Alejandro Galicia, a small-business owner and veterans advocate, is a Republican challenging Nora Vargas for her seat representing District 1 on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. He lives in Chula Vista and owns BPI Plumbing. The San Diego Union-Tribune asked Galicia and the other candidates for supervisor for their priorities, plans and positions if elected. Their responses have been lightly edited for style and clarity. Why are you running, and what makes you the best candidate? I’m running because I’ve seen a disturbing trend of community leaders not fulfilling their duty regarding routine and emergency county services. Instead, they focus on political pet projects to reward their donors and to pander for re-election. I’m the best candidate because of my background and diverse experience. I have 24 years of active and reserve military experience, which includes leading troops in the combat zone, as well as 20 years in travel, transportation and logistics and almost 20 years as a successful small-business owner. Further, I managed through a scenario similar to our local Tijuana River Valley crisis in leading an effort to understand and mitigate the risks of exposing our soldiers to the raw sewage, heavy metals and agricultural runoff present in Imperial County’s New River. Finally, I volunteer time serving my community on nonprofit boards, focusing on local history, veteran entrepreneurship and my local homeowners association. What are the top 3 issues facing this district and the county generally? Our top 3 issues are: The health and environmental impact of the Tijuana River Valley sewage flow. The multitude of restrictions and regulations which have slowed housing developments while increasing costs and contributing to the homeless crisis. Our fundamental failure to adequately respond and assist those who lost their homes during recent natural disasters. We have other issues to address, all of which contribute to the above, like the ever-growing traffic congestion problem, addressing the mental health crisis (both civilian and military) and attracting and retaining small and large businesses here in South County. What are the first 3 things you would do in office if elected or re-elected? We need to identify the best solutions without political ownership and instant buy-in. How? All sides have input. I don’t care who gets the credit. I will build a nonpartisan brain trust of experts from diverse backgrounds who all share a sincere desire to help. To start, this brain trust would focus first on the top three priorities previously mentioned: the Tijuana River crisis, housing/homelessness and disaster response. I believe that planning is based more on practicality and maximum impact over what appears to be the focus now: maximum political impact. I also don’t believe any one person, including me, has all the answers. I have a strong background, which will allow me to eventually form a strong opinion that I would then try to formulate into policy, but sometimes the best answers are those “outside the box.” As such, I would lead with an open ear. Do you support Measure G, the half-cent county sales tax increase that would fund transportation? Why or why not? I personally will not vote for this measure because we have already allocated similar funding via previous measures in the recent past to address these same traffic issues. To me, this appears to promote just throwing more money at a problem with goals being more political than practical. What more should the county do to combat the region’s housing crisis? I see this as the long-term approach to tackling both the regional housing crisis (expense) as well as the regional homelessness crisis, as to a certain extent they go hand in hand. But the county needs to make it easier and less expensive for builders to build more housing. We can do this by encouraging construction of more housing with more collaboration, responsiveness and planning across departments. As a contractor, I know the departments work hard, but regardless, collaboration does not always seem to be a priority. What are your plans for addressing homelessness in San Diego County and in this district specifically? This topic is near and dear to my heart. It is painful seeing many of my veteran brethren homeless. It’s demeaning and humiliating. Shame on us for tolerating it. There are multiple causes, from high cost and low availability of housing, a weak economy, plus psychological and substance abuse issues. We may be a destination where municipalities around the country send their homeless. While this requires funding, just throwing taxpayer money at the problem has not stopped homelessness. I would build a coalition of regional nonprofits, government services and mental health professionals to focus on solutions that actually help homeless victims. How should public safety and civil liberties be balanced when it comes to homelessness enforcement, behavioral health policy and surveillance? Do you support Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent move to clear encampments? I believe that public safety comes first, and of course, this especially includes the safety of our fellow homeless citizens and residents. I believe that Gov. Newsom’s “clear encampments” push is an election-year ploy meant to give the impression that his policies are solving homelessness, instead of causing it. California has long struggled with homelessness, but it has worsened in the last decade. The impact of the supermajority’s policies has exacerbated this challenge, and the answer will not lie in Newsom criminalizing homelessness. We should instead mitigate it by confronting the root causes: substance abuse, mental health and affordability. Recent flooding has brought new attention to how the effects of climate change can disproportionately impact poorer neighborhoods and communities of color. How should the county combat this? The reference here are the recent winter floods that occurred, and I personally witnessed. It came down to this: The flood-control channels that could have reduced this impact actually exist and were in place. The sad truth is that those in lower-income neighborhoods it impacted saw way less upkeep and maintenance than, say, those in La Jolla. Why are we surprised? Regardless of climate change, our state sometimes experiences deluges like this thanks to ongoing climate events, like El Niño, the Hawaiian Express, etc. Upkeep should not just focus on the more affluent parts of the county. San Diego County jails have had a persistent problem of people dying in them year after year. What more should the county do to keep people in its custody safe? I grew up mostly in “very non-affluent” Southern California neighborhoods. Many people close to me, including family members, were incarcerated, so I am especially sensitive to this problem. Many people in jail are awaiting trial and some may wind up being innocent. Unless duly convicted, none merit a death sentence. The reason for our unconscionable high death rates in our jails is our mishandling of those battling substance abuse and mental health issues. We know that. This is nothing new. The question is, why are we not holding those that oversee our jail system accountable? Accountability is the answer. What are your plans for improving transportation options and reducing vehicle emissions in this district and countywide? Overall, to reduce congestion and emissions is to encourage people to either carpool or to utilize public transportation options. We cannot scare people out of their vehicles with draconian measures like mileage taxes, nor continuously increasing fuel and registration costs with more and more taxes. Improve traffic flow via widening existing roadways and expanding carpool lanes. If we are going to emphasize public transportation, then we should incentivize it via employer and educational tax credits. Make it worth it, so people can learn to use it.