Editorial:
With this the first edition of La Prensa San Diego in the New Year we take this opportunity to review the past editorials of the year. Instead of reviewing a whole year’s worth of editorials we will take a look at four editorials that reflect the times.
In January the community was rocked with the news of the indictment of Sweetwater school board members. Our editorial at the time: “Corruption charges only deal with part of the problem” where we welcomed the investigation of the corruption charges, but we questioned if District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis’ investigation had dug deeply or widely enough into this scandal.
We went on to note that the culture of “pay-to-play” was only a part of the problem at Sweetwater! The problems at Sweetwater stemmed from the undue influence that contractors, and big business, have with incumbent school board members and candidates. There are NO financial campaign contribution limits for local South Bay school board members, there are NO term limits, and there is a need for district only elections.
DA Dumanis lived up her word and continued her investigation and recently expanded the corruption charges and indicted two more board members, Bertha Lopez, Jim Cartmill, and San Ysidro Superintendent Manuel Paul.
The race for mayor of San Diego was a stark contrast between Carl DeMaio, a right wing Republican who wanted to dismantle the pension system and the Unions, and Bob Filner a left wing Democrat who garnered much of his support from the Unions.
We wrote several editorials on the mayor’s race but this one stands out, “The $100,000 income club a red-herring for pension reform?” In order to demonize the Unions and their employees DeMaio threw out the statistic that the growth of those earning over $100,000 grew by 9% over the previous year.
We saw this as a red herring issue. The salaries reflected the city council approved salaries for high ranking city employees who did not belong to Unions, but DeMaio used this info to demonize the rank and file and their Unions.
DeMaio used the salaries of CFOs and other top executives to rationalize the need for reform, and further erode the income of the middle class working families. This was the general theme throughout his campaign and one we editorialized on several times during the year.
Editorials are not always so serious. Often times we took the opportunity to highlight milestones in the community and exceptional accomplishments, such as the time that our very own San Diego State Aztecs made a run at a basketball title which we recognized with: “We are caught up in March Madness!” We also took the opportunity to recognize a great community man Al Alvarado which we highlighted with editorial, “It was Al Alvarado Day and well deserved.” We took great pleasure in recognize Al, a friend of the paper and a friend of the community where he had decades of involvement, friends, and love.
Many of the editorials throughout the year dealt with the Primary and General elections with analysis and endorsements. Our hope was to provide enough information so that our readers could make a decision that would be in their best interest.
We supported President Obama for re-election, “Barack Obama is our choice for President.” “It is a no brainer, Filner for Mayor,” Filner had spent years working on behalf of the Hispanic community and earned our support. Pearl Quinones was another one of our endorsements, “Quinones for Sweetwater Union High School Board – Seat 2.” Quinones was one of the original board members charged with “pay-to-play” corruption, but we believed in Quinones and were confident that Quinones was innocent of the charges. We were surprised, not by her winning the election but by the margin. Despite the indictment Quinones won the election rather handily, wasn’t even close.
Of course we weren’t 100% on all of our endorsements such as “Breitfelder is a better fit for Chula Vista than Bensoussan,” but often times endorsements weren’t based on winning or losing but on principal and this was one such endorsement.
So as we start the New Year our editorials will once again be a source of information, we will try and provide direction, and we will always speak from the heart with the best interest of the community as our motivation.
So with this we wish you a Happy New Year!