Ron Schneider Out to Fill Cleator’s 2nd District Seat

Saying that he offers “new vitality” for the San Diego City Council, financial consultant Ron Schneider on Monday declared his candidacy for the 2nd District seat to be vacated this fall by Councilman Bill Cleator.

In announcing his candidacy in Old Town, Schneider focused his remarks on comments that Cleator made last week when he revealed that he would not seek a third four-year term in September. His decision, Cleator explained, stemmed in part from his belief that the City Council “periodically must be reinvigorated with new life, new blood and new thought.”

“I agree with him wholeheartedly,” said Schneider, a member of the Ocean Beach Planning Board. “In fact, the need for new vitality, new energy and new thought in providing the leadership San Diegans deserve is a major theme of my campaign.”

Plenty of Issues

Schneider, 25, also spoke in general terms about a broad range of issues, expressing opposition to the “unmitigated development of open space,” pollution in San Diego Bay (“Do we want the America’s Cup . . . held in the most polluted water on the West Coast?”) and the “unabated noise from aircraft at Lindbergh Field that is a very real nuisance” to 2nd District residents. He pledged to issue position papers detailing specific solutions or approaches to those problems later in the campaign.

A New York native who moved here in 1981 to attend San Diego State University, Schneider is a partner, along with his brother, in the Hamilton Group, a marketing and economic research firm. Schneider, a Democrat, has never before run for public office but has worked on local campaigns, including Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s 1986 mayoral race.

Schneider, who said he planned to enter the race even before Cleator withdrew, hopes to raise about $40,000 for the September primary in the 2nd District, which includes Ocean Beach, Mission Hills, Point Loma, Loma Portal, Old Town and parts of Hillcrest and University Heights. The top two vote-getters in the district primary will face each other in the November citywide general election.

Other potential candidates in the 2nd District contest include Byron Wear, a partner in a local public relations and political consulting firm and former vice chairman of the San Diego County Republican Central Committee; city school board President Kay Davis; Yvonne Larsen, a former city school board president and the wife of San Diego Unified Port District Chairman Daniel Larsen, one of Cleator’s closest friends, and Scott Harvey, former director of San Diego’s Intergovernmental Relations Department. Long-shot Loch David Crane, a magician who ran for mayor last year, also has announced his candidacy.