SAN DIEGO — News 8 sat down in January 2020 with Jarvis Gandy, a current business owner who is now running for San Diego Mayor. We asked him multiple questions that are important to San Diegans.
They included:
- One of the biggest issues in San Diego is the housing crisis. Whether it is a shortage of inventory or residents being priced out of the market. What is your plan to deal with this issue?
- What do you see as the biggest issue right now with San Diego’s infrastructure? What is your plan to improve the overall quality of San Diego’s infrastructure?
- Climate change is an important issue for many San Diegans. Where can San Diego improve when combatting climate change?
- How will you deal with the differences and the particular needs of San Diegans when it comes to the White House’s policies on immigration and the border?
- Why should San Diegans vote for you?
Check out the full interview with Jarvis Gandy. A full transcription can be found below.
Jarvis Gandy (I)
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:00:00] Welcome, I'm Barbara Lee Edwards. This is part of our series of interviews with mayoral candidates and joining me tonight is Jarvis Gandy. Thank you so much for coming into the studios to speak with us tonight. You were a write-in candidate. What made you want to enter this race?
Jarvis Gandy [00:00:16] Well, I want to use this race because, you know, I live in San Diego for quite some time, and I do have a heart of hearts for San Diego. There's a lot of issues that have not been taken care of. And I do want to be able to handle those issues.
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:00:34] One of the biggest issues we have right now is the housing crisis. And there are layers to it. There is not enough inventory out there. What is available for sale is very, very expensive just out of reach for most people. Do you have a plan for that?
Jarvis Gandy [00:00:48] I do have a plan for that. You know, [00:00:51]as we all know, Governor, Governor Newsom has signed a bill to help homelessness. You know, if we're going to talk about that for people to go into the vacant houses, we could use some of the vacant houses, and but I have a plan that I want to have a sort of like Uber effect to, whereas I'm gonna be trying to talk to a lot of the nonprofit agencies to subsidize rents. And I will be partnering with a lot of the landlords and the homeowners here in the city of San Diego. The beauty of this is not only going to be for local and state is going to be a national plan that I'm going to be able to implement for that. [45.6s]
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:01:37] When you talk about subsidizing rent, then it's sort of something like a Section 8, but you're taking it a step further because a lot of people say that's really not enough in this day and age.
Jarvis Gandy [00:01:45] And that is correct. That is correct. But [00:01:47]if we as privatized, you know, individuals should be able to help subsidize this, then we could take this to another level where I was still trying to structure and figure out all of our affordable housing and so forth and so on. [15.4s]
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:02:03] And you want to do that at a national level as well?
Jarvis Gandy [00:02:05] It will be it's a win-win situation. It's going to go it's going to go national as well.
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:02:10] All right. Mayor Faulconer has touted his road repair program, fixing a number of things in the cities. He really focused on potholes as part of the infrastructure repair, the "Get it Done" app was out there. What would be your priority when it comes to San Diego's infrastructure? Because there is so much of it that needs repair.
Jarvis Gandy [00:02:29] Well, and I do know that, you know, last year we had about 29 million dollars allocated from the trans tax TLT. And here's the situation. [00:02:38]The majority of San Diegans are just really, really tired of SANDAG dictating where their money is went. And so, so so my theme and my slogan is, where's your money going? San Diego. I will deliver, you know. And on that note, I'll say, let's make history. But so instead of just paving many, many miles and patching, that won't be under my administration, you know, under my leadership as mayor, we're going to fix those problems in real-time. And what I mean about in real-time, we have to remember that when you live in a home, whether you're renting or buying, you have the right that your problems be abated. So these have these problems. These are our potholes have not been abated. And I'm going to take on the side of the majority of San Diego. Let's get that done. [53.1s]
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:03:32] We're talking about pipes under the street, too. We've had a lot of water mains bursting at times and we're being told to save water. So, you know, there again, that's another problem with several layers to it. Where would the budget come from? For something like that, if you're planning on going even further with that scope?
Jarvis Gandy [00:03:47] Well, that's all true. That's very, very dangerous. You know, if you I just read a clip once, China losing a bus to potholes. So it's a very dangerous. But I have a plan also that I can't go much into it at this particular time. But I will that's also local is going to help every mayor and every city is going to go national. And that's an economic plan to help bring in. I think we have a projected one hundred million dollars for the budget of the city of San Diego. So moving forward, I would like to say that I'm probably the only mayor that's going to be able to match that with my economic plan.
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:04:27] But this is something that you've already researched and you do have the budget for it. You just haven't laid it all out yet?
Jarvis Gandy [00:04:32] Well, we do have that. We do have the budget for it. And here's where the budget is going to come from. The budget, we're going to reach out to every small business in the United States. And this is, again, national. So it's going to benefit all of us. But we here in the city of San Diego, we're just going to be we're going to be the ones who are going to implement. So we're going to be prime examples. So it's going to be unprecedented things under my term as mayor.
Jarvis Gandy [00:05:00] Climate change is a huge issue, obviously, all around the globe. The United States and people here in San Diego seem to be pretty climate aware, if you will. And we've made some changes already with some communities banning styrofoam, plastic utensils, things like that. Where do you see us falling short? As far as being able to better look after our environment?
Jarvis Gandy [00:05:22] Well, I do think that, you know, [00:05:25]we need to be more, you know, get into more green, you know, aspects of what we're doing. And I think that we can add those even when we are talking about some type of housing. For instance, we can maybe use bamboo to build some type of homes. But climate change is very important to me. I think we have to understand the science of climate change. I believe the world's bends around the sun at a certain pace. And I don't think it's I think we have to really, really look and see what is causing it more. That's my take on it at this point. [41.7s]
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:06:07] More than addressing it in the moment. You want to do more research on exactly why things are headed in the right direction.
Jarvis Gandy [00:06:13] Exactly.
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:06:15] OK. Mayor Faulconer has had a complicated relationship to the White House with the White House when it comes to immigration. What's been going on along our border? How would you navigate those waters as mayor of San Diego to try and repair that relationship or handle the situation that's happening along our border?
Jarvis Gandy [00:06:36] You know, and so, [00:06:37]so border control is very, very important to me. And I've spoken with some Latino lawyers, you know, regarding border control, and I'll be wanting to speak with a lot of others. So we have, I think, a good track on our immigration system. We just had to make it better, [25.2s] you know?
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:07:04] And what do you see working?
Jarvis Gandy [00:07:07] [00:07:07]I see working for us to just make sure that, you know, when we do deport, you know, that we're deporting in the right warm and passionate. If we do have sanctioned sanctuary cities, you know that we do make sure that, you know, the people that we are capturing are just well taken care of and sent back properly. You know, I don't want to see any type of corruption in any type of way or any children being harmed in this aspect. [35.3s]
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:07:43] Is there anything that you have watched over the last couple of years, in particular in regards to immigration and what's been going on along our border that you would change?
Jarvis Gandy [00:07:55] Not at this point. Not at this point. I'd have to see probably another five months to a year of what's. You know, what our current administration has, but I don't see a lot. At this time.
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:08:11] If I was gonna say to you, as somebody who is not familiar to a lot of San Diegans because you're not. You were a write-in candidate. So a lot of it you have to really introduce yourself to San Diego voters. What would you say to them? Why should they vote for you?
[00:08:25] Well, I would say, you know, that [00:08:27]they should vote for me again because I'm the only candidate who has an economic plan. [5.2s] And if you understand. If someone says, say economics to me, you know, [00:08:40]I want America to know that you cannot have a great economic plan if you don't have fairness. So fairness have to be an equation of fairness in housing. Fairness in job discrimination, you know, and there's can't be no fairness in job discrimination. So my point to saying that we cannot have covert racism, you know, here in the city of San Diego, we have to grow. We have to grow as a city. And we need to change the course that we're that we're going [33.6s] out there. I want my people that who took my pen, sign me up as a nominee, you know, the nominating person, they already knew. They felt it in their hearts, their heart of hearts. So they were saying that they want change and we do need change. [00:09:32]And so I think, you know, we're going to get to that point. We're gonna get to that point. We're gonna make it. We're all gonna win, win, win. But so. So to have a great economics, to have great economics, you need fairness, you need due process. And I think that's what we're gonna have here in the city of San Diego. [16.3s]
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:09:50] Where can people find out more information about you in the way of a website or a Facebook page that will start to lay out these plans? Because you have alluded to a lot of plans. You didn't want to give out all the details of them. Just happy. You understand that voters would want to know some of those deals before going to the polls.
Jarvis Gandy [00:10:05] Yeah, absolutely. So they can go to Jarvisgandy4mayor.com. They can also join me on my radio show and they can call in at (914) 205-5550. And that's going to be on every Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. And so that's where they can go and they can see me on Facebook at Jarvis Gandy for Mayor.com.
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:10:34] And you want people to reach out to you? Absolutely. Question going. Yes.
Barbara-Lee Edwards [00:10:38] All right. Jarvis Gandy, mayoral candidate for San Diego, I'm Barbara Lee Edwards. Thanks for joining us.
To see the interviews with the six other candidates, click here.