Who is Brian Pepin? He Wants to be Poway’s Next Councilmember
SUMMARY:
Brian Pepin is a lobbyist for a Sacramento developer who tried to bring high density development to Poway’s Metate Lane
He is the president of the developer-funded Lincoln Club, a group behind several voter misinformation campaigns in San Diego County
He is a funder and longtime supporter of Mayor Steve Vaus and City Council members who have voted unanimously to overdevelop Poway Road
He announced his run for Poway City Council on September 21, 2021
By Hiram Soto
I met Brian Pepin in May of 2021, at the Hop Stop in Old Poway. He was easy to spot, sitting at a table with a view to the entrance, a few sips into a pint. He wanted to chat about a letter to the editor I wrote in response to his op ed in the Chieftain where he blamed Sacramento for Poway’s budget, which is forecasted to go off a deficit cliff.
In 2019, Mayor Steve Vaus appointed Pepin — the president of the developer-funded Lincoln Club, a far-right group that manages one of the most powerful PACs in San Diego County — to the Poway Budget Review Committee (BRC). The committee is composed of a group of citizens that oversee the city’s finances. But under Pepin’s leadership, the BRC has become a political tool to justify some of the worst financial decisions the city has made in years, including raising water rates almost 40 percent. In May, the City Council voted to extend Pepin’s term as Chair of BRC by one more year as he prepared his run for City Council.
Community members like myself opposed the extension of Pepin’s term because it would deny others from serving at a time when citizen oversight is needed the most. I emailed our elected officials and spoke at City Council meetings asking them to refrain from blocking others from joining and for pushing to get a developer lobbyist to the Poway City Council. We need to have true, independent oversight, not political supporters in these committees, I argued. Pepin’s appointment was a way for the city to have someone who would agree with them on their misplaced priorities and help push the narrative that Sacramento was to blame for the city’s financial woes. Pepin then authored a “blame Sacramento” piece titled What Ails Poway’s Budget on the day he began his new controversial term on the committee. This was my response, and hence the reason we were having a drink.
We talked about beer and family, but quickly turned to politics, something Pepin knows how to do well. As head of the Lincoln Club, the group has engaged in numerous voter misinformation campaigns in the last couple of election cycles (see here and here). The Lincoln Club endorsed Mayor Vaus’ failed campaign for County Supervisor in 2020, and the reelection campaigns of councilmembers Barry Leonard and Caylin Frank, who along with the rest of the City Council, voted to extend Pepin’s term at the committee.
It was a big win for Pepin, a long-time donor with political ambitions who has held numerous fundraisers for council members, including Caylin Frank, who was appointed in 2018 to City Council less than three months after moving to Poway, despite protests from the community.
Pepin got his start in Poway politics around 2017. Working as a lobbyist for a Sacramento developer, he tried to build 50 homes along the rolling hills of Metate Lane, just south of Poway Rd., to the dismay of the families that live there. He wrote this letter to the editor in the Chieftain making the case for more development in Poway. The Chieftain felt it was necessary to add this disclaimer at the end of Pepin’s letter: “Editor’s note: Pepin is a political consultant working for the landowner.”
The project failed to gather enough signatures, but it exemplified Pepin’s vision for our city: hand over Poway to developers — something the City Council has been doing for years. In fact, developers have funneled loads of campaign donations to Mayor Vaus and the City Council. It helps explain why today we have four-story buildings and constant traffic jams on Poway Road. In just a few years, Mayor Vaus and City Council — working with outside developers and political opportunists like Pepin — have turned Poway from the “City in the Country” to just another traffic-jammed city in the county.
I asked Pepin at the time if he was planning to run for City Council, but he declined to answer. On September 21, he sent out this press release announcing his run more than a year and two months from the November elections — an unusually long time for a small town political gig.
With Councilmember Dave Grosch expected to retire soon, is Mayor Vaus and the City Council looking to appoint Pepin to the City Council next so that he can run as an incumbent in November? Are they looking to secure a new generation of developer-funded politicians in another blatant abuse of the city’s appointment process? (I’ll reach out to Councilmember Grosch to get his take and report back.)
With a few sips of beer left, I asked Pepin if the plan was for him to get appointed to City Council before the November elections so that he could run as an incumbent. He shrugged it off as rumors. I told him it would be a terrible idea for the council to get ahead of voters again and appoint someone to the position.
We shook hands and said goodbye.
He offered to pay for my beer.
I said thank you, I’d already paid for mine. Besides, I told him, I don’t like to owe people.
Hiram Soto is an advocate for open and transparent government, and the publisher of ThePowegian.org. He lives in Poway, where he is raising a trilingual family. His three daughters attend the Poway Unified School District. You can reach him at editor@thepowegian.org.