The race for San Diego County District 3 Supervisor is one of the more competitive local races for voters to decide on in the region this year. Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer is running against incumbent San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer.
Both are political veterans vying to represent San Diego’s coastal communities, from Carlsbad to Coronado. It is an area Lawson-Remer knows well. Not only has she been representing it since being sworn into the position in January 2021, but it is where she grew up.
“I’m a third generation San Diegan,” she explained. She said she grew up in the Point Loma neighborhood, and she’s raising her own daughter within the coastal district. Before being a supervisor, she said she served as a senior advisor in the Obama Administration among other roles, including as an “economist, and an attorney and a community organizer.”
Decision 2024:
Get top local stories in San Diego delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC San Diego's News Headlines newsletter.
While Faulconer may not be from San Diego, he is very familiar with its communities through more than a decade of experience in local government, including both as a member of city council and as mayor. In 2021, he announced a run for California governor, but the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom failed.
“I’ve decided to step back in because we need to make a change,” Faulconer said about entering the race for Lawson-Remer’s seat. “It was a privilege to serve as mayor and to get elected not only once, but reelected twice, again, as somebody who’s known to work across the aisle and is a problem solver.”
The two candidates have made a point to focus on homelessness throughout their campaigns. Lawson-Remer said she inherited a “bad situation” from Faulconer, while he claimed he “drove it down” while he was leader of the county’s largest city.
“As mayor, we took dramatic action, and what you’re seeing on our streets didn’t used to happen,” Faulconer said. “It takes action, and it takes a sense of urgency, and there is no sense of urgency at this county right now. It’s going in the wrong direction.”
“When he was mayor, he really just let the homeless crisis spiral out of control,” Lawson-Remer said, while she noted the deadly Hepatitis A outbreak in 2017. “Since then, we’ve built nearly 1,000 county-supported shelter beds. We’ve increased, by about 30%, the amount we’re investing in mental health and substance abuse treatment services.”
Lawson-Remer continued to list other programs created or supported by the county, including CARE Court and a senior shallow rent subsidy program to prevent people who are 55 years old or older from falling into homelessness. However, Faulconer does not feel his opponent is effective and believes that he is a better fit for the role.
“The current incumbent Lawson-Remer is failing,” Faulconer said, “and what makes it worse is she claims that homelessness is her number one priority, yet she didn’t show up to work for the county homeless task force, which she’s vice chair of.”
Lawson-Remer responded to the claim and said, simply, he is “lying about me.”
“I’m not on the regional task force on homelessness board,” she elaborated. ‘He said, ‘Well, you’ve missed all the meetings on the regional task force on homelessness continuative care stakeholder meeting,’ to which I send my homelessness expert, who has been at more than 80% of those meetings.”
But, both candidates pointed to each other. Faulconer said she was “caught in a lie on the issue she’s most vulnerable on.”
Lawson-Remer said, if elected, she will continue on the work she has been dedicated to progressing thus far. “I think we have made a lot of progress, but we have a long way to go,” she added.
Faulconer mentioned multiple times he plans to “act” and “take action” if elected, but when asked repeatedly what he would do differently than current county supervisors on the homelessness issue, he did not share specific details.
“It’s time for action, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he said.
