San Diego – San Diego Tax Fighters has made its endorsements in the two January special elections for San Diego City Council.  As is often the case, rather than ringing endorsements, we have selected the “lesser evil” candidate in each case.

By its very nature, district elections usually bring us small-minded people with little grasp of the larger issues.  Such is the case for at least three of the four candidates in these two runoff contests.  District elections usually result in an adverse selection process, where the person promising the most to their district wins the election.  Our present city council is full of such people – folks incapable of dealing with the city’s fiscal meltdown. 

It is less the fault of the candidates than the very nature of district elections.  Similar if less pronounced results can be seen in the state and national district elections.

It is stunning to compare the meaty issues debated in our recent citywide mayoral election with the petty matters that dominate these two city council elections.  Two of the four city council candidates simply refuse to seriously address the city’s pension disaster, or other financial maladies.  But, sadly, that concentration on district politics often is exactly what is needed to win these fiefdom elections.

Here are the San Diego Tax Fighters endorsements, followed by some details for these decisions:

2nd District – Kevin Faulconer

8th District – Luis Acle

2nd District:    Of the two districts, this race was the easier choice.  Faulconer clearly stands out as the best candidate – thanks to his government employee opponent, Lorena Gonzalez.  Gonzalez flat out refused to answer the candidate questionnaire from Carl DeMaio’s Performance Institute.  Her weak plans for pension reform do nothing to rein in the costs or the value of the bloated benefits to present employees.  

Although SDTF had already made our endorsement decision, this morning’s U-T letter to the editor by Ms. Gonzalez further solidifies her position as enemy of the taxpayer.  In the letter, she weasels around as only an attorney can (she is one), trying to justify the fact that she won’t support Mayor Sanders’ city charter amendment to contract out more city services.  Her pitch sounds like classic labor union propaganda.

In a related article today, Jerry Butkiewicz, the head labor union boss who owns city politicians like the Al Capone of old, comes out firmly against Faulconer.  And the labor unions are running a big independent expenditure campaign supporting Ms. Gonzalez’s campaign.  That’s good enough for me – Faulconer deserves our vote!

The question is, can Faulconer walk the walk?  Will he be tough enough, or will he cave in once in office, pandering to get labor union support for his reelection?  The fact that the firefighters’ union has endorsed him does not bode well for us in that regard.

But, as I said, considering that his opponent is Ms. Gonzalez, Kevin Faulconer is the best choice, hands down.

8th District:  This race has less clear contrasts, but enough to make an endorsement.  The key is that, like Ms. Gonzalez, candidate Ben Hueso refused to return the Performance Institute questionnaire, and is the candidate of choice for the labor unions.  That refusal coupled with a reasonable response to the same questionnaire by Luis Acle, caused the Performance Institute to endorse Acle for city council.