Consejo Municipal, Distrito 6 — Ciudad de San Diego

In 2016, voters overwhelming supported Measure G, a ballot measure that approved a number of reforms to the City's Community Review Board on Police Practices. During that time, the council worked collaboratively to review and compare the operations of other review boards to determine what would work for San Diego. The Council is now in the process of implementing the reforms approved by Measure G, and it would be prudent to determine the effectiveness of those reforms before going back to voters for any additional changes. 

I believe that should be an option offered to developers. Parking is a driving force behind the cost of housing in San Diego, and if units are proposed near transit centers, that option should be provided and allow the market to determine if consumers have a demand for those units. In addition, building near transit allows for the City to meet its goals in the Climate Action Plan.

I support the initiative to expand the convention center, increase funding for roads, and increase funding for homeless services. I believe the proposal will check a lot of boxes in terms of addressing many of the priorities of San Diegans. The funding for homelessness can be used to both address housing and supportive services.

I do believe that we need housing in each council district throughout the City. As an example, our office lead the effort to fund the update to the Kearny Mesa Community Plan. Within that plan, we are identifying areas to increase density and new areas to place housing, including along the vibrant Convoy District. As we update our community plans, it is incumbent of all neighbors and stakeholders to identify locations to increase density.

I have not taken a position of either of the plans for Mission Valley. Both of these proposals are extremely complex with each having positives and negatives. I encourage all residents to do their due diligence in researching each of these proposals to determine what they feel is best for the future of the Mission Valley Stadium site.

Since all the members of the Community Review Board on Police Practices are appointed by the mayor, and since the board relies upon work done by the San Diego Police Department's public affairs unit and overwhelmingly agrees with the department's findings in case after case, then yes – anything that gives these kinds of review boards additional latitude for independence should be pursued. This isn't a matter of questioning the integrity or competence of review boards, but it's critical the public and all of our city's constituents have earned confidence in these boards to reach appropriate, fair and just decisions.

Building parking for high denisty developments can be expensive because you typically have to go underground, and if you're required to put in minimum parking you may be forcing a renter or buyer to purchase parking they don't necessarily need. However, I would only support the elimination of minimum parking requirements if new housing is demonstrably located near public transit – but we need to be very careful about where and how we would apply this. Getting rid of parking spaces doesn't get rid of cars, and there's no denying such parking requirements would impact long-term residents who've been in the area before the arrival of new housing or meaningful public transit. Once the city has more comprehensive transit and more walkable neighborhoods we may be better able to eliminate minimum parking requirements, but the suburban communities of D-6 were built entirely after World War II, and as a result are heavily geared towards the automobile. Effective and affordable bus transit will be the best, most immediate option to get people put of their cars in D-6.

I would support a tax increase only if it was part of a genuine effort at the city level to address our homeless crisis, and only if all attempts to procure federal funds from the county had failed. From the beginning of my campaign I've stressed that council must actively lead on finding long-term, effective, and compassionate solutions to our homeless crisis, and not acquiesce to short-term fixes by writing them off as being "good for now." Homelessness isn't just a crisis Downtown, but throughout the city, and the city must acknowledge the different varieties of homeless situations in order to develop solutions and best practices, and acknowledge the dynamics that will always make San Diego a city with a transient population – and from there we can begin to plan for the future. Tent cities are not the answer, and band-aid remedies won't get us closer to the long-term solutions our homeless neighbors need. We can apply the best practices and lessons that the cities of Salt Lake City, Houston and Albuquerque found in their supportive housing efforts, but the mayor must be pressured to make more beds available, and the city must have a meaningful way to direct homeless veterans toward the federal resources they are entitled to.

As an environmentalist, I'm wary of new construction – but the numbers don't lie. We know we're going to need a greater amount of housing for the forseeable future. The question is whether the city will force developers to build affordable and fair-market housing, or continue to build housing that is demonstrably out of reach for most working San Diegans. I support utilizing infill development for new housing in order to avoid backcountry sprawl, and in District 6 we have the best opportunity north of I-8 to do so. However, new housing must be built in a responsible manner that doesn't infringe on our parks or open space, or harm our canyons, mesas and surviving vernal pools. We must also re-purpose and re-utilize existing structures because we're not going to solely build our way out of the problem, and unless we're tying in meaningful and effective transit options along with infill and density, we're only going to make our traffic problems worse. Developers must be brought to bear to build what we need instead of what they want – and a greater percentage of affordable housing availability in new construction is needed than the current level of 10 percent.

I'm opposed to the Soccer City proposal for a variety of reasons, most notably because the project would not be required to adhere to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), but also because the plan isn't about the soccer stadium so much as it's about a La Jolla investment group using city-owned property to build and operate commercial enterprises. While I support responsible expansion of San Diego State University, I'm concerned about the so-called SDSU West proposal because of the volume of traffic that would be expected to go in and out of that location every day. In addition, one of the reasons the site was selected for the construction of Jack Murphy Stadium in the 1960s was because the area along the San Diego River is a floodplain – the stadium trolley stop was built as an elevated station with that expectation – and I'm dubious of claims that the local hydrology can be tamed. I believe it's environmentally unsound to build more homes or businesses in such close proximity to the river, even with a larger river park to serve as a buffer. I could support the best iteration of the SDSU West proposal, but I'd prefer to leave the area as is until we come to a solution we can all agree on, or renovate the stadium in a manner to accomodate MLS, the NFL, and Aztecs football.