Flannery on Peters… Pat Flannery, the oft-times one-man spotlight on the City of San Diego’s greasy underbelly, had some strong words for Scott Peters last week.  Peters, the city council president and city attorney wannabe, was called a liar by Flannery in Blog of SD on Thursday:

Peters tried to smear the City Attorney (Mike Aguirre) for doing his job. Peters has abused the legal process by filing a false complaint with the State Bar wrongly asserting that Mr. Aguirre was not authorized by his client, the City, to file a cross-complaint in a matter in which the City was sued…Clearly Scott Peters does not have the best interest of the City at heart, merely his union backers. His abuse of the State Bar disciplinary process for political purposes should be enough to disqualify him from practicing law let alone becoming City Attorney for any city.

And, the city attorney race hasn’t even gotten ugly yet.

Speaking of… Will Carless’ Friday piece in VoiceofSD is an excellent primer on the city attorney’s race, with a focus on Jan Goldsmith.  Among those quoted is fellow FR correspondent Duane Dichiara.  Read "The Reluctant Politician" here.

A Not-so-Brief History of the Union-Trib… Or, more accurately, the Copley Press.  Matt Potter’s cover story in this week’s San Diego Reader is a long read, but worth it for SD history and political buffs.  Actually, "The Rise and Fall of the Copley Press" is brilliance from Potter; having muddled through the mounds of available information and honing it down to something so thorough, readable, and fascinating.  

The piece is not just a history of the newspaper, but also much of the history of San Diego politics, smattered with names like Nixon, Wilson, Alessio, O’Connor, Hedgecock and Golding.  The U-T has often been intertwined directly with the area’s local politics, not just covering the news but also making it, rightfully or not, for both better and worse.

Potter ultimately asks the inevitable questions in the age of declining broadsheets, while noting that heir David Copley is riding his riches, seemingly not focused on the legacy — or perhaps the remains — of an over 100-year-old institution:

What will happen to the last remaining daily newspaper of the Copley Press? At latest report, in November of last year, audited daily circulation at the Union-Tribune had plunged 8.5 percent, from 304,334 to 278,379. Sunday’s numbers tumbled 7.93 percent, from 390,310 to 359,355. Both were also dramatically down from seven years earlier, when daily circulation stood at 370,395 and Sunday was 439,367. Some say the operation is hemorrhaging cash, despite the employee buyouts of recent months.

Almost all American newspapers are suffering in the Internet age, but the Union-Tribune is among the most prominent of the walking wounded. The decades-long decay in its circulation, beginning years before the advent of broadband, owes as much to its peculiar heritage of warped coverage and irregular stewardship as it does to the threat posed by the Web. Droves of San Diegans tuned out long ago, and David Copley, cruising at 40,000 feet over the heartland that spawned Ira’s once-mighty Copley Press, seems to have done the same.

Read the entire piece.

Knives out in Encinitas… A recent complaint filed against Councilmember Maggie Houlihan is one of the most extensive and thorough I’ve ever seen against a local officeholder or candidate.  Someone has it out for her, it seems.  No defense of the indefensible, as the Political Reform Act requirement to include employment information and addresses for donors is abundantly clear.  Yet, even with the long laundry list of missing information in Houlihan’s campaign filings, it all might have been rather pedestrian in its gravity….if she had simply filed amended statements to include what she originally failed to report.  The fact that she didn’t provide the missing information for years, now makes it of another nature.

True, the “Act” requires the candidate to have a donor’s information on file when accepting a contribution, not just when filing the later report.  Yet, I know of few campaign treasurers that aren’t scrambling just prior to disclosure deadlines to track down missing information.  And, it is commonplace to file reports without some of the information, while still pursuing the missing data and turning in a later amendment.

In this case, it appears Ms. Houlihan and/or her treasurer didn’t do either…in dozens of instances and for several years.  It remains to be seen whether the FPPC will investigate and simply tell her to file amended forms including the missing information, or level fines.  A guess: watch for both.

On a side note, Ms. Houlihan has been noted for her enemies in the past.  In 2006 she was "victimized" by free speech in the form of a large sign along the freeway calling into question her moral turpitude.

I’ll ask again…albeit rhetorically:  Ain’t politics grand?

Have a great week!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.