Panel discussion with candidates for 3rd District County Board of Supervisor and California 28th Assembly District

The forum was divided into two-panel conversations moderated by Lookout. We posed the first questions to California 28th Assembly District candidates on issues impacting the greater Santa Cruz and Santa Clara County region that will be hotly debated in the state capitol. We then heard from our 3rd District County Board of Supervisor candidates on issues of importance specific to Santa Cruz County. Video and transcripts below.

California 28th Assembly District Candidates

3rd District County Board of Supervisor Candidates

Transcripts

Please note that these transcripts are machine-generated. Bound to be plenty of errors. And the timings are not accurate. As for errors in judgement, you be the judge.

California 28th Assembly District candidates

[00:05:58.930] - Jody Biehl

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for coming, everyone. Welcome to our candidate forum for upcoming lectures. Really is thrilled to be part of this. I'm Jodyl. I'm the new Community Voices opinion editor. What you've seen. We launched Community Voices very recently. And actually almost everyone on the stage is a Community Voices writer. They have all contributed to talk about themselves and why you spoke to them. So after tonight, you haven't read those yet. Go and see what they had to say about themselves. We're thrilled to be doing this. This is it like you hear, this is democracy in action. It's everything that my job is trying to do to bring the community together, to discuss issues that matter to all of us, to be a part of the process of our country, to both know about issues. So really proud to be doing this and proud that we're all there are various organizations in the community doing this with us. So we have Hotel Paradox. We're grateful here for having this room and space. We're grateful to the candidates for sharing their time with us. Incredible. Doug Erickson at Santa Cruz Works, putting all the tech together, getting the Zoom going, all the technical difficulties.

[00:08:02.790] - Jody Biehl

Amazing work there, Emily. And we also have the Downtown Council: Jorian. I don't know if she's here, Jorian, but they were part of this as well. And of course, thank you, Chamber of Commerce. So Chamber of Commerce is also one of our sponsors. And we have solely here. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And finally, thank you to you for coming out here. All of you are part of it. We've also on coverage today. We have pieces on the supervisor we'll be hearing from next. We've also covered the assembly ratio. So we're really trying to bring you as much information as we can about what's happening to make informed choices for the election. Again, everyone should have their ballot if you're voting in the election. Okay.

[00:09:29.890] - Jody Biehl

I would also like to introduce Ken Doctor, founder of Lookout. Okay. We  have two rules just to let you do five minute segments. We're doing two segments. So we're doing the established rate first and then we'll be doing the third district supervisor rate. Each candidate will have 90 seconds to answer the question asked. Emily in the front over here is going to be holding up signs. You can just know this at 15 seconds. So you'll hold up the signs, let them know to wrap up and finish what they're saying. I'm not going to cut you off, but I am going to remind you, please stop what you're saying.

[00:10:59.410] - Jody Biehl

So if you have questions during debate discussion, please write them down. We'll collect them. We'll just try to answer as many as we can at the end, even if we don't end up answering your questions saved with the people on Zoom at home in the chat. And we'll be trying to incorporate that into the discussion. And even if we do not get your particular question, just so you know, it's incredibly helpful for us to have them get looked at answering your questions. So if we don't have time permitting to answer your questions tonight, we would like to know what you're asking, what you're wondering, and it's something that we could cover in look at in our reporting. So again, the point of journalism, that's the point of journalism, helps you understand your community. And I'm working to be scrupulously fair in everything that I do possible to be really judicious about that at my discretion. I'm going to try to make sure you all have the exact same amount of time or close to this. If there is something that someone says that you'd like to respond to, like that ODIs possibility will allow that to happen along 60 seconds.

[00:12:59.010] - Liz Lawlor  

Hi everyone. It is Joe. Nice to be here with you tonight. I want to thank the Chamber and the Lookout for everyone involved in the State Forum. My name is Liz Waller. I'm a born and raised Californian. I graduated from UC Berkeley with the degree of political science. Since College, I worked in advertising. I've raised two children. I have two grandchildren. I've been a good mom, a dead mom, a pain mom, and more recently, I was Commissioner, Mayor, and Council member. All of these experiences, combined with giving me the diplomatic skills, the policy knowledge, and the true desire to make a difference in people's lives. I'm ready for, say, assembly because we've had one party rule for decades and we are now living with the consequences of their policy. First figure it out later than housing. We have rising rampant homelessness at housing prices, family schools, high cost of living. The list goes on and instead of addressing these, they double down on these policies in the means of everyday California. I want to change that. The choice is clear. Do you want more of the same or do you want balance and common sense? 

[00:14:12.310] - Gail Pellerin

Thank you so thank you everyone for being here tonight. Thank you to Lookout and sponsor this event. My name is Gail Coloran and I stand for equity, dignity and integrity for myself and for others. I started my career in the state of subway. I spent more than 27 years with the chief elections official and was elected four times at the San Francisco. Now I'm ready to go back to Sacramento to do the important work of helping solve the enormous challenges faced by our new Assembly District 28. After 35 years in public service at local, local and state levels, I am ready to make a bigger impact. Driven by my passion for connection with the community and my desire to take policy around mental health, affordable housing, health care, education, climate change, and public safety. I'm honored to be endorsed by us and as a current and former elected official, community leaders in both county. I am honored to have earned new births of the Santa's Labor produce teachers versus Labor Planned Parenthood.

[00:15:42.010] - Rob Rennie

Thank you for having me. I'm an engineer of 25 years, six of that innovating products for the solar industry. I'm currently the Mayor of Los Gatos and I've been on Council for eight years or I'm in my eight year. I'd like to emphasize the breadth of experience in government. In my years in elective office, I've served on many regional boards relating to transportation, housing and community development, climate, air quality, emergency preparedness and management, open space preservation, and efficient delivery of government services. From my years as an engineer mini as a project manager, I developed a passion for solving problems. A key skill as a project manager was getting people of different perspectives, opinions and skills to work together to solve problems. One of my biggest achievements was solving problems in solving problems with Valley Silicon Valley Clean Energy, which was electricity provider when we formed it. We immediately saved greenhouse gas 34% over what PG & E want to give.

[00:16:48.710] - Joe Thompson

Hello everyone. My name is Joe Thompson. I'm an 18 year old student at YouTube Andrews and Union organizer running for this briefcase from the district. I'm one of the youngest candidates to ever run for this office. There's a lot of people in this room that I want to talk to who want to see young people really take the reins, rise up and lead a new generation of folks. And I think that not only is this campaign focus on any of that reaching out to not only students, but people have never voted before. People who look into politics wouldn't usually come to these forms because we're inspiring people to look at us and say we want to be a process. This campaign is focused on not only helping people, but making sure we are really finding working class families of this district and bringing everyone together. Thank you.

[00:17:55.190] - Jody Biehl

Okay, our first or real question. We're going to talk about affordable housing. So the tension between what state wants and what is possible locally. So California needs more housing in Santa Cruz more housing, and Santa Cruz needs more housing. The need is acute and pressing. The state is getting tired of waiting for anti growth communities, including Santa Cruz, to add more housing. In 2018, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 35, which is designed to feed housing development by reducing the power city councils have to reject housing projects. The A 31 Water Street project is an example of this. San Francisco City Council members largely proved A 31 Water under pressure and fear of loss. Do you agree with the state's policy of overriding local authorities to improve and expedite housing, or are you going to try to change it? How are you going to maintain as much global control as possible while still tackling the urgency? Tough question. Thank you. As I've been out walking, briefings and talking to voters, I hear a lot of concern about housing override passed by the legislature. My understanding of the purpose of these bills, of course, is to generate a less needed housing for California and making sure that people who work here can also afford to live here.

[00:19:39.840] - Gail Pellerin

There are many different viewpoints on how and if these laws will have an impact on meeting or housing shortage and how it will impact our communities. I have not had the benefit of sitting through the hearing that you're successfully on these bills. So I do know that they're controversial, and my practice has always been to reach out to learn their opinion before capturing the vote. The reality is that this is now the law and at this point, the laws are being implemented and we are in a position to see what impacts are going to have on our communities. So changes need to be made. I will want to pour those pieces, if elected to the state. I will also want to work with the local communities to understand the ideas of how to address the critical housing shortage that we have. We need to work together to build strong and vibrant communities that meet the needs of our residents. Our housing shortage is a complex issue. It requires a lot more deliberation and outreach city and other countries.

[00:20:45.080] - Rob Rennie

Okay, so this is a difficult problem. In Las Vegas, we also had actually we might have been the ones that cost at least 35 where we'll try to deny a project. It is a challenge. There are some potentially good laws and there's some bad laws. I wanted to touch on SP Nine, which is one that allows the subdivision of lots. And we're definitely that's not working very well. Dallas, we already have people trying to subdivide their large lots in the Hills to build another $4 million home. That doesn't solve the problem of the target of that bill. I would look for other solutions instead of more what I call big bills making jurisdictions built housing. One of my ideas, I think can have the biggest effect is the government uses bully pulpit to strongly encourage companies to allow employees to work remotely. I have a friend that works at Google recently moved to Oregon that freed up a house. So by doing this, we can take some pressure off of the housing. I know some CEOs that have told me that they found their workers were actually more productive when they left them work from home, when they deep breakfast with their families, sacred kids to school, and then they're working all the rest of the time they don't have to use. When we do build houses, I would focus them in the right type of places and they would be dense housing that's going to be at lower cost but are easier on infrastructure. 

[00:22:08.230] - Joe Thompson

This is a big problem. People are not only being a big hit currently in the city, but they're losing their investment. And specifically, I work with the Student Housing Coalition not only to foster community developments, but to work with students and engaging them to our homeless. And we're not giving any time. There's not a single city Council member who is putting forward Reno solutions. So I do believe that we need to take the step up past SPV and we need to fix the student price. If we're truly going to be investing in education, providing a form, and making sure we invest in our future. We need to make sure we're starting at the grass level and building up affordable housing not only to house students, but to help members the community. Obviously, having YouTube here in the community makes it harder for anyone in the community. And when it comes down to it, we need to be working towards real solutions that are going to provide people homes. Then the other thing that I've been deporting to have empty home tax. This would not only create more forming but create a dedicated fund fixing the huge homelessness problem we have in the business.

[00:24:03.850] - Liz Lawlor

All right. Well, first of all, affordable housing is more expensive to build in marketplace housing because of existing policies. In order for it to be affordable, you have to get state and federal funding, cash subscribe. Well intended environmental policies know what's best for their communities. They know what their challenges are, whether it's wildfire. I would plan on streamlining the policies, the existing policies that have created this problem. I don't want to transmit the loan control and residents have a voice. And I want to make sure that any column United States does have taken consideration and unique characters with each community, thereby setting up each local jurisdiction for success. Because right now we're set up for failure and that's not going to help anybody. 

[00:25:54.570] - Jody Biehl

California has a 68 million billion dollars surplus right now. Pretty enviable position, $68 billion surplus. But we're also at least sometimes we have budget surpluses and sometimes we have deficits. Former Governor Jerry Brown is the Department of a rainy day club keeping some funds aside of sanity. What's your view given the surf club? What are your top three spending priorities? What percentage of your surplus of that surplus put away? And should any go back to taxpayers? Rob, your first.

[00:26:02.170] - Rob Rennie

Thank you for the question. So first, go on the rainy day fund. I'm definitely somebody that likes to see rainy day funds. Since we do go up and down this year, the stock market is not going very well. So I expect our offers to not be as full in the next year priorities. First place I would go is education and they are going there pretty heavily with education. We've been well under funded and now that will bring up the funding. I would also look for more programs and education around Head Starts programs. Make sure everybody has an opportunity for some kind of Head Start program. It's the best way to lift people from disadvantaged communities up. Another place I would spend is on fire protection. That's been a huge problem in our state. This district has a lot of mountain communities to want to make sure that we have adequate vegetation and forest management and another area solve problems. Well, I go back to the housing issue. I put more money into being able to build affordable housing. One of the solutions I think we can use is instead of, as I mentioned, the stick bills, let's put together a finance fund to help get more of the affordable housing built software.

[00:27:27.930] - Joe Thompson

When it comes to the state plans, I think we have three major priorities. The first I would focus on is universal payment. I want to get you a check for $1,000 every month. No just attached. We can afford that. And the way you do that is by taxing excessive wealth by 1% for anyone who makes over $2 million. And not only this progressive policy is supported by millions of Americans. We can actually do it in our state. It's been proposed, and when we need to move forward with it is by allowing this money to go back some education, providing free preschool and College for all students across California. We have a massive budget service that can be used to really invest in our future. My last priority would be investing. I was 16 years old when I first learned that I had gotten diagnosed. It was estimated over $20,000 out of pocket without health insurance. I want to use the safe budget to invest in a single pair system for all people. Not only can we do this, but we need to ensure that everyone in California has access to affordable health care and we can do it tomorrow. The reason why this load up pulls is representable, but we need to be fighting for this forever.

[00:29:14.490] - Liz Lawlor

Yes, we do have a great budget for us. My priorities would be to support solar occupied housing and valve assistance. We all know that homeownership is the best way to build integrated generational wealth and really for us because we don't want to create that generation of energy. We want people to actually build that with me in their home. I would support that. I would support building facilities to invest mental health, homelessness and addiction and especially focus on our adolescents. We have very few facilities for our adolescents and we really need to care for them and our history representative there as well. I would also consider investing in our water infrastructure in Reservoir Bank because our population has doubled in the last 40 years, but our infrastructure has not. We are some trained from a serious drought which is going to be a regular thing for us and we need to invest in water, capture and manage the water a lot better. Only 10% of residents use water. The rest of it goes to agriculture. 40% of it goes straight into the ocean. And as for getting a tax refund, it would be lovely for taxpayers to get a tax refund.

[00:31:03.550] - Gail Pellerin

Thank you. So I support a rebate fund. I don't have the magic number, but I think wherever we are now we need to increase it. I worked in the same assembly and worked on budget and much of the budget spending is already fixed by law. Education will receive a significant amount as it should that California's in the month. Third, its first people spending. Some should go to provide financial leads to qualifying California families. But we have to be very mindful of how we spend this surplus. We could be facing very hard budget time very soon. I remember when I was working with state assuming during the tough budget time with state employees and not get paid for several months. And funding was grown at the state level. So we must be very proven. However, we have some significant needs that require our immediate attention. So I do believe we're in a housing emergency and funds should go to invest in health and affordability. Surplus money should also go to plan health care and mental health care. And we have to invest in climate change to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, fire protection, sea level rise always need our attention. But due to the Gamblin we have some strength on how we can sense the system. 

[00:31:03.550] - Jody Biehl 

We still have a lot of vacant storefronts post COVID. We're still suffering. What are you going to do to support small businesses?

[00:32:57.030] - Joe Thompson

I think we do need to provide services. Should we build small owned community shops to really allow us to foster in our community but really living down into the broader issue, the impact that open it has had. We have obviously with the Union organizing, the fact that across the country workers are deciding that we need a living wage and I think that only we need to support small business owners. We need to make sure that the workers are getting paid living wage as well. And when it comes down to investing in our community, we need to be adequately allow, informed to have these resources necessary. And the face of knowledge brought funding for that. We need to expand the actual opportunity to start allowing new companies to get loans, to build a founding businesses. There's a lot of needs and we've seen that it's very easy to start up a new business and get going. But once you get going, how do you have enough support. Investing in our small businesses is a major priority of mine and getting to those small business community owners.

[00:34:17.120] - Liz Lawlor

I forgot to mention the last question that California is 47 worst in the nation in terms of taxpayer return on investment. Going forward, California is the 14th worst. I have information on corporations in the late 1960s, 68 which enable businesses to incorporate state of California, which was a business friendly state at that time. Our small businesses are the backbone of our communities and they are being crushed by 396,000 regulations, more than double the national average. The second closest state in New Jersey 275. We must eat these regulations and we must provide tax refiet so that these businesses can remain in their communities and hire employees. Evd spots, $20 billion over that. Our small businesses are being shoulder without responsibility because California wants to raise the payroll tax to pay for that loss, again hurting our small businesses. We are an unfriendly climate, our policy itself. So living in the nation and the strictest regulations driving key sectors out of California. So again, we need to provide those regulations for me to separate our small business community. Thank you.

[00:35:24.830] - Liz Lawlor

So yes, small businesses are struggling to hire and reopen students of Pandemic. We need to increase funding for career technical education program, affordable housing for workers so they can live where they're working, and providers. A lot of people work remotely during this Pandemic, and I think we need to try to continue to allow that. We do have some broadband issues in the county where working remotely is difficult because there's not a lot of service. And we did see a lot of online sales during the sand that I said Skyrocket is creating a roadwalk for small businesses that did not have the tools to go online. And small businesses face a mountain of regulations making it difficult to just run their business. So we need to streamline regulations and rationalize regulations for small business. There have been also challenges for small businesses as far as accessing capital. So I support policy solutions to make loans more affordable for small business, especially women and minority owned businesses. One example is there is a PPE loan offer to businesses that just need it, like Amazon.  For PPE. The other big hurdle is unemployment insurance debt. And there's $22 billion right now that we borrow from the state and we need to address that deficit and we need support programs that provide code relief. Thank you.

[00:37:09.570] - Rob Rennie

I have been a small business owner, so I understand the pain. When I retired from being an engineer about five or six years ago, I was already elected to Los Gatos Council. And when my engineering job ended, I decided I was going to double down on basically volunteer work on a lot of different boards and commissions in the government, as I mentioned, and with a little bit of extra time I had, I bought a franchise that I own for three and a half years. And in there, I thought my job was to come up with new services and products that I could increase my revenue. I was continuously frustrated by having to then fill out some forms or pay for something or get through all of the bureaucracy. So when I was Mayor in 2018 in Los Gatos, I made it a priority to try to revitalize the focus was kind of on our downtown business district. We were losing out to competitively to Willow Glenn and Santana Row and some of the other and Campbell. So we undertook an extensive effort to streamline our processes, remove burdensome regulations, and basically allow businesses to innovate themselves. Another one of the things that was mentioned was being able to get workers was a little bit easier back when I still had my business. But I recall it's getting to be more and more challenging just before I sold it. And so things like affordable housing so that more workers can live closer into where the jobs are going to be is going to have to also be a priority to supporting small businesses.

[00:39:00.070] - Jody Biehl

Okay. We do actually have a question from the audience, and it says to ask, please ask each candidate to share sustain their political affiliation. So, Liz, that's your easy question on your side. 

[00:39:12.560] - Liz Lawlor

I'm a Republican.

[00:39:15.790] - Gail Pellerin

I'm a Democrat.

[00:39:17.380] - Rob Rennie

Democrat.

[00:39:19.630] - Joe Thompson

Progressive Democrat.

[00:39:22.030] - Jody Biehl

Okay, we have one more. Are you in support of assembly bill? This will be yours. Are you in support of Assembly Bill 988, which creates a new crisis hotline? How would you implement and improve this bill?

[00:39:37.660] - Gail Pellerin

Do I have 60 seconds? Absolutely. My family has been profoundly impacted by mental health, and I'm Super excited about the 98 emergency number going into effect on July 16. The reality is, though, that the funding for the bill is held up in the state legislature. So basically what this is going to be is a hotline that says we want to write for someone to call, someone to come, somewhere to go. So we got the call piece down and the governor's put $20 million in the budget to fund it. And the suicide hotline will be responding. But we're still having those missing pieces of somewhere to come and somewhere to go. And so mobile mental health care is essential 24, 7365. And right now in Stanford County, we have emerging programs, the Global Emergency Response Team and the why for use. And those are available, but they're only available for certain hours. I think it's Monday to Friday, nine to five. They're trying to extend it to the weekend. We do need to look at the data to see when these calls are coming in and what needs to be done and then, of course, somewhere to go. So we need to have those mental health services where people have a place to go. In Santa Cruz County, we don't have any bed for you. They have such a thing go up to Alfina County to get care. So we need to do a lot of investment to make sure that mental health services are providing for our community.

[00:41:26.190] - Rob Rennie

So I also agree mental health is extremely important. I see it as part of a cycle that brings people down, ultimately affecting homelessness or people ending up in jail. You can imagine, particularly in poorer communities where it's difficult to get help or you have a dislike or distrust is probably a better word of officials like police and so forth. So what may end up happening is people turn into drugs for relief because they can't get the access to mental health. Then they get into the justice system, which is going to increase their stress and their mental health accentuated anyway. And so you can see how this can quickly be a downward spiral. So I'm for getting more mental health services to our community. One thing we've started in Santa Clara County that I really like, and we need to get more funding for it is trying to focus and get training for more local community members that can help provide that, particularly in these communities where distrust of officials is lower, for example. So training for maybe EMT people or maybe even firefighters people or other local nonprofits where people can feel more comfortable.

[00:43:00.400] - Joe Thompson

To support this program, and not only we need to expand upon it, but we need to get more funding. We need to allow for alternate forms of policing to really help these homeless populations. Santa Cruz has the highest homeless rate per capita in the entire United States. This is a crisis that we're dealing with right here in the city as a barista pushing the water every day after this community, and a lot of them are dealing with mental health issues, and we have zero ways to actually solve the problem now. It's been devastating for me. They walk in every day and I talk to them. They're getting their waters. And I actually had one homeless person came in. But doing fast and having to deal with the violence that is happening in the city has been an impact on me. I think that not only do we need to have resources, but really investing in solving this issue because it does affect people. These are people who live in this community who have had their luck at while volunteering with the organization Who Not Bombs, I have again learned that this organization is fighting for people to get fed. And there's a lot of people in this community who are down their luck and they're being priced out of their homes. They're being evicted, and there's not a system that allows them to build themselves up. Again, I think we really need to invest in both parts. You need to invest in mental health care, access, alternate forms of policing, but also invest in social safety nets to really allow for people to build themselves up after they have been knocked down. Thank you.

[00:44:33.750] - Liz Lawlor

Yes, I absolutely agree that mental health is incredibly important. And having had a daughter go through some real struggles and being in a 51 50 as an adolescent, I can tell you how scary it is. And here in Northern California, we only have one adolescent Crisis Line. And it's like Gale said in Fremont, we are woefully under prepared for our adolescents who are really struggling. So, yes, a crisis hotline. Absolutely. We would need to make sure that the agencies involved have the resources they need to be effective. We need to make sure that we can measure its outcomes and its success. Mental health is critical. And we need to really focus on preventative health care. And that means in our curriculum, in our school, expanding adolescent psyched, providing families like mine with the resources and the help they need to help their child when they come home. It is scary, you don't know what to do for your child. So being able to have those resources and support is critical to making sure that our young kids, our adolescents, will be healthy in the future. And again, this will go a long way in preventing future addiction and homelessness. Thank you.

[00:45:50.110] - Jody Biehl

So I'm going to ask a couple of individual questions, ask you each question specifically targeted to your campaign, the things that I've looked at in your policies that maybe haven't seen. And I'm wondering about myself, and I think some of our audience might be wondering, too. So I'm going to start with you, Gail. She's spoken. You have an impressive track record on a reputation here in Santa Cruz County. You spoke forcefully about women's rights, voting rights, mental health issues. But I haven't seen anything about your commitment to climate change or your policies on environmental losing. So if you could just speak to that a little bit.

[00:46:31.870] - Gail Pellerin

Happy to. Yeah. We're in a crisis, an existential crisis right now on climate, and we need to take action immediately. I want to give a shout out to the climate action program that Tiffany Wise West runs in the city of Santa Cruz. It's phenomenal. They're so far ahead of the game on addressing these issues. We need to do water solutions and conservation. So that's coming down where we're having to make sure that every drop of water is precious and we need to conserve it. We need to use gray water. We need to use reuse systems, water quality. We have many people living in this country that have very poor water quality. So we need to be focusing on that as well. And as far as greenhouse gas emissions, California has done really well so far to drop from 14 tons at 10.5. But there's much more to do. I only have 15 seconds. And electrifying transportation, electrifying buildings and buying foods locally. Reducing meat and dairy. And in Santa Cruz, of course, we have sea level rise. And that's it.

[00:47:37.320] - Jody Biehl

Right. Okay. And Liz, you're next. And a little bit the same question. Your policies are not I haven't seen as much on mental health from you, but you just talk about about your own experiences as a mother. That's very moving. I have seen you talk a lot about public safety, especially, and your role is in galvanizing your own city and in organizing and getting people together. But environmentalism and climate change, that happens. Your stance on. So if you could elaborate.

[00:48:08.130] - Liz Lawlor

Well, climate change is real. We are coming out of an ice age, and we as humans have exacerbated that and sped that up. If we are serious about keeping the Earth from heating up another one degree over the next 50 years, we need to use every tool in our toolbox. And that includes nuclear energy. It is clean, it is safe, it is inexpensive and it is durable. And while we must pursue renewables like solar and windows.

Which we're doing right now. Right now, these are not affordable. Nor are they reliable. We've all had power shut off. We actually have a clean energy report recently told us that there was a 34% wide and diesel generator purchases in the last three years. And these generators spew out more smog than anything. So, again, these policies, we need to actually have transitional power, and that would be nuclear. And I am pleased to see that Governor Newsom has decided to keep Diablo Canyon open. That will go a long way in providing durable, clean power.

[00:49:09.400] - Jody Biehl

Thank you. Hey, Rob, you're next. The opposite. Of course, you're climate activist, so I'm not going to ask you about your environmental record. And you're an engineer with experience as Mayor of a small town. In your case, I haven't seen you did address the nine eight, eight question, but I haven't seen that much on health care, mental health or addiction and homelessness. So if you could elaborate a little bit on that.

[00:49:35.590] - Rob Rennie

Okay. So let me focus on homelessness. I see homelessness as a complex problem with many pieces. As fast as we house some homeless people, it seems like more become homeless and we're kind of running in place. So I think the solution to that is trying to get more of the more very basic, simple homes that we can use for quickly re housing people that may be becoming homeless or getting those off the street that maybe don't need as much service but just need a safe place to be able to sleep and get their lives back together and be able to hold down a job. I think you can imagine how difficult it would be to hold a job down if you have to sleep in a car or sleep outside somewhere. The other pieces to the homeless problem are also mental health care. As you mentioned, there's a large number of people that are homeless, that have curable or treatable mental health care. And if we could just get more time up already.

[00:50:44.890] - Jody Biehl

Okay. Yes. All right. So last but not least, you are so young, it's hard to ask you about your record. It's a little bit unfair to demand experience out of you. You have done remarkable things in the past few years, particularly Santa Cruz already made a huge difference. But voters are going to be wondering, how are you going to navigate Sacramento? You need to know the intricacies of deal making, and you don't have connections or experience in doing that.

[00:51:17.050] - Joe Thompson

Well, to me, my generation is to be facing the brought to the environmental crisis. It is an existential threat. And there's a very real lifelist that I will have to be facing that in my lifetime. And when it comes to the actual politics of Sacramento, I'm only 19 years old, but I've proven that I can take on millionaires. I can take on a billion dollar Corporation. I can take on Lisna Mendelston, which is the largest Union busting firm in the United States. I won, and I'm not afraid of anyone. I'm fully ready to take on the fight. And I'm a fighter, and I will go down fighting for my generation, because if I don't put up a fight, if I don't stand up and fight for what I believe in, there is a real possibility that this generation, my generation, Generation C, will live in an uninhabitable world. And we have a real chance. We have three years to act on climate change. We need to address homelessness. We need to address all these different issues. And career politicians haven't been at work.

[00:52:17.870] - Jody Biehl

Okay, that's it. Thank you. You didn't get the Sacramento piece in, but we know you're a climate activist. All right, really fast. What about policing? 30 seconds to answer this question. This is an audience question. What statewide action do you support to reinvision policing? 30 seconds each. Really fast. Running out of time. I can't remember whose time it is.

[00:52:50.010] - Rob Rennie

So I would say in Los Gatos, we have a police force. And what we've done is made sure that they were trained and skilled in techniques like deescalation and handling mental health calls and then trying to get them more assistance from professional mental health professionals and also making sure that they have all the equipment they need. When police are feeling safe, they can help make sure that other people are safe. Also in Los Gatos, we also created an oversight process, systems oversight process. So I would do the same kinds of things from the state to quit.

[00:53:33.490] - Joe Thompson

One thing that I would list focus on policing is ending program 1033, which allows for the military transfer of arm sales from the Department of justice to Santa Cruz. We need to stop demilitarizing the police in Santa Cruz. And we need to expand on the accountability of the police. Specifically, there are zero excessive complaints that have been held at the Santa Cruz Police Department, and over 75% of the arrests that have been made have been for low misdemeanor crimes. This is a crisis, and we need to hold the bad cost accountable and reward the people who are actually serving the communities that we live in. Thank you.

[00:54:11.590] - Liz Lawlor

All right, well, we share a police Department with Los Gatos and Los Gatos monster. And the police Department is doing an outstanding job. And we have a great new police chief who's dedicated to best practices and policing. So we completely support that. We need to make sure that our officers and law enforcement agencies have the tools and resources they need to effectively and thoughtfully enforce the law reflective of their communities. Thank you.

[00:54:38.390] - Gail Pellerin

So, yes, we must reform our criminal justice system to improve public safety. Crime prevention is key. We got to address the root causes of mental health, substance abuse, poverty abuse, numbers of illegal guns and wrong hands. We also need to have support with policing, with recruiting, training, and funding. And we must look at victims rights as well and make sure that we bring this cycle and provide rehabilitation to those who are incarcerated.

[00:55:03.770] - Jody Biehl

Great. All right. Now when we're done, quick lightning round, and we are going to be done. So I'm set to four quick questions. You have a one or two word response, and we'll go right down the line. Okay. All right. I think it's Joe, right? Okay. What is your favorite happy place in the district on the other side of where you live?

[00:55:30.470] - Joe Thompson

There's one spot. It's actually in Los Gatos. One of the parks that I went to. I was first visiting here. It's a great park. I've got the data.

[00:55:47.190] - Rob Rennie

I don't know, might be Bachmann or Belgado.

[00:55:51.450] - Jody Biehl

All right. I guess we'll go back then. This way to Liz.

[00:55:55.720] - Liz Lawlor

Tacos Moreno on Water.

[00:56:02.650] - Gail Pellerin

The winery. I went to Warren Hills.

[00:56:05.760] - Rob Rennie

Okay, mine's weird. I'm a bicyclist, so I actually enjoy climbing Zyancy to get back to Los Galas.

[00:56:13.990] - Jody Biehl

All right, here we go. Liz, what is your superpower of choice?

[00:56:24.170] - Gail Pellerin

Empathy.

[00:56:32.550] - Rob Rennie

Get people to come to consensus.

[00:56:36.990] - Jody Biehl

That's a good one.

[00:56:38.120] - Joe Thompson

Definitely invisibility.

[00:56:41.550] - Jody Biehl

All right. It's Gail’s turn:  favorite late night spot.

[00:56:49.510] - Gail Pellerin

I don't go out late at night. I'm sorry.

[00:56:58.190] - Rob Rennie

I don't go out late as much, but I do like to dance. So number one, Broadway in Los Gatos  is a place that people my age typically go out.

[00:57:12.810] - Liz Lawlor

My couch with my husband and my two yellow laps.

[00:57:15.880] - Jody Biehl

Okay, last one is who's turn is it? I can't remember where we brought it to you. Who is the leader you admire and would like to model yourself on?

[00:57:31.750] - Rob Rennie

That one's Always hard. I actually liked Bill Clinton. I liked the way he was able to actually before he got into trouble tend to pull people together.

[00:57:57.390] - Joe Thompson

The reason I got into politics is the first time I had the most Bernie Bernie Sanders.

[00:58:07.390] - Liz Lawlor 

Of my sappy. But my mom, she handles four kids and tons of dogs and horses and a husband so well and all of his grades. And I present myself that way as well.  Thank you.

[00:58:23.290] - Gail Pellerin

I would say Michelle Obama, she's bold, she's courageous, and she's smart.

[00:58:29.050] - Jody Biehl

All right. Thank you so much for the lightning round.

BREAK

3rd District County Board of Supervisor Candidates

[01:16:08.250] - Jody Biehl

We're going to get going again. I'd like to say that this is quite a moment for the Board of Supervisors that there hasn't been a female member of the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors since 2014. That could change the selection. There also hasn't been a person of color on the board since 2010. And that will change because all three of these candidates are people of color, which is something really important and great and something that we can celebrate. There also has never been a black person on the Board of Supervisors. So that too could change. So just to put that out there, that this is a moment that's really wonderful and different and new and something changing in our community in a place where everyone says nothing ever changes, it is changing. So there is something there to see. If you said 1 minute statements from each of the candidates, and I think we'll just go right in row. So, Justin…

[01:17:18.240] - Justin Cummings

Well, good evening, everyone. Who's here and who's here virtually. My name is Justin Cummings. I currently served on the Santa Cruz City Council as a Council member, I served as Vice Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, and I served as Mayor of City of Santa Cruz during 2020, which was one of the most challenging years in the recent history of our community as we dealt with the onset of Kobe 19, social unrest, active murder, George Floyd, and the CCU fires. This is my fourth and final year on the City Council, and as I and my commitment to being on the City Council, I decided to run with Jersey Shark County Board of Supervisors. A little bit of my background. I'm an environmental scientist with a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology, and I've worked on topics such as climate change, force restoration, and invasive speed management. Since 2015, I've been working on two nonprofit workforce development programs here in Santa Cruz that are focused on increasing diversity in the field of environmental conservation and increasing diversity in the field of tech around the use and application of drones. I've secured $2.6 million for the Dorsey Conservation Scholarship Program to do that work, and recently I was able to secure a million dollar planning and to help the initiative for growing education, research, and then I didn't realize the time person was in here.

[01:18:45.210] - Amy Chen Mills

Hi. My name is Amy Chen Mills. I'm a nonprofit director and mental health educator, mother of two. I've lived here for 30 years in December. I did not think I would be up here talking to you. And the reason that I am here is because of something that Joseph said, which is the climate crisis is upon us, and it's something that is so huge. I feel that most of us have a hard time getting our minds around it. I have someone who has gotten my mind around it and then through so many emotions and have deeply studied the science. And I feel like we need to start to look up as leaders and address the mental health issues that are starting to happen in climate for our young people, including anxiety, depression, even suicide. As a nonprofit director, this is going to be hard. I secured funding to run the National Community Residency Project across the nation and ran projects and oversaw projects and oversaw the outcomes from those projects. And I am done. Thank you very much.

[01:19:50.230] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

Good evening. Everyone here has an inner passion and purpose that drives their journey. Mine has brought me here to this moment. It started in Northern Iran and included living through the Islamic revolution, immigrating to a new country. The journey set me on my path of working towards my passion, building healthy, thriving communities and doing it by embodying the values I gained to my parents' courage and compassion. I've committed to this for the last two decades here in Santa Cruz County, partnering with county departments, nonprofits, private sector, and every jurisdiction across our county to address the most complex issues. But the work remains. This includes a focus on critical issues such as homelessness, behavioral health, housing, wildfire preparedness, climate action, economic recovery, and youth. Well being, to do this successfully, we need to shift from our siloed way of doing things and working together. This is what I have experience with. This is what I'm passionate about, and I'm ready to take it to scale.

[01:20:56.980] - Jody Biehl

Thank you. Excellent. Okay, so that's our beginning. And now we're going to move on to the questions. The first question is a little bit is about climate change, which is, of course, a global issue. But here in Santa Cruz, it's also a practical issue. It brings disasters every few years, particularly the coastal homeowners and those people who live in fire prone areas, mostly rural, fire prone areas. The county is also striving for equity in its operational plan, which means allocating funds in a way that helps the most people. So the question is, will you let people continue to build in areas near the coast which are a flood or fire prone in these remote locations, given that the county has to pay for the repairs in those places when they flood or when there are fires. Is it equitable to put resources into protecting coastal homes and rural remote areas when there are other districts that might need those funds deeply? And those funds, I will remind you, that could be used for affordable housing or health care or these kinds of issues, 

[01:22:14.620] - Ami Chen Mills

So in terms of places that are most impacted by climate, we have the Wooey area in Monte Doom. I think if we tried to move people out, having been up there quite a bit lately, there would be an armed rebellion. So I'm not interested in forcing people out of there. And people want to rebuild. I'm happy to help them rebuild. My job as a district supervisor is to help them as much as possible, get their homes back up and protect that area for future intense wildfires. That's a huge issue for us. We are short of firefighters statewide. We are short of firefighters within the county. We are short of the inmates to fight fires. Places like Last Chance. I think people are sort of taking their own risk there. I don't know how much the county is doing for them at this time, but I do feel like when people have lived there for a long time, their hearts are there. And so I would want to protect and help them, but also not encourage anyone to keep building out there because we are in such a serious situation in terms of flood prone areas and coastal erosion, same thing. I don't think people are going to just get up and move, but in terms of building more housing or more buildings or et cetera, in those areas, I don't think it's a good idea. We have climate change, like I said upon us, and it's just going to get worse, as far as I can tell, because we aren't really turning the ship around and we need to turn the ship around, and I'm going to advocate for that as a supervisor. Thank you.

[01:23:59.020] - Jody Biehl

Yeah, I wasn't advocating having people move out or kick them out, but the question is, are we going to continue to be building there? But yes, you have to rebuild, right. Okay, Shebreh.

[01:24:14.090] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

Climate change, as we all know, is our largest existential threat and something that we need to face immediately. I think we need to rethink the intersectionality of how we grow as a community and what our response to climate change is. So absolutely allowing folks to rebuild in the fire effective zone. There is a local coastal plan that the city and the county are engaging in right now. So there's an opportunity for us to look at that and see how we can mitigate the impact. But thinking about land use and thinking about how we grow and where we grow, putting housing around urban corridors, around transit corridors that will help us address some of the climate change impacts that we're seeing right now. So we have to think bigger. We have to connect the dots and think beyond coastal housing. But we can't just say we can't build here. We have to see where we can build and how we can build and how we can grow. And there are a lot of different opportunities that we have with the housing elements, with a local coastal plan that we can think differently and do things differently.

[01:25:27.330] - Justin Cummings

Well, I'll just start by saying I have dedicated the past 20 years of my life working on environmental causes and studying environmental issues. This is something that I'm very familiar with when it comes to what the impact we saw from the CCU buyers. I think one of the things that we could recognize there is that at the state level, we do not have enough firefighting resources. And what ended up happening was that many people who commit upstate and defended their homes when they were told to leave, many of those homes were lost. I know individuals who live in Parkland County who want to fight fires, in particular in the Third District in Bounty Dune, or people who want to join the volunteer firefighting force, but they're not able to because of the requirements by Calfire to have 300 hours of training where you haven't been loaning people who can just walk onto the volunteer firefighting course without any experience. And so I think what we need to do is figure out how we can allow people to help us fight the impacts of climate change, because it's going to get more expensive and we're not going to be able to pay for more and more firefighters.  Yes, we will get some, but we can actually get people from the communities who actually live where they're going to be impacted to help us fight fires. That will be helpful. And as it relates to building, I think we need to start thinking about where is the most appropriate place to build and how are we going to manage retreat as well. Our climate action plan has shown that there's a number of areas within the city of Sand Cruz as it is, for example, on the beach place where I used to live, that is from the flooding. And we need to be thinking about how are we going to move those people out when we know that they're going to be impacted by climate change. It's not just about building housing for the future and where that's going to go. It's about how are we going to move people now.

[01:27:09.370] - Jody Biehl

Okay, if our trends continue as they are now, a lot of people are going to continue to work from home. So what that means is that a lot of Silicon Valley workers are going to continue to come and buy homes in Santa Cruz. That means home prices will continue to increase. Do you have any proposals or ideas how to combat this and how to help local people afford the health.

[01:27:41.030] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

Yes. We have found ourselves in a tremendous crisis here in Santa Cruz. We have policies that are decades old that have prevented us from growing in a sustainable, smart way. And this is what the outcome is. It's the housing crisis that we have. I'm proud to say that this is something I focused on on the City Council. I have 100% yes vote rate on housing that equals to 484 units here in our community. So I think one of the solutions is we need to grow smartly. We need to build. As I said earlier. Around urban corridors and transit corridors so we can have walkable communities that also leads to climate change. We need to think of a new model that encourages housing safety and environmental sustainability. We have an opportunity with the revision of our housing element at the county. And once we do that, we can revise our Stony ordinance that facilitates approval of housing projects, specifically administer approval or fast tracking of 100% affordable housing units. And expediting. I just realized I need to look at you expediting the building of Adu. So those are some tactics that we can put here. We have the opportunity immediately to do that. And I also think it's important to have a transparent and inclusive engagement with our community because housing is an issue that can be very divisive. Thank you.

[01:29:15.240] - Justin Cummings

So I think one of the things we really need to focus on is creating more workforce housing for the people who live and work in our communities. This could be housing for city workers, county workers, teachers, UCSC professors, and students, but we really need to be focusing on the type of housing that we need for our community. I have pushed back on some of the housing proposals because one of the things that I've been advocating for is that we maximize the amount of affordable housing that goes through new development. Once the building is built, it will likely be there for the next 50 plus years. And so by maximizing the amount of affordable housing we can get in these units as they're being built, we'll ensure that we'll have deep restricted affordable housing moving forward. One of the ways we were able to do that on the City Council is we increased our inclusionary housing percentage from 15% to 20% new units and are encouraging the use of section housing vouchers, a program which pays market rate but also subsidizes the cost of housing for low income people. And as a county supervisor, I'll be looking to increase the inclusionary percentage of 15% to 20% of the county as well. These are the types of things that we need to start thinking about and innovative and new ways of approaching the housing prices. Because if we just build market rate housing and just let any development come through, we're not going to actually meet the needs of our community that's here. We're actually going to encourage more people to come from over the Hill because they will be the ones who can afford those houses. That form of housing. In addition to that earlier it was mentioned that there's a surplus at the state level. And I think we need to be knocking on the state's door to tell them, hey, if you're going to put these housing allocations in our community, you need to help us pay for it. Some of that money can come back into our community to help us provide the affordable housing we need. And that's something that was kind of a supervisor.

[01:30:58.450] - Ami Chen Mills

For those of you who may not know, I think probably everyone does know we are in the middle of a housing emergency. I think that the county should declare a housing emergency and then act with all hate to try to help as many workforce level people and low income people and provide permanent support of housing to people who are already here. That would be my priority. In answer to this question, my understanding about the regional housing needs assessment is that the city of Santa Cruz is doing pretty well in terms of mid level, low income, but not very low income housing. And that intersects with the homelessness crisis that we're facing right now. A lot of people think, oh, everyone's coming from out of town. That's not what our point in time towns are showing. People do come from out of town. That's a reality. But reality also is that we are living in one of the most expensive communities in the nation. We always rank from one to three in terms of most expensive communities in the nation to live in. In terms of income, meaning income to the cost of housing, that is insane. And I think that that contributes to the fact that we have one of the highest per capita homelessness rates in the state. So we need to factor all of these things in, and we need to educate the public about this so that we have buy in to permanent support of housing, very low income housing. And that would be my focus, actually, because these are the people, to me, who really are the most vulnerable and really don't have the option. Thank you.

[01:32:40.450] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

I just want to point out that recently with the city of Santa Cruz, our Pacific station, north and south, has been funded through market rate housing. So it's important to have a range of housing. And if we don't have middle income housing, you're telling our teachers and our firefighters and our social workers that they can't stay here. A parent who makes 60,000 each parent, let's say make 60,000. So a family for 120,000, they can't afford to live here with just low income housing. A range of housing is necessary and needed.

[01:33:10.580] - Justin Cummings

Amy, you'll have time to. I'll just say that I'm the only renter who's up here. And as I mentioned, I have a PhD. I run multiple million dollar, multi million dollar nonprofits I can't afford to live in. Market rate, market rate studio, five X, five Pacific, 400 square foot, $2,800 a month. You must make six figures in that. And when people say affordable by design, they try to say that smaller units are going to be cheaper. That's not what we're seeing in these market rate developments. We're seeing very expensive housing that is not going to meet the needs of our teachers, of our firefighters, of our police officers and of our workforce. And so that's why it doesn't work force housing, because, yes, we do need very low and low, but we also need workforce house. And the last thing I'll say to this, too, is that there's not a single family unit in this town, single family home in this town that's affordable. All of those are now market rated. Those are all million dollar homes. Regardless of how small it is. We're not seeing the price down on many single family homes, which means that we have to build. And I'll point out those homes. What I've heard from people when I'm walking were bought by people who were teachers and they were librarians and they were police officers and they were plumbers. None of those people working those jobs can afford that housing anymore, which is why we have the focus on building more workforce outlets, more low and very low and having a camera outlet.

[01:34:32.710] - Ami Chen Mills

Oh, I just wanted to reiterate that. I mean, there's a difference. I do have something to add, which is that we have the community. We have to look at this question because there's a debate about market rate housing. We just had a Gimbal forum where there's all this debate about is market rate housing the answer? How much of it do we need, given that we are facing possible collapse regarding climate, which is what the military is predicting in 20 years from now? How much cement do we want to be using? How much resource do we want to be using when we are one of the most developed nations in the world and our actions impact the global South Africa, in Africa, who are already starving and in drought and in conflict. So I think we have to be very careful about what kinds of housing we build. I know we're in a housing emergency. These emergencies are intersecting now, and they're fighting up against each other. So we have to have dialogue. I don't like to take a fixed position because I know when I get on the board, I'm going to be talking to lots of different people. I'm always willing to talk to people. But my priority is lower.

[01:35:44.920] - Jody Biehl

So thank you so much. You did get time. Oh, no, I wasn't timing that. It was a little bit extra. So I just added it on improvisationally. I do think this is a good moment to ask each of you to take your time, your 90 seconds to differentiate yourself from the other two candidates to your opponent. What makes you special or unique? And please cite an example of ways you have voted differently for a policy support that they opposed. 

[01:36:30.840] - Justin Cummings

So that was a multi faceted question, right.

[01:36:32.540] - Jody Biehl

So differentiate yourself from the others and site a policy that you support that you oppose.

[01:36:42.430] - Justin Cummings

Okay. Well, I'm the only candidate that served four years on the San Jose Council. I'm the only candidate that has served as vice Mayor, and I'm the only candidate that served as Mayor during the time of tremendous crisis. The last time we had a board of supervisor we served during the time of crisis was Marty Wormhouse, who had served on the Stanford City Council and was Mayor during the earthquake. And I believe that as we're moving forward with still navigating these crises, we need people who have experience navigating those to be on board supervisors. I'm the only environmental scientist as well who will be on the board of supervisors. I'm the only person who served on 22 committees and commissions, including public safety, the League of California Cities Public Safety Policy Commission, and I'm the only supervisor. I'm the only candidate who has worked not only with all the city Council members who come over the past four years, but also I've worked with numerous county supervisors and supervisors in other districts on these various boards to get some policies passed. One of the things I'll point out and you said the policy that you support that they oppose or that you oppose, they support, whichever way you'd like to go. This is going to be a challenge because I think that there are some that maybe Amy would support that one of the policies that I supported was increasing the amount of section eight in new developments. As we saw two projects come on River Street, I moved that we work with the developers to increase the amount of section in housing. It was in those two developments, and that was voted down. So that's something that I supported. And the Shebreh opposed.

[01:38:45.630] - Ami Chen Mills

One of the things I think makes me unique is how much of a history I have in mental health and resiliency, and particularly around climate. And it's something that I want to make sure that our young people have exposure to and also our mental health services have exposure to. In terms of climate, I would say that a difference between Dustin and I. Dustin does. He's a climate scientist quite a bit. I've been a climate activist for some time, and I haven't seen a lot of leadership on the Council or even on the board in terms of, look, this is what we're dealing with, and this is now what we have to do, and that's what our young people need to see and hear from us now. And we need to have new innovative programs like regenerative agriculture, Microbridge, even food sustainability backup plans at this time so that we can feel safe. That's one of the reasons I'm running. I want to feel safe in this county around what a lot of people don't want to look at in terms of Shebreh, in terms of policies we have, I think a lot of differences in terms of homelessness. I would not support criminalizing homelessness before providing services. I want to get those services set up. According to the County Grand jury report, the County Grand jury report has all the recommendations that we need to really start with. Some of them are already in action, and I would be supporting the things that came out of the County Grand jury report that I think we need to do to really stand up services in this county and throughout the county for people who are currently unhoused.

[01:40:24.690] - Ami Chen Mills

I have met with Justin and others on this Council, and when I've talked about climate and how concerning it is for me, I did not get the responses that I wanted to hear as a mother and as someone who knows the science. Okay, yeah. Thank you.

[01:40:45.610] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

I have an extensive public health background over two decades. Of the background here in Santa Cruz County, I've worked with the Board of Supervisors to address some of our biggest issues homelessness, health, healthcare, and the criminal justice system. I've worked with every jurisdiction in our county. I've worked with our county departments through my grant writing work and developed policies. I have a sense of experience in relationships with nonprofits, and I have deep connections from North County to South County. Neither my opponents can match the depths and breadth of the work that I've done throughout this county. I understand the flow of federal and state money and know where it comes from and where to put it. I have the ability to coordinate across sectors. In just over a year, I've risen to a leadership position on the City Council. I have brought forward homelessness ordinances. Not one homeless person has been criminalized through these ordinances. But what has happened is that we have stood up 165 beds and we have had 38 people housed and 64 people on the pathway to housing. So this is where I differentiate. And my opponents were in support of keeping the Ross Camp open even when it was declared a public health crisis. I'll also say that my life experience as an immigrant, a mom and a woman of color is a unique perspective that's missing on the County Board of Supervisors. And I have very strong endorsements. Supervisor Ryan Coonerty has said that I should be a successor. Neil Coonerty, Sheriff Hart former director.

[01:42:27.370] - Justin Cummings

I'll just say that one of the things that for one, I've been working on the Climate Action Task Force for the past four years. I've also served on the West Coast Management Plans Technical Advisory Board, taken leadership roles to push for building electrification to reduce the dependency on natural gas. And so those are a number of the things that I've done as a City Council member to help improve and work on solutions towards addressing climate change. In addition to that, I'll just also respond to one thing that Trevor said about the Ross camp. There were a number of different factors that were in play with the Ross camp closure, and I ended up making the final vote on that. And one of the things that was concerning to me was that we needed to have a place for these people to go. And the county worked to sell 1220 River Street. And when they were able to demonstrate that the people would have a secondary option between humaneness, that was when we voted for them to close the camp. In addition to that, there was a court ordered cease and desist order that prevented the city from closing the camp down as well.  And so the City Council didn't have a choice to close it as quickly as it wanted to because the courts had actually told us we couldn't. So just wanted to make sure that we clear up any lies and misinformation that's out there on top of Ross camp closure.

[01:43:40.790] - Jody Biehl

That's great. And I just want to move on to a question about because the city and the Council have been typing down on street campaign and it's been over the past year, do you approve of the city and the county are doing, and what would you do differently? I can't remember who I think it's.

[01:44:00.250] - Ami Chen Mills

Well. I served on the city committee advisory committee on homelessness for nine months. And at that time we also had the River Street camp happening. We had shelter at the Armory that was closing down. What I've been seeing is that these beds and shelters and places to camp, haven't really changed too much. So when we talk about unmanaged encampments, what we're really talking about to me is homelessness. It's not like people want to be there. If they had homes, they would be in those homes. There may be some people who like to live out in the woods or who just aren't having problems living inside. And that's something that I know very well, working with people who have been unhoused is that they have mental health issues, that they have drug and alcohol issues. And we are so behind in terms of having facilities for people to go to rehab, to have psychiatric beds. The main jail, which I just tore the Sheriff apart, is a disaster. It is a disaster. It is a human rights catastrophe. There is no yard there. There is no rehab there. There is nothing going on. I mean, there may be some programs. There is some mental health support, actually. But the facility itself is not something that this county should tolerate. And that's where a lot of people are going. So we really have to promote funding and setting up. And there's money coming from the state for these things. There's money coming from the street camping. Yeah, I see what you're saying. No, I mean, I think we have to provide services where people are. At the time of Rock Camp, there was a Council member who was saying, how about if we take everyone over to the benchmark and offering all these different options now, where are they? There at the benchmark. We could have just provided services at the benchmark to begin with. So time.

[01:46:04.550] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

But the reality is when one of my opponents had a Council majority, no action was taken. And we have taken action. We're doing the best that we can. This is a huge problem. We can't solve it alone. No city, no county, no jurisdiction can solve it alone. This is an approach. We move people off the streets into safe spaces connected to services. That's one approach and that's one tactic. I have had decades of experience working on homelessness. I worked at the Tenderloin Boots on the Ground. I've written grants and brought in millions of dollars. I have a million dollar perpetuity for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness. I've led strategic planning processes with youth experiencing homelessness. Yes, this is a strategy that is part of the bigger picture.

[01:47:00.510] - Justin Cummings

As a Council member, vice Mayor and Mayor has served on the homeless two by two committee for two years working with the county. And that was a very collaborative process. And one of the years that I was working on that was when we were experiencing COVID and working with the county. The city was able to stand up more homeless services in the history of the entire city. In the city of Santa Cruz, we had three hotels with BSW hall. We had the Armory. And we also had an encounter that was behind the Benchlands was being run by the county. And one of the good things that came out of that is that we were able to demonstrate how we could provide services that were compatible with the community. When I was Mayor, we went to the Prospect Heights neighborhood and we told them about what we were going to implement at the Armory. We listened to the community about their concerns. We implemented those concerns. We have never received a complaint about the Armory. And that is what we need to do. We need to stand up services, and we need to do so in a way where we're bringing the community into the conversation and not just trying to force different types of programs in different neighborhoods. We have plenty of models now to show how we can stand these up and how they can have minimal impact on the community. And so we need to move forward with standing up these services. And as we're standing up services, we do need that to be able to direct people into the services. One of the issues that I have with some of the proposals that were put to the City Council is that, for example, the temporary house or living ordinance and the oversight vehicle ordinance, weren't taken broadly to the community to get community input on those programs. They were brought to the Council very quickly, and I'll stop there. Thank you.

[01:48:37.430] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

Clarifying points.  There was an extensive community engagement process throughout the years, and we had over 30 communications about these ordinances in support of. And in 2020, we were mandated by the state to stand up services because of COVID.

[01:48:58.390] - Jody Biehl

How do you plan to involve Latinx.

[01:49:13.470] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

So on the City Council. I've worked with our former Mayor. Donna Myers and our current Mayor, Sonia Burner, to put forward actual racial equity resolution. And part of that includes engaging members of our community from the Latinx, from the Latinx community, as well as other subpopulations here, Santa Cruz. So that's with the city of Santa Cruz, I would take that to the county level. I think we need to look at our pathways to leadership, including committees and commissions. I know that Santa Cruz County has done a Santa Cruz like me report that shows the demographics of our committees and commissions, but the next step needs to be taken. We need to go directly to the community. We need to engage and see what their concerns are, what their concerns are, and how they want to be engaged and then open up those opportunities for members of the Latinx community.

[01:50:11.120] - Justin Cummings

Something that was a little troubling to me that happened recently when we were writing on the district election maps was that the map that was selected for the six districts, it wasn't the one that staff recommended that we had feedback on, but it was also a map that reduced and diluted the boats of Atlantic people in what would be the fourth district. It cut off Lower Ocean from the Beach Blacks, and it extended the Beach Black district into the downtown and into the Upper West Side. And I voted against that because that reduces the voice of Latinx people and the potential for them to be in our local government. And that's why we voted on Metric Ed, because we need to make sure that if we're adopting maps and if we're being pushed towards districts that we need to make sure that we will actually have increased representation of Latinx people on our city Council and our local government. In addition to that, I'm the only candidate that's fluent in Spanish. And when I was Mayor of Santa Cruz, when we had to reach out to our immigrant communities and we had to reach out to the Latinx community, I was able to directly communicate with them. And they said how much they appreciated being able to speak to their representatives in their language. And so I bring that as a candidate for third district county supervisor. And I will continue to work with Philippa Hernandez, with the Rise Together group and with other community members to ensure that we're going to have Latinx representation on our city Council, in our local government. Latinos make up over 30% of our population. And we need to make sure that we're going to those communities and we're reaching out to them. We're understanding their needs so that we're meeting their concerns as well. Thank you.

[01:51:51.910] - Ami Chen Mills

So there is actually a Commission that was set up under John Leopold to bring inclusion to the county, to bring sort of like a Dei Commission. And that Commission became unhoused with the election of Manu Koenig. A friend of mine is on that Commission. Her name is Gloria Dieto. And so I would want to get their opinions about how we bring not just Latinx people up into the county system and giving feedback and advice and informing our policy decisions, but other people as well, black people in our community. I'm a Chinese American. I would be the first Chinese American on the Board of Supervisors. We have a long history here. Well, there's a lot of births, so I think we really need to hear from people who are in the community about how to go about this, and that's what that Commission is for. So if I became a member of the Board of Supervisors, I would be adopting that Commission. If they still want to be adopted, they're now in the Department of Health and asking them what they want. And Gloria said she supported me because I am someone who has done a lot of work in educating white people about how to interact with people of color. It's something that I've gotten a lot of education on in terms of other groups. And I think that that's something that we need to look at throughout the county system is education in, what do you call anti racist materials, anti racist training. And I've done that for people globally through my work recently here.

[01:53:36.030] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

There's been some egregious accusations by my opponent and some of his supporters about gerrymandering and the undemocratic process. This really undermines the work that's happening across the country by people like Stacey Abrams working on the Voting Rights Act. The graphs that came to us. The maps that came to us were created by expert demographers. They went through an extensive community process, and they were voted on by the Council.

[01:54:09.790] - Justin Cummings

Well, I will also point out that when the demographer brought back the maps at the meeting where we made the decision, they first said that there's a high concentration of Asians on campus as a district. There's a high concentration of Latinos in the Beach Flights area and in the lower ocean. And they said that they took in the feedback that they heard from the community at the first meeting and the mask that they brought back, the new masks that they propose reflected the community's desire to keep populations of color intact and that the maps would reflect the desire of the community. And those maps were voted against. And the map that was adopted, that was moved by the Shebreh split upper campus in half, which diluted the student vote and diluted the Asian vote. And it split lower ocean away from the beach flat, included the lower ocean with Seabright area and included the beach flats with downtown parts of the upper west side. That's what happened. The goal was to make sure that there's Latino representation and representation by people of color. Those districts should have been remained intact. We should have adopted the map that the demographer brought back to us with the community's recommendation.

[01:55:32.510] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

The demographer recommended all of the maps. Map 602 impact got the most response on the community survey that we did and that 602 kept communities of interest together.

[01:55:48.750] - Justin Cummings

I would say it did not keep Latinx communities together. And the whole reason why we're going through this district election process is because there was an accusation of racially polarized voting that keeps Latinos off the city Council. And if that's the case, we need to try to make sure and when the demographer brought back maps 604, which would have had a high concentration area of working class people and Latinx people, we should have gone with the maps that did that. They also said that Asian communities are a population of interest. And if we care about having the voice of Asian people on our city Council, then that shouldn't be kept as its own district as well.

[01:56:29.010] - Jody Biehl

Okay. Well, in further differentiating you from one another, I want to ask you each an individual question about your group in case in case your voting record or what you oppose and don't oppose. Shebreh, I'm going to start with you. It's going to be about affordable housing. You voted for almost I think every affordable housing project that's been put before you. People worry that too much housing if too much, but the housing is built too quickly, it will change the nature of sooner, with the exception of obvious reasons not to fund something like if it's on a toxic waste site or if it's 25 stories high, what would be your limits in voting for an affordable housing? What would be your defining line of something that you would not vote for? Does that make sense?

[01:57:21.990] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

I think so, yeah.

[01:57:23.760] - Jody Biehl

Is there any situation in which you wouldn't vote for affordable housing?

[01:57:29.130] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

Well, if it impacts yes, if it impacts our environment, if it has explain your limits, though.

[01:57:39.380] - Jody Biehl

Like, what are your limits?

[01:57:41.250] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

We're not here by accident. We have continued to find excuses to say no to housing, and that is why we are being penalized by the state. We heard earlier from our assembly candidates that there are a number of bills and we've lost local control because we've said no too many times. So I think I will work with the community. We are working with the community to set objective standards to make sure that it fits within our community and not impact the quality of life in our community. And we need to say yes to housing. Otherwise the problem will continue to grow. People will be pushed out. People will be living on the street.

[01:58:27.870] - Jody Biehl

Thank you. Okay, Amy, you're next. You don't have a voting record, so I can't go on what you voted. Right. But you have spoken out, obviously, on mental health issues and on homelessness and on governmentalism you've spoken out against the downtown library, your campaign literature. But you also insist that we need to build more affordable housing and that complex would be doing that. There would be 100 new affordable housing units. So can you explain that? Can you explain that contradiction?

[01:59:04.170] - Amy Chen Mills

Well, my understanding of this process has been that the original project was a 600 car parking garage on top of a library. And in talking to people who were very active at the time with the funds for Measure F, there was a lot of community pushback in terms of doing anything outside where the library is now and on that lot. So our background, our future group, has actually designated several parking sites where we can build low income housing. People keep asking, like, we've already broken ground on this project and we haven't broken ground on this project. And so we can look at other sites for affordable housing. I'm also concerned that there's so much building happening downtown now, including market rate housing everywhere that where will the public space be? Where will the open space be? Where will the trees be? Now, I know that our downtown picture would make it into, like a common downtown common. And actually, I've heard from those organizers that they are willing to allow for affordable housing to go into that parking lot. So we could do that as well. Yeah. Our downtown, our feature, has a whole plan for the downtown that's different than putting in the mixed use library project.

[02:00:30.630] - Jody Biehl

Justin, your journey, you are also for affordable housing. We talk about it all the time. But of course, you've also voted against several affordable housing proposals, including a 31 Water Street and also the Riverfront project. And those would be, again, a large number of portable housing units. That would be I think it was 55 to 82, at 831 water. And then there's about 20 that were at the riverfront. So closest to 75 to 102 affordable units that you turned down. So can you explain that, help us understand the contribution?

[02:01:17.530] - Justin Cummings

As I mentioned before, I am for affordable housing, but what I'm trying to do is maximize the amount of affordable housing that goes into new market rate development. 130 Water Street  just passed. And one of the reasons why I voted for that project, which is also market rate, single room occupancy development, was that they were able to bring the affordable level up to 20% of the total number of units. That was something I'm willing to support with the Front and River Street project. Those projects receive density bonuses, which actually reduce the amount of affordable housing overall in those units. What I push forward is that using section eight, that we would increase the amount of affordable housing within those units to bring it up to 20%. I didn't get the support of the city Council on that. And I think similarly, the developer said, if we want to have that conversation, the Council wants to do it. The Council can take action. I made a motion to increase the amount of affordable housing in those units, and it was opposed by the majority of the Council. So I am fighting for affordable housing, and I do support affordable housing. And that's an example of how I was trying to maximize affordable housing. And it wasn't accepted by the city Council. There's a number of issues with that. One, it segregated the two buildings constantly when we were trying to make changes because we initially voted to attend to the project and we kept having the applicants provide new materials even when we were sitting in meetings. That is not a good process. We need to make sure that the process is clear. They come to us with everything that they need. If the application is complete, and then we can take action on it.

[02:02:56.000] - Jody Biehl

We're going to move into our lightning round for the end. There is a question that we have been having from the audience to kick off our lighting round. And if the question is on everyone's mind, of course, Benjamin, which is ripping our community apart, if you could quickly say what you stand on, it is and why, but really fast when we're sliding around. So we're going really fast because you can get this out.

[02:03:30.300] - Justin Cummings

Justin, first of all, saying we care about the environment, we need more forms of environmentally sustainable mass transit. The firefighters have signed a letter stating that it will impact our ability to fight fires in our mountains. If we remove the rail, we will never get it back. And there is some talk that if we decide to remove the rail, that there will be lawsuits filed by property owners who are adjacent to those lines. And actually a money grab for people to use this as an opportunity to the federal government. I'm absolutely no on D, and I'm actively campaigning against it.

[02:04:12.770] - Jody Biehl

Amy?

[02:04:13.730] - Amy Chen Mills

Yes.  I think it's really exciting that we can connect to the regional trail line. If you look at the map, it would be the only county area that's actually taken down our rail and connecting to Monterey and Salinas and all these other places. The firefighters have asked that we keep these tracks as someone who would be representing District three, where the fire threat is huge. Every whole county, the fire threat is huge. We need every firefighting capacity that we can get. I also want to mention that I'm not taking any funding from millionaire backers of Greenway. I am also not taking any PAC  money funding, unlimited Pac money funding. That is an issue for me in this campaign. One of my opponents is taking that kind of funding. This is something that has taken this country to the brink of disaster under Citizens United, and I refuse to take PAC  money.

[02:05:09.990] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

This is where my opponents and I do agree. I'm also a No on D. I think it's important to preserve our right of way and keep that option open for alternate mode of transportation on a rail corridor.

[02:05:23.890] - Jody Biehl

Okay, good. Next line. Amy, you're going to be first. What's your favorite spot to visit in the county?

[02:05:29.680] - Amy Chen Mills

I was hoping you'd be like, what's your favorite flavor? Ice cream? Favorite place to visit the Pogonip is my Church.

[02:05:41.950] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

Wilder Bluffs morning runs with those ladies over there.

[02:05:52.070] - Justin Cummings

That's a tough one. One of my favorite spots is the last last hole of the disc golf course that looks up over Monterey Bay.

[02:06:09.090] - Jody Biehl

Next up favorite restaurant?

[02:06:18.610] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

Laili, that's been a recent one.

[02:06:27.890] - Justin Cummings

The hardest question of the night. Pass

[02:06:36.570] - Amy Chen Mills

I was a waitress for many years at Gabriella Cafe. And so when I'm feeling bendy, that's where I go. That's where I grew up here. That's where I have a lot of heart connections. It's such a poetic place. And local organic food. Wonderful. Very quirky.

[02:07:05.110] - Jody Biehl

Where do you most want to travel?

[02:07:07.990] - Justin Cummings

Spain. Spent some time in Spain when I was 1720, and then I've been back for a number of weddings. It's a coastal community, a lot of surf and skate. It will be a great sister city potential in the future and encourage all you to look it up and check it out.

[02:07:32.830] - Amy Chen Mills

Well, I'm trying not to fly too much. I think we forget we're in a climate crisis. Hello. We could just go out with business as usual or we could change. That might be better. This planet could become unlivable. I know that's not a good thing to run. Bali. I’d love to go back to Bali.

[02:08:06.570] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

I'd love to go back home to Iran and visit my family.

[02:08:09.870] - Jody Biehl

All right. Okay. And lastly, who is your political inspiration?

[02:08:24.550] - Ami Chen Mills

Well, you know, I'm an activist, probably Gandhi. I think when I watched the movie Gandhi. I was 13 years old and I walked out of there like, well, that's it. That's what you have to be in this life. Yeah. AOC,  that's her. We got to shake things up. We got to stop business as usual.

[02:08:49.010] - Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

The Iranian feminist and poet pre revolution and these days, Michelle Obama, they go low. We go high.

[02:09:02.430] - Justin Cummings

Recently there was a screening up on campus during the real work stone festival that I helped moderate the specialty director on that was about Barbara Lee and it was so inspiring to watch the documentary about her life and the work that she's done. She was the only dissenting vote against us giving presidential power. That made Iraq and now I come back and everybody's like, that was the right move. And so, yeah, she's my new inspiration.

[02:09:31.830] - Jody Biehl

Wonderful. I had a student in one of my classes. He wrote about that, too. So good that happened. All right. Yes. Well, it's been very inspirational to be here tonight and to hear everyone they have to say and I hope that it's helped clarify a little bit for some of you where people stand on issues and made the election validating process a little easier. And thank you for participating and again for taking part in democracy. That is the ultimate goal of this right. You're fulfilling your Democratic right to vote when you participate, when you go to the ballot. So keep doing that. Keep reading. Lookout and saying thank you again to all of our sponsors and joining. 

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