Assemblyman Todd Gloria came out of the primary strong with 40% of the vote, but his opponent, City Council member Barbara Bry squeaked by Scott Sherman in a primary runoff and has been a force to reckon with when it comes to fundraising.
Assemblyman Todd Gloria has served as interim mayor and two-term San Diego City Council member. City Council member Barbara Bry is in her first term and has worked as an entrepreneur. San Diego will be electing only its third Democrat as mayor since 1971. The winner will be left tackling the city's biggest budget deficit in history, more than $350 million due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"As someone who chaired the city’s budget committee for years, I believe I have the experience of leading San Diego from deficit to the surpluses, building the reserve that’s helping fund city services today," Gloria said.
"As mayor, I’m going to look at how we can operate city government more effectively, that starts with eliminating our bloated middle management, reviewing all our city leases," Bry said.
Aside from the usual top issues of affordable housing and homelessness, the new city leader will also have to answer growing calls from residents to redistribute funds from law enforcement to social services.
"Law enforcement and the community recognizes that we ask too much of our police officers, really relying on them to do stuff outside of their scope of work," said Gloria. "I think that by migrating some of those responsibilities to professionals who are actually trained in those areas we can actually see a cost reduction from the city."
"I was an early supporter of the independent police review commission. It will be on the ballot in November. It will hold police officers accountable and it will let community members know that they have a safe place to turn if they're a victim of police abuse," said Bry. "I believe that everyone, including police officers, need to be held accountable."
