City of San DiegoCandidate for City Council, District 6

I serve as a San Diego County Planning Commissioner and first ran as the San Diego Democratic Party's endorsed candidate for the District 6 seat in 2018. I most recently served as the lead consultant on the ReWild Mission Bay campaign with the San Diego Audubon Society, though for many San Diegans I may be best known for my 10 years on the air at FM 94/9 and later at KPRI and 91X.

I grew up in a labor household in Pittsburgh where my grandfather was a labor organizer and later served as the northeast district director for United Steelworkers, while my father worked as a Steelworkers attorney and later taught law and collective bargaining at the University of Pittsburgh Law School. After high school I attended Ohio University, and after graduation began my broadcast career working in several Ohio markets before moving to Seattle in the 1990s. While in the Pacific Northwest I continued my radio work and began to lend more of my professional and personal time to environmental causes, and moved to San Diego 20 years ago as part of the original FM 94/9 airstaff.

Prior to my work at 91X I briefly worked at 102.1 KPRI in Sorrento Valley, so my wife and I put down our roots in Mira Mesa. We lived along Gold Coast Dr. across from Mason Elementary during our first six years in the community, and we now live near Wangenheim Middle School. Securing effective, local, responsive community representation for our middle class neighbors has driven me in both my 2018 and 2002 campaigns for the District 6 seat, and I'm determined to ensure the voices of our D6 communities are front and center in my service to you at City Hall.

In addition to my service as a San Diego County Planning Commissioner, I was the co-founder and first president of San Diego County Democrats for Envirionmental Action beginning in 2014. I served on the San Diego County Democratic Party Central Committee from 2014 to 2021, and I've served as a California Democratic Party delegate since 2015. I also served as vice president of Citizens Coordinate for Century III (C3) and the communications chair of our local San Diego Surfrider chapter, and I'm an active member of the San Diego-Miramar Lions Club, United Pilipino International (UPI), and the Mira Mesa Town Council.

As part of my volunteer work and advocacy in our communities, I've been a long-time advocate for the now-budgeted rebuilding of Gold Coast Drive and Parkdale Ave. in Mira Mesa, plus I helped facilitate neighborhood support for the transfer of the Mira Mesa Epicentre from the city to the county in conjunction with Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer's office, and I alerted the media and helped galvanize community opposition following the city's bizarre – and dangerous – realignment of traffic lanes on the west end of Gold Coast Dr. near Salk Elementary this past spring. I stood with the south University City community in response to a punitive rezoning push that was shelved by the city (for now), and I will continue to advocate for building housing that people who work for a living and go to school can actually afford.

As part of my volunteer work at FM 94/9 I organized post-wildfire restorative efforts at Rancho Cuyamaca State Park on several consecutive Earth Days, I served as a citizen lobbyist in Sacramento for the California State Parks Foundation, I did herpetology monitoring at Cabrillo National Monument and trail maintenance at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, and I've managed clean-ups at local parks around District 6 and at Miramar National Cemetery in conjunction with our San Diego-Miramar Lions Club.

I'm running because our D6 communities have been forgotten about by City Hall. Instead of rebuilding broken streets like Gold Coast Drive, the city has chosen to throw at least $86 million of city park and road funds away on the 101 Ash Street settlement, rewarding those who scammed our city in the first place. Instead of rebuilding our roads and restoring our parks, the city instead moved forward with a wasteful, secretive, performative bicycle lane redesign on Gold Coast Drive, tried to subvert the south University City neighborhood with a punitive rezoning proposal, and is now trying to levy a secondary Trash Tax on our middle class neighbors. This has to stop.

As the economic center of San Diego, our D6 communities demand the same level of attention, responsiveness, and access to services as La Jolla, Rancho Bernardo, or Del Cerro. Yet we have been poorly served by last three councilmembers our communities have had representing us since 2008, who have served the needs of Downtown lobbyists, developers, real estate speculators, and the political donor class through our council seat – instead of the hard-working neighbors of our D6 communities. We can see the result of that neglect today in the decaying condition of our roads and parks.

I will be a clean break from the special interests that have commandeered our district and our city that enable developers to run roughshod over community groups and neighbors. I will move to increase the inclusionary housing ordinance to 20 percent and work with council colleagues to create an emergency infrastructure package for all our communities around the city, open discussions on a vacancy tax and rent control, promote a city bank or public/private partnership that can offer low-cost loans for competitive down payments for first-time homebuyers, and push for more police officers and greater police funding to retain officers. More than anything, I will create the leadership space within San Diego City Council to serve as an effective counterweight to our city's strong mayor form of government.

I hope you'll consider our "Neighborhoods First" campaign when filling out your ballot for the ethics of good government, a cleaner environment, a more prosperous future for working San Diegans, basic public safety necessities, and effective, active, and engaged representation at City Hall with the wisdom and ability to make informed citywide decisions. I'm an unbought community advocate (the neighborhood guy, not the developers' guy) ready to fight the Downtown establishment and city hall business-as-usual to serve as your next District 6 councilmember and deliver effective, ethical, honorable representation at City Hall.

I'd be honored to have your support to help our communities push back against the tsunami of Downtown special interest money now trying to buy this election and distract neighbors from the most critical issues. We can do better. It starts with your vote.