Labor unions are not letting up on their pressure on county supervisors to consider Cindy Chavez, a Santa Clara County supervisor, for the top job as chief administrative officer of the county of San Diego. Chavez used to run the South Bay Labor Council.
They’re planning a large rally led by two big unions of county employees – SEIU 221 and UDW/AFSCME Local 3930 Tuesday morning before the supervisors meet demanding “a transparent process that will include candidates supported by the community.” And at least one county supervisor is on the record as agreeing, to a point.
The CAO is basically the mayor of the county. But like a city manager, they are hired and fired by the Board of Supervisors.
What happened: The county offered Chavez the job last year in a letter sent the day former County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher announced he would resign from his position. After that, the county rescinded the offer and now, a year later, the process is finally restarting. But supervisors decided not to advance Chavez’s candidacy to the interview stage again.
Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer told Voice she cannot comment on closed session deliberations or decisions. But she still had something to say.
“Personally, I do not believe our current CAO selection process is sufficiently transparent or allows enough community voice, and I would strongly welcome an approach that allows all finalists from this search round and the prior search round to be interviewed in public at a public board meeting,” she wrote to Voice.
The labor leaders’ ire seems mostly to point at Supervisor Nora Vargas, the chair of the Board, who seems most likely to be the one to have sided with Republicans on the board not to advance Chavez.
Why it matters: The county is at a crossroads. Labor leaders want the board to choose a leader for the county employees who will break down barriers to implementing the policies and wage and benefit improvements on which they’ve worked hard to get agreements. But they blame county bureaucrats for delaying implementation of them.
You might call it a deep state.
For 30 years, though, the county has been led by professional managers intent on management excellence and fiscally conservative operations. Many local institutions are calling on the county to continue that tradition. The supervisors will have to decide if they want a leader who will shake things up or one who will keep things functioning as they have been.
Related: Vargas was also a key leader in the search for a new CEO of the San Diego Association of Governments. Mario Orso is taking over the embattled agency. Here’s Axios’ report on that. The Axios report implies that Orso may balance priorities more to the freeway side of the freeway vs. transit debate.
Podcast: A Public Power Failure
VOSD Podcast: There’s no other company in San Diego that can make people feel all the feels as San Diego Gas & Electric: hot, cold, angry — you name it. In the latest episode, our VOSD Podcast hosts get into a recent power struggle involving the utility.
Public power proponents wanted a San Diego City Council committee to put their effort to stick it to SDG&E on the November ballot. But labor unions showed up against it and that turned off council members. Listen to the full episode here.
Local Reps Unanimous in Support for Wars in Israel, Ukraine
San Diego’s five congressional representatives voted unanimously to provide military aid to both Ukraine and Israel earlier this month.
Many nationalist conservatives do not support US money and arms going to Ukraine, while anti-war progressives have hotly contested monetary support for Israel.
Rep. Darryl Issa — the county’s only Republican House member — declined, however, to side with 112 GOP members of congress that voted against sending billions in military aid to Ukraine.
Rep. Sara Jacobs, Mike Levin and Juan Vargas are all members of the House Progressive Caucus. More than a third of caucus members voted against sending military aid to Israel, but Jacobs, Levin and Vargas were not among them.
Sacramento Report: Efforts to Rewrite LGBTQ Laws
Since the Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing the right to abortion, which for half a century was accepted as the law of the land, advocates have been bracing for more changes.
That’s because in 2022 Justice Clarence Thomas called for the court to overturn other precedents including those protecting contraceptive use and same sex marriage, arguing that the right to those intimate decisions isn’t explicitly laid out in the constitution.
The news: Lawmakers are proposing a ballot measure to protect same-sex marriage in California. The initiative would reverse Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure banning same sex unions. Our Deborah Brennan spoke with Assemblymember Chris Ward about the measure for the Sacramento Report.
The other side: Brennan writes about another measure that would limit options for transgender students. Proponents still need to gather more signatures.
Read the Sacramento Report here.
In Other News
- The San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. lost more than $400,000 in an embezzlement scheme that its former operations chief just pleaded guilty to running. Katherine Lu Acquista was the director of accounting and operations for EDC and stole the money over five years from 2017 to 2022. She’ll be sentenced in July. (OUT)
- KPBS checked in on the update to the official plan for the future of Hillcrest and found some support for putting a lid over state Route 163 and opening up five acres of land on top for a park and community gathering space.
- The UT reports that America’s Finest Charter School may shut down its high school. It serves 100 students in the Talmadge neighbourhood.
