Pete’s return

Ex-mayor Pete Wilson, who retired as governor to a tony house in Los Angeles, returns to San Diego only occasionally these days to accept tributes from his wealthy friends in the local establishment; the most notable event was the dedication of Wilson’s bronze likeness a few steps away from downtown’s Horton Plaza shopping mall. Another rare Wilson sighting is set to occur next Thursday evening, when he is scheduled to give a speech at “Pete & Gayle Wilson’s Salute to Mayor Jerry Sanders,” a blockbuster political fund-raiser for the Sanders reelection campaign to be held at the Evans Garage, the private antique-car museum owned by the wealthy Evans hotel family, which just happens to be one of the City’s largest commercial tenants. Tickets are $320 a person, the maximum amount permitted under city law. There is said to be concern among event organizers that the same Hispanic activists who threatened to disrupt the unveiling of Wilson’s statue may show up to picket at the Evans Garage; Wilson’s support of 1994’s Proposition 187 anti–illegal immigration measure, later overturned by the courts, earned him the permanent enmity of some.