Kevin Faulconer, a mayoral candidate for San Diego, came to PLNU Saturday morning to open up conversation about his campaign with students and community members.
The event was organized by The City Club. His speech, “My Plans for Our Future,” focused on reinvesting in the neighborhoods by repairing streets, sidewalks, sewage and water systems. Sixty-seven people were in attendance.
Faulconer is currently on the city council for District Two which includes Point Loma, Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, Mission Beach, Bay Park and North Bay. He talked about major changes he wanted to make if he were elected.
“We need to really get back into the neighborhood’s services business by taking those savings we were going to have and in the future putting them back into the things that matter the most,” said Faulconer.
After Faulconer’s 10 minute speech, the President of The City Club, George Mitrovich, an alum of Pasadena Nazarene College (before it moved to PLNU), mediated the question and answer session. Faulconer answered questions about his opponents regarding what he admired about each of them. He also spoke about his plans for homelessness with his plan to transition the homeless out of that stage and try not to raise taxes. According to Mitrovich, the purpose of the forum was for Faulconer to have a conversation with the audience and act alone instead of with his competing candidates.
“We started this series and we did it purposely not wanting to do debates,” said Mitrovich. “There’s been a great many of those, but giving you an opportunity to judge the four major candidates on their own.”
The City Club is an organization led by Mitrovich that puts on events where citizens can converse with many people in government positions. They also held this same kind of event for the three other major mayoral candidates but were not on PLNU’s campus.
Many of the people in attendance were students from La Jolla Country Day School but there were also PLNU students and other citizens.
“I thought that he made a really good point that instead of just raising taxes, they need to change the inner workings of the government so that we aren’t just handing them money to waste,” said Andrew Musgrave, senior accounting major. “Instead he just wants to make the current taxes more efficient.”
Election for San Diego mayor will take place on Nov. 19. The other special mayoral election contenders are Mike Aguirre, David Alvarez, and Nathan Fletcher.
