TERM LIMITS INITIATIVE FOR SUPERVISORS REACHES SIGNATURE GOAL FOR JUNE BALLOT

November 16, 2009 (San Diego) – Organizers of an initiative to require term limits for San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors will hold a press conference tomorrow to announce that they have gathered approximately 120,000 signatures—far more than the 77, 587 required to qualify for the June ballot, East County Magazine has learned.

“We know that the signatures are good, because they’ve been verified by the Registrar as they’ve been collected,” Evan McLaughlin, spokesman for the campaign, told East County Magazine this evening.

The drive to establish term limits for Supervisors was led by San Diego County employees. If approved by voters countywide in June 2010, it would limit Supervisors to two four-year terms.

McLaughlin said the measure has broad support. “You will see Republicans and Democrats from East County signing onto this campaign formally in the next few weeks,” he said, adding that several prominent elected officials from East County have pledged to endorse the measure after it qualifies for the ballot.  Official certification by the Registrar could take up to two weeks, he added.
 

No incumbent has lost a reelection bid in more than a deadline. All five supervisors have been in office since 1995 or earlier. Dianne Jacob, who represents East County, has served as Supervisor since 1992, along with Ron Roberts and Pam Slater-Price who were elected the same year.

“The County Supervisors have shown that they are unaccountable and that there are no consequences for being unaccountable, whether it’s fire protection or fiscal responsibility,” McLaughlin said. “They have insulated themselves by an archaic system of political patronage…For the last ten years, they have controlled a $100,000 slush fund for political favors and they’ve drawn their own districts during reapportionment. They’ve devised a system that’s led to a permanent incumbency,” he said.

McLaughlin called Jacob “unaccountable to firefighting needs of our county,” noting that the Supervisor has been on opposite sides from firefighters on some issues. He added, “For her to watch a $100 million fund being doled out for political patronage, that doesn’t scream taxpayer watchdog or fiscal responsibility to me.”

Jacob, in a July interview, told East County Magazine she believes term limits “reflect the philosophy that voters are too stupid to decide for themselves when to turn an underperforming official out of office.” She added, “The hapless and ineffective California Legislature is a prime example of the terrible consequences of term limits.”

Carl Meyer, who led a successful recall effort against Potrero planners over Blackwater’s plan to build a private military base in his town in East County, supports the measure. “It’s telling that the County’s own employees are so fed up with lobbyist deals behind closed doors—land use development that benefits sprawl developer interest versus the communities’ interest,” he said in a July interview with ECM.

Laura Cyphert, head of the East County Community Action Coalition, opposes term limits, which she calls “forced choice.” In July, she observed, “I believe that we, as Americans, should have the freedom of choice to elect those candidates whom we believe are most qualified.” Jacob shares the ECCCAC’s opposition to Sunrise PowerLink and used a portion of what McLaughlin terms “slush fund” money to rent a room for the ECCAC to address Lakeside residents across the hall from where SDG&E was making its pro-Powerlink presentation.

Steve Rivera, regional director for the California Democratic Party, says that ”non-responsiveness of the board to the public” has created conditions that led to the initiative filing. “All five Supervisors are Republicans, though the County now has a majority Democratic registration,” he observed.

Support for the measure is bipartisan, McLaughlin emphasized, citing Oceanside Mayor Jim Wood as an example of a prominent Republican who has endorsed the measure.

"I will be voting for it," La Mesa Mayor Art Madrid, who previously ran against Jacob, told ECM.

Tomorrow’s press conference announcing formal presentation of signatures will be held at the County Registrar of Voters Office at 10 a.m.