SAN DIEGO — Dozens of voters turned out Wednesday night for the first San Diego mayoral candidates' forum since the primary election in March.
Both incumbent Democratic Mayor Todd Gloria and his opponent, San Diego police officer Larry Turner, an Independent, were invited to tonight's event, sponsored by the non-partisan San Diego County Taxpayers Association.
Mayor Gloria was unable to attend.
Turner fielded a number of questions, from taxes to safety to homelessness, from an overwhelmingly supportive audience.
"You know, we have not been the 'finest city' in a very long time, and it's time to bring that back," Turner said in his opening remarks.
At Wednesday's forum, held at the University Club downtown, Turner shared his take on the city's homeless crisis.
"It has increased every month for the past 24 months," he said. "The deaths on the streets have increased every year."
He proposed adding more behavioral health units to work directly with those homeless on San Diego's streets as well as taking a more compassionate tack.
"How am I going to fix it?" he added. "It's with a different approach than the Housing First program. Housing First does work for some people, but doesn't for the majority of people out there. We got to help them with the underlying problems that they have and I want to do that."
Audience member Kevin Waller voiced his concern for what he believes is the biggest issue on voters' minds as they head to the polls this fall.
"How we are going to save people money," he told CBs 8. "How he or the other candidate are going to be able to save people money here."
"The biggest thing I want to do is increase the amount of green in everybody's wallet," Turner said.
He touched on what he plans to do to achieve that.
"The biggest thing the Mayor can do is binging the businesses back into San Diego, and cutting taxes," he said.
On that front, Turner also fielded a question on the proposed one-cent sales tax increase voters will be deciding this November.
"Am I in favor if it? No, I'm not at all, " he added. "We're going to have auditors come in and look at the books on day one, and we're going to run this like a business and we're going to balance this budget in the right way and spend more on the priorities. It is about the safety, homelessness, and infrastructure."
Addressing Mayor Gloria's proposed $5.65 billion budget, in the face of a budget deficit of nearly $137 million, Turner said more funding needs to go toward communities he says have been historically underserved.
"It is a big difference when you're driving in different communities in this town," Turner said. "I don't see any of that in the budget. That's something that we are really going to tackle hard, is the places that have been left behind are going to catch back up."
Mayor Gloria's team sent CBS 8 a statement, saying that this forum was advertised without ever receiving confirmation that Mayor Gloria could attend.
They also say that the Mayor does plan to debate at a later time, closer to the election when voters are "most interested in this race."
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