Here is a San Diego City Council vote where you can see what the council members are REALLY made of. And Mayor Sanders too. It's a proposed ordinance that has bounced around like a punch-drunk fighter called the Lead Hazard and Prevention Ordinance. It came out of a city committee three years ago. Finally, it’s making its way to the council for a vote Tuesday afternoon. Here is what it looks like.

Lead Hazard and Prevention Ordinance

On the surface, it seems like a slam dunk. It's going to put teeth in San Diego's effort to get lead out of homes and apartments. You don't have to be a nuclear scientist to know that lead is something children should not be exposed to.

Everyone will buy into the "easy” element of the ordinance which says landlords can't rent places with lead present until they clean them up. What this really says to me is landlords don't have much juice anymore. This part of the ordinance will fly through. It's the second option that is bringing out the beauty and the beast in our city leaders. This part of the law will require homeowners and real estate agents to arrange to have homes cleaned up and lead free before selling if the residence was built before 1979.

These two options are what the vote is about tomorrow. I can guarantee everyone will be in favor of keeping kids safe. But not everyone will be willing to pay for it, especially when you have remnants of San Diego's OLD BOYS NETWORK, where as any long time local knows, money still talks. And we're talking about San Diego's Association of Realtors which says while deeply concerned about the risks associated with lead hazards" they will oppose mandating the required lead removal during the sale of a home. The Realtors say education of real estate agents and homeowners will be enough to clean things up, without any enforcement of a clean-up requirement. Trust in the homeowners who want to sell, they say, and the Realtors who want to make it happen. Besides, the industry can't afford any more charges tacked onto homes in this down market, they argue. I would argue we really don't need children exposed to lead, no matter what kind of shape the market is in. Here is their letter.

Board of Realtors letter

So what will our strong mayor do? Early in the process, Jerry Sander's staff supported the tougher ordinance. That's according to the main proponents of the measure, the Environmental Health Coalition. A meeting between the mayor and the EHC took place December 19, 2007. Before the meeting, Kris Michell, the city's deputy chief operating officer, told the environmentalists that Mayor Sanders opposes the plan they support. But in the meeting with the mayor that day, Sanders told the EHC he supported the tougher law. Want to guess who wins this one? Check out the mayor's contributions from a certain group of interested individuals and then take a guess where his support will lie.

Mayor's Real Estate Contributors

The story breaks tonight on 10News LIVE AT 11 p.m. with reporter Steve Atkinson and producer Kristen Castillo and photojournalists Christian Cazares and Michael Gonzalez doing excellent work in explaining this important story. The showdown is tomorrow at 2 p.m. in council chambers. Scott Peter’s and Donna Frye are the only council members supporting the tougher measure. Other council members are undecided and Ben Hueso's staff can't seem to find him to get a response. We began calling him last Tuesday.

If you care who I am pulling for, I can tell you in two words.

The children.