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Remembering Charles Lewis

Remembering Charles Lewis

If there’s one thing we’ll miss about Charles Lewis, the San Diego city councilman who died suddenly last week at age 37, it was his no-nonsense pragmatic streak that was unusually refreshing coming from a member of the council.

Whether you agreed with him or not, Lewis had a way of cutting to the heart of an issue by frankly and squarely letting you know exactly how he felt about it.

In November, for example, when some council members were ready to have San Diego join the growing stampede to ban Wal-Mart-style discount superstores, Lewis cut to the heart of the issue.

“When I go into a (Wal-Mart) store, I see people that look like me,” he said. “Yes, I want them to have full benefits. Yes, I’d like them to have that nice salary that they have in those union stores, but would you rather have half a salary, or no salary?”

And in March, when the council was considering a recommendation to promote Lamont Ewell to city manager and seemingly bogged down by questions over Ewell’s performance before coming to San Diego, Lewis jumped into the fray with this incisive observation:

“You have somebody who’s been here, who’s proven himself, who’s been involved with the city of San Diego in tough times, and now he has the opportunity to be captain of the ship and you go looking for skeletons. Give him a chance. I’m basing my support on Lamont’s performance here in San Diego.”

Unfortunately, a review of local newspaper coverage of the City Council during the past year shows that Lewis was one of the least-quoted council members. Was this due to the ongoing “Cheetahgate” bribery charges he was facing? We’ll never know now that he is gone, but clearly, the federal indictments against Lewis and two other council members took their toll on him.

“My first year has been a hard year,” he said at his State of the District speech in early May, “but I thank God for that hard year because it has made me stronger.”

Despite the personal difficulties in the past year, Lewis never hesitated to speak his mind, jumping into the debate over the fate of the Mount Soledad cross with plain talk that came from a deep personal conviction:

“The politically correct thing would be to go ahead with the settlement, but I’m not going to do the politically correct thing,” he told his council colleagues. “As long as this councilman is setting here, he will never support that cross moving off Mount Soledad.”

Although Lewis wasn’t the most quoted member of the San Diego City Council, when he was quoted, his words resonated with a passion that clearly came from his deeply held convictions.

Our hope is that his plain-speaking passion and heartfelt conviction will be part of the legacy of Charles Lewis. It would honor his memory if more of his council colleagues and politicians everywhere , were to follow his example and say what they truly feel rather than what may be more expedient and politically correct.

, John Hollon

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