Press Enterprise By Jeff Horseman

Debbie Walsh

A former legislative aide to Jeffries’ predecessor, Bob Buster.

“I want to bring back leadership, accountability and transparency to the supervisor’s office,” Walsh said via email, adding that her five years’ experience as a supervisors’ legislative assistant “has allowed me to see the many challenges that are not being adequately addressed by the county today such as crime, homelessness, public safety and veterans services.”

Community activist Debbie Walsh is running for the third time for the 1st District seat on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors. (Courtesy of Walsh campaign)

She added that she’s attended “thousands” of board meetings and other county agency public hearings on the public’s behalf. “I am not beholden to special interest groups and developers. I have the education, knowledge and experience to improve Riverside County.”

Walsh, who said she’s “been fighting against massive warehouses for over 20 years,” supports a moratorium on warehouse development. She supports seeking state and federal dollars to build veterans housing on March Joint Powers Authority land eyed for warehouses.

Walsh said she’d fight to lower the number of homeless people being bused into the city of Riverside from surrounding areas and to locate mental health facilities outside of that city “to reduce the large numbers of people with mental illness being released (there).”

She also wants to put Riverside Transmission Reliability Project transmission lines underground. Overhead lines “pose a substantial fire risk to the residents of Riverside, Jurupa Valley and Norco,” Walsh said.

More oversight of the sheriff’s office “is not needed at this time,” Walsh said, adding that Riverside County residents “overwhelmingly approve of the way Sheriff Bianco runs his department, having voted him into office twice.”