AEG greases mayor's palm

San Diego cash arena As word percolates that AEG Management, the Los Angeles-based operator of San Diego’s city-owned Valley View Casino Center (formerly known as the San Diego Sports Arena), is lobbying for a lucrative five-to seven-year lease extension, a conveniently-timed contribution by the company to mayor Kevin Faulconer’s One San Diego charity has turned up. AEG gave $5000 to the mayor’s charitable non-profit on March 2, per an April 10 disclosure report filed by the mayor with the city clerk’s office. Other special interests tithing $5000 to the Faulconer fund last month included Sunroad Asset Management, enmeshed in a 2013 pay-to-play scandal during the era of fallen Democratic mayor Bob Filner. Developer H.G. Fenton, Suffolk Construction, Padres L.P., Monarch Group, and Soapy Joe’s Carwash of El Cajon, run by Lorens Attisha, each kicked in the same.

Among other $5000 contributors was the mayor’s mother Kay Faulconer Boger, formerly a Ventura county consultant employed for the last six months as interim vice president of instruction in the continuing education program of the San Diego Community College District, per her LinkedIn profile. The biggest donor was Arkansas retail giant Walmart, with $15,000 on March 20. Campaign finance records show AEG executives have given a total of $3500 to Faulconer’s mayoral campaigns in 2014 and 2016.