In Escondido, where median income is the lowest of any North County city, candidates vying for two City Council seats are promising a better quality of life even as the nation faces a financial crisis.

PROFILE: ESCONDIDO CITY COUNCIL Voters will elect two of six candidates on Nov. 4 Population: 143,000. Median income: $62,000, the lowest in North County. Ethnic makeup: White, 45.2 percent; Latino, 44.7 percent; Asian and Pacific Islanders, 4.7 percent; black, 2 percent; Native Americans, 0.5 percent; other, 2.8 percent. General fund budget: $82 million for fiscal year 2008-9. Candidates: Incumbents Sam Abed and Ed Gallo; challengers Richard Barron, Olga Diaz, Dennis French and Chuck Voelker.

The candidates promise a more vibrant downtown, better infrastructure, more new development, efforts to attract new businesses, and better code enforcement to improve Escondido's image.

Each would deliver by prioritizing spending – their way.

They do, however, have one thing in common. The six have witnessed the fallout of the council's failed attempt in 2006 to control illegal immigrants through rental restrictions. All of the candidates are steering clear of illegal immigration as a campaign issue. As much as some candidates would like to put the topic behind them, voters continue to raise the issue.

The six candidates running for two open seats in the Nov. 4 election are: incumbents Sam Abed, 56, and Ed Gallo, 67, and challengers Olga Diaz, 32, Richard Barron, 63, Dennis French, 46, and Chuck Voelker, 37.

Some of the candidates have formed alliances.

Abed and Gallo have endorsed each other. Both are, in turn, endorsed by council members Marie Waldron and Dick Daniels.

Abed, Gallo and Waldron were the trio who cast the majority vote in 2006 to pass the rental law, which would have punished landlords who rent to illegal immigrants. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law in court and the city ultimately rescinded the ordinance.

In another alliance, Diaz and Barron have joined forces. Both said the city should leave enforcement of immigration laws to the federal government.

To weave a picture of the candidates, information was gleaned from a Union-Tribune questionnaire, the candidates's Web sites and what they said at a recent forum.

Abed was elected four years ago. He owns Midway Mobil on East Valley Parkway and a couple of commercial lots downtown. He advocates prosperity and a safer and cleaner city, touting the fact that Escondido has gained households that earn $100,000 to $200,000 a year.

“We don't want to go back to the poverty days,” he said at the forum.

Abed has supported cracking down on illegal garage conversions and deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records when they are caught at checkpoints set up by Escondido police. He has credited those two enforcement actions for safer living conditions.

Escondido police have stepped up the use of driver's license and DUI checkpoints in the last two years. Chief Jim Maher has said that if unlicensed drivers are found to be illegal immigrants they are reported to immigration officials.

Gallo, 67, was elected to the council in 2000. He is a real estate agent and contractor, and said he wants to improve the city's image, encourage small businesses and attract big box retailers to Escondido.

“I want to lay the groundwork now so that our grandchildren can grow up comfortably in Escondido,” he said at a forum.

He said he has run out of strategies for the city to address illegal immigration, which he said strains city resources.

“Continue the illegal criminal sweeps ... continue traffic checkpoints which also exposes illegal aliens,” he wrote in his answers to the questionnaire.

Diaz, 32, owns two Blue Mug Coffee & Tea shops in Escondido and ran unsuccessfully for a council seat in 2006.

She highlights her business and accounting experience as her strength.

Diaz criticized the current council for spending too much money on salaries, projects that offer temporary fixes, and the rental ordinance that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend in court.

Diaz said she would rather spend money on street maintenance, an upgraded sewage system and a better emergency preparedness plan, leaving illegal immigration to the federal government.

“Instead of putting a Band-Aid on the problem, tell your congressman to fix it,” Diaz said.

Barron owns a consulting firm with his wife in the city. An English immigrant, he stresses his ability to appreciate other cultures and highlights his experience as a CEO. He said the polarization caused by the debate over illegal immigrants bothered him.

“Most people depend on these people to clean their houses and generate sales tax,” Barron said.

French, 46, co-owns a kitchen and bath remodeling business called InCounters Inc., with his family.

He said he wants to increase city revenues and eliminate what he considers wasteful spending at City Hall. He supports small business.

In his answers to the questionnaire, French stated that illegal immigrants are a federal responsibility. He supports police checkpoints to catch illegal immigrants, drunken drivers and other lawbreakers.

Voelker, 37, is an assistant manager at Walgreens on Felicita Avenue.

He touts his youth and professionalism and advocates raising the sales tax by 0.5 percent for a five year period to bolster the city's declining sales tax revenues.

He said Escondido needs a Border Patrol office.

“We need an ordinance barring day laborers from seeking curbside employment,” he wrote in his answers to the questionnaire. “We must also continue driver's license checkpoints... We should have empathy for the plight of illegal immigrants, but we cannot continue to be sanctuary for them.”

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Angela Lau: (760) 737-7575; angela.lau@uniontrib.com