Nicole's Plan
Nicole's vision is for stronger neighborhoods that keep longtime residents in and connected to the heart of our communities.
Prioritize Public Safety and Prevent Gun Violence
As a Chief Deputy City Attorney, Nicole led the team that built San Diego's nationally recognized Gun Violence Response Unit, and worked to protect children from gun violence, prosecute hate crimes, and represent domestic violence survivors.
- Fully staff and train firefighters for wildfire response and prevention
- Fully staff police to improve response times
- Support legislation keeping illegal guns out of our neighborhoods
Fix San Diego's Potholes, Sewers, Sidewalks, and Roads
The City needs $248 million a year to bring roads up to national standards but spends about a third of that. Sidewalk repairs can take up to 8 years, and roughly 6,000 of the City's 55,000 streetlights are broken.
Nicole will build a funded, publicly tracked one-, five-, and ten-year infrastructure roadmap for District 2 and work with County and State partners to close the funding gap.
Safe Routes to School
Citywide, principals have flagged 107 school-related safety concerns, from missing crosswalks to poor lighting and unsafe drop-off zones. Nicole will:
- Set a fixed completion date for every outstanding District 2 school safety request
- Support the City's school-zone speed limit reductions and push for more where crash data supports it
- Prioritize crosswalks, countdown timers, and lighting near District 2 schools first
Fixing what's broken
- Potholes: Create a published District 2 repaving schedule
- Sidewalks: capital funding to cut the 8-year backlog on a public timeline, prioritizing school routes, transit stops, and the heart of our communities
- Sewers/storm drains: replace aging pipes in District 2 before failures, funded partly through state and federal grants
- Streetlights: fully staff repair crews and clear the ~6,000-outage backlog, starting in District 2's darkest corridors
- Pedestrian and bike safety: Fix District 2's entries on the citywide "Fatal 15" dangerous intersections list, including Rosecrans Street in Midway
- Real enforcement of under-12 e-bike rules, paired with the existing SDUSD/police education program
Fiscal Responsibility & City Budget
Nicole has managed government budgets and secured grant funding throughout her career. She knows fiscal discipline and quality services go hand in hand.
- Auditing contracts: A full audit of City contracts to ensure fair pricing, not cuts. San Diego and Carlsbad use the same janitorial supplies vendor and contract, yet Carlsbad negotiated a 50% discount on its most-used supplies. San Diego didn't.
- Scrutinizing leases: Roughly a quarter of City leases are in expired holdover status, likely below market value. The Fairbanks Ranch Country Club golf lease, signed in the 1980s and last renegotiated in 2016, runs until 2056 and costs the operator just $25,000 a year. Nicole will review the full lease portfolio and hold tenants to fair terms.
- Pursuing every available dollar: Direct City departments to compete more aggressively for federal and state grants for roads, parks, public safety, and housing, funding other major cities already capture more of.
Find Common-Sense Solutions to San Diego's Housing Crisis
San Diego's current approach to density has let predatory developers and corporate investors crowd out the families this city is supposed to serve. Nicole will fight for housing policy that puts residents first, not developer profit margins.
- Rein in reckless ADU development. Current policy has let developers cram oversized complexes with undersized units onto lots with no regard for parking, trash service, or neighborhood character, leaving families without sufficient space to raise their children, residents to deal with overflowing trash cans and neighborhoods with gridlocked streets. Nicole will push for real accountability: enforceable parking and waste standards, and consequences for developers who ignore them.
- Stop corporate investors from buying up our neighborhoods. Nearly a quarter of San Diego housing is now owned by investors instead of the families who actually live here. Nicole will end tax incentives that reward large companies for scooping up residential housing, and impose a 100-day waiting period so local families get the first shot at buying a home.
- Build homeownership opportunities that work for real families, not developers, by prioritizing gentle density like townhomes on existing land and preserving onsite parking requirements that ADU policy has stripped away.
Protect our Environment
The natural beauty of District 2 is one of its greatest assets, but it's under pressure. As your next Councilmember, Nicole will fight to protect our beaches, bays, and canyons from threats like pollution, overdevelopment, and illegal dumping.
- Protect the coastline, Mission Bay, Mission Beach, Point Loma, and Ocean Beach for families, surfers, and seniors
- Hold polluters accountable and ensure development respects bay and coastline health
- Explore cost effective ways to process stormwater to keep our beaches and bays blue
- Preserve District 2's canyons as open space for air quality, wildlife, and recreation
Rein in Short-Term Vacation Rentals
Neighborhoods should be where our residents thrive. In San Diego, there are almost 6,000 entire-home short-term rentals that sit empty roughly half the time. That vacancy presents a real threat to small businesses, hotels, and schools.
When we allow entire homes to become hotels full-time, we send families packing and force our teachers, nurses and firefighters into long commutes far from communities they serve. We have already seen the consequences. The loss of permanent residents in neighborhoods saturated by these short-term rentals has been tied to declining school enrollment and even school closure.
As your Councilmember, Nicole will fight to keep neighbors in our neighborhoods by pursuing common-sense reforms to improve the lives of long-time residents, such as extending San Diego's current two-night minimum stay to match standards set by cities across our nation.
Get Our Homeless Neighbors Off the Streets and Into Supportive Services
As Chief Deputy City Attorney, Nicole helped create the City's first comprehensive outreach and support program for its most vulnerable residents.
- Partner with the County on behavioral health services for residents facing substance use and mental health disorders
- Support expanding shelter beds and homelessness prevention measures
- Build public senior care and housing on government-owned land; seniors on fixed incomes are the fastest-growing group entering homelessness in San Diego
Make San Diego More Affordable
- Expand homeownership opportunities and keep rents affordable through community-centered projects near schools, jobs, and amenities
- Partner with the San Diego Housing Commission on housing programs and subsidies for seniors and working families
- Support programs connecting families and seniors to childcare, healthcare, and essential services
Deliver Affordable, Accessible Public Transit That's Neighborhood Convenient
To get to a bus stop, with infrequent service, from her home in Clairemont, Nicole has to walk over a mile through a canyon with no sidewalks or streetlights; an unreasonable trek for families with young children or seniors getting groceries. She will prioritize safe, reliable transit access for residents who depend on it, especially in neighborhoods currently cut off by unsafe walking routes to transit.
Protect the Constitutional Rights of All San Diegans
Drawing on her career upholding the Constitution, Nicole will ensure all residents, regardless of immigration status, race, or identity, retain full due process and equal protection.
- Opposes contracting with companies like Flock. On the Council, Nicole will work to ensure that all residents are afforded their full constitutional rights, including equal protection under the law and due process. Nicole is opposed to the City contracting with companies like Flock, which have been proven to not securely store sensitive information and to allow access without judicial oversight.
- Strengthen San Diego's Sanctuary City Policies. Nicole will defend due process and ensure local law enforcement is never used for ICE operations that violate residents' Constitutional rights.
- Defend LGBTQ+ and Women's Rights. Ensure that San Diego remains a safe and welcoming community for all members of the LGBTQ+ community and that San Diegans can safely access reproductive health care.