El Cajon Mayor Lewis Taking on Jacob?… Consultants, pollsters and pundits will tell you that San Diego County Supervisor Dianne Jacob is not only popular, but that her positive ID has been consistently high for several years.  Vulnerable in ’08?  Perhaps El Cajon Mayor Mark Lewis believes so.  From my own Red County/San Diego post last week…

The word…is that El Cajon Mayor Mark Lewis is actively considering the prospects.  I will ask Mark, via this post, to comment.  I will ask the readers:

• Does anyone remember La Mesa Mayor Art Madrid’s showing against Dianne a few years back?  He was (is) popular in La Mesa, but even so, folks in that contest cast votes not against him, but for Jacob.  Would an El Cajon challenger be different?
  
• Does Mark believe his traditional union ties and support could bolster him enough against a sitting supervisor without any apparent negatives?  History shows that even the groups not particularly happy with Dianne end up supporting her after looking at the alternatives.
  
• Lastly, does anyone see a Mark Lewis re-re-registration, back to the D column, on the horizon?

Read it all here in Red County SD.

How fine is the Tony Young Fine?… Ok, let me get this straight.  SD City Councilman Tony Young can’t pay a couple of campaign staffers $30,000 in promised win bonuses until — it is assumed — he raises it.  The SD Ethics Commission, with several rules of its own markedly different than those found in the State’s Political Reform Act, abhors campaign debt, and fines Young $10,000.  So, now his unpaid debt is $40,000, giving him even less of a chance to pay those poor campaign workers any sooner.

Read about the Young $10k smack in Voice of SD.

Scott Lewis questions Plescia, Saldana and Kehoe on "Primary Flips"… Speaking of VoSD, Scott Lewis wonders how three SD area legislators could change their previous positions on the bill to move up the California Presidential Primary to February (read the Lewis post here).  George Plescia ended up voting against it.  The Ds, Lori Saldana and Christine Kehoe, supported it.  Considering the party line vote on the legislation (see Assemblyman Doug La Malfa’s posts on the issue), I would say the votes were more partisan than anything (ya think?), but at least George had a sound explanation (from VoSD):

Plescia…said the bill that ultimately came before the Assembly did not have enough assurances in it that the state would reimburse local counties for holding the special early election for the presidential primary.

"I still think moving the primary up is the right thing to do but if it’s such the right thing to do than the Legislature should do the appropriate thing and make sure they refund the counties," Plescia said.

It’s not called High School for Nothin’… Letters going home to parents in the large, East County Grossmont Union High School District on Feb. 6 caused a bit of a stir this week when picked up by Drudge and others.  The letter:

To: Parents/Guardians/Students

Re: Medical Marijuana on Campus

There have been a few incidents where students have had a “Medical Marijuana Use” card in their possession.

While possession of prescription medical marijuana is legal in California , school districts are subject to federal law which makes it unlawful while under the jurisdiction of the school. The school district will continue to comply with federal law and state education code on this issue and students in possession of or under the influence of marijuana, even those carrying a medical marijuana card, will be subject to current disciplinary procedures and/or interventions. Also, the medical marijuana legislation itself prohibits smoking or being under the influence of marijuana on the school campus.

So there.  Kudos to GUHSD for not waffling, given the mixed messages coming from the State and the Feds, and for suspending the students in question.  NBC-SD got it right.  Still, that wasn’t enough to keep some news entities from sensationalizing the story, with headlines suggesting students were openly tokin’ in the classroom.  

The District’s Catherine Martin told me, "We were being proactive to let our parents know that we plan to enforce our rules and this was a reiteration of them.  We’re not interested in the philosophical debate over the appropriateness of medical marijuana.  What we are interested in is educating students who are sober…"

Enough said.  Except, considering State GOP Chair Ron Nehring was on the GUHSD school board until late last year, he had to get in the last word:

"I leave the board and the whole place goes to pot."

Have a great week!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.