How desperate are Republicans to regain the 3rd District supervisor’s seat on San Diego County Board of Supervisors? Very desperate!
But the hand it has been dealt with Kristin Gaspar as its standard bearer is really pretty poor.
Her performance as mayor of Encinitas has been decidedly undistinguished.
The only issues she personally has initiated have gone pretty badly. She proposed to address homelessness by sending $100,000 of Encinitas-city funds to the Escondido-based Interfaith Community Services rather than contribute those funds to the Community Resource Center in her hometown to support the same type of program. Since she was running for supervisor against the mayor of Escondido at the time, could that have been a political move to sway voters in Escondido?
The remainder of the City Council rejected that give-away.
Gaspar’s other initiative was a measure renaming the library for the wife of a wealthy campaign donor.
The “donation” was a pittance compared to the amount of funds and sweat-equity the citizens had contributed but it would have contractually bound the naming “in perpetuity.”
Instead of passing the offer to the staff for proper evaluation, she grandstanded by bringing it straight to the council without even the courtesy of asking the county how they felt about their library being renamed. There, she demonstrated lack of vision, creativity, and competence.
The result was a unanimous, awkward public rejection of an offer from a generous community member.
On several occasions, she has claimed undeserved credit for passage of important city issues for which others had fought for years but for which she had initially opposed or done nothing substantive.
In primary debates, she displayed appalling ignorance regarding county issues as well as a general lack of knowledge on government procedures.
So after she won the Republican nomination, the party recognized she needed help.
They sent in gunslinger Revolvis’ Jason Roe, one of Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World” candidates. Roe served as a senior advisor in Marco Rubio’s recent campaign, and was deputy manager for Romney in 2007.
He has supported conservative candidates in third-world countries like Nigeria, Liberia, Bulgaria, and Iraq.
Now he is managing another “third-world” candidate.
Revolvis’ charges are already $117,000, using up more than half of Gaspar’s contributions.
His advice: Safe, superficial performances rather than debate appearances, and big negative PAC-funded signs and mailers, even though multiple dates have been offered by the debate sponsors and the League of Women Voters.
Is she unprepared and afraid to answer questions?
Do her handlers fear her performance would do more harm than not appearing?
That approach worked in Encinitas. Let’s hope the bar is set higher for supervisor.
Please compare her empty record with Roberts’ full record and see who can really do the job.
Dennis Lees is a Leucadia resident.
4 comments
Dave Roberts is a sexual harasser whose arrogance cost county taxpayers $310,000. What what has he done, other than pepper his Facebook page with photo ops and accepted money from organizations he feeds with his slush fund. Gaspar has tried to steady a wacko City Council majority whose shameful spending habits got the city two Golden Fleece awards from the San Diego County Taxpayers Association for “wasteful, inefficient government spending.”
This online article should have a header stating it is a “letter to the editor”, not “news” or an “editorial”. It is just the opinion of one resident.
Ray, it’s called a Community Commentary, and you find it by clicking on the Opinion tab.
Excellent on-the-mark letter about the “glamorous” Encinitas mayor, Kristin Gaspar. Those of us who’ve been watching her moves over these years — offering $ to Escondido voters, circumventing right channels in giving away naming rights to the Mizel family, and THEN recusing herself from that vote — know these things bespeak more about her than any photo op out in a field with a shovel and stiletto heels ever could. (Always cracks me up, that.) So she will play it safe for this election on the advice of her strategist and with fingers crossed hope her good looks will carry the vote for her. Surely she’s hoping that not too many people know of her love of Donald Trump as our next president, or of her ongoing ties with the GOP Encinitas-based political action committee (North County Leadership Council), chaired by the wildly unpopular former Encinitas mayor, Jerome Stocks. (Yes, she sits on the board of that political organization.) One would think after she and husband Paul got away with that political mailer “We Love Encinitas” imbroglio in 2012*, paid for by Encinitas tax dollars, that she might possibly have a hard time claiming moral high ground over Supervisor Dave Roberts, who, granted, does not look NEARLY as good in heels. (*See: http://ourmayorstocks.blogspot.com/2012/11/who-was-behind-we-love-encinitas.html )
Comments are closed.