San Diego politics in a less cynical era

Maureen O'Connor, Si Casady, right-left rent control debate, Pueblo land, convention center, district elections

Author

By Various Authors

Publish Date

Nov. 3, 2018

State of City address, 1998. From left: Byron Wear, Harry Mathis, Christine Kehoe, George Stevens, Barbara Warden, Valerie Stallings, Judy McCarty, Juan Vargas (Joe Klein)

Jerome dreamed up the idea of taking the Swimming O’Connor Sisters on a nationwide tour. (Maureen third from left).

The Cinderella story of Maureen O'Connor

Maureen’s twin, Mavoumeen, reacted to the idea dubiously. ‘‘Oh God, Maureen,” she told her sister. ‘‘We don’t know anything about government.” Yet Mavoumeen promised to think about it and then proceeded down to the library. ‘‘She checked out three books on how to win an election,” Maureen recalls in amazement. ‘‘And she came back and read them all and she said, ‘Okay, I’ll be your manager.’ ”

By Jeannette DeWyze, March 8, 1979 Read full article

“Who am I?” he yelled at one operator, “I’m the candidate. My name is spelled C-A-S-A-D-Y."

Long-time Democrat takes on Pete Wilson

The way Casady sees it, he’s not getting enough coverage. “I went in to see the Union's editorial board and it was like staring at a wall. First thing Jerry Warren asks me is, ‘Si, are you doing this for a lark?’ I told him, ‘Would I be appearing before you bunch of wolves if this was a lark?’ When I was explaining why I was running they kept telling me, ‘Now, Si, quit making a campaign speech.’ What was I supposed to do – talk about the Chargers?”

Fred Schnaubelt and Tom Kozden argue about rights to housing

TOM: A person doesn’t have a right to live in an affordable, decent place?

FRED: You don't have the right to force people to supply you housing.

TOM: If there is a supply of housing, do people have a right to it?

FRED: You do not have the right to force somebody else to supply you a house that you don't want to pay for,

By Jeannette DeWyze, Sept. 20, 1979 Read full article

The city proposed selling pueblo land (seen here) to Irvin Kahn to develop what would become University City. Voters voted the idea down in 1961 and 1963.

How San Diego lost its pueblo land

Five years after the two lone bidders won the La Jolla Shores acreage, General Atomic was able to pick up similarly desirable property on Torrey Pines Mesa for its huge lab, the first onto the mesa of a now-familiar wall of high-tech palaces. General Atomic fared even better than the developers at the shores — its 320 acres of pueblo land came from the city free of charge

By Bob Dorn July 22, 1982 Read full article

Bruce Herring in a January interview: “We don’t know how much it’ll cost." (Joe Klein)

How Roger Hedgecock got San Diego to shell out more for convention center

As radio talk-show host, Hedgecock is telling voters to do it again. “The existing San Diego Convention Center has made such a dramatic difference downtown that it must be considered the most successful public investment in the history of San Diego.”

By Matt Potter, April 16, 1998 Read full article

John Harley: “The Democrats on the council are almost indistinguishable from the Republicans." (Joe Klein)

District fix failure

“It’s produced exactly the effect that everybody thought it would, and that is to make members of the city council even more concerned about their neighborhoods and their districts,” says UCSD professor Erie. “It’s made decision-making more parochial. Certainly the whole experience of district elections around the country is that it turns the city council into a pork-barrel operation."

By Matt Potter, Feb. 26, 1998 Read full article