Vets advocate Goldbeck running for supervisor

Veterans advocate Janessa Goldbeck plans to run for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors’ fourth district seat, which would become open if Nathan Fletcher win his bid for state Senate next year.

Goldbeck, 37, announced her candidacy Tuesday and formed a campaign committee last week for 2026, although the seat could be vacated earlier and prompt a special election if Fletcher is elected to state office. Earlier this month, he announced plans to run for the seat now held by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, who terms out in 2024.

Goldbeck is CEO of Vet Voice Foundation, a national nonprofit that advocates for veterans and military families on matters including health care, voting rights, protecting military public lands and other issues. She is board chair for the San Diego LGBT Community Center and serves on the San Diego County Behavioral Health Advisory Board.

She previously served seven years in the Marine Corps as a combat engineer officer, stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and then at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, where she was also a uniformed victim advocate for service members who experienced sexual assault. She said she left the Marine Corps in 2019 to care for her mother, who was ill with multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.

If elected, Goldbeck would be the first woman to represent the fourth district.

“What can we do to make people’s lives better? What can we do to make our government work more efficient? How can we lift up the voices of our community?” she said in an interview. “I spent my life trying to answer those questions both in uniform and as a policy advocate, and I want to bring that experience and energy to the county Board of Supervisors.”

Raised in Encinitas, Goldbeck graduated from San Dieguito High School Academy and then studied journalism and African studies at Northwestern University in Illinois. After college, she worked as an organizer with civilians in conflict zones in Africa before joining the Marines.

She lives in the Talmadge neighborhood of San Diego with her wife, Carol, and their three dogs and five backyard chickens.