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Endorsement: Joe Leventhal, Marni von Wilpert for San Diego City Council, District 5

Joe Leventhal, left, and Marni von Wilpert, right, candidates for San Diego City Council District 5
(U-T staff)
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The terrorist attacks of 9/11 set Joe Leventhal and Marni von Wilpert on paths to public service and for one of them that path seems certain to lead to San Diego City Hall. There are four candidates on the March 3 ballot for San Diego City Council District 5, and Leventhal and von Wilpert are plainly the most impressive — and committed. How will voters decide? The pair might need a coin flip to replace Mark Kersey, an independent who is termed out of office.

That’s how qualified they are. Neither has a big learning curve. Both seem like innate leaders.

It’s rare to have a competitive race in this district, which arcs from Scripps Ranch in the south to Rancho Peñasquitos and Black Mountain Ranch in the west and Rancho Bernardo and San Pasqual in the north. Republicans didn’t even have challengers in three of the last six races for the technically nonpartisan seat, and the closest margin of victory in the other three was 25 percentage points. But that was when Republicans had a registration advantage. In September, the council district became San Diego’s last of nine with more Democrats than Republicans.

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A November runoff election between Leventhal, a Republican, and von Wilpert, a Democrat, the best-funded candidates by far, would be a race that can only end well for the district. The two lawyers have impressive backgrounds — he served on the city’s Ethics Commission and she is a deputy city attorney — and they have thoughtful approaches to the job. Both have an understanding of the city’s inner workings. Both have visited the city’s homeless shelters to get a sense of what they’re like. Both have sensible ideas for how to boost housing. Both say partisanship is a problem to steer clear of at City Hall.

Leventhal graduated from UC San Diego, where he was student body president. He was a law student at Georgetown University who had interned in the Clinton administration when 9/11 inspired him to do more, and he landed an administrative staff role with Vice President Dick Cheney by volunteering with an adjunct professor who was Cheney’s deputy chief of staff. He has lived in San Diego for nearly 20 years, the last 15 in District 5.

Von Wilpert grew up in Scripps Ranch and was at UC Berkeley when 9/11 sparked an interest in international policy. She went to Botswana with the Peace Corps then went to Mississippi as a Fordham University law student, providing people with HIV/AIDS free legal services. She worked in Washington, D.C., for the National Labor Relations Board, then took a job with the City Attorney’s Office, where she handles issues related to homelessness and opioids.

Leventhal is brimming with ideas, big and small, from changing the shift times of the city’s Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol to offer more support and recruiting potential police officers in high school to urging local judges to expedite environmental review cases in San Diego courts. Von Wilpert thinks outside the box, too. She is urging the city to change its policy of giving employees either a downtown parking pass or a transit pass, so they can use both.

We recommend Leventhal and von Wilpert and look forward to continued debate between them. We’re sure that either would be a strong council member — and that whoever loses in November will find another way to make San Diego a better place.

See all of our endorsements.

Read our candidate interviews below.

San Diego City Council candidate Joseph Leventhal met with The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board ahead of the 2020 primary election.

Jan. 23, 2020

San Diego City Council candidate Simon Moghadam met with The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board ahead of the 2020 primary election.

Jan. 23, 2020

San Diego City Council District 5 candidate Marni von Wilpert met with the San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board ahead of the 2020 primary election.

Jan. 23, 2020

San Diego City Council candidate Isaac Wang met with the San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board ahead of the 2020 primary election.

Jan. 23, 2020

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