BOARD OF SUPERVISORS : Slater, Jacob Win S.D. County Races
Pam Slater, propelled by a pro-environment, slow-growth platform, edged out rival Judy McCarty early Wednesday for the seat being vacated by mayoral victor Susan Golding on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
For Slater, 44, an Encinitas councilwoman and former mayor, the vote over McCarty, 52, a two-term member of the San Diego City Council, hung in the balance well past Tuesday. Slater finally emerged the winner, claiming 53% (106,066 votes) to McCarty’s 47% (94,764).
Slater’s District 3 victory paled in comparison to that of Dianne Jacob, who scored a landslide in District 2, trouncing Santee Mayor Jack Doyle by more than 15 percentage points. Jacob finished with 58% (99,665 votes) to Doyle’s 42% (73,204).
The question Wednesday was how the Slater-Jacob pairing would alter the makeup of the board, which retains supervisors Brian Bilbray, John MacDonald and Leon Williams. Jacob replaces retiring chairman George Bailey, whom she served for seven years as a chief aide.
Doyle’s attempts to portray Jacob as a tool of Bailey and the status quo clearly backfired. Their campaign emerged as one of the most aggressive, and at times, most bitter in the county, rivaling the fierce overtones of the Golding-Peter Navarro race for mayor of San Diego.
Charges and counter-charges filled the final days of a race in which Jacob seized momentum early and kept it, finishing with a flurry. While Doyle, 40, spoke of having brought 7,000 new jobs to Santee, Jacob, 53, grabbed the endorsement of many of the town’s business leaders.
The Political Action Committee of the Santee Chamber of Commerce criticized Doyle for imposing too large a bureaucracy and too many regulations on too small a town. Jacob accused himof providing an interest-free, city-financed loan to a major developer.
He denied even the appearance of wrongdoing and fired back salvos of his own, none of which carried much weight. As a result, the Jacob-Doyle race was far more animated than the Slater-McCarty pairing, which seemed bland in comparison.
Even Slater acknowledged the Miss Manners tag that political pundits sought to apply to her and McCarty during the primary.
“Our race focused the most on issues and the least on personalities,†Slater said Wednesday. “Judy and I tried to be polite to one another and focus on the issues, which is where the focus belonged. It was refreshing not to have a lot of mud-slinging and negative campaigning.â€
Slater said if any bond linked her and Jacob--and united them in victory--it was the collective label of “fiscal conservative,†which both believe carried them with voters. Slater said she and her newly elected colleague shared observations Wednesday morning.
She said both envision a “careful allocation of resources†on a board that manages almost $2 billion of the county’s money and oversees tens of thousands of employees. Slater advocates a thorough audit of county government.
“We need to reallocate, streamline, best utilize existing resources,†Slater said.
Jacob promised even tougher reform, saying her overwhelming victory was a mandate to “shake things up, bring back control to the people and take control away from the hands of the bureaucrats.â€
She wants to “downsize†county government and has put together a proposal calling for $50 million in cuts.
“The (county) bureaucracy has grown to five times that of the population over the last 10 years,†Jacob said. “That’s how grossly bloated it has become. I also want to get government off the backs of business in this county.â€
To do that, Jacob proposes the elimination of the business-license tax and as much deregulation as possible.
Supervisor Bailey, Jacob’s boss for seven years, said Wednesday “she’ll be the best-trained supervisor the county has ever had.â€
But he added, “She made several promises as a candidate that may be hard to fulfill.†Pressed for examples, he said, “Ah, I don’t want to get into that.â€
Bailey went on to say he thought the Doyle-Jacob race “got a little rough, a little dirty, and I don’t think that’s necessary. In 35 years of public life, I never lost election and don’t ever remember having a campaign like that. I just wouldn’t get involved in something like that.â€
Supervisor Bilbray, a new colleague to both Jacob and Slater, said, “Dianne recognizes the candidate mode and the statesman mode. There’s a time when you’ve got to get elected, when you’re all alone out there, and then there’s the time to be a team player, to build a consensus . . . after the war.
“You just watch. You’ll see Dianne move real fast from being Joan of Arc to being Mother Teresa. Dianne has never been one to look for conflict for conflict’s sake. She’s willing to fight for what she believes in but doesn’t pick cheap fights. She only fights--as she did in this campaign--when it’s the last resort.â€
Jacob ran, in her words, a “clean campaign,†and conceded some of the aggressiveness was necessary “to define myself, to let people know who Dianne Jacob is, what she stands for . . . . My opponent seemed to be saying one thing and doing another, but that’s past.
“I’m interested in getting in there (after the first of the new year). I got a clear mandate. I had a decisive victory. I intend to do nothing less than work for complete change in county government. They have spoken, and I intend to serve them to the best of my ability.â€
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