Four democrats hope to unseat GOP supervisor

By Christy Scannell
SDUN Editor

Four candidates are challenging incumbent Ron Roberts in the June 8 primary election for his seat as District 4 County Supervisor: housing counselor Juan del Rio, San Diego Unified School Board Trustee Shelia Jackson, retired schoolteacher Margaret Moody and community health educator Stephen Whitburn. All four are Democrats; Roberts is one of five Republican supervisors. SDUN Senior Editor Christy Scannell quizzed Roberts, Del Rio and Whitburn (Moody and Jackson did not respond to calls by deadline) about term limits, slush funds, the good and bad of Uptown – and with whom they might like to trade places.

Q: What is your position on Proposition B, which would limit supervisors to two terms (eight years)?

Del Rio: I fully support that. I think that it should be retroactive, actually, but that’s not the case but that’s my feeling.

Roberts: I oppose it even though it’s not going to affect me personally. But I think if you compare the county to the other agencies that have those term limits, notably the State of California and the City of San Diego, it’s very difficult to make an argument that term limits produce good government. In fact, I would be the first to support a state change to extend their terms in some significant way because I think that’s part of the problem of California government right now.

Whitburn: I support Prop B. There are currently five supervisors, all of whom have been there for at least 16 years and all five of whom are Republican. I believe that we need fresh voices on the county board. If term limits passes, and I am elected to the Board of Supervisors, I would be the first supervisor subject to term limits and I support that. The lack of term limits is one of the reasons few people even know what our county board of supervisors does. With five like-minded Republicans, they decide issues among themselves, there is little robust debate and therefore little media attention, and thus the public hears relatively little about what they do. I think that I will give this everything I’ve got for eight years and then allow fresh blood to come in.

Q: In March, San Diego County supervisors voted to reduce their individual discretionary funds from $10 million to $5 million. Should there be a policy for how those funds can be used or awarded, such as through a competitive grant process? Why or why not?

Del Rio: Yes, absolutely. I totally agree that there should be a transparency. For one thing it’s very convenient for them to reduce that in an election year. It’s something that is not well thought out. They’re being reactionary as far as giving the criticism as to how the funding is given out. There’s 14,000 non-profits in San Diego and I run a non-profit organization and have been on boards of directors of non-profits. So I understand how hard it is for non-profits to get funds, especially in this environment. So it would be very wise for it to be open so that more and more organizations can apply for it. I know that some of the allocations are very wisely placed with YMCA, etc., good organizations, solid organization. However, there’s very questionable, like the World Trade Center gets $850,000 over the last three, four, five years. That’s totally inappropriate for one organization to get so much money and that goes across the board to anybody. It should be well spent versus selectively spent.

Roberts: The process that we have actually works quite well. It allows you to find things in your district that really need help. The problems with doing it all at one time and having everybody apply is that you miss a lot of good things. And you miss things that need emergency help. Last year we would have lost a very critical drug treatment facility for kids if I wasn’t able to intervene. So I like the way it works. Numerous groups throughout this whole area have been helped. It’s one of the best things that a supervisor can do in working with the district.

Whitburn: I think the discretionary funds, which many people refer to as slush funds, should be eliminated. There are good programs that have been funded in this manner but if they’re good program they ought to be funded through the regular budget process with full public transparency. The discretionary funds unfortunately have been used to fund some things which are not particularly worthwhile, like an ugly-dog show, at a time when those funds can better be spent providing real services to taxpayers. What’s more, they have often been given to organizations, which in turn give gifts to the supervisor who allocated those funds. And that doesn’t look right.

Q: What do you feel is the most important issue facing Uptown from the county’s perspective?

Del Rio: That’s a very interesting question since all of the Uptown area is within the city of San Diego. And the county has been missing in action in many, many issues surrounding city of San Diego issues. The county is more into social services and referrals. Information and referral into the outlying areas. And they don’t take any kind of responsibility for anything within the city of San Diego, which I think that is very ill-conceived since the city is within the county. There has to be some better way of coordinating the services.

Roberts: One of the things that had me most concerned was the possibility that the UCSD Medical Center could have closed down. And I think the loss of those services for Uptown and everywhere else would have had dramatic negative impact. One of my big concerns right now is that with the economy our non-profits that play such a key role are under some level of stress. I do a lot of work with Mama’s Kitchen and the food bank and places like that that are faced with real challenges because the money is maybe reduced that they have available to them and yet the work that needs to be done has increased. So I’m real concerned about our non-profits and the groups that are really doing a super job in the community and I’m going to continue to work with them. We’re working not only on food issues but on homeless issues and a whole bunch of things.

Whitburn: Social services. We have many people in Uptown who receive in-home supportive services which are provided to low income residents who are seniors or disabled so that they may continue to live in their homes. The County of San Diego has started finger printing and photographing these people under the guise of fraud prevention. And that’s just wrong. Moreover, the federal government recently cited San Diego County as having one of the worst food stamp programs in the nation. There are many people in our part of the city who depend on the county to provide the social services they qualify for and we can and should be doing a much better job of that. Another issue facing Uptown is fire protection. Here in Uptown we have some stations with rolling brownouts. City taxpayers pay county taxes along with their city taxes. And the county Board of Supervisors should be doing more to ensure that we have adequate fire protection. Our city fire department is often times forced to stop fires that spread from the back country at great loss of life and property and expense to city taxpayers. One reason the city has to do this is because the County of San Diego doesn’t even have a fire department. You hear of LA County Fire and Orange County Fire but you don’t hear of San Diego County Fire because there isn’t one. And our county has a responsibility to provide public safety and that includes fire protection throughout the county and then that affects us here in the city.

Q: If you had a work-free day to spend in Uptown, what would you do?

Del Rio: I’ve worked in Golden Hill and I’ve lived in Normal Heights. There’s many, many great things to do around the Uptown area. I do some running so I love to run around the area. I always used to attend the Adams Avenue fair that is a yearly event. Those are the kinds of great things, the Ken Theatre, going to the Adams Avenue fair, things like that.

Roberts: I know I’d spend part of it in the Uptown district, probably stop by the Subway sandwich shop there or even better get a yogurt on the other side of the building. That’s one of my frequent stops. That whole area has a whole lot of things that seem to attract us. If I had a whole day, wandering around Hillcrest and just poking in and seeing what’s going on at various places. That’s probably a good way to spend it.

Whitburn: I would spend at least an hour perched on a hill in western Uptown overlooking the airport and the bay and the 5 freeway and downtown. It’s one of my favorite views and it captures both the beauty and the cosmopolitan feel of our community. And I feel reinvigorated every time I spend an hour enjoying that.

Q: If you could trade places with any person for a week (living or dead), who would it be?

Del Rio: Someone like Caesar Chavez, just to be able to move a lot of people that are in need basically. I’m a more action-oriented person. I’m a worker bee. I’m a person that’s around to solve problems and to work on a daily basis on issues. I’ve got 30 years of experience working with non-profit organizations and safety-net issues. So I’ve always been in awe of Caesar Chavez and the way he in a non-violent way, in a progressive way changed the minds of people locally, statewide and nationally.

Roberts: I’d probably want to trade places with Bud Black, manage the Padres for a week. Especially while they’re winning. I’d want to be there when they’re on a seven-game winning streak. That would be a great fantasy.

Whitburn: Martin Luther King, Jr. He really stood for something. And he was someone who fought for what he believed, stood his ground and communicated his beliefs very effectively. And I admire that. It was a fascinating time in our nation’s history and he was obviously a key figure in advancing an important cause. And it would be interesting to me to know what that felt like to him.