During Saturday night’s Chargers television broadcast, commentators Billy Ray Smith and Ron Pitts took some time off from the game’s play-by-play to interview a very special guest. The guest was none other than the mayor of Glendale, Arizona Elaine Scruggs.
The Chargers were in Glendale playing a pre-season game against the Arizona Cardinals at their fancy brand new stadium, that coincidentally will play host to the Super Bowl next February. The good mayor was on television to sing the economic virtues of stadium development for mid-size cities like Glendale, or Chula Vista, or even Oceanside. This is not the first time Elaine Scruggs has preached the gospel of a new stadium building. This past May, she was the featured speaker at the Current Issues Forum of San Diego entitled “Where will the Chargers touch down.”
It is quite clear that new stadium in Glendale is going to play a prominent role in the narrative the Chargers are to construct as part of their PR campaign to get a new stadium. I suspect we will be hearing a lot more as the football season progresses.
On the bright side, at least Mark Fabiani will be so busy as Chargers spokesperson and he won’t have the time to screw up any more Democratic presidential campaigns like he did with Wesley Clark in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000.
As reported in the UT today, yesterday’s unveiling of a statue in honor of Pete Wilson here in San Diego was greeted by several hundered protesters. Who were there, to remind the attendees at the ceremony, that San Diego’s once “boy mayor” grew up to serve an indistinguished stint in the U.S. Senate, followed by an ignoble tenure as governor during the 1990s.
Mayor Jerry Sanders ran for office as a former San Diego police chief saying he would clean up the city government. He said he would be different then the last two San Diego mayors. His tenure would be marked with an open and transparent government, it would be run by the people and not by the special interest, it would be non-partisan and he would not raise taxes. He would set us back on sail to where we all wanted the city to go.
However, along the way Sanders lost his way and his government has been the complete opposite. Instead it has been marked with secrecy, special interests deals, partisanship fighting, tax increases and distrust. It seems like Mayor Sanders’ choose to emulate President Bush running as a uniter, but becoming a divider.
Since his swearing in ceremony over 2-1/2 years ago, Sanders has held closed door special interest secret handshake meetings on behalf of developers. Remember the downtown development impact “fees” and the Sunroad deal.
He moved to raised our taxes. Remember he said at his opening ceremony he would raise our water taxes. However when he was called out he backed down. However, he has come back with selling it as a fee increase. I don’t buy the arguement it is a fee and not a tax. When the government charges a taxpayer money it is a tax and when a company charges a customer money it is a fee. End of story. He has fought with almost all the city’s elected.
In addition, Sanders has been caught raising large sums of money and coordinating a non-candidate campaign fund with no cause yet, just collecting campaign donations. Lets say pay to play, because the people contributing are the same people making money hand over fist from Sanders so called reforming government. Let Donna Frye raise money this way and people from Sanders camp would be on the war path. Shouldn’t there be more questions by citizens and the media?
When Sanders or his staff is caught red handed they pull the old deny, deny, deny, make counter accusations and then continue to deny. When it does not work, then someone eventually disappears from his staff. By now he has lost almost all his top non-political staff.
Lets make the argument that Jerry Sanders might had entered the race as a kind man wanting to change San Diego for the better. So, today regardless of what he was when he ran today he is either guilty of the same mishandling of our city as the last two mayors or he is over his head and can’t understand his own position or lastly he is dimbwitted and lets his political hacks pull his strings. Regardless it seems his tenure is the Wizard of Oz story. He you want to believe in fairy tales, then don’t look behind the curtain, because you might be afraid of what you see.
San Diego deserves better, they deserve someone with integrity, they deserve someone how will re-set our sail and make us again America’s Finest City. If you know that type of person, there is a seat to be filled next year as Mayor of San Diego.
