State Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, took a fair-sized lead in the early vote count in the race to fill an open Riverside County supervisorial seat, but a termed-out lawmaker wasn’t far behind.
The District 1 supervisorial seat is up for grabs due to the upcoming retirement of decade-long Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, who will officially depart politics in December.
According to early returns from Tuesday’s primary election, Roth was out front with 36% of votes cast, while former Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, was at 25%, and longtime civic activist Debbie Walsh and Western Municipal Water District Board of Directors member Gracie Torres were each holding roughly 19% of returns. With nobody expected to earn 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters will advance to a November runoff.
Roth, who will term out of the state Senate this year, was an Air Force major general stationed in the area before entering politics.
He spotlighted as accomplishments since 2012 securing funding for the UC Riverside School of Medicine and appropriations to increase the number of judicial officers in Riverside County.
“I’m running for supervisor to build more housing that’s affordable for our families, focus on fighting crime, fight gang violence and stop illegal drugs from overtaking our communities,” he said in campaign literature.
He said he has a “plan to address homelessness by partnering with nonprofits (and) expanding mental health and substance abuse treatment services.”
The senator has cast himself as a “moderate Democrat,” but on taxes he has been a largely party-line voter. Like Medina, who termed out of the Assembly in 2022, Roth has received failing grades from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association for supporting tax hikes on gasoline, higher state fees for mobile phone services and increased state charges for recycling spent car batteries, among other things.
Medina, who was an educator prior to entering the Assembly in 2010, pointed to his record supporting greater appropriations for UCR, seed funding for the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and a bevy of restoration projects in Riverside as highlights of his political career.
“I will deliver for Riverside County families by tackling our homelessness crisis by rapidly moving people off our streets and into housing,” he said in a campaign promotion.
According to Medina, if elected, he intends to improve “public health and expand mental health and addiction services.”
He also envisions working on a comprehensive strategy to increase “educational opportunities through enhanced coordination of our school districts, community colleges and UCR.”
Torres described herself in campaign literature as a college-educated chemist and mother of three who “understands firsthand that families like mine” are under financial stress due to ever-escalating cost-of-living pressures and other challenges.
“It is time to elect a supervisor who ultimately understands your needs and is qualified and ready to address them head-on,” Torres said.
She said that among her priorities are job creation, updating and investing in infrastructure and working toward improvements to public safety and “economic relief.”
District 1 encompasses most of the Riverside metropolitan area. The southern sphere through Mead and Perris valleys is where Walsh has been active in recent years, standing against the steady rise in mega warehouse construction, which Jeffries has also sought to limit.
“Do you want a supervisor who is controlled by developers?” Walsh said in campaign materials. “I will put a moratorium on warehouses … to protect our roads, neighborhoods, communities and schools against air pollution, noise, traffic congestion and road destruction.”
Walsh worked as a legislative assistant to Jeffries’ predecessor, Bob Buster, and since then has been active on issues related to urban expansion and environmental protection. She joined the noise abatement campaign to stop predawn heavy jet traffic out of March Air Reserve Base, where she also raised concerns about development on a site where “munitions bunkers with their pollution still exist.”