As Downtown’s councilman, Kevin Faulconer worries about parks, the waterfront and noisy trains while others ponder his political ambitions. (photo/alandeckerphoto.com)

Hi. How are you? Where are you from?” Councilman Kevin Faulconer is working his district, taking advantage of a break in a photo shoot to chat with four passersby, who turn out to be from the Czech Republic. Late afternoon sunlight easily slips through a pending storm’s gathering clouds. A steady stream of pedestrians shoots curious glances at the tall man in a dark suit. They rarely glance skyward with concern about rain or seem to notice the buzzing of high-performance planes practicing over the nearby bay. If they catch his eye, he engages them and tosses out a greeting, laughing when one says he should have worn a red tie.

It is good to be Kevin Faulconer, a 40-year-old former public affairs consultant recently re-elected to the San Diego City Council and eligible, should he choose, to run again. So far, the Republican representative for District 2 has avoided any serious political imbroglio. He is on good terms with both Mayor Jerry Sanders and City Attorney Mike Aguirre.

Faulconer’s territory includes the 1,500 acres of Downtown, the liveliest real estate in San Diego County, having added already this decade thousands of high-rise homes, two Class A office buildings and a parade of highly-rated hotels. This afternoon, he is headed home for some Round Table Pizza with his wife and their two children, a 6-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter. A few weeks earlier he was the only member of the council to sit on stage during the statue unveiling for Pete Wilson. He cannot remember precisely his last Padres game this year, but recalls a T-ball match.

Work In Progress

“What aren’t we working on?” is Faulconer’s response to a question about his Downtown efforts. “There is so much exciting activity. We could take up most of our day with Downtown with just the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan, C Street, Civic Center and the new community parks. We are the urban core for our region but we also are becoming neighborhoods and that is a good thing to see.”

Those neighborhoods are bringing traditional constituent concerns to an area where they have been absent for more than 50 years. In many ways Downtown, for all its fresh concrete and steel, remains an open canvas. “We are still trying to create what we are going to be,” he says.

Jumping Ahead

Eager to talk parks, parking and projects, Faul-coner steadfastly declines to discuss his political future. Yet the answer seems obvious. In the last 25 years, the 2nd District he represents has been a launching pad for runs at higher office. Maureen O’Connor successfully ran for mayor; Bill Cleator did not. Neither did Ron Roberts, but he but did win the 4th District seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Scott Harvey, appointed to fill out Roberts’ term, lost in his run for state assembly. Byron Wear also ran and lost for mayor, in what was expected to be a sort of tune-up race, but ended up being his last due to his guilty-by-association connection to the city’s fiscal meltdown. Michael Zucchet had established himself as a council leader and labor favorite with a bright political future before he resigned in the face of Strippergate. It was Zucchet’s departure that opened the door for Faulconer, who had lost handily to Zucchet (44 percent to 56 percent) in a November 2002 race for the seat. Faulconer did better in the Jan. 10, 2006, special election to replace Zucchet, winning 51 percent of the vote against Lorena Gonzalez and then won easily in June 2006 with 72 percent of the vote against Kennan Kaeder.

Right Place/Time

Chris Crotty, a veteran political consultant who met Faulconer in the early 1990s when the two were working on a political campaign in San Francisco, says the second district is an ideal launching pad for higher office.

“It is a microcosm of the entire city,” says Crotty. “You have beach communities, starting with OB, which is an entity unto itself, and then you go all the way up into north Pacific Beach where you have Baja La Jolla. The Point Loma and Mission Hills neighborhoods are established places where people have been living for generations and then you have the Midway District which has a lot of affordable housing.”

But the district does more than reflect diversity. It also is home to the region’s commercial heart.

“Having Downtown in that district is the way you make the contacts to raise the money you need to run for citywide office,” Crotty says. “It is hugely important.“

Is Faulconer a future mayoral candidate?

“I could certainly see him running,” Crotty says. “Kevin is good on a few key policy issues. He is a good candidate and his skill makes him a good politician, not necessarily a great policy maker. He seems to have a fascination with elected office in San Diego and the next logical step for him would in fact be mayor.“

A Former Foe’s View

Wayne Raffesberger is a former political rival of Faulconer, having finished behind him in the 2002 election, where he later endorsed Zucchet.

Yet Raffesberger, who recently resigned from the Centre City Development Corp. after not being reappointed and waiting three months for Mayor Sanders to fill his seat, is complimentary about Faulconer’s performance in office.

“There is no question that he has made Downtown a priority, and correctly so,” Raffesberger says. “It is not just lip service. His staff is involved, they attend meetings and are on top of issues facing CCDC.”

Where Raffesberger foresees Faulconer facing a major challenge is the rapidly evolving waterfront. Billions of dollars of projects are likely to be almost simultaneously under construction over the next five years. They include an expansion of Seaport Village, the county’s conversion of its parking lots to parks, Manchester Pacific Gateway, The Irvine Co.’s office tower, new temporary and permanent cruise ship terminals and redevelopment of Lane Field. The coordination of the work will involve CCDC, the city, San Diego Unified Port District, the Navy and others. While all this is taking place, Faulconer will be shepherding a favorite project, the $218 million North Embarcadero Visionary Plan.

As presently configured, the plan calls for overhauling 1.2 miles of waterfront north of Broadway, with a wharf, pier, restaurants and 1,770 trees. First proposed in the late 1980s, remaking the 1950s-era concrete waterfront has a tendency to get lost among the issues of priority, budgeting and inter-agency decision making.

“It remains an extremely difficult project,” says Raffesberger, who served as chief of policy to then-Councilman Roberts when the idea was first formulated and then worked on it at CCDC. “It is expensive and complicated. At some point, when the master construction calendar for all of that stuff is created, it will be critical that it all be coordinated. And it is going to be incredibly difficult to fit North Embarcadero into that mix.”

Aware of the challenges, Faulconer has headed a three-person committee that includes CCDC Chairman Fred Maas and Port Chairwoman Sylvia Rios. The group meets monthly. “The plans have been around since before I got here,” Faulconer says. “I see my role as ‘let’s cut through the bureaucracy. Let’s get that asphalt ripped up, plant the trees, get the grass.’ That gets us the kind of public waterfront that so many people are looking forward to. We have funding for Phase One, down by Broadway and Pacific Highway. We are looking to get a shovel in the ground in 2009 if all goes well. This project will take place over multiple years and there is funding that needs to occur. But you are never going to get to the end if you don’t start. Momentum will build when people see something happening.”

Crotty expects Faulconer to succeed.

“He has picked a perfect political issue and is working it from a political angle,” Crotty says. “It is something people have been talking about for a long time. Now he is doing it.”