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Arturo Castañares Publisher |
Local elected water district representative Josie Calderon-Scott told La Prensa San Diego last month that she wanted to fight political backroom deals happening at her agency and would be more effective by not running for re-election to the South Bay Water district board, but she has now changed her mind as she faces a formidable opponent, Elizabeth Cox.
Calderon-Scott, who was first elected to the South Bay Irrigation District Board in 2016 and re-elected in 2020, is facing re-election again on the November 5th ballot. The district, which was renamed South Bay Water earlier this year, delivers water to National City and western Chula Vista.
After filing her candidate forms on August 8th and realizing that the only other candidate in the race was Cox, Calderon-Scott decided to suspend her campaign and support Cox as her eventual replacement. Cox is the eldest daughter of former Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox and her husband, former County Supervisor Greg Cox.
Cox, 44, a former staffer at the San Diego County Office of Education and the San Diego Association of Governments, known as SANDAG, is a graduate of the FBI San Diego Citizens Academy.
During a private meeting last month, over several phone calls, and through phone voicemail messages, Calderon-Scott made it clear to La Prensa San Diego that she no longer wanted to campaign for re-election and would support Cox.
Calderon-Scott has been an opponent of a controversial floating solar energy project on Sweetwater Reservoir being pushed by the District's General Manager and several board members, and she said she wanted to be off the Board to be free to fight the project publicly.
La Prensa San Diego published a news article on October 4th detailing Calderon-Scott’s intention to suspend her campaign and expressing her support for Cox.
But within days of our story, Calderon-Scott began complaining that our article was “inaccurate” because it didn’t reflect her current thinking that she would still campaign and serve out her term if she were to win the election.
Our article did not mention anything about her ability or willingness to serve if she wins re-election, but Calderon-Scott continues to insist we misrepresented her position. We stand by our reporting based on extensive conversations with Calderon-Scott before she changed her mind.
Voters should know that Calderon-Scott clearly stated to La Prensa San Diego and others that she did not want to campaign and expressed support for Cox before receiving conflicting advice from some of her political friends.
Calderon-Scott is entitled to change her mind, but she cannot change our reporting.
Clearly, members of the South Bay Water Board, namely Steve Castaneda, would not be thrilled to have Cox replace Calderon-Scott on their Board.
Castaneda, who ran and lost his campaigns for Mayor against Cheryl Cox in both 2006 and 2010 while he was on the Chula Vista City Council, argues the elder Coxes were behind a criminal prosecution he faced in 2007 when he was indicted by then-District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis on 13 counts of perjury and 2 counts of failing to report income.
The trial judge dismissed three of the perjury counts during trial, and a jury later found Castaneda not guilty on six of ten perjury counts and deadlocked on the remaining four counts, including one count where the jury voted 6-6 to convict him.
Calderon-Scott told La Prensa San Diego that Castaneda encouraged her to file her re-election papers in August and pledged to support her campaign after learning that Cox would be running against her.
As of today, Calderon-Scott has not even opened a campaign committee to raise funds for her re-election, a clear signal she had no intention of mounting a campaign. Cox opened her committee on August 15th, just six days after completing her candidate filing forms, and has already sent out campaign mailers to voters.
Now, some of Calderon-Scott’s supporters are running their own campaign to get her elected even without any effort from her, using the local Democratic Party to deliver mail to Democrats hoping she gets enough votes to block Cox, an independent.
The tactic may work.
In the November 2022 election, Democrats continued to campaign for City Attorney candidate Simón Silva even after he passed away two months before the election. Most voters were not even aware Silva had died when he won the race against a Republican, forcing a special election to fill the vacancy which was later won by Democrat Marco Verdugo.
If Democrats could elect a dead candidate they may still be able to elect Calderon-Scott even without any help from her, but it's deceiving to voters.
Greg and Cheryl Cox have served the South Bay as educators, a Councilman, Mayors, a school board member, and a County Supervisors over the past 50 years.
Now, their daughter, who earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from George Washington University and her Master’s Degree in Public Administration from San Diego State University, is stepping up to serve her hometown community.
Elizabeth Cox deserves the opportunity run for office on her own merits, and should not be embroiled in a controversy created by Calderon-Scott’s flip-flop based on politics, not principles.
