Amid A Chaotic Race, Sean Elo-Rivera Says He Can Bring Stability And Opportunity To District 9

Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego city council district nine, stretches from the neighborhoods of Kensington and the college area in the North to Mount hope and South crest to the South with city Heights sitting in the central heart of the district council, president Georgette Gomez represents the district now, but she's running for Congress. So Kelvin Barrios and Sean ELO Rivera ended up vying for the seat after the March primary, but now only one of them has left on the campaign trail. Joining me with more on the district. Nine race is KPBS reporter max Revlin Nadler, and max. Welcome. Good to be here. First, tell us what happened to the campaign of Kelvin Barrios. Speaker 2: 00:41 Originally the problems with his campaign stemmed from a spending that was known with that. Basically he had done as treasurer, a volunteer treasurer for the San Diego County young Democrats, where several thousand dollars were misspent possibly on personal items. He ended up settling with, um, a campaign finance board and, and admitting that he had misused. Some of that funding that got dredged back up during the general election between him and Sean ELO Rivera, especially when Barrios went out of his way to say that he wasn't under a criminal investigation for that matter. Something, the district attorney never likes is when you go out of your way and say that an investigation is closed or not under investigation. So they took the extraordinary step of saying actually he's still under investigation. And that case has enclosed. So we had a cloud hanging over him from that. Then there were disclosures that he did not make on his necessary financial disclosure forms for running for this position, including the fact that he held two jobs at the same time. And one of those jobs was for the city council and for a union, uh, that he would then eventually went to work for. And that on top of that, that he just didn't declare an entire year of salary that he had received from the labor union he's currently works for previously had interacted with, well, he was a city council, a staffer. Speaker 1: 02:01 So he has suspended. His campaigning was Kelvin Barrios, the leading candidate in this race. Speaker 2: 02:10 Yes, he absolutely was the leader in this race. He had the most money. He had the endorsements of several high profile Democrats in the race, including city council, president Georgette Gomez, who we used to work for. Um, it was a divided field in the March primary, but if you had to look at it, Barrios was definitely leading. Speaker 1: 02:28 Now you spoke with the candidate who remains on the campaign trail in district nine. What is the background of Sean Isla Rivera? Speaker 2: 02:36 So Shawnee Lou Rivera is a right now the executive director of a youth focused nonprofit called youth. Well, which works with young people and kind of advocates on their behalf and tries to get resources for young people in San Diego. At the same time, he's sitting on the San Diego community college board. He won that race two years ago. He comes from a law background. He has a law degree, but as he told me, he, he went and started doing advocacy work and civil legal litigation in city Heights around a decade ago, and saw that many of the issues could only be solved really at a political level. And that's what drove him into politics. Speaker 1: 03:16 And what does he see as the big issues in district nine, Speaker 2: 03:19 Housing and homelessness? Obviously this is true throughout the city, but especially in district nine, you have an affordability crisis. You have rising home prices and rents as a lawyer. He sees the need for civil legal advocacy, including for small businesses, dealing with the pandemic and trying to cut through red tape and get the help they need and stay open. So that's a huge issue. He also sees transit as a big issue, making sure that this area, which is quite sprawling is better served by public transit. All of these tie into the pandemic in some way, because these impacts that we're seeing in the pandemic are disparate and usually impact people from immigrant communities and low income communities. The hardest Speaker 1: 04:00 Now creating opportunity, especially for young people is something he talked with you about. Speaker 2: 04:06 Yeah. So obviously it comes from this youth advocacy background given his current position. And so he's interested in making sure that young people in San Diego are looked after and that's something that he hasn't seen from city council. So this is something that he proposed doing as he was talking with me, I would really like to see the city invest in jobs programs for young people. What does that mean to conservation core and environmental core that has helping keeping our, our neighborhoods clean good chances for young people to build their resumes, to gain experience at the same time, give back to their community. Speaker 1: 04:35 Now, since Isla Rivera is the only candidate on the campaign trail, how has this unusual campaign taking place? Obviously no debates, Speaker 2: 04:43 Right? So Isla Rivera has been the only candidate on the campaign trail for some time, because even before Barrios officially suspended his campaign, he wasn't doing really any debates or any public appearances. Um, so Isla Rivera is trying to reach out and go talk to as many community members as possible. Sometimes this is uncomfortable being the only candidate who's actually out there. So he takes the brunt of kind of people's frustrations and people who might disagree with his, his positions. But it's tough to campaign against somebody who's still on the ballot, but is not actively there. Speaker 1: 05:16 So Barrios, as you say, is still on the ballot, if he should win, is he facing any kind of legal problem related to the scandal that forced him to drop out of this race? Speaker 2: 05:27 I think it's really unlikely that any legal repercussions will follow Barrios. I think really where he angered the district attorney in that matter was saying that the case was closed. They really don't like that. Um, I think basically if he should win, he will make the argument that listen, I was very clear with all of the problems I had in running my race. And yet the district still felt I was the better option, so I deserve to represent them. So right now it's a guy who is running for the seat who should win. We'll take the seat and the guy who's not running for the seat. And if he does win, he'll take the seat. Speaker 1: 06:01 Okay. I've been speaking with KPBS reporter max Roven Adler, max. Thanks. Speaker 2: 06:07 Thank you.