Unions Fund Libertarian

. . . Campaign Flyer.  Who'd a thunk it?  This flyer showed up at my house.

Unions are getting involved in the San Diego City Council District 2 race and spending money to help the Libertarian candidate, Mark Schwartz. Let's be clear, Schwartz has no chance of being elected.

If you read the fine print at the bottom, you will see that the San Diego - Imperial Counties Labor Council sponsored this flyer, along with the city Municipal Employees Association.  When I saw this show up, I was immediately suspicious.  I was a libertarian for a long time, and slick campaign flyers were almost always outside of the budget wherewithal of our candidates.

Why would the unions fund Schwartz?  It is pretty obvious, in my opinion.  They are hoping to drain enough votes from Zapf to prevent her from winning the primary outright against Progressive darling Sarah Boot.  The unions want minimum wage increases, banning of managed competition and an end to pension reform, which puts them in opposition to Zapf.  Do they really want Schwartz elected?  Here is a little of what he says on his campaign website: "I will"

- Support free market economy and free enterprise locally by working to reduce tax burden and permitting costs to San Diego businesses.
- Champion cutting tax waste with privatization of city services (managed competition,) opening small businesses bid opportunities to fill city needs.
- Vote NO on any proposed ordinance that increases tax burden on citizens. I will speak out against any new propositions or bonds to be levied on the citizens that infringe on property rights and freedom.

No way do unions support these positions.  In fact, they are exactly the positions already taken by Zapf, only she has actually taken action.  For example, she personally collected signatures to rescind the linkage fee.  I just wanted to point out to readers that voting for Schwartz is essentially a vote for Sarah Boot and an endorsement of the union platform for city government.

What You Should Be Reading

• The WSJ has been documenting vast prosecutorial over reach in the suppression of the first amendment rights of groups to advocate for issues.  Their editorial pages documents the latest smack down of Democratic prosecutors in the Badger state. 
• Dalrock has an expert takedown of Ms. Obama's pouty faced hashtag photo.  You know the one.
• The mindless leftist idiocy, but I repeat myself, of commencement speaker protests is reviewed by Daniel Henninger in Bonfire of the Humanities.  Liberal Arts as a major is imploding, because no one wants to hire people whose sole education has been to repeat stupid (and untrue) slogans.  Even the mere presence of camels is considered racist on today's college campus.
• KTCat goes to New Jersey and discovers heteronorming patriarchal oppression among the Osprey population. (The birds, not the aircraft.)

Congratulations to Lorie Zapf

The results this morning from the San Diego Country Registrar of Voters showed Lorie Zapf winning with 52.45% of the vote and all precincts reporting. I am sure there are more absentee and provisional ballots to be counted, but her current lead of about 1,500 should hold up. Although I endorsed her, I had been critical of her campaign. I have to give her credit for the last minute blitz of mailers, calls and advertising, including internet advertising, that painted her opponent as a tool of the government labor unions. I was very concerned at the end as I saw many more Howard Wayne lawn signs and the negative coverage that she received in the City Beat and other local news outlets.

Hopefully, she can join Carl DeMaio and Kevin Faulconer as voices of reason on the City Council and start by outsourcing jobs under managed competition.

San Diego Elections - Blog and News Round Up

Dave Maass at Last Blog on Earth asks whether Howard Wayne's pension will be five digits or six when he retires from state government. He also asks the question of whether the city council members and others offering to not take salaries or pensions aren't really offering us a bribe? Is it a gimmick. Check out Dave's blog and you decide. (My position is that the personal salaries are usually chump change compared to the total budget, so I just ignore this stuff.) Dave is an occasional commenter and a great news source for local politics.

Temple of Mut's compares city governance to flatulence and describes a taxpayer funded public employee union rally in support of Proposition J. I haven't devoted much space to Prop J, other than recommend a vote against, because I don't think it stands a snowball's chance of passing. So why are the unions pushing this? Temple of Mut's husband Horemheb had this observation:

To make the evening even more special, Horemheb even overheard a comment from one of the panelists that the Teacher Union Elite Leaders were itching to strike should we rubes not roll over in support of this golden contract. It seems that the Elite Union Leaders anticipate more press, power, and influence in the wake of a strike.

Even if Prop J loses, the unions get a propaganda tool if it gets more than 50%, so make sure you vote against this flatulence.

I saw both Lorie Zapf and Howard Wayne in front of the Clairemont Library today with cameras rolling. I will update this post when I find out where you can watch.

Proposition D opponents have pointed out that under a 2008 contract negotiation, firefighters receive more pay for sitting at a desk. Much of the argument in favor of high firefighter pay and pensions accrues to the purported dangers and shorter life spans of their occupation. This is just one of many areas the city politicians need to reform before they ask us for more of our money.

If you live in San Diego, you may not have taken note of the school district elections. The U-T has a decent run down on the two races, including the positions of the candidates on Proposition J, which I oppose. In my district, I am having a tough time deciding. The incumbent, Katherine Nakamura has to conduct a write-in campaign because she came in third, partly due to loss of teacher's union backing. I like her already. However, as Temple of Mut, points out, she has been speaking out in favor of Proposition J as has "Teacher of the Year" Kevin Beiser. I don't know much about Steve Rosen, but I will probably vote for him as the only candidate opposing Prop J.

Primary Election Night

Watched some local TV and watched the election results and broadcasting from Golden Hall. A shout out to the Tea Party going on there. Had a friend over, the Lakers were beating the Celtics in Boston, and there was some cold Yellowtail Pale Ale in the fridge.

I am really disappointed that Chuck DeVore didn't poll better, but it was still good to have him in the race. I think Carly Fiorina is ready to run as a conservative as a result, and will give Barbara Boxer a tough run for it. If the Democrats are having trouble defending their senate seat in California, this could be a disastrous November for them. It would be better if the replacement Republicans were serious about reducing spending and income tax rates, but we'll see. Incidentally, Poizner, in his concession speech said the same thing; that his candidacy had moved Whitman to more conservative positions. In the governor's race, it is rumored that Jerry Brown will use social issues, the so called nuclear option, to defeat Meg Whitman. My sense is that such a strategy won't sit well with unemployment and anger over stimulus waste.

Locally, in the District 6 City Council race, Lorie Zapf, jumped out to a big lead over Howard Wayne, but clearly this is headed for a run off in November. District 6 is fairly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, so these results are surprising, I want to see if they hold up. The three Republican candidates are pulling down 56% of the vote in early returns; not sure if that is significant. Big dollars from unions are going to Howard Wayne. Also, these are mostly mail in ballots, right now.

I'm wondering if union support isn't over-rated. Not only is Wayne not getting help locally, in Arkansas Blanche Lincoln couldn't be ousted by a multimillion dollar campaign by unions in the Democratic primary. I saw headlines saying that she survived an anti-incumbent mood, but I think that is too facile. Bill Clinton campaigned for her and I think the public mood is turning very sour on unions.

In Nevada, the Tea Party candidate, Sharron Angle will be the Republican nominee. I think this is great news. Harry Reid may have thought he wanted to face her, but I think he is underestimating the enthusiasm of the Tea Party. We need some Republicans in the Senate to be radicals on spending reduction to make any progress on getting the country back on track.

Maybe some more commentary later tonight, if there is anything that changes my views of tonight's results.

Even More On Zapf

My previous article on Lorie Zapf's difficulties was quoted in the San Diego CityBeat, an alternative newspaper. My comments were taken as a withdrawal of my endorsement of Lorie Zapf. I want to make clear that they were not. Lorie Zapf is walking a fine line and I am concerned that she doesn't understand that serving the people in elected office is a privilege that requires not only actual propriety but the appearance of propriety. There is no shortage of candidates for public office, she should understand that she is on a job interview and the public is the panel.

I was hoping my comments would get Zapf to clean up her act. I have serious issues with every candidate in the District 6 race; but electing someone with the fortitude to scale back pensions and outsource services is my number one issue, and Zapf appears to be the best positioned to do so. In more normal times, I might be endorsing Kim Tran, but I think that Kim is, by nature, just a little too nice of a human being, and someone with a little anger and edge is going to be needed to take on the unions. The budget crises faced by the city, state and nation are unprecedented because they are all happening simultaneously, not due to some catastrophic misfortune, but due to the lack of courage to take on the clamor for ever increasing spending. I am looking for candidates willing to make cuts in city government, even on firefighting and police, and willing to use every legal means available to scale back the costs of services, including outsourcing, raising employee pension contributions, and re-negotiating contracts and benefits.

Tea Party Issue for City Council Races

After interviewing Kim Tran and thinking through the issues facing the city of San Diego, I have decided that the Tea Party litmus test issue for city candidates must be the immediate implementation of the managed competition initiative passed by voters in November, 2006 with a 60% majority. There is no other way for the city to quickly reduce expenses and reduce future pension obligations simultaneously. Every city worker removed from the payroll immediately removes that worker from the defined benefits pension program that is wrecking the city budget. Even if the workers are immediately re-hired by a private firm at the same rate of pay, the immediate shift to a defined contributions plan and off of defined benefits reduces future liability.

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.

San Diego District 6 City Council Elections

I am taking a time out from national politics, to explore the San Diego City Council race in District 6. I am just getting started looking at the candidates and will report from the debate on April 8 at Clairemont High School. Right now, the Clairemontonline.com flyer shows four candidates, although I could swear there were five only a week ago. When I saw the flyer, I had little knowledge about the candidates, so here is my preliminary round up:

Howard Wayne

Former Assemblyman (78th district East Countyish, Lemon Grove, Spring Valley, Bonita) and Democrat. His experience and fundraising probably make him the favorite. On his web site he touts the endorsement of the firefighters and police unions, so right away, I am highly prejudiced against him. This means he won't take on firefighter work practices or the pension problems crippling the city budget, or so it would seem.






Lori Zapf

Her website has some pretty decent proposals; reform pensions, balance the budget (but that's the law). But she also cow-tows to the firefighters and police. She also touts making "quality of life" and neighborhoods her first priority. San Diego City Beat is trying to paint her as some kind of anti-gay bigot, so she is making the right enemies. She was also involved in an organization called Californians Against Lawsuit Abuse, another plus. She is also, horrors, the only Republican in the officially non-partisan race.






Steve Hadley

Steve Hadley is Donna Frye's chief of staff. Frye is the current District 6 council member. He will come with her mixed baggage, she was occasionally the voice of sanity on the council but I always felt that she was too close to the unions. Hadley's issues page on his web site
takes on a number of issues regarding pension that show his knowledge of the real problem. I was pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately he also seems anti-development with his emphasis on mitigation plans and other minutia of urban planning.






Ryan Huckabone

The last candidate also seems the least likely to win. The platform page of his web site calls for shifting to a defined contributions pension system for new employees; I wholeheartedly agree. (But dude, get some professional help for your web page.) He also calls for limiting spending, but offers very little concrete, other than capping expenses at 2% below projected revenue. Maybe not a bad idea, but more needs to be done. He also takes on water reclamation as a key initiative. He may be very far sighted, but I don't think this will generate excitement, unless water rationing gets way worse. Finally, he states that he will work very hard to keep the Chargers in San Diego; I couldn't disagree more. I would like to see some other city deal with the financial subsidies that come with supporting an NFL team, so I am not thrilled.






My options aren't looking so great, but I will be attending the debate on April 8.For any readers residing in San Diego or absentee voting in San Diego (CZ?), I invite you to comment on what questions I should ask. My proposed question is, "What action will you take that will anger the public employees union but save the taxpayers significant money?"

Look forward to your comments.