Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey is “seriously considering” a run for San Diego County Supervisor in the 2024 general election.
The mayor, a Republican, filed paperwork to run for the county’s third district seat on the Democrat-majority board. The seat is currently held by Democrat Terra Lawson-Remer, and its district stretches from Carlsbad to Coronado.
His chief concerns center on quality-of-life issues like homelessness, crime, housing affordability, he said, and he envisions a data-based, “common sense” approach to their solutions.
“The main reason I’m looking at (running) is that by every objective measurement, we’re seeing the county of San Diego fail to meet the standards that San Diego County residents deserve,” Bailey said.
To address this, Bailey said he would focus on comprehensive solutions within the county’s various governing boards, rein in the county’s focus on matters outside its jurisdiction, and bridle an “unsustainable budget.”
“The biggest problem in the county,” Bailey said, “is that all the cities throughout the region are taking their own, siloed approaches to quality-of-life issues, when really, these are regional issues that don’t know city boundaries.”
Affordable housing, Bailey said, is one such issue. He believes the county’s approach to development puts too much weight on coastal cities, where land is expensive, over rural, unincorporated county land.
Bailey is a vocal opponent of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG)’s allocation of housing units under the current Regional Housing Needs Allocation housing cycle. (Coronado must zone for 912 more units, a number the city sued and lost over.)
But, Bailey says, the issue extends beyond that, giving the example of new guidelines the county approved last year for developing land in unincorporated San Diego County.
To get approval for a project in an area where cars would drive more than the county average, developers must pay for vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) studies and cover costs of traffic mitigation, such as infrastructure for transit lines.
The threshold for these studies is 15 percent: In areas where average miles traveled is less than that, developers do not pay for these studies or mitigation; in areas 16 percent or higher, they do.
“Home prices are rising significantly, but we aren’t actually seeing additional (housing) units created year-over-year,” Bailey said. “If a market was functioning how it was supposed to be, and prices are rising dramatically, why are we not seeing developers build more?”
According to Bailey, it’s because the government has created too many artificial barriers to entry. VMT considerations are a state standard, but Bailey said the county interpreted the standard in an extreme way that has choked the market. It pushes developers to coastal, high-density areas, where construction is more expensive, and the resulting units are, too.
“We all want to be good stewards of the environment,” Bailey said. “And we all want housing for the middle class. But at a certain point, those policies become at odds with each other – we essentially removed the ability to build middle-class housing for the concern of the environment.”
Bailey has also been a vocal opponent to San Diego County’s approach to the homelessness crisis, saying that for all the money spent at state, regional, and city levels, the problem should not be so rampant.
Last month, the county board of supervisors voted to join the city of San Diego in allocating funding toward purchasing three hotels to be used as permanent housing for the homeless. The city is applying for $88.7 million in grant money from the state to bridge the cost of the project.
The grant stipulates that any projects receiving grant money follow the housing-first approach to homelessness, of which Bailey has been critical, because it does not require people receiving aid accept support for addiction or mental health issues.
“You always have the option to say no to the state,” Bailey said. “By accepting the state’s money, your hands are tied, but if you use your own money, you can decide that, if the (housing first) policy clearly hasn’t worked based on available data, why do we continue to double down on it?”
More money is useless if it’s being channeled into avenues that will not work to reduce homelessness, Bailey said. His preferred approach would be to use local funding to purchase hotels – perhaps fewer of them — and then mandate that any person receiving housing also receive behavioral health or addiction services.
Lastly, Bailey – if he runs, that is – would hope to rein in the county’s budget.
“Right now, the County of San Diego is using a lot of one-time funds for ongoing expenses,” Bailey said. “When you look at the county’s budget, it’s transformed over the years – it’s no longer on a sustainable path if this continues.”
The board should focus on things that it holds jurisdiction over. For example, the county allocates $5 million per year to attorneys to provide services to undocumented immigrants. That’s not a county issue, Bailey said; it’s a federal one.
Despite his vision, Bailey said he is still debating whether to run for the position.
“I’m a big believer that if we can move as a society toward discussing these issues by focusing on the policies rather than partisanship,” Bailey said, “then we’re more likely to return a desired outcome.”
