1-minute voter guide: Escondido
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Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
Two city council districts are up for grabs in Escondido, and voters will decide whether to impose a one-cent sales tax for city services.
State of play: Measure I, the proposed sales tax, would raise an estimated $28 million per year for 20 years to address homelessness, road repairs, police and fire staffing and parks maintenance.
- Two years ago, Escondido voters rejected a ¾ cent tax increase, and in 2020 the city council rejected a proposal to put a similar measure on the ballot.
- All of those efforts were aimed at eliminating the city's annual $11 million structural budget deficit that leaders have instead addressed with short-term fixes.
Zoom in: District 3 appointed councIl member Christian Garcia, a high school teacher and former trustee for Palomar College, is seeking a full term, and has the endorsement of the local Republican Party.
- He's running against Veronica Cigarroa, a mental health professional backed by the San Diego County Democratic Party, and Christine Spencer, who has worked in fundraising for Coastal Roots Farm in Encinitas and serves on nonprofit boards in Escondido.
Judy Fitzgerald, a former city planning commissioner and Carlsbad and Oceanside police officer who founded a CrossFit gym in Escondido, is trying to fill the city's open District 4 seat.
- She is endorsed by the local Republican Party and has run on reducing homelessness by treating it as a mental health and addiction problem and increasing funding to law enforcement.
Her opponent, Rod Howell, is a retired Navy veteran and Department of Defense contracting officer who has the Democratic Party's endorsement.
- He has pledged to solve homelessness compassionately by targeting root causes and finding creative ways to fix the city's budget, per the Union-Tribune.
City Treasurer Douglas Shultz is running unopposed for re-election.