El Cajon, La Mesa, and Lemon Grove elections wrap up

El Cajon

Mayor

Bill Wells

“Certainly, I have been pushing back against the County on filling up our hotels with homeless vouchers. That may end up in a legal battle, which I am completely committed (to) waging because I believe it is important to protect El Cajon from that. At the same time, we are seeing an increase of crime. I do not think that has anything to do with El Cajon per se…”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/bill-wells-el-cajon-mayoral-candidate/

Arnie Levine

“I say no city tax. Most cities do not have it. El Cajon does not need it. There are resources to support local departments from state and
federal. The state’s surplus is now $94 billion, so guess who’s going to be my new best friend. The governor.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/arnie-levine-el-cajon-mayoral-candidate/

City Council

Gary Kendrick

“I think it is important that the county gets with the program of tough love, like what we have in El Cajon. Our number one goal is to keep citizens safe, and our citizens are not safe if we have homeless people staying at motels without any wrap around service or controls. I think that the East County Transitional Living Center is a really good example of how to handle the homeless situation.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/gary-kendrick-for-el-cajon-city-council-district-1/

La Mesa

Mayor

Mark Arapostathis

“Our HOME program is still new but there’s been some success with it— we’ve placed almost 70 people in permanent housing. In addition, we need to look at the homeless situation in La Mesa and triage it, take a step back and treat mental health cases individually, look at our lack of housing.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/mark-araposthatis-for-la-mesa-mayor/

Kristine Alessio

“We need to increase housing stock in areas that are ready for redevelopment. As we do this, we also need to be exceptionally careful of community and neighborhood character. Nobody opposes building homes, they oppose ugly buildings built with no notice.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/kristine-alessio-for-la-mesa-mayor/

City Council

Patricia Dillard

“We can offer services to people and try to get them help but when we do so, they need to understand they have to be accountable from the beginning to the end so when they come out of any program they’re coming out as a fully productive citizen who can contribute back and can take care of themselves.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/patricia-dillard-la-mesa-city-council-candidate/

Mejgan Afshan

“We need to do better by people who are either struggling with mental health illnesses or dealing with addiction problems… We need to be much more compassionate towards them and make sure to support them and make sure they secure housing. I think a temporary shelter and expanding the HOME program will address these needs.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/mejgan-afshan-la-mesa-city-council-candidate/

Tony Orlando

“I’m not a fan of the massive, five-story developments. I think they’re eyesores. A place like Mission Valley embraced that look years ago and built it in so it doesn’t look out of place. The scale here is lower and the Jefferson development— well, I avoid that corner,”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/tony-orlando-for-la-mesa-city-council/

Laura Lothian

“It takes petroleum to make and ship those bottles and everybody has had permanent water bottles, just go fill your water bottle. I wrote a letter to city council and management and overnight, they stopped with the plastic bottles.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/laura-lothian-for-la-mesa-city-council/

Lemon Grove

City Council

Alysson Snow

“An opportunity came up to run the brand new Housing Rights Project at USD Law School. It is going to allow me to create a program from scratch and really help San Diegans be able to do what they can to retain their house and to help combat homelessness.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/alysson-snow-lemon-grove-city-council-candidate/

Jessica Heredia

“…we could really help revitalize our economic impact by making our business district nicer, making people want to shop there, which will
attract other businesses, bigger businesses to come that want to set up shop here as well. That would increase our revenue.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/jessica-jessyka-heredia-lemon-grove-city-council-candidate/

Stephanie Klein

“What is affordable to you and me may not be affordable to another person. We need to find out what that number is and make sure that developers are not taking advantage of our city.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/stephanie-klein-for-lemon-grove-city-council/

Jennifer Mendoza

“That was something that I spearheaded. An ordinance to ban alcohol consumption at any of our parks. I would enjoy a cold beer at the park from time to time, but it is the behavior that came along with it that made me feel it was necessary.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/jennifer-mendoza-for-lemon-grove-city-council/

Blanca Lopez Brown

“Take the budget. Tear it apart. Look at all the revenue streams. See if we are maximizing it. And once it is maximized, is there anything we can do to stretch that dollar.”

See full interview here: https://eccalifornian.com/blanca-lopez-brown-for-lemon-grove-city-council/

Download QR

function QRC_WOOCON(){var qr = window.qr = new QRious({
element: document.getElementById(“QRC_Com_COntent”),
size: 100,
value: “https://eccalifornian.com/el-cajon-la-mesa-and-lemon-grove-elections-wrap-up/”
});
jQuery(“#download_QRC_con”).click(function() {
download(jQuery(“#QRC_Com_COntent”).attr(“src”),”El Cajon, La Mesa, and Lemon Grove elections wrap up.png”,”image/png”);
});}QRC_WOOCON();
Source: East County Californian