By Jacob Mitchell
I am a fourth generation San Diegan and the son of an Olympian. My life has been defined by the idea that if you play by the rules and put in the work, you deserve a fair shot at the podium, but if you look at San Diego today, you’ll see a city where the playing field is tilted.
We are currently governed by a system that treats residents as a revenue source and institutional developers as the only viable solution to our problems. I am not a politician, as a chemist and an MBA candidate, I don’t believe in vague talking points; I believe in data, systems, and accountability. It’s time we stopped managing San Diego through headlines and started managing it for long term results.
Housing: Bridging the Generational Divide
The most pressing issue facing our beach communities is the housing crisis. State policy mandates a certain number of new homes San Diego needs to build in 9 year cycles. Currently, the City’s response to the mandate is to drop development fees for corporate entities and hand out subsidies for hyper-dense projects that lack community oversight.
I hear two very different, yet equally valid, fears in our district. I hear from the younger generation, my peers, who are being priced out of their own hometown, watching the dream of homeownership vanish. But I also hear from our long-term residents who see the character of Ocean Beach and Point Loma being dismantled. They see mini-cottages being dwarfed by giant, Miami-style apartment complexes that feel more like vacation destinations than neighborhoods.
My policy takes both sides of that coin. The current system actively ignores community input through density bonus policy. We must meet our housing goals, but we should do it with community input, using pre-approved designs. These designs won’t be handed down from a developer’s boardroom; they will be crafted in collaboration with our local Planning Boards to ensure they fit the historic aesthetic of our beach communities.
By removing the “Permit Hell” and the crushing fee burdens for these specific, community vetted designs, we can actually get housing built. Right now, only corporate giants can afford the decades-long permitting timelines. I will bend the Sacramento density policy to make it work for us. With a catalog of pre-approved duplex designs that match community character, we can allow regular San Diegans to build the housing we want without the burden of fees and timelines.
Homelessness: The Public Scoreboard
You have likely heard a dozen candidates promise they will ;”end homelessness.” I won’t tell you that, because honestly, the City doesn’t have the data to back up such a claim. Right now, we distribute millions of dollars through a diverse group of NGOs with overlapping responsibilities and almost zero operational oversight. These may be good people doing great work, but we don’t actually measure it.
My homelessness policy is built on pragmatic transparency. I am proposing the Public Scoreboard for Homelessness Services. This would be a specialized function of the City Auditor’s department. It’s simple: we track the track records. How many people are these NGOs actually serving? How many are being transitioned into high-quality, long-term housing?
We know that high-quality shelters and unsheltered prevention reduce long-term costs, but we are currently spending your tax dollars in an opaque system. The Scoreboard adds sunshine. It allows us to move funding toward the programs that work and away from those that don’t. We may not have all the answers yet, but we can finally start asking the right questions.
Fiscal Responsibility and the Accountable City
The current City budget is a sinkhole. When the executive branch is irresponsible with its spending, it doesn’t look for internal cuts—it looks for a “revenue source”. That source is you.
Every trash fee, every hiked parking rate at Balboa Park, and every increased fee for youth rugby at Dusty Rhodes Park is a hidden tax designed to cover up for a bloated budget. To fix this, we must make San Diego structurally accountable. This starts with an empowered and well-funded City Auditor. In a Strong Mayor system like ours, the Auditor is the only inbuilt check on executive power. We have a City Council that is often unwilling to challenge the executive; a capable Auditor is the community’s last line of defense.
My fiscal interventions will be nuanced, but here are the highlights. First, we must Audit and Cut the Middle-Management Bloat. Since 2015, middle-management positions at City Hall have grown by a staggering 461%. We are hiring administrators 23 times faster than frontline workers.
Second, we must Optimize Public Safety Spending. I am committed to maintaining our public safety, but we can do it more intelligently. The vast majority of Police stops are for low level infractions and dealing with the homeless. By implementing a more efficient staffing model and “civilizing” non-emergency tasks, we can keep the same number of officers on the street while saving millions in unnecessary overtime pay.
Every dollar must provide a return on investment for the taxpayer.
Be the Change You Want to See
I entered this campaign because I am not someone who can stand by when I see an opportunity to help someone. I did not come from a political machine, and I did not enter this race because it was the obvious thing to do. I entered because I love this community, and standing up for it is worth doing, whether or not the odds are comfortable.
I believe representation should be continuous, humble, and demanding. There should never be a day where an elected official decides they have done “good enough” and gets to coast. The job should require constant listening, constant learning, and constant improvement. That is the kind of representative I would be.
I do not want to bring more reactive politics to City Hall. I want to bring clear thinking, proactive policy, and a deep respect for the people who actually live with the
consequences of city decisions. My only incentive is to serve the community that raised me.
Editor’s note: The Rag will publish any D2 candidate’s policy statement gratis.
