SAN DIEGO — One Jewish San Diego City Councilmember departed, a second Jewish Councilmember arrived, and a third, in the middle of her term, was elected as the Council’s new president during a marathon meeting on Thursday, Dec. 10th, after the 73rd City Council of the City of San Diego was sworn in along with the city’s new Democratic mayor, Todd Gloria, and the reelected City Attorney, Mara Elliott.
The new Council President in Jennifer Campbell, who defeated Monica Montgomery Steppe by a 5-4 vote notwithstanding an outpouring of support for Montgomery Steppe during the public comment portion of the meeting. The departing Jewish Councilmember was Barbara Bry, who was succeeded as the representative of the First District by Joe LaCava, who was administered the oath of office by his wife Lorraine. The arriving City Councilmember was Sean Elo-Rivera, who was sworn in as the representative of the Ninth District by his wife Angela Rivera. He succeeded City Councilwoman Georgette Gomez, who is also the immediate past President of the City Council.
Voting for Campbell for Council President, besides herself, were Councilmembers Stephen Whitburn (3rd District), Marni von Wilpert (5th District), Chris Cate (6th District) and Raul Campillo (9th District). Supporting Montgomery Steppe, the City Council’s lone African-American member, besides herself were Joe LaCava (1st District), Vivian Morena (8th District) and Elo-Rivera (9th District). The same councilmembers previously voted 5-4 for Chris Cate, the council’s lone Republican, to serve as Council President pro tempore.
Bry and Gomez both had tried unsuccessfully for higher office. Bry was defeated in the mayor’s race by Gloria, while Gomez was defeated by Sara Jacobs in her bid to succeed retiring Congresswoman Susan Davis in California’s 53rd Congressional District. Like Davis, who served 20 years in Congress, Jacobs is a member of the Jewish community.
The inaugural ceremony was conducted on Zoom, with occasional glitches. For example, outgoing Councilman Scott Sherman of the Seventh District needed to make his presentation after his original place in order because his hookup did not initially work. He was succeeded by Raul Campillo, one of eight Democrats who will serve on the 9-member City Council. The lone Republican, Chris Cates, is in the middle of his term representing the Sixth City Council District.
The ceremony began with a call to order by Gomez; the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance led by Bry, the singing of the National Anthem by Emily Sade Bautista, a talented 15-year-old high school girl; an invocation by City Clerk Elizbeth Maland; comments by the retiring Mayor Kevin Faulconer, a Republican; and the swearing in of Gloria, a Democrat, as the 37th mayor of San Diego.
In a brief inaugural address, Gloria, who is of mixed Native American, Puerto Rican, Filipino, and Dutch ancestry, noted that he is the first gay mayor of San Diego and the first person of color to serve in that office. Describing himself as the son of a hotel maid and a gardener, Gloria said San Diego is a place where anything is possible. In his first 100 days of office, he said, he would focus on such major problems as recovering from the coronavirus, revitalizing the economy, low cost housing, shelter for the homeless, and racial justice, “recognizing that Black Lives Matter.”
Elliott, noting she was the first woman to ever serve as City Attorney, promised similarly to focus in her upcoming second term on the coronavirus pandemic as well as to crack down on substandard housing and to focus resources on dealing with issues of mental health that have been exacerbated during the pandemic with a rise in suicides and gun violence.
In a video retrospective of her term in office, Bry included a photo of her standing in front of a large Chabad menorah, appropriately enough on the same day that Jews celebrated the first night of Chanukah.
After being sworn in, LaCava made a point of thanking Bry for providing for a smooth transition between her office and his. Incoming Third District City Councilman Stephen Whitburn noted that he is the fifth member of the LGBTQ community in succession to represent that district, starting with Christine Kehoe, who went on to become an Assemblymember and State Senator; then by Toni Atkins, who served as Speaker of the Assembly and is currently President pro tempore of the State Senate; thereafter by Gloria, who went on to the Assembly before being elected as mayor; and next by Chris Ward, who just was sworn in as a member of the Assembly, succeeding Gloria as the 78th Assembly District representative. Whitburn was administered the oath of office remotely by Christine Kehoe; whereas Gloria’s oath of office was administered by Atkins.
For the Fifth District, Marni von Wilpert, was sworn in by U.S. Appeals Court Judge James E. Graves, a Mississippian who serves on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals; while Raul Campillo’s oath was administered for the Seventh District by his father. Respectively those two Democrats succeeded Mark Kersey, a former Republican who turned independent, and Scott Sherman, a Republican.
Sean Elo-Rivera, who combined his surname with his wife Angela’s when they were married a year ago, said he would focus on quality housing, clean and healthy neighborhoods, a transportation system for everyone; racial egalitarianism, in which Black and Brown youth are seen “not as walking threats, but shooting stars’; protection of workers; and the safety of refugees and immigrants. He said he would like to transform San Diego from “America’s Finest City for some to a World Class City for all.”
Following the morning ceremonies, the new City Council met for its very first time at 2 pm., with the choosing of a new council president being among its first orders of business. The council president not only presides over City Council meetings, but also appoints the chairs and members of the Council’s various standing committees and also appoints the Council’s representatives to various regional bodies such as the Metropolitan Transit District and the San Diego Association of Governments.
Montgomery Steppe had waged a very public campaign for City Council President, garnering support from a wide variety of environmental and racial justice groups, and was further aided by a recall campaign in District Two against Dr. Campbell, who had successfully pushed through a ballot measure eliminating the city’s height limit in the Midway/ Sports Arena District, thereby paving the way for controversial higher density construction. Montgomery Steppe was backed in her effort by Vivian Moreno, the representative of the Eighth Council District who is in the middle of her four-year term, as well as by the San Diego County Democratic Central Committee. In the past, with only the members of the City Council eligible to vote, the campaigns had been conducted less publicly, within the confines of the City Administration Building. The pandemic however made small pre-election, in-person caucuses of City Councilmembers nearly impossible.
Under the rules of the City Council, a President pro tempore is selected first, and that person then runs the meeting to select a Council President. Councilwoman Monica Montgomery Steppe nominated Councilwoman Vivian Morena; and Councilwoman Jennifer Campbell nominated Councilman Chris Cate. The vote was 5-4 in Cate’s favor after approximately an hour of public testimony that came by telephone. Many callers were confused, thinking that the vote was for the Council President, and had to be cut off by the City Clerk.
Subsequently Cate, in the chair, nominated Campbell for Council President, and Moreno nominated Montgomery-Steppe.
Elo-Rivera asked both nominees for Council President how they would help achieve racial equity in the city. Campbell responded that since she was an 8-year-old child she has been advocating for racial equity, saying that when she watched a television commercial for Johnson & Johnson band-aids she was offended that the commercial said the band-aids were skin colored, yet they only came in white. She said she complained to her mother about that, who in turn contacted Johnson & Johnson, and the company eventually came out with band-aids matching other hues of skin. Before she could continue, the technical difficulties that the City Council experienced throughout the hearing cut her off the Council’s broadcast on Cox Channel 24.
Montgomery Steppe later commented that many of the gains of the Civil Rights movement have since been rolled back, and there is a stark need today for social justice and racial equity. She said that she led the local campaign for bail reform so that a wealthy guilty person would not continue to be treated better by the justice system than a poor innocent one. She said as council president she would prioritize the needs of the residents of the city, She said she wants the Office of Racial Equity, which she helped to establish, to look at numerous issues through the lens of racial justice. The City has a duty to listen to the people who have been marginalized, she said. “We have to acknowledge institutional racism,” she said. “We can work through that.”
Public comment concerning Campbell vs. Montgomery-Steppe took several hours longer, with an organized presentation by supporters of Montgomery Steppe emphasizing her accessibility, willingness to listen to everybody, and her past leadership on issues of racial equity. She was described as a progressive candidate, responsive to the people, whereas they cast Campbell as the captive of the Police Officers Association and the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce. The pro-Montgomery Steppe group also included detractors of Campbell, who said that she, by contrast, is inaccessible, and has not lived up to promises that she made to her district. Several said if they could take back their vote for Campbell as their councilmember, they would.
Some members of the public warned their newly elected councilmembers that if they didn’t vote for Montgomery-Steppe, and thereby recognize the necessity to put a person of color into power, they would work to defeat them in the future. Former Mayoral candidate Tasha Williamson suggested those who vote against Montgomery Steppe should be recalled.
One woman said she was disappointed that Campbell, a white woman, nominated Cate, a white man, for the president pro tempore position. In contrast, she said, Montgomery Steppe, in nominating Moreno, was trying to lift up a woman of color.
Against the tsunami of Montgomery-Steppe supporters, there were a relative few who publicly supported Campbell, saying that in their work with her on committees affecting their neighborhoods she proved herself responsive.
Some past and present elected officials took positions as members of the public, Former Democratic Assemblymembers Howard Wayne and Lori Saldana were on opposite sides, Wayne for Campbell; Saldana for Montgomery-Steppe. Newly elected Congresswoman Sara Jacobs phoned in her support for Montgomery Steppe.
Following her election, Campbell made a point of complimenting Montgomery Steppe as a good representative with whom she looked forward to collaborating. She said it was a “contentious race, but we are all on the same side now. Let’s get to work.”
Campbell said over the last four years throughout the nation there has been a lot of divisiveness, which she said must stop. She called for an end to bullying, slandering and threatening.
She said that she planned to align herself with the other council members on the issues of importance in their districts, and called for council cooperation in dealing with the citywide issues of the COVID pandemic, the economy, homelessness, climate change, ending racism, and increasing housing supply, all in the shadow of the city’s budget deficit.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com