Santee mayor Randy Voepel doesn’t hesitate to tell the brutal truth

Key players in San Diego’s political world

He has a big mouth.

He said it, I didn’t.

Santee Mayor Randy Voepel has worked in city government for almost 13 years, first as a councilmember and now in the exec seat.

Residents can count on him to tell the truth - or, the truth the way he sees it.

He says what he thinks about the Democratic and Republican parties. He doesn’t hold back his feelings about California lawmakers and his once-friend, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’ll share his unfiltered insight on budgets, marijuana and his political aspirations.

He’ll even say when he isn’t looking forward to an interview - in fact, he did. And he doesn’t miss a beat telling a reporter he doesn’t read news online. Does that mean he won’t see this story?

“Yeah, probably,” he says with a smirk.

He’s upright and expressive; he has a mounted plastic T-Rex head on his wall, and a sign on his office that says “Warning: Politically Incorrect Area … Rampant Insensitivity Authorized.” He can be intimidating despite wearing an Albert Einstein tie, and he says “hoo-rah” when the city clerk calls role at the council meetings. He was elected by 78 percent of the Santee voters; that’s a huge deal, he says, because his wife doesn’t even like him 78 percent of the time.

He heads an all-male, conservative council in a San Diego County city he touts as the “La Jolla of East County,” and he’s fighting harder than ever for his residents; he still has long fights ahead of him too.

‘It has cost me dearly’

Voepel - a Missouri transplant - arrived in California after two tours of duty in the Vietnam War. He says the moment he arrived in the West Coast state he wouldn’t return to the town he came from.

“Do I go back to a very depressed place in Missouri and eek out a living or do I stay in wonderful California?” Voepel says. “I was so far back in the hills of Missouri, the government had to pump sunlight into it.”

Politics was far from his mind when he settled in SoCal though. He got into the financial services industry and worked his way up to become a partner for California Corporate Benefits. He was plugging along until he learned in 1994 a welfare center was opening near his house.

“It has cost me dearly since,” he says.

Voepel says he was upset the welfare center, which would have served 20,000 recipients, was opening near his house.

“What I did was protested it and gathered up a whole bunch of citizens and we defeated it,” Voepel says. “Dianne Jacob, our county supervisor, liked the way I did it and put me on the social services advisory board and we ended up basically reforming the whole county welfare system over the period of three years.”

Later, he was told by members in his Santee circle that he should run for city council. So he did and knocked on the doors of 4,000 houses.

“I did two tours in Vietnam, so patrolling is natural to me.”

And his military career has shaped his political demeanor greatly, Voepel says.

“Most ex-military - especially combat veterans - are a little bit more formal, more chain of command, more command to control,” he says. “I delegate quite a bit and I expect it to get done.”

After his council run, he ran for mayor and is now serving his third “tour of duty.”

‘We are very lean and mean’

Like cities across the country, Santee is cutting back - on everything, right down to bottled water, says Voepel.

I interviewed Voepel immediately before the monthly council meeting where the council cut another $350,000 from its “already tight budget.”

The cuts come as a result of the state’s $1.2 million cash grab from the city - but whether the state will be able to pay the money back is in question, and Santee is tapping into its reserves of $7 million, nearly a quarter of its entire general fund.

“Santee was one of the most fiscally responsible, one of the most balanced cities in the county with large reserves,” Voepel says. “Now, we’re simply going broke at half the rate everyone else is. We are very lean and mean, so there’s not much we can do. I guess we can start eating bark off the tree.”

The harsh mayor doesn’t falter to blame California lawmakers for the city’s budget dilemma. He says the reserves could last the city for four years given the amount the city operates on now, but “if the state nails” Santee again it would only last two years.

“The state of California is a basket-case,” Voepel says. “It’s my opinion that the state of California is run by idiots, and the voters voted them in so I guess the voters are idiots too.”

Voepel voted for Schwarzenegger back in 2004. In fact, the two shared campaign managers and were once friends. But now, Voepel says Schwarzenegger is “useless” as he “doesn’t know how to balance a budget” and the entire state is “beyond redemption.”

“Whenever you do a constitutional convention, you get all the crazies,” he says. “You get the extremists on all sides and you get even more idiots and then it gets codified. [Laughs] Lovely.

“What we have to do is have non-partisan representatives that actually care about California. Right now, all they care about is their agenda and their party.”

Voepel says partisan politics doesn’t play a factor in his all-male, all-registered-Republican council. In fact, he pointed out that 30 percent of Democrats in Santee voted for him in 2008. He does admit though, when I ask him, that someone was missing from the council.

“Is a voice missing on the council if there aren’t any women?”

“Yes, I think so - you get a different perspective with women,” he says. “We have had women on the council before but strangely, the voters favor men. We’ve never had a female council person get re-elected.”

“I support women leaders. Dianne Jacob is actually one of my personal heroes.”

And Jacob, the chair of the county’s board of supervisors, admires him too.

“Randy is straight-forward and honest,” Jacob said. “He’s been outstanding. We’ve worked together many times and the relationship has been working very well.”

‘It’s all true’

What’s the biggest misconception about Randy Voepel?

“Nothing, it’s all true,” he says laughing.

From what’s been reported, he’s right. He’s been called robust, frank and quite funny. Holding nothing back, he tells me he sees himself as an Independent and will soon register as so.

Voepel says he’s “that fed up with both parties.” He describes Schwarzenegger as “useless,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as “pathetic” and George W. Bush as a “liberal.”

“What’s my definition for liberal?” he says. “Mainly fiscal — all these people simply want to throw money to everyone. The Roman Empire couldn’t destruct as fast as we are right now.”

“I’m a conservative; I’m not a Republican anymore.”

We talk more about President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He speaks about the $9 trillion deficit and the recession that will most likely not end for more than a year from now.

“It’s time for a real third party to rise in America,” he says with genuine concern in his eyes. “Us baby boomers are selling you out baby… you shouldn’t let that happen, it’s not right.”

I ask a question sent in by a reader: Why is the nickname for Santee Klan-tee?

He takes a couple seconds, making it apparent that I touched a nerve by asking that question and says: “That name really bothers me because all my life I have been equal opportunity. I have fought for minority rights. In the military, I was a race-relations facilitator. I’ve paid a real price and when they call this town that I believe it’s simply insulting - I believe it’s reversed racism. If you say that around me you’re going to get a reaction right down to the snot locker. I’ll get in your face.”

Moving on then.

We talk about his family for less than a minute as he says he keeps his family “all private.” Has his honesty ever gotten him in trouble? Yes, he says, when he said on-air at a local TV station that one-third of the residents were conceived at the Santee Drive-In.

“It was a joke that popped into my head,” he says. “My mouth takes a life of its own, that’s what my wife says.”

And, we end the interview on probably, the most interesting topic.

What does Randy Voepel do for fun?

“I change cat boxes.”

Change cat boxes for fun? How many cats?

“We used to have five but I think that violated an ordinance, now we have two,” he says smiling.

It violates an ordinance?

He laughs and says, “Yeah, I think so. You’re not allowed to have more than three dogs or cats or something.”

Can he name them?

“One is named Sarah but she doesn’t like me and I don’t like her,” he says bluntly. “The other is Pumpkin.”

So if he doesn’t like Sarah, does that mean Sarah is far left or far right?

“Oh, you’re tough. I think Sarah, because I don’t like her, is far, far left,” he pauses. “… Or far, far right, because I don’t like either one of those extremes!”

Hoa Quach is the SDNN political editor. Follow her on Twitter.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 12:50 pm and is filed under Politics & Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.