COAST CITIES — After finishing third in the June 5 primary election race for the District 3 seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, Del Mar Mayor Carl Hilliard lent his endorsement to candidate Steve Danon Monday.
Hilliard lost out to fellow Republican Danon and Democrat Dave Roberts, the deputy mayor of Solana Beach for the Supervisorial seat.
Hilliard received 19.74 percent of the votes, according to the County of San Diego Registrar of Voters. Danon received 33.98 percent and Roberts 31.50 percent of the votes. Danon and Roberts will head to a runoff election Nov. 6.
Hilliard said he endorsed Danon because he was the best man left in the race. Hilliard has also joined Danon as his campaign co-chair and will serve as the chair of Danon’s finance committee.
As for those who voted for Hilliard in the primary, he said he has no idea if they’ll lend their support to Danon. “I imagine they’ll vote the way they think best,” Hilliard said.
Along with Hilliard, Danon now has the endorsements of all five mayors in the Third District, which include Escondido Mayor Sam Abed, Encinitas Mayor Jerome Stocks, Mayor Joe Kellejian from Solana Beach and San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders.
Roberts said the endorsement wasn’t a surprise to him. “This is party politics plain and simple,” he said.
“All independent-minded voters need to look closely at this endorsement. Do they want (a) supervisor who works for special interests or for their interest and their quality of life?”
When people look closely at the two finalists who won the primary, Roberts said, they’re going to have a clear difference.
“I have promised voters I will not pave over paradise; I will protect them against companies that try to raise their rates, such as the solar tax and fire benefit recovery fee…I think now we clearly have a very defining race, and I think that in the primary the two candidates that are now working together tried to tear each other apart,” Roberts said.
“Carl (Hilliard) ran a very spirited campaign in the primary,” Danon said, but added that philosophically, we’re in line in a lot of areas.
Danon said that both he and Hilliard agreed that the 2010 Roberts-led balance initiative Proposition L, which would have created a business license tax on job creators, wasn’t right.
“His view of getting out of a financial thing is to create a business license tax — let’s put more of the burden on small businesses. And thank God that the voters of Solana Beach voted down Proposition L,” Danon said.
Roberts responded, saying that Mayor Joe Kellejian was one of the leaders on that. “(Kellejian) signed the ballot statement…the Chamber of Commerce supported that initiative and our business community did, and it was not passed by a very slim margin by the voters.”
Records from the County of San Diego Registrar of Voters showed that 56.53 percent of voters opposed the proposition with 43.47 percent in support.
Danon’s campaign is running on key issues as economic reform and job creation, pension and fiscal reform and instituting an ethics reform that would, in part, ban supervisors from receiving gifts from individuals and organizations that accept taxpayer dollars from the county.
Republican Pamela Slater-Price has held the Third District seat for almost 20 years. Slater-Price has given her endorsement to Roberts.
2 comments
Click on Brian Brady’s name above and you will see that he is basically a shill for the Republican/Tea-Party machine that backs Danon. In addition, Carl Hilliard, one of Danon’s opponents in the primary published a direct mail piece on Danon illuminating Danon’s past connections with Brent Wilkes, the business man who funneled money to Randy “Duke” Cunningham, our ex-congressman, now in prison for taking bribes. Hilliard didn’t stop there. He actually created two websites, governmentmademillionaire.com and danonfacts.com with background material to support his allegations.
In the height of irony and self-contradiction, Hilliard has endorsed Danon in the general election, presumably because both are Republicans, so of course, those websites have been taken down. Here is a link to some of this information
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/21/idUS202628+21-May-2012+PRN20120521
Roberts is trying to deflect his overwhelming support for Prop L and his statements conflict with one another. Roberts suggests he’ll “protect from business interests” but Prop L was designed TO grant protection TO certain business interests (and drive costs up for consumers). Roberts was the most vocal in his support for Prop L
Dave Roberts is a “tax and spend liberal” who has voted for every moralizing statute the Solana Beach Council passed. In short, his past actions suggest that he believes the gov’t should take more of your money and run your life.
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