarter numbers suggest that the Democratic establishment may be starting to coalesce around her. Contributions came from LGBTQ caucus PACs, organized labor (IBEW, NEA, NUHW), trial lawyers (AAJ PAC), national strategic PACs (Take Back the House, No Vote Left Behind, Resistance), and leadership PACs tied to sitting House Democrats (Barragán, Aguilar, Doggett), along with direct transfers from Reps. Julia Brownley and Juan Vargas.

It’s still early, but the pattern points to emerging momentum. Beyond the direct financial benefit, it also signals the potential for outside spending during the primary from these same networks or aligned groups.

Foster Supports Trash Fee Repeal

The effort to repeal the trash fee is going swimmingly, the Lincoln Club Business League says. 

The group tweeted out a picture of a car full of petitions signed by voters earlier this week. 

Indeed, the odds the repeal will make the November ballot seem high. The effort only needs 20,000 signatures, because it is a fee repeal and requires fewer signatures than other citizen initiatives. 

The three candidates running for Council District 4 in southeastern San Diego don’t like the trash fee much themselves — but exactly how much they dislike it is a matter of degrees. 

During a League of Women Voters candidates forum this week, all three candidates answered answered “yes” when asked point blank if they supported repealing the fee. 

The race features Henry Foster III, who currently holds the council seat in play, Martha Abraham, a nurse and community activist, and Johnny Lee Dang, whose family started Rosaria’s Pizza in San Diego. 

Abraham seemed to be the most against any trash fee. She said the city needed to look to cut expenses before continuing to “nickel and dime” its residents. 

Dang and Foster hedged more, when elaborating on their answers. 

Dang said the cost of trash should be split between the city and residents. 

Foster said the cost should not exceed $29 per household per month — what city leaders originally pitched. That fee went up to more than $40 per month in the end and homeowners were furious when their tax bill arrived. 

Repealing the fee completely would mean “more cuts to libraries, more cuts to parks and rec, more cuts to roads, more cuts to our stormwater infrastructure,” he said. 

Foster is right that there would be a massive impact. If voters repeal the trash fee it “would blow a $100 million hole in the city budget,” as the Union-Tribune put it. That would almost certainly make it the defining issue for San Diego government over the next few years.

Lisa Halverstadt contributed reporting this week. If you have any feedback or ideas for the Politics Report, send them to scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org or will.huntsberry@voiceofsandiego.org.

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