We held a happy hour in Barrio Logan Wednesday night, and Councilwoman Georgette Gomez spoke to the crowd for a few minutes and made some news.
Yes, she said, she wants to be Council president and is actively pursuing it.
“It’s definitely something that is in the mix, yes,” she said. “The opportunity that has been given, I think the voters have given something that I think if done correctly, we can truly change the narrative in San Diego and make an agenda that is community-based, that is equity-based, this is the beginning of that. So yes.”
The City Council will elect the Council president at its Dec. 10 meeting. Councilwoman Barbara Bry and Councilman Chris Ward are both speculated contenders as well, as the other veteran Democrats on the Council.
Gomez said she’d like to pursue policy priorities around housing, transportation and mobility, and that she’d like to see the Council take a stronger role in the budget process.
But she also said she identifies with two incoming Council members who just won: Monica Montgomery, who knocked off incumbent Council President Myrtle Cole, and Vivian Moreno, who is replacing termed-out Councilman David Alvarez.
She said that when she ran for Council, labor groups supported her in the general election, but her race was never a priority for them, and she was outspent by business groups who supported her opponent. In the primary, labor groups supported a third candidate. That left her campaign as one driven by the community.
That was all true of Moreno and Montgomery, who won despite virtually all of the establishment support going to their opponents.
“We’re proving that there is another way to run and be successful without that traditional infrastructure that’s there,” Gomez said. “I think there’s something there to not ignore that community’s voice.”
And she said it’s no coincidence that she, Moreno and Montgomery represent the city’s lower-income districts.
“The underserved districts are the ones that are asking for better representation,” she said. “I think that really reflecting on that, that that’s been the political landscape at City Hall has been, they utilize those districts to do special favors. And I think that conversation is changing, because we have more solid candidates that are representing districts, that people are waiting to see what happens once Monica, once Vivian comes, to be able to have a strong relationship working together to create a different narrative.”
Scott followed up on the that point. Did she mean that City Hall had developed a transactional relationship where entrenched interests were taking advantage of low-income districts, promising their representatives political support in exchange for favorable votes, which had kept those districts from getting the community-focused representation they deserved?
Gomez said that’s exactly right, and joked that maybe the sour beer she was drinking had more alcohol than she thought.
“We have to be honest that if you look at the track record of special deals, they’re there,” she said. “How we pick Council president is how we make special deals for supporting one item or another. That has occurred, and I don’t think that’s something we’re not aware of. The reason we still have communities that aren’t getting their fair share is, that’s not by accident. It’s by design.”
Councilman David Alvarez Told Us How He Really Feels
