JILL GALVEZ: I WILL HEED THE PUBLIC AND HIRE MORE POLICE OFFICERS
Q:Rate outgoing Mayor Mary Casillas Salas. What was her biggest accomplishment? What did she most neglect? Mayor Casillas Salas
has served our city with distinction and integrity for decades. It’s definitely not an easy job, being a public servant. But Mary makes it look effortless.
Mary’s biggest accomplishment will be getting the bayfront groundbreaking of the Gaylord Hotel and convention center over the finish line. We are so close!
We are grateful to Mayor Casillas Salas for the new outdoor library deck at the Civic Center Library, her commitment to renovate Historic Third Avenue, all of the beautiful parks and open spaces we enjoy throughout east, west, north and south Chula Vista, and her commitment to preserve the 375 acres in east Chula Vista for our future university.
Most neglected: past councils, including during Mary’s terms on the council and her first term as mayor, had neglected to fully fund our city’s pension obligations for past employees. In 2019, Chula Vista had a $350 million unfunded pension obligation debt, owed to the California Public Employees’
A:Retirement System, from years of underfunding employee pensions. Our city was making interest-only payments at 7 percent. We were facing future escalating payments that would have sent our city into bankruptcy in 2028. Fortunately, beginning in fiscal year 2020, we tightened our belts, employee unions linked arms and accepted a 0 percent raise for a year, and we refinanced our debt at an unprecedented rate of 2.54 percent net, with a 24-year term and a strong reserve policy.
I’m looking forward to throwing Mayor Casillas Salas a wonderful party to thank her for her years of service to Chula Vista.
Q:
How would you rate
the Chula Vista Police Department? What are its strengths and/or weaknesses? Would you favor increasing or decreasing its budget and why?
A:
A+++. There is no
finer Police Department than Chula Vista’s!
We have the absolute best officers, agents, sergeants, lieutenants, captains and police chief. The very talented employees who support our Police Department in everything from records, fleet, information
technology, police technology, training, finance, forensics and more are the best in their field.
But we need more police officers. We need more boots on the ground, deterring speeding drivers, investigating smaller crimes that sometimes are low-priority, keeping our city safe at all times. We aren’t close to fully staffing public safety to the level that our community expects: 281 officers.
In 2018, our citizens passed Measure A, a halfcent sales tax, intended to increase police and fire staffing. We must not let our public down. It has been almost four years since Measure A has passed, and we need to hire more police officers.
Q:
How would you approach police use of surveillance such as drones and license plate readers? A:
Chula Vista’s public
safety drones have definitely saved lives. They arrive on scene faster than an officer could and provide details and intelligence to help officers make the best decisions in complicated and stressful situations.
Our drones also help in areas that police vehicles cannot easily reach or patrol, such as open spaces, canyons and places without roads.
An added benefit to our community is that Chula Vista Police Department drones are relatively quiet, unlike the sheriff ’s ASTREA helicopters that tend to be very loud and disruptive, alarming pets, small children, seniors and folks with sensory sensitivity.
Automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology involves cameras that are attached to a small number of Chula Vista police vehicles. ALPRs automatically scan vehicle license plates to help notify officers of vehicles that are on high alert, including stolen vehicles, vehicles wanted in connection with a violent crime, and vehicles from other parts of our very large state and region that may be flagged for AMBER alerts.
If you’ve ever accompanied Chula Vista police officers for a patrol shift, it is easy to understand how many tasks and details must be handled at once, safely, while they drive and respond to calls and reports. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for officers before ALPR technology.
Chula Vista has recently formed a Technology and Privacy Advisory Task Force to thoroughly discuss privacy issues as they relate to technology that our police and other departments use to serve our community.
Q:
The median home
price in Chula Vista is $732,500. How would you approach housing development in Chula Vista and encourage affordability amid the housing crisis?
A:
It is very sad to see
how dramatically home prices have increased over the past two years. Young families are being priced out of the market. A $732,500 loan for 30 years at 5 percent interest would mean a loan payment of $3,930 per month! Interest rates continue to rise, and for many families, getting into a home that they can call their own seems like trying to catch a tiger by its tail.
I think the dramatic escalation of housing prices in recent years was caused by a number of factors, including many people moving to Chula Vista from San Francisco Bay and other areas, very low interest rates that were available all throughout 2020-2021, the fact that many seniors didn’t feel comfortable moving into assisted living or care facilities during two years of COVID-19 (reducing the normal turnover of housing inventory), and low housing inventory to begin with.
Chula Vista could do a better job at automating and streamlining the permitting process so that the actual time it takes to build a for-purchase home is reduced. In construction, time and delays cost money, and we should always be mindful of that.
I’m hoping that new affordable senior housing projects that are currently in the works come on the market quickly, so that those of us who live in homes that are too large to maintain can downsize into comfortable spaces that fixed incomes can afford. We’re currently working towards more affordable senior housing projects on both sides of Interstate 805 in Chula Vista.