Former Mayor Jerry Sanders poked fun at several local elected officials while awarding them for their accomplishments at the first ever San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce Legislative Lounge, a party and awards ceremony for San Diego's political leaders.
Sanders gave a short speech loaded with jokes to the assembled audience at the U.S. Grant. He said his "cooling off period" is over, a mandated one year after an elected official leaves office when he or she is not allowed to lobby the city, so "I'll be sitting with Hud Collins every Tuesday morning to make public comment with those other three guys, I forgot their names."
Sanders got a lot of laughs when he gave interim Mayor Todd Gloria an award for being better than the last mayor, meaning disgraced former Mayor Bob Filner. But Sanders refused to say Filner's name, instead calling him, "Bob not going to say his name."
Sanders thanked Gloria for all his work fixing the city in the last three months and then gave him a lunch pail as his award.
"You know it was tough last year, a tough choice, deciding on whether to endorse Bob Filner or Carl DeMaio, and it turns out I should have just endorsed Todd (Gloria)," Sanders said to laughter and cheers.
The event was a first for the Chamber of Commerce. It had hosted annual "Fireside Chats" with past mayors, but Sanders said Filner made planning that event difficult.
"When we first started talking about this event, there was another person in that office," Sanders said, referring to Filner. "And all of the people, Qualcomm, Bridgepoint, SDG&E, all the rest of you said we're not sponsoring that event."
So, the Chamber of Commerce planned the Legislative Lounge instead. Sanders said that when he was mayor, he'd host parties with city councilmembers and their staff that were "like stripping everyone naked and going for the jugular," meaning he'd give speeches where "everybody's fair game."
Sanders said some council staff members wrote his chamber speech following that tradition.
"And I said, 'I can't say that, I can't say that, I can't say that,'" Sanders said. "It's like a staffer to write really wicked stuff and then want someone like me to say it."
Eight local elected officials and city staffers took home lunch pail awards. They were:
- "Better Than the Last" - Interim Mayor Todd Gloria
- "Twofer" - Jaymie Bradford, Gloria's deputy chief of staff and chief of policy and a legislative advocate for the San Diego Association of Governments
- "Never in a Million Years" - San Diego County Supervisor Greg Cox
- "Staffer That Really Gets Stuff Done" - Matt Awbrey, the chief of staff for City Councilman Kevin Faulconer; and MaryAnne Pintar, the district chief of staff for Congressman Scott Peters
- "Ruler of the Road" - City Councilman Mark Kersey
- "Politician in Waiting" - Chris Ward, chief of staff for state Senator Marty Block
- "Better Late Than Never" - Congressman Juan Vargas
- "Social Butterfly" - State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez
Sanders joked that Cox got the "Never in a Million Years" award for being a Republican appointed to the California Coastal Commission.
"We don't know what you had to promise to get that job and we don't want to know," Sanders said.
"He's already proven himself with the recent approval of the Convention Center," Sanders added of Cox.
When Gonzalez came to the stage to accept her award for being a social butterfly, she brought Sanders a bottle of Stone IPA. Sanders later awarded Kersey for his work on repairing roads, and gave Kersey the same beer bottle.
"I obviously don't need another one!" Sanders said.
