It’s the grand finale in the race to be San Diego’s next mayor. Mayor Todd Gloria and challenger Larry Turner are campaigning all around the town ahead of Tuesday. NBC 7’s Joey Safchik caught up with both candidates.
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The San Diego mayoral candidates vying for your vote this fall hope to tackle the same issues — housing, homelessness, infrastructure, to name a few — but have disparate resumes and are at odds about how to best handle city affairs.
Democrat Todd Gloria, the incumbent, touts his decade and a half of political experience as a great asset. He served on the San Diego City Council and in Sacramento before becoming mayor in 2020 and leading the city out of the pandemic.
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“If given the opportunity to continue to do this job for four years, I will be here to finish the vision what I’ve started as mayor in my first term that I need a second term to actually accomplish,” Gloria said. “The foundations that we've laid in the first term will be beneficial to making sure that in the second term that we run up the score and get more wins for our city.”
His opponent, independent Larry Turner, is a police officer and retired Marine with no experience as an elected official. Turner believes being a fresh face is a boon.
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“I've got really good tour guides guiding me through this jungle, and I'm the guy who's in there to make the tough decisions and fix it where it needs to happen,” Turner said. “That is my greatest superpower, is putting together amazing teams. I’ve done that all over the world. And, you know, it's just been I find the right people with the right expertise and empower them.”
Homelessness and housing costs are critical issues for voters and the candidates alike.
“New home permits to bring down the cost of housing, we hit a historic high," Gloria said. "We got to go higher. Number of homeless shelter beds created is up, but we need to go higher."
While the city has added beds during Gloria's tenure, hundreds of them are set to go offline before the end of the year.
“So what are we going to do?" Gloria said. "We are going to expand our existing and very successful Safe Sleeping Sites. Those have been a home run. So, immediate short term: Expand that to make sure that the bed losses at Golden Hall do not result in anyone going back to the street. That's an iron-clad commitment. No one is going back to the streets."
Turner said he would rely on philanthropic donations and programs already in existence to tackle the homelessness crisis.
“They're ready to come in here and drop the money," Turner said, "and it’s going to be a private-city partnership. Other cities have done something like this before. I think we’re going to do it a lot better. There are amazing programs out there that I don't need to copy. They’re already there, and they know how to run it. I empower them.”
The recent budget shortfall and ominous predictions for next year's finances, loom large for both candidates. However, their spending plans are at odds, especially in regard to the one-cent sales tax increase on the ballot.
“Strongly opposed, strongly opposed,” said Turner. “We're going to make smart cuts ... everything that is not homelessness, infrastructure and public safety.”
Gloria defends the sales tax, which he brought forth, and said decades of financial mismanagement have left the city in dire straits.
“I inherited a budget of around 40 million in road repair," Gloria said. "Last year, we took it to nearly $150 million. So you know exactly what we would do with these resources if we’re given them by the voters.... The price tag for our deferred maintenance is over $9 billion. The city's general fund budget is slightly over $2 billion. There is no way to belt-tighten our way out of this problem.”
Gloria said he is not being vetted for a job within a potential Harris administration.
"No. No. And I appreciate you asking the question, because I want to be extremely clear: I have my dream job and I'm running to keep my dream job,” Gloria said.
