Stallings’ Abstention

Valerie Stallings met with biotechnology industry executives during her campaign and pointed out that her 20 years of experience working at the Salk Institute made her very aware of issues that affect our industry. At that time, she asked for our support and contributions, which were forthcoming.

After her election, she met with the Biomedical Industry Council, and I listened to her again tell us how supportive she was of the issues that affected our industry.

On March 2, Ms. Stallings abstained from voting to endorse the Ward Valley Low-level Radioactive Waste Disposal Site. This endorsement was simply a letter to be sent to Gov. Wilson expressing the point of view that the San Diego City Council believed that there was a serious potential problem unless a site was available for disposal of low-level radioactive waste in place by Jan. 1. After that time, if such a site is not in place, hospitals, research institutes, biotech companies, etc. will have no legal site where they can send their low-level waste for disposal. This would have a catastrophic impact on the biotech, medical and research community in San Diego and the state at large.

Ms. Stallings abstained from voting based on her position that she was in a conflict of interest because of her previous employment at the Salk Institute and that this endorsement would in some way preferentially help Salk. By using this argument, it would seem that Ms. Stallings should abstain from voting on any issue that would benefit Salk including the airport, east/west connectors, water and many other concerns that face San Diego and the biotech industry in general.

If anything, Ms. Stallings’ experience at the Salk Institute could have provided informed information regarding the nature of the problem and could have helped explain the issue to the other members of the City Council. It appears to me that this conflict of interest seems to be an attempt by Ms. Stallings to avoid upsetting the environmentalists by showing support for the Ward Valley Project. We certainly can do without this kind of City Council leadership.

I believe that based on her campaign promises she should have stood up for what is right, regardless of the politics involved and made her voice heard on such an important issue. However, she opted for the easy way out and dealt a blow to our industry. It is amazing and disappointing how quickly she has fallen into the political malaise that affects so many of her colleagues on the City Council.

HOWARD C. BIRNDORF, San Diego