Zaneta Encarnacion is in the race for Chula Vista Mayor soon being vacated by Mary Castillas Salas, a long-time local leader and the first Latina Mayor of San Diego County’s second-largest city.
Encarnacion was born and raised in San Diego County and has been a resident of Chula Vista since 2004 after moving from San Ysidro with her husband Mike and her son Matthew.
The 48-year-old Democrat currently is the chief of staff for Southwestern College Superintendent/President and is a member of the Executive Leadership Team, working on special projects that include COVID-19 response and reopening and developing university partnerships to bring more four-year degree opportunities to Chula Vista.
“Chula Vista is so special to me. It is the city that we decided would be our forever home,” she said. “There's so much shared history amongst our residents. Even though it's the second-largest city, it feels like a small community. That is something I did not have growing up.”
“We were a troubled family, and we were transient, so we moved around a lot. My dad was a single dad. He had undiagnosed PTSD from the Vietnam War. He did his best, but we still struggled. As a young person, I struggled a lot. I found myself living on the streets at 13 for almost two years, went back home, and dropped out of high school because my lived experiences didn't fit in. I had a real lack of connection to my community. When you come into Chula Vista, you walk into a family. I know it sounds silly but it does feel that way. That is what makes Chula Vista so special to me,” she said.
She became involved in the Chula Vista community almost immediately after moving and has not looked back. Encarnacion worked for former mayor Steve Padilla and the city council as their constituent services manager, community relations officer, and in the executive branch of the Mayor and Council.
“I got to know the entire city and not just my block. I really fell in love with local politics from the community's perspective,” Encarnacion said. “Since then, I've just made conscious choices to find work and jobs that allowed me to give back to my community.”
At the University of California, San Diego,Encarnacion began her career in public service advocating to decrease violence against women and tobacco use among Asian communities across the state of California.
Encarnacion’s long history of public service includes the County Office of Education, where she managed a legislative advisory board addressing childcare and early education needs, specifically for low-income families. She also worked at the San Diego Foundation, organizing Chula Vista community engagement efforts to align philanthropic investment with community-identified needs.
“I'm a new name on the ballot, but I'm certainly not a new name in the community. I know how local government works and how it doesn't work at times. I know where the true strengths lie, and it is in the people it serves,” she said.
With the development of the long-awaited Chula Vista Bayfront Master Plan, Encarnacion said the city “is in for some incredible changes and an exciting future.”
“My vision for Chula Vista’s next iteration in the life of the city brings us to everything we know we can be, which is an amazing, second-largest city that has high-paying jobs, a thriving small business community, and large work centers that are providing those high paying jobs,” Encarnacion said.
Continuing on her vision for the city, Encarnacion said she wants to see “a university presence in South County, and tapping into our binational proximity to harness an innovation and creative economy. We are so rich in culture and art in this community. I don't think we've tapped into that and built the infrastructure to support that part of our community.”
Along with a thriving work environment, Encarnacion said she wants to see affordability.
“I want us to continue growing without losing what makes Chula Vista so special, being its shared history. We want our kids to continue being able to afford to live here. We want to continue to grow up and live with the people we grew up with,” she said.
To do this, Encarnacion said the city needs to invest in its corridors to bring the dollars into the community and ensure the development that happens does not gentrify but instead creates opportunities for residents and people to stay.
Encarnacion said Chula Vista needs a mayor who can work from a policy and implementation perspective and endure the city has a visible and assertive presence in regional decision making.
“Chula Vista is not a strong mayor form of government like in San Diego where Mayor Gloria actually operates the city. He implements all the policies. Chula Vista is not set up that way. The city manager is the implementer, so that requires a strong partnership with the policy side and the management side in order to make sure policy that is passed, is implemented in the way it was intended,” she said.
She said that it is even more important when policy includes the voices of impacted people. Some of the policies and focuses Encarnacion highlights are in the areas of economic development and recovery, safe and affordable neighborhoods, and thriving communities.
An example of bringing the community voices when it comes to policy is in addressing homelessness in Chula Vista.
“I firsthand was able to see the broad spectrum of why people end up homeless and it has compounded because of COVID. We need to make sure people aren't being forced out of their homes and have the assistance they need. We need to have a spectrum of services. I'm going to create a homeless Task Force because that spectrum of services says the city doesn't know it all. It is important for leadership to exercise this kind of humble leadership that we don't know at all. We have tools and some resources, but we are not experts. We need to bring our regional government entities who are also working on the same issues, who might have some resources that we can leverage. We need to bring in our nonprofit service providers. We need to bring our service providers together and we need to bring our business community together. Let's all come together and figure out what are the best strategies. It's not a strategy for one approach, but instead, what are the best strategies to really address the spectrum? I'm committed to doing it. Speaking from my own lived experience, we need to have formerly homeless, or homeless voices at that table too,” Encarnacion said.
Zaneta Encarnacion is against five other candidates including Chula Vista native and businessman Ammar Campa-Najjar, retired U.S. Army Major Spencer Cash, Chula Vista Council member Jill Galvez, Chula Vista City Council member Jim McCann, and Chula Vista business owner Rudy Ramirez.
