District 1 Candidate Sues District 1 City

With the July 1st election to fill our empty District 1 Supervisor position less than a week away, something extremely odd has happened.

Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre and Chula Vista Mayor John McCann are running for the District 1 Supervisor position in San Diego County | Photo credit: San Diego Union-Tribune

One of the candidates is suing a city within District 1. Which candidate? Which city you ask?

District 1 serves the following cities and unincorporated areas:

Chula Vista, National City, Imperial Beach, San Ysidro, Otay Mesa, Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, East Village, Golden Hill, Grant Hill, Lincoln Park, Memorial, Mount Hope, Mountain View, Nestor, Sherman Heights, Southcrest, Stockton and unincorporated areas in South County, including Bonita, Sunnyside, Lincoln Acres, East Otay Mesa, La Presa and parts of Spring Valley.

Candidate Paloma Aguirre has filed a lawsuit against Chula Vista, the home of her opponent John McCann. Did you guess correctly?

As recorded in the 2023 census, Chula Vista is the home of 274,333+ residents. It is the largest city in District 1 and follows San Diego as the second-largest city in San Diego County.

Here is Mayor of Chula Vista John McCann's response:

“This phony lawsuit is an attempt to hide the fact that Paloma Aguirre refused to pay her property taxes for over four years on her beach condo,” McCann said. “Aguirre will raise your taxes, but she still won’t pay her own. How can we trust her to manage San Diego County’s $8 billion budget?”

According to Jim Hinch's June 17th article in Voice of San Diego, her campaign sued the City of Chula Vista, alleging the City has stonewalled the campaign’s efforts to obtain public records related to Aguirre’s Republican opponent, Chula Vista Mayor John McCann. 

The city officials have responded to Ms. Aguirre that more time is needed because of the complexity of the request.

"In addition to requesting the clemency letter, Aguirre’s campaign requested McCann’s travel and expense records during the entirety of his service as a Chula Vista Councilmember or Mayor (he was first elected to the Council in 2002); all correspondence between McCann and the developer of a proposed landfill in Otay Mesa; all correspondence between McCann and the businesswoman’s brother; and correspondence between McCann and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin prior to Zeldin’s April visit to view the Tijuana River sewage crisis." — Aguirre Goes to Court in Supervisor Race by Jim Hinch, Voice of San Diego 

Whew! I'm not sure that I would agree with the stonewalling charge. Twenty-three years is a lot of records to locate and go through. How quickly can you put your hands on your last twenty-three years of tax records?

Let me state again what I think is peculiar in this situation. Mayor Paloma Aguirre—a candidate for District 1 Supervisor—has sued the 274,333+ taxpayers that live in the City of Chula Vista. Maybe not directly, but who else would be footing the bill for this lawsuit that the City will now have to defend?

If Ms. Aguirre wins the title of Supervisor, she has already driven a wedge between herself and the largest community in her district.

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