In a statement to supporters on March 1, Lorena Gonzalez declared that she would not challenge Councilman Kevin Faulconer for the District 2 seat. Gonzalez referenced a promise made during last year’s campaign to abstain from running on June 6, should she lose the January runoff election.
Gonzalez lost to Faulconer in January by 724 votes, or 2.5 percent, despite having spent markedly less than her opponent during the campaign. Faulconer’s win secured him a six-month term at the San Diego City Council before the June election.
“I waited. I let people try to make their case to me, but in the end I still went with my heart,” Gonzalez said of her decision. “I just really felt like there was no way I could get past the fact that I had made that commitment.”
Gonzalez said that she is keeping her word to privde a good example for her two children and to avoid being publicly criticized for breaking it.
“I knew if I ran and [Faulconer’s campaign] said that I had lied and made a commitment and broke it, they’d mail on that and I’d have to face the fact that it was true,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”
She emphasized that her decision is not an endorsement of the councilman based on his merits or for the sake of continuity in District 2. In fact, Gonzalez has publicly spoken out against Faulconer and plans to support one of his opponents in June.
During a city council meeting on Feb. 28, Gonzalez denounced some of the updates to downtown’s Community Update Plan, which was passed later that day in a 6-2 vote. She cited the last-minute amendment to sell additional development rights authored by Mayor Jerry Sanders and Faulconer as an example of Faulconer’s loyalty to the business community.
“That [Faulconer] is going behind closed doors and making deals with developers is something that he promised us he wouldn’t do,” Gonzalez said. “I think it’s very hard not to get entrenched in the politics of downtown and Mr. Faulconer came from those politics.”
On March 2, Faulconer personally called Gonzalez to acknowledge her decision not to run. He was admittedly surprised, but said he hoped to maintain a working relationship on issues such as Mission Bay Park funding.
“We share many similar views on community issues and I know that she will continue to be active in the community, and that’s a good thing,” Faulconer said. “We need good people like Lorena to stay involved in the city.”
The news came a week before the deadline for city council candidates to file papers with the City Clerk, surprising many Gonzalez supporters who had counted on her to give Faulconer a run for his money.
“We were hoping that she would [run again],” said Jesse Durfee, chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party. “She had a very good showing [in January], which I think might have carried over to success in June.”
Durfee acknowledged that unseating an incumbent would be a challenge, even more so without Gonzalez’s name recognition. However, neither Gonzalez nor Durfee are ready to concede the race to Faulconer. They estimate that Faulconer’s voting record during his short tenure at the city council will expose inconsistencies.
“He’s made a lot of promises and we’ll see if he keeps them and we’ll also see if he is beholden to those who financed his campaign,” Durfee said.
On her website, www.lorenaforcitycouncil.com, Gonzalez has listed all of Faulconer’s campaign promises as means of keeping him accountable to constituents. Faulconer, however, is confident that voters are happy with his performance.
“I think I’ve established a very positive working relationship with my fellow colleagues and certainly, the mayor,” he said. “I think that’s what people were looking for; they were looking to get past elections and have the city council and the mayor pull in the same direction.”
Faulconer has not yet begun campaigning for June, instead choosing to focus on the many issues before him. He cited fiscal reform, expediting utility undergrounding, public safety and returning Mission Bay revenues to the park as some of his top priorities at the moment.
“There are so many issues that have been waiting for representation here,” he said. “The volume [of work] is incredible, but we are getting great response from neighbors throughout District 2.”
The June 6 ballot will be large: San Diego voters will weigh in on California’s governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general; state senators and assemblymembers; U.S. senators and congressional representatives; county offices, including sheriff and district attorney; and city council representatives for Districts 2, 4, 6 and 8.
The election is a gubernatorial primary, meaning that candidates for governor will be narrowed in this election to one per party. Assuming that current Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will run again and will not have viable Republican competition, California Democrats will be more motivated to visit the polls and select their challenger to face Schwarzenegger in November, said Durfee. He argues that all of the money put into the election by the Democratic candidates and party will increase Democratic voter turnout, and the likelihood of a win against Faulconer.
The June elections will mark the third time in seven months that ballots contain Faulconer’s name for city council. On Nov. 9 of last year, the first round of elections were held to replace former Councilmen Michael Zucchet and Ralph Inzunza, who resigned last July after being convicted of multiple corruption charges for a scheme to trade campaign contributions for political favors. Of the 17 initial candidates, Faulconer and Gonzalez proceeded to the January runoff to compete for the remaining six months of Zucchet’s term. The June elections mark the beginning of a new term for the winners from even-numbered districts.
On Nov. 10, a judge reversed seven of Zucchet’s nine counts and granted him a retrial for the remaining two. U.S. Attorney Carol Lam has since petitioned that the guilty verdict be reinstated. Inzunza was subsequently sentenced to 21 months in prison for his conviction, although he remains free on bond. Zucchet currently works for a consumer advocacy group and awaits retrial.