ZOSA: I’VE BEEN A COMMUNITY ACTIVIST FOR TWO DECADES
Q:Combined with flu season, the pandemic may pose even greater problems for San Diegans this winter. How will you balance public health and the economy if shutdowns are needed?
A:
As the son of a pediatrician, I believe it is imperative that we follow the health experts that make the decisions to keep Americans safe. With that in mind, we also have to keep in mind that the survival of our economy is at stake. The closures have a major impact on the jobs of tens of thousands of San Diego families, including the impact it has had on my restaurant group, Dirty Birds, which had to furlough over 100 of our employees at one point. The impact will be felt in the loss of millions of dollars in sales and transient occupancy tax revenue that will also severely impact the operations of our city. We have also seen the impact on our children’s educational needs. I believe we need to devote a portion of the federal COVID-19 relief funding to help schools safely reopen once our health experts deem it safe to reopen.
Q:
How satisfied are you with the progress the city has made on its Climate Action Plan and how will you ensure its legally binding goals are met? A:
I think the plan generally struck the right balance of the concerns of the business, labor and environmental communities. We must do whatever it takes towards our goal of achieving the highest quality for the air and water we consume. As we move towards our goals of 100 percent renewable energy, we must ensure that these energy sources are absolutely reliable and do not result in rolling blackouts that
occurred during these recent heat waves. I’m committed to achieving this balance.
Q:
Neighborhoods south of Interstate 8, including communities of color, don’t always get the funding or consideration wealthier communities to the north get. How will you address that?
A:
As a resident and community activist for the underserved community of Linda Vista for over two decades, I have a passion for ensuring that those other underserved communities south of the 8 get the funding and services that wealthier communities receive. My record of involvement in underserved communities shows that I’m uniquely qualified to not only understand these concerns but to fight to get the funds and resources to serve those who are struggling to achieve the American dream.
Q:
How, specifically, will you address the high cost of housing in San
Diego?
A:
First and foremost, we must stop with the belief that adding more taxes onto our citizens or adding additional fees on housing to subsidize more affordable housing is the solution. All this is doing is increasing the cost of market rate and workforce housing. We cannot subsidize our way out of this housing crisis. We have seen this fail in Los Angeles, where increasing property taxes on homeowners through a housing bond resulted in very few affordable housing units being built at a cost of more than $500,000 per unit. This is an absurd sum of money to build each affordable apartment unit.
The key to reducing the costs of all types of housing is to reduce soft costs — permitting, processing and evaluating the streamlining of regulations where possible. Reports show that these considerations increase the cost of housing by more than 30 percent.
Q:
What will homelessness in San Diego look like at the end of your four-year term?
A:
I have spent the last few years trying to find which approach works best to deal with the homelessness crisis. Spending time at facilities like Solutions for Change, the Alpha Project and Father Joe’s Villages has given me great insights on how best to get people out of their current situation.
Because of my work with people experiencing homelessness, I am fortunate to be endorsed by Father Joe Carroll. I am supportive of the city purchasing hotels to house the homeless because the cost per unit is significantly less than building new developments.
But we also have to do more on the enforcement side where we cannot let our neighborhoods be ruined like what we have seen happen in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Q:
Will — and how will — you accept and evaluate Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s proposal to redevelop the sports arena site?
A:
For the past three years, I worked with the general manager of the sports arena on plans to bring a new sports arena to San Diego. I arranged meetings with city business leaders and executives from AEG, the world’s leading sports and entertainment company, to talk about plans for this sports arena. I support the lifting of the 30-foot height limit at this site to ensure that we can build a new state of the art sports facility to attract a NBA and/or an NHL franchise to San Diego. This plan must include a road map to include a way to connect mass transit to the sports arena to ensure that traffic does not congest this area, which is ripe for redevelopment.