Q&A with Chula Vista mayoral candidates

Six people are competing for a chance to be the next mayor of Chula Vista, San Diego County’s second-largest city. , has an open seat for a new mayor and voters will select from a pool of six hopefuls in the June 7 primary election.

Mayor Mary Casillas Salas, the city’s first Latina mayor, is termed out and barred from running for re-election.

The candidates running in the June 7 primary are Ammar Campa-Najjar, a small business owner who previously ran for Congress to represent East County; Spencer Cash, a retired U.S. Army aeromedical evacuation officer; Jill Galvez, a small business owner and Chula Vista District 2 council member; Zaneta Encarnacion, the chief of staff to Southwestern College’s president; John McCann, a small business owner and Chula Vista District 1 council member; and Rudy Ramirez, a small business owner and former Chula Vista council member.

The top two vote-getters will face off in the November general election. All six candidates answered three questions about their top priorities and how they would address some of the most pressing issues affecting Chula Vista.

Ammar Campa-Najjar

Ammar Campa-Najjar

Age: 33
Residence: Eastlake
Political affiliation: Democrat

Q. If elected, what would be your first order of business?

We got roughly $57 million in (federal stimulus dollars). We have to spend the extra $30 million by 2024. What are we gonna do with that? How do we use that in a way that really lifts up the lives of people in west Chula Vista and east Chula Vista?

I want to make sure that in my first 100 days we come up with an aggressive economic growth plan for the city because we have services that are neglected: public safety, road repair, and homelessness. How do we pay for that? We fought to get Measure A for public safety … we can’t do that again. There’s money out there. Congress just passed $1.7 trillion in infrastructure. Chula Vista should get a lot more than it’s getting.

Q. How satisfied are you with the city’s handling of homelessness? What would you add or do differently throughout your term?

I think we have a responsibility to every homegrown Chula Vistan who’s homeless to help them with wraparound services, mental health, vocational training (and) transitional housing. You need to partner with nonprofits.

That’s kind of been my message: create partnerships, have leadership to lead people that have the vision, understand that government cannot do it all. We can’t tax our way out of it. You can grow the economy and create partnerships to have the funding to do these things.

Q. How would you combat the high costs of housing in Chula Vista and what would be your plan to boost affordable housing?

There’s three ways to fix the housing problem. One is more inventory, just building more. Two is rent control, which I think drives out developers and investment in the city … and the third is to increase the buying power of people who live here with good paying jobs. I want to focus on the good paying jobs but also on the inventory. I want to look at the empty (San Diego Metropolitan Transit System) parking lots and building housing there … looking at two story apartments and making them mid-risers and high-risers (and) looking at duplexes and doing the same.

Spencer Cash

Spencer Cash

Age: 45
Residence: Eastlake
Political affiliation: Independent

Q. If elected, what would be your first order of business?

To adopt the federal contracting standards and business practices for the city so that we can renegotiate all of the contracts and improve the city’s ethical practices. We’ve experienced the trash strike with the franchise service agreement. This adoption will bring our city up to a higher ethical business practice level and that opens the door for me to loop through and renegotiate all of the contracts and ensure that we’re getting the best price for the goods and services that we’re paying for because that’s the problem. Our city’s being fleeced. The taxpayers are being swindled and I’m going to stop it.

Q. How satisfied are you with the city’s handling of homelessness? What would you add or do differently throughout your term?

I’m not satisfied that our charities who directly support those that are homeless have ceased involvement and actions with the city. I pledge that I will rebuild the relationship with (the nonprofit) Community Through Hope and all the other charities that have severed their ties with the city. On top of that, I will strengthen those relationships with the charities that are providing direct assistance with the city to those that are homeless and helping those in need.

3. How would you combat the high costs of housing in Chula Vista and what would be your plan to boost affordable housing?

My plan to increase the capacity of those residents to purchase houses in Chula Vista is tied to the Chula Vista tech and trade school district, which I propose in place of trying to attract a four-year university here in Chula Vista. That failed idea will not come to fruition. There’s not a single university who’s indicated any real effort to come here and the demographics, as far as the demand, do not support it either. But what is supported are tech and trade schools. This will help folks get credentials and skills and the earnings to enter the market for home buying.

Jill Galvez

(www.JillGalvez.com)

Jill Galvez

Age: 55
Residence: northwest Chula Vista
Political affiliation: Democrat

Q. If elected, what would be your first order of business?

I’d be very excited to begin working immediately with the brand new council members for District 1 and District 2. We would need to determine if we would appoint or have an election to fill the District 3 seat (if Councilmember Steve Padilla wins the election for state Senate District 18). The first order of business is bringing the new council members up to speed and diving into their priorities and their issues.

Q. How satisfied are you with the city’s handling of homelessness? What would you add or do differently throughout your term?

At the moment, we’re focusing on transitional housing, something that has been lacking in our policy. We have affordable housing, we have housing vouchers, we’ve worked closely with many service providers and social service agencies, but what we’ve been lacking is a true transitional housing program. We are opening 66 Pallet units in a tiny village in the Otay River bottom and that should open in June. It’s my hope that we immediately do another (village program). We need to assess to see if it’s working. I think the most natural place to put a second tiny village shelter is in an area called “the jungle” near Plaza Bonita. It’s in no man’s land between Caltrans, the county of San Diego and National City but that’s what leadership is all about.

3. How would you combat the high costs of housing in Chula Vista and what would be your plan to boost affordable housing?

We already have inclusionary housing for new housing developments in Chula Vista. I do think that housing is a pendulum and interest rates are predicted to rise quite a bit over the next year, year and a half and that should have an impact on the actual cost of housing. I do believe that more housing stock will come on the market in the next few years. I think we’re going to see more seniors feeling comfortable selling their homes and decide to live a more comfortable life in a retirement home.

Zaneta Encarnacion

(Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Zaneta Encarnacion

Age: 49
Residence: Otay Ranch
Political affiliation: Democrat

Q. If elected, what would be your first order of business?

Our first order of business is to take care of the economic health of this community. We know that we might be going into another recession. We have some really great opportunities on the bayfront that people talked about all the time. We also have a lot of opportunities out here on the east side too, with the University Park and Innovation. What we can’t do any longer is we can’t be this bedroom community where more than 80,000 people drive out of this community to go to work and they take their tax dollars with them.

I think we can make sure that the business development actually benefits our community and our small businesses can benefit from our workers. We need to build in the right places with infrastructure in place to support it and in conjunction with bringing higher-paying jobs.

Q. How satisfied are you with the city’s handling of homelessness? What would you add or do differently throughout your term?

I think the city’s efforts to address homelessness are pretty on par with other cities. I think it really requires the city, our nonprofit community and our philanthropic community and faith-based partnerships. I’m really thrilled with the direction the city’s taking on the Pallet shelter. I think that we can probably expand on that and improve that. I don’t think the city has done anything on keeping the communities that exist within the homeless communities together. I don’t think we talk about our homeless residents in that strength-based fashion.

One thing I have committed to early on is creating a mayor’s task force. I’m intent on having either currently homeless individuals or formerly homeless individuals be part of those conversations.

Q. How would you combat the high costs of housing in Chula Vista and what would be your plan to boost affordable housing?

I think we need to build housing in places that have the infrastructure around it to support that housing, (such as) in transit-oriented areas. We need to be able to make sure we have affordable units that are actually designated through the inclusionary housing policy as affordable units. We can have smaller, junior, one-bedroom studios and work studio lofts where we can really start infusing some of the innovation in our community.

John McCann

John McCann

Age: 53
Residence: Eastlake
Political affiliation: Republican

Q. If elected, what would be your first order of business?

Public safety is a priority. When I was on the council in the early 2000s, I had built the number of police officers to 261 officers. When I was in Iraq and off the council, the prior council and mayor slashed the number of officers to under 200. In 2014, I got back on the council and built our police department back up to over 270 officers by making public safety a priority. We need to continue to hire new, additional police officers, build a substation east of (Interstate) 805 and build two additional fire stations in the city.

Q. How satisfied are you with the city’s handling of homelessness? What would you add or do differently throughout your term?

I have been a leader on the homeless front. I led efforts to create a (homeless outreach) team, which is a partnership between nonprofit organizations and our police department to be able to provide help for the homeless and to protect our neighborhoods. I would look to increase our (homeless outreach) team to be able to be more effective. I would not be moving any resources out of any other department to do that. I would be looking to work with outside nonprofits to be able to assist our efforts.

Q. How would you combat the high costs of housing in Chula Vista and what would be your plan to boost affordable housing?

My biggest concern is the missing middle (class). We need to provide more affordable ownership for working-class folk. I grew up in Chula Vista and was raised by a single mother who worked at the Rohr Aircraft factory. We scrimped and saved but we were able to buy our own house. I believe that working-class people, like I was, and my mother was, should be able to have affordable ownership in the city of Chula Vista. An example that I supported (was) we were able to make a deal with Lennar, a housing provider to provide 172 homeownership opportunities. We need to continue to increase the supply of ownership opportunities.

Rudy Ramirez

(Rudy Ramirez)

Rudy Ramirez

Age: 61
Residence: southwest Chula Vista
Political affiliation: Democrat

Q. If elected, what would be your first order of business?

We need to look at our public safety issues. We’re 45 police officers short and we’re not doing that much better on the fire side. We need to be able to understand what’s going on there and why that’s happening and address that people are really feeling the lack of coverage on the east side. The issue of homelessness falls into that. I want to enforce the laws against public camping. I want to attack the petty crime that goes along with homelessness and bring services and facilities to address the issue.

Q. How satisfied are you with the city’s handling of homelessness? What would you add or do differently throughout your term?

I’m not at all satisfied. I think the city government has been negligent in addressing homelessness. I would repair relationships with many of the nonprofits that could provide services to the homeless population. I would work with the Superior Court judge in charge of the local Judicial District and create a homeless court. We don’t need to wait for the state to act. We also need a mental health facility in Chula Vista. The obvious place (to put one) is on the campus of the Scripps (Mercy) Hospital.

3. How would you combat the high costs of housing in Chula Vista and what would be your plan to boost affordable housing?

We have a housing crisis and it needs to be addressed. It’s not going to go away. The key is going to be working with your existing communities and building the trust that you need in order to provide additional housing and affordable housing. There are ways to protect single-family, residential neighborhoods so that their quality of life isn’t affected.