Here they are, our year-end awards of flowers and floaters. Lets get right to it:
San Diego County Democratic Party: The local Dems get 22,644 tiny, ballot-bubble-size poopies. Thats the combined number of votes that the Republicans got over and above what the Dems got in three crucial elections this year: the February special election for mayor in which Kevin Faulconer beat David Alvarez, the June District 2 City Council election in which Lorie Zapf beat Sarah Boot and the November District 6 City Council election in which Chris Cate beat Carol Kim. The slaughter resulted not only in a Republican in the Mayors office, but also the loss of Todd Gloria as City Council President.
Kevin Faulconer and Chris Wahl: Faulconer, San Diegos new mayor, and Wahl, president of the PR firm Southwest Strategies, get 14 billion and 46,000 fat lumps of feces for the fat, lumpy lies they told voters about the impact that a new community plan for Barrio Logan would have on the local economy. A judge in April smacked them for falsely saying the plan would kill $14 billion in annual maritime revenue and 46,000 jobs.
Toni Atkins: Atkins became the first lesbian Speaker of the state Assembly and put a San Diegan in a position of real power in San Diego. Lets give her 80 power-blue hydrangeas, one for each Assembly district.
Probation Department: The agency that runs the countys juvenile-detention system was the subject of a complaint by the Youth Law Center (YLC) for its excessive use of pepper spray. Though incidents of its use, which is banned entirely in more than 70 percent of juvenile facilities nationwide, have decreased, as far as we know, the departments policies havent changed in a way thats meaningful enough. Well give them 461 steamers, one for every incident of pepper-spray use YLC found in one year.
Mark Kersey: Our token Republican honoree, the San Diego City Council member from District 5, was chosen for his good, important work this year on infrastructure and open government. A bouquet of wild roadside poppies goes out to him.
Bonnie Dumanis: The district attorney is the proud recipient of 37 toilet twinkies, one for each day it took her to make public a letter of recommendation she wrote on behalf of the son of a billionaire campaign contributor.
Alan Long: Murrieta is outside San Diego County, but well make a special case for the citys former mayor, who in July served as the pied piper of the vile protesters who blocked and shouted at busloads of immigrant women and children and then resigned in October after he injured four high-school cheerleaders in an alleged drunken-driving incident. We bestow to him several busloads of mierda.
Lorena Gonzalez: The Assembly member from San Diego was busy this year, getting bills signed into law that guarantee sick days for workers and force homeowners associations to allow drought-resistant landscaping, among other things. Well present her with three beautiful sunflowers, one for each of the sick days to which workers are now entitled.
Dave McCulloch: Congressional candidate Carl DeMaios spokesperson gets one big butt nugget for making the jaw-dropping claim in November that the Justin Harper interviewed by KPBS just before Election Day was an imposter. Harper was the second former DeMaio campaign worker to accuse DeMaio of sexual harassment.
Sherri Lightner: The Democratic District 1 City Council member was great most of the year, but she wiped it all away in December when she bought into a Republican plot to overthrow Gloria as council president. We hope she enjoys the four dookies we have for her, one for each of the Republican votes she accepted.
Jerry Sanders: The president and CEO of the local Chamber of Commerce gets 100 grunties for the 100-percent success rate the organization claims this year in killing increased funding for affordable housing and the Barrio Logan Community Plan and at least delaying the minimum-wage increase.
Todd Gloria: Gloria is CityBeats person of the year, having first led the transition out of the Bob Filner era with grace and a steady hand as San Diegos interim mayor and then back in his more familiar role as president of the City Council. Gloria kicked ass, leading the campaign, along with the Center on Policy Initiatives and Raise Up San Diego, to increase the local minimum wage. He also pushed for more affordable housing, continued to fight for homeless residents and got the ball rolling on a real plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. For all that, he gets a dozen purple lilacs, one for each month in 2014.
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