San Diego Magazine / March 2006 / For Richer, For Poorer

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For Richer, For Poorer

THE HONEYMOON THAT FOLLOWS a shotgun wedding isn’t usually romancenovel fodder. Three months after Jerry Sanders was elected to fill the mayoral seat resigned early term by Dick Murphy, we the citizenry must consider: Is the bloom already off the rose? Can we open lines of communication and make it work?

Most urgently, we’ll need to address the bitter pill that’s upended many a marriage —not to mention a city’s coffers: Together, will we manage our money wisely?

Not that we signed a prenuptial agreement or anything, but have you noticed the mayor has already found himself a prominent lawyer? Would anyone have believed City-Attorney-That-Roared Mike Aguirre would win the hand of Sanders? The mayor has echoed Aguirre’s call for ouster of the beleaguered pension board (whose nest egg is currently $2 billion underfunded). As well, Sanders believes that Aguirre should be the board’s lead attorney.

It’s no wonder Aguirre has nothing but platitudes for the new mayor. That’s right, Mike the Spike actually likes another San Diego elected official.

“The mayor has broken with the bad culture of the past,” says Aguirre. “The mayor has determination. He steps up and takes hard stances . . . But he’s a nice person, and he is open to people. He has no ax to grind. He’s very different than his predecessor.

“The mayor is a force of reform. He’s trying to do the right thing—and that will get him the support of the public. The people who are still trying to defend their behavior are getting weaker by the day.”

Aguirre believes the mayor’s biggest challenge is the unwillingness of “the forces of bamboozlement”—in his view, the pension board, city employee union leaders and four second-term city councilmembers— to admit to mistakes that led to the city’s current flow of red ink.

“The mayor’s not getting support from the city council because they are the ones who okayed illegal benefits,” says Aguirre, referring to Councilmembers Scott Peters, Jim Madaffer, Toni Atkins and Brian Maienschein.

Maienschein is asked if he’s surprised by the Aguirre-Sanders alliance, and to respond to Aguirre’s latest dart.

On the mayor and city attorney’s likemindedness: “I don’t have an opinion. Is that an answer?”

On council colleagues and him being a roadblock to financial solvency: “Aguirre’s credibility is not great. He has been kind of a one-trick pony. Whenever he does anything, he attacks. Even talking to you for this story—which is supposed to be about the mayor, right?—he has to attack others.”

For the record, Maienschein says of the new mayor: “It’s still early, but I’m optimistic.”

“I WANT HIM TO SUCCEED, and to get this city out from under the dark cloud hovering over us,” says Councilmember Donna Frye. You will recall it was Frye who lost to Sanders in the special election.

“I can talk about his relationship with me—it’s much different than with the previous mayor,” Frye says. “Jerry actually talks to me. His second day in office, he took me to lunch. We’ve done press conferences together. He comes to my office. We have a relationship.”

Frye and Sanders—sometimes bitter opponents on the campaign trail—actually went tandem bicycling together after Sanders’ victory. They pedaled a half-mile from the Mission Bay Hilton to the Visitor Information Center. Jerry got the front seat. After all, he won.

“The Jerry Sanders during the campaign was different than the one who’s now mayor—and that’s understandable,” says Frye. “But then and now, I never strayed from the idea that he’s a good and decent person who genuinely cares about what happens and tries to reach out— even to people who don’t share his views.”

Sanders knows he’s in the hot seat. To cool his trousers, he believes consensus is crucial. Still, making hard decisions and creating consensus will be tough—tougher even than getting Mike Aguirre and Brian Maienschein to compete together in a three-legged race.

“Last week, announcing two ballot initiatives, I knew that was not going to please some people in the city,” says Sanders. “But I think the initiatives are one of the answers for the city, and it’s a decision I promised I’d make.” He is championingballot propositions calling for a public vote on all future city pension increases, and on bidding out some city services to private companies.

The sector of the city not pleased by the mayor’s initiatives, obviously, is organized labor.

“The mayor will create a scenario that will move forward with or without the cooperation of labor,” says Aguirre. “The MEA [Municipal Employees Association] is being belligerent and refusing to say that its leadership misled them in the past. So the mayor is going directly to the people.”

MEA president and general manager Judie Italiano says the media heard about the mayor’s ballot initiatives before she and the MEA did.

“I worked with Jerry Sanders for a lot of years when he was the chief of police,” says Italiano. “That Jerry Sanders knew how to grab hold of people and motivate them to help him. This new Jerry Sanders is different. I don’t think he’s getting good advice.

“It’s hard to follow him when he hasn’t told us where we’re going,” she says. “He told us we’d be partners; that he’d stay in touch . . . It’s hard to have a good reaction to this. We’re not happy—he hasn’t done what he promised.

“I took him to some work sites, and he was the old great communicator. It’s great talking to him one-on-one. He gave people hope. He told people they had value. Now, I don’t want to take him anywhere. He’s made city employees the enemy. These initiatives are troubling. But maybe what’s most troubling is city leadership abdicating its responsibility to the public. It’s a cowardly way out.”

Sanders says for any city charter change, a ballot measure must be approved.

“I’m hoping the city council will see the wisdom of allowing the city to vote on this,” he says. “But if they don’t, then I am willing to collect signatures [to get it on the ballot].

“It’s very important that this be in the bag of tools we have for solving the city’s problems . . . The private sector is not coming to us for tips on how to do things —we’re not doing things well. So we need to look at [the private sector] to figure out ways to be more effective. And I think if our employees look that way, they can figure out more competitive ways of doing things.”

Sanders quickly concedes city employee morale is in the dumper. He cites years of neglect, and admits his own call for managerial resignations has not exactly uplifted the staff.

So sans honeymoon pictures and magical early memories, the mayoral marriage is under way. Unlike his predecessor, Sanders says divorce is not an option. Amid infighting, pressure from old friends and attempts to make nice with inherited family, the relationship is already being tested. It would have been nice to spend a couple of weeks in Jamaica. But the honeymoon that barely existed is definitely over.