Bob Filner to La Mesa: ‘You Have a Stake in Who is Mayor of San Diego’

Rep. Bob Filner calls La Mesa a model for San Diego—and a possible environmental ally if he’s elected mayor of America’s Finest City.

“First thing we’re gonna do is annex La Mesa,” he said to scattered laughs Wednesday night at the La Mesa Community Center.
 
“La Mesa has done some great things,” Filner later told an audience of 130 in a half-hour talk at the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club. “Look at your downtown, which has been revitalized.”

Robert Earl Filner, the 19-year congressman representing the Mexican border areas of southern San Diego and Imperial counties, explained his presence in La Mesa by saying that—even with other East County campaigns—“this is a race I want you to get involved in.”

“Obviously, the [San Diego] mayor is a regional leader, not just the leader of the city,” Filner said, “and when we’re talking about environment, climate change … transportation and how to have regional sustainability—we’ve all got to work together.”

He cited SANDAG—the San Diego Association of Governments—and criticized its 20-year transit plan that focused on highways to the exclusion of other concerns.

“Ya know, San Diego can almost control a majority of the votes on that board,” he said. “So if I’m sitting on SANDAG, and can get one other progressive city that you guys create here in La Mesa … we have the votes to have a real sustainable, livable regional plan—which affects La Mesa and everything else.”

“So you have a stake in who is mayor of San Diego, is what I’m trying to say,” Filner, 69, told a mostly middle-aged and older crowd that included candidates for Congress—David Secor (50th District) and Lori Saldaña (52nd District). Several 79th Assembly District hopefuls were represented by surrogates.

But one candidate was newly announced: Democratic political operative Pat Hurley, who said he had just pulled paper to run in the heavily Republican 71st District in which Assemblyman Brian Jones is the favorite.

Filner returned several times to the idea of La Mesa joining his environmental initiatives.

“If the mayor of San Diego and the president of the [San Diego] school board and maybe the mayor of La Mesa and the [La Mesa] school district said: ‘You know, we’re going to solarize all our public buildings … in five years,’ we’d expand a whole industry here.”

The 51st District congressman—a one-time San Diego school board president and city councilman—said he could fix San Diego’s pension mess by refinancing the debt through what he called pension obligation bonds.

Filner likened his plan to a family refinancing its house from a 15- to a 30-year loan to save on monthly payments and thus have money to pay for their child’s college education. He called the sacrifice of a longer payoff period worth it.

“Your future has been secured by sending your kids to college,” he said.

He rapped outgoing Mayor Jerry Sanders for merging San Diego’s Planning Department into development services.

“I’m having a contest, and even people from La Mesa can join this contest,” Filner said. “I want to have a new name for a department that says San Diego is going to embark on a whole new approach to this [sustainability and smart growth] stuff.”

He also addressed the Chargers fans in the audience, answering a question from a longtime Filner supporter over the stadium issue.

“Look, I love the Chargers,” he said. “But when I’m mayor, the day of extortion by these private teams is over. … What if they gave us part ownership of the team—public ownership?  If they sell the team out from under us, as has been known to happen, we’d get our money back” and cited the example of the city-owned Green Packers, the defending NFL champions.

Filner said he hopes to become the first Democratic mayor of San Diego in two decades, a prospect that frightens “the downtown folks who control our city.”

“They know that I’m going to solve the pension problem without throwing the public employees under the bus”—and without raising taxes, he said.

Although his main Republican rivals—District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher and Councilman Carl DeMaio—are outspending his $200,000 by vast margins, he says he hopes to make a November runoff.

The three GOP contenders will “beat up each other,” so “if we keep the Democratic vote together—which I need your help to do—then I should get into the runoff, even with all the money and special interests.”

But he said: “We don’t need as much money because you always beat money with people. … I have a record of achievement they won’t be able to smear. When you’re a Democrat who’s holding office … we actually help people.”