City of OceansideCandidate for City Council

The most significant challenge facing Oceanside is economic and environmental sustainability. There is consistent and unrelenting pressure by developers to change all zoning, including commerically zoned property, to high density residential, without addressing significant environmental impacts to the surrounding neighborhoods, such as unacceptable traffic congestion and air quality degredation, impacts to the general fund via increased demands for services, and lost opportunities for attracting new businesses and the creation of more jobs. We must hold the line on these pressures and pursue updates to the general plan, addressing economic development and climate change first. These two general plan elements will dictate our direction in prioritizing job creation for our city's economic sustainability and the preservation of our coastal and agricultural resources that are so important to our city's tourism economy.

Closely aligned with economic and environmental sustainability is preserving and expanding our local water supply. While "drought conditions" have been lifted, this is relatively a temporary situation. We must continue to expand our local water supply by pursuing best management practices in producing water from our San Luis Rey River basin aquifer and ground water, demonstration desalination project, and water recycling. The City of Oceanside is especially blessed with these alternative water supplies. We must continue to ensure that our water infrastructure remains a public resource, sustainable throughout our future.

Another huge challenge is the future of Oceanside via its youth. We must renew partnerships with our education and business communities, including Oceanside Unified School District, Mira Costa Community College, and Cal State, San Marcos to expand opportunities for our youth,especially with respect to our growing Latino community, so that they will be able to contribute to our local economy.

Finally, another very significant challenge is our growing homeless community. While Oceanside has become a proactive model via its Homeless Outreach Team, we need to take our model to all cities in the region to truly come up with solutions. Many of our homeless are families, veterans, the mentally ill and children. We must pursue Federal and State funds to address what is essentially a national/state issue.