Re-elected District 1 City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner said she intends to build on the solid foundation laid during her first four-year term. Pausing during an exclusive interview with the La Jolla Village News, Lightner relayed a message to her constituents. “I haven\u2019t really thanked people for giving me this job,” she said. “It\u2019s been an amazing growth experience for me. With what I\u2019ve learned \u2014 and the people I\u2019ve worked for \u2014 we\u2019re going to get a lot done in the next four years.” After a hard-fought campaign against opponent Ray Ellis, Lighter prevailed 55 percent \u2014 31,264 votes \u2014 to Ellis\u2019 45 percent and 25,706 votes. “I ran a fact-based campaign \u2014 and I won,” proclaimed Lightner on election night at Golden Hall. Concerning that long road to the Nov. 6 election, Lightner reflected on the candidates\u2019 stamina. “It\u2019s kind of awe-inspiring to know how many times the mayoral candidates debated (20-plus), and how many times we (District 1 candidates) debated, compared to how much the presidential candidates debated (three times),” she said. Pressed on what she likes most about being a councilmember, Lightner quipped, “I know where I can park every day,” then added, “serving my community \u2014 doing things that actually make a difference.” Lightner said there will be a great deal of continuity carrying over into her second term. “We will be continuing, of course, the constituent services, the fiscal reform at the city, bringing more and more public services back online,” she said. “We\u2019ve started repaving streets. We\u2019ve repaved more streets in the last two years than in the prior eight years combined.” One subject near and dear to Lightner is water: both conserving it and reusing it. She cited reutilization of grey water \u2014 wastewater generated from domestic uses \u2014 as an example of an untapped resource. Pointing out grey water can be reused for irrigation, something a lot of other cities have successfully done, Lightner said, “There\u2019s some talk that it could be done similar to the stormwater program, where they have created incentives for folks. You simplify [the reuse of it], provide rebate programs, make it part of our sustainable building policy.” Lightner said grey water could be mandated for new construction for single-family homes so the system would be “good to go when you move in.” “It\u2019s showers, baths and laundry, not kitchen or bathroom sinks,” she added. Pointing out up to 55 percent of San Diegans\u2019 water is used outside, the councilwoman said that by recovering even a portion of grey water for reuse, “You\u2019ve done a lot.” “We want to be in a situation where we don\u2019t rely on Metropolitan Water District for our water,” Lighner said, emphasizing the importance of looking at the long-term picture. “Sooner is better. To just be in control of our water destiny is huge because it\u2019s everything for us here.” Another subject of paramount importance to Lightner is economic development. More specifically, plotting a strategy for it moving forward. “The city should take a more active role in planning the economic development for this region,” she said. “We are the big dog in the area. We need to take the lead. We need to be willing to step up and do the most we can for this region.” The most fun thing for her right now, she said, is chairing the city\u2019s Economic Strategies Committee. “It\u2019s something I advocated,” she said. “We\u2019ve spent a year doing a new economic development strategy for the city. It\u2019s what we want to achieve and how we see the future \u2026 improving manufacturing \u2026 taking advantage of all our tech sectors including blue (aqua) tech \u2026 and taking advantage of the (Mexican) border.” Getting Torrey Pines Road Corridor “resurrected again” has been one of the major projects of her first term, and it most definitely will carry over into her second, said Lightner. “That needs money, but we\u2019re making progress on it,” she said. “Clean up is being done on the north side of Torrey Pines Road, getting fencing fixed up, modest improvements with the million dollars we have and getting the plan done for the Phase 4 portion (TP Road from Little Street to LJ Shores Drive).” A grass-roots politician who worked her way up through the community planning group process, Lightner gave a nod to her constituents for their knowledge and expertise. “I\u2019m very fortunate to represent a lot of very smart, engaged people,” she said. “They have some very amazing, wonderful ideas I\u2019m delighted to follow up on. Some of it is just putting it in a form we can actually take action on.” Asked whether she is encouraged about the future, Lightner said, “I\u2019m always encouraged about the future. That\u2019s the whole reason I\u2019m doing what I\u2019m doing.” Will San Diegans be better off in the future? “If we work on it, we will be,” Lightner said. “We just need to keep working. You can\u2019t leave it to chance.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Re-elected District 1 City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner said she intends to build on the solid foundation laid during her first four-year term. Pausing during an exclusive interview with the La Jolla Village News, Lightner relayed a message to her constituents. “I haven\u2019t really thanked people for giving me this job,” she said. “It\u2019s been an […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":270070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Lightner shares vision for District 1\u2019s future","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}