Along with then-Mayor Jerry Sanders and then-Councilman Carl DeMaio, Faulconer, 47, was a key member of a cadre of San Diego GOP pols who brought sweeping reforms to City Hall in recent years. But in this campaign, he did all he could to obscure his party membership. He wooed the police officers’ union and celebrated its support. He defended gay marriage and in general avoided every last social conservative issue.

And while he won decisively, it’s worth noting that Faulconer beat an inexperienced, second-tier Democratic opponent. David Alvarez, 33, only became a known figure in city politics in 2010, when he won a City Council seat that traditionally goes to union-backed Latinos. The list of San Diego Democrats with higher profiles and better resumes is a long one: former Councilwoman Donna Frye, Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, state Sens. Ben Hueso and Marty Block, Rep. Susan Davis and interim Mayor Todd Gloria.

Faulconer will serve the remaining 33 months of the term that former Rep. Bob Filner won over DeMaio in 2012. Filner  resigned in August 2013 after an ugly sexual-harassment scandal.

Faulconer, a former communications consultant and San Diego State University student body president, will face tough sledding with any conservative reform agenda. He is certain to be replaced on an interim basis on the City Council by a Democrat, giving them a veto-proof 6-3 majority until Faulconer’s council term ends in December.

Alvarez and at least two of those other Democrats are interested in or ready to nullify or impede three voter-approved reforms, starting with a money-saving measure in which city workers compete with private firms for the right to provide certain government services.

And in the June primary and November general election, Democrats have a solid shot at winning Faulconer’s coastal seat and a central San Diego district configured to encourage the election of an Asian-American council member. The Republican now representing the latter district, Lorie Zapf, is running for Faulconer’s old seat.

Democrats may soon hold 7 of 9 San Diego council seats

By year’s end, Democrats could have seven of the nine City Council seats.

Even with Faulconer’s election, many business interests already have given up on the City Council as a constructive force for job creation and economic growth. They’re using ballot measures to try to overturn City Council decisions to vastly increase fees on commercial development and to rezone a shipyard industrial area in a way that business owners say will destroy thousands of jobs.

Direct democracy appears to be their only chance of getting big things done going forward. San Diego’s parallels with California at large are plain. A well-crafted, conservative ballot measure can still win passage, if voters believe it is constructive or in their best interests.

As for Faulconer, he may be forced to play defense until his 2016 re-election bid — fighting to protect the reforms that until 2012 made San Diego seem a poster city for small-government activism.

But when its implementation was allowed, its record was strong. This is from the U-T San Diego overview just after Filner took office:

“Publishing services: Slashed costs by 30 percent and eliminated 12.5 positions. Implemented in July 2011. Annual savings: $967,000

“Fleet maintenance: Reduced costs by 13 percent and eliminated 80 positions. Full implementation pending procurements for outsourced services that were part of employee bid. Annual savings: $4.2 million

“Street sweeping: Trimmed costs by 12 percent and eliminated 8.75 positions. Will be fully implemented this month. Annual savings: $559,000

“Miramar Landfill operations: Slashed costs by 31 percent and eliminated 11.5 positions. Not yet implemented as labor negotiations continue. Annual savings: $5.6 million

“Street and sidewalk maintenance: Cut costs by 7 percent and eliminated 14 positions. Not yet implemented as labor negotiations continue. Annual savings: $875,000”

‘Managed comp’ likely to be big issue in mayor’s race

Now Filner is gone, and a February special election looms to replace him. Republican Councilman Kevin Faulconer, an ardent supporter of “managed comp,” is likely to make a big deal of the issue going forward. Plans thwarted by Filner involved bidding to provide trash service — something that could save San Diego taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in coming years were it privatized.

His Democratic opponent, Councilman David Alvarez, has a rich — some would say redolent — record on the issue.

This is from a column I wrote in May 2010 when Alvarez was making his first bid for city office.

“[Ben] Hueso is leaving his District 8 seat to run for the Assembly … . In recent weeks, the U-T editorial board has met with candidates seeking to replace [him]. … [C]andidates from local political semi-dynasties – Felipe Hueso and Nick Inzunza Sr. – offered the usual doublespeak on outsourcing, talking about ‘doing it right’ and making sure it actually saved money.

“But the candidate considered the front-runner – David Alvarez – essentially said he wouldn’t support implementing ‘managed competition,’ period. How arrogant can you get?

“Maybe this is how Alvarez got to be the unions’ favorite over the dynasty candidates – he most boldly stated his intent to nullify the public’s vote on outsourcing. But at least he didn’t play semantic games – or tell the U-T editorial board something different from what he told other groups.”

Candidate says he will honor voters’ ‘intent,’ not their blueprint

So now young David Alvarez is one of the two finalists to be mayor — and he still isn’t pretending he likes “managed comp.” In an interview Friday on U-T TV San Diego with former San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock, Alvarez refused to say he would implement the reforms that voters endorsed.

Instead, he said he would honor voters’ “intent” by pursuing increased government efficiency.

Feel free to groan. And groan and groan some more.

By Chris Reed

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner responded Thursday to allegations that he sexually harassed several members of his staff with a classic Hollywood strategem: pleading for forgiveness and announcing he was in a rehabilitation program to deal with his personal failings. This is from the L.A. Times:

“SAN DIEGO — Facing calls for his resignation amid sex harassment claims, San Diego Mayor Bob Filner issued an apology Thursday for his treatment of women and vowed to change his behavior, admitting ‘I need help.’

“Filner indicated he will not resign but that ‘I have reached into my heart and soul and realize I must and will change my behavior. … As someone who has spent a lifetime fighting for equality for all people, I am embarrassed to admit that I have failed to fully respect the women who work for me and with me, and that at times I have intimidated them.”

Will this ploy work? The San Diego insiders that I talked with Thursday were split. Some thought Filner had enough core supporters that his apology would suffice. Others said he was doomed, a sentiment that seemed on the money when the alternative weekly CityBeat — previously a huge admirer of Filner’s — posted a call for him to quit. But many people thought it all depended on specific allegations finally being brought forward instead of the vague talk of wrongdoing offered Wednesday and Thursday by three former longtime Filner supporters. If these allegations are credible and as horrific as some scuttlebutt suggests, then it’s time for Bob to say,”Aloha.”

Filner enabled by fellow Democrats for decades

If it gets to that point, it will be time for recriminations. A U-T San Diego editorial makes the case.

“For decades, Filner’s abusive personal manner has been common knowledge. He’s had brushes with the law and with federal security agents because of it and has thrown too many public tantrums to count. This editorial page was hardly the only institution to warn in 2012 that the then-congressman simply didn’t have the temperament for the job. Former Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña told the Voice of San Diego on Thursday that she had specifically warned former Democratic Party Chairman Jess Durfee in 2011 about six local women who had been verbally or physically harassed by Filner.

“Yet only now are top Democrats, labor bosses and environmental extremists having fits about his fundamental unsuitability to be chief executive of a large city? It wasn’t that long ago that former Councilwoman Donna Frye and the brother-and-sister act of Marco and Lorena Gonzalez supported, campaigned for and raised significant funds for Filner’s mayoral run. They would be more credible critics of the mayor if they had sought another Democratic nominee back in 2011 instead of helping clear the field for Filner. Instead, they pretended he was something he was not.

“They’re not pretending any more. On Wednesday, when the sexual harassment allegations were revealed, it was striking how little surprise it triggered among powerful local Democrats. They had either found it par for the course with our coarse mayor or heard it was coming.”

A politician simply not ready for the spotlight

Filner spent 20 years in Congress being ignored as an obscure back-bencher, someone whose bad behavior occasionally made news but was mostly ignored. He simply wasn’t ready for the spotlight. His multiple scandals of the last few months were all too predictable.

Now his survival may depend on his suddenly having to be nice to people after many decades of being a menacing jerk. Can a leopard change its spots?

Or, more specifically, can a jackass?

By Chris Reed

Cal Watchdog readers have been updated regularly on the goofiness and ugliness that’s unfolded in San Diego since veteran Democratic congressman Bob Filner took over as mayor in December. The two main themes of Filner coverage are his sheer stinking obnoxiousness and his sense that the law doesn’t apply to him because he’s such a noble guy. (He really thinks this; he was a Freedom Rider in the early 1960s, therefore he’s always pure.)

Now the two themes have meshed in a scandal that offers a perfect snapshot of the mayor of California’s second-largest city. This coverage is from the Voice of San Diego:

 “Mayor Bob Filner’s recently departed deputy chief of staff, Allen Jones, said Friday the mayor knew full well about a negotiation with a developer that many are calling extortion — and that he stands by it.

“Jones’ comments came hours after Filner announced he had returned a $100,000 donation to the city from the developer Sunroad. The mayor said he made the decision after he discovered a memo between a Sunroad representative and Jones that explicitly laid out a quid pro quo between the city and the developer.”

OK, that’s juicy enough. But why is Jones “recently departed”? Was it because of heat over the scandal that he blames on the mayor but which also makes him look bad?

That’s how the mayor rolls: ‘repeated humiliation of staff’

Nah. It’s because Jones thinks the mayor is obnoxious.

“Allen Jones, the longtime ally of Mayor Bob Filner, the one who set up his transition to mayor and worked as his deputy chief of staff said he resigned because of the mayor’s repeated humiliation of members of his staff.

“’On a number of occasions, I talked about how I thought the way the mayor interacted with and treated mayoral staff and members of boards and commissions and others was demeaning and abusive. And it, most importantly, undermined his ability to pursue the progressive agenda he campaigned on,’ Jones said.

“He said he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“’When I see mayor’s staff treated in that demeaning of a manner so often, if I remained, I believed I was being complicit in sustaining that abusive environment and I can’t do that,’ Jones said.”

So the mayor is blaming his extortion scandal on a top aide who just quit because he found the mayor to be obnoxious. I can’t think of any parallel to this, and I’m a political junkie.

Filner asks if anyone else wants to quit. As a matter of fact …

Wait, there’s more. Jones wasn’t the only top staffer to quit.

 “The mayor described a staff meeting in which Jones had brought up concerns about the way Filner was treating staff. When Jones said he was leaving, Filner said he asked if anyone else wanted to, and [communications director Irene] McCormack said she did.”

A fact that Filner didn’t reveal for a week — his press secretary abruptly quitting. This stuff is comedy gold.

At least if you don’t live within San Diego’s borders, where obnoxiousness, scandal and dysfunction in your city are more dismaying than entertaining.

By Chris Reed

When CalWatchdog last weighed in on San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, it was to point out the hagiographic qualities of an often-fawning L.A. Times profile of the chronic bully and then to detail a subsequent scandal that showed the former 20-year Democratic congressman simply believed he was above the law — that, to paraphrase Richard Nixon, if a mayor wanted to do something, then it was therefore legal.

But the hair-trigger anger that has gotten Filner into trouble over and over again in his years in the public eye now threatens a core element of his personal/political narrative: his heroism as a Freedom Rider in the early 1960s South.

A civil-rights hero who vilifies black official

It seems the mayor doesn’t care for one of the highest-ranking African-Americans at San Diego City Hall: Andrew Jones, the number two man in the City Attorney’s Office. As detailed by Scott Lewis of the Voice of San Diego, Filner went out of his way to humiliate Jones — again — this week, part of his worst week in his six months as mayor. The U-T San Diego has the specifics:

“San Diego Mayor Bob Filner used his tax-funded bodyguard to remove the No. 2 official in the City Attorney’s Office from a closed meeting this week, a move which the City Council president witnessed and called ‘wrong’ and another council member described as ‘inexcusable behavior.’

“The mayor appeared to zero in on City Attorney Jan Goldsmith’s lieutenant, Andrew Jones, soon after Filner arrived late to the meeting, where several lawsuits the city is involved in were to be discussed.

“’What is Mr. Jones doing up here?’ Filner asked.”

Using police to block an African-American’s rightful civic participation

“Filner repeatedly cut off Jones in the meeting, accusing him of leaking confidential information from previous closed sessions, according to a transcript of the public portions of Tuesday’s closed meeting obtained using the California Public Records Act.

“Ultimately, Filner used his police detail to force Jones’ removal. ‘Mr. Sergeant, please remove this gentleman,’ Filner said.

“Jones said he has never leaked confidential information and was at the meeting to act as City Attorney Jan Goldsmith’s surrogate, assuring the city officials present were following the law. Goldsmith was not at the meeting.

“When Jones attempted to ask a question, according to the transcript, Filner said, ‘I will have you removed if you don’t sit down.’

“Jones replied, ‘You can try.’

“Filner then left the room and returned with police, the transcript indicates.

“’There’s no discussion, Mr. Jones,’ Filner said. ‘Will the sergeants please remove him? He’s disruptive of this meeting.’

“Jones left the meeting after being told to do so by a police officer. …

“’I was shocked. It was baffling to me,’ [Jones said]. ‘For him to remove me, wow, to treat me like that. If you read the transcripts, you can see I was just trying to get a question answered.'”

A mayor who won’t listen to anyone

The problem for my fellow San Diegans is that Filner is not a headstrong young pol who might see the light if he got a talking-to by a senior mentor. He’s a 70-year-old bully who has gotten away with his horrible behavior for years, one who thinks that he’s always right and so his ends justify his means.

So does he ever change? Nope. But we could soon see a series of “have you no shame?” moments where politicians of his own party, starting with San Diego City Council President Todd Gloria, call him out. Filner is that obnoxious.