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Energy, Water, and
Food Self-Sufficiency
As your Mayor,
my primary goal will be to make our city and region energy,
water and food self-sufficient as soon as possible.
Why?
Because whatever other problems we have,
they will surely get worse if there is any serious disruption
in the supply or increase in the price of
the energy, water and food we now import.
Our situation is that we are 5 to 6 million people
living in the San Diego/Tijuana region,
sustaining ourselves by importing 98 percent of our energy
and 90 percent of our water and food.
Clearly, this is not a secure position to be in,
given the craziness of today’s world.
In addition, becoming energy, water and food self-sufficient
will greatly strengthen our local economy
because of the new jobs and business opportunities it will create.
If we were energy, water and food self-sufficient today,
the $20 billion a year we now “export” to pay for
imported energy, water and food, would be circulating locally,
stimulating business and job creation on all fronts,
increasing everyone’s bottom line.
Additionally, the skills we learn in the process
of becoming self-sufficient will position us
to take world leadership in a new essential industry –
the industry of helping regions and nations around the world
become energy, water and food self-sufficient
and to help them develop sustainable economies in general.
Eliminate
Obvious Terrorist Targets
Currently we have a number of attractive terrorist targets in our region.
Some of these targets could also be set off by accidents and by natural phenomena
like earthquakes and severe weather.
If any one of these targets were successfully attacked
or unleashed by an accident, earthquake, etc.,
the consequences to our city and region would be catastrophic.
I won’t talk specifics because I don’t want to give anyone ideas.
But as Mayor of San Diego, I will do everything within my power
to identify such targets and eliminate the threat they pose.
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Land Use Planning
Life support sustaining land use planning is essential
to creating a sustainable economy and way of life in our region.
This given, I will implement a land use plan that will:
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Protect and strengthen watershed and habitat health.
When watershed and their habitats are healthy,
they reduce erosion and flooding and maximize groundwater recharge.
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Protect our best agricultural soils from development and other misuses.
World and local population is still increasing,
and the acreages and fertility of our agricultural soils,
locally and world wide, are declining.
Protecting our local agricultural soils for farming
is our insurance policy for food security
if imported food becomes too costly
or if supplies are restricted or cut off.
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Create developable land certainty.
We need development, and plenty of it,
but not in floodplains, essential wildlife habitats
or on our best agricultural soils.
I’ll also create development standards to ensure that
development methods and materials used in our city and region
are benign with respect to our health and the environment.
In one important way we are lucky.
San Diego County has some of the most skilled
and intelligent developers in the world.
With good leadership, they can build the sustainable economy
we and our descendants need.
Fundamental to living sustainably on our planet
is how we use – and choose not to use – our land.
If we choose well, our future and the future of our descendants
will be bright indeed.
If we choose poorly, sadness, suffering and regret will follow.
Work with Educators
We need to teach ourselves and each other,
how our planet’s life-support system works
and how we can do the things we need and want to do
in ways that protect human and life-support system health.
Education is the key.
If we don’t know how our planet’s life-support system works,
how can we use its productive potential sustainably?
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Recycle Sewage
My goal here is to develop a new sewage system
that keeps sewage free of toxic materials
and converts it into irrigation water and soil nutrients
so that no sewage ever gets into our waterways,
bays, or ocean, and that recovers sewage-born nutrients
which we can use to replenish our soils.
I’ll also continue the remedial work
on our present sewage system as needed
to minimize water pollution while a new system is developed.
Balanced Community Design
As Mayor, I will set in motion a process
to help every community evolve to have an optimal balance
between places for people to live, work and shop,
with plenty of entertainment and recreation venues
and other amenities.
The more the things we need and want
that are available in our own neighborhoods,
the less we will be compelled to drive
or transport ourselves long distances to get them.
“Balanced Communities” save time, energy, stress, and money,
and they reduce pollution.
They also improve neighborhood cooperation
and strengthen local economies,
and thus they reduce crime.
Wildfire Protection
Wildfire in our region is inevitable,
but its negative impact on us can be greatly reduced
with good planning and design.
Here are some things we can do to decrease our vulnerability:
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Develop codes to insure that all new construction is designed and built
to be as resistant to fire as possible.
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Create a cost-effective fire resistance upgrade program
to make existing buildings harder to burn and to educate people about how to:
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make where they live and work less flammable, and
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how to select construction materials that do not produce toxic gases
if subjected to fire or extreme heat.
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Increase firefighter training and pay.
We have to recognize that fighting fires is stressful and dangerous.
I want our firefighters to be skilled professionals,
and I’ll provide funding for training
and for more pay for firefighters in general.
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Develop a harvesting regimen to thin overgrown brush
in ways that are habitat sustaining and that do not cause erosion.
Harvesting overgrown brush will reduce the danger of wildfires,
and the harvested brush can serve as a renewable resource
for producing electricity and liquid fuels.
It can also be made into manufactured wood products,
including chipboard and other laminates.
Recycling
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Institute a public education process to enable people to know:
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what is and is not recyclable,
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how to recycle the recyclables that they no longer want, and
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how to reduce the amount of non-recyclable waste that they generate.
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Develop a “True Cost Pricing” policy
requiring manufacturers who sell products in our region
to pay the cost of recycling their difficult-to-recycle containers
and product residues.
If manufacturers don’t pay these costs,
they fall on the general public,
in that tax revenues must be used to create and maintain landfills
and to cover personal and environmental health costs.
Most importantly, “True Cost Pricing” will give product developers
a strong incentive to make their products and containers easy to recycle.
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Do everything possible to minimize things coming into our region
that are not easily recycled or are in packaging and/or containers
that cannot be easily recycled.
Reduce Population Growth
In Our Region
As your mayor, I will launch a population issues education program
to highlight the economic, social and environmental advantages
of having smaller families.
Two thirds of our county’s projected population growth
will come from children born here.
If enough parents choose to have only 1 or 2 children,
there would be no population growth from new births in San Diego County.
I will also do everything possible to improve the economies
in the countries from which most of our economic immigrants come.
This can be done through trade partnerships and technical assistance.
If people can make a decent living in their home country,
they will be less compelled to come here looking for work.
Immigration-related population increases are mostly an economic problem.
If U.S. workers could make 10 times as much in Mexico
for the same work,
we’d be crossing the border to work there.
Reduce Crime
Becoming energy, water and food self-sufficient
will greatly increase business and job opportunities,
which will mean less crime.
But if some people cannot refrain from hurting others or stealing from them,
I’ll work with community groups and law enforcement leaders
to get them off the streets.
I’ll also work to improve police officer training in community relations,
especially as it relates to youth, sexism, racism, homophobia,
and the mentally disturbed.
I’m also open to increasing police pay
and reducing work hours per week.
We have to recognize that police work is dangerous and stressful.
If we expect out police to be skilled professionals,
we must pay them and treat them accordingly.
Help Local Industry,
Business, and Agriculture
As Mayor, I will help local business, industry, and agriculture succeed
in ways that are non-polluting.
This help will come in the form of technical assistance, grants,
and low-interest loans to help local enterprises develop profitable,
non-polluting and sustainable methods of operation.
Discrimination
As your mayor, I’ll fight discrimination in all its forms and on all fronts.
Prejudice is learned.
Children are not born with it.
Prejudice hurts everyone, including its perpetrators.
Flouridation
I’m 1,000 percent against fluoridation of our common water supply.
Why? Because I don’t want to be medicated against my will
no matter how good someone else claims it will be for me or anyone else.
As a free adult,
it is my right to make such medical decisions for myself and my family,
not some stranger who knows nothing about my health or my family’s health.
While I don’t claim to be an expert in this area,
I’ve taken a good look at it, and I’m convinced
that adding fluoride to our common water supply will be harmful,
especially to fetuses and young children.
And even if fluoride proves to have some dental benefit, which I now doubt,
there are much more effective ways to get it into one’s teeth
than drinking it in our water.
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Clean Up and
Eliminate Trash
While recycling will go a long way toward cleaning up trash,
we need to educate people about what trash costs them in tax dollars
and in their quality of life.
When we throw trash on the ground we eat up tax dollars
that could be used for more beneficial purposes.
Fix Roads
As your Mayor, I’ll maintain existing roads
and develop more durable and non-polluting road technologies.
The Roman Empire built roads that are still in use today.
I believe that we can do even better.
Parks
Maintain, improve, and expand city parks,
and clean up toxic waste dumps around Mission Bay Park
and any other park or public place where toxic waste is a hazard.
Currently, Mission Bay Park generates around $17 million each year,
but only $3 to $4 million is spent to maintain the park.
I favor spending all the money generated by Mission Bay Park
on park maintenance and upgrades,
including protecting the bay from pollution
until the park’s unmet needs are satisfied.
Once these needs are satisfied,
I support using income generated by Mission Bay Park,
above what the park needs, to support our city park system in general.
Additionally, I will create a City Parks Reserve Fund
to cover park emergencies and to acquire other park lands
and wildlife habitats as they become available.
Pollution
If implemented with a little intelligence,
becoming energy, water and food self-sufficient
will reduce local pollution by 75 percent.
Educational programs to teach us how our planet’s life support system works
and how we can use that knowledge to create a prosperous and humane future
will eliminate pollution altogether.
Ultimately, pollution is just a resource in the wrong place.
Airport:
Thinking Outside the Box
Although I want to remain open to all views on the airport issue
before making up my mind,
my preference now is to build a floating airport 5 miles offshore.
Passengers would get to and from the airport from the mainland
in 5 minutes on high-speed catamarans.
Once the floating airport became operational, Lindbergh Field would be closed.
I’ve researched the floating airport option,
and I’m impressed with the technology developed by Float Inc.,
a San Diego company, and their testing data.
I haven’t completed a rigorous analysis on the project’s cost,
but I believe a floating airport could be largely, if not completely,
paid for by the increased property and sales tax revenues
that would result if the land now occupied by Lindbergh field were developed.
Additional revenues would be generated from increased property values
that would result from eliminating the noise pollution
caused by planes taking off and landing at Lindbergh Field.
Additionally, a floating airport will generate more income than Lindbergh Field
because planes would be able to land and take off over water,
5 miles out, 24/7, without disturbing anyone’s sleep or tranquility.
Contrast this possibility with the current situation at Lindbergh Field,
which because of noise pollution issues, is shut down one third of the time.
Sports
Although not essential like energy, water, and food security,
sports are very popular in our city and region.
Even so, there are many people, sports fans and non-fans alike,
who are bitter about the tax give-away deals our City has made
with our major sports team owners.
As your mayor, I’ll do everything possible to eliminate such give-aways.
In our free-market economy, professional sports, like any other business,
should be supported by the people who enjoy sports,
not by taxpayers at large.
As an athlete who lettered in three sports in high school
and played basketball at Palomar College and at Long Beach State University,
now the California State University Long Beach (CSULB),
I know the love of sports.
To satisfy our sports appetite,
I propose the creation of a major Pro-Am sports complex
with complete professional football, basketball, soccer, hockey, tennis,
and other sports facilities, and their parallel amateur counterparts.
My first choice for this sports complex is the triangle of land
south of the Miramar Naval Training Center bounded by 805 and 163.
This site has excellent transportation access and is not in a floodplain,
not on prime agricultural soils, not blocking groundwater recharge,
not on land subject to liquefaction, and not on or dividing riparian habitats.
How do we pay it? By becoming energy, water and food self-sufficient.
That will generate all the funds we need, not only for a comprehensive sports center,
but a lot more besides.
The Arts
Historically, consciously or unconsciously,
the artist has served as a kind of beacon for the rest of humanity,
pointing out new things or new ways of seeing the familiar.
The artist has also played the role of a heightened sensory receptor
for society at large, sensing some threat, challenge,
or opportunity as yet unrecognized by the rest of us,
then using art to bring it to our attention.
Today the artist has a new challenge –
to imagine an ecologically sustainable future
and use art to create that future.
As an artist/designer, I am of this camp, and I encourage all artists to join in.
Perhaps more than ever before,
artists have the power to transform the world
into a kinder, more helpful, happy, and life-support-sustaining place
for ourselves, our children and future generations.
Increasing Our Benefit
From Tourism
The more our region becomes energy, water and food self-sufficient,
the more we will benefit from the dollars tourists spend here.
Today, almost all the money that tourists spend here on energy, water, and food,
leaves our local economy because all three things are imported.
If they were produced locally,
the money spent on them by tourists would go
into the pockets of local businesses and their employees.
Since most of the people earning this money would live locally,
most of what they earned would be spent locally,
helping everyone’s bottom line.
Public Land
I’m 1,000 percent against selling public land.
Public land can be leased, long term, for appropriate uses,
but it should never be sold.
When we sell it, we get a one time payment.
When we lease it, it generates public income forever.
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I will continue to work to have San Diego expand its public education
on how common practices and products pollute our environment
and how alternative practices and products can be used
to achieve the same goals with out causing problems.