La Prensa San Diego
In the race to represent Point Loma and San Diego’s coastal communities on the City Council, La Prensa San Diego endorses Richard Bailey based on his record in public office, business experience, and positions on the City’s finances, public safety and major development projects.
Bailey, a local business owner and former Mayor of Coronado, has the educational and work experience needed to bring real change to San Diego where the current crop of elected officials has left the City with a structural budget deficit that now threatens every department from street repairs to parks and public safety.
Richard Bailey
Mayor Todd Gloria and the City Council have overseen years of increased labor and operating costs while the City has struggled with a structural budget imbalance.
Their answer has not been to reduce expenses to make the City run leaner; instead, they have pushed three tax increase ballot measures which the public—rightfully so—hasn’t supported; the 2024 sales tax increase and June 2026 empty house tax rejected by voters, and the sales tax increase on the ballot next month that polls show is opposed by over 60% of the voters surveyed.
Bailey opposed all three tax increase measures. His opponent supported all three.
Richard earned a Master’s degree in Economics and taught at the University of San Diego, worked for a Fortune 500 company, and has run his two businesses in San Diego for years. He signs checks on the front side, not the back, giving him real-world experience which is sorely lacking among the City Council made up of former political operatives and city lawyers.
His opponent, Nicole Crosby, claims to be a tough City lawyer, but has worked in the same office that negotiated and approved the disastrous 101 Ash building lease and later purchase, the 1,000 bed homeless shelter that never became a reality, and now, the Midway Rising project that is corrupt from its inception, yet she has never criticized those catastrophic decisions.
La Prensa San Diego has published several articles outlining how labor leader Bridget Browning lobbied the Mayor and City Council in support of the Midway Rising project, but never disclosed that her husband, Dan Rottenstreich, was secretly paid over $200,000 by the project team.
We asked Crosby whether she believes Browning had a conflict of interest in lobbying the City on behalf of the project’s developer who had paid her own husband.
Crosby took six days to respond, writing, “I have no personal knowledge of this situation.”
We asked Crosby about a letter the Midway Rising developer sent to the City on the day before he was selected, committing not to flip or sell any of the project, but later sold 95% to a Los Angeles billionaire. Crosby’s response: “I have no knowledge of the letter.”
As a lawyer, specially one within the City Attorney’s office overseeing the agreements with the Midway Rising developer, Crosby either made no effort to research the issues for herself, or decided it wasn’t worth looking into them before responding to our questions.
Regardless, Crosby has remained silent on the most controversial and consequential projects the City—and her office—has promoted during her tenure at the City.
101 Ash cost taxpayers more than $200 million and is still vacant and unusable. She says nothing.
The 1,000 bed homeless shelter proposed during Gloria’s re-election campaign never materialized. She says nothing.
And now, the same leaders, including Todd Gloria and the City Council, are rushing to approve the Midway Rising project that is so contentious, they pushed state special legislation through the State Capitol to exempt it from certain environmental lawsuits.
Crosby wholeheartedly supports to project.
Maybe coincidentally, she is endorsed by Browning’s union group, and Rottenstreich is running the labor union PAC spending hundred of thousands of dollars opposing Bailey.
San Diego needs to break the group-think that has driven the City into near bankruptcy.
Bailey has committed to fight against the reckless spending that pushed the City into financial distress, opposes the Midway Rising project, and opposes simply asking taxpayers to pay more taxes instead of working to bring our spending in line with our revenue.
These shouldn’t be difficult political positions to take, but they are for his opponent who is beholden to the special interests and labor unions who control the Mayor’s office and City Council.
If San Diegans want to have a City Councilmember who will fight for balanced budgets, lower taxes, and better City services, especially police and fire, Richard Bailey is the right candidate to vote for.
La Prensa San Diego endorses Richard Bailey for San Diego City Council, District 2.
