Written by Justin Culetu
Chair of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors Nathan Fletcher delivered his first State of the County Address last week.
During his address, Fletcher touted a very progressive agenda dealing with issues such as racial justice, economic equity, immigrant’s rights, climate change, and environmental justice. He also mentioned COVID-19 related matters such as economic reopening and vaccines.
Supervisor Jim Desmond found many of Fletcher’s outlines concerning, stating that the address was too “government centric,” where the focus was on what the government can do rather than what the people themselves can do.
Throughout his address, Fletcher pushed his contradictory ideas of fairness and equity in response to the financial situation that the pandemic has caused to thousands of San Diegans. Equity is incompatible with equality and fairness because it pushes to give more resources to certain groups, rather than giving everyone equal treatment.
Supervisor Fletcher does not understand that the COVID lockdowns have impacted every single business owner and resident of San Diego County no matter their background. Allocating services and benefits to certain groups over others in order to produce an equal outcome is an unfair approach to get people back on their feet after a year of uncertainty.
Although both supervisors represent two very different districts — Desmond serving North County and Fletcher serving the Downtown San Diego area — Desmond made it clear that they are able to agree on fairness for San Diegans: “we’re all interested in fairness, we all want to make sure everybody has the opportunity for jobs and fairness, and wages and things like that.”
However, Desmond was critical of Fletcher’s disregard of all the businesses that are unable to open while advocating for “fairness” at the same time. Desmond argued that a more rational approach needs to be implemented, where the primary goal should be focusing on a more reasonable reopening strategy over the color-coded system, as well as making sure the vaccine rollout is efficient.
In terms of priorities, Supervisor Fletcher has proven that he is more focused on expanding government control and pandering to certain groups rather than ensuring that all San Diegans are able to return to some form of normalcy anytime soon.
Photo via County of San Diego
