By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – When Bruce Lightner, husband of the incumbent City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner, jumped into the First District race to succeed her, there was a lot of consternation in the camp of Ray Ellis, who up to then seemed to be favored in a 1:1 race against Barbara Bry. Although the City Council is a non-partisan office, with party affiliations not listed on the ballot, the city’s Republican establishment had lined up behind Ellis, and Democrats were supporting Bry.
Only a few days before the end of the filing period, Bruce Lightner and two other candidates—Kyle Heiskala, an aide in Councilwoman Lightner’s office, and Louis A. Rodolico, an activist in the University City neighborhood of the district — suddenly threw their hats into the ring.
The Ellis campaign cried “foul.” In the campaign’s opinion, enlarging the field in the June 7 race made his victory without a runoff almost impossible. Tony Manalotos, campaign spokesman for Ellis, described Bruce Lightner’s entry simply as a ploy to increase Bry’s chances of being elected. This assertion is based on political insider’s reasoning that Democratic voter turnout is higher in November elections than in June primary elections. With more candidates in the field Ellis’s prospects of scoring a quick knock out–by obtaining a majority of the total vote cast–were greatly diminished.
Tony Manolatos, a spokesperson for the Ellis campaign, told The San Diego Union-Tribune “Some people decided that Ray was going to win this race and that didn’t sit well with them, so they decided they would try and manipulate the outcome and take out the frontrunner by stacking the ballot.”
In response, Bry gave this statement to San Diego Jewish World: “I’ve never spoken to Mr. Lightner or anyone else about this, and I certainly did not encourage him to run. I welcome all of the potential new candidates into the race. More points of view contribute to a more diverse and constructive debate. As Mr. Lightner explained in the recent UT article, the reason he entered this race is to win. I think that is the reason we are all running for this seat.”
Although Councilwoman Lightner is a Democrat, her husband Bruce is registered as a Republican. “I’m running because the choice there, especially the other Republican in the race, were very distressing,” he told the U-T. “We need to get somebody in there who already knows what he’ doing and can get something done, and that’s certainly not Ray.”
Heiskala and Rodolico, like Bry, are registered Democrats.
The Ellis campaign’s ire was further kindled by Bruce Lightner’s campaign website, which appeared to use the same architecture that Ellis’s website does. This prompted the Ellis campaign to send to Lightner a “cease and desist” request. Lightner said he intends to ignore the cease and desist order, yet does plan to replace his current website, which he described to the U-T as a “parody” of Ellis’s.
In a letter to Bruce Lightner, patent and copyright attorney Taylor Bloom wrote: “Federal copyright infringement is blatantly apparent when comparing the underlying code and content of the Lightner website with that of the Ellis website. You stole the code and content from the Ellis website and used it to create the Lightner website.
“To confirm that the content and code of the Lightner website was taken from the Ellis website, a differential assessment was conducted … The Ellis website contains 1,081 lines of code, and the differential test run on the Ellis and Lightner websites only uncovered 66 changes to Ellis’ original codebase.
“There is no possible explanation for the overwhelming similarities between the Ellis and Lightner websites, other than the Lightner website was copied and pasted from the Ellis website. This is blatant intellectual property infringement.”
Meanwhile, the Ellis campaign is preparing for a major fundraiser on Thursday night, in which Ellis hopes to make inroads into the Jewish community of which Bry is an active member. To be held at the home of Julian and Jenny Josephson, who own a number of fast food franchises, the gathering is co-sponsored by Charles Wax, Chairman and CEO of Waxie Sanitary Supply. Both Josephson and Wax are quite active in the Friends of the Israel Defense Force organization.
Bry meanwhile had a breakfast reception on Wednesday at the offices of Tal Safdie (the architect daughter of internationally known architect Moshe Safdie) and her husband Ricardo Rabines.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com Comments intended for publication in the space below must be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his/ her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the U.S.)