Lemon Grove City Councilmember George Gastil, D, 61, is running for reelection. In a two-seat open election, Gastil is running against candidates Seth Smith, Jessica “Jessyka” Heredia, and Sitivi “Steve” Faiai. Gastil served on Council from 2008 through 2016, was out of office for four years, and was elected again in 2020.
Gastil said he is running for reelection because he believes there is more work to be done.
“Just running for one more term, I think there is more that I can do to help the city,” he said. “I am especially excited about the prospect of Measure T [a one-cent sales tax measure on the November ballot], getting more money for us to improve our streets, better storm drains, and improve public safety. I think that we will need experienced people to make the most of that revenue if the voters support Measure T.”
Gastil said over the past four years, Council has made great strides in improving public streets.
“Just in the past year, 72 segments of streets have been repaired or resurfaced. In the city, we have about 72 miles of streets. Bit by bit, we are getting the work done. I want people to understand that most of the work we are doing on streets, and storm drains, and public facilities right now, is from one-time dollars from the federal government. We think this is great progress. People are telling us they appreciate it, but we must tell them if they want to see more to continue, that we must come up with our own source of money, because the federal money is going to run out. That is why Measure T is on the ballot.”
Gastil said he is proud of the improvements on streets and infrastructure, but there is still so much more to do.
“I am also really pleased with several new businesses. People tend to notice the small number of businesses that are vacant, but not notice that we have many new businesses that have popped up. Within the past year, we have seen a 15% increase in sales tax revenue. That is because many businesses rebounded really well, and new businesses have started since the pandemic. We are very conscious of finding new businesses to replace businesses that we lost, but I want people to notice that we have many new businesses that have popped up,” he said.
Gastil said much of this has to do with reforms and improvements in the city, many which happened the four years he was out of office.
“Since I was first on the council in 2008, we have made several improvements, such as the consolidation of Heartland Fire & Rescue, which drastically increased our emergency services. The pension reform we did in my first term, which at the time did not seem as a big deal, but many years later, has had a profound impact. The percentage of costs that are now going into public pensions astounds significantly. We used to see a drastically escalating cost for public safety personnel, and it was taking over the budget. In more recent times, that has slowed down quite a bit,” he said.
Gastil said the big budget problem now is that the city is far behind in infrastructure.
“Sometimes you do not realize what you have done and why it is significant, and I am thankful that 14 years ago we got a handle on pensions. Now that has been paying off tremendously, the personnel costs, it is making it possible to do more as a city to provide better public safety and gives us a fighting chance at catching up on infrastructure,” he said.
Gastil said with this election, and the candidates, he is not concerned about policy directions, as he does not see a large policy divide between the candidates.
“What I am concerned about is a loss of focus, and a possible loss of experience,” he said. “The mayor is up for reelection. And the mayor is someone I ran against eight years ago. But I think she has grown quite a lot, and think she is a wonderfully experienced and thoughtful mayor. I am very proud of my experience that I offer, and people might not realize that Councilmember Jennifer Mendoza, one of our most experienced council members, is planning to retire in two years. From my point of view, we should hang on to experience. I am offering four more years. I am going to call it quits after that. One more term is all I am looking for.”
Gastil said he encourages people to reelect the current mayor and himself to keep experience on the dais, especially with the possibility of Measure T passing, and council will still get one newer person.
“Seth Smith represents a younger generation. I tell people, ‘Same values, different generation,’ as I see it. A new younger leader that can do a lot for our city. He reminds me of somebody 30 years ago, humor intended,” he said. “But seriously, I believe getting a little bit of new is always good. Every election we get someone new. But we also need to hang on to experience.”
Gastil said when he talks about losing focus, he is talking about staff and professionals that serve the city, they deserve respect, and they deserve to be allowed to do their jobs.
“We made a lot of progress increasing their pay to bring them closer to comparable salaries. We used to have a huge problem with people working in the city, then moving to other cities. I do not think we can ever stop that, but we have certainly taken many steps to hang on to our staff, treat them as professionals, respect their work,” he said. “It concerns me when I see a council member attacking staff. In some cases, accusing Lemon Grove personnel with criminal activity, and I see people allying with that council member and encouraging her. That is what I mean when I say we could lose our focus,” he said.
Gastil said during the past four years the city lost its Public Works director, budget director, assistant city manager, and city clerk.
“Many times, staff has told us that they need our support, a positive working environment, and most important we need to treat them as professionals and let them do their jobs,” he said. “We had a council member haranguing, disrupting council meetings, harassing staff, and it has damaged our city much more than people realize. It concerns me, when I have seen someone who has been arrested twice. Who has had two restraining orders. Who has disrupted council meetings. Who has missed six council meetings in the past year. When I see people putting up signs for that person for mayor, it tells me that we should be very concerned. And I do not say that lightly. I think people should take a step back and look at where we are, where we could be going. In what world would that be acceptable? And two of the people running for council have allied with her and have endorsed her for mayor. That should really concern people. Frankly, I expected better. I thought we would have seen better judgement.”
Gastil said council needs to work with businesses and the downtown business plan, and the general plan needs updating.
“Again, I say experienced people. We need people who are willing to take the time, follow the process, help our staff do their jobs, and involve the public,” he said. “There is a lot of concern about public input. We have a huge amount of public input in our budget process every year, and a huge amount of public input in our goal setting process every year. We have a community advisory council that met several times and looked at a variety of documents related to the budget. They were able to hear from our fiscal staff. They met several times and went over the budget. They analyzed it in great depth. One of the candidates was on that advisory council and did not think it was important enough to mention in their ballot statement. That worries me a lot. I think the community advisory council, even though one does not have any respect for it, I think it was incredibly valuable. It is a great example of how we involve all the public, ordinary citizens in our city process. It is a transparent process. It is a process that is open to everybody.”
Gastil said the same process is involved in council’s goal setting every year.
“We do a workshop style, where we put dots next to our priorities, and we discuss them in depth. And we get a lot from our public. I think we need to see more of that,” he said.
Gastil said he hears that the people want to be involved in the process, that they care about their city, and it cannot be as shallow as just a survey.
“What really means a lot is what I call two-way. People sharing their thoughts, and hearing from staff. It is not that I am hearing about this. They get to learn about what we are doing and get to know what the options and tradeoffs are. That is why I think it is good when we have a community advisory council or a workshop. We have also had informative workshops on streets and infrastructure to get in depth and look at these things in a specific way. So, people can see what is going on and not wonder why nothing is being done about problem X,” he said.
Gastil said these types of communications educate the public on the rules the city must follow, what can and cannot be done by the city alone and provides them the sense of the complexity of government.
“Then we can look at solutions together,” he said. “We can then look at the process, and how to make it more transparent, and more understandable. The budget is the biggest thing that I would like the public to understand better. I think that we have made progress in recent years. It is less of a mystery than it used to be, and more people are beginning to understand it. The biggest frustration with the budget is that after we pay for public safety, which is about 75%, we do not have much money left. And nobody has told me that they want to cut public safety spending. I think we have a partial answer with Measure T because there is a huge consensus that we need to invest in infrastructure. And we can use money from Measure T to drastically improve infrastructure over the next 10 years.”
Gastil said at the end of that 10 years, not only can they make many improvements to the city’s infrastructure, but if they are strategic, they can make Lemon Grove “cleaner, more beautiful, more vibrant, safer place, that attracts more businesses and raise more revenue in the future” beyond the 10 years of Measure T.
