Jan Goldsmith Hires Former U-T Writer

Jonathan Heller, who labored for years at the Union-Tribune covering the downtown baseball stadium controversies and Democratic city attorney Mike Aguirre, finds himself back in familiar territory. After leaving the U-T in 2005, Heller went to work for Southwest Strategies, the booming PR and lobbying outfit established by onetime Evening Tribune reporter Alan Ziegaus. Now Heller has returned to city hall, this time as communications aide for GOP city attorney Jan Goldsmith, who has declared for reelection. According to his campaign statement, at the end of June Goldsmith had $28,852.42 in the bank, after spending $4155.30, including $2250 on polling by Competitive Edge Research…County supervisor Greg Cox, who has been touting his role in redrawing the boundaries of his first district to include more Latinos and African Americans, is busy assembling his own pile of campaign cash for reelection. “I am pleased and proud to help create a majority-minority district of Latino and African American citizen voting-age population,” Cox recently announced. “And I feel very fortunate to have represented an area that is made all the more vibrant by diverse ethnic, racial, and cultural groups.”

Most of his political money, though, is not so diverse. Executives from the Corky McMillin Companies, the big development outfit, were plentiful on the donor list, as were those from the Sycuan gambling tribe, the Village Club Card Room, and many county trash haulers, including EDCO and Allied Waste. Brothers James Neal Blue and Linden Blue, staunch Republicans and owners of General Atomics, maker of the Predator drone, also kicked in $500 each. Cox collected a total of $109,383 in cash contributions during the first six months of this year, spent just $4113, and ended up with a hefty cash balance, including funds collected previously, of $325,365.79.