JACQUELINE ARSIVAUD

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Editor’s note: The San Diego Union-Tribune asked candidates for the North County seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors seeking to replace termed-out Supervisor Bill Horn their views on key issues. Here’s what they said.

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Q: What is the single most important issue that led you to run for county supervisor?

One of the most important issues we face as a county is sprawl, traffic congestion and the dangers of haphazard overdevelopment, all of which impact public safety and San Diego’s unique quality of life.

The county spent 13 years and $18 million of your money to develop a thoughtful roadmap (the county General Plan) that encourages much needed new and affordable housing close to existing infrastructure and away from wildfire hazards. I’ve spent the last decade as a local elected official and advocate for smart growth working to preserve that vision.

Our current Board of Supervisors is poised to set aside this roadmap and common vision on behalf of a number of (often out-of-state) speculators who have lobbied the board intensively in order to change the general plan to suit their needs. These General Plan Amendments (GPAs) often waive crucial fire code (such as secondary escape routes), even where homes were recently lost to wildfire. This endangers residents, and also requires that we foot the bill for infrastructure costs that the developers only pay a small fraction of. In addition, these GPAs would irreparably destroy habitat for the myriads of species who make San Diego County the most bio-diverse county in the nation.

Q: Under new state laws such as Senate Bill 35 and proposals like Senate Bill 827, San Diego County faces significant pressure to build more housing stock. What should the county’s approach to housing be?

First, the county should make it easier, cheaper and faster for builders to build the 52,000 housing units allowed by the General Plan, plenty to accommodate expected growth. These are infill developments close to existing roads, schools, fire and public safety infrastructure. We can lighten regulations in these areas to encourage developers to focus on infill development rather than on sprawl.

Second, we need a moratorium on large GPAs whose only “public benefit” — a criteria for approval of GPAs — is simply providing more unaffordable housing while burdening taxpayers with the infrastructure cost. A ballot initiative (Save our San Diego Countryside) asking county voters to weigh in on GPAs is currently being pursued and should be enacted as a backstop.

As long as developers can option cheap land zoned for agriculture or low-density housing, and bet they can get three votes on the Board of Supervisors to obtain density increases yielding tens of millions of dollars in profit before a shovel hits the ground, San Diegans will not get the housing they need and can afford.

Finally, the county should build affordable housing on county properties, and adopt an inclusionary program ordinance similar to other cities’, mandating a certain affordable housing component ideally onsite and in perpetuity for all new projects.　

Q: The county has a reputation of being stingy on social services spending. Do you agree and if so what programs would you beef up?

Certainly with 48 percent of the budget held in reserves vs. 8 percent to 15 percent elsewhere, the county could afford to spend more to improve the lives of all San Diegans, without jeopardizing the AAA credit rating the current board has earned. As a successful business owner, I have learned to establish priorities, set budgets and stick to them.

I will focus on senior services and dementia care — as one in three San Diegans are likely to get dementia. With a large demographic wave of elderly citizens coming in the next decades, the county needs to focus more resources on a variety of care options from providing quality home care to let the elderly stay at home as long as possible, to monitoring and ensuring quality of senior care centers, to preventing any senior on limited income from losing their home and becoming homeless.

With income disparity a growing problem nationwide, the county should support legislation to increase minimum wage, ensuring that its employees’ wages keep up with increased cost of living, and manage the safety net in a compassionate manner to facilitate access to services such as food insecurity programs, instead of limiting staff resources to recipients.

The hepatitis outbreak among the homeless has been a real wake-up call. The county can play a more aggressive role in the housing first strategy to increase capacity, build/purchase dedicated housing and provide transitional help so the homeless can reintegrate society as productive individuals with dignity. 　

Q: Does the county’s current approach to mass transit and transportation strike the right balance, need to focus more on roads or need to focus more on transit?

Our current approach to transportation planning is not sustainable, leading to clogged freeways and billions of hours spent in stop-and-go traffic, fouling the air we breathe and reducing quality of life for San Diegans. Most of our residents have very little ability to use mass transit that is convenient, affordable and practical, unlike other residents of world-class cities. Instead of focusing our transportation dollars mostly on freeway widening, we need to be serious about planning and investment in modern mass transit systems to prepare San Diego for the rest of the century. We all agree we need more housing, which makes new thought leadership about transit more essential.

San Diego has some very interesting opportunities to move to the forefront of smart transit planning through locally developed state-of-the-art transportation technology, which can free up thousands of acres of parking and reduce congestion and greenhouse gases. We need bold vision and strong leadership to break the paradigm of a single driver inching along on a crowded highway. We can create a better quality of life and a more sustainable San Diego that we can all be proud of calling home, for generations to come.