At a packed Logan Heights forum Tuesday night, four Democrats hoping to replace term-limited Councilmember Vivian Moreno traded sharp views on Tijuana River Valley sewage, sky-high housing costs and what to do with hundreds of city leases. Voters in San Diego’s District 8 will narrow the field in the June 2 primary, with the top two finishers heading to a November runoff.
The candidates, Antonio Martinez, Venus Molina, Gerardo Ramirez and Rafael Perez, have all been rated “qualified” by the San Diego County Democratic Party.
Background On The Candidates
Martinez, a San Ysidro resident, first won a seat on the San Ysidro School Board in 2012 and centers his council bid on housing, safety and jobs, according to the Antonio Martinez campaign.
Molina highlights her long tenure inside City Hall and lists herself as chief of staff to Councilmember Jennifer Campbell on her campaign page, per the Venus Molina campaign.
Ramirez is listed as Councilmember Vivian Moreno’s chief of staff on the City of San Diego website, and his campaign pitches years inside City Hall as a way to steer funding and projects into District 8, according to the City of San Diego and the Gerardo Ramirez campaign.
Perez, who has not held city office, is running as an outsider in the race to replace Moreno.
What They Told Voters
On stage at the League of Women Voters forum, the four sketched out very different fixes for District 8’s fiscal and environmental headaches. According to CBS 8, Martinez pushed the city to diversify its revenue stream and chase more state and federal grants instead of leaning so heavily on local dollars.
Molina zeroed in on roughly 900 city leases, about 178 of them month-to-month, and argued that a hard look at those agreements could help close looming budget gaps, CBS 8 reported.
Perez leaned into his outsider pitch and put the Tijuana River Valley sewage crisis front and center. He backed the idea of a joint-powers authority to take on the cross-border pollution that has plagued South Bay residents, according to CBS 8.
Ramirez countered that deep experience inside municipal government is exactly what District 8 needs, arguing that knowing how City Hall works is the key to securing more resources for the communities he hopes to represent, CBS 8 noted.
Forum In Logan Heights
The League of Women Voters hosted the District 8 showdown at the Logan Heights Library, a familiar political stage for neighborhood forums and candidate nights. The event appears on the group’s election calendar and video page, per the League of Women Voters of San Diego, and the branch is regularly listed by the city as a go-to community venue.
What To Watch
The June 2 primary will trim the field to two and send the top vote-getters into a November runoff to succeed Moreno, according to CBS 8. District 8 stretches from Barrio Logan and Sherman Heights down to San Ysidro and Otay Mesa and is home to nearly 150,000 residents, the outlet reported.
With the filing period closed and the calendar creeping toward June, voters face a clear choice: lean on long-time City Hall operators who promise to deliver dollars and projects, or gamble on an outsider who is turning up the volume on sewage, housing costs and basic quality-of-life issues. Once mail ballots land and early voting ramps up, expect the top contenders to quickly shift from forum sound bites to highly targeted outreach across the district’s diverse neighborhoods.
