A Surprise in Moscow

Former San Diego City Councilman Fred Schnaubelt insists he is still a loyal capitalist, but the Republican known for his libertarian leanings has been sounding more like a Soviet ambassador since returning from a recent trip to the Soviet Union.

Expecting to find a backward nation, where everything was “gray, shabby, with heavy-set, gruff people,” Schnaubelt instead discovered a modern country with friendly citizens dressed more like Paris than the gulag.

Schnaubelt said he was surprised at the Soviets’ freedom of movement, and he found the presence of soldiers in the street not so much threatening as reminiscent of the 1950s and ‘60s in San Diego, when sailors in uniform crowded the downtown sidewalks. The traffic in Leningrad and Moscow, Schnaubelt said as a compliment, was “at least as bad as it is in San Diego.”

His conclusion? “The propaganda is out of date.”

Crime Cost Overruns

Every summer, as the hot July sun beats down on the County Administration Center, the Board of Supervisors approves a budget for Sheriff John Duffy and his department. And each December, as the holiday season approaches, county analysts disclose how much more than his budget Duffy has spent.

This year, as usual, the sheriff is overspending his budget. If current projections hold, Duffy will end the current fiscal year nearly $1.5 million in the red.

In four of the last five years, in fact, Duffy has spent more than the county Board of Supervisors has allotted for his department. The red ink for those five years totals about $7.3 million.

Duffy blames this year’s shortfall on higher overtime costs than expected and his decision to hire new deputies early for a scheduled expansion of the Descanso jail camp, which was to open in April but may now be delayed until the summer. Duffy also blames higher medical costs for inmates in the county’s six jails.

Assistant Sheriff Frank Hill cautions against “looking for a trend” in the repeated red ink. Each year, he explains, a different set of circumstances conspires to send costs soaring over projections.

But county budget analysts grumble privately that Duffy simply spends as much as he wants, and damn the supervisors, who supposedly control his budget. The supervisors almost never object to cost overruns in the Sheriff’s Department, as they do in other programs under their control. To do so would risk a confrontation with Duffy in which they would be labeled soft on crime.

Peace Unto Everybody

Politicians have long been sending “Happy Holiday” cards with no specific religious bent, lest they offend supporters who do not share their faith. But Supervisor Susan Golding took that practice a step further this year.

Inside a card with a watercolor of the San Diego skyline on the cover, Golding offered prayers of peace from nine different faiths. Along with Christian, the religion of choice for most of her constituents, and Jewish, her own faith, Golding included Buddhist, Hindu, Jainist, Moslem, Shinto, American Indian and African Animist.

No Hard Feelings?

With the election of Eugene Asmus to the Vista City Council and John Mamaux to the Carlsbad Council, each of North County’s Tri-Cities now has a former city manager on its governing board. The other is Oceanside Mayor Larry Bagley.

But for Asmus, his status as the one-time manager is more than a curiousity. That’s because one of his new colleagues, Vista Mayor Gloria McClellan, was on the council that fired Asmus in 1973. Both, however, insist that no hard feelings remain.

“Gene is a far different person than he was in those years,” said McClellan, who recalls that she voted to fire Asmus 13 years ago because he was “ahead of his time” for Vista, which then was a “country bumpkin town.”

“I think his experience is going to be tremendous for us,” she said. “I always respected the man’s intelligence. I don’t think the city was ready for Gene Asmus. I think now the city is.”

The blunt-talking Asmus, now a deputy city manager in Chula Vista, dismisses McClellan’s talk of him being ahead of his time as no more than “a bunch of crap.”

“She has said there were two reasons I was fired,” Asmus notes. “I was too far ahead of the community and too intelligent. That’s interesting, because in Chula Vista they say I’m behind the times and I’m dumb.”

Flattery Gets Us Nowhere

Defeated Supervisor Paul Eckert, rarely portrayed favorably by the local media during his eight years in office, says he holds no grudge against the reporters who covered him. But Eckert says he is convinced that those who edit the articles, write the headlines and lay out the pages do so with little regard for accuracy.

It is for that reason that Eckert says he is asking the various newspapers to purge their files of photographs of him taken in the days before he became conscious of his image--before he changed his glasses and lost weight, among other adjustments.

“They still have a habit of whoever the (news editor) is says, ‘Here’s a cute one, this one ought to grab some attention,’ ” Eckert complains. “I’m not the same guy I was five years ago. I object to people using photographs that are five years old to try to project an image of me.”

No word yet on how many papers have agreed to toss out the old pics.