Riverside’s Ward 2 and Ward 4 Candidates Debate Vision for City’s Future

Aryana Noroozi

The four Riverside City Council candidates gathered for a forum at Temple Beth El.

All participants were in agreement that the city needs better-paying jobs and housing that people can afford; but how to get there, and who voters can trust to do it, led to some of the sharpest exchanges of the campaign so far.

The forum, “Riverside’s Values & Vision for the Future,” brought together Ward 2 candidates Aram Ayra and Gracie Torres, and Ward 4 candidates Rich Vandenberg and incumbent Councilmember Chuck Conder. Rabbi Emerita Suzanne Singer moderated with a handful of pre-determined topics in addition to reading questions the audience submitted on index cards.

Singer opened by reading the preamble to the city charter, which promises, “social harmony and cohesion.” She then asked how the candidates would counter polarization. Within minutes, the evening became a test of that promise.

“Potholes are not political”

Vandenberg said his approach comes from Braver Angels, a national group that brings people from opposing political camps into the same room. City council seats are nonpartisan, he said, but “they’ve been politicized.”

“Things like potholes are not political, right? Economic development shouldn’t be political,” he said.

Torres, who has served eight years on the Western Municipal Water District board, said she started in elected office “wanting to fight everybody” and learned “that’s how you don’t get things done.” She said compromise “sometimes seems like a dirty word, but the reality is that’s how you get things done for the city.” Torres emphasized her collaboration with those of opposing or even controversial views in order to get things done with transparency.

Conder, a military veteran who said he has spent 19 years at City Hall, told the audience, “I’m not on the R team. I’m not on the D team. I’m on the Riverside team.”

Ayra said that after knocking on thousands of doors in Ward 2, he found most residents agree on local issues like warehouse overdevelopment, affordable housing and homelessness. The bigger problem, he said, is “the amount of influence that donors have had on our city.” He said Riverside is one of only 14 California cities with no local campaign contribution limits, and he would support adding limits through the city’s charter review process.

Conder responded that it was council members on “the progressive side” who voted against limits, out of concern that “dark money” would flow into the city.

Vandenberg then turned to Conder and read what he called a direct quote from him: “I will pray to God to protect the conservatives and ask that He send all of the Satan-loving Democrats to hell.”

“That doesn’t sound like you’re willing to work with the other side of the aisle,” Vandenberg said.

“I don’t think I posted that. Somebody else might have. Other people have access,” Conder replied.

Homelessness, and a racial gap no one took up

Singer said Riverside has more than 1,000 unhoused people, not counting nearly 2,000 unhoused students. She also said the percentage of unhoused people who are Black is higher than the entire Black population in the city. None of the four candidates spoke to that racial gap directly in their answers. Countywide, Black residents made up 18% of the homeless population but 7% of the total population, according to a Riverside County report based on 2019 data.

Ayra said the city’s official count is about 615, and Riverside has only 260 shelter beds. “So if tomorrow we wanted to get everyone off the street and into [a] shelter, we could not do that,” he said. He called for more housing, shelter beds, and mental health and substance abuse programs. He also wants the city’s inspector general to check that homelessness money produces results. He said Los Angeles County, Orange County and neighboring cities “dump homeless people here.”

Ayra pointed to the Quality Inn/University Terrace supportive housing project, which the council voted down, as “one of the most meaningful once-in-a-generation investments we could have made to get 100 people off the street.” He said he was the only candidate to support it publicly. Vandenberg later said he had supported it too.

Torres said she “cannot solve homelessness by myself” and would start with “a strict audit” of groups that receive city homelessness money. “Is what you’re doing working? And if it’s not, how do we pivot?” she said. She said she did not oppose the project, but would have written the policy so at least four council members would vote for it.

Ayra then said Torres had taken a donation from Beverly Bailey, who he called one of the project’s most vocal opponents. Torres said she got to know Bailey while helping UCR students whose apartments burned down, and it “had nothing to do with” the project.

“You’re okay with disparaging somebody that’s worked incredibly hard, has an eight-year track record of standing by her values,” Torres said.

Ayra said Torres opposed the project at an earlier forum covered by the Raincross Gazette, “and then you received a $1,500 contribution from Beverly Bailey after the fact.” Torres said Bailey gave “months after” and that “it is the epitome of privilege for you to disparage your opponent without facts.”

“I think calling into question who you receive contributions from and stances you’ve taken are perfectly legitimate,” Ayra said. He added that Torres might have to recuse herself if the project returns to the council. Torres said she would not, because Stronghold Engineering does not hold a stake in it.

Conder described the Inland Empire Homeless Forum, which he said he started in 2019. It meets again Nov. 16, at the Riverside Convention Center, with 21 cities taking part so far, he said. He said it will feature a church program from Montgomery, Alabama, that pays unhoused people for a day’s work.

Vandenberg said prevention is the key, pointing to young people aging out of foster care. He and his wife adopted their daughter at age 7, he said. He said seniors are the fastest-growing unhoused group. He said he and Ayra, both on the city’s Budget Engagement Commission, won a $500,000 Measure Z budget line for senior services. A similar proposal for youth prevention was never put on the council agenda, he said.

Vandenberg also said the ACLU has filed a complaint over what he called Conder’s “disparaging comments” about unhoused residents. “There’s not a lawsuit waiting,” Conder said, offering to share “the truth and the facts and the numbers” after the forum.

Housing costs and mobile home rents

Singer noted that developers still haven’t built on approved sites like the former Kmart and Sears properties, and asked how the city can speed up construction. Torres said the city should cut permit delays and partner on city-owned land. She also wants community workforce agreements “so that our neighbors build them.”

Conder said “we are a free market society” and the city can’t set home prices. He said he created the city’s one-stop permit counter, modeled on the military’s deployment line. He said the state’s housing target for Riverside is about 18,000 units, with no money for schools or infrastructure to match.

Ayra said the average home costs about $650,000. “I’m a renter, so I dream about buying a home,” he said. He said private equity firms own a little over 3,000 housing units in the city. He proposed a fee on large corporate owners, paid into the city’s affordable housing trust fund. He said Riverside has not built a single very low- or low-income unit in the last three years.

Ayra said he fought for two years for a 4% rent ceiling at mobile home parks, which the City Council approved in February 2025. The council has since set the cap at 2.8% for 2026. ‘The same developers who fought that rent stabilization cap have also made donations in this race,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you decide who they made those donations to.'”

Torres, who said she owns a mobile home, answered that she had worked with realtors on a state bill to stop corporate home buying. Park owners know “they can work with me,” she said, and that is not the same as being bought. She accused Ayra of seeking the endorsement of IE BizPAC, a political action committee those donors fund; then changing his message when the PAC did not endorse him. Ayra denied it. The exchange grew loud enough that Singer stepped in: “Volume and intensity need to go down.”

Vandenberg said a first-time buyer with FHA financing on a $650,000 home would pay about $5,400 a month and need roughly $185,000 a year in income. He said Riverside has met less than 5% of its state affordable housing target. Moreno Valley’s mayor told him that city beat its target through “political willpower,” he said.

“I don’t have the answers to this, but there seems to be a solution, and I’m going to find out what it is,” Vandenberg said.

“Stop calling every damn big building a warehouse”

Asked how to bring better-paying jobs to Riverside, Ayra said: “Definitely not by continuing the culture of building warehouses or shifting out to AI data centers.” He wants closer ties with UCR, where he earned two degrees, to keep “the human capital that constantly leaves Riverside.” Most of his classmates left to other cities or even states, he said, because “there were no good jobs,” housing cost too much, and there was “no pathway to a stable, high-growth career here.”

Ayra said he supports a voter-approved business license tax on warehouses to pay for street repair and truck enforcement. He also supports a warehouse moratorium, a full ban if the council moves toward one, and a ban on data centers.

Torres stated 60% of Riversiders commute out of the city for work. At Western Municipal Water District, she said, she created a career pathway that has placed more than 150 people in water jobs. She wants the city to lower degree and experience requirements for entry-level jobs, start its own apprenticeship program and reward small businesses that hire locally. She said she worked with legislators on AB 98, the state’s 2024 warehouse law. When a data center item appeared on a recent council agenda, she said, she called council members and had it pulled. “Imagine when I’m elected,” she said.

Conder said a Fortune 50 manufacturer and a medical company were lost when a project on former March Air Reserve Base land was voted down. “Please stop calling every damn big building a warehouse,” he said. He said he recruits companies at the ICSC retail conference and used the region’s foreign trade zone to bring off-road parts maker Icon to Riverside. On data centers, he said opposition information “is being put out by foreign governments” and that data centers are “going to be built,” possibly powered by small nuclear reactors.

Vandenberg, who said he has knocked on 15,000 doors, said warehouses are the top concern in Ward 4. “We have enough logistics warehousing to last a lifetime,” he said. He noted that Conder voted no on the March project and sent voters a postcard saying so. Conder said he has “never voted for one warehouse in this city” and voted no because the motion was for warehouses, not manufacturing.

A censure, and an unexpected endorsement

Singer said several audience members asked about a four-page public letter of censure from Torres’ fellow water board members. Torres said she was censured after she reported a Brown Act violation to the district attorney, about four years ago. She said the experience taught her to work with colleagues she disagrees with, and all of them now support her campaign.

Conder, who is not running against Torres, said he “was not a fan of hers” at first. “She has done a damn good job in learning from her mistakes, in growing,” he said.

Riverside: 2030 and beyond

Asked what Riverside should look like in the decades ahead, Ayra said the city should stop living “in the shadow of Los Angeles or Orange County and being a dumping ground for the projects they don’t want to put in their manicured neighborhoods.” He wants to lean into health care, education, green technology and cybersecurity. 

He said families pay $900 to $1,400 a month per child for childcare, which the city has never taken up. He pledged not to take corporate PAC, warehouse developer or AI data center money.

Conder said his priorities are a safe city, a balanced budget and local control. “Push back against Sacramento. Push back against Washington,” he said. He noted that the city’s 2050 general plan expects about 125,000 more residents, pushing Riverside toward half a million people.

Vandenberg, a Riverside native raised by a single mother, said friends who left the state called the city “the armpit of the IE.” “I want a city we can be proud of,” he said. “I plan to die here.”

Torres said her parents brought her and her siblings to Riverside from Durango, Mexico. Her mother’s first teaching job was at Poly High School, across the street from the temple. She wants fewer residents commuting out of the city. “The quality of life for the city should be one that is taking care of you,” she said, “like Riverside has taken care of us.”

The general election is November 3.