As the Chairwoman of both the Friends of the Delta Trail and a Board Member of the Ambrose Recreation and Parks District, I have spent much of my life fighting for the preservation and protection of California’s environment. Now, especially with the troubles our state is facing with this endless drought, we Californians must band together and pass comprehensive, long-lasting solutions to ensure that future generations of Californians will be able to enjoy the same access to natural resources that we have today.

We have a serious water shortage, and I believe we need to take big steps to ensure the future of our water supplies and the quality of our drinking water across California. California’s drought is related to climate change, but not entirely. Large portions of our water supply and water quality problems fundamentally come from policy decisions. We need to cut back water usage on all fronts from personal conservation efforts, to agricultural innovation that reduces water usage, to increases in efficiency. We need a balanced approach between agricultural and municipal water conservation to meet our state’s water needs. We also need to increase groundwater management, water recycling, rainwater capture, and implementation of greywater solutions.

The influence of money in politics, which has only grown worse since the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, has proven to be an extremely corrupting influence on all levels of politics. Rather than keeping politicians responsive to the people, the current structure allows politicians to only listen and respond to the needs of small, wealthy interest groups instead of addressing the needs of all California residents. I firmly believe we must take steps to ensure that politicians are responsive to their constituents, not vested interests. Thus, I will fully support legislative actions to overturn Citizens United. I will not be swayed by special interests; that's why Walmart, the oil industry, and payday lenders have spent over 400,000 dollars to defeat me. It’s time we increase transparency and accountability and help put power back into the hands of the people.

I most definitely support increasing California’s minimum wage, and am very pleased to see our Governor sign a bill that will incrementally raise California’s minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next few years. I firmly believe that if someone works full time and earns minimum wage, they should not have to live in poverty. This change will help provide economic opportunities to hard working men and women and create a pathway to the middle class for thousands of families. The extended timeline for the wage increase will give businesses the time they need to adjust to the new policy. Moreover, increasing the minimum wage also addresses the inequality gap between men and women because a majority of people earning minimum wage are women.

I understand the importance of stimulating economic growth and creating good paying jobs for Californians. A healthy job market will help expand economic prosperity to our local communities and enable families to lift themselves out of poverty. That being said, we need to cut waste and ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used wisely. This means restoring funding to vital public programs and services that were cut during the 2008 financial crisis. Primarily, we must increase funding for our public education, healthcare, and safety systems as well as allocate additional finds for water conservation efforts and preserving parks and open space.

If elected, my top three fiscal priorities will be making sure that businesses and the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, ensuring that our state can further maintain a budget surplus, and making sure that our state has enough money saved in case of a future economic downturn. While dealing with fiscal matters is always a contentious affair, it is absolutely essential for our state to work out long-term fiscal solutions to better ensure the integrity and solvency of our state, so that any future economic downturns do not cause fiscal disasters like we all experienced in 2008.

As the cost of living in the Bay Area continues to skyrocket, many hardworking Californians are finding themselves unable to find a home to rent, let alone buy. Owning a house represents one of the fundamental parts of the American Dream, and I fully believe that all Californians should have a realistic chance at being able to afford a home of their own. Thus, we must take immediate action to expand affordable housing, increase funding for programs that offer permanent supportive housing, offer additional rent subsidies to those who are at risk of becoming homeless, and protect social security for our seniors so that they can receive increased benefits.

California must have a modern and well -funded transportation system. California’s transportation needs are enormous. How many millions of hours are wasted while stuck in traffic congestion? What is the true price tag for having one of the very worst highway systems out of 50 states in terms of the conditions on the roads themselves?

Traffic and congestion cost our state’s residents over $30 billion per year. For the poor conditions of our roads, the cost alone for front end alignments and tire wear is over $500 per driver per year –way over what the average is among other states. The backlog of needed improvements and the maintenance to fix our highways and roads is over $100 billion.

There are no easy answers to getting the revenue needed. But somehow we must find ways to invest. I believe we should go to the voters and see if they are willing to invest in measures where they had a chance to vote on their priorities and where strong oversight committees are created to guarantee the money is spent well.

Voter approved Measure C and Measure J in Contra Costa County helped greatly - widening 680, SR 4, extending BART and finishing the fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel. Major projects and major improvements were constructed in a responsible and well managed way. The Contra Costa County Transportation Authority is currently working on another ½ cent plan to bring to the voters to generate another $2 to $3 billion in improvements.

Solano County cities and the Board of Supervisors are planning a measure for their voters to consider this June. Funds would be under local control and would be targeted to invest in local road needs.

I say we should look first at all efficiencies and money saving ideas we can generate through improved use of current transportation dollars.

After achieving the maximum efficiency, we should then give voters the choice to decide whether to invest in additional revenue streams that will get us to work on time, and home faster, and to have safer roads and improvements in our transit systems.

I see the gigantic needs and believe we must do more. I am supportive of the idea of exploring new or expanded revenue sources if the plans and priorities are brought to the voters to decide, and include strong independent oversight and third-party audits.

First of all, i do not support the Delta Water Tunnel Project. It will destroy the local ecology. I would like to create local water storage facilities, under local control to be designated for agricultural and household usage. Work to create mental awareness about sustainabilty  of human life and wild life and importance of our natural resources.

It is very clear that outside money plays a significant role in our District 14 as we have seen from numerous mailers being sent to our homes by independent expense committees operated by secret identities. Therefore, we need to create financial transparency to know who is actually funding the candidates. I do not and will not accept any money from special interest groups in my campaign.   

The minimum wages issue is an important one to all families at my district. However, we need to look at cost of living and minimum wage issue at the regional levels because living expesnes and business expenses are different at different locations. We also need to take into consideration the burdens on small business owners who are being suffocated with new mandates with some tax incentives to be able to sustain themselves and are able to offer employment to local residents.    

My top fiscal priorities would be as follows;

1. I would like to work towards allocating our burget based on the needs of all Californians, not special interest groups. 
2. I would like to increase funding for education, affordable housing, mental health services and work towards universal health care for all Californians.
3. I would like to reduce waste and spending on nonproductive services to reduce prison population creating more opportunities to intergrate inmates into the community.

I would like to propose an affordable housing bond for Californians so to decrease homelessness and to allocate minimum 30% in single family and apartment units to low income families. I would like to propose subsidies to low income families to make ends meet to prevent future homelessness. I would work for my district to help change existing laws which are too restricitve for human growth such as; difficulty in qualifying for affordable housing for ex-offenders, mental ill and elderly in the state. At last, I would like to explore innovative and out of the box new ideas and incentives to provide support to family members who are caring for elders and disabled to keep them at home rather than placing them in skilled nursing facilities so to save money for the taxpayers.

We need to use multi pronged strategies to ease traffic congestion on our freeways. We need to create local jobs and affordable public transportation to move people and goods in a smooth manner. If elected, I would like to bring various stakeholders to explore solutions which are sustainable, cost-effective for the people in my district. There is no doubt that we need to create more funding for improvements of our roads, bridges and other infrastructures. I would also work on exploring the idea to extend Bart into various areas of my district. We also need to develop water fronts like European countries and alternate transportation creaating sustaible job opportunities.