For me, Shelia Jackson’s campaign against Supervisor Ron Roberts is good news on several levels.
1. A major challenge of a Supervisor will once again end in inglorious defeat, proving again NO incumbent Supervisor ever loses no matter what — a good case for the current term limits initiative on the ballot (which I support, and maybe will talk more about at a later time).
When there is no incumbent in a Supervisor’s race, it’s like the new democracies in Africa — “one man, one vote — one time.” Without term limits, until the incumbent Sup dies or retires, they can stay as long as they like with no real concerns about being unseated. Bill Horn is the poster child proving this truism.
2. Jackson’s terrible record squandering our school bond money on PLA agreements to reward her union backers will get extensive play in the election. The more publicity on this, the better. Hopefully this sets the stage for her removal in 2012 — indeed hopefully the removal of all three of the Labor Union Stooges elected in 2008.
3. I suspect the unions will in turn squander money on her hopeless campaign, and that’s all right with me.
4. With luck, Jackson will hit hard, pointing out all the fast and loose actions over the years by RINO Roberts. Transgressions include, but are not limited to:
A. Issuing a billion dollars of pension obligation bonds without a public vote to pay for a retroactive 50% pension increase for county employees AND for the Supervisors (legal, but hardly fair to the taxpayers who should have had a say via the polls).
B. Taking no pay cut in this recession, even though the judges (their benchmark pay scale sets Supervisors’ pay level) took furlough/cuts.
C. Accepting unreported hundreds if not thousands of dollars of sports memorabilia from the Padres owner, and then producing and running a pro-Padre ballpark infomercial (starring Robers and John Moores) over 20 times on the county government’s cable channel — to convince the voters to spend $300 million or so on the ballpark.
D. Accepting free trips to China from a firm to which he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars via his taxpayer-funded slush fund.
E. Issuing pay increases to other County officials in the teeth of this economic meltdown — perhaps just in time for them to count that increase in calculating their wonderful retirement pensions.
BOTTOM LINE: I see this Jackson race as a win-win-win-win-win proposition.
The downside for me is that this column will serve only to alienate Republican and Democrats — labor unions, politicians, financial contributors, and probably my barber — further reducing my chances of getting elected — as if that’s possible.