This is the first in a two-part series of interviews with candidates for the San Diego City Council’s District 2 seat, currently occupied by Jennifer Campbell. District 2 includes Clairemont, Midway, Mission Beach, Mission Bay, Old Town, Ocean Beach, and Point Loma.
The candidates include: Richard Bailey, Nicole Crosby, Mike Rickey, Paul Suppa, Josh Coyne, Jacob Mitchell, and Mandy Havlik.
Explore Clairemont interviewed all the candidates. Explore Clairemont asked its audience to submit questions they’d like answered by the candidates, so all the questions the candidates were asked are directly from them.
Part One of this series includes candidate interview summaries and full-length videos from Richard Bailey, Nicole Crosby, and Mike Rickey. The remaining candidate interviews will be posted next week.
The election will be held on June 2, 2026.
Richard Bailey
Background
Richard Bailey is the former mayor of Coronado, serving from 2016 to 2024. He resides in Point Loma. His campaign for District 2 focuses on city spending, operations, and service delivery. Bailey promotes “policy over politics.”
Read Bailey’s Statement of Qualifications
Party Affiliation: Independent
Key Takeaways from the Interview
City Budget & Spending
Bailey said the city has a “spending and management problem,” citing staffing growth compared to population growth. He proposed:
- Reducing staffing levels to earlier benchmarks
- Avoiding new taxes
- Increasing the use of contracting and third-party service delivery
His Words: “We’ve seen city staffing increase 27 times faster than the city’s population growth, and yet performance is lower today than it was 10 years ago.”
Taxes & Fees
Bailey said he opposes new or increased taxes, including sales tax increases, transfer taxes, vacancy taxes, and minimum wage increases at the city level. He expressed support for Proposition 13.
His Words: “We actually pay the eighth highest [property tax] in the country, so the notion that Prop 13 is suppressing tax revenue just simply isn’t borne out relative to the rest of the nation.”
City Services
He supports exploring third-party providers for services such as trash collection, stating that other cities use that model. He also proposed setting infrastructure funding levels by ordinance.
His Words: “We need to change the model of how government delivers services. Obviously, City Hall has failed to deliver on operations. It is not a good operator.”
Housing & Development
Bailey questioned current affordable housing policies and raised concerns about density and infrastructure. He supports maintaining the coastal 30-foot height limit, with some project-specific exceptions.
His Words: “The whole affordable housing push is a bit of a misnomer. Generally speaking, all affordable housing requires subsidies, and those subsidies come from taxpayers that are ineligible to live in that housing, which, in my opinion, is just unfair.”
Homelessness & Public Safety
He supports enforcing existing laws consistently and using the court system to direct individuals toward jail or rehabilitation programs. He also noted the impact of homelessness on emergency services.
His Words: “We have a responsibility to connect people that want help with help on a temporary basis, but we also have a responsibility to the general public to equally enforce our laws so that we maintain clean and safe public spaces. Simply refusing help does not give you the right to violate other laws.”
Climate & City Priorities
Bailey said the city should prioritize core services and cost-of-living concerns when evaluating spending, and questioned the effectiveness of current climate-related policies.
His Words: “When the city can’t fill potholes, the notion that the city is actually going to somehow reduce the earth’s temperatures through our actions is just absurd to me. I love the environment…however, all these burdensome regulations that don’t actually improve the environment but do increase the cost of living…actually make San Diego less enjoyable to live.”
Infrastructure Spending
He supports bike infrastructure in certain locations and raised concerns about cost and usage in others.
His Words: “I’m actually a fan of bike lanes—in some places. But when you have a city that’s facing a massive structural deficit and simultaneously trying to put bike paths and bike lanes in areas that have no business having a bike path or bike lane…they’re a tremendous waste of money.”
Nicole Crosby
Background
Nicole Crosby is a deputy city attorney and former president of the Clairemont Town Council. Her campaign focuses on public service, community engagement, and city operations.
Read Crosby’s Statement of Qualifications
Party Affiliation: Democrat
Key Takeaways from the Interview
City Budget & Spending
Crosby described the city’s deficit as a long-term structural issue. She emphasized:
- Evaluating return on investment for city spending
- Increasing transparency around how funds are used
- Pursuing state and federal funding opportunities
Her Words: “Misusing money that has been dedicated to certain causes has sort of snowballed.”
Taxes & Fiscal Approach
She supports Proposition 13 protections for homeowners and said property tax policy should consider impacts on residents and different types of property ownership.
Her Words: “If the property taxes on a primary residence become extraordinary, we will be pushing seniors and working families out of their homes, which is not something that would be beneficial.”
City Services
Crosby supports maintaining city-run services such as trash collection, citing oversight and cost control as factors.
Her Words: “I think it has shown to be better maintained in-house. When you are doing the work in-house, you can control the resources and the employees and not get…contract overruns.”
Housing & Development
She supports expanding affordable housing and supportive housing services. She also raised concerns about how ADUs have been implemented and the need for infrastructure planning.
Her Words: “Affordable housing is essential, and creating it to remove people from living on the streets to get people who are not making a wage that will ever allow them to live in a market-rate apartment is critical.”
Homelessness & Public Safety
Crosby discussed coordinating with county agencies to connect individuals to services, particularly for those who frequently use emergency systems. She emphasized long-term service-based approaches.
Her Words: “When I was a chief deputy city attorney, I created a program, and it worked with police and fire to connect high utilizers of emergency services to county support because we, as a city, are not in charge of behavioral health and mental health services. I would reimplement that program…because when we start peeling the layers off about what type of care people need and who we are working with, we are being much more intentional about getting them service.”
Climate & Infrastructure
She supports environmental initiatives and said projects should be clearly planned, communicated, and evaluated for effectiveness.
Her Words: “Climate change—it is still a problem, and we can’t say it isn’t. But the money we’re spending towards it needs to actually be deliberate and thought through.”
Mike Rickey
Background
Mike Rickey is a U.S. Merchant Marine master with experience in maritime operations and emergency response. He is a fourth-generation resident of Clairemont. His campaign focuses on city operations, infrastructure, and budgeting.
Read Rickey’s Statement of Qualifications
Party Affiliation: Libertarian
Key Takeaways from the Interview
City Budget & Spending
Rickey said the city should focus on how money is planned and spent. He raised concerns about:
- Revenue projections and cost estimates
- Coordination between projects
- Use of state and grant funding
His Words: “The real thing is looking at all these situations. It’s really not one. The spending is one issue. The taxing is another. Once we figure out how we can spend our money better, then we can figure out how we’re going to be generating revenue better.”
Taxes & Fiscal Approach
He supports Proposition 13 and opposes additional taxes, such as vacancy taxes. He also raised concerns about fees and revenue strategies.
His Words: “I think the idea that we are just going to tax people wherever we can is just ridiculous.”
Infrastructure & Core Services
Rickey emphasized prioritizing roads, utilities, and emergency services. He said funding should be identified before new projects are initiated.
His Words: “If you have too many engineers in the office and not enough guys shoveling, guess what? Stuff doesn’t happen. We should be outsourcing when necessary. There’s times when a project can be done a lot more efficiently by hiring [an outside] company to do it.”
Housing & Development
He raised concerns about housing density without infrastructure and questioned whether current housing policies address affordability.
His Words: “We’re saying things are going to be affordable. They’re not affordable. When you start adding in this density…without the infrastructure, what are we doing here?”
Homelessness & Public Safety
Rickey discussed the effectiveness of current programs and said solutions should include coordination between public agencies, nonprofits, and private organizations.
His Words: “The continual spending of money for programs that aren’t working…is dishonesty. We’re constantly seeing money being spent on programs…and people aren’t really being helped. There are nonprofits that have come out, and they have some really good ideas. I think we need to be integrating all of those together.”
Climate & Infrastructure Spending
He supports environmental efforts when they produce measurable outcomes, but raises concerns about costs and long-term impact.
His Words: “Here in Clairemont, the city did green spending years ago. They bought Tecolote Canyon. That’s long-lasting benefit. A lot of these other projects are not long-lasting. We really need to be realigning our goals and expectations.”
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Bike Lanes & Planning
Rickey said bike infrastructure should be implemented based on location and community input, rather than a uniform approach.
His Words: “Most people like me aren’t anti-bike lane. We just don’t like how they’ve been implemented. The average person in San Diego, I believe, commutes around a little over 20 miles a day. We’re not commuting 20 miles a day on a bicycle. Taking things out on the main routes—the main arteries need to be there so people can move. And not just for regular daily traffic, but also for evacuating.”
Additional Candidate Interviews
Part Two of this series will include interviews with candidates Josh Coyne, Mandy Havlik, Jacob Mitchell, and Paul Suppa.
The District 6 seat is also up for re-election. District 6 covers University City, Kearny Mesa, Mira Mesa, Scripps Ranch, and Sorrento Valley. The candidates are Kent Lee and Mark Powell. Lee declined our interview request, and Powell’s team did not respond.
