Workers vote for union at Humphrey's

The owner of Humphrey's by the Bay, the legendary music venue on Shelter Island and a big donor to Republican city councilman Kevin Faulconer's campaign for San Diego mayor, is facing off against organized labor at his Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn and Suites, which adjoins the concert facility.

According to a National Labor Relations Board tally, a vote on a bid by Unite Here Local 30 to organize the resort's workers went 20-12 in favor of the hotel workers union, with one challenged ballot. A labor-board document says that employee categories covered by the union's approved bargaining unit are:

All full-time and regular part-time housekeeping employees, including room attendants, housemen, public areas employees and laundry attendants, employed by the Employer at its facility located at 2303 Shelter Island Drive, San Diego, California.

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Excluded: All other employees, food and beverage employees, front office employees, maintenance employees, guards and supervisors as defined in the Act.

A spokesman for the union said the vote became final earlier this month when Bartell Hotels, owner of the resort, did not challenge it. A woman who answered the phone at Bartell said its chief executive, Richard Bartell, was on the telephone and not immediately available for comment.

Republican Bartell and family, who have so far given Faulconer's mayoral bid a total of $32,000, is also a major backer of GOP District Attorney Bonnie Domains, currently enmeshed in a money laundering scandal centering around a wealthy Mexican national who, according to published reports, allegedly funneled six figures of illegal money into an independent campaign committee on her behalf.

Employees of La Jolla luxury car dealer Marc Chase, another figure in the case, contributed a total of $9000 to Dumanis's controlled mayoral committee.

According to campaign disclosure records, the Bartells gave Dumanis's mayoral committee a total of $5000.

In addition, filings show, Richard and Lizabeth Bartell gave Dumanis's 2014 district attorney re-election bid a total of $1200 last year.

Bartell was among a trio local hotel magnates, which included Atlas Hotels’ Terry Brown and Bill Evans of Evans Hotels, another big Dumanis backer, who masterminded an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit to force then-mayor Bob Filner to sign off on a lucrative hotel promotional funding agreement negotiated by the city’s previous mayor, Republican Jerry Sanders.