Two South County residents running for office participated in a candidate forum earlier this month to discuss housing and other issues facing the region.
Imperial Beach City Council candidate Ben Swearingen and National City candidate Marcus Bush recently participated in an online forum hosted by the South County Economic Development Council.
Swearingen has experience as a teacher in the South Bay Union School District and serving on its Local Control and Accountability Commission. Bush, who has served as a National City councilmember since his 2020 election, has also worked as a project manager developing affordable housing in the region.
The San Diego Documenters, an inewsource program that trains and pays citizens to cover government meetings and community events, covered the forum. Here are some highlights of what the candidates said.
Kate Bishop, an incumbent candidate for the Chula Vista Elementary School District board, was scheduled to participate but was absent.
Swearingen
On the Tijuana River sewage crisis
Swearingen said the decadeslong pollution in the Tijuana River Valley is both a social and environmental injustice, and has hurt the Imperial Beach economy. He said he supports an emergency declaration and a more urgent plan to fix the problem quicker.
“It’s pretty clear that it’s not just the sewage,” he said, referencing new assessments which found airborne toxins in the region.
Despite his hope for improvements, Swearingen said he’s hesitant about supporting the development of a Superfund site, a designated area for contaminated or hazardous materials, due to speaking to experts in the field. He said he wasn’t sure that it would be timely and effective.
Swearingen called for federal and state officials to be part of the solution, including changes to agreements with Mexico.
Bush
On homelessness
Bush said National City recently launched an outreach program for unhoused residents, and said he supported a shelter that the San Diego Rescue Mission recently opened near his home.
He said that while he understood his neighbors’ concerns regarding the new shelter, he said that it is significantly more important and better for the entire community to have housing options for unhoused residents.
Bush also said he wanted detox beds to open up in the near future.
On housing
Bush said one of the biggest challenges regarding housing is that 70% of National City residents are renters. Bush mentioned that Proposition W, which in 2018 proposed enacting rent control laws, was narrowly rejected by voters. Since then rents have increased in the area by upwards of 20%, he said.
Bush said the government should also focus on building more housing in order to reduce the demand, subsequently dropping prices.
This story came from notes taken by Teal Davis, a San Diego Documenter, at a South County Economic Development Council candidate forum earlier this month. The Documenters program trains and pays community members to document what happens at public meetings. It’s run by inewsource, a nonpartisan nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigative and accountability journalism. Read more about the program here.
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