There are two candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot for San Diego City Council District 4: Republican dietitian Gloria Evangelista and Democratic incumbent Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe. The GOP candidate did not provide a photo. Follow the links for their answers to a 14-question survey The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board emailed candidates.
Q: Why do you want this job? What in your background makes you a good fit for this job?
A: I have lived in San Diego for over 50 years and grew up in Paradise Hills. I love San Diego, but don’t like where I’m seeing San Diego and the state of California headed because of policies that are politically influenced. My background as a dietitian/health care professional has taught me to identify and address root causes to problems and work in collaboration with others to find evidence-based and individualized solutions that will bring the best quality of life for the clients we serve.
In the same way, I will help identify root causes and find evidence-based solutions to the problems the city faces and work for the best quality of life for the residents of San Diego, especially those in District 4. I am God-fearing, have integrity and am fiscally responsible. The Bible says to “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. … Speak up and judge fairly, defend the rights of the poor.” (Proverbs 31:8-9). District 4 is one of the most diverse districts in the city of San Diego. Average family household income in this district is lower than the average family income in San Diego County as a whole. I want to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. If elected, I will listen to residents’ concerns and represent their needs. I will not blindly follow or be negatively influenced by the agendas of a political party.
Q: How will you ensure the legally binding goals of the city’s Climate Action Plan are met? How will you ensure practicality, equity and effectiveness in a transition to a greener society?
A: Solar and wind are important sources of energy. Farming preservation can be used more to capture carbon emissions. However, I do not support California’s plan to phase out the use of gasoline in vehicles and natural gas in homes beginning in the 2030s. This is not practical, equitable or effective, as shown by the recent heat wave where residents were told to conserve energy and not charge electric cars because of the tax it would put on the electrical grid.
Currently 86 percent of homes in California use gas for cooling, heating, water heaters and clothes dryers. California has the highest poverty rate in America. Other sources of electricity, on an energy equivalent basis, cost about four times as much as natural gas. Californians already pay some of the highest electricity prices in America, 47 percent higher than the national average.
Assemblymember Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove, says the gas ban shows “deliberate indifference” to the needs of California’s low- and middle-income consumers. Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, says the ban doesn’t mention “what the cost impacts would be on customers who are struggling with utility costs, and household expenses.”
Jamie Moraga, president and CEO of San Diego-based IntelliSolutions, says this plan “will cost billions,” and asks, “how it’s going to get paid for without further burdening taxpayers?” She thinks housing costs will increase, “making living in San Diego even more difficult to afford.” My opponent voted for this plan that bans natural gas. This is one example of a political agenda that will have a profoundly negative effect on San Diegans, especially those in District 4.
Q: Do you support the new SANDAG mobility plan to improve transit to the airport and around the region? Would you support a sales tax increase or a mileage fee to pay for it?
A: No, I don’t support this plan. This plan will cost $165 billion and will be the most expensive transportation plan San Diego County has had. The plan proposes to provide more train and bus transportation throughout the county, make tunnels going to the airport, and convert freeway lanes into managed and toll roads. SANDAG’s plan is to “change behavior,” to have most people use public transportation instead of single-occupancy vehicles. This is not the transportation plan that San Diegans voted for. It is a Climate Action Plan goal. The elimination of vehicles is not practical for many San Diegans. We are not New York or Washington, D.C., and I’m sure most San Diegans would say that we don’t want to be either.
Instead, we can lower the budget on this plan, add a few trains and bus lines throughout the city, but also address freeway traffic problems (such as freeway bottlenecks), create more lanes for high-occupancy vehicles, increase the amount of freeway lanes and fix the roads and sidewalks that we already have, which is what voters have repeatedly expressed a need for, while not much has been done about it.
Because I do not support the SANDAG plan, I do not support the proposals to pay for this plan, including the mileage fee, charging drivers of vehicles a fee for every mile they drive (which will be difficult to hold people accountable to) and/or the three half-cent sales tax hikes.
Q: What steps would you take to address the city’s housing crisis? What’s your view of using empty commercial buildings or vacant malls for housing?
A: I am in favor of using empty commercial buildings/vacant malls for housing as long as there is adequate parking for all residents in the neighborhood.
The Climate Action Plan also plays a role in affordable housing. In an essay for the Breakthrough Institute headlined “Green Jim Crow,” environmental lawyer Jennifer Hernandez wrote that a small group of regulators and politicians, with backing of the state’s powerful environmental groups, have created “a new Green Jim Crow era,” where “racist climate housing policies are strongly linked to its racist climate transportation policies.”
Hernandez is lead lawyer for The Two Hundred, a group of Latino civil-rights leaders who filed a civil rights lawsuit over California’s climate, housing and transportation policies. The lawsuit says that the state’s housing crisis is “re-segregating the state, and is deepening an already severe civil rights crisis,” and that “entrenched special interest groups, including environmentalists, block meaningful housing policy reforms.” The lawsuit also says that the state’s new rules on vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, will further segregate the state and make housing even more expensive, by adding $40,000 to $400,000 to the cost of a new housing unit.
My opponent, Monica Montgomery Steppe, supports the VMT reduction mandate.
If we are truly serious about addressing the city’s affordable housing and the homeless crisis, we need to heed Hernandez’ conclusion, “We are long overdue to reconsider California’s racist, inequitable and ineffectual climate agenda.”
Q: What can realistically be done to address homelessness in the city? How would you try to accomplish it?
A: The most important way San Diego can address homelessness is to keep housing and cost of living expenses affordable to prevent homelessness from occurring in the first place. If housing and cost of living expenses continue to rise, we will see more homeless on our streets and San Diego will look like Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Along with the efforts of the San Diego Housing Commission and other organizations addressing homelessness, we can also look to other cities that have been successful on this issue. Houston is recognized as being successful using a “housing first” approach, supported by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to house people before providing them with necessary treatments. Officials centralized their data and leadership under a nonprofit, Coalition for the Homeless, working with over 100 local nonprofits to expedite the process of matching unhoused people with open apartments owned by partner landlords.
Long Beach Rescue Mission partnered with an architectural firm and came up with a plan called “Re-habit,” repurposing obsolete big box stores into smaller retail stores while also providing transitional housing, employment and support for homeless individuals. This could also be done here in San Diego. The city could secure sites throughout the city and work in collaboration with the San Diego Rescue Mission and other faith-based organizations, which already does a good job at helping the homeless in providing them with rehabilitation, services and transitional housing into independent living. No obligation grants can be given to programs proven to be most effective and can be expanded.
Q: How would you work to ensure better city oversight to avoid real-estate debacles such as 101 Ash Street?
A: Long-term debt for the city requires voter approval. City officials got around going through voter approval by brokering the 101 Ash Street deal as a lease-to-own contract, with Cisterra Development acting as a go-between. Cybele Thompson, the then-head of the city’s Real Estate Assets department, relied on Cisterra’s site inspection report to assess the cost of needed repairs before the deal was made. Based on this report, she relayed to the City Council that all that was needed was a power wash, costing $10,000. The City Council approved this deal relying on Thompson’s advice. After approval, the building was found needing repairs totaling $115 million, including asbestos removal.
To ensure better oversight to avoid real estate disasters such as this, I would first recommend classifying lease-to-own contracts as long-term debt that requires voter approval. When buying a home, due diligence is made by hiring qualified home inspectors/appraisers to tell you about the problems associated with the home so that total costs can be estimated. It should be a requirement that the city exercise due diligence and use reputable building inspectors/appraisers to thoroughly inspect and assess all real estate purchases and convey total costs needed before purchases are made. The city should never be allowed to rely on third-party broker reports. It should also be required that the City Council have all documentation on inspections, assessments and all aspects of real estate deals with adequate time to study them before making decisions. City officials need to be good stewards of and held accountable for taxpayer money.
Q: Does San Diego need a new City Hall?
A: Not unless the current City Hall is uninhabitable and not until taxpayer priorities are addressed first. San Diego has a $4.12 billion infrastructure backlog. Taxpayer money should be used first for what concerns and will benefit taxpayers most, issues such as improved infrastructure (repairing streets and sidewalks), cost of living expenses, housing affordability, homelessness and safety.
Q: Do you believe that the city auditor should have access to independent legal advice?
A: Yes, City Auditor Andy Hanau supports a city ballot measure for independent legal advice based on current structural conflicts with the city attorney advising both city auditors and the city departments and the subjects of the city that are being audited. One example he gave was that documents that the auditor requested were not given to him because the city lawyer withheld them, stating attorney-client privilege. When there are conflicts of interest, access to independent legal counsel outside the government system would assist the city auditor to better enable the auditor to do a more thorough and effective job.
Q: Recruitment and retention is a big issue for the San Diego Police Department. What more should be done to ensure adequate police staffing levels and prompt response times?
A: According to an April NBC 7 investigative report, San Diego City police officers are leaving in triple digits each year, with those in Carlsbad, El Cajon and Chula Vista losing officers only in the double digits. Many are leaving because of the recent cries for defunding the police, national protests, and lack of support from the community and community leaders. Some have transferred to other states where police are supported and given signing bonuses. Many have left because of the vaccine mandate and have gone to other cities in San Diego county, which do not have a vaccine mandate. (My opponent voted in favor of the vaccine mandate.) The NBC 7 report also showed how cities, such as Chula Vista, operates differently, investing heavily in technology to help officers address crime. They also provide work flexibility, allowing officers to choose their days off and the shifts they work.
Lifting the vaccine mandate and employing these and other strategies can be implemented with the SDPD for better officer retention. Support, not vilification, from community leaders and the community is important for morale. One ex-police chief suggested City Council members assist in recruiting by having a monthly or bimonthly community recruiting day in their council districts.
Staffing shortages and veteran police officers leaving have contributed to slower response times because new recruits are hired but need training and six months to a year of shadowing another police officer before they are able to work on their own. Retaining police officers in the SDPD is essential to keeping our neighborhoods safe.
Q: What should be done to eliminate disproportionate use of force and traffic stops by SDPD officers in communities of color?
A: Regular de-escalation training can be combined with a program that promotes race relations would be valuable for SDPD officers. De-escalation training is already required in California. I would suggest combing de-escalation training with another program based on Miles McPherson’s book, “The Third Option,” which discusses police-community relations and discourages “dishonorable assumptions” which are made both by police and by people in the community and, instead, promotes honoring the image of God in every person. This program can be designed to be used in police training, while another could be used in communities of color where the police and members of the community have an open dialogue about these principles for better police-community relations.
There could also be more community events, such as the recent Tacos with a Cop, to help officers engage more with the communities they serve in a positive setting. Officers could also randomly give coupons, such as to restaurants or grocery stores, to people of color in the communities they serve to promote positive one-on-one interactions instead of negative ones.
My opponent sponsors the PrOTECT Act, a proposed law that eliminates police stops for equipment violations and restricts police from investigating DUIs and checking for outstanding warrants during traffic stops, that would, in theory, help eliminate disproportionate use of force and traffic stops by SDPD officers.
I believe it it will tie up the hands of law enforcement, and compromise neighborhood safety instead. We have learned these past few years that defunding the police and other measures created to “reimagine” policing, in New York, Los Angeles, Portland, Minnesota, and others, have resulted in even more crime, not less. This has not helped in any community, including communities of color, but have only made things worse. In San Diego, we need to promote law and order, not lawlessness, for the safety of all of our residents.
Q: San Diego has been criticized for its use of Smart Streetlights and gunshot-detection technology. What is the right amount of surveillance and how do you balance this technology against privacy and equity concerns?
A: These technologies should not have been installed without voter approval. A company pitched the Smart Streetlights to the City Council in 2016 as an energy-saving program that would also help the city meet its transit, mobility and environmental goals by learning which areas needed the most resources. Council members weren’t told that they also had surveillance cameras.
I agree with the ordinance that will provide oversight on how the surveillance from these cameras are used for privacy and equity concerns and the amendment to exclude police officers on task forces from revealing what they’re using the surveillance technology for.
Q: Do you support repealing the People’s Ordinance, which bans city officials from charging fees for trash collection at single-family homes? Why or why not?
A: No. Single-family homeowners already pay for trash collection fees through their property taxes. Measure B is especially dangerous because it does not give a set fee of how much trash collection/recycling, etc. will be, which can then be increased over a period of time by the City without voter approval. This is not the time to impose another fee, especially when the average American household is paying an extra $717 a month for gas, food, utilities, health care, according to one analysis last month.
I agree with an Opinion piece by Paul Krueger, in which he specifically mentions the communities in District 4 being disproportionately affected by this measure. He says Measure B, “purports to fix an admittedly unfair system, but it only makes it more unfair. Measure B would inflict the most pain on homeowners in our lower-income neighborhoods, many of which are south of Interstate 8, including Lincoln Park, Paradise Hills, Valencia Park, Encanto, Oak Park, Emerald Hills and others. Around 78 percent of the residents there own or reside in single-family homes, and, according to the San Diego Association of Governments, about 61 percent of the people living in these communities are Black or Hispanic.”
My opponent voted in favor of sending this measure to the Nov. 8 ballot. She also recently voted in favor of a water rate hike for the city of San Diego, despite residents’ pleas that water bills are making it harder for them to pay their bills. Voting for more fees and higher water and utility rates shows that maybe City Council members are not as concerned with residents’ socio-economic welfare as they say they are, especially for those who are most affected: those in the low- to middle-income brackets. If elected, I will fight and vote for lower fees, water and utility bills and lower cost of living expenses for San Diego residents.
Q: Do you support raising the 30-foot height limit in the Midway District to allow for redevelopment on the Sports Arena site? Why or why not?
A: No. It was the voters who approved a 30-foot height limit in areas west of Interstate 5 and voters who created a California Coastal Commission to preserve sightlines near beaches and bays. I understand the Midway District doesn’t have coastal views; however, the Midway District still falls under this initiative. At the Midway District, increasing the height limit would contribute to further congestion in an already-overwhelmed intersection of East Mission Bay Drive and Balboa and Garnet Avenues. The director of San Diego’s planning department says that the state’s density bonus law (which allows the city to grant waivers for projects that include affordable housing) supersedes local voter initiatives. This means that the city can also use the state’s density bonus law to grant waivers for projects that could be extended to University City, Pacific Beach and the South Bay, which do have coastal views.
Q: Why should voters elect you over your opponent?
A: I am running for City Council because I want to represent the voters and their concerns. The voters can compare my responses to my opponent’s voting record and see which one best represents their concerns. My allegiance is to God and will be to the residents of San Diego, especially those in District 4. I will not be bound to a political party or its agenda but will work for the good of the people I serve.