The Issues
 

THE ISSUES

TERM LIMITS

At present, Mr. van Doorn's opponent has served for sixteen years as your county supervisor. Each of the other four supervisors of this county are either completing their third term or are presently serving or completing their fourth term.

While it could be argued that there are benefits to having elected county officials with this level of experience, one can also make the case that without the influx of new leadership, our government’s agenda for our county will eventually become stagnant and fail to meet the future needs of our county’s residents. John believes that this is the position we find ourselves in today, and here are his reasons why:

  • We’ve suffered two seasons of major firestorms, and while the addition of Reverse E-911 has been a blessing this past year, the County Board of Supervisors has done little if anything to protect the residences of the people of this county from this force of nature since the Harmony Grove fire of the late 1980’s. In fact, with the elimination of our county labor camps by the current members of the Board of Supervisors, we are at greater risk of loss from wildfire than ever before.

  • Too many years have gone by and we are still debating about how or where to expand our airport.

  • Discussions about the Chargers and a new stadium continue without any real advances.

  • The county keeps growing and in this coming year, we are all being required to reduce our water usage. Where was the planning! Was there any planning? What plans are being made today to meet the water needs for the San Diegan’s of tomorrow?

  • We continue to dump tons of sewage and wastewater into our ocean, yet for years we have had the technological means to recycle our waste water (as was done by the City of San Diego). If we had built water recycling facilities over the past 10-15 years, we would have an alternative non-potable water source available to mitigate the present water shortage while also reducing the damage we currently inflict on our local coastal ecology.

We San Diegan's know all too well what transpires when an elected official becomes too obligated to the special interests that fund their continued stay in office. And to a lesser degree, we all know and many have experienced how the public is ill-served when an elected official becomes too comfortable in office; little effort is made by our elected leaders to comprehend and express genuine concern for every issue of importance to their constituent base. Each is the direct consequence of allowing an elected official to remain too long in office.

John van Doorn believes the people of San Diego County are best served when we do not allow the office of County Supervisor to become a life-long professional entitlement! This is after all, the People’s government, YOUR government! Not Pam Slater-Price’s, not Bill Horn’s, nor Dianne Jacob’s, or Mr. Robert’s, or Mr. Cox’s. This government belongs to all of us!

As such, …

  • John van Doorn believes that holders of the office of County Supervisor should be limited to two terms in that office.

  • Mr. van Doorn promises to fight continually for changes to the County Charter, that would place such limitations on the term of this office,

  • In the absence of such limitations, John promises to voluntarily impose such limits on himself.

 

RESPECT FOR THE LAW

 

   Slater Signs
 
The 3rd District of San Diego County comprises the cities of Encinitas, Del Mar, Solana Beach, Escondido, and portions of San Diego. Each of these cities have enacted ordinances that prohibit the placement of political signs in the public right-of-way. A number of candidates and their supporters, John's opponent included, have chosen to disrespect the municipal code of these city governments and posted their signs in violation of the law.

A petty example to make a point perhaps, but it is this same disregard for the law and for the rights of every citizen that has caused Mr. van Doorn to take a public stand against our county supervisors. Whether it is the county's cover-up of a criminal act by a county employee, this county government's effort to deny certain citizens their basic constitutional rights, or the prejudicial administration of county services, John has continued to stand and report before our Board as to each of these offenses.

Over the years, John has witnessed a number of actions by county employees as well as admissions by county management that demonstrate clearly that the people of this county are under attack by their own government. And for those who do not already know, Mr. van Doorn has been tireless over the past six years to bring these offenses to the attention of his opponent as well as to the entire Board of Supervisors, either privately or through testimony at open Board meetings. A list of these offenses would include .....
  • the willful failure of this county's government to notify citizens of actions taken against them, in violation of state law,
  • the willful dissemination of privileged county records, by employees and agencies of this county, in violation of the California Penal Code,
  • an ingrained belief that this county can ignore and violate state law wherever this county's policy conflicts with state law, as admitted and defended by an associate director of Children's Welfare Services,
  • a county policy that encourages county investigators to lie when conducting investigations, as admitted by various county employees
  • repeated reports of threats by county employees to remove children from a family in order to coerce forced false accusations by one spouse against another,
  • and this is but a partial list ......

If elected to office, Mr. van Doorn will have no tolerance for these injustices against the people of San Diego County, and more importantly, our children. The rights of all San Diegan's as well as respect for all of the laws of this state will once again be the primary objective of this county's government.

John will be an advocate for every citizen that approaches his office with a claim of wrongdoing by county government. Where credible evidence exists, he will see to it that an impartial and thorough investigation of those claims is conducted. And where county employees are asked by their management to violate the law or to act in a manner inconsistent with the best interests and rights of the public, John will work with and protect such employees in return for the placement of their trust.

Most importantly, John will press for the reorganization of our county's Ombudsman (or Internal Affairs) function. For those unfamiliar with the process, an Ombudsman Office is provided within each county agency and empowered to investigate complaints as they are brought to that agency’s attention. Because these functions are built into the agency they are entrusted to ‘police’, the Ombudsman Office has become corrupted and is little more than a ‘clearinghouse’ for the collection of information regarding county misdeeds. Very few citizen's complaints, if any, result in a report being openly shared with the injured citizen, and the information collected is more likely to be used to protect the agency rather than to restore the injured citizen. In addition, since the findings of an investigation are kept within the agency, the Board of Supervisors can cleverly avoid being advised of (and thereby accountable for) any wrong one of their constituents may suffer. The Ombudsman Office does not protect the public, rather, the Ombudsman shields our County Supervisors from accountability to their voters!

Mr. van Doorn will take on the task to restructure the Ombudsman function such that the responsibility for every citizen's grievance ultimately resides with your county supervisors. John will press for a new ombudsman function that will report instead directly to the Chief Administrator of the county. And in those cases where the findings of the Ombudsman do not satisfy the complaints of the aggrieved citizen, an administrative panel will be seated. This panel will be composed of an equal number of department managers and members of the public at large, plus one member from the staff of that citizen's Supervisor office, with the findings of that panel to be made a part of public record, where allowed by law.

 

BETTER PLANNING FOR OUR COUNTY’S INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS

So much of our present infrastructure is operating at maximum capacity, or worse, is deficient to meet our current needs. As such, many of us have had to bear a burden in the form of longer commutes, higher water costs, power outages, loss of property (firestorms), etc.

If elected, Mr. van Doorn will utilize his experience in the engineering field to devise viable short and long term development plans for this county’s infrastructure. John will seek out partnerships, both individual and corporate, in which all work together as a community to remedy our current "bare-bones" infrastructure. And he will work to pro-actively plan the future infrastructure needs of this county, such that the county our children and grandchildren take over from us is better equipped to meet and exceed the needs of that day.

It is John's position that, ….

  • in regard to auto transportation,

    • We need to make certain that the current widening projects along the I-5 and I-15 corridors are the last that are ever needed (we need better mass transit systems and we need to couple those transportation systems with better community planning, through the development of lower-income, higher density housing at mass transportation nodes).

    • The same concern applies to the main transportation corriders along I-8 east and I-5 / I-805 to the south at such time as they are improved.

  • in regard to air transportation,

    • I believe that we do not need our own international airport nor can we independently afford one! Neither does the County of Orange or Riverside or San Bernardino. But collectively, we have a combined need for such a facility (as our present airports are overburdened).

    • I will begin discussions to look into combining our collective resources (political and financial) and if such is determined to be feasible, to identify a joint airport location that will service the air cargo and international transportation needs of our respective counties .

    • Combined with this, I will initiate a study into alternatives for rapid transportation that would connect such an airport to each county's respective civic centers and airports, as well as ensuring the development of ready access between such an airport and our present interstate highways.

  • in regard to firestorm defense,

    In view of the recently issued Grand Jury report, "THE FIRE NEXT TIME – WILL WE BE READY?", John has left his issues concerning wildfire preparedness on his website unchanged. Please review John's ideas against the recommendations of the Grand Jury, most notably Recommendation #08-107 (pg.10) and Recommendation #08-108 (pg. 13) and derive your own conclusions about whether your present county supervisors know how to lead without direction or need to be shown how to do their job. You will also notice that the Grand Jury cited a number of decisions that they have found led to our increased susceptability to wildfire and/or increased likelihood of their occurrance, in particular, the decision to close the labor camps and the decision to exclude fire protection from the benefit of Proposition 172 funding!

    • I believe that the Board of Supervisors was wrong in cutting off all funding to fire protection from the 1/2% local sales tax (as voted in by the people of San Diego County) and will strive to have funding from this tax revenue redirected back towards fire protection.

    • I believe that buying more helicopters and ground equipment, as our present Board of Supervisors is discussing, is NOT ENOUGH! It is but one part of the solution, but it is NOT the entire solution for our protection!

    • I believe that we need to be immediately reinstitute the prison honor camps and have fire breaks cut into our adjoining wilderness before the fires come!

    • I believe that we need to work with fire experts and environmental advocates and come up with a firestorm preparation plan that provides the best preparation for setting backfires and protecting the boundary of communities when the firestorms come (and they will!). And we need to make these preparations in such a manner that we minimize the damage inflicted on our local environment.

    • I believe that we need to enter into cooperative ventures with industry and our local universities, with the purpose of inventing and procuring a new arsenal of tools for use by our firefighters.

    • And last, I believe that we need to work with homeowners (and developers), those whose residences (and developments) form the boundary of our more denser neighborhoods with nature, and we need to provide them with tax incentives to improve these properties, such that a "defensible boundary" is formed along the fringes of the denser regions of our county (such as the residences in Crosby Ranch that withstood the onslaught of this latest fire without the benefit of our best firefighting defenses).

  • In regard to water and sewage,

    • I believe that we should be re-using all water that is used in our county.

    • I believe that we need to commit to the building of water reclamation facilities (such as that built by the City of San Diego), by ourselves or through private industry, and we need to re-plumb our county over the next 50 years to take advantage of this "wasted" resource.

    • I believe that we need, where possible, to facilitate and encourage investment in reverse-osmosis plants to help us meet our ever-growing needs for water.

  • in regard to electrical power,

    • I believe that we need to do what we can today to create a 'greener' mix of power used by the county.

    • We are facing a 'crisis' in the real estate and construction industries, and a number of talented San Diego residents are facing unemployment. I advocate using our local community colleges to re-educate these workers, creating a workforce well-versed in the planning and implementation of small wind and solar energy installations, and thereby taking full advantage of Gov. Schwarzenegger's Million Roofs Initiative.

    • I believe that we need to provide property tax credits to local home and business owners for participating in this effort, and by doing so, we will create an environment where we are all working together to keep our local workers employed while also reducing our reliance on power generating facilities outside of our geographic area.