San Diego Councilwoman Barbara Bry Takes Office

San Diego city Council has three new faces on it as a result of the November election. Each qualified to bring something new to the Council. Barbara Bry is a tech entrepreneur parts easily when the seed that represents the Street 1 that was formally represented by Sherri Lightner. Or district includes Carmel Valley, Delmar Heights, lawyer, Torrey Pines and University City. Thank you Barbara for joining us. Thank you Allison for inviting me here today. Let's with one of your first of those. Last week you are the only Democrats to vote for coal as Council President. She was reckoned to be that is aggressive as David Alvarez and I wondered why he thinks you'll be a better president of the city Council? First Allison let me say that I respect David Mearl a lot. There both terrific people. They have similar values. It was a very difficult decision first because I do respect both of them a great deal and because people and organizations I respect, somewhere supporting Myrtle, somewhere supporting David. In the end they decided that Myrtle be a better leader to bring everybody together to move our city forward and you probably saw that a few days ago she wrote a very powerful op-ed in the San Diego Union Tribune calling for two special Council meetings in January one focused on the homeless issue and one focused on the affordable housing issue. You have a Masters in business of menstruation from Harvard University pick you are a business driven. What you think of your biggest challenge adapting to be a public elected official because running as it is different from running a business, within a be frustrating? Would've been told us that things to move slower in the public sector. I often say I couldn't have run for city Council 20 or 30 years ago a guy and 67, a grandma, have a lot more patience. At the same time I do want to bring a sense of urgency when appropriate in how we address issues progress on to bring an entrepreneur Laurel spirit. Over and over again in my business life I was told no, we could not do this way we've always done it that way. What I found was that when working with the team sometimes you can do with many people have told GQ can't pick one example is the first software company I cofounded called at college pioneered high-speed Internet access and hotel rooms in the 1990s and back then hotels told us business travelers would never want this new thing. That this amazing background in starting technology startups. Was the biggest challenges for San Diego's funding the funding for them. We just heard recently that the Mayor starting some kind of new workplace, remote workplace in San Francisco where people can go to get funding. Is that going to be enough to bring the money to San Diego? First of all I worked at the connect program in the early days starting in 1996 and connect was started and was initially based at UCSD to help launch high-tech and biotech companies. Capital has been a problem for our early-stage companies for over 30 years. There are many things we need to do to change this. The beachhead which is going to be located in downtown San Francisco and which is being started by the venture group and the city has made a small contribution to it is I think one important way. It will both focus on attracting more venture capital to San Diego by bringing San Diego firms to the bay area and having them meet with venture firms and also trying to attract engineering talent to move south. I think the capital for our companies comes from all over the world now so this is an international issue not just getting more venture capital from the bay area. Would have to appeal to the investors all over the world. At you when your husband did find a venture capital fund which you have no I believe divested yourself off to avoid conflicts of interest. What do you think we need to do to attract more local capital? One of the things I think we need to do is Brandon San Diego as a center of innovation so that when people think of as they do not just think of the zoo and the beaches. They think of the intellectual capital that we have here. I know EDC is working on this and I think what is important with my background is when people from investors from other countries come here I can talk to them in a meaningful way about why San Diego is a great place for them to do business. It is easier to pitch if you have local support. There is a lot of innovation in your district which includes La Jolla and all of that area that you plan to help people in other districts in the city may be south of 8 to track some of these high-paying jobs? Spending the innovation economy South is important to me. We already have a beachhead downtown with over 120 small mostly software IT and e-commerce companies. I want to see the innovation economy move further south. I want to make sure that opportunities to work at these companies are available to all San Diego's. One of my ideas is to start a coding Academy south of Interstate 8 with a robust loan and scholarship program and I think we can get foundation funding to get it off the ground. I would also like to see more internships available to students south of eight so that they understand from an early age the opportunities that are available to them if they stay in school. Housing and homelessness is an issue that everyone in the Council is talking about. Your present -- predecessor wanted to pass a regulation regulating short-term vacation rentals and she called for a special session. What is your position? My position on short-term vacation rentals has been clear..M fine, first of all I know it is expensive to live in San Diego. IMed by and if you rent out a room in your house as long as you are on-site to supervise. I am all also find if you print out your house while you are on vocation or during Comic Con or if we have a Super Bowl. What I him against his when houses are essentially turned into many hotels in residential neighborhoods. Thank you buy -- buy a house in a residential neighborhood you do not sign up to live next door to a hotel. And you have a specific limited mind as to what would make a short-term rental? In the current code of the city of San Diego anything less than 30 days is considered a short-term rental. IMed fine if you ran out of room in your house -- rent out a room in your house for a few days at a time. You could rent it out three days this week, three days next week as long as you are on-site. IMed fine if you rent out your house when you are on vacation maybe two weeks. No time limits. You're not one of those who signed a letter to the Chargers offering them a $1 a year lease, two of the Chargers to stay in San Diego? Of course we would all like the Chargers to stay in San Diego. IMed just opposed to using any taxpayer funding to subsidize Elise or pay for a stadium. A will you approach the -- you approach to sign the letter? I was. Thank you Barbara. That is Barbara Bry, the new elected city councilmember for District 1.