the race<\/a> is Bailey\u2019s proposal to cut city staffing back to 2015 levels in an effort to solve the city\u2019s budget problems and shrink its long-term pension debt.<\/p>\nCrosby says Bailey is cherry picking by choosing a year when salaries were artificially low because of a later-invalidated 2012 ballot measure that prohibited employee pay raises for five years.<\/p>\n
Bailey counters that in 2015, even with fewer staff making much less money, the city was doing better on emergency response times, paving roads and other measures called key performance indicators.<\/p>\n
Crosby says response times are worse because emergency call volume has jumped sharply.<\/p>\n
On developer donations, supporters of Crosby sent out a mailer recently featuring a long list of real estate developers and apartment building owners who have made large contributions to Bailey\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve raised funds from a very diverse group,\u201d Bailey said.<\/p>\n
He also stressed that his fundraising total from individual donors is more than five times Crosby\u2019s, contending that\u2019s why she is getting so much outside support from committees funded by labor unions.<\/p>\n
Crosby said unions support her because Bailey advocates for corporate interests and wants to fire thousands of employees.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just anti-city worker,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need people to fill potholes, fix streetlights and be police officers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many supporters of Bailey say that even if you disagree with him, it would be worthwhile to have a different voice at City Hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one-group mindset has not produced good results for the city,\u201d said Bailey, stressing his experience in business and leading Coronado. \u201cI bring a perspective that is sorely missed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crosby said she\u2019s all for new voices, but not when it\u2019s someone with extreme views.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t need MAGA at City Hall,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need someone who is willing to do the work to get us out of the ditch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crosby has focused on Bailey\u2019s arrival in the district just last year, calling him a carpetbagger who has almost no connection to the neighborhoods he would represent.<\/p>\n
She also called his move to Point Loma so he could run for the seat evidence that Bailey is a career politician, contending that she is instead an ordinary citizen trying to step up and help her community.<\/p>\n
Bailey countered that he is a lifelong resident of the San Diego region, also contending that there are more important things than a long history in the district.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the issues better than her,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how long you\u2019ve lived here if you support bad policies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bailey has tried to connect Crosby with the mayor, who is generally unpopular with many voters.<\/p>\n
One online ad features the mayor thanking Crosby for her help getting City Council approval and neighborhood support for Clairemont\u2019s new development blueprint last year.<\/p>\n
And a pro-Bailey mailer says \u201cMayor Todd Gloria pulls the strings, Nicole Crosby dances to the tune.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crosby stressed that the mayor has not endorsed her and that she\u2019s been highly critical of many of his policies. She said the mayor would have thanked any Clairemont Town Council president for playing a role in finalizing the neighborhood\u2019s new development blueprint.<\/p>\n
The candidates have also clashed on the long-closed Ocean Beach Pier, with Crosby suggesting it could be rebuilt with grant money and Bailey saying some sort of public-private partnership will be necessary.<\/p>\n
Bailey supports tougher enforcement of the city\u2019s anti-camping ordinance to get homeless people off the streets. Crosby said money spent on enforcement would be better spent on support services and housing.<\/p>\n
On city trash pickup, Crosby said customers should be billed monthly instead of twice a year on property tax bills. Bailey said he would go much further and privatize the entire service.<\/p>\n
The race has attracted an unusually large amount of campaign cash.<\/p>\n
Independent expenditure committees supporting either Bailey or Crosby spent more than $750,000 during the most recent disclosure period, which covered Sept. 20 through Oct. 17.<\/p>\n
The race also got a large injection of cash from Point Loma attorney Steven Richter, who contributed $450,000 to a committee supporting Bailey.<\/p>\n
Since the start of the year, committees favoring Crosby and Bailey have both raised roughly $700,000 each.<\/p>\n
The committees supporting Crosby are almost entirely funded by labor unions, but they\u2019ve also gotten contributions from the Sycuan tribe, the county Democratic Party and Sempra.<\/p>\n
The committees supporting Bailey have gotten their money from wealthy individual donors like Richter and developer Tom Sudberry, companies like Verizon and business organizations like the Lincoln Club and the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n
Bailey, 40, lives in Point Loma. Crosby, 46, lives in Clairemont. District 2 also includes Mission Beach, Ocean Beach and Old Town.<\/p>\n
In the June primary, Bailey finished first with 14,800 votes, while Crosby was second with 14,325. But two other well-funded Democrats \u2014 Josh Coyne and Mandy Havlik \u2014 finished third and fourth and drew more than 10,000 votes between the two of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slashing city jobs, taking money from developers, carpetbagging and whether there\u2019s a need for contrarian voices at San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1400,204,989,181,23,205,100,13,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-508404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-2026-elections","tag-election","tag-elections","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}