The day county Supervisor Nora Vargas shockingly said she would forgo a second term, Republican activist and “guerrilla journalist” Carolyn Grace posted a chilling theory on X.
“It’s unclear what ‘personal safety and security reasons’ Vargas was referring to [in her announcement],” Grace wrote. “Perhaps Vargas is concerned that some vigilante tired of her criminal behavior in a public servant position would take her out the same way Brian Thompson of United Healthcare was taken out?”
In the nearly three weeks since her stunner, Democrat Vargas has shared no details behind her decision to step down after a 25-point Nov. 5 victory in her South County district. She didn’t respond to several Times of San Diego queries.
Even Meghan Breen, former press secretary to the ex-Board of Supervisors chair, had no clue.
“I wish I could provide more clarity, but unfortunately, I have not been provided any additional information or guidance beyond the departure statement Nora Vargas shared on December 20th,” Breen told me Monday, the day her old boss was to have been sworn in.
But a survey of local law enforcement agencies offers more clarity on one issue.
Nora Elvira Vargas filed no reports of personal threats.
“At this time, there are no known or active threats towards Chairwoman Nora Vargas or any of the county supervisors,” said the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.
Sgt. Anthony Molina of the Chula Vista Police Department (patrolling the city where Vargas lives) told me: “We do not have a related investigation or threats reported to our department.”
And San Diego police Officer Abbey Madison said via email: “I am not aware of any threats, nor the area of Nora Vargas’s residence.”
Meanwhile, the local District Attorney’s Office and FBI/U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to say whether they were looking into the Vargas concerns.
But DA spokeswoman Tanya Sierra issued a 189-word statement that concluded: “Unfortunately, threats against public officials have become all too commonplace, as documented by the University of San Diego’s California Threats and Harassment Toward Locally Elected Officials study.”
Sierra said her office never discusses pending or past investigations.
“An important part of victim safety is respecting a victim’s privacy,” she wrote in a preface. “However, you may search public court records to ascertain whether there are restraining orders related to individuals who may have threatened or harassed Supervisor Vargas.”
In fact, we did.
In September 2019, when Vargas, then 50, was running for the District 1 supervisor seat, she filed a request for a civil harassment restraining order against 50-year-old Arthur Brode.
In her South County Superior Court filing, she said that Brode was stalking her and that she had filed a police report Sept. 10.
Vargas said she was informed as early as June 13 — by coordinators of a Run Women Run event in National City — that Brode stalked other women in similar social circles and was prohibited from attending San Diego events.
At a July 17, 2019, event hosted at Vargas’ home, Brode showed up, she said in her restraining order filing.
“Brode entered my home and he was not detected until minutes later,” she wrote. “Subsequently, Brode was recognized and he was asked to leave. Thereafter, he requested a refund and left within minutes.”
Brode reputedly came to other events Vargas was at — or was set to attend — and was asked to leave.
“On September 8th in the evening, I posted on Facebook that I was not going to let this person bully me around and scare me,” she said in her filing. “I wanted to let everyone know that this man who has a history is creating emotional distress in me and fear. Thereafter. I received several texts from other people telling me to be careful.”
Vargas, who was a Southwestern Community College trustee and vice president at Planned Parenthood, told the court: “I have a lot of speaking engagements in the public and have severe concerns for my safety and ability to proceed with critical work that is time sensitive.”
Nora Vargas civil restraining order request and case dismissal. (PDF)Despite her accounts, Vargas was denied the wide-ranging order she sought.
The dismissal order included a checked box saying: “Facts do not sufficiently show acts of violence, threats of violence or course of conduct that seriously alarmed, annoyed or harassed the person and caused substantial emotional distress.”
But Judge Patricia Garcia, following an Oct. 29, 2019, hearing, put “Mr. Brode on notice to stay away from Ms. Vargas’ private events, home, workplace and should not attempt to contact her through in any way or through social media.”
Vargas didn’t respond to my questions about Brode, including whether she still considered him a threat.
Lacking details on Vargas’ personal safety fears, her friends and foes have been left to speculate.
Republican Central Committee member Amy Reichert — a former supervisor candidate herself — posted allegations/theories on X, including:
“Did convicted felon Jesus Cardenas & former political consultant of Supervisor Nora Vargas roll over on her?” “To what extent did the bullying hardball tactics of Labor Union Boss Lorena Gonzalez have on Nora’s sudden Fletcheresque implosion & resignation?” “Audio surfaces of recently resigned Supervisor Nora Vargas getting hostile with the San Marcos and El Cajon Mayors at a SANDAG meeting when corruption is brought up. Very suspicious.” “Making nearly $300k a year, court records show she defaulted on an $11,000 Bank of America credit card. Something doesn’t add up.” (Not mentioned: Bank of America sought dismissal of a related lawsuit, and in October 2024, the court tossed the BofA case seeking $11,170.18 from Vargas for allegedly failing to make payments on a credit card.)Vargas’ reaction to these theories?
The day after her announcement not to take office, she scoffed at the speculations.
“I’m truly not going anywhere — despite all the conspiracy theories, LOL!” Vargas said on her private Instagram page. “I know it’s hard for those who seek attention via tweets, clicks and likes and think of politics as a game to believe that someone would choose personal safety and security over a position. If you know me, you know that what you see is what you get —and there is no other shoe dropping — se los prometo (I promise you).”
Dec. 21 Instagram posting by then county Supervisor Nora Vargas.Her allies have their own suspicions as well, though.
Longtime liberal writer Doug Porter told me he was impressed with how “tight-lipped” people around Vargas were.
“I don’t have evidence that any one threat or event triggered her decision,” he said via email. “It seemed to me like she was at a dead end politically but, again, I don’t have any evidence. Just a feeling.”
Although the Sheriff’s Office had no record of Vargas reporting fears, the office told me it took “all threats to any citizen seriously.”
“In recent years,” a sheriff’s spokesperson said, “we have noticed an increase in contentious public meetings and less civility in general. Some of these interactions rise to the level of threatening behavior and criminal conduct. We investigate these incidents thoroughly and take appropriate action.”
The latest University of San Diego survey on harassing behavior against elected officials was published in October.
Rachel Locke, co-author of the study subtitled “Mapping the Threat Environment of Southern California’s Elected Officials,” is director of the Violence, Inequality and Power Lab at USD’s Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies.
Locke told me she wasn’t surprised by the Vargas move, given research finding “a very real increase in vitriol, intimidation, threats and harassment across all levels of political engagement across the country.”
I asked her whether law enforcement should have reached out to Vargas — who also was targeted for national derision by Donald Trump homeland security adviser Stephen Miller.
twitter.com/wendyfry_/status/1872757536199458915?s=43Locke replied: “Only certain behavior reaches the level of being criminally prosecutable; the vast majority of harassing and intimidating incidents do not.”
She said the USD study found that even though the majority of hostile rhetoric doesn’t result in physical violence, “it is still doing great damage to our democratic processes.”
“Being insulted, harassed, yelled at, blocked from getting into one’s car, having photos of you or you family posted on social media — all of this may be perfectly legal (depending on specifics) and still have significant detrimental impact on people’s willingness to run, to engage constituents, to vote according to broad constituent — rather than specific interest —preferences, etc. And, regular, repeated hostility is violence, even if it’s not a physical assault.”
Related: Threats to Local Elected Officials Studied: Nearly Half of Women Consider QuittingBut Locke said the study found a “very clear recommendation” from law enforcement — that public actors “document and record any incidents they face and to be in regular contact with appropriate officials … if they felt any level of fear or risk.”
One of Locke’s colleagues at USD — political scientist Carl Luna of the Institute for Civil Civic Engagement — calls the Vargas resignation “part of a growing threat to the vitality of American democracy from the local to the national, which is likely to get worse in the months and years ahead.”
He added:
“As our research showed, a substantial number of local elected officials are receiving threats and enduring harassment at levels making them reconsider or withdraw from public service. This finding is mirrored in other national studies. We are allowing a small, virulent (and, often, anecdotal evidence would suggest, organized/networked) minority of the public to use the cover of ‘freedom of speech’ to effectively negate the freedom of the public to vote for candidates with the expectation those candidates will be safe enough to do the job they’re elected to do.”
Luna said the local District Attorney’s Office and the state attorney general need to protect voters’ rights to choose their elected officials and for elected officials to be able to govern on behalf of their communities.
“If existing laws are inadequate, the Legislature needs to consider revisions to the Brown Act and current legal thresholds for balancing freedom of speech against electoral freedoms,” he said via email.
“The freedom of speech should not include the freedom to shout other people down in the public square. At a minimum, local and state law enforcement should ‘follow the money’ and look at who is actually funding individuals and groups dedicating time and resources to systematic attacks of elected officials with the apparent direct aim of achieving what was done in the case of Supervisor Vargas — driving voices from the public square.”
Added Locke: “Regardless of one’s political perspective or partisan views, when people are choosing to step away from civic engagement or public service out of fear, this is a worrying sign for all of us.”
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