Randi Castle-Salgado is running for National City Council District 2 against incumbent Councilmember Jose Rodriguez. Salgado, 45, has worked in real estate since 2013, and is licensed in California and Arizona. She said in her work she began seeing issues with people being able to qualify to purchase a home, and housing needs.
“I have built homes with Habitat for Humanity, and just spent a weekend building homes in Tijuana with Homes for Hope, so housing is my main background. I decided I wanted to create better programs for residents of National City to qualify because sometimes there is a discrepancy in our income levels as to what for sale housing is with the rising interest rates. A few years back it seemed it was just out of touch for residents to get into home purchasing in National City,” she said.
Salgado, who is a Democrat, is the Vice Chair Planning Commissioner for National City and became housing advisory chair to advocate for her clients.
“It is something that I love doing, and when I got in the planning commission, an advisory commission to City Council. We just worked on updating our general plan. There are things that I am quite savvy about when it comes to the city council, and I began seeing some things that were not right, or that I felt could have been done better. It never crossed my mind to run for city council, however, I was asked by multiple people if I ever considered it. So, I started going to city council meetings, and then I saw some things that were unbelievable to me. The dais seemed to be disproportionate and unbalanced and unfair. That is why I decided to run for city council,” she said.
Salgado said she wants to be the change she wants to see in her community. Salgado said public safety is lacking in National City, as well as truly affordable housing.
“There is affordable housing in vouchers, or subsidized housing, but that is not what we need. We need a more balanced approach, and we need to increase our housing and our building here in National City,” she said. “For me that was a no-brainer for me. I do not believe in rent control because I do not believe it works, which is what my opponent is going for. It is a San Diego County problem, and we need to build our way out of this. Residents have options and are sitting on waiting lists to get into affordable housing or apartments. I remember when I was looking at apartments in the 90s, there were move in specials, and landlords were enticing people to rent from them because there was a surplus of housing. We have not had a surplus of housing since 2004, and we need to build that back up. If we have that, we will have plenty of options, and the market will come down.”
Salgado said she is opposed to raising property taxes, and opposed to the $100,000 council member basic fund money they can use for executive assistants, travelling lobby money, and whatever they feel fit to use the $100,000 per year budget on.
“That does not make sense fiscally,” she said. “National City proposed a $5 million budget deficit, so spending money is something we need to reel in, especially with the cost of living and inflation as high as it is. We are on the brink of recession, and it is something that we as a city need to look at. We have lost a lot of tax revenue last year.”
Salgado said she is pro-business, and pro small business.
“We need to build our businesses and tax revenue back up, and draw in money from outside communities into National City instead of just recirculating the same money here in the city,” she said.
Salgado said she believes that National City is pro-housing, and that is good.
“Working on the general plan update and improving the transit corridors. I believe transit is good for our residents. Something that National City is doing is upgrading some of the parks and advocating for funds for that. But they have had money since 2021 for the El Toyon Park upgrade, and they still do not have a contract for that park yet. There is some red tape that needs to be cut. The policies seemed they were going in the right direction, but it is not there yet. We need to move forward,” she said.
Salgado said she loves that National City is an older community, and that the library has much to offer.
“Not everybody knows what the library is offering for the children and youth engagement, so there needs to be further outreach to advocate for that,” she said. “We need to fine tune some of the programs we have that are beneficial for the residents. I think that is imperative.”
Salgado said there needs to be a balanced approach when it comes to building housing.
“I am for high-density housing along transit lines. We have a lot of affordable subsidized housing currently, but we need more for sale housing. As a realtor, I am a big proponent. National City is 67% tenant-occupied currently, and I would like to see that number come down. We need a balanced ratio of home ownership to tenant occupied,” she said.
Salgado said public safety is lacking.
“At the last City Council meeting, I spoke out in favor of the encampment ban. I believe that is one item that is a tool that will help, but it is not a cure-all. I believe if we can open the Paradise Valley mental health and have beds available for the addicted. I am in favor of conservatorship and Proposition 1 for medical necessities. I believe that we need to shift our policies to advocate for people. Everybody can be a couple of paychecks away from being homeless. We need to be able to filter through addiction and mental health, and for the people who just had a run of bad luck that kept them from being housed. We find that many of our police and numbers, that are police, are being utilized on homeless, unhoused calls. People inside businesses, passed out on the street, assault, and other things that come with people who are either on drugs or alcohol, or have mental health issues. If we can remove that problem, it would free much of our police officers’ time so that they can do what they need to do. Policy is what needs to take place on that. It would free them up to work on things like smash and grabs, youth fights, speeding, and traffic,” she said.
Salgado said she wants more youth engagement activities with the police department to build faith and trust back in the police department, neighborhood watch programs come back, and to build up the National City Police Department Senior Volunteer Patrol.
Salgado said she grew up as a “Navy brat” and is a transplant to National City, and now she is a Navy mom, with her daughter serving active duty in the Navy. But her husband was born and raised in National City, and he grew up with asthma. And that the air quality in National City has not been good for his condition.
“When we purchased our home here 12 years ago, we raised our son here. He is 9, and he has asthma issues. Many times, I have to keep my shut. We have air purifiers going in my house all the time. This is something in National City that I plan to speak about. Personally, I drive an electric vehicle. I believe in going green and reducing our carbon footprint and leading the path on that,” she said.
Salgado said she agrees with the Port of San Diego with its current renovations with electrical vehicles and equipment, but she still believes there is injustice to National City from the Port.
“I did support our Port commissioner Sandy Naranjo. She did a great job on the advocation for National City and making sure that we got our fair share. National City with the Port is a very sore subject with many residents. Working together with the Port has been disproportionate for years and years. Yes, we are glad they are trying to clean everything up, but we do not want to trade one risk for another risk.”