A Reason to be Concerned

I attended the "State of the District Address and Vision Speech on Transforming City Government" by the little rube this evening. Also in attendance were three city council members; Kevin Faulconer, Tony Young and Sherri Lightner as well as Darin Pudgil of the mayor's office. There were maybe 150 people TOPS, including about 20 staff of the little rube and the other council members in attendance.

The focus of the little rube was seeking "A City Government we can be proud of again." Starting with the obvious; "The City finances are a mess and the public's trust is at an all time low" the rube said it was his mission while in office to "build a government that works." To achieve this, the little rube provided his goals.

1. Restore fiscal responsibility
   
   1. Reduce high labor costs
      
2. Commit to a 5 year fiscal recovery plan
   
3. Conduct performance audits of all City funds and Departments
   
4. Implement Managed Competition
   
5. Strong Mayor Authorities (Ballot Initiatives 2010)
   
   1. Make mayor Chief Labor Negotiator for City.
      
   2. Eliminate Veto power of employees of Retirement Changes.
      
6. Reform City salaries and benefits (Cheers broke out)
   

The little rube went on to promote his vision of "Clean and Safe Neighborhoods" through a "Collaborative Governance Model." He then went on to pitch his changes and desires for "Open and Honest Goverment (sic)." He then receives a round of applause when he said he would "Reject any tax measures." His loudest applause came when he pitched his desire to seek ballot initiatives to force reforms to city salaries and benefits.

Having watched this little rube in the past and watching him work a crowd; he is a dangerous politician. His sound bites are so short and lacking of detail, it is hard to argue with him. He does not provide enough substance to challenge or refute him on a larger scale. One example of this is his Twitter post this afternoon where he posts the following; "More from my State of the District speech tonight: per capita city debt stands at $17,800 for each San Diego family." So how about someone out there do the math? There were 450,691 households in 2000 per the census in San Diego. $8,022,299,800 is the debt for the City of San Diego according to the little rube. Really?

The most concerning part of what the little rube had to say for me was his pledge and rally cry to seek ballot initiatives to "force reforms to city salaries and benefits." He received the loudest applause for this comment and then rallied the crowd with; "Are you all with me?" Rest assured he already has them written and the mayor is on board with them. This means the downtown business groups are on board and the various backers of business owners who have the money to make it happen.

We are going to have to get involved and prepare a competing initiative to preserve our benefits. This is going to take a concerted effort and money. It will require officers for the first time in the lives of those still here, to go door to door seeking support and educating the voters. It will be a long and hard battle to fight. One we can ill afford to ignore or take for granted. If we are to be successful, we need to begin NOW and work 24/7 until the votes are counted in 2010.

We can discuss this more in later posts and work toward a common goal of preserving our benefits.