Ahead of Tuesday’s special election, supervisor candidates Paloma Aguirre and John McCann worked Saturday to try persuade last-minute voters who have yet to cast their ballots.
The election is to fill the vacant District 1 seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors; the district serves Chula Vista, National City, unincorporated areas of South County and parts of the city of San Diego.
Aguirre, the mayor of Imperial Beach, held a campaign rally and canvassing event at her Chula Vista headquarters and allowed a Times of San Diego reporter to attend. Her opponent, McCann, the mayor of Chula Vista, refused to allow another reporter to join his supporters’ canvassing efforts.
Aguirre’s campaign rally saw appearances from Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe and San Diego City Councilmember Kent Lee, who both endorsed her and gave speeches.
“We’re down to the wire,” Lee said, addressing the volunteers setting out to canvas in the community. “It takes everyone coming together to reach every single voter.”
Aguirre’s key issues include lowering the cost of living and addressing the Tijuana River sewage crisis. She also has campaigned on the promise to “protect” the county from the effects of Trump administration decisions.
Many attendees, including Volunteer Coordinator Jacob Birbak, highlighted Aguirre’s ongoing work on cross-border sewage as a key reason for their support.
Birbak, 17, noted that Aguirre secured $250 million in funding for repairs and wastewater treatment following her advocacy in Washington, D.C.
“This goes to show that she cares about the people,” Birbak said. “This is probably the most important supervisor election.”
Aguirre asserted her support for federal programs such as Medicare and SNAP following potential cuts by the Trump administration. She criticized other federal cutbacks, as well as the recent increase in immigration enforcement in the South Bay.
Aguirre frequently highlighted the fact that the current Board of Supervisors, though officially a nonpartisan body, is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. She and McCann are registered respectively, as a Democrat and Republican, making Tuesday’s election a tie-breaker.
They survived the special election primary in April, out-polling five other candidates who had sought to replace Nora Vargas. The Democrat left office in January despite having just won re-election two months prior.
Joaquin Quintero, a canvassing volunteer and lifelong Chula Vista resident, said the stakes of this election reminded him why he first got involved in politics.
The 24-year-old, disturbed by political rhetoric portraying immigrants as dangerous, became politically active in high school after President Donald Trump’s first election win, in 2016.
Growing up in a migrant community, he said he knew from firsthand experience that “this wasn’t true.”
He now serves as a community representative for the office of San Diego City Council President Joe LaCava, and joined his colleague Kathryn DeGeller — also a vocal supporter of Aguirre — in canvassing neighborhoods along Third Avenue.
The two approached the home of an 84-year-old resident who expressed frustration with local politicians and said he would not be voting in this election.
Quintero said he understood the sentiment, but felt as though Aguirre was a candidate that will “really support local communities.”
“People are fed up with business as usual,” Quintero said. “I’ve never seen an advocate like her for the South Bay, so for me, it’s easy to come out and get excited about it.”
Aguirre’s campaign plans to continue canvassing efforts until election day. The candidate said that these final efforts are to make sure that people are aware of the upcoming election.
“We’re a campaign that is people-powered,” Aguirre said. “This is a special election, which tends to skew towards a low voter turnout, so we want to excite as many people as possible.”
Sharp criticism of Aguirre’s budget plans
McCann, a self-proclaimed “finance guy” who earned a master’s degree in economics at San Diego State, said during an ABC10 debate with Aguirre earlier this month that the county’s most pressing issue is its $138.5 million budget deficit.
“I have, as the mayor of the city of Chula Vista, balanced our budget,” he said in the debate, adding that the city did not increase costs, dip into reserves, lay off staff or reduce services on his watch.
McCann called Aguirre’s plan to use the county’s $1.1 billion in reserve funds “unacceptable.”
Acccording to Voice of San Diego, the reserves are set aside to fund pensions and housing-related loans.
If the reserves are diminished, the county’s services, such as law enforcement, will be negatively impacted, McCann said.
“When I get on the board, I’m going to make sure we get a healthy budget, so we consistently fund the operations and the services for our community long term, and make it sustainable,” McCann said.
Aguirre on Saturday said she has experience balancing budgets as mayor of Imperial Beach and as a board member of San Diego Community Power, an alternative to SDG&E.
“I want to make sure we can get somebody in the seat that can put people first, put community first, and put those resources back into the community,” Aguirre said.
How to vote
Active registered voters in District 1 have until 8 p.m. on Tuesday, when the polls close, to cast their ballots. Ballots went out the week of June 2, and voters have been mailing them in or leaving them in county drop boxes since then.
Currently, seven voting centers are open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Tuesday, 13 voting centers will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Times of San Diego’s James Miller contributed to this report.
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