By JEFF CLEMETSON | Mission Times Courier

On Jan. 22, candidates for the District 7 City Council seat sat down at Cubberley Elementary School for a forum hosted by the Serra Mesa Community Council and moderated by the League of Women Voters. The candidates introduced themselves before taking a series of questions from the audience.

Wendy Wheatcroft introduced herself as a teacher, a leader in the gun violence prevention movement and a lifelong San Diego native.

“I have been a champion for children and families my entire life and I plan to continue to do that as your council member,” she said.

Raul Campillo said he went to high school in Linda Vista before attending Harvard for his bachelor’s and law degree. He also earned a master’s in Education and taught fifth grade. He is currently a deputy city attorney in San Diego, working as a prosecutor in the criminal division.

“I’m bringing to this race the expertise that comes with facing those core issues — issues of homelessness, housing affordability, transportation, access to jobs. Those are things I understand the causes of, the root problems and how City Council can actually affect them,” he said.

Monty McIntyre said he is joining the race to give back to the community and offer “adult supervision” to a broken City Hall. The civil attorney touted his skills as a mediator that has resolved disputes for over 20 years and promised to take a pay cut if elected.

“I’m doing this for public service, to give back at the end of my career,” he said.

Local businessman Noli Zosa said he is running because he loves serving the community as demonstrated by the 17 different boards and commissions with the city he serves, such as the District 7 Parks and Recreation board and serving as chair of the Linda Vista Planning Group. He also touted his bipartisan support from people like Father Joe, Mayor Faulconer, and civil rights leader Dr. Willie Blair. “And one person who used to be sitting at this table, with the rest of the Democratic candidates, Sharon Larios — who was also a candidate but dropped out to support me, who doesn’t agree with me politically, but she knows I serve the community.”

The first question for the candidates was on what the role should be for community planning groups (CPGs) in the city. Wheatcroft said she has attended meetings of the Navajo Planners and Mission Valley and Linda Vista planning groups. She said CPGs should “serve as an interface between the community and the city.”

Campillo said CPGs should be the first resource for City Council because they know their neighborhoods best. He added that local community plans should be updated more regularly to reflect changes in traffic and development.

McIntyre said he’s fighting for more local control — especially when it comes to new rules for development coming from the state, such as SB 50 that could allow developers to build out multi-unit housing in single-family neighborhoods.

“I’m against Sacramento telling us what to do,” he said. “We need to continue to be able to make our own decisions in San Diego. We want to listen to our community planning groups.”

Zosa said as chair of the Linda Vista Planning Group that he pushed for businesses and developers to become partners with the communities they come to.

“Because if we are going to absorb the impact of any new development or businesses that come into our communities, they owe us those dollars and those commitments to improve our communities, to invest in those community assets,” he said.

The candidates were asked about their experience in serving the homeless. Campillo shared he served at shelters and kitchens as a high school student and that as a city prosecutor, he pushes for diversion and therapy for every eligible homeless person arrested for drugs or illegal lodging because “prison doesn’t help.”

McIntyre said he has helped at shelters through his involvement in his Methodist church. During his campaign, he said, he has been learning about issues of homelessness by attending shelters Downtown and conducting interviews with housing experts like San Diego Housing Commission CEO Rick Gentry.

Zosa said he has first-hand experience serving homeless through volunteering at Father Joe’s Villages and from taking in a friend who was homeless off and on for some years.

“Each one has a story — they’re not data,” he said. “They each have a soul that needs to be listened to.”

As a teacher, Wheatcroft said she has helped organize students to help homeless and give to food banks.

“Additionally when I taught in Escondido, I had many students who were homeless, who often didn’t qualify for homeless services because they were living with family members or were couch surfing or things like that,” she said, adding that she would address the homelessless issue “head on with compassion.”

A question on the contentious issue of regulating short-term vacation rentals (STVRs) in the city brought a mix of solutions from the candidates.

McIntyre said he believes the city should enforce things like noise complaints, but not stop property owners from renting their single-family homes, although he added that he was concerned about the trend to rent out apartments as STVRs. Overall, he said, the city needs to clarify the rules.

“We’ve had three different city attorneys and they’ve come up with three different opinions about whether short-term rentals are legal or not,” he said. “I think we need to make things more clear and make sure what we have.”

Zosa said the homeowners association he is president of doesn’t allow STVRs, that he isn’t a “big fan” of them and that they do take away housing supply in the city — although he said beach communities are a “different story” than District 7 neighborhoods.

“No one wants to live next to an Airbnb where there [are] people throwing parties and just keeping people up late at night,” he said.

Zosa said he has met with STVR advocates from ShareSD to discuss “reasonable regulations.”

Wheatcroft said her recently released housing plan addresses the issue of STVRs.

“Step one in that is bringing vacant units to market,” she said. “We have almost 16,000 units being used as short-term vacation rentals and those are much-needed housing, so the city needs to be enforcing the laws they currently have or clarifying them in order to do so.”

Her plan also proposes a vacancy tax on investor-owned properties, which will penalize property managers of high rises that sit “half empty” in the city.

Campillo said the right approach to STVRs is to study successful policies in other cities and offered up some ideas for regulations.

“The key to solving this problem is an enforcement mechanism for noise and nuisance issues,” he said. His plan would be a permit system where property owners apply and then are responsible for those who rent their homes. The plan would include a strike system with graduating fines — $1,000 for first, $5,000 for second, and the third is $10,000 and the permit pulled.

The issue of funding bike lanes also brought a mix of responses.

Zosa said that as a member of the Mobility Board, he voted against spending $279 million on 70 miles of bike lanes.

“That is $5.5 million per mile … to put in aike lanes. It takes just over a million dollars to repave an entire street. That’s where the money should be going to,” he said.

Wheatcroft said she supports implementing Safe Routes to School – a program that beefs up pedestrian and biking infrastructure near schools so parents don’t feel the need to drive kids to school.

“If you go out in front of any school in San Diego in the mornings and the afternoons, you’ll see cars wrapped around the blocks waiting to pick up their kids. And in many cases, these children can safely walk to school but there is the impression that it is not safe,” she said, adding that safety infrastructure that leads to walking or biking reduces our carbon footprint.

Campillo said he supports bike lanes to help implement Vision Zero, a worldwide plan to create safer sidewalks and bike lanes and added that the city needs to balance budget concerns with the need for safety.

McIntyre said some bike lanes are good, but the city should prioritize its backlog of street repairs.

“In San Diego, most San Diegans are still using cars — we have to get around,” he said.

A couple of issues local to District 7 — the proposed Franklin Ridge connection and leaded fuel use at Montgomery Field — were up next.

Wheatcroft supported the Franklin Ridge connector, citing need for safe access to Civita and a future school in Mission Valley. Campillo agreed the connector will help with traffic and suggested that the local planning groups come up with ways to make the new road safer before building the road.

Zosa said he was concerned about the connection and how it would impact Civita and Serra Mesa and promised to fight for communities from getting overrun by the city.

McIntyre said he would analyze the issue and decide the best outcome, even if not everyone gets what they want. Likewise, he said the issue of leaded gas at Montgomery is a concern but he would need to consider information from experts, neighborhood residents and the airport community.

Zosa also said he needed more information about the leaded gas issue, even after attending a Serra Mesa meeting where community members and a pilot “came to blows” over the issue.

Wheatcroft supported a ban on leaded fuel and pointed out that lead is already illegal in homes for rent. “Lead causes serious damage to developing brains and bodies of children so to have it being used in airplanes that are flying over our neighborhoods and our schools is a big concern for me,” she said.

Campillo said the city should create policy that grandfathers out the people who have leaded planes.

A discussion on climate change policy followed.

Zosa said climate change is happening but meeting the climate action plan causes “concern to the cost to our everyday lives.” He said SDG&E bills are high because 45% of our energy is now expensive renewables. He said he is also concerned about taking away natural gas from the grid for people who like to cook on gas stoves.

Wheatcroft pointed to the “little steps we all can take” like getting out of cars once or twice a week or composting as ways to meet climate action goals.

Campillo said he would address issues like increased severity of flooding and fires by using San Diego River Conservancy Board water bond money to invest in work retaining canyons and riverbed areas.

McIntyre said the city can’t help with climate issues unless the broken City Hall is fixed.

“One glaring defect in our climate action plan is that it addresses nothing with rising oceans and with all the coastline we have in San Diego, I can’t believe that,” he said.

A question on developing empty lots and bringing in more grocers to District 7 neighborhoods brought a mix of ideas. Wheatcroft suggested the city could buy up empty lots to build mixed-use or affordable housing. Campillo said the planning group should amend the area’s plan to incentivize developers to bring in a grocery store to a vacant lot. McIntyre said he would eliminate red tape. Zosa also called for eliminating burdensome regulations and also suggested expanding public-private partnerships to help businesses open in the city.

On the issue of gun control, all the candidates agreed on some regulations, but to varying degrees.

Campillo said he was proud of his record and experience in the city attorney’s office carrying out red-flag laws in the city. Red-flag laws allow for jurisdictions to remove guns from people who pose a threat to others or themselves through a court process.

“I think that it’s a good thing that the state has amended that law to allow complaints to be filed by school officials,” he added.

McIntyre agreed that red-flag laws are helpful, but also said laws are not entirely effective. “Unfortunately, even in California with some of the strongest gun laws, we still suffer gun violence,” he said.

Zosa took a similar stance adding that gun laws don’t stop gang members from getting guns.

“Gun laws are only part of the solution,” he said. “That’s like homeless only being a housing issue, it’s only one part. We’ve got to address all the issues that cause gun violence — bullying, socioeconomic factors, the lack of a family structure.”

Wheatcroft reiterated her experience as a leader in the gun violence prevention movement for three years and offered some insight to other gun laws that she said could have a greater impact than just focusing on school shootings.

“The overblown response in regards to school shootings is statistically unfounded,” she said. “Kids are more likely to die in their own home or on the streets.”

Wheatcroft said she worked with City Council to pass a safe gun storage ordinance, which holds gun owners accountable if a child or teen uses a gun that wasn’t secured and brings it to school or uses it in a suicide.

“Safe gun storage saves lives and this is the law that needs to be passed nationally,” she added.

The final question for the candidates dealt with whether the strong mayor system is working in the city.

McIntyre said he had “great hopes” for the strong mayor system but is now concerned it has made everything politicized and now the city should return to a city manager system.

“I think a strong city manager with good operational experience may bring some expertise that we’re sorely lacking,” he said.

Wheatcroft agreed that a city with an impartial city manager could be a way to end gridlock at City Hall. “City government is supposed to be non-partisan but we see [partisanship] play out across every district,” she said.

Campillo said no matter what type of government runs San Diego, there will always be problems because whoever is in charge requires accountability.

“Under the city manager form of government, we ran into underfunding our pensions way too far,” he said. “And now we’re seeing a divided government with a strong mayor who doesn’t necessarily work with the majority on the council and that is leading to backlogs and leading to disagreements.”

He suggested city government needs people with the same vision but different backgrounds.

Zosa also lamented on the politics at City Hall as well and said a strong mayor won’t matter if the city is controlled by one political party or by unions and labor.

“Right now, the polls are showing we might elect a Democratic mayor and have a supermajority on the City Council of Democrats,” he said, adding that it is important to have a diversity of voices on the council for debating issues.

- Comuníquese con el editor Jeff Clemetson en [email protected].