Last Blog On Earth

A City Heights candidates forum hosted last night by the Mid-City Mobility Coalition, a group of grassroots community organizations, called for a commitment from Districts 3 and 7 City Council candidates to improve public transit.

Coalition representatives asked candidates to follow through on a 1985 plan to build a rapid-transit line along the I-15 center divide called CenterLine and improve air quality by rerouting trucks to I-805. Members of the coalition also demanded safer sidewalks and bike lanes and more affordable bus fares.

The evening was mostly filled with campaign rhetoric, as the coalition’s inquiries were questions like: “Will you help us get CenterLine completed and will you listen to our concerns?”

Somehow it took three hours for all of the candidates to answer, “Yes and yes.”

There were some highlights, though.

Hartley’s unexpected appearance told voters he wasn’t giving up his election bid just yet. (Hartley pleaded no contest to charges of indecent exposure and apologized for the incident in April). Hartley leaned back in his seat, as the other candidates leaned forward to answer questions from the coalition.

Despite his demeanor, the former City Council member was in step with the audience’s demands—he was one of few candidates who seemed to understand how to secure funding for the completion of CenterLine— such as with money owed to the city by the Centre City Development Corp.—among other methods offered by the rest of the panel. A recent poll shows Hartley has reason to remain on the campaign trail. Nearly 60 percent of District 3 voters said his arrest had no influence on their opinion of him, according to an April 18 Competitive Edge Research poll.

Steve Whitburn and Todd Gloria were audience favorites, though. While Hartley was the first to acknowledge the connection between jobs and mobility, wild applause came only when Whitburn echoed this sentiment 30 minutes later.

Gloria won even louder praise. “Who better than a Puerto Rican, Native American, Filipino, Dutch, gay guy to represent [you],” Gloria said. “I want to build a coalition as broad and diverse as all of you.”

The evening’s theme of commitment provided insight for voters in District 7. Republican candidate April Boling’s seat remained empty, an opportunity for challengers Marti Emerald and David Tos took to question Boling’s dedication to the community.

“Remember these people here at this table, because they are the ones that care about you,” Emerald said.

“I’d like to apologize for one of the candidates that isn’t here,” Tos said with sarcasm in his voice, as Emerald did her best Vana White impersonation to show off the empty chair.

Boling’s absence gave Emerald and Tos more time to discuss their own community engagement. It may have had much to do with the District 3 majority in the audience, but neither actually seemed to impress the audience.

Tos, who is a police officer, knew several members of the audience, but his political inexperience showed. The audience corrected him after he forgot a community member’s last name as well as the name of an organization he’s involved with.

Emerald, whose potential constituents use public transit more than other San Diego communities, according to the coalition, had to admit to never using public transit. She said she was on the verge of tears as she expressed how much the audience inspired her to run for office—thought attendees didn’t really seem to buy it. But they seemed to appreciate her down-to-earth style when she asked them to “kick us in the butt if we’re not taking care of business.

Some interesting tidbits from the evening:

• San Diego loses $184 million a year in productivity because of traffic.
• City Heights, where residents are less likely to have cars than most San Diego communities, has less than 1 mile of bike lanes.
• City Heights children are more likely to have asthma than others in the county
• San Diego has the third highest rate of pedestrians struck by vehicles in the country