KCRA 3 is sitting down with the candidates running to be the next mayor of Stockton.Six candidates are vying for the seat in the March 5 primary election. Kevin Lincoln, the current mayor, is not seeking to keep his seat and instead is running for Congress.Below are profiles of and the top issues for three of the six candidates: Shakeel Ahmad, Christina Fugazi and Tom Patti. On Thursday, we published a report with profiles on the other three candidates in the race.Shakeel AhmadShakeel Ahmad told KCRA 3 that he is a local businessman who has lived in Stockton for almost two decades. He also said he also got a Master’s in social work from Sacramento State University.“I’ve been in business for almost 18 years, successful businessman and a successful social worker, so I said this is a good time right now to give something back to my community,” Ahmad said. “I did some practical social work. I worked as a medical social worker.”Ahmad said his top priority is addressing homelessness. He said he would create a task force to tackle the issue, which he also claimed he could drastically reduce.“That task force is going to go to different places, have these homeless, spot these homeless out and try to convince them, motivate them, because we will train them first. These task force people, we will train them first and try to get some social workers hired so they can go over there, they can talk to them, that we have places for you, like the shelters or other places where we can just take them over there and give them food, medicine, whatever they need,” Ahmad said. “I’m so hopeful that maybe in about a year or so, I can completely take care of the homeless people in Stockton.”Ahmad said his other top priorities are reducing crime and supporting the youth.On reducing crime, Ahmad said he wants to put more police in certain Stockton neighborhoods.“We’ll have some substations that I’ll recommend in different parts of the city where the city they are like high, where there’s a lot of crime is higher,” Ahmad said. “Once somebody calls 911, they don’t take that much time. They’ll just respond right away.”Ahmad said supporting the youth goes hand-in-hand with reducing crime. He wants more programs for the youth, including vocational training.“There are so many trades we can teach them, so many businesses we can teach them, and they won’t get involved in some other things. If they don’t, that’s the problem. When they don’t see that opportunity, they just want to see the easy way, and the easy way is the crime,” Ahmad said. “If you are building a strong building, you need a strong foundation for that, and a strong foundation for a community is your youth.”KCRA 3 asked Ahmad about his lack of political and public service experience, but he said he could still connect with voters.“I will go to the common people, you know, like their businesses, and I’ll, on a regular basis, I’ll just visit them,” Ahmad said.See Ahmad's full interview below.Christina FugaziChristina Fugazi has spent nearly 30 years as an educator, and she currently has an administrative role within the Stockton Unified School District at Stagg High School. She also has extensive public service experience.“Eight years on the planning commission. Eight years as a city council member… I have quite a bit of experience in truly understanding how government works, local government in particular,” Fugazi said. “I think it’s important that you have a leader, someone who is a proven leader who has vision, who has experience taking the helm as mayor of the city of Stockton.”Fugazi said her top priority is public safety. She said on her first day in office, if she were to be elected, she would sit down with the city manager, the chief of the Stockton Police Department and the Office of Violence Prevention to understand the full scope of the current situation. She said additional efforts need to be made to attract and retain more officers.“We need to look at incentives… having an opportunity for officers that come here to have an incentive that’s based on housing, or an incentive that is based on what they bring to the table, years of service, education, different things of that matter,” Fugazi said.She also said the youth are crucial in reducing crime in the community.“We need to have more for them. We need to have more programs…Mentorship programs. Job opportunities. I was thinking of two days a week, two hours after school, to be working at one of the area businesses where they can get a better understanding of what it takes to own and operate a business, maybe they’ll discover their passion, and then during the summer, it would be a paid job, kind of like work study, where government, the city, would then pay their hourly wage to work in that job,” Fugazi said. “A job allows them to have a little money in their pocket, maybe bring more money home for their families, and maybe not go out and do things that they probably shouldn’t do.”Fugazi said her other top priorities are tackling homelessness and improving quality of life.On homelessness, Fugazi said the city needs a strong vision to get people off the streets.“We need to triage people to begin with. Why did they fall into these circumstances? Is it because they were evicted? They couldn’t afford their housing? They don’t have a job? Maybe it’s a mental health issue. Maybe it’s a substance abuse issue,” Fugazi said. “We need to make sure we have some transitional housing, or housing in general, for those individuals that merely don’t have housing because they’ve been priced out of the market.”On improving quality of life, Fugazi said she would focus on stopping illegal dumping and providing businesses with more opportunities.“We definitely need to be incentivizing those businesses. There are ways that we can do that, but rolling out the red carpet to individuals that want to bring a business here that’s going to provide livable wage jobs for members of our city,” Fugazi said. “The permitting process is something that really needs help, though, because you have to jump through hoops in order to open and operate a business.”See Fugazi's full interview below. Tom PattiTom Patti grew up in Stockton, graduated from local schools and attended Delta College. He has served on the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors since 2016, where he said he has been able to accomplish major change regarding homelessness, vocational education and jobs.“One distinct difference between myself and others running for mayor is results… I’ve got a record of 20, 30 things that I’ve initiated in San Joaquin County that have had a profound difference. Now’s the time to bring it to the city,” Patti said. “I’ll be able to roll over all of the success we’ve had in the county and focus on Stockton, where there are some challenges.”Patti said his number one priority is addressing homelessness in Stockton, adding that he supports a “shelter first” model.“Pivot away from housing first, which is not the answer for everybody. We need, and we could be more effective with dollars, if we’re doing shelters, in partnership with local nonprofits, faith-based organizations, making sure that individuals, pets, partners, possessions, all of it comes together with support services, right, drug treatment, behavioral health, whatever it takes to help get a person stable so that they’re able to transition to supportive housing,” Patti said. “If we have shelter beds, then we can put together crisis response teams, get people off the streets, engage with them and bring them to a place of stability.”Patti said he also supports current housing projects that are underway, and while he would support more affordable housing overall, the focus should be on shelter beds.“I’m not here to stop any program. But what else can we do? That may work for some people. Some people may be on a merry-go-round, but if we can get the people that are living on the streets, on the roadways or waterways, highways, public and private land, and we can bring them into a place with support services, where there’s some human dignity,” Patti said.Patti said his other top priorities are improving public safety and boosting economic development.On public safety, Patti said the focus should be on creating more jobs and extracurricular activities for the youth.“We start getting jobs, you have less gang activity, you have less criminal activity… Vocational education, job training. Nothing is going to improve not only the quality of life but lessen the degree of criminal activity and graffiti and all the blight, than a job. That job is going to make a difference, and you give kids a hope, a gateway,” Patti said. “Now you’re mentoring, and you’re creating a foundation that these young men and women will have not only great experiences, character development, but they can have pride in their community.”Patti also said more needs to be done to recruit and retain Stockton police officers, and he also proposed satellite police stations in certain neighborhoods.“We know where the high crime zones are, so let’s bring officers and have a presence and build relationships in the community,” Patti said.On economic development, Patti said revitalizing downtown and expanding business options is crucial.“We could create an epicenter of economy. How about we bring in a convention center, a hotel, music venue, family entertainment,” Patti said. “We need to create family recreation and zones of activity, so that our quality of life, the quality of life that our families, our children, and the quality of life that our community can offer needs to be brought forward.”See Patti's full interview below. Profiles on and interview responses from the other three candidates for Stockton Mayor – Jesús Andrade, Jessica Velez and Dan Wright – can be viewed here. If one of the six Stockton mayoral candidates gets more than 50% of the vote, they will be elected outright. If not, the top two candidates will move on to the general election in November.