OCEANSIDE — The final list of City Council candidate is in for the Nov. 4 election. Candidate Dana Corso, Councilman Gary Felien, candidate Charles “Chuck” Lowery, Councilman Jerome Kern, and candidate Robert Tran share their views on how to improve Oceanside’s low jobs-to-housing ratio.
Some replies are shortened and do not include additional examples or comments by candidates.
How can Oceanside improve its jobs-to-housing ratio?
Dana Corso
First of all, we should stop trying to outsource Oceanside jobs.
Our current city council majority supports outsourcing Oceanside jobs to out-of-town companies.
Rather than relying on existing city staff, such as our Planning Department, the council majority pays out hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars on outside “consulting reports” and “studies” for their pet projects.
We should keep Oceanside jobs in Oceanside!
Second, our city council should restore the requirements for builders and developers to build more affordable housing. They’ve even eliminated the “in-lieu” fee for developers.
To keep jobs in Oceanside, workers must be able to afford to live here, raise their families, and have a good quality of life.
Gary Felien
Oceanside needs to be a well-managed city with balanced budgets, no tax increases, and costs — including pensions — under control. This will allow the city to provide the services and amenities that attract businesses and high-income employees.
I would like to see the city expand the Economic Development Department so we can be more aggressive in attracting businesses.
Oceanside needs to have high quality roads so employees have shorter commute times and businesses can deliver goods and services.
We need to work every day to make Oceanside a business friendly community.
We need to reduce regulations whenever possible. We have reformed affordable housing fees, deferred fees until an occupancy permit is issued and reformed undergrounding requirements for small projects.
Charles “Chuck” Lowery
On the City Council, I will make creating jobs and growing our economy top priorities. The Oceanside I grew up in took pride in its many good jobs in local small businesses, defense contracting and manufacturing.
We can do more to make it easier to start a local business in Oceanside and we should offer incentives to attract new innovative industries to relocate to Oceanside. That will help us achieve a better jobs/housing balance.
I will work to build consensus behind these common sense ideas to create jobs and grow our economy. I have the business experience to get it done.
I’d be honored to put my experience to work for the businesses, families and working people of Oceanside.
Jerome Kern
We are improving the jobs-to-housing ratio by attracting new business to Oceanside.
We have a company coming to Ocean Ranch that is to build a 300,000-square-foot facility that promises to provide over 500 jobs.
We also have smaller businesses opening and adding jobs.
We had new biotech firms locate to Oceanside just in the past year, and since the types of industry tend to cluster, I expect more to follow.
Robert Tran
The job-to-housing ratio is disappointing in Oceanside. Housing outnumbers jobs by a large margin.
We need to attract mid- to enterprise-size businesses that will provide various employment opportunities to our Oceanside residents.
With certain qualifications met, we should offer special incentives to large companies if they hire Oceanside residents.
Although we want businesses to build in Oceanside, we cannot simply build concrete building stacked next to each other and hope it will attract future developers.
Oceanside needs to promote our “lifestyle.” People should want to live and work here. The demand, itself, would attract businesses.
We also need to find ways to help small businesses. I believe we should reduce or eliminate fees for the first year for businesses that meet certain criteria. We should also give all small businesses an opportunity for a one-time forbearance of business fees to the city.
This will help promote Oceanside as a business friendly city and will give more opportunities for job creation in Oceanside.
In the Sept. 5 edition of The Coast News candidates will address the question: What has priority development of downtown, bringing and keeping large corporations, or bringing and keeping small businesses and small town charm?
7 comments
I have lived in Oceanside for 40 years. I voted for Wood in the last election. These comments are extremely bias and makes me wonder if they actually read what the candidates said. It makes me wonder if Dana Corso and her drones are purposely flooding the comments sections to portray Dana as the perfect candidate. She seems like a crony and has previously lied many times just for political gain. Judging by the candidates statements, the only person who has any original thought to me is Robert. Everyone else fluff their answers and Dana seems to have a ego problem. Look at the current council. If Lowery and Dana win then the council will be extemely bias to one side. I think Kern and Robert will be a better bet for a balance city council. And I dont like Kern but Dana made me turn this way.
I’m amazed at all the hateful comments posted in here when obviously the commentators have forgotten a tiny bit of history. Do you all remember the exorbitant fees that came from Chuck Lowery when he was a councilman for all of 5 months. Remember all the debt the city went in on the eve of a massive recession. Remember how we as a city were DOWNGRADED on our credit because of how Sanchez, Lowery, and Wood voted? Obviously you all lived in a glass bubble and were okay with that.
Since the elections of the new council majority, downtown Oceanside if finally moving forward with new restaurants, growth in tourism, which is up by 24% this year. Oh wait, I think that counts as economic growth :)
All I hear is whine whine whine… melrose this, RDO intersection that. What about finding a solution? We do have gridlock on the major corridors of Oceanside and something needs to be done. Have any of you driven down college, or El Camino? If we don’t plan accordingly we will fail this city for the future and nobody wants that. It’s time we stop blaming, stop whining, and start finding solutions.
Hating gets us no where, but a conversation moves us forward.
No hate here- Lowery set the tone to reform pensions by making public safety pay their fair share. Every council since then has followed his vote for every contract.
Robert Tran sounds interesting too.
I completely agree. I dont mind Lowery but these candidates are obviously playing politics and is part of a certain team/side. The only one I think that has no side is Robert Tran. His answer was the best.
Felien you said you balanced the budget. When in the last 123 years has Oceanside not balanced the budget? The answer is it always has!! Felien you say Oceanside needs High Quality Roads with shorter commute time. Why have you and Kern spent over $2 million on studies for the Melrose extension when you know it will save less than 3 seconds of commute time and cost way over $40 million to build it. To me that is wasting money! That is not a well managed city that you boast about. Reduce Regulations! Yea! After we got the Charter and regulations were reduced we got the wonderful Harbor Aquatics Center? No wait a minute we didn’t get an Aquatics Center we got a General Contractor that was unable to complete the project, forcing the Surety Company to take over. What did Oceanside get? Oceanside got a building to store things in half the size and paid construction costs 65% higher per square foot for the sharply scaled down facility. That was thanks to the Council Majority of Kern, Chavez, and Feller. (Felien you supported that Council Majority!! Now back to the well managed City under your watch!! Jeffries Ranch road was closed and how much did that cost? It will cost at least $1 million to reopen it and now those homes back there only have one exit!! Don’t worry we never have fires Do We? Good Managing there??? Isn’t the Southern California Coast one of the most expensive, valuable property in the World? Felien you and Kern have done the Fiscally Irresponsible thing and pay $17 million for a Hotel, where the developers only pays $3 million and on top of that under your guidance (Well Managing) Oceanside doesn’t even get a piece of the profits for the investment? In another one of your (Kern & Felien) Hotel Investment deals, you promise to give away our income for 15 years. That doesn’t seem like a Well Managed City to me!!! This is under Kern’s and Felien’s watch!! It is time to Dump Them!! Vote for Lowery and Corso they are profitable smart business people that will manage the city, save jobs, balance the budget and bring smart business with good jobs to our City.
The current City Council members (incumbent) say they want good growth, but they vote for very bad road changes like the round about construction, one-way streets, reverse angle parking, complete streets (which just puts lipstick on a pig) and mixed use, high rise buildings (so-called low income housing) next to the rail lines and public transportation. Have you ever counted the number of people on the Sprinter as it passes you by? None of this will attract economic growth. Much of this comes from the state mandates under Agenda 21. For whatever reasons, Wood and Sanchez have voted against these things, and I know Dana Corso would vote against them as well.
Felien’s idea of “quality roads” is to put through the $40 million Oceanside taxpayer dollars Melrose Extension that was already REJECTED by our Planning Dept. & would take Oceanside homes, a large part of Guajome Park & Rancho Dos Palmas, but only benefit travel time by a few SECONDS for people coming from Temecula/Riverside!!! Check his website. Kern still doesn’t get that people (VOTERS) have to be able to AFFORD to live and work here so that their income STAYS in Oceanside’s economy. By giving “sweetheart deals” to builders & developers (who WROTE Oceanside’s City Charter!), younger families are leaving in droves because they can’t afford to live here! We need a BALANCE and some common sense. Dana Corso grew her start-up business into franchises and start new business here. DUMP KERN & FELIEN IN 2014. CORSO FOR COUNCIL!!!
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