Coming soon to Carlsbad, the nation’s largest desalination plant. A 10 1/2 hour hearing concluded with approval for the project which has been pushed hard by Mayor Jerry Sanders to address the water crisis affecting San Diego. The ruling also opened the door for as many as 20 other desalination plants that have been proposed in the state.

The ruling includes a number of pretty good requirements of Poseidon Resources which will build the plant. They include enhancement of marine habitats, diluting the waste-water that tends to cause dead-zones in the ocean where it’s dumped, carbon offsets, energy recovery and use of solar panels.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders has been pushing voluntary water conservation for months. It’s to his credit (to a point) that he’s identified this issue and spoken out about it. But he’s refused to institute anything resembling a mandatory conservation plan, and on my morning commute I still see countless businesses watering a narrow strip of grass and a wide swath of parking lot under the baking sun. Quite simply, he has not committed to making this a big deal despite the executive director of the Utility Consumers’ Action Network recently commenting

Somebody needed to throw out a well-thought, reasoned proposal to ratchet up the quality and urgency of the discussion…I think the region has suffered from an overzealous desire to reach consensus without providing any kind of clear vision.

In fact, Sanders has overtly thwarted attempts to establish just that sort of clear vision in the name of tired old GOP laissez-faire fanaticism. Plus, since it’s Jerry Sanders, there’s quite possibly inappropriate business relationships involved in his politics. City Attorney Mike Aguirre testified in opposition to the desalination plan yesterday, contending that “the primary way to gain new water is through reclamation.” Sanders has vehemently opposed water reclamation and his veto of a pilot project was overruled by the City Council earlier this year. In traditional form, Sanders has responded by trying to poison the project by tying it to increases in utility costs.

In response to this foot-dragging obstructionism coupled with evangelism for the Poseidon desalination project, Aguirre wrote a letter to Sanders on Tuesday calling into question the motivations involved by noting:

* Three Poseidon officers each contributed $300 to Sanders’ first election campaign.

* Sanders’ campaign manager, Tom Shepard, is president of a firm that lobbies for Poseidon, and a Sanders campaign staffer once employed by Shepard now works for Poseidon.

* A city staff e-mail questioning the council’s water project was copied to Shepard by a Sanders aide.

Sanders has a long history of intimate ties to lobbyists doing business in and around the City of San Diego and has never apologized for it. But more broadly, this fits in with the age-old GOP modus operandi: force government to ignore a problem until it reaches a crisis point, then force through a flawed and incomplete solution that benefits friends and business contacts. We see it here, we see it with the state budget, we see it with national security.

It’s not as though water is a new issue. People have needed it for literally ever and the sharing thereof has been a sticking point in California as long as there’s been a California. But rather than starting years ago down a path of responsible water use and steady, deliberate development of new sources, we wait until the last second, hang the threat of impending doom over people without insisting they actually do anything but sign away their right to oversight and skepticism, and come up with the solution that will make Jerry Sanders’ retirement party more lavish.

Just more for-profit incompetence and fear mongering by your modern-day GOP.

Full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign

As of yesterday, Blackwater is back to desperately trying to play pariah.  They’re accusing San Diego of disobeying a court order by…closely adhering to the court order. Blackwater’s complaint is that the city is improperly delaying the final permit needed for the Otay Mesa training facility because of a recent letter from San Diego’s chief building official that “placed 64 conditions on the final permit for a ship simulator, including wheelchair access.”

The Blackwater argument- sad, desperate, and incoherent as it is- is that because a judge’s decision pre-empted the City Council from reviewing Blackwater’s permits and restricted the permits to ministerial review, a ministerial review from the relevant city department is improper. City Attorney Mike Aguirre clarified that these decisions “are being made by the professional staff using their own good-faith judgment.” Just what Blackwater asked for and received.

Basically, how dare you give me what I want and have it turn out to be undesirable. Blackwater is apparently unfamiliar with The Monkey Paw, but will soon hopefully learn that getting what you ask for isn’t always the same as getting what you want.

But for a company that’s so desperate to adhere to local laws, Blackwater seems mighty resistant to adhering to relevant state and local regulations. Maybe it’s because they won’t be able to violate federal laws if they can’t first violate state and local laws.

Either way, Blackwater’s blatant disregard for local regulation was bound to cause them trouble eventually. They managed for now (there’s an appeal pending) to avoid allowing the public to decide if they’d like accused murderers and arms smugglers in their community. They’ve managed to dance around countless laws and basic morals from Iraq to Afghanistan to New Orleans. But it doesn’t get them everywhere, and now people are paying attention. Blackwater admitted up front and city officials confirmed that the misleading shell companies used to apply for city permits were used to fly under the radar of city employees and local activists, but the cat is out of the bag and now people will notice if the city fudges on any letter of the law. Too bad for Blackwater if they can’t operate within the law.

Disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign which has worked on the Blackwater issue, but these opinions are my own.

Earlier this week, I asked What the Hell happened in San Diego in the June 3 election. I explored a particularly underwhelming electoral performance and noted that there was a massive failure of leadership from the city’s elected Democrats (active and retired). Councilmember Donna Frye supported GOP mayoral challenger Steve Francis and Council President Scott Peters ran against the Democratic incumbent City Attorney Mike Aguirre. Incidentally, both Francis and Peters failed to make it to the November runoff.

Then yesterday it happened again. Councilmember Ben Hueso, who in May was rallying to Block Blackwater in his council district, announced his endorsement of Republican city attorney candidate Jan Goldsmith. This is particularly notable because Goldsmith’s opponent is incumbent Mike Aguirre. Aguirre has been a champion for the city in the fight to force Blackwater’s permits into public hearing at a time when a number of other city leaders have…attended a rally and then thrown up their hands.

If Jan Goldsmith as City Attorney would go to bat over Blackwater or any other number of issues that might be uncomfortable for the Mayor or inconvenient for the City Council, I would be absolutely flabbergasted. The campaign, like every other challenge to Aguirre this year, has been centered around a promise to sit down and shut up. The last thing this city needs is another elected official who doesn’t have the necessary combination of power and motivation to force important issues.

As the UT newsblog notes, Hueso and Aguirre have never exactly been close. And Aguirre has taken a lot of flack throughout his term as City Attorney for his rabid pursuit of Mayor Jerry Sanders for all manner of scandal- real or imagined. But as Councilmember Hueso well knows because he’s at the meetings, the City Council hasn’t exactly put on a clinic when it comes to keeping mayoral power checked by the legislative branch. Fighting the good fight has consistently taken a back seat over the past two and a half years to misguided “pragmatism” that largely allowed Mayor Sanders to get anything he wanted.

So what we’re left with is Ben Hueso surveying this scene- Mayor Sanders re-elected to a second term with what CW will term a convincing mandate (it’s not, the turnout was too low to carry a mandate) and a City Council that will likely go from a narrow Democratic advantage to an even split, further neutering a body that had given itself over to the inevitability of the Strong Mayor government- and deciding that the best thing for the city is that the single dissonant voice of any weight in the city government should be replaced by, as the UT put it,

Hueso said the city attorney’s political persuasion is less important to him than getting “the best legal advice.”

If the Democratic Party in San Diego is ever going to be able to capitalize on the tremendous infrastructure building being done at the precinct and street-corner level, leading Democrats need to stop undercutting both their party and basic points of fundamental governance at every opportunity.

What happened in San Diego? Ben Hueso and destructive politics like this happened.

At Voice of San Diego today, David Washburn asks Where are the Democrats?

It’s a question that I’ve been contemplating and broaching in conversations since June 3 which was, to put it mildly, a disaster for Democrats of San Diego. In a Democratic majority city, the official mayoral nominee of the Democratic Party received 6.3% of the vote. The contested Democratic primary in the 50th Congressional District received in total just 70% of the votes that incumbent Rep. Brian Bilbray received running unopposed. In the 52rd district, Democratic candidates combined for 81% of the total received by Duncan Hunter Jr. himself in a four-way primary.

Not a single Democratic challenger to the Board of Supervisors reached 30% of the vote. One fresh face was added to the Unified School Board- running unopposed. Democrats could not force a runoff in all four City Council races or reach 50% in any, leaving a very real possibility that Dems will lose control of the nominally non-partisan Council in November. Dems in the race for City Attorney split the vote three ways, allowing Republican Jan Goldsmith to slide into pole position for the November runoff against incumbent Mike Aguirre who clocked in at under 29%. Heck, the Chair of the San Diego Democratic Party came in 7th in a vote-for-six race for Central Committee (and then won a DNC spot over the weekend). I could go on.

Each of these races on their own might be justified. But when it represents the entire strength that the San Diego Democratic Party can muster in the midst of a pro-Democratic tide across the country larger than anyone has seen in decades, it’s cause for concern. So what happened? Washburn offers a few thoughts as do I:

One of the most glaring issues is money. As Washburn notes,

In the just-finished primary, the Democratic Party spent $35,000 on direct mail and other support of Stephen Whitburn. His chief competition for the District 3 seat came from two other Democrats — Todd Gloria and John Hartley. Gloria and Whitburn made the runoff.

“Why would you spend a penny on that race?” asked Andy Berg, the director of government relations for the National Electrical Contractors Association and a Democrat. “Gloria and Whitburn would likely vote the same (on council) 100 out of 100 times.”

Meanwhile, Berg noted, Democrats are in dogfights against well-funded Republicans in Districts 1 and 7. The party spent nearly $70,000 in the primary to support Marti Emerald and oppose Boling in District 7. The GOP spent more than $200,000 in that race.

In District 1, the funding disparity is starker. The Democratic Party spent just more than $5,000 supporting Sherri Lightner in a race against Thalheimer and Marshall Merrifield, Republicans who combined raised more than $700,000, most of it coming out of their own pockets.

In the mayoral race, the GOP spent $230,000 on Sanders while the Democrats spent $1,869 on [Democratic nominee Floyd] Morrow.

I should note that District 1 is current represented by Democrat and City Council President Scott Peters, so losing that seat could mean losing control of the Council.

Current state GOP Chair Ron Nehring came up in San Diego, where with unlimited national-level resources he rebuilt the SD GOP with a focus on infrastructure and electoral victory, leaving ideology as incidental. As designed, it has almost completely eliminated the ability of local Democrats to win or often contest elections- which makes the ideological debate moot since…well…there isn’t one.

One wonders what exactly the point is of even nominating someone for Mayor if there will be no support at all. The most prominent Democrats in San Diego looked past Morrow, with former state Sen. Dede Alpert, former Assemblywoman Lucy Killea and former Rep. Lynn Schenk endorsing Jerry Sanders and Councilmember Donna Frye doing everything but endorsing GOP challenger Steve Francis. There’s a time and a place for pragmatism, but completely giving up on even having a debate of the issues that ranges outside the far right-to-center right continuum should be embarrassing. If we can’t even talk about these issues in an election, when are we gonna do it?

Washburn goes on to touch on another issue that I’ve discussed many times with local Democrats: Where the hell are the candidates and the infrastructure? Lorena Gonzalez lost an exceptionally tight race for City Council in 2006 in a district that covers beach communities and downtown urbanites that should be favorable for a Democrat:

“Here we have a Stanford-educated woman with brilliant ideas and Democratic ideals — she epitomized what the party is about,” Berg said. “And [the party] couldn’t muster the support to win a City Council race.”

Gonzalez, who is now the secretary-treasurer of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, said she felt, to a degree, like she was on her own during the race.

“Speaking as a candidate, we don’t have the same infrastructure that the GOP has,” said Gonzalez, who estimates she was outspent 7-to-1 in the race. “And there have been no real attempts to create an infrastructure and professionalize the party.”

Gonzalez might be going a bit further than I would there, because the SD Dems and Chair Jess Durfee have in fact been making tremendous strides recently. Indeed, Washburn notes “Since taking over as chairman four years ago, Durfee said he has increased the organization’s budget from $60,000 to $300,000. Also, he said, and the party has gone from having no field operations at all, to more than 700 trained precinct leaders in the county.”

That’s a darn good start, and one that should be commended. But when the money is being misallocated, when candidates don’t feel like they’ll be supported by a vigorous infrastructure, and when leading figures in the party check out and throw their lot in with the GOP under the guise of some cop-out notion of pragmatism that simply justifies the opposing point of view, there’s been a fundamental and catastrophic breakdown.

The infrastructure that is beginning to take root here is encouraging, but remain small steps in the right direction. These few encouraging steps are more than outweighed by the colossal “DNP” on the coaches’ scorecard for prominent Democrats throughout the County. If they weren’t busy with in-fighting, they flat did not show up. And with that kind of leadership, building from the ground up- even in times as conducive as these- becomes a herculean task. If June 3rd’s results are any indication, local Democrats won’t be done wandering in the wilderness any time soon.

Full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign

A day later than expected, a federal judge today ruled in Blackwater’s favor, ruling “that ‘the public interest weighs in favor’ of allowing the company to open its facility” in Otay Mesa. The ruling will allow Blackwater to occupy the facility, which they’re expected to do in the morning. Court hearings will continue on June 17th when the City of San Diego will again present its case that Blackwater misled city officials during the ministerial review of permits.  This doesn’t end the case, but it does rob the city of some of its thunder. The legal wrangling will continue, and in the meantime, Blackwater still has more permits pending that will hopefully receive quite a bit more scrutiny.

In related news, the political landscape shifted considerably in elections yesterday. Mayor Sanders avoided a runoff in his bid for a second term, which could either free him to do the right thing or lessen his concern for public opinion. Incumbent City Attorney Mike Aguirre will be heading for a runoff in November, coming in second to GOP candidate Jan Goldsmith. If activists locally are savvy and get the support they need, Blackwater can become a central issue in that campaign. That runoff also knocks termed-out City Council President Scott Peters out of the equation- it will be interesting to see what he does with the remainder of his time in office on this issue. He’s spoken out with us previously and his will be an important voice going forward.

As more develops, we’ll continue with the updates. The next date circled on my San Diego/Blackwater calendar is June 10, when Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army author Jeremy Scahill will be in town to speak on the depth and breadth of Blackwater in America (pdf).

Brian did one for San Francisco, so now it’s my turn. I’ll defer to the Calitics endorsements for contested state and federal races and focus on a few collected locals. I’m skipping the unopposed races, I’ve done varying amounts of research on these ranging from “exhaustive” to “I trust this one guy’s opinion” and as usual, I speak only for myself, not Calitics or the Editorial Board.

Superior Court 19: Garry Haehnle

Superior Court 45: Evan Patrick Kirvin

San Diego Prop A: Yes

San Diego Prop B: Yes

San Diego Prop C: No (The Mayor should not appoint his/her own auditor)

San Diego Mayor: Floyd Morrow. While this is almost certainly a Sanders/Francis race, this is more than a protest vote. It’s important to force this race into a runoff, otherwise most (maybe all) leverage is lost with the Mayor’s office from here until the end of the upcoming term. Squeezing at least a few more months out of it would be great.

San Diego City Attorney: Mike Aguirre. I have serious reservations about all of these candidates and Aguirre is certainly no exception. His personal squabbling with the Mayor has often been counter-productive and reckless and I don’t overlook that lightly. But flawed as he may be, I haven’t seen any other candidate distinguish themselves as interested in being quite the rabid counterweight to a “strong mayor” that’s already proven itself a failed model. That role doesn’t have to be filled by the City Attorney, but I’m not yet convinced it’ll be handled anywhere else.

There are also a number of people who I would like to vote for if I were in other parts of San Diego, but this is who I’m voting for.

Anyone inside San Diego or with a fleeting interest in San Diego issues, feel free to share your own voting plans or simply beat me into submission for the insanity of my picks.

I work for the Courage Campaign

The City of San Diego has decided against issuing a certificate of occupancy to Blackwater (pdf):

Dear Mr. Bonfiglio,

The City will not issue a certificate of occupancy for the above referenced project pursuant to Section 129.0114 of the San Diego Municipal Code (SDMC). The portions of the building identified for use as a shooting range and vocational/trade school shall not be occupied until a certificate of occupancy has been issued for this change of use or occupancy pursuant to SDMC Section 129.0113.

Which basically means that Blackwater can’t open up shop until going through a full public review process as ordered by the Mayor (replacing the previously planned stop-work order).  In the meantime though, San Diego’s development services director Kelly Broughton continues to play dumb, telling KPBS “I don’t see that I would have had any other choice but to approve it because it complied with our municipal code and the California Building Code.” Of course, it doesn’t comply at all, which is why Rep. Bob Filner, several members of the City Council, the City Attorney and Mayor have all now stepped in to correct the flawed process.

For his part, Blackwater spokesman Mike Neil is grasping almost laughably at straws in response:

Neil said Blackwater’s own analysis shows that the company is entitled to occupy the Otay Mesa facility and a delay could jeopardize Blackwater’s long-standing contract with the Navy to train sailors in anti-terrorism tactics. A delay could damage the company’s business reputation and “cause harm to national security.”

I’m really not impressed that Blackwater has decided that Blackwater is right. And if Blackwater is so concerned about hanging onto this contract, they might have wanted to engage in this process honestly. But at least they continue to blow off even the pretense that this would be a vocational school.  Not even lip service to the notion.  Finally, for all the lame bluster about the threat to national security if Blackwater loses this contract, let’s not lose sight of the fact that, even if this were true (obviously it’s not true and is in fact absurd), it’s not a good thing.  Blackwater’s contention is that San Diego should break its local government because the military can’t handle its own training.

Well that’s exactly what Donald Rumsfeld had in mind back in 2001 when he decided it was time to save the Pentagon from itself by privatizing everything in sight.  As I remember it, the ensuing years have demonstrated that Donald Rumsfeld is not right about very much, and this is one example. So even if Blackwater were right that its vital to military readiness- that would just be all the more reason to put the training back in the hands of the military. Blackwater has been nothing but trouble, and cementing any “necessity” for them would be wrong on so many levels. Good for their bottom line- which is what they care about- but not good for San Diego, the U.S. military, the country overall or the world at large.  Less Blackwater is the goal.

Full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign

[Update] The Union-Tribune reports today that Mayor Sanders has ordered all work to stop on the Blackwater site. Brian Bonfiglio (somewhat ironically) is complaining about the politicizing of the issue in an election year, even though nobody EVER wants Blackwater and he knows cause this isn’t his first time around this block.

Yesterday the Union Tribune reported that according to Kelly Broughton, San Diego’s development services director, Blackwater’s city permits could not be appealed.  The article held out one glimmer of hope though- that Mayor Sanders’ call for investigation could bear fruit:

Broughton said yesterday that the internal review could lead to Blackwater’s permits being revoked, after a public hearing, if it turns out that staff made mistakes or relied on bad information.

Certainly one compelling bit of “bad information” might be the use of Southwest Law Enforcement and Raven Development Group on the permits instead of Blackwater.  Another might be…you know…blatantly lying about the planned use of the property in Otay Mesa and what would be installed there.  Well today City Attorney Mike Aguirre weighed in on exactly that, calling for a stop work order to be immediately issued and establishing the need for environmental impact study:

The City Attorney issued a legal opinion on Friday indicating that a series of building permits issued by the City of San Diego’s Development Services Department to a subsidiary of Blackwater Worldwide, a global security firm whose work in Iraq has fallen under criticism, were obtained improperly and a more rigorous permitting process should be completed. The City Attorney opined that a stop work order should be issued immediately and a more rigorous application process undertaken.

Southwest Law Enforcement Training Enterprises, a subsidiary of Blackwater Worldwide, obtained permits for tenant improvements to an existing warehouse in Otay Mesa the area of the City of San Diego. The permit applications specified that the building was to be used as a “training facility.” The original building was formerly used as a warehouse. One of the three applications filed by Southwest Law Enforcement stated that the proposed use of the building as “same (no change).”

As a result of the representations in the permit application the permits were issued under the DSD’s “ministerial” process, which meant no City Council or other discretionary approval was required.

More recent tenant improvement application submitted by Southwest Law Enforcement Training Enterprises was to construct an “indoor firing range.”

The legal opinion issued by the City Attorney’s Office also states that California Environmental Quality Act is also necessary in order to address the environmental impacts of a firing range

Which is a long way around to smacking down Blackwater on about every point that’s been raised by the locals objecting to the project.  Local NPR on the way home earlier reported that Mayor Sanders was on board with some or all of the City Attorney’s opinion, still waiting to get an official response from Sanders.

As reported in the Union Tribune today and explained in an emailed press release from Mayor Jerry Sanders’ office a few minutes ago, the San Diego City Charter is under review.  A Charter Committee has been established by the Mayor, headed by John Davies and Judge James Milliken, to review what Sanders calls “a half-finished job” of switching to a strong mayor form of city government as Sanders continues his work to expand the unilateral powers of the mayor’s office.

“One of the greatest disservices that was done to our citizens last time was the rushed nature of the process,” Sanders said. “I’d like to eliminate that this time and give citizens and interested stakeholders plenty of time to reflect on the issues.”

According to the Sanders release, the committee will focus on “financial reforms; the duties of elected officials; fixes to the strong mayor system during this interim period; and considering making strong mayor permanent,” which dovetails nicely with every squabble he’s had with other officials in the city since taking office.

He’s fought with the City Council over his ability to cut entire civic programs from the budget without council review (a decision on which has been delayed by Mike Aguirre).  He’s driven out the city’s auditor by insisting that the auditor be a mouthpiece for the mayor’s office rather than an independent voice.  In short, he’s really chafed over having to fight for his strong-mayor rights.

So he’s got a committee together to figure out how to expand, extend and then make permanent the role of the Mayor as The Decider of San Diego.  The city council, if Sanders gets his way, will mostly be left as advisors and administrators of whatever the Mayor isn’t interested in dealing with.  That Sanders has promised to support any recommendations from the committee suggests either good faith, or faith in the committee he assembled to deliver the recommendations he wants.

Council President Scott Peters (“It’s…not an only-mayor form of government”) has declined to commit blindly to the recommendations of the committee, but sounds supportive of strengthening the mayor, hoping for “ideas to finish the job” of transitioning to a new form of city governance.  Doesn’t exactly sound like he’s ready for a fight.  Councilwoman Donna Frye has fought well against Sanders over the budget cuts, but since the committee will also consider changing the number of seats on the city council and the number of votes required to override a mayoral veto, she could find her power to slow down the Sanders power grab severely curtailed.

It boils down to Sanders establishing a committee to conclude that he should have more power and people shouldn’t be able to get in his way.  The perceived mandate from voters in support of the “strong mayor” form of government is checking too many members of the city council, clearing the road for Sanders to seize unilateral control of the city government.  Sanders said in his press release that he “will of course ask the Committee to comply with the Brown Act and ask that the public participate in the Committee’s work.”  I strongly recommend that people in San Diego take advantage of the opportunity to participate.  If you thought San Diego was corrupt and mismanaged before, just wait until it’s a mayoral fiefdom.  Head it off while there’s still time.