Meghan Spieker
Candidate for City Council (At-Large), Del Mar
Meghan Spieker has lived in Del Mar for 25 years and currently serves on the city's Planning Commission, where she chairs the Governance and Development Review committees. A business litigator with 16 years of experience at law firms in San Francisco and San Diego, she holds a bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley and a law degree with honors from Georgetown University. She is the founding board chair of Free to Thrive, a San Diego nonprofit that provides free legal services to survivors of human trafficking, and has served more than a decade on the board of the California Wildlife Officers Foundation. She has also served as a school trustee chairing governance and development-review committees, completed the FBI Citizens Academy, and previously served as president of Teen Volunteers In Action.
Positions in brief
Spieker's platform centers on rebuilding local control over housing decisions, protecting the city's finances and infrastructure, moving rail lines off the eroding coastal bluffs, and expanding climate-resilience efforts including utility undergrounding.
Spieker's top stated priority is meeting the state's affordable-housing mandates while preserving Del Mar's local character and reclaiming local control over zoning decisions. She wants to expand the city's climate-resilience efforts, including continuing single-use plastic bans, beach sand replenishment, and utility undergrounding. On city finances, she has said she wants to protect existing fiscal reserves rather than treat them as a problem needing intervention, and to keep roads, parks, utilities and beaches well maintained through capital improvement planning. On rail realignment, she supports moving train tracks off the bluffs, opposes the use of eminent domain, and wants exploration of a 'Northern Yellow Line' alternative. She has also said she wants to build a more collaborative relationship with the Del Mar Fairgrounds' newly reorganized leadership and to complete a master plan for Shores Park, and to reclaim regulatory authority she says has been eroded by state mandates, citing Del Mar's status as a charter city.
On the issues
Supports meeting state affordable-housing mandates while working to preserve Del Mar's local character and reclaim local zoning control.
Source →Backs expanding climate-resilience efforts, including continuing single-use plastic bans, beach sand replenishment, and completing utility undergrounding.
Source →Wants to protect the city's existing fiscal reserves and ensure well-maintained infrastructure through careful capital improvement planning, rather than treating city finances as needing dramatic intervention.
Source →Wants to reclaim local regulatory authority she says has been eroded by state mandates, leveraging Del Mar's status as a charter city.
“I bring an open mind, a fresh perspective, and 25 years of deep roots in Del Mar to help our City Council be more collaborative, respectful, and effective”
Source →Supports moving rail tracks off the coastal bluffs, opposes use of eminent domain, and wants exploration of a 'Northern Yellow Line' rail alternative.
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