California State AssemblyCandidate for District 24

At the local level, I have been working to help prevent flood damage and advocating for environmentally conscious solutions to the state’s water shortage, including:

• Serving on the Citizen Oversight Committee for the Clean Safe Creeks and Natural Flood Protection Plan of the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
• Supporting the coequal goals for the Delta of ecosystem restoration and water supply reliability, as required by state law. He opposes the Governor’s Delta water tunnel plan because it does not meet both of these goals.

Due to climate change, we must plan for a future with more severe droughts and less water. I will advocate for a comprehensive approach that includes:

• Developing and implementing cheaper, quicker, and more efficient ways to conserve water while simultaneously offering long-term solutions to Southern California cities and Central Valley farmers. I will promote efforts to capture and recycle more water, invest in wastewater recycling plants, rainwater collection systems, and greywater systems, and incentivize residents to switch from water thirsty lawns to water-efficient landscape design.
• Establish plans to incentivize farmers to invest in drip irrigation systems that will conserve significant amounts of water, creating a more sustainable system for the future. 80% of our water is used for agricultural purposes, and far too many California farmers still use flood irrigation to produce their crops.
• Protecting against sea level rise by fully funding the $1.5 billion it will cost to restore 54,000 acres of wetlands around the bay. Sea level rise threatens to contaminate up to 38% of California’s drinking water supply, destroy billions of dollars worth of homes, roads, and critical infrastructure, and disrupt communities across the Bay Area. Restoring our wetlands is the best prevention measure we have - but we must act now.
• Leading the way on sustainability. California companies are pioneering software and devices that can drastically reduce the water we consume, including behavioral software to educate utility customers about their water use and suggest easy ways to cut back, sensors to prevent unnecessary landscape watering, and greywater systems to reuse household wastewater for nonpotable uses. These technologies should be deployed statewide with incentives for municipal and consumer adoption.
• Modernizing and strengthening the levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that safeguard the freshwater supply for 25 million Californians. The current levee system is vulnerable to earthquakes and other natural disasters that could trigger breaches and long-term shortages of freshwater for much of the state.

I fully support the DISCLOSE Act of 2015 and efforts to overturn Citizens United. We should do all we can to increase transparency, and reduce the influence of money in politics and the need for candidates to raise large amounts of money. I would like to see us move toward a system of publicly financing campaigns if we can identify adequate funding.

The legislature should also continually look for ways to strengthen ethics laws. I was disappointed that Governor Brown vetoed legislation authored by incumbent 24th District Assemblymember Rich Gordon to extend lobbying disclosure rules to lobbying done for state procurement contracts. 

I have led the effort on the Palo Alto City Council to put a plan in place to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018, and I support the plan passed by the legislature and signed by Governor Brown to raise the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022. The 24th Assembly District is in the midst of an affordability crisis, and raising the minimum wage begins to address the difficulting many working families are having affording the high cost of living in our area. I am mindful of the impact raising the minimum wage may have on employers, but keeping the minimum wage far below the cost of living, which leads to greater demand on social services, is a subsidy the state can't afford and shouldn't have to pay.

My priorities as a state legislator will be to secure and maintain adequate and additional funding for public education in California so that we can close the achievement gap in our schools; rebuild California by repairing our crumbling infrastructure; and leverage technology and innovation to combat climate change and reduce our carbon emissions while creating good, living wage jobs here in California.

The 24th Assembly District is a wonderful place to live. Our economy is strong, many communities have high-performing public schools, and our open space and coastline are breathtaking. But these positive qualities have combined to create a housing and affordability crisis that we must address before it threatens to undo much of the progress we’ve made. Rents have increased 43-63% across the district over the past five years. 

I have helped to tackle this challenge head-on in Palo Alto, including:

• Leading the effort on the City Council to put a plan in place to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018.
• Opposing the city’s vehicle habitation ban so people with nowhere else to go could sleep in their cars rather than on the streets. The ban was eventually overturned.
• In order to foster a community discussion on the housing crisis, I helped create a group of Palo Alto residents focused on finding solutions to the housing crisis.
• Protecting Palo Alto’s small businesses by prioritizing ground floor retail in the city’s commercial corridors. 

Solving this afoordability crisis means taking a balanced approach that prioritizes affordable housing, transit-oriented development, investing in public transportation, and better pay and benefits for workers, including:

• Increasing the state affordable housing tax credit. Last year the legislature passed two bills with overwhelming bipartisan support, Assembly Bill 35 and Senate Bill 377, that would have increased the affordable housing tax credit by $500 million, leveraged an additional $1 billion in federal funds, and increased the value of the state affordable housing tax credit by 40%. Unfortunately, Governor Brown vetoed the legislation. California must increase the amount of affordable housing tax credits to a level capable of sustaining necessary development.
• Passing an affordable housing bond. In 2014, Californians approved Proposition 41 to provide $600 million in funding for affordable housing for veterans, and last year San Francisco passed a $310 million affordable housing bond. We need to broaden that approach to provide funding and financing for affordable housing projects across the state. We should pass a statewide affordable housing bond measure, and we should be meeting current and future affordable housing needs.
• Improving access to child care. The skyrocketing cost of housing is exacerbated for working families by the expense and lack of access to high quality child care services. Without subsidies, child care is only affordable for 20% of California families, and current subsidies often aren’t enough to make up the difference. We can close the gap through tax credits for employer-funded child care, expanded subsidies, and finally offering universal preschool. High quality child care should be accessible and affordable for every child in California.

Silicon Valley’s prosperous economy is creating tens of thousands of jobs, but that growth is also creating increasing traffic congestion and strain on our public transportation networks. I have a track record of improving transportation in Palo Alto:

• In 2010, I was appointed to Palo Alto’s Infrastructure Blue Ribbon Commission (IBRC), which developed a comprehensive plan for Palo Alto to repair its infrastructure backlog and put measures in place to ensure it doesn’t fall behind again.
• In order to foster a community discussion on the housing and transportation crisis, I helped bring together a group of Palo Alto residents to focus on finding forward-thinking, creative solutions to these complex issues.

I will use my experiences in improving transportation infrastructure to Sacramento to improve public transit options, improve road quality and safety, and prepare our transportation system for the future, including:

• Completing the Caltrain electrification project will almost triple current capacity, take thousands of cars off the road, and relieve current and future traffic congestion up and down the Peninsula. Working with the federal government and local agencies, California should fully fund this vital project to ensure completion by 2020.
• Reviving the Dumbarton Rail Corridor. Due to rising housing prices, more and more workers are commuting from the East Bay to jobs on the Peninsula, but there aren’t adequate public transportation options to serve them. Commuter rail via the Dumbarton Rail Corridor would reduce congestion on local roads and bridges and connect Caltrain to public transit networks in the East Bay, including BART. Working with local government and private sector partners, the state should provide funding and logistical support to the Dumbarton Rail Corridor project.
• Repairing our crumbling highways. A recent national study ranked California’s highways as the worst in America, with 51% rated poor. This costs California motorists $44 billion a year in extra vehicle repairs and congestion-related delays. Drivers in the Bay Area pay an extra $1,700 a year. No stretch of California state highway should be rated in poor condition.
• Developing a statewide network of electric vehicle charging stations. Governor Brown has set a goal of 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025. But while we have encouraged automakers to develop these vehicles, and consumers to purchase them, we haven’t installed a network of electric vehicle charging stations capable of reliably keeping these vehicles on the road. California must have a statewide network of charging stations capable of meeting current and future demand.
• Incentivizing transit oriented development. Locating new housing and commercial development close to planned and existing public transportation hubs makes it easier for commuters to utilize public transportation, thereby reducing traffic congestion and air pollution. The legislature should provide financial incentives and regulatory relief to local governments to enable more transit oriented development.