San Diego City Council District 7: Policy Ideas Matter
UPDATE: Links and quotes from Union-Tribune interviews added to profiles.
The Union-Tribune has done an admirable public service in publishing interviews with candidates for all the major offices in San Diego, giving readers the opportunity to see where those seeking to serve the public stand on a variety of issues.
I’ve included links in each candidate’s profile and I urge you to read them. The transcripts include “uhs and ums” so there would be no misunderstanding about context.
(The term “money quote” in my listings of candidates means I’ve picked something out from the UT interviews that seemed to characterize the candidate.)
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At a Mayoral forum in Del Cerro on Sunday, candidate Barbara Bry let it slip that she’s no longer sure about supporting a bond measure to build low-income homes proposed for the November ballot.
In an October debate, she said passage of such a measure was “a major priority.” Now she’s saying she’ll only consider supporting the idea if Measure C, the March 3 proposition to expand the convention center, along with some money for homeless services and road repair, fails.
Kudos to Voice of San Diego for making this important catch. Here, they’re quoting her earlier statement:
“We can reduce chronic homelessness by half,” she said then. “We can cut veterans homelessness down to zero. And that’s why the most important thing to me going into the 2020 election in terms of a ballot measure is the Housing Federation ballot measure.”
She went on.
“That will be a small increase in property taxes and will allow us to build the 3,500 to 5,000 permanent supportive and low-income housing units that we need to build in San Diego. And I will be supporting that measure,” she said.
Bry says she hasn’t changed her position. But there’s not one cent dedicated by Measure C toward building housing. In fact, the city doesn’t have a way to pay for all their current stopgap homeless programs and is looking forward to using that money as a dedicated revenue source.
If you look deeper into what’s going on, homeless advocate Michael McConnel is actively opposing the convention center measure (I received a slick No on C mailer yesterday), and it needs supermajority approval to win.
Bry has also recently joined the ranks of those who say housing first (quickly putting homeless humans into housing linked to services to help them stabilize) isn’t a viable policy when it comes to resolving homelessness.
The alternative to housing first is treating mental illness/substance abuse first and then handing out Section 8 vouchers. Given that facilities don’t exist to treat the 50% or so of unhoused folks with these problems, the choices are then, leave people on the street or lock ‘em up.
And the 50% who lost out on the “I have no savings, sh*t jobs” sweepstakes will get lumped in with the rest, simply because they don’t exist in Barbara Bry’s world.
The term in polite circles --like the Union-Tribune editorial board-- for lock em up (because they obviously can’t be befouling America’s Finest City) is government-run “conservatorship.”
So two things are going on here: a quid pro quo (don’t mess with our Convention Center project or we’ll torpedo a bond that actually builds dwellings) and pandering by Bry (and others) to the reactionaries whose disgust mechanism allows them to dehumanize the homeless.
This is one hell of a way to win votes, but we need look no further than the White House to see the general concept works.
It may seem odd that I’m starting out a post on a council district by referencing a candidate for mayor, but I think it serves to illustrate a point about the city’s housing crisis.
District 7, namely Linda Vista, Mission Valley, Allied Gardens, Tierrasanta, Allied Gardens, Navajo, Grantville, Del Cerro, and San Carlos, doesn’t have as big an unhoused problem as other areas do. Yet one of their city council candidates has a proposed solution to the problem that’s actually been proven to work.
I’m gonna insist that you keep reading to find out which one, because it’s your duty to learn about all the candidates, even the Republicans... And it is time for us to start looking beyond what hasn’t worked.
Voters will have four choices, three Democrats and one Republican, for a new city councilmember in March. The top two vote-getters will compete in November to replace termed-out Republican Councilman Scott Sherman.
As of the first of the year, there were 39.8% registered Democrats in the district, 26.3% registered Republicans and 27.4% not affiliated with either major party.
Partisan politics will decide who makes it to the general election, and I’m afraid that labels are more important than policy in this election.
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Democrat Raul Campillo is the odds-on favorite in this race. He’s a fresh face, was born here, has good credentials (Harvard Law!) and Obama/Clinton campaign experience. Currently he’s a Deputy City Attorney, known for his role in obtaining Gun Violence Restraining Orders, a key tactic in enforcing the state's "Red Flag" laws.
Campillo has raised the most money of any Democrat in this race; it’s worth noting that 56% of his money has come from out-of-San Diego sources.
Why he’s running:
San Diego is a world-class city, but more and more San Diegans are struggling. They’re struggling to afford to live here, struggling to get home at a reasonable hour, and struggling to see their commitment to education, hard work, and being a good neighbor translate into progress for their families.
We can solve this with new energy, bold ideas, and long-term investments in our people—working together with honesty and open-mindedness. I believe the best solutions come from the people who struggle every day. I will meet you at your doorstep to listen to your ideas because my goal is to do what’s best for the people of San Diego. I’m here. I’m ready. I have faith in the people of our great city and, together, we can tackle our greatest challenges with solutions and strategies for today and tomorrow.
Link to Union Tribune Interview:
Money quote:
I think that if we’re going to talk about dealing with homelessness, we have to take a housing-first approach. I think that the two pillars of the housing-first approach with permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing, uh, have shown success in other cities. And it’s time that we really emphasize that rather than transitional housing.
The city originally set the goal of having, what was it? Roughly, they wanted a 75%, 80% success rate of people going into a transitional shelter and then transitioning out. And it turns out that we were at 13% to 15% if I remember correctly. And instead of saying “This is an approach that works,” they said, “Let’s just scale back our goal.” And that sounds to me like an acknowledgement of failure without approaching it with, “How are we going to solve it?”
Permanent supportive housing is typically the right way to go to help people who really need, you know, many months of being in a home that they can feel comfortable in, get back on their feet.
Different people need a certain amount of time. Uh, you know, my brother was never able to overcome his addiction fully. He would, he would get a job. He would relapse, lose his job, take a long time — six, seven months — then find a job and build his way back up. And so we have to say to ourselves, do we have these places where you can go for six, seven months, eight months, and really get your issues under control and then build up
Priorities (From website):
Achieve economic progress by incentivizing investment, lowering rents, and tackling homelessness
Re-pave roads, re-paint streets, re-pour sidewalks, and renew infrastructure to support San Diego’s Climate Action Plan:
Equip San Diego to address public safety challenges:
Smart planning for the new stadium/SDSU West zone:
Organizational Endorsements: San Diego County Democratic Party + 7 Democratic clubs, Sierra Club, San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council + 5 local labor unions, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, San Diego Municipal Employees Association, San Diego Deputy City Attorneys Association, The Unity League, San Diego La Raza Lawyers.
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Democrat Monty McIntyre is an attorney, mediator, and a past president of the San Diego County Bar Association. He’s treasurer of Resounding Joy, a San Diego non-profit that provides music therapy for veterans, children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions, teenage parents and their young children, and seniors. It’s safe to say he’s the most moderate Democrat in this contest.
Why he’s running:
“Using my 39 years of experience as a leader, advocate, problem-solver and consensus-builder, I’m ready to help our City Council wisely and responsibly fix our infrastructure, provide quality municipal services, help care for the homeless, reduce the cost of housing, and protect our environment, while balancing the City budget.”
Link to Union-Tribune interview:
Money quote
My No. 1 priority is we have to make good decisions. We have to do things and plan for the future. And my goal is for us to make this city manage it better, run it better, operate it better so that San Diego can become the best it can be. We’ve had lots of problems and I mean we were called, what, “Enron by the Sea” not that long ago and we’re still looked upon very poorly in terms of our fiscal management. This California state auditor just issued a report and we’re very low as far as the large city. There’s a lot we should do to get better.
Now, in terms of any particular issues, I do think that uh, infrastructure and taking care of our aging infrastructure has to be a priority, and that’s certainly a priority with the people that I talked to and have been talking to for months in District 7. That’s their No. 1 priority. But I think it’s something we have to do. The city, for too many years, even going back to the ‘70s, has delayed infrastructure repair and fixing. And it’s probably easy to do because it’s not obvious, but now we’ve got to pay the piper and I think we’ve got to do it and keep it as a priority
Priorities (From website):
INFRASTRUCTURE - We need to fix our streets, sidewalks and sewers. While we’ve recently made a good start on this, we’re far from done, and we need to continue consistently fixing our City’s aging infrastructure.
HOUSING - We need to streamline the planning and construction process to help reduce the cost of housing in our City, while preserving the unique character of each neighborhood. In a financially responsible manner, we need to provide shelter, job training, sanitary facilities and other services to help our transitory homeless population move off the street and back into jobs and housing.
ENVIRONMENT - We need to do everything we can to help address climate change by implementing the City’s Climate Action Plan (CAP), and by being ready to modify it if required by rapidly changing conditions. We also need to continue to protect and preserve our open space, including our regional and open space parks.
Organizational Endorsements: None listed.
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Democrat Wendy Wheatcroft is a former teacher/mom gun safety progressive activist, with leadership skills and some impressive backing. She was a leader with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, and participated in founding of the country’s largest local gun violence prevention coalition (San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention).
When Mike Bloomberg came to San Diego recently, he visited D7 to chat with Wheatcroft. (She has not endorsed).
She’s the candidate with the plan for housing/homeless that makes a lot of sense. It’s the social housing part that we need to be talking about. A San Diego-style variant of what gets done successfully in Austria and Finland, namely social housing, is an approach worth taking. (Read this article from The American Prospect for a broader view)
Why she’s running:
When we come together on shared values and a modern vision for our incredible district, anything is possible and that is something worth fighting for. Safe communities, healthy earth and families, modernized infrastructure and transit - the future of District 7.
Link to Union-Tribune interview
Money quote
So we have a homelessness crisis. The likes our city has never seen. And if you travel to a city like Los Angeles or San Francisco who are in stages of ahead of ours who’ve been dealing with it longer than our crisis, you can see where we’re heading, right?
It’s kind of this chicken and the egg. People say that some of our citizens are unsheltered because of mental illness, but do they have mental illness because they’re unsheltered? I think it goes both ways, right? We need lots more permanent supportive housing for our homeless citizens. We need to follow a housing first model.
We are not going to get someone into housing if they cannot take their dog or their spouse or their children. We need to remove barriers that are keeping people back from getting into housing and then meet them where they’re at, when they’re sheltered, when they have a place to live and shower and take their meds or whatever, and give them those wraparound services that they need.
We need to tailor those wraparound services to their specific needs. Military veterans do not have the same needs as LGBTQ youth. So we need to be specifically tailoring those needs to those people. Um, another thing is we need to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. We need to offer tools to people who are on the verge of homelessness.
Priorities (From website):
Gun Violence Prevention - Public Safety Funding, Center Community Based Organizations, Draft Resolutions and Proclamations, Speak out!, Educate through programs
Housing - Bring vacant units to market, Explore zoning and regulatory changes, Build Social Housing, Encourage residents to build granny flats for rentals, Ask HUD for increase in number of choice vouchers given.
Environment - Safe Routes to School - Improving walking and biking infrastructure for safety, Planting more trees, Improving access to transit and encouraging folks to get out of their cars as often as possible, Fight to protect vulnerable ecosystems and support efforts in San Diego Canyonlands and Mission Trails Regional Park, Updating our trash collection system to include composting to meet Zero Waste goals, Support MTS Elevate 2020 and SANDAG 5 Big Moves.
Transit and Infrastructure - Support Vision Zero by utilizing data to prioritize safety improvements on the most dangerous streets and intersections in D7, Build protected bike lanes on busy roads, like on Mission Gorge through Friars Rd. (part of the Mission Valley community plan), Fund feeder buses and shuttles through suburban D7 to access the Trolley, Support the Elevate 2020 ballot measure to include free youth passes, Support SANDAG’s transit vision: 5 Big Moves, and ensure that it includes near term improvements to transit service, Commit the City to undertake a Safe Routes to School program to increase walking and bike riding to San Diego Unified schools.
Organizational Endorsements: SDSU College Democrats, Run Women Run!, National Women's Political Caucus, Moms in Office, Black Mountain Democratic Club, BIKESD.
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Republican Noli Zosa is a founder of Dirty Birds restaurants, has served on 17 city and community boards, commissions, and boards. The local Republican party considers his candidacy a priority, and he has among the biggest early fundraising numbers of any city council candidate.
Although San Diego City Council races are officially non-partisan (party affiliations are not listed on the ballot), endorsements and money line up along party lines. Using these factors as measures of support, Zosa has demonstrated that he’s likely to be one of two candidates on the November ballot.
Why he’s running:
As a business owner, Noli has seen firsthand how overbearing taxes and regulations can affect the ability to create new jobs and grow a business. He believes our local government should work to facilitate a strong economy, so all our residents can have the opportunity to succeed. In order to ensure a strong future, San Diego must make smart investments in our infrastructure and public safety, while protecting tax dollars.
Link to Union-Tribune interview
Money quote:
...it is frustrating in how hard it is to live in this city where every single time the city wants to do something, tack another tax on something, put another tax on our citizens of San Diego where it’s just, really really, it’s so hard to live in this city.
I want to look for other sources to fund these projects. Let’s try to increase revenues in other ways. Uh, let’s increase advertising, um, on MTS and, um, you know, let’s look at our public utilities or are not public utilities, our public recreation facilities or public parks, and see if we can get businesses involved and maybe advertise or let’s see if we can allow businesses to operate in, you know, having a coffee shop at a park or, um, a little burger joint and people want to get something to eat, uh, at a park.
But let’s look at it and be creative on ways we can increase revenue in the city and not just always think that every single solution to the city is adding another tax, and thinking outside the box, because I think it’s harder and harder to live in this city and the state because of the tax burden we have on our citizens.
Priorities (From website; excerpted):
Homelessness - The city has made positive steps toward providing temporary housing and services for people experiencing homelessness, but we must do more. That starts with addressing the root problems that lead to homelessness: high cost of housing, domestic violence, substance abuse, mental health issues, among others. This crisis is only going to be effectively addressed by meaningful public-private partnerships like expanding on the models created by effective non-profit organizations like "Solutions for Change".
Housing - It is becoming increasingly difficult for families and retirees to be able to afford to live in San Diego... ...I support streamlining the permitting process and reviewing all fees – particularly those that will ultimately be passed onto homeowners... Additionally, SDHC created a new position called the "Preservation Coordinator" to assist families that have been displaced by new development. If I'm able to accomplish this as a private citizen, imagine what I can do as your City Councilmember!
Economy / small business / Jobs - In order for San Diego to thrive as a city and to increase the supply of jobs, we need to create a more pro-business climate… ...As someone who is a partner in a local restaurant chain that employs over 100 local residents, I’ve seen first hand how well-intended rules and regulations, such as the minimum wage hike, can negatively affect employees. We need a voice on the City Council who won’t be afraid to speak out against bad policies. I’ll also work to implement changes in the development and permitting process in order to streamline processes and create an atmosphere of efficiency. We must protect tax dollars.
Safe Neighborhoods - The key to safe neighborhoods is a strong relationship between community members and its police officers. Community policing is critical to ensure that residents feel safe and secure enough to help report crime to the police. I support an expansion of allowing officers to be more flexible in their patrols -- getting out of their vehicles and onto bikes and scooters so that they are more approachable and engaging with residents. We need to increase the staffing in our police department and put a priority on hiring officers that reflect the communities in which they serve...
Fixing Streets, Traffic, & Infrastructure - ...As your councilmember, you can count on me to support increased funding for street repair and reconstruction – it’s a fundamental function of city government and we must do more. As a future Board Member of the City of San Diego's Mobility Board, it will be my job is to come up with transportation plans for the City of San Diego. There has to be a balanced approach of investing in transit and transportation of the future and improving the infrastructure of our existing streets and highways of today. This includes planning around the future of transportation, which includes self driving electric and hydrogen vehicles. Technology can help to greatly reduce traffic...
Organizational Endorsements:San Diego Republican Party, San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, Southern California Rental Housing Association, San Diego County Lincoln Club, San Diego Asian Americans for Equality, California Restaurant Association, National Electrical Contractors Association, Associated Builders and Contractors (SD Chapter), New Majority San Diego Chapter.
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