San Diego’s Mayoral Race Pivots on Taxes

The special election to find a successor to former Mayor Dick Murphy has taken a predictable and thoroughly San Diego turn: candidates scrambling to be seen as more opposed to taxes than their rivals.

Polls suggest that Councilwoman Donna Frye remains the front-runner and that business owner Steve Francis is gaining on former police chief Jerry Sanders with a television blitz promising no new taxes and no bankruptcy despite the city’s spiraling $2-billion pension deficit.

Francis, owner of a company that supplies nurses to hospitals, has spent $1.8 million of his own money on TV ads. Sanders has yet to advertise on television.

If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote July 26, a runoff will be held in November. Murphy’s resignation became effective Friday, leaving Deputy Mayor Michael Zucchet in charge.

With Zucchet on trial in federal court on charges that he took illegal campaign contributions from a strip club owner, the council is set on Monday to select an alternate deputy mayor to take charge if Zucchet is convicted. The jury began deliberations Wednesday; also charged is Councilman Ralph Inzunza.

The Francis campaign unleashed a new TV ad last week suggesting that Frye and Sanders have a secret history of supporting tax increases. The evidence against Sanders is largely his support six years ago of a measure to sell bonds to improve libraries.

Although taxes are rarely popular anywhere, the anti-tax spirit is particularly strong here. As a result, San Diego has one of the lowest tax structures of any large city in the nation.

For example, the city does not charge for trash pickup at single-family homes. None of the 11 candidates is willing to suggest that such a fee might be a way to reduce the city’s financial woes.

With Francis gaining on him, Sanders lashed back at the TV ad, saying Francis was being dishonest.

“Steve Francis is more interested in scoring points than telling voters the truth,” he said.

Sanders said he would prefer bankruptcy to a tax hike.

Francis said later at a forum that Sanders was only reacting to having been “caught” at not being firmly enough anti-tax.