Richard Bailey the Latest to Leave GOP: A Q&A

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Former Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey moved to Point Loma a few months ago and is now running for City Council in San Diego. 

This will be a big fun City Council race and we’ll be all over it but the Politics Report wanted to get some initial questions to him. 

Politics Report: There are a few interesting questions that come up right away. Obviously, you just moved to the district. How do you plan on communicating to people about why you’re set up to represent them well? 

Richard Bailey: “I would simply say it seems that there’s widespread opposition about what’s occurring at San Diego City Hall, and people are hungry for a change in leadership, and I think they look to cities like the city of Coronado, which has kind of been a model for good governance, and I think my experience gives me an advantage over the other candidates in terms of being able to deliver the change that voters want to see.”

Finances? That seems like what you want to really make your mark framing and talking about?

Richard Bailey: “Yeah, I think everything really starts and stops with the city’s budget situation. Between the budget situation and also the city’s desire to kind of bail themselves out of some poor financial decisions on the backs of everyday San Diegans through things like the parking fees at Balboa Park. To me this is just another example of bad governance, and it’s caused a lot of people to raise questions about the decisions City Hall is making. And so a combination of right sizing city hall and stopping the nickel and dime-ing of San Diego residents is where I think the voters want their leadership to be.”

Did you leave the Republican Party?

Richard Bailey: “I am a registered [no party preference], yes.”

When did that happen? 

Richard Bailey: “I changed my registration yesterday (Feb. 19).”

Why? 

Richard Bailey: “Oh, the thought process?”

Yeah. 

Richard Bailey: “I think if you go back and like look through just about all of my public commentary, of all the videos, tweets, social media, posts I’ve made, over the years, not just recently, but like over my 12 years, four years on the City Council and eight years as mayor, you’re hard pressed to find many partisan comments that are… where I talk about red or blue, Republican or Democrat. I like policy, and I think that there’s this growing appetite amongst people across the political spectrum for just good policy, and leaving the politics off the table. I mean, we’re seeing that right now with a lot of voters, regardless of whether they registered as Democrats or Republicans.They’re just dissatisfied with the current state of the city. And they’re, they want someone that I think is a serious leader, that cares more about policy than politics.”

You don’t have any plans to become a Democrat, though?

Richard Bailey (laughs): “I do not have any plans to re-register with any political party. No.”

I think this is really interesting. You will have some success connecting with people about frustration with the city, maybe development plans, and ideas, infrastructure problems. Obviously, though, when they think about national politics, there’s this pretty significant antipathy toward Donald Trump and the movement that he’s led. Is that something you have supported and do not support anymore? 

Richard Bailey: “I would simply say that, and this isn’t meant to be a dodge, this is just a, this is a local race. People care about local issues. It wasn’t the president that blew up the city of San Diego’s budget. It wasn’t the president who passed the trash fees, or the Balboa Park parking fees.It was the mayor of San Diego and the City Council. It always seems like the media wants to ask about thoughts on what the president is doing at the national level, even though San Diego voters are extremely dissatisfied with the direction the city of San Diego is going. And it seems that it would be more fair to ask the other candidates, well, ‘what are your thoughts on how Mayor Gloria is performing or how the City Council is performing on these issues that we’re actually campaigning to have some say in?’” 

I sympathize with that. I think we both know that the biggest thing you’re going to have to overcome is whatever connection, however tenuous they might make it, between you and the president or you and the MAGA movement. I think people do see their leaders at, at every level of, as having to think about these things and represent them in that way that they might prefer on those issues. And there are local things. There’s the potential for more significant immigration raids, oil drilling off the coast, the border and tariffs and all kinds of stuff. Is there anything you could tell us about how you feel about those things and about how the president is leading things? 

Richard Bailey: “All those issues you mentioned are outside the purview of local government, and they’re outside the purview of any of the nine councilmembers that will be sitting at the dais after November. So this campaign is just going to exclusively be about the local issues. I think I bring a lot to the table in terms of my knowledge and understanding of where the city’s budget is at right now, and my willingness to offer positions to solve the city’s structural deficit problem that won’t be popular inside City Hall but are certainly the right thing to do financially. And I think those are resonating with voters.” 

You don’t want to say anything up or down, thumbs up or down on how Trump has performed as the president or on the big discussion nationally?

Richard Bailey: “I think that voters want to talk about San Diego.”

On the trash fee repeal, you had started a movement on that. Is that something you’re still pursuing? 

Richard Bailey: “Yeah, very much so, and I think you’ll be seeing an announcement here very, very shortly, like in a couple days.”

Is there anything about the district in particular and things you want to focus on there that are going to be your priorities? 

Richard Bailey: “All politics is local. There’s micro issues in every single neighborhood. Obviously, the Midway Rising proposal is going to be a big issue, and we’ll see how that shakes out and the courts. The OB Pier and finding a way to get some money to get that reopened and hopefully, sometime in our lifetime. But once again everything kind of starts and stops with the city’s overall financial condition.”

Do you support Midway Rising as it is proposed? 

Richard Bailey: “I would say not as it is proposed, not as it is.”

What would you like to see differently? 

Richard Bailey: “I think some changes need to be made. Right now, Rosecrans, as you and I know, it’s a total cluster. Whether you’re driving there at 5 a.m. or 5 p.m. and the idea that you can have that level of development without some other type of traffic mitigation, I think it’s asking a lot of a lot of Point Loma residents. I’d like to see some changes in the plan, as relates to, as relates to traffic, as relates to parking. I do think the Sports Arena site should be redeveloped. But I do have some issues with the process for which the Midway Rising project was awarded and we’ll see if there’s an opportunity to address that in the future.”

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