Locals fight Ben and Jerry's founder in sheriff's race

Deputies under cover

The GOP-dominated Lincoln Club is, as always, among the big spenders this campaign season, with $16,242 spent May 16 on a mail piece on behalf of Sheriff’s office hopeful Kelly Martinez, and the same amount for attacks against her opponent Dave Myers, who is backed by liberal ice cream maker and Ben & Jerry’s cofounder Ben Cohen of Williston, Vermont. (Cohen is an outspoken police reformer.)

The highest Lincoln Club donation during the period, a May 17 report shows, was Phil’s BBQ of Point Loma, with $9900 on May 10, and others are spending much more. But because the topic of police reform is so hot this year, the county’s law enforcement lobby has been trying to keep a low campaign finance profile.

Spending big for Martinez is an outfit calling itself the Coalition for Public Safety Reform, Training, and Transparency, which has so far paid $10,000 to produce and distribute “Digital Advertising” on her behalf, according to a May 9 disclosure report. Lo and behold, the committee is financed by another, much better-known campaign committee, the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association of San Diego County, which provided $49,900 on May 6, according to the same filing.

San Diego runs on L.A.’s Calendar time

Print advertising continues to shrink, but the page count of the online PDF edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune is on the rise, thanks to the addition of editorial content from the Los Angeles Times.

As a bevy of car dealers have dropped their full-page ads in droves, the U-T’s eNewspaper edition has made up the difference with the L.A. Times Calendar, along with a page of comics from the L.A. paper and photo layouts from its sports pages. Media watchers speculate that the move is readying readers for the not-so-distant day when print ends and San Diego reporting is radically downsized or abolished.

“Your U-T eNewspaper subscription [now] contains the Los Angeles Times Calendar section,” advises a recent note to readers at the bottom of the paper’s daily weather section. For years, that space promoted a plumbing firm that has since pulled its ads there. “Get even more entertainment and popular culture news and opinion six days a week only on your smartphone, table or computer.”

Locals can thank L.A. billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, who spent some $600 million to buy the Times and Union-Tribune from now defunct Tronc of Chicago almost four years ago. Supporters of the deal originally counted on Soon-Shiong to keep both papers open and their presses humming, but a continuing industry-wide slide in newspaper readership and the putative conversion of the L.A. plant where the papers are printed into a movie studio have dimmed those hopes considerably.

Pride of Bird Rock

A group of lawyers dubbing themselves the San Diego Family Law Bar Association has jumped into a local Superior Court race with an $8000 contribution on May 6 to a campaign committee called Family First Political Action Committee.

That group in turn reported spending $1633 on May 10 for a mailer backing Superior Court Commissioner Pennie McLaughlin’s bid for a judicial seat. “As a new lawyer and graduate of Boston University School of Law, Ms. McLaughlin traveled across the country to become a deputy public defender in one of the largest and finest offices in the United States. She was determined to seek justice on behalf of indigent defendants and spent 13 years doing this work,” says her online bio.

“Commissioner McLaughlin has always been active in her community and served as her local community’s governing body’s president for many years. During this time, she also edited the community newsletter and transformed it into a publication that went to every household in the neighborhood and included articles on restaurants, shops, residents, and opportunities to become involved. This community, Bird Rock, La Jolla, was transformed in these years by a very active group of citizens who collectively made the difference working together.”

...The city of San Diego has issued a Request for Proposals aimed at “Security Strategy” consultants to put together a municipal anti-terrorism plan. “The Strategy is also designed to address the region’s terrorism risk, with an understanding that the capabilities enhanced to combat terrorism can also enhance the ability to manage natural disasters and other man-made incidents.” Plan objectives are listed as “Prevent and disrupt terrorist attacks” and “Respond to and recover from any major incidents that do occur,” according to the May 17 notice. No prospective cost for the service is given.

— Matt Potter (@sdmattpotter)

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