7 key moments from San Diego's mayoral debate
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Mayor Todd Gloria argued he needed four more years to finish solving the problems he inherited and his opponent Larry Turner said everything in the city is worse than it was four years ago, in Wednesday's mayoral debate.
Why it matters: This was the first debate in a race in which the first public poll released this week showed a narrow Gloria lead but a huge share of undecided voters.
State of play: Gloria and Turner, a police officer and political independent, grappled on homelessness, housing affordability, crime, infrastructure and bike lanes.
⛺ Gloria touted his encampment crackdown for cutting downtown homelessness from 2,100 last May to 856 last month.
- The worst remaining encampments, he said, are on state property near freeways and that he's "pressuring the Newsom administration to treat this more aggressively."
🔍 Turner doesn't trust the numbers. Stats showing declining crime rates are misleading because residents stopped reporting minor crimes over long call wait times, he said.
- He also disputed official homeless statistics, saying the real level has increased more since 2020 than reflected by the annual federal count.
🙅 Gloria said he's added shelter options and is trying to add more, but criticized Turner for opposing each proposal, which he said reflects local opposition that prevents solutions.
- Turner said he "doesn't oppose the locations, he opposes the plan," arguing a large shelter in Middletown would be too crowded and safe sleeping sites aren't real shelter.
🤔 Gloria rebutted criticism of the cost of acquiring the Middletown warehouse by arguing he's still negotiating with the property owner and hasn't presented a deal to the council yet.
- His administration has repeatedly pushed the council to approve the deal, but the council has resisted those requests and forced negotiations to continue.
🚲 Bike lanes generated a clear distinction, after Gloria said he'd keep building a network to provide transportation options beyond a car.
- Turner said he'd stop building them because they're unsafe, San Diego isn't Copenhagen, Denmark and he thought they'd endanger businesses that depend on parking.
👮🏼 Prop 36: Gloria twice looked into the camera and asked voters to support rolling back a 10-year-old criminal justice initiative by increasing penalties for theft and drug use.
- District attorneys and large retailers championed the measure, and Newsom is fighting it as a return to "tough on crime" policing.
🫧 "Has the ticket been canceled for the bubble man? I don't think it has been."
- That's what Turner said after hitting Gloria over street vendor regulations that have led to citations for yoga classes and a street performer who makes large bubbles for kids.