HOMELESSNESS, HOUSING TOP CONCERNS FOR COUNCIL MEMBER

Educator appointed to fill vacancy on Escondido council

Escondido’s newest City Council member grew up in North County, works as a high school math and social studies teacher and has served as president of both his homeowners association and the Palomar College Board of Trustees.

At its meeting on Monday, the Escondido City Council appointed Christian Garcia, 35, a Republican, to the council’s vacant District 3 seat, ensuring the council will have a full slate of five members through the next election in 2024. The appointment came on a 3-1 vote with Councilmember Consuelo Martinez opposed.

City Clerk Zack Beck administered the oath of office to Garcia on Wednesday and said a brief ceremony will also be held at the Feb. 8 council meeting to allow friends, family and the public to observe.

Christian Garcia will serve out the final two years of the term of his council colleague, Joe Garcia, whose residence was shifted into District 2 during the redistricting process following the 2020 U.S. Census. Joe Garcia was re-elected to a four-year term in District 2 in last fall’s election.

Christian Garcia said he was urged by several people to consider applying for the council seat and he decided to throw his hat into the ring.

“The idea of public service has always been appealing to me,” said Christian Garcia, who spent two years between college and graduate school in Cambodia, where he taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer.

The new council member teaches at the Futures Academy, a private school in San Diego, and lives in Escondido with his wife and the couple’s dog.

“I am very excited to be able to serve my community and city and the people I care about. And to reach out to people who know more about the city than I do and learn from them and serve the city to the best of my ability,” he said.

As he assumes his new position, Christian Garcia said he’ll be taking in a “fire hose” of information on a broad array of topics, including those of high importance to his new constituents such as dealing with homelessness, housing and the local economy.

He wants to study the programs used to assist the homeless to determine which are most effective, and also increase police funding and training to deal with the homeless population.

Following the narrow defeat last fall of Measure E, a ¾-cent sales tax increase intended to close an ongoing deficit in the city’s operating budget, the new council member said that although he’s no fan of raising taxes, he would be open to putting another revenue measure before city voters in 2024, if the money will be used for essential services such as public safety.

Christian Garcia’s transition to Escondido council member means he also had to step down from his seat on the Palomar College board, which he had held since 2020, because California officeholders cannot occupy two elected positions at the same time.

The Palomar College governing board will consider whether to fill its vacant seat by appointment or a special election at a meeting on Feb. 14, said a statement issued by the college. Christian Garcia represented Trustee Area 2, which includes Escondido and the eastern third of the Highway 78 corridor, and applicants must live within those boundaries.

Christian Garcia’s appointment nudges the Escondido council further in a conservative direction, giving Republicans a 4-1 majority with Martinez as the lone Democrat. As recently as 2018, Democrats held a 3-2 council majority, with Martinez joined by former Councilmember Olga Diaz and former Mayor Paul Mcnamara.

Christian Garcia was one of 12 people who initially applied for the open District 3 seat; two applicants then withdrew their names before the council interviewed candidates.

At Monday’s hearing, several speakers urged the council to appoint a council member whose party affiliation reflected the majority of District 3 voters. According to the county Registrar of Voters Office, District 3 party affiliation includes 6,739 Democrats, 3,872 Republicans and 4,111 stating No Party Preference.

Martinez said she would have preferred holding a special election to fill the vacancy but she would be able to work with whoever was selected.

“Representation is really important to me. Representation matters,” Martinez said. “I ultimately believe it’s the people’s right to choose, and they should have a say in who their representative is and that’s my point of view.”

According the Registrar of Voters Office, holding a special election would have cost up to $600,000 or more and could not have been scheduled until November.

Mayor Dane White said he was disappointed that more District 3 residents did not attend the meeting to support their favored applicant. But District 3 voters will be able to selected their representative in 2024, and they won’t have to go most of 2023 without a council member, he said.

Councilmember Mike Morasco praised the caliber of the applicants.

“This was an incredibly rich pool of applicants vying for this appointment,” Morasco said, noting that he could have supported any of the applicants he personally ranked in the top five. “If any of those top five had been nominated and elected, I would have been more than happy, excited and thrilled to work with them on the City Council. It went across party lines, it went across a lot of different lines.”

Morasco also took issue with the comments of some speakers, who referred to his familial ties to White (Morasco is the new mayor’s father-in-law) and questioned whether the two would vote in tandem.

“You guys, it’s getting old already so please just stop,” Morasco said. “These are all single agenda-ized talking points by a single small group who want to make it seem like there are concerns. If that was the case, I don’t think the mayor would have been elected recently.”

Christian Garcia