Wouldn't You Know It - More on Zapf

I went out on a limb a bit and endorsed a candidate for City Council, and as luck would have it, just as I do so, I find she is involved in a mini-scandal. I am not withdrawing my endorsement, as yet, but this is the kind of thing I worried about, with a novice candidate who had already shown a little inexperience. (I'm thinking about Rand Paul as I write this.) So what's the scandal? From the local fishwrap:

Council candidate Zapf defaults on loan

The latest revelation, which could prove devastating to Zapf’s campaign, is that her family is in default on a second mortgage for its Clairemont home.
...
In an interview with All in Favor, Zapf acknowledged that she and her husband, Eric, are in default by about $7,000 on their $230,000 mortgage but dismissed its significance. She said it is simply a strategy to lower the loan’s interest rate.

“We’ve been working with the bank for many months but because there is such a huge volume of people doing loan modifications and reductions, I think it’s well known that banks are just overwhelmed so it’s just taken longer than expected,” she said.

From the comments in my previous post, there were some choice words for Zapf.

From Zapfers:

Clearly you missed the stories about Lorie Zapf defaulting on her mortgage in order to negotiate a better deal.

AJ said:

Zapf is playing the victim card. I don't vote for victims. She will go down in flames if she makes the runoff. Read the below link which clearly shows she lied in her interview with channel 10. I don't vote for liars.

Reading the link provided by AJ reveals some troubling information. I get the impression that her husband, who is in the real estate business may have ethical challenges. Unfortunately, they may taint the candidate as well, since her name is on the legal documents involved in a prior Las Vegas default. However, I believe that if Zapf just pays off the Home Equity Line of Credit that they are in default on, then all of this will blow over. There are two issues here. First, are the Zapfs guilty of ethical lapses of which Lorie should have known? Second, doesn't she get that running for office means that her own house must be in order? That she doesn't seem to, is pretty serious in itself. Also, her explanations have been contradictory.

But I am still looking for the candidate that will assertively take on the unions, including police and firefighters, who have the city in a stranglehold. Zapf seems the best candidate to do so. Kim Tran may be a nice person, but her web site and public statements say squat about her plans to deal with the unions and pensions. She talks about police and firefighters being her priority. Huckabone is unwilling to undo some of the worst pension excesses and supports cutting a deal to keep the Chargers at the Q. Howard Wayne has also the union endorsements and Steve Hadley is temperamentally unfit.

Stay tuned.

BTW, I took down my poll in light of these revelations and my poor wording of it. Please take a look and vote at right.