By Megan Burks
[Editor’s Note: Field Guide is a weekly email bringing you the news, explainers and action items needed to navigate your changing community. Click here to subscribe.]
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The 2012 primary election is more than nine months away, but the cap gun is already smoking in this footrace.
CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 9
Four candidates have thrown their hat in the ring to represent the newly drawn ninth district: Katherine Eaton, Marti Emerald, Georgette Gómez and Araceli Martinez.
Marti Emerald
According to the latest campaign disclosures, only Emerald has raised money for her campaign (she’s raised $31,810). The current District 7 representative has served one term on City Council already and enjoys support from labor unions and an endorsement by the San Diego County Democratic Party.
And she generally votes on those lines. This week, Emerald opposed putting the operation of Miramar Landfill up for competitive bid with Councilmen Todd Gloria and David Alvarez. The move-approved in a 5-3 vote-could put city workers out of work.
Georgette Gómez
The Environmental Health Coalition also opposed the decision. That means District 9 candidates Gómez and Emerald have at least one thing in common. Gómez works for the coalition.
While Emerald has been active in City Heights and votes on its behalf as representative of its northeast corner, Gómez is entrenched in the community as a member of its redevelopment project area committee and as an active participant in the neighborhood’s partnership with the California Endowment.
Gómez has another advantage-she’s Latina. District 9 was intended to empower Latino voters. In fact, the Environmental Health Coalition supported drawing a majority-Latino district at redistricting hearings. For her advantage to stand, however, Latinos in the neighborhood will need to boost voter registration and turnout rates.
Araceli Martinez
Martinez is also Latina with a labor focus to match Emerald’s. The lawyer has volunteered for her husband’s ironworkers union and has been active in the San Diego Middle Class Taxpayers Association.
Martinez also has some experience working with the school district. She has a daughter with autism, inspiring her to serve on an advisory committee on special education for the San Diego Unified School District.
Katherine Eaton
Like Gómez, Eaton’s advantage is a connection to grassroots work being done in the community. The Azalea Park resident serves on the redevelopment PAC with Gómez.
Eaton didn’t support drawing City Heights out of District 3 to create a Latino-majority district, however. At redistricting hearings, she said she was “uneasy about dividing communities based on race and culture” and preferred keeping District 3 ethnically diverse with the inclusion of City Heights.
[Disclosure: Speak City Heights is funded by the California Endowment, but operates as an independent, nonpartisan news collaborative.]
QUESTIONS FOR THE CANDIDATES
Other than Emerald, who has a public voting record ripe for inspection, we don’t know much about these candidates. That’s where you come in.
Help us get to know the candidates two ways.
1. Take this poll on the issues you’ll be watching for on the campaign trail.
2. Submit a guest commentary outlining what you want to see in a District 9 representative.
Guest commentaries can be written in the style you prefer or filmed using a mobile phone or webcam. You must live or work in City Heights to participate. There are no age restrictions.
Send written submissions and YouTube links to your commentary to spkcityheights@gmail.com by Oct. 15.
Speak City Heights encourages an open, civil exchange among its users and contributors. We ask that your participation be useful and collaborative, and reserve the right to reject content that is disrespectful, misleading or unlawful. Written submissions will be edited for grammar, spelling and clarity.
SAN DIEGO MAYOR
So far, the mayoral race is decidedly noisier than the race for District 9.
Local media have already pitted the top candidates against one another in debates. Polls have separated the pack; a recent poll gave Carl DeMaio 39 percent of the vote, Bob Filner 28 percent, Bonnie Dumanis 19 percent and Nathan Fletcher 10 percent.
Speak City Heights partner voiceofsandiego.org has comprehensive coverage of the mayor's race, including a digital debate that poses weekly questions to each candidate. This week the news website asked the candidates about public transit.