SAN DIEGO — Someday, San Diego Jewish World may decide to endorse City Councilman David Alvarez for a higher office, but not in this election. We support City Councilman Kevin Faulconer to be the next mayor of San Diego.
First, we point to Faulconer’s experience on the City Council. He’s been there for two terms compared to Alvarez’s half a term, and, in our belief, Faulconer has gained the knowledge and the perspective that one needs to run so large a city as San Diego.
Second, we point to what we believe is Faulconer’s more balanced approach toward governing. He recognizes that both business and labor are important constituencies, whose interests need to be harmonized for the good of all the citizens of the city. As we’ve watched Alvarez’s television commercials continuously paint businesses as special interests, we’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with such divisive rhetoric. Businesses are the entities that employ San Diegans, so they can afford to live in homes, bring up their families, send their children to college, and go on vacations. Businesses provide all of us pathways for personal success.
Yet, not withstanding our displeasure over the rhetoric in Alvarez’s commercials, we have come to appreciate him as a personification of the American dream. As he has told his story, his parents came here as immigrants with little money; he was the beneficiary of schools and libraries; and most of all, his own dedicated hard work, and now he is an elected official.
Along the way, Alvarez has developed tremendous compassion for people in the “neighborhoods” and believes San Diego must re-prioritize the spending in its budget in order to support them. Alvarez is right on that score and we are delighted that, even if he fails in this election, he will remain on the City Council to seek implementation of his vision.
We believe that Faulconer also is sincere when he speaks of using the money for neighborhood development that the City of San Diego has saved by revamping a bloated pension system. We think that he, more ably than Alvarez, will be able to approach businesses, as well as labor, in creating partnerships to develop the economy.
As the February 11 special mayoral election approaches, we also would like to take cognizance of Faulconer’s consistent outreach to the Jewish community. This began before he was an elected official, back in 2004 when he sat on the City’s Parks and Recreation Commission, and became an early supporter of designating Louis Rose Point in the Roseville section of Point Loma in recognition of the contributions of San Diego’s first Jewish settler to the development of our city.
Louis Rose Point, at the foot of Womble Street, commemorates Rose as an early advocate of moving San Diego toward the bay to better enable its commercial future — a 19th century example of business and the city working hand in hand. — Donald H. Harrison