Colleen Cusack
San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board / Feb.16, 2024
As any student of politics can attest, governing bodies benefit from having at least one member who is skeptical of claims put forward by dominant political factions and realizes that many consultants and staff members tell the politicians who hired them what they want to hear.
This insight drives our view of the race for San Diego City Council District 3, which has Hillcrest at its center and ranges north to include part of Mission Valley, west to Mission Hills, south to Downtown and east to North Park. Incumbent Stephen Whitburn, a former nonprofit executive, is the strong favorite.
In an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, he argued that he has done an exemplary job in responding to the district’s most high-profile issue — widespread homelessness — and the related concerns of businesses and residents about how the presence of so many without shelter affects quality of life. He also sees city housing policies as having success story after success story, citing a project here, a project there, a project in the works over there.
Yes, Whitburn’s signature legislative accomplishment — winning adoption of a homeless camping ban in large parts of the city — is perceived as a success by many San Diegans. There is also no question that Whitburn, Mayor Todd Gloria and council members can point to new shelters and smart initiatives that have genuinely helped people in need, most recently the Safe Sleeping program.
But the camping ban has changed the optics of the issue, not the basic problem — the lack of shelter. And claims of progress on housing are maddening. Progress on process — starting with implementing state laws meant to weaken the clout of NIMBYs and revise restrictive zoning laws — is welcome. Yet Jerry Brown’s view that real progress is unlikely without profound changes — starting with reforming restrictive environmental rules — remains unassailable. If leaders truly wanted to add housing, they would try to clear the way for tens of thousands of cheap, sturdy prefab units, as was done in Great Britain and Japan. The city’s response remains so inadequate that it is far more likely that depopulation in coming decades will solve this problem than the policies Whitburn touts.
The other candidates in this race interviewed by the editorial board — Ellis T. California Jones III, Kate Callen and Coleen Cusack — dismissed the idea that City Hall is making tidy progress on these issues. Jones, a home energy inspector, makes the crucial point that too many assume that homelessness is driven by addiction or mental health issues, which provides cover for city failings. Callen, a North Park Planning Committee member, makes the crucial point that plans to build high-rises in Hillcrest to house tens of thousands of people without having the infrastructure in place to deal with the swelling population is a formula for community misery.
But Cusack, a public interest attorney, was particularly impressive. She denounced how promises developers make on affordable housing are scaled back after city approvals are secured; expressed incredulity that the city had not made it a priority to prevent the closing of thousands of single-room occupancy units in recent years; and noted that prefab houses are available on Amazon for $23,000 at a time when government-subsidized housing routinely costs $500,000 or more. Cusack also makes a passionate case that criminalizing homelessness is “futile, expensive, counterproductive and cruel.” She says the real goal of many leaders is swaying public perceptions, not solving problems.
The responses to a board question about the city’s response to last month’s terrible flooding crystallized the differences among the candidates. Jones, Callen and Cusack all said the response was unacceptable and a civic embarrassment. Whitburn, however, applauded the city’s efforts and said environmental laws were a factor in why many storm drains weren’t fixed.
If you agree with this frustrating appraisal, re-elect Whitburn. If you want a capable, informed critic of city policies, we recommend a vote for Cusack. City Hall needs more skeptics of the status quo, and she fits the bill.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Senores de todas partes, me llamo Dan, el hombre de un millon millas. Quiero
su voto para alcalde. Tratare de entender la lengua de los reyes. Si elegido, tratare de
aprender espanol en una colegio comunitario si la gente de San Diego quiere. La gente que
hablaba espanol fue olvidada por demasiado tiempo y tratare de arreglarla.
Looks like banned Daniel Smiechowski slipped past editor dude.
Whoops! But he – or someone for him — had to write in Spanish to do it.
No problem anymore, you can have anything translated on various internet sites in moments. Here is the translation:
Gentlemen everywhere, my name is Dan, the million-mile man. Wanna
your vote for mayor. I will try to understand the language of kings. If chosen, I will try learn Spanish at a community college if the people of San Diego want. The people who spoke Spanish was forgotten for too long and I will try to fix it.
The basic problem to the so-called “homeless” crisis is not a lack a shelter. It is the failure to implement compulsory drug and alcohol and mental health treatment. Building “tens of thousands of cheap, sturdy prefab units” to warehouse drug and alcohol addicted and mentally ill people is totally misguided and complete waste of tax payer money.
This candidate is totally unfit to be mayor
And just how would you go about making these things compulsory? That is impossible and ridiculous.
And, you are misguided to believe all of the homeless population is alcoholic or drug addicted.
So, you don’t like her ideas, what are you doing, or have you done, to help these people as much as Ms. Cusack has?
or to be on the City Council
The California Environmental Quality Act is NOT the cause of flooding in our South Bay communities. Mayor Todd Gloria’s failure to prioritize infrastructure funding to clean out the drainage channels and storm drain systems caused the back flow of stormwater that flooded hundreds of homes. Had he sent Public Works crews to systematically clean out the very well engineered drainage channels, the flooding would not have happened. I am shocked that Stephen Whitburn would blame the very laws that mandated engineered flood control in modern subdivisions. If the engineering failed, then the City engineers that approved the failed designs are at fault.
I agree with you 100%.
If I lived in Imperial Beach and had
lost absolutely everything in those floods, I suspect I would join with similarly affected
neighbors and bring a lawsuit against Mayor Gloria.
There are 1,700 whole-home vacation rentals in District 3. And there are 1,000 more Tier 3 licenses available to give more residents the boot so a few property owners can make triple the income at their expense.
What do these candidates think about that? Whitburn doesn’t seem to care.