Mayoral Candidates Bry and Gloria Are Two Democrats With Differing Views On City's Top Issues

Speaker 1: 00:00 Among the most consequential races in San Diego. This election season is the race for San Diego mayor, Speaker 2: 00:05 Both candidates, assemblyman members, Speaker 1: 00:08 Gloria and city council member, Barbara Bree are Democrats, but KBB S Metro reporter, Andrew Burns says their priorities are quite different. Speaker 2: 00:18 I made an omelet. It's just past 10:00 AM. And Todd Gloria is volunteering at a North park cafe preparing meals for seniors. He's still working on his omelet, flipping technique. Do you see that anybody, anybody did you catch that the program is called great plates delivered. The state of California pays restaurants to prepare and deliver meals to older adults who were stuck at home because of COVID-19. Gloria strikes up a conversation with the chef who says he's working three jobs to keep his family afloat. Gloria later tells me he can sympathize. I grew up in a working class family. I rode the bus, has a young man. I understand what a lot of folks must do to get by before he was elected to the state assembly. Gloria served on the San Diego city council for eight years, including six months as interim mayor as the COVID-19 pandemic takes its toll on the city budget. Speaker 2: 01:11 Gloria says, this is an area where he has relevant experience. I served as the city's budget chair for six to eight years that I was at city hall. We were able to take the city from massive budget deficits, resulting from the great recession, turn them into surpluses and reserves that thankfully will help mitigate some of the cuts that will be necessary going forward. I would point out that the city was running a deficit prior to the pandemic, but really reflection of, I think the poor fiscal stewardship over the last four years by this mayor and by my opponent, who is the chair of the budget committee. Speaker 1: 01:43 Great. Well, I'm honored to have your vote and thank you very much for coming to get a yard sign. Speaker 2: 01:47 Gloria. His opponent is city council member, Barbara Bree. We meet her at the home of a supporter as she's handing out yard signs and talking with a group of her backers. We have a cat too. We have two cats Speaker 1: 01:59 And their dogs. Wow. Speaker 2: 02:01 Bree was elected to the council in 2016, before politics. She had a successful business career. Co-founding an eCommerce company and incubating other tech startups. She says she's proud of helping sink the soccer city ballot measure in 2018, demanding an independent audit of the city's overbuilding of water customers and asking tough questions about the city's bad record on real estate deals. Speaker 1: 02:26 I'm running for mayor, first of all, to bring accountability and transparency to city hall, to lead an inclusive economic recovery. As we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exemplified our existing inequities. And it's why I believe my private sector experience is so important in creating jobs, in terms of how we're going to have an economy. That's going to get everybody back to work. Speaker 2: 02:54 Breeze platform includes banning dock lists, scooter sharing companies and short term rentals. She says she supports increasing density near public transit stops as a way to alleviate the city's housing crisis, but opposes allowing duplexes in neighborhoods otherwise restricted to low density housing brief still hasn't decided how she'll vote this election on measure a which would allow the city to issue bonds to fund affordable housing. She says the measure is increased. A property taxes gives her pause Speaker 1: 03:24 And Andrew, when we raise property taxes, somebody pays, I mean, homeowners pay renters pay. It's all passed on. So we're in the middle of a pandemic. What I might have done six months ago, different than what, why I'm still thinking today because we still have many San Diego ans out of work. And this, this is could be a very challenging time to raise taxes. Speaker 2: 03:47 Gloria supports measure a and says when San Diego is tasked with tackling big problems like homelessness later too often becomes never, you know, even in this pandemic, even in this recession, even with people marching in the streets, the most common thing that is shared with me as a concern by San Diego is homelessness. They see thousands of our neighbors sleeping, outdoors, unsheltered, and they want something done about it. This is a way we can do something about it. San Diego's next mayor will face more than just a massive budget deficit at the city. Unemployment is still higher than its peak during the great recession. Thousands of families could face eviction making the homelessness crisis even worse who occupies the most powerful position in city government matters now more than ever Andrew Bowen KPBS news. Speaker 1: 04:35 We're joined now by KPBS Metro reporter, Andrew Bowen. Andrew, thanks for zooming in Speaker 2: 04:41 My pleasure. My pleasure, Alison. Speaker 1: 04:44 So now as you point out in your piece, both of these candidates are Democrats, but they have different backgrounds and priorities. You know, Todd Gloria has been volunteering for political causes since his teens spend his whole career in public office and lives in mission Hills while Barbara Breeza successful business woman who lives in LA Jolla, how would you say their backgrounds affect where they're coming from politically? Speaker 2: 05:05 Well, Brie definitely talks about her private sector experience a lot in that business acumen, uh, you know, preparing her for, uh, running a government, knowing how to run a budget. Um, she also founded, uh, more than one organization to empower women in leadership. Um, uh, both in the government and in the private sector, um, in her announcement video, which was, uh, gosh, I'll like January of last year, I think, um, she acknowledged her own privilege. She said she's white. She had an MBA from the Harvard business school when she was starting her career as an entrepreneur. And so there were a lot of open doors and she wants to make that opportunity available to everyone regardless of their backgrounds. Um, Gloria often talks about his humble beginnings. He says, he's the son of a maid and a gardener. And, um, you know, his family was able to work its way into the middle class at a time when home ownership was more accessible in San Diego. Speaker 2: 05:56 And he wants to, um, bring that back. He, um, you know, you can see that background in some of the issues that he's advocated for, for example, the minimum wage increase in San Diego, which he passed as, um, interim mayor. It was then, uh, excuse me. He passed when he was on the council, it was vetoed by the mayor, then overturned by the council and eventually referendum and approved by voters. And he says, you know, that's kind of an example of his stick to it. And, um, in regards to his public service career, he says, he, you know, Bree has criticized him as being, you know, in government his whole life. And he says, well, he shouldn't be expected to apologize for that. He's proud of the work that he's done. He has very direct experience doing this job, running the city. He was interim mayor for six months. And I think it's worth saying also that he would be the first gay mayor in San Diego, openly gay mayor. And he's definitely been drawn to issues affecting the LGBT community, um, including access to HIV treatment at the state level. Speaker 1: 06:55 Okay. Now a key issue in the race is a vision for how San Diego grows sum up how they differ on where to increase housing density. Speaker 2: 07:04 Well, the whole discourse around housing and density has really shifted in San Diego recently to the point where it's no longer acceptable to just say no to it. And both of them say they support adding density near public transit in general. Um, but when you get to the specifics, Bree, I think is pretty clearly the less friendly candidate to growth and development. She points to her support for our community plan updates, which have increased density and a lot of neighborhoods as evidence that she's not anti-growth. Um, she also voted against a parking reform, which would have allowed more homes with fewer parking spaces. When a project is near a transit, Gloria supported that she opposes measure E to raise the height limit in midway that would allow for a lot more density there. And, uh, Gloria supports that, um, she's voted against some pretty controversial, uh, housing proposals and projects, for example, a 400 unit complex in Claremont that was a hundred percent affordable and low income. And she was the only no vote on that one. Um, just last week she voted against a 50 unit, uh, mixed income apartment building and Carmel mountain ranch. Um, so I think Gloria actually has a track record of supporting growth and density even when it's upset some of his own constituents. And so when you look at their records, the way that they talk about housing and growth, I think if the question is who is more pro housing and more willing to make the sometimes unpopular decisions around growth? I think Gloria is probably that candidate. Speaker 1: 08:29 No, they're different on prop a that's the measure on the ballot that would raise $900 million from increased property taxes to build thousands of new subsidized, affordable housing briefly, where do they differ? Speaker 2: 08:41 Well, Gloria supports it and Brie hasn't decided yet as, at least as of when we spoke a couple of weeks ago. Um, she voted to put this measure on the ballot, but she, um, is, uh, concerned about, uh, raising property at this time. And I think, um, her hesitation, uh, is, is kind of where you see breeze moderate to conservative side coming through. Um, she's definitely appealed to more conservative voters in the city and in the rhetoric and the position she's taking. You can, you can see that, um, Gloria says, you know, this is the best chance that San Diego has to make a serious dent in our affordable housing shortage and our homelessness crisis. And we just have to, to say yes, because if we wait too long, you know, sometimes as, as you heard in the feature, um, never become later, becomes never in San Diego. Speaker 1: 09:29 And finally, in the half minutes we have left Todd Gloria came out ahead in the primary, but Bree managed to defeat Republican Scott Sherman to come in second. So how has their fundraising going on? What do polls say about their chances? Speaker 2: 09:41 Yeah. Poles are kind of a mixed bag. You know, um, there was a poll earlier that was done by the UT and 10 news that showed Bria head by a few points. It was later criticized as overrepresented Republicans. So not sure, you know, how much we can read into that. Um, as far as fundraising, there was one report where Bree was ahead and then the following fundraising report, Todd Gloria was ahead. So, um, in terms of money, uh, I think Gloria clearly has more money in the bank and he's definitely got more support from these outside, um, political action committees that will be spending on his behalf. Uh, but you know, obviously the most important poll is the one on election day. Okay. Speaker 1: 10:17 Exciting race, Andrew. Thanks so much. Thank you. Alison. We've been speaking with KPBS, Metro reporter, Andrew Bowen.