The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board interviewed all eight candidates in the San Diego City Council District 1 race ahead of the March 3, 2020, primary election in which the top two vote-getters will advance to a runoff election in November. Below is the transcript of our Oct. 1, 2019, interview with Joe LaCava, who is running to succeed Barbara Bry in a district that represents residents in Carmel Valley, La Jolla, University City and other communities. This interview was transcribed using the digital transcription service Temi and checked for accuracy by a staffer. To call any errors to our attention or to ask any questions about our interviews, please email matthew.hall@sduniontribune.com with the subject line “election interviews.”
Union-Tribune: Why are you running in district one?
Joe LaCava: Well, thank you for the opportunity. You know, why I’m running this time is really kind of a culmination of where, again, my career, you know, the community service that I’ve been doing for the past 15 years. So what I’d like to do is kind of do a brief biographical sketch, talk a little bit about the general reasons that I’m running, and then maybe we can dive into the priorities. I’m a native San Diego. My parents immigrated here from Italy and I’ve been in District One now for a good 35 years. My wife is a public school teacher... teaches kindergarten at bird rock elementary and we’ve raised two daughters here. They turned out to be smart independent, strong women. We’re very proud of both of them. I went to San Diego State and became a licensed civil engineer and that gave me an entry to what I kind of call the public realm. I’ve designed public infrastructure. And I’ve worked in the housing industry both in terms of design as well as the business side of housing. And as I think you’re well aware, infrastructure and housing are two elements in our city that we haven’t really been able to grapple with and really provide real solutions to. So I have that technical expertise that I bring to the table. But in terms of running for office, I think the pivot point for me was about 15 years ago when I decided to focus... Or not to always spend my time working all the time, but to focus on community service. I decided to dip my toes. I thought I have some technical expertise, maybe I can be of assistance to things that I’m seeing in the neighborhood. And the community and offer that expertise and that rapidly progressed to being a community activist and if I can call myself a community leader.
And that gave me, I think unique insight into what it is, what it means to be a leader and the experience that I have through that was working one on one with neighbors and residents and small businesses and listening to the issues and the questions they had that related to the city. I found a lot of skepticism and cynicism that they didn’t think the city really worked very well, that the city didn’t really care about their particular input. And I kind of made it a mission of mine that I wanted to fight against that skepticism and cynicism. I wanted people to believe that government really worked because I believe that government works. I think that’s where we come together, our common issues and begin to solve them and ensure everybody benefits from in this case, where do you live here in San Diego? And I found that the approach that I took with people, the candor that I brought... The transparency that I brought really resonated with individuals. And I learned that you really have to realize that a small issue that they have... the small problem, they have relative to the bigger issues across our city are extremely important to them as an individual and paying attention to them and helping solve their problem was part of what leadership was about. Because of the approach that I took at that level, I was appointed or I have been appointed or elected by my peers to nearly 30 boards and committees over the years and a broad range of issues. And that has given me greater insight into the city itself. How the city functions, how the 10th floor works, the relationship between the council, the mayor, how does the city department works. It has given me a great working relationship with so many city employees and given me renewed confidence in how good our employees are at the city. Um, and it helped me understand what it takes to move things through, through this bureaucracy that we call a city.
Meet the other candidates for San Diego City Council District 1 below.
These are the candidates for San Diego City Council District 1 in the 2020 primary election.
And a built in me a tremendous respect for that process and what it takes to get things done. And so now I have the technical expertise. I have the experience working at the city level. The next step really for me was because I had such insight, I began to see the things that I didn’t think the city was doing a very good job of..... small issues that they couldn’t quite figure out how to either pop great a policy or create an ordinance or even do the budget right and... Or the big things that they just kept kicking the can down the road. Elected officials who were more interested in the short term fixes that they could use as a bragging point as they moved on to their next office. And so when I heard that council president pro tem Barbara Bry was not going to return for a second term, I gave it a long thought, jumped into the race in February of this year... and saying that because of the, again, the expertise I have, the experience I have working down in City Hall, and the, what I call kinda that quiet leadership that helps bring people together to understand what the common problem is and then how we can begin to solve that problem. It’s something that I can bring to the Council that I don’t think anybody else can... and began to work... And the fact that I want to come in as kind of a capstone to my career. I’m not here to build my resume or pad my resume with little incidental changes, but actually use this as a way to say I’m here. I’ve got four years — maybe eight years if I’m lucky — to really get a lot of things done down to the city and I’m not going to be afraid to talk about some of the more difficult issues that we often find elected officials just don’t want to delve into. So this probably is a good segue into priorities. Um, one of the things that I’ve learned about city council members is from my perspective, they wear two hats. They wear one hat as the elected official from their district and they owe that responsibility to be responsive to that district. And the other is they’re sitting on a nine member council. And so they have a responsibility to the city as a whole. And how they juggle that is how effective they’re going to be. So I divide my priorities into those two different categories. We have two sets of priorities, if you will. The first, for my district, it is neighborhood services, public safety and the environment. And let me go into a little bit on those neighborhood services. Some people call it constituent services. That’s I’ve heard is often it’s like half the job of what a council member does. That’s why you have a council office. That’s why you have council reps to be out there listening to the issues that your constituents are bringing forward to you. Listen, whether they’re residents or small business deal blessings, um, and responding, give you the answers they need, helping them solve their problems, getting the input about decisions that you’re going to be making at city council and how your constituents feel. Public safety affects council district one a little bit different than maybe the other districts across our city. It is, we’ve understand that both police and fire and lifeguards are understaffed for a city of our size. They’re understaffed in terms of what we’ve actually budgeted for. So under the police, what folks in district one tell me... we’d like to see more patrols out there. Not crime fighting, but just to have that presence that helps deter crime and gives them a level of comfort and reduces the response time for non-emergency calls. I hear that a lot with fire, it’s a little bit different. You know, firefighters and both police who do an amazing job and you know, we can’t thank them enough for the work that they do . With firefighters. It’s a little bit different. You know, they work seven 24 365 days a year. So they respond to their shortage by using a lot of overtime. And I think there is a fiscal issue in terms of whether it is better for us to be fully staffed or whether it is better to be short staff and pay that overtime. So I think there’s a fiscal issue there.
“I’m not here to build my resume or pad my resume with little incidental changes, but actually use this as a way to say I’m here. I’ve got four years — maybe eight years if I’m lucky — to really get a lot of things done down to the city and I’m not going to be afraid to talk about some of the more difficult issues that we often find elected officials just don’t want to delve into.”
— Joe LaCava
The other part of it in the shortage of firefighters is that we don’t get to have all the fire stations that we’ve all agreed that we need across our city, especially in district one because we don’t have the staffing to actually fill those fire stations. And so I think, you know, that’s why it’s important to me and important to what I’ve heard from our constituents about filling those positions at both police and fire as well as lifeguard. The last is the environment. The environment means in district one... We’re somewhat unique across all nine council districts in that once you get past La Jolla, University City, we have some of the newest master plan communities and those master plan communities were developed as part of a bargain that said, if you set aside open space and dedicate that, protect the unique topography and the unique natural habitat there then we’ll allow a level of development there. Those agreements included a responsibility by the city to maintain and manage those open spaces. And that’s a responsibility the city’s really short. It hasn’t really found the funds to be able to do that. And I think preserving the quality of life in District One is about preserving the open space and I haven’t even really mentioned the coastal bluffs and the beaches, which are an important recreation element important to our tourist industry. Citywide, it’s a little bit different. We have a more diverse neighborhoods, community, San Diegans... And so for citywide it is climate change and fighting climate change and doing our fair share about fighting climate change. We have a climate action plan that we got a lot of uh, credit for. A lot of kudos for it, but I always like to remind people that our climate action plan really is a series of goals and it doesn’t really tell us how we’re going to get there. I know there’s been some criticism about how ambitious those goals are, so what we need is a climate implementation plan, if you will, that tells us here’s where we are and here’s how we’re going to get there. I think we already know we’re kind of behind schedule, but then implementation plan would actually be the city in concert with the community and advocacy organizations to actually tell us how we get there. I highlight the community choice energy or community choice aggregation organizations like the Climate Action Campaign in San Diego 350 have done an amazing job of pushing that forward so that one’s kind of been taken care of, but the rest of it, we’re really not making any effort on or substantial effort on... In addition to an implementation plan. We need a budget. How much is it going to cost us? It doesn’t necessarily mean we need new revenue. We could, it could be reallocations, but we need to understand the cost. The second I kind of lump together... Housing crisis as well as the needs of the homeless.... we have a housing crisis. I think we’re having absolutely the wrong conversations. I think the efforts that are being handled at city council are not the way that we’re going to solve the housing crisis. I think the whole conversation about housing crisis and affordability is the wrong conversation. I’m happy to go into more detail about that. With regards to the homeless, we haven’t, we know what the solution is. We’ve agreed what the solution is. We hired somebody to implement the solution and yet we have failed to do anything and that’s simply housing first and we need to get busy. We need to spend, stop spending so much money on the Band-aids of temporary shelters, et cetera, and get focused on building the permanent supportive housing. Last is the social equity aspect. We are diverse city. We’re increasingly split in terms of income levels. We have a lot of good jobs up north. We have a lot of service job that pay obviously lower the pay scale and we need to begin to address how we’re going to deal with them in terms of making sure that every neighborhood gets its fair share of city revenue and services, making sure that we create the housing that is affordable to those at the lower end of the pay scale, uh, to make sure that we do not only just equal but actually equitable distribution of the revenue that we probably haven’t done a very good job about over the years. Uh, and so I’m looking forward to working with, uh, Councilmember Montgomery, Councilmember Moreno and then whoever fills in at district nine and lending my partnership with them to help change that conversation down in city hall. So, that’s kind of it.
Q: Let me ask you, you mentioned housing, big issue in your council district obviously is short term vacation rentals as it is citywide. What do you think of what the city has or hasn’t done to date and what would you propose be done?
A: Sure. You know, I’ve been very vocal about short term rentals and you’re absolutely right. It is, I think, uh, it is a significant portion of why we have a housing crisis. When you think about upwards of 16,000 units according to the city auditor that have been taken off the market..., Whether it’s 10,000 or 16,000, that’s a substantial number. You think about the 9,000 SROs that have been demolished. It is crazy to think that it’s not just about building new housing, we’re tearing down or making not available existing housing. I’ve been very vocal in my opposition to short term rentals since it really became, um, an issue in the... highlighted an issue. My position is very simple. They are illegal under today’s municipal code and the city should enforce them. We should be a city of laws. We should have regulations.... that we intend to enforce. I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding is the city never loses its ability to enforce the regulations even if they have ignored them over the years. I frequently get the question when I’m out there talking to constituents and my answer is how do they allow this to happen? And my answer is the city likes the money from the TOT more than they like our neighborhoods. And I think it’s a problem. Um, and I am frustrated, I know as a lot of other people are that the city simply just won’t enforce the existing regulations. And to me that’s really the end of the conversation. It’s not about the noise or the extra trash. It is just, they are just illegal. They ought to be shut down.
Q: You said that you disagree with what’s being done about housing, right?
A: Sure. Uh, the conversation that we’re having about housing is, uh, this notion that if we just make it a little bit easier for projects to be built that will stimulate enough activity to solve the housing crisis. And I think that those are the easy answers. That’s kind of the low lying fruit, uh, whether it is relaxing some of the regulations, whether it’s reducing some of the fees, whether it is trying to streamline the process, which by the way, for all the years we’ve talked about reducing fees and streamlining the process, we’ve never really accomplished that. I hear equally from the architects and the homebuilders that why can’t we get there... but the housing crisis is what I consider to be kind of a structural problem with housing. We find ourselves in a place where housing is a human right. The ability to have a roof over your head and the ability to be able to afford it by spending no more than 30% of your income in terms of affordability. We know how we can build a, what people often call above moderate or market rate housing. That’s what the for-profit builders do. I encourage them to do that. They are busy. I, you know, I think we actually have to stop calling them developers or builders. We ought to just call them businessmen because that’s really what they are. They’re in the business and housing is the business they’ve chosen. They need to make a profit, a reasonable return on investment for them to continue to build housing... And we look at the numbers of production and we see that that portion of the, of the housing is aptly made or satisfying by, uh, by those businesses. What we often forget is in this conversation, and this is kind of a timely conversation about how do we identify how much housing we need. And it is a kind of a wonky process that involves SANDAG locally and HCD up in Sacramento that says, let’s project how much population growth we’re going to have. Let’s estimate how many people live per house, and then we’ll calculate how many houses we need. And for most people, that’s where the conversation stops. But the fact is we go through another step. We actually say, not only do you need to build X number of homes, but we’re going to tell you what income levels of affordability that you need to build those homes. So again, we know how to build market rate housing and we’re doing a pretty good job. We have a bad year this year, there’s no doubt about that. But we know how to do that and we have some programs that allow us to build housing affordable at the lower income levels. We have tax credits, we have gap financing. Uh, there are a variety of programs that people can use to be able to afford, but we build those in very tiny numbers. Even the inclusionary housing ordinance that was passed by the council and then vetoed by the mayor would have been a small drop in the bucket. And what I like to talk to people about is 40% of what we were supposed to be building as a city. 40% of what the city council and the mayor said, we need to build the city. We have no functional way to deliver that because there’s not enough subsidies to be able to build that and the for profit business owners can’t afford to build that. That to me is where the housing crisis... that’s the segment that nobody wants to talk about because the very difficult conversation, how do we solve it? So instead they do the little ordinance changes that I mentioned before that are good. I’m glad they do that. I’m glad they make it a little bit easier. Most of them are common sense changes that are long overdue, but we need to pick up that middle. It’s like 40% of the total. We have no functional way to be able to afford to build that. So how are we going to do that? I wish I could come in here with a silver bullet and tell you how we’re going to do that. The ideas that we’re talking about and a lot of other... There other folks talking about this as well. Uh, if the governor signs the public banking bill, uh, that will give one mechanism a different source of financing that can be used. We need to take better advantage of publicly owned land, not use the route that the city typically does, which is let’s sell it to the highest building bidder. But let’s make it available for a dollar a year, for example. And let’s take the land cost out of building the houses, which depending on where you’re at, can be 20 to 30% of the cost. And we’d all been in the houses, uh, community land trust where you pick up land as it becomes available, uh, at a, at a discount. Um, I remember during the recession, the housing commission was given the direction to go out and buy up these foreclosed houses and say we could take those and we can convert them to affordable housing. I kept pushing on this issue and as far as I know, they didn’t buy any of that... Lost opportunity..., but community land trust can do a great job picking up land... and now that’s, you know, that’s what a fortune 500 company does. They go out and buy land where it’s cheap and then they sit and wait until the time is right. So there’s a variety of techniques. Um, alternate construction methods is something that we should also take a hard look at. A shipping container is converted to housing currently a popular idea that I think has a lot of merit and can significantly reduce the cost of housing. The uh, the GIMBY movement. Yes In God’s Backyard is really exploring that. Uh, so I think that’s another concept of what we can do, um, to try to pick up that missing middle section that we can’t seem to figure out any other way and we need to bring people who they will be, have to do with stop demonizing any particular stakeholders. We have to bring in.... I’ll use the term home builders to the table and say, it’s not your fault, but you need to be at the table and help us solve this and we need social justice organizations and we need the, the governmental agencies and we need to bring them to the table to have an honest conversation. We have a collective problem. If we believe in San Diego, how are we going to solve it?
Q: We can’t have an honest conversation when we ignore evidence in plain sight. In 2003 the public policy Institute of California put out a study that said affordable housing in California is a joke. It’s a lottery that helps a tiny handful of people. In 2019 we’re seeing the legislature supersize affordable housing programs led by Toni Atkins. And you’re seeing in Georgette Gomez at the council level saying, we have to have these things. It’s folly to pursue as a main solution to a problem, something that can’t solve that problem. And yet that is exactly what Democrats in California are using their energy to do. So I think that’s a problem you didn’t identify is this obsession with affordable housing that affects a sliver of the problem?
A: Well, yeah. In fact, I think I would respectfully disagree. I think I actually did mention that those programs do....
Q: But mentioned them in the terms of look at all the energy and the money they cost and how little they achieve. It’s maddening that this is where our using our energy and our money on and yet you don’t see Democrats broadly recognize this outside of Scott Wiener and Jerry Brown.
A: I would disagree about where Scott Wiener is coming from and, and I won’t speak for Jerry Brown. But I think you’re right in a lot of ways. I don’t disagree with you. Uh, it has gotten too expensive, but we are at a place and this is the problem when you keep ignoring the problem because we really saw this starting to manifest itself probably in the 90s, and we didn’t do anything about it as a local or a statewide government. And the longer you delay, the harder it gets. Um, and, that’s the frustration I have and that’s not the conversation I want to have. Do I want to continue to build programs because we have, uh, we’re in such a desperate straits in terms of creating, um, housing, uh, for folks who are at the lowest end of the spectrum, we still need to do that even if it is extraordinarily expensive. And I agree with you, it is extraordinary expensive when your spending 400 or so thousand plus when you have a system that is so complicated and requires so many funding sources that it just jacks up the price. Um, that we need to have a conversation as well. I’m not ready to toss that out, but we need to pick up the real conversation, which we’ll do. The real production that meets the real needs of San Diegans across the entire spectrum. Not just worry about the small stuff that we’re accomplishing at very great expense...
Q: What’s wrong with Scott Wiener’s ideas?
A: I don’t like the idea of a... I didn’t support SB 50. Um, I think he fell into the trap that I don’t know what else to do, so I will just upzone everything. Um, you know, I, I had a conversation with, uh, home builders that I know, and I said, you tell me that the problem is you don’t have the density. You’re, you’re frustrated by height restrictions. You’re complaining about, um, NIMBYs and planning groups that are (inaudible) you. You’re complaining about processing. And I said, okay, let’s talk about downtown San Diego. Downtown San Diego has essentially unlimited height, unlimited density. It had planning groups, a planning group that loves projects because it helps their neighborhood thrive. You know, with Civic San Diego, which I guess is still in operation, have the most streamlined process you could find in town. And yet we were not meeting the capacity of downtown. I think the last time I looked, we were at 35,000 population when we’re supposed to have upwards of 90,000. I said, it doesn’t work in downtown. If we did everything we do, everything that you complain about, we’re doing it downtown. We’re not getting the results. And their kickback was, it’s too expensive to build downtown. I well, so now you’ve thrown another excuse on the table. Some people are complaining that we’re starting to get a little bit too many mid rises downtown because it’s a more cost effective, uh, for the builders and we’re losing the density that we’re allowed to build that. And so we’re going to under develop in downtown. Downtown is where we’re supposed to bring all the population to. So this is the difficult conversations we’re having. And instead of, as you suggest, Chris, and what we’re doing is we’re fighting with each other and we’re blaming everybody else. So what we need to do was kind of bring together and whether it is a, the Democrats who actually asked about Scott Wiener and I, like I said, I think he was too simplistic in his approach. I think San Diego has done a pretty good job and it really wouldn’t have affected down, excuse me, San Diego very much. There may be cities across the state that need a little bit of a wakeup call. Um, I do look at what Scott’s doing when people talk to me about SB 50. I said, make no mistake. That is a wakeup call. And if we don’t do a better job here in San Diego or wherever jurisdiction you live in, the state’s gonna come in and impose something on us. And the only thing I can be assured of is when they come in with their one size fits all, it ain’t gonna work.
Q: Well, in Houston it worked. Houston has no zoning. Houston has less expensive housing than Dallas and it has considerable housing that’s affordable by people make less than $40,000 a year. So it worked in Houston. Now maybe you don’t want to have airports right next to funerals, like you funeral homes and graveyards...
A: And we’re not Houston. And I think that’s the, that’s one of the traps that we inevitably fall into. We go, why can’t we be like this city or this community? And it’s because we’re not, we’re not that. They have a unique set of characteristics where that particular solution may work. It won’t work. The Houston solution doesn’t work here.
Q: Is there any way you would have supported SB 50 with changes or it’s the whole local control issue, you know, that gives you pause.
A: Um, There probably isn’t any kind of change that I would’ve supported given the basic premise of SB 50, um, you know, an exception to San Diego, which is a little bit of a silly suggestion of course. Uh, but I don’t really think there is. I think, like I said, to me the best value of SB 50 is it’s kind of a wakeup call that says we need to change what we do, we need to get more aggressive. And I think the, the lines that I’ve been talking about, which is having a much different conversation about that 40% of the homes that we just don’t know how to build because structurally we just don’t have any way to build them. That is where we really have to start. And Scott Wiener’s bill doesn’t really help us with that.
Q: The affordability question is... it’s always been stymied by the fact that what the people in charge considered affordable for at an affordable home is to most people’s point of view, not $400,000 or $500,000 for a condo. Right. Even if it’s in a wonderful view lot out in downtown San Diego. So how do you take some of that money off of the table? You mentioned, you know, zero land building costs. What about zero developer profit motives? Is that a way to go?
A: Well. Um, let me just respond to a couple of the ask a couple of things you mentioned. Uh, and then I’ll get back to to the main question. Uh, you know, we have what is arguably a crazy conversation about affordability. It’s one of the questions I get when I’m out talking to voters, meet and greets is... What do you, when you say affordable, what do you, what do you mean by affordable? And I really have tried to train myself to stop using the word affordable because as is typical in our English language, a word has many different meanings and it depends on who is saying the word affordable. And to make things even more complicated, we have affordable housing, small “a”, small “h” and then we have affordable housing, capital A, capital H, two different, completely different issues. And so in my mind, having worked in the housing industry, the word affordable has become the domain of the marketing departments to justify the digital projects. If we just build this project, homes will become more affordable. Um, and what that has done is poisoned the conversation because nobody believes that anymore and has made, uh, people that are already cynical about home builders and the gov.... and city hall even more because it’s like that, that’s just nonsense. Building million dollar condos doesn’t affect affordability of housing in the city of San Diego. Uh, but I think to the point that you were, that you were making, uh, there has to be a lot of tools in the tool box in terms of how theoretically a nonprofit, a home builder who’s ones that typically build, uh, the capital A, capital H affordable housing, uh, have some built in, uh, component that allows them to stay in business. But for all intents and purposes, they’re not making the profits. And I also caution that despite what we hear in some of the rhetoric that the businesses, especially the Fortune 500s, don’t make quite as much profit as people think they do. There’s not as much leeway in the projects they build as we would like to think they do. Most of the profits that are made is somebody that has bought land 20 years ago. Uh, in anticipation. And then eventually when the tide comes, they’ve got land at a very cheap price and that’s where the upside is. But most typical, a Fortune 500 companies are operating on pretty thin margins, which is why um... Doesn’t talk about the housing crisis, but why it’s very difficult for small home builders to compete because they need a larger profit margin to get... attract the kind of capital they need and the small builder.
“I think you have a responsibility to have those tough conversations, whether your constituents like it or not, you need to lead them into where we’re going as a city.”
— Joe LaCava
And what happens is the big Fortune 500 companies come in and can pay a higher price for the land because they can tolerate a smaller profit. And so I think talking about the profit component doesn’t... I, I appreciate why you brought that up, but I don’t think it really helps us in the larger conversation about, um, uh, building what I’d like to start to call income restricted housing, um, as opposed to market housing. And as you mentioned, we missed the call, the, the shift that happened in the 1990s because for those of us that have enough gray hair to remember in the... back in the day, the way we dealt with affordability is we just pushed out. If housing and land was getting too expensive, we would just build a little bit further away from the city center and buy them cheaper and you could build smaller houses and you could get to affordability that way. And then, I mean, 1990s things shifted because we suddenly began to realize that our unique, uh, uh, habitats, uh, and our unique topography was starting to disappear. So we started to get this open space, dedication, the MSCP and things of that nature that started to lock up a lot of land. And suddenly the, that land that we used to allow was now in Riverside County. And we made the leap to Riverside County. And some of you may remember people were leaving to Imperial County. It’s an option for San Diego workers. Um, and so we didn’t anticipate what that actually was going to mean because we should have, and we should have started thinking about, well, if we can’t build these single family homes, what are we going to do? And of course we have the whole issue about climate change, which we didn’t think about 20 years ago or most of us didn’t think about 20 years ago. And the whole idea that we needed to reduce our vehicle miles traveled, we therefore needed to densify. And you know, what I didn’t mention before is that what we didn’t have is the conversation with San Diegans, the people that are in the positions of responsibility, our elected officials didn’t start having the conversations to say, let’s start talking about what the next generation of San Diegans are going to look like and where they’re going to live and how our city is going to be developed. They kind of just sidled up into that and wondering why people were surprised or reacted badly because nobody ever really prepared them for that conversation. And I think it’s still a problem today that we don’t do that preparatory work. And I know why they don’t do it. Cause I know that’s a hard conversation to have with your constituents because they’re not gonna like that reaction. But you know, if, if you call yourself a leader, you need to have that conversation. And I can tell you, I’ve had experience with that. I’ve had my name dragged through the mud... a number of times in my communities when I tried to have that conversation and I haven’t stopped that. People don’t like it. But you need to, I tell people you need to know where things are actually going. First we’re San Diego, so that’s not just San Diego, it’s up and down the state. Um, but I think you have a responsibility to have those tough conversations, whether your constituents like it or not, you need to lead them into where we’re going as a city.
Q: Local control. I can understand why people like local control, but I wish they would have the principled view of local control cause local control in most housing restrictive aspects. It’s not planning boards opposing things. It’s people using CEQA lawsuits to block projects. And so the local control movement would have so much more purity and attraction to me if they had people who said, yeah, you’re right, CEQA is being abused. If we don’t like the project, we should make our case against it. We shouldn’t try to use laws against it. And the last six governors have agreed with this. And so once again I punt back to this is a problem within the democratic party because democratic parties are so tight with unions and unions use these lawsuits all the time to get better things. So it doesn’t seem like we’re ever gonna have a, an honest debate about local control and what it really means because it’s so tied up in how the democratic power structure works in this state.
A: I see where you’re going with that. And here’s, here’s the answer that I have for you. We’ve already begun the conversation about we’re not going to, the possibility of revising CEQA is kind of a nonstarter. It is clear... You know what you described. I think it’s a very real thing. I would probably never going to change CEQA. So what we have to do is we have to work within the CEQA law and the city of San Diego has finally started to realize that and it is updating our community plans and creating opportunities of what is called Bi-Rite. You have a piece of property, you have the zoning, you have the ability to hire an architect, they design it, they go down pull the building permit. That’s the end of the conversation. CEQA never gets in because you’ve done your master CEQA on the community plan updates. And part of what we need to do, and I’ve talked to the building industry about this, is that you need to spend more time educating your members that when they go in and buy a piece of property that they need to make it pencil based on what the buy right is so that they avoid the discretionary process. They avoid the exposure, they avoid the risk and just go down, pull your building permit and get busy building your project. And instead of what we see too often is, Hey, if I can get just a little more density, if I can just reposition to zone, I can make a more profitable project. Cause I, I bought this project from the seller thinking there’s only a hundred units, but I think I’ve got a clever way to get 150 or 200 units. And then they go expose themselves that discretionary process. And then they complain because the whole process blows up. Opposition, neighbors, what have you, uh, makes it very problematic. Let’s get, let’s get the zoning right. Let’s update our community plans and encourage builders just to stay buy-right? And it’s not only... If you really get into the weeds, it’s not only just buy right. Because now we’ve given a number of incentives, especially the affordable housing density bonus, which is the most generous density bonus in the state of California to be able to get even more units with a little bit of a combination for some affordable capital A, capital H affordable units. Uh, which again doesn’t really solve our affordability for lower income, but it does increase the amount of housing... Makes a little bit easier and allows developers to get focused on just building units.
Q: Scooters... Existential crisis or key to the future of urban mobility?
A: Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. I probably... No surprise that I hear a lot about scooters and I heard people bemoan the fact, gosh, I hope this election is not about scooters. Um, you know, it is, I think, you know, first and foremost, it is an example of where the city has failed us in terms of their leadership. They saw that this was coming. They didn’t anticipate what it meant. Uh, they didn’t look to what other cities have been doing. Uh, they let the scooters, you know, flood our market, especially the beach areas. They created a set of regulations that they knew were inadequate. They’ve admitted that those regulations were not... but they just wanted to get something on the books. And then what has become an increasingly, uh, bad behavior is that they don’t enforce the regulations. They say, you know, they, you know that the problem is with the geo-fencing, uh, the problems with where the scooters end up at the end of the night, uh, and, and so much more about controlling how the users use them. The city has expressed no interest in enforcing. Now there is a hearing tomorrow, Wednesday or Thursday, I’ve forgotten which, um, at the, what they call active mobility and infrastructure committee about Lime I think that has been accused of some things and they’re going to see whether they’re going to pull their right to be in the city. But this is something that the city should really have been on top of all, you know, in front of, uh, and what disturbs about that... I, I’ll cut to the chase on one point. I’m actually, as much as I hate to say this, I’m actually supportive of a temporary moratorium on it because the city has done such a terrible job of allowing them to come in and unforeseen, uh, how they put together. And I think it’s important to note because we get enamored by the sales pitch of why these are a good element... You mentioned the micro mobility in the last mile. What we forget is two components. One is that they’re not as environmentally sensitive as they claim to be. When you look at the entire life cycle of a scooter, they’re not environmentally friendly at all because they have such a short shelf life. And so let’s not claim that they’re environmentally sensitive. Uh, the second thing is that it’s still hard for me to believe we have a city that has embraced the vision zero concept. And in case you don’t know, vision zero is a committed effort to eliminate pedestrian death accidents due to car... being hit by cars. And somehow the city professes to be about vision zero. But lets motorized scooters on our boardwalks and our promenades and in Balboa Park. It is inconceivable to me that you can believe in Vision Zero and let motorized vehicles in those pedestrian zones. I don’t care about, I don’t care about geo-fencing to be able to throttle the speeds, which there doesn’t seem to be evidence that that actually works. They don’t belong there. And you start with the position that says no motorized scooters in those locations. And then after a couple of years you kind of reassess and see where things are at. But you start out with them being banned. And I get think it’s another example of what the scooter companies are about, just like the deco bike experience, which is all we hear about is that last mile, that micro mobility and what you find out as they make most of their money on the recreational use. So the city needs to get...
Q: Where would you ban them? Which promenades are you talking about?
A: Oh, in terms of just that element. The beachfront promenade, the Martin Luther King promenade, Balboa Park, everything that is intensively pedestrian where we’re trying to concentrate intensive pedestrian activity. They’re already illegal on sidewalks, although it’s hard to believe that given how many scooters you see on sidewalks. Uh, but in terms of that element, and that’s an element, Matt, that should’ve been in the original regulation. As you may recall, that was something that uh, council members Bry and Zapf tried to get last year and got shut down. Uh, but in terms of the temporary ban, I think that it has to be in the entire city until we get these things right, until the city comes up with the regulations that make sense, if that is possible and then has a commitment to enforce it and has the mechanisms to enforce them. We can’t. We can’t. We’ve got to get away from this idea that we adopt regulations because it feels good. And then we walk away from enforcement. You know, again, we’re picking winners and losers. That’s not the way that the city ought to operate. Put in regulations when you’re ready to enforce them.
Q: You’re the first person who’s ever referred to the last mile theory to us. It’s a very interesting theory though and it really fits in totally with climate plans. I mean if you really, the last mile is such a problem and has been such a problem getting people from their subway stop to their home. And this seems to be, maybe it’s a very messy solution, but a solution.
A: It has the potential, but there are so many other problems that we need to solve first before we come back to that.
Q: If climate change is the number one problem in the world, and this is an existential problem and the biggest problem with reducing emissions or one of the biggest is the last mile, how do you get the person the last mile to get home from transit....
A: And when we solve the transit problem and how we’re going to get people to use transit and then we can think about the last mile and that last mile is not the one that’s stopping people from using transit. They may say it, but that’s not really the reason they’re not using transit.
Q: It’s cause they don’t like it. So speaking of... San Diego has been fairly, uh, generous in the past with tax increases to support really good causes... I’m just wondering, do you think that’s over for San Diego? They’ve been burned too many times and they’re just not going to hear it anymore. Whether it’s at, whether it’s a grand central station by the airport or convention center or any other grand scheme,
A: You know, I think things....
Q: ...Are raising taxes the answer?
A: Well I think you make a fair point. I, as I mentioned in some of my opening remarks, amount, the amount of skepticism and cynicism that I’m really seeing across the board. And you can’t get support for revenue measures when you have that level of cynicism. Uh, we certainly have, uh, had a number of problems in terms of SANDAG and the, the missed projections on what the Transnet was able to do. You’ve seen some questions about the use of, of funds, uh, whether it is a revenue measure or just the normal operating funds. Um, and so I think you have a lot of skepticism and I think we have a long way to go to really rebuild that confidence so that people trust the idea of that we can, we can give you money, we can trust you’re actually going to do what you’re telling us you’re going to do and that you’re going to use the money efficiently. I don’t know that we’re there today. Um, there may be an opportunity, uh, you know, we’re, we possibly have three big mob in the city of San Diego. I have three measures show up in the balance in 2020, um, the convention center.... then you mentioned MTS is supposedly bringing in a measure forward. You have the Housing Federation that is trying to bring their measure and I think they have a heavy lift. Um, even though I can support, um, the Housing Federation, um, I have been supportive of the convention center, the MTS. I haven’t really seen where they’re at yet. Uh, um, on the final language site, I kind of reserve judgment on that one. Um, but I think they have a very tough sell on that right now. And I think it’s unfortunate because as I mentioned before, we have kicked the can down the road so long and so many of these issues that they’re really, we’ve kind of lost the options that are available to us. We can’t, you know, we can trim our costs and the general fund and the budget, uh, we can try to be more efficient, but we’re just not going to find enough money to be able to do these bigger projects. Uh, you mentioned the grand central station. Uh, you know, I like to call myself a skeptical, skeptical... skeptic optimists because I’m excited by those ideas. I like when people think big and really stretch our imagination of what we can do. But at the end of the day, I’m always a little bit skeptical. Okay. I saw the pretty picture on the site about it. Now that will really show me how you’re going to do this. Show me that we really need the $4 billion option, uh, to connect the trolley to the airport. Excuse me. So I want to see that evidence, but I remain open to, to be convinced that that really is a great idea.
Q: So just to be clear that you support the convention center proposal.
A: Correct.
Q: You support Stephen Russell’s housing measuring. MTS, you’re open to, or you’re outright opposed to the concept that... at this stage.
A: Without actually seeing the details of what they’re gonna propose and how they’re going to fashion it. Um, from some of the things they said, I’m open to it. Um, you know, the fact that we have a mechanism now for the first time for a transit authority to actually do something that is very much targeted, but I want to see, you know... what I’m always skeptical about is they start adding things into that, see how do we broaden our support and the answer is ... a few things... and at some point you get to the point of you can’t support it anymore.
Q: I have a philosophical question about that because one of the issues, obviously Hasan Ikhrata at SANDAG has huge, big ideas, but a plan that isn’t fleshed out... MTS also has big ideas. Those plans aren’t integrated. Does it make sense philosophically for MTS to push forward when SANDAG hasn’t really figured out how far it wants to go or what it exactly wants to do with the, in terms of their own measure?
A: Well, that’s I think a certainly a pretty valid point of concern. Um, I am a consultant to SANDAG on their regional transportation plan statement. My goal is, uh, my role is only community plan update. Getting people to show up at these workshops and meetings, help spread the word about events. And one of the things that, that I like to say is that the five big moves is not a plan. It’s a brand new approach of how we should look at things. And a lot of people jumped on it as, Oh my gosh, you’re casting it in stone. And it’s like, no, they’re far from it. They’re there. They’re just beginning to beginning to understand what that means. Um, the point about... If SANDAG is going big in a, perhaps a new direction, what should MTS be doing? Um, again, you know, it depends on how they approach it. My general philosophy is that transit, the most effective use we can make it for dollars is to build up on the transit that we already have. Make them, uh, uh, make, make the transit run more days, later into the evening, more frequent. Um, because that’s, those transit corridors are really where the, the builders are putting up their higher density. So let’s take advantage of that. Let’s really respond to what we hear from people. Um, the one exception is kind of a hotspot up in Carmel Valley, uh, where they really seem to be hungry for a transit kind of more of a super loop like we have in Northeast DC that I think has some interesting possibilities. The other thing that I hear about in the MTS that I’m actually very excited about is the idea of what they’re calling.... I think they’re still calling youth opportunity passes now... free transit for students up to, or the youth up to about age 25 or so. I think, and I’ve been talking about that as part of, you know, my campaign platform because as we’ve talked, we kind of alluded to the climate action plan has very big ambitious goals about shifting people from their cars to transit. And you know, we’re not going to get there by making transit incrementally better. Uh, we’re going to get there when there is a cultural shift on how people think about where they live, where they work, and their individual responsibility towards the fight in climate change. That is not an easy thing that’s going to happen, that’s not going to happen overnight. So let’s begin to focus on a generational shift. Let’s get the younger people more interested in transit and see it as a viable option. And the best way to do that is to let them use it for free. And they’ll see the value of that. They see what some of them have already understood that I don’t need to spend the expense on a car. I can just take advantage of transit. And so you start to do that cultural shift at the younger generation and then maybe we can start to begin to approach some of the goals that we’re talking about in the climate action plan. So I’m, I, I expect to see, I hope to see that if there is a measurement, youth opportunity passes are part of that.
Q: How about on climate action... You’ve alluded to this quite a bit, but uh, this board has been very receptive to the idea that climate change is not the idea, but the fact that climate change is real and it’s gonna cause major issues and it’s going to need to be at a change in behavior on many levels. It’s also been pretty critical of the specific kind of steps in the climate action plan in our one in five people or one in four people in a the last mile and a bike to work and walk to work. I mean, those specific details, and I’ll get into the weeds here, but you brought it up. So what do you think, what are you skeptical about? And because it’s legally binding. What do you think should or could change going forward, if anything?
A: Well, as, I mean, that’s a great question. I think that’s an incredibly important question for our city. Um, as I mentioned at the outset, I think, you know, we’ve talked about doing this implementation plan that would actually identify the steps that we need to go through. Um, and I think there’s a pretty wide recognition that we’re behind schedule in terms of really being able to meet some of the goals. Um, part of it is having the conversation. Um, I don’t know whether we can meet, you know, whether we can shift the conversation to the intensity that we’ve seen with the community choice aggregation I think it’s going to be a big factor. Um, I think the idea that we start that the, the leaders in our community start to have that approach and you know what it’s going to take. I mean, it’s, it’s a very difficult conversation for me... I, because I believe in it as well. Um, and I want to believe that we have the capacity to make the changes that are necessary. But let’s talk about what’s really involved. It’s, there’s someone like me who says, I’m going to solve the problem. I’m gonna move my office into my house. Okay. So I have a zero commute and that’s my contribution, uh, to changing the numbers. Um, I think we don’t talk enough about people working out of their house, um, or what they do. They still call it telecommuting. I’ve kind of lost track. Um, but people being able to work in alternate locations that are closer to where they live because the idea that we’re going to have this incredible shift within less than a generation where people are going to say, I work at this place, I’m going to pack up and move. Some people are going to be able to do that. And people, some people will see the advantage. Can you see enough of that shift, uh, to actually meet the goals? I’m not sure. You can’t, I mean, it is only in the commuting goals. It’s not all of the trips that we’re talking about. Um, I think it’s going to be a challenge. And, and if we don’t get busy and we start having that conversation, um, you know, I, I’m prepared to have that conversation. Um, but I’m not going to be in office until December and really January of 2021. So what’s going to happen over the next 15 months? Um, and, and are, are we going to start having that conversation to start setting that trend and starting to get people thinking along those ways. And, you know, I’m excited by, you know, the climate strike, um, by students a couple of weeks ago. Um, can we sustain that effort into actually doing meaningful action? You know, that remains to be seen. You need people to step up. We need people to actually understand climate change. Fighting climate change is not a thing that somebody else is going to do, but it’s the thing that you need to do. We don’t need everybody to do it. We don’t need everybody to abandon their car. Um, but we need a good, sizable chunk of people to be able to do that and to start leading.
Q: Where are you on community... You mentioned community choice as well. Again, you’re 15 months from taking office potentially, but a lot of things could happen between now and then. Where do you think the council will be, uh, when the new council takes over and what role will they have?
A: Well, I, you know, there’s some critical votes. I understand there was the second reading that happened that kind of locked it into place. Um, you know, we, we are a little bit notorious for coming up with these ideas and then being very slow to actually implement them. You know, I hope that by the time I roll into office that the JPA is fully functional... we’ve started to enter into those energy contracts. Uh, we’re taking those first baby steps in implementing them. I was, I could show... I am supportive of... the climate choice, uh, aggregation or climate choice energy. I’m glad to see they took the action. I think it’s been, you know, to me the fact and other skeptics out there about that, but I think the number of cities that have made that change in a relatively short amount of time certainly speaks to the idea that this is a good idea. This was an idea that whose time has come, and we need to get busy... Actually moving forward on that, uh, people have bought into that... are getting the approvals from the various, uh, municipalities. Let’s get busy doing it. This is election season, which is always, uh, makes it, you know, doing city business can often be difficult or the election season. Uh, but I have high hopes that we’ll, we’ll have those baby steps underway by the time I take office.
“Fighting climate change is not a thing that somebody else is going to do, but it’s the thing that you need to do. We don’t need everybody to do it.”
— Joe LaCava
Q: As a good Democrat, do you know whose... president whose birthday it is today?
A: I knew you’d come up with at least one question that wasn’t on Facebook, so I don’t know.
Q: Jimmy Carter.
A: Oh, that’s right. Yes. Okay. 95. I saw that.
Q: SDSU West, uh, has the city council and the city handled that well to date. What needs to be done going forward?
A: Well, when you see Barbara Bry and Scott Sherman together at a podium, uh, that, you know, something is wrong. You know, real estate transactions are difficult. Um, and there has to be a level of confidentiality. But the fact that the city council has been excluded from that, um, I find very disappointing in that. Um, and I find it disappointing for a couple of reasons. One, I think the city council, um, on something of this importance and this magnitude should not be in a position to say for the mayor to come in and say, we’ve negotiated the deal. We’re going to put it in front of you to ratify. Um, it’s too important to the city and the future of our city. Um, and I think there’s a lot of value judgment in terms of that negotiation. Um, some people have said it’s strictly a matter of price. We’re just trying to figure out what the right prices. But I think it’s much more than that because again, it is public land. Um, and as I was following... during the, no one soccer city campaign, public land on having a public benefit, that there’s an opportunity to say, what can we do with this land within the terms of measure G what, what the voters said. Uh, but how does price affect that? Can we make some concessions on price for a community benefit for a affordable housing capital, A, capital H. um, and we don’t know that maybe those conversations are happening, but we don’t know that because it’s all behind closed doors. Um, and so, um, I have very high hopes. I voted for measure G. um, but I don’t like the way that it is being handled now. And I, I, I don’t know that, uh, uh, council members, Bry and Sherman’s press conference, uh, was enough to shake the mayor and the city attorney and opening that up. But I would hope that it would.
Q: What grade would you give the mayor and then separately the city attorney?
A: Is this recording?
Q: It is...it is.
A: You know, I, I would give them a grade of C.
Q: But separately... You’d both,...you’d give them C.
A: For the mayor’s office, for the mayor, uh, C, he, uh, I think the potential that was, I rated the, based on the potential of what he could have done, uh, he may still be able to do in the next year. In the quarter. Uh, there was so much more we could do. There is so much more we can do in terms of identifying big ideas and then actually carried through with big ideas. I’ve talked previously about adopting regulations and then not enforcing them. Um, I talked about... before about doing little things in terms of housing that doesn’t really solve our housing crisis... it doesn’t confront the housing crisis. Um, with the city attorney. Uh, I’ll give the city attorney a B. um, I’ve been a little bit disappointed on some of the actions of the city attorney... in terms of some of the issues, uh, the bills she fought for in Sacramento, that might have reduced the availability of, uh, you know, like the term, uh,
Q: Public records...
A: Public records requests. Yes. Thank you. Um, the fact that she offered a competing measure to the proposal to amend the CRB I thought was, uh, an interesting choice. Um, but I think she has run the office generally pretty professional. Um, I have, uh, seen good things come out of that office. But, you know, I think there was more potential and I think that she took things that she could have handled differently. You know, I don’t know what happens inside that office and why some of those things would be... But I would give her, give her a B.
Q: On the mayor. I read, I think it was in a La Jolla Light interview you gave where you said that the mayor is wielding his power in the wrong direction. What specifically was that a reference to or how do you think that the mayor is using his power in the wrong direction?
A: You know, I think we’re probably, what I was referring to is in a couple of different directions and I’ve kind of alluded to it, but so that I can get the answer in front of your question. I think one is, um, this idea of how do we attack the housing crisis by doing these little incremental changes and claiming that we are making progress on housing, that we’re solving the housing problem, we’re solving affordability. Um, I think the response to the homeless crisis in terms of focusing more on... Seemingly more concerned about the visibility of the homeless really rather than attacking the issue. I think the way that the navigation center, uh, has been handled the way that, uh, what I still refer to as the Sempra building, um, uh, it has not been handled very well. Um, I’ve seen time and you know, because I’m kind of almost inside the bubble of what happens down in city hall. I’ve seen too many things where I’ve seen the mayor come out really strong... Have the press conference, have the photo op and then kind of just drops the ball and doesn’t carry through. Uh, and the follow through is actually what causes the changes that you think you said you needed. Uh, we’ve talked about the short term rentals and the scooters and adopting regulations with no plan to do... enforce a what the regulations that are on the books. Um, I think those are just a few examples.
Q: What do you think of the police chief’s job so far? You mentioned the CRB... are you a proponent of subpoena power?
A: Um, I think, you know, I sit on the police community relations board, and um, I know a lot of people kind of discount the board because of the way it was originally initiated, but I think it’s really doing some amazing work. And I have heard, um, public testimony that really kind of tears at my heart and seeing what I had heard about, which was the distrust in some of our communities about their relationship with the police and the fear of whether to call the police on some kind of crime or some kind of visits in their community because they’re afraid of the overreaction of the police. Uh, and I think we need to do a lot of work in terms of, uh, the public’s perception, especially in communities of color. Um, and you know, I think the ... You know, the chief came in on a good note. Um, I was initially very hopeful about what the chief has done, but I think a number of things that I’ve seen kind of makes me wonder, um, about that, you know, I see him listen to public testimony that people that got stopped, uh, for no apparent cause and him step outside and talk to the individuals. I don’t know what happens to those, but that’s certainly a positive sign. Um, I know that the police community relations board that I sit on as vice chair has issued a report that has 30 recommendations that will change policies and practices. Um, my understanding is we’re finally gonna hear from the department in about two weeks. The reaction to that, uh, coming back to the reference, I think CRB does need to be amended as much for the public perception that there really is a sense of independence. I think the current CRB actually functions at a higher level than the general public understands if there is a perception issue that you cannot overcome, uh, by talking about how the current CRB works. So I was supportive of the changes that I think will cause a lot of excitement up front, and then we’ll settle in and actually we’ll say people have much more confidence and see the greater independence and nothing’s really changed very much. You’ll see the CRB often find that the internal affairs investigations are actually pretty much on point. But again, I think it’s a perception issue. Um, the resistance to Shirley Weber’s AB 392 I think that falls in that category as well. Uh, an issue that I supported, which I know they have, um, a lot of heartburn about until there was a compromise and there was some change in the language before they were able to support that. Um, I think there, you know, you always... That initial reaction of opposition, um, really hurts the public’s perception about the police. Um, as I say, you know, one of the things we’ve heard on the police community relations board is the people south of the 8 said, we have too much police. We’d like to reduce it, maybe in the North... And he said, we don’t have enough police and we can, we take some of those, uh, beats in the Northern part of the city. So I think we have a lot of work to do and I don’t think the chief has led enough. Um, one of the things we heard is the, um, as well that, and I’ve been disappointed about is the, uh, racial and identity profile act, uh, which caused in part , uh, police departments up across the state to actually record the data. And we began to investigate that as part of the police community relations board. And what SDPD told us is that, Hey, we’re on top of it. We’re not waiting to the one year deadline. We’re starting to look at that data. Now we’re starting to really analyze it. And if you read our report, we give them a lot of kudos for being proactive like that. The result is about what, what was the reality? We didn’t actually hear anything. And the deadline has passed. They did file whatever they were supposed to file. And the report we got where I was eagerly awaiting the results was we’ve decided to hire someone to analyze it, which we did call for, we did call for an independent, let me... you know make no mistake about that. But now we’re going to have to continue to wind. Um, and do I think they’re hiding anything? No, but it is that kind of action that really shakes people’s confidence. And I think the chief has an incredibly hard job. You know, I mean, you know, I, somebody accused me of not supporting the police or... and it’s like... You know, I, I have tremendous confidence in the police in the job they do and the way they put themselves in harm’s way for our safety. I just want them to function in a more, in a way that is a little more transparent and builds a confidence across every community in San Diego. I don’t, I don’t think we’re seeing that quite yet. And then the latest disclosure about the rape test kits and how that was handled, you know, you have to really go up the chain of command and who, you know, where does the buck stop in terms of accountability? Again, something else, again, that falls out, that shakes people’s confidence, uh, because whatever watchdogs stuff that the, that the paper does, what is it we’re not hearing about? You know, and that’s where people get them either outright fear in some communities or the citizens get this in another community.
“I’m ready to step in on day one and help lead that council to the next generation and start tackling some of these problems that we’ve been ignoring for a long time.”
— Joe LaCava
Q: Anyone got other questions? Um, are there issues we didn’t talk about or if not, uh, a close, give us your elevator pitch on why you should be elected.
A: Well, I think that in District 1 we have a number of Democrats that are running and we share a lot of the same values, but I think it’s not a matter of just the in the values. It is a matter of someone who actually understands that we’re going to have five brand new council members and have a brand new mayor that we need to look to leadership who actually understands how the city functions, who can step in and take over in the Council District 1 seat on day one, be ready to meet the demands that a big city like ours has, pick up the issues that are not going to be addressed by the current council or the current mayor and be able to move forward and someone who comes in with the kind of leadership that has been widely recognized. I don’t think I mentioned the fact or perhaps I did that I’d been appointed to 30 boards and committees. A lot of those appointments are by the recognized elected officials. Toni Atkins, Todd, Gloria, Barbara Bry, Sherri Lightner. Even Jerry Sanders has appointed me because they recognize what I bring to the table. That measured leadership, that leadership you can trust, that consistency, that accountability, that transparency and how I operate. And I think that’s going to be a valuable addition to the city council. And again, because of that huge change over week and a half is really going to be important so that we don’t miss a beat and taking over when we get sworn in, in December of next year. Um, and people have gotten to know me. I have a, of all the candidates, I’m the only one who actually has been in the trenches on the community relations, working down at City Hall, moving policy, getting projects built. I’m very proud of that track record. Uh, but there’s only so much I can do as a volunteer. I need to step up now with city council members. So I have a larger bandwidth. I’m going to have the staff that’s going to be working with me and I can actually get a lot more things done. So I’m clearly ready for the job based on my past performance, on my public record. I’m ready to step in on day one and help lead that council to the next generation and start tackling some of these problems that we’ve been ignoring for a long time.
Q: What is it about District 1 and electing engineers?
A: District one, voters are incredibly smart you know, and actually, you know, I, didn’t even mention as, I’m not sure that a civil engineer has ever been on the council. It’s about time we have some technical expertise. You kind of saw a little bit with, you know, Sherri Lightner and her engineering approach. You see a little bit of that with Chris Ward and his urban planning background. Uh, but we need more of that, you know, that balance in terms of who sits on the council. And I think it’s simply ... someone that actually understands what these infrastructure issues are. Um, and what these community plan updates are about and a variety of issues. It’s about time and I’m ready for the job.
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