Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Walnut Creek City Council Forum brought to you by
the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau. I'm Bob Lynchite. I have the pleasure of
serving as the president and CEO of the organization where our basic mission is to foster a climate
where business can thrive. This forum is a valuable opportunity for our business communities
to engage with the candidates running for the upcoming November election. Y'all are
aware we have an election coming in November. It's real important for this community. You
will notice at your seat there is a flyer promoting the business needs assessment survey
that we're conducting with our friends at Walley Creek downtown and Dobble magazine.
If you haven't had a chance to respond to the survey, please upload that with a QR code
and uh respond um one special announcement on saturday september 14th at one o'clock next door
at the civic park the city of walnut creek is going to honor emit elor who is the gold medalist
in wrestling freestyle wrestling it's an exciting opportunity to recognize one of our own and i
And I wanted to make sure that we announce that today.
I'm delighted now to introduce our moderator for the event, Angela De La Huse Ashley.
Angela is the founder of DLHA Law Group, a well-respected law firm here in Walnut Creek
with a distinguished track record of service for our community.
She has served as the past chair of the chamber.
And she's an active member of the current executive committee serving as vice chair
of economic development.
also chairs the Shadelands Property Owners Business Improvement District steering committee
and among many other community contributions.
So help me welcome Angela.
Well thank you Bob and good morning everybody.
I'm honored to be a part of this process, it's exciting and I look forward
to hearing from each of the candidates.
As Bob said, I'm a board member serving on the executive committee for the chamber
And I also serve on the East Bay Jobs Political Action Committee where we had an opportunity
to meet each of the candidates and hear from them who chose to participate.
And we got to know a little bit more about their positions.
I'll explain the process to you in a bit and then we can get started.
The purpose of today's forum will be to hear more about each of the candidates for City Council
but also to dig into some of the deeper issues facing our city.
It's growth and vitality and see the candidate's perspective on each of those issues.
For candidates that already serve on the council, we will ask their perspective
on how things are going and their present and future goals.
Before we start, I'd like to thank the organizers of the forum, the Walnut Creek Chamber
and Visitors Bureau, the Chamber's CEO, Bob Linshied, for developing this new format
and coordinating a robust interview process with the Chamber to develop questions and areas
of focus. And the wonderful chamber staff who work in the background to make sure everything
always runs smoothly. I would like to recognize the public officials, dignitaries and members
of the City Council who are in the audience. If you could wave, Mayor Luella Husky, City
Council member Cindy Silva, City Council member Matt Francois, Barbara Crockett from Central
Contra Costa Sanitation District.
And I was going to introduce my husband, who's ABC News Anchor,
but I think he's feeding the dogs right now.
So probably slide in the back at some point, Dan Ashley.
Other dignitaries that may have registered more recently
than yesterday, we welcome you and appreciate your presence.
Let me go over the rules and the format for today.
There was a random name draw by our political action committee
that determined the order in which the candidates sit
and also the order of the first question.
For the last question and closing, we will go in reverse order.
The same question may be asked of a few candidates but not all
of the same questions will be asked of every candidate.
Otherwise, the fifth to answer would have had four previous questions
in which to prepare.
Instead, we have developed a list of questions so the process
and the topic stay fresh and each candidate has an opportunity
to show how they can answer impromptu questions.
We won't always go in sitting order, but there are an equal number of questions for each candidate.
For the last question and closing, we will go in reverse order of how the candidates are seated.
And each candidate will have two minutes to answer each question and introduce themselves.
There will be a yellow card that Ariana will hold up, I think with 15 seconds, okay.
And a red card that shows it's time to stop.
We ask that you abide the time frames please so that the process is fair and also
to avoid me having to interrupt you, although I have five boys
so I have no problem breaking things up.
After the candidate questions, if time allows, we will have a period of time
for audience question and answers.
You'll see little index cards on your seats.
You'd fill out your question, hand it to Chris who's right there and he'll give it to Bob.
And then each candidate will have two minutes to provide final thoughts or closing remarks,
summarizing their platform.
I don't feel the need to belabor this, but we ask that each candidate and the audience be respectful
of each other and show forum decorum.
At this time, I'll ask each candidate to introduce yourself.
You'll have two minutes, like I said, and you can present your key platform points if you like.
I'll show you the order.
Here it's Brendan Moran, Kevin Wilk, Cindy Darling, Craig Divini, and then Laura Patch
for the intro.
If we could begin, Brendan, please.
Sure.
Well, thank you everyone for being here.
I'd like to thank the Chamber of Commerce, Angela, my fellow candidates for bringing
the time, and of course, all of you.
My name is Brendan Moran, and about 15 years ago my wife and I decided to settle in Walnut
Creek right down the street, and since then we've launched two small businesses,
we've launched three small children, and we love Walnut Creek. And as a dad, as a
real estate broker, and as somebody who has developed his time and his energy and
devoted it to the city and local nonprofits, for the last 10 years I feel
called to make sure that Walnut Creek can remain the city that I love. I have
experience eight years worth on the Parks and Open Space Commission with
the city of Long Creek including two times as chair and I'm currently the
chair we had a meeting last night I have been protecting our open space and I've
been improving our parks with the city for eight years I was the co-chair of
measure O so I've done the work to get the votes to help pass the initiative
that's going to help finance Heather Front Park, increase sports tourism,
increase public safety and improve programs for seniors and youth. I'm
also the co president of the Community Arts Foundation and I am responsible
for raising tens of thousands of dollars every year so that everyone can
experience arts education at the Center for Community Arts at Shadelands. Like
I said, I'm a small business owner. I own a real estate brokerage. I'm on
the support team for my wife's small business, which is the Children's Theater Academy, which
is locally, and I am somebody who's called to make sure that we can keep Walnut Creek
the city that I love. My platform includes economic stability, public safety, and sustainable
development, which I'm happy to talk about a little bit more when I'm answering the questions.
And thank you much for listening to me, and I look forward to this morning. Thanks.
Kevin. Great. Hi everyone and thank you for being here and to the Chamber of
Commerce for hosting this today. Since I was first elected to the City Council in
2016 following eight years on the Transportation Commission I'm proud of
being a part of the change that we've seen so much in Walnut Creek in the last
eight, fifteen, twenty years and to be the leader in the county in so many ways. I
went to high school here and have since raised my family here both children
going K through 12 in Walnut Creek Public Schools. I coach kids soccer and
baseball teams, 20 teams over a dozen years. My mother still lives here. We're
a Walnut Creek family through and through my first term. I helped lead
the effort on becoming a sustainable city, getting free wifi downtown,
supporting affordable housing, local businesses and raising the pride flag
to name just a few in just my last term. And while I was mayor, we required all
City employees to be vaccinated against COVID, banned flavored capes and tobacco, started
enacting a safe gun storage ordinance, and we protected patients and staff at Planned
Parenthood with a buffer zone. We were the first city in the East Bay and only the third
city in the entire Bay Area to adopt this. Walnut Creek has been a leader in building
needed housing and affordable housing, which I've consistently supported. And I've continued
to help our businesses and have been involved with many new openings, events, and representing
Walnut Creek whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself. Public
safety is paramount and this is a top priority for me. We take all crime
seriously and I work closely with our PD and night type businesses to ensure that
Walnut Creek is as safe as possible for all residents, visitors, and businesses
anytime day or night. With the rise in hate speech and anti-semitism,
unfortunately Walnut Creek has experienced anti-semitic and racist hate
speech right here in the council chambers and during meetings and I've
been a leading regional voice denouncing hate speech of any kind. I'll continue to
look at my role in in Walnut Creek is not just a specific Walnut Creek City
Council member but as a strong regional voice ensuring that our state and
government representatives have Walnut Creek in top of mind for potential grant
funding and support for businesses jobs and infrastructure. I'm committed to
making sure Walnut Creek remains that great place to live work and enjoy shop
and dining. Cindy, thank you and thank you all for coming. Anybody that lets Bob
Lynch I'd set one of these. You just know it's gonna be at 8 o'clock in the
morning so I want to give a shout out to the husbands of the world who are home
cleaning up the breakfast dishes or those who fed the dogs before they got
here. Thank you also for caring about our city. My husband and I moved here and I
moved here about 20 years ago because great schools, great open space,
welcoming, diverse, and economically really vital place to live.
By trade I'm a wildlife and fisheries biologist, which is a really weird thing to lead into local government with,
but what it taught me through the years was how to listen to a diverse suite of voices and help people separate out their needs from their wants,
because everybody has a little of both and they're not always clear what's a need and what's a want, and then craft win-win solutions.
And that is a skill that I use professionally, I now use it.
My husband and I have a small business that, and we are Chamber members
and have been for years, and I've brought it to Council.
So, during the years I've served my community, 10 years on Planning Commission
and now 4 years on City Council, we on the Council with my addition have now really reached a great place
where we're really all rowing in the same direction.
And I think that is something that has led to great progress on public safety, economic vitality,
and sustainability. We have great working partners now, the chamber, DRAA, a lot of
our nonprofits, our schools, we're coordinating and I think a lot of this is due to Bob Linshite
and some of the other folks who have great leadership. But again, rowing together all
for the same benefit. I don't want to go into a whole bunch of detail about the different
things that we've done, but I do want to talk about Measure O because I think that personifies
what we're doing as a community. We went out, we listened to everybody, each council member
had a bunch of people they had to talk to. We crafted something that met the needs of our community,
focused on public safety, focused on getting the pool done, focused on sustainability and
economic vitality. And now we have the appropriate oversight over it. So that's what I want to
continue doing for our city, economic stability, public safety and sustainability, working together
as a team. Thank you. Thank you Cindy Craig. Hey good morning Craig Divini. You
know thank you all for being here. It's an honor to be up here talking to you.
Appreciate you getting up this early. I know myself I got off work at 1230 last
night so early morning but again appreciate you all being here and thank
you for hosting. So I'm rooted in the community. I've been living here for 18
years. I have three kids in our local schools going to have gone through our
public school system, my wife's a realtor, my parents live in Rossmore, and during
this time I've been an ER doctor the last 18 years at John Muir Walnut Creek.
During that time I've seen almost 50,000 members of our community during some of
their most difficult times, so I think that brings a really unique lens through
which we can see the city. I've also been a member of the Rotary, I've been big
contributor to Sustainable Contra Costa and evolved in the Walnut Creek
Education Foundation.
And I want to talk a little bit about my history
because positions of leadership and high achievement
are not new to me.
It started when I was a kid in high school, and then in college
I was team captain and MVP of my lacrosse team,
not inducted, nominated.
I wish I was inducted to the Hall of Fame for UCSB Lacrosse.
And then I graduated with highest distinction
from UCSB, went on to medical school at USC,
where I also graduated in the top 10% of my class
with highest distinction and after going to residency at LA County was asked to stay on
his faculty. My first job up in North Bay, I was a residency director and then when I
moved here to John Muir Walnut Creek, I was chair of the Disaster Preparedness Committee.
So during that time while raising our three boys, I've also been a developer building
multi-unit condo complex. And so I have experience, I want to dispel the myth that we have in
the city that the only path to leadership is through city governance. There are many
paths to leadership. We've seen it throughout the state, throughout the country, and so
I want to speak about today safety, housing, and homelessness, supporting our small businesses
and sustainability, and thank you.
Laura?
Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for having me this forum. I'm Laura Patch, and you use
she-her pronouns. As your council member, I will bring a new perspective informed by
years of experience in our community advocating for sustainability, safe
streets, and inclusive communities. I grew up in Orinda, but always felt like
Walnut Creek was an extension of home. It provided a safe, vibrant place to visit
and spend time with my friends. My friends and I love that Walnut Creek has
become the commerce center of Contra Costa County. There's even more to do
here than when I was a teenager. I want to continue that trend and ensure that
generation after me views Walnut Creek as a place to have safe, fun times. But we
also need to ensure that my generation and those after me can afford to live
here. I moved to Walnut Creek as soon as I was able to afford to, but it's a
luxury many of my friends cannot afford. On council I will work to balance three
needs. Fighting climate change, addressing the housing crisis, and supporting local
businesses. I am ready to deliver results. I'm a Walnut Creek transportation commissioner.
I serve on the board of two democratic clubs in the area and on University of San Francisco's
Women in Leadership program. I have always been an active volunteer serving time in AmeriCorps
here in Contra Costa County and Alameda County. And I work with organizations like Walnut
Creek Downtown, Sustainable Walnut Creek and Walnut Creek Community Cleanup Crew. I even
walked for Measure O. I'm running today because I love Walnut Creek and can't
wait to give back. I will serve our community with compassion, transparency,
and innovation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, all the
candidates. Let's start with Brendan. Since the Chamber is hosting this, we'll
start with economic development. Given that the Chamber is hosting, what
What initiatives will you propose to support local small business and encourage entrepreneurship?
Sure.
Thank you.
Well, as a also small business owner, I appreciate that question.
I think Walnut Creek has done an admirable job of speeding up the process so small businesses
can thrive here.
They've done a number of things recently, which is streamline the approval process.
The Design Review Committee is advisory.
And so we don't have small businesses applying
for permits and design reviews and then
have to kick it back to committee and then the city
council and then the committee again.
All the while where they're watching the money run out
and they have to get new loans.
As a small business owner, I understand
what it's like to put your livelihood on the line
and have a city government that needs to be in your corner.
So in order to help small businesses what I think we need to do is help the region as
a whole and that means bring in higher paying jobs for people that can live and work in
Walnut Creek.
I think we need to look at different areas, downtown, the Golden Triangle, Shadelands
and recruit companies whether it be maybe a satellite office of a larger Silicon Valley
based business where they might want something in Walnut Creek so people don't get in their
cars and drive to the South Bay. Or we have maybe a hybrid sort of a thing we can do with
the office space, retail, and housing to make sure that people can stay here. And if they're
stay here and spending their dollars here, then the small businesses like the restaurants
and everything else are going to continue to thrive. So there's a number of things that we can do.
I think Walnut Creek's done an admirable job. There's work to be done and I look forward to
continuing supporting small businesses. Thank you. Thank you. Kevin, same question. What specific
initiatives would you propose to support local small business and encourage entrepreneurship?
So, Walnut Creek, I think, has moved beyond where our mindset was just 10 or 12 years ago,
which was we're Walnut Creek, we're the best city to be in the county, and so you should want to be
here and we're going to be reactive we are the best city in the county but
we've seen other city centers open up places like the veranda and Concord as
well as the city center in San Ramon we have to do more to be proactive as well
we have to really be welcoming to those businesses that are looking to come into
the area we've talked about things with the chamber before and other ideas that
have come like a concierge where when somebody applies for a business we have
somebody that's on our planning team that is able to help walk them through
the steps because frankly it can be an odorous process.
We heard that when things come to the planning commission they would have to bounce back
and forth between the design review commission and planning commission.
We have ended that thankfully.
But there's still more to go.
When an application is first submitted and it gets through the process, we need to be
able to then expedite that and go through rather than weeks and weeks of potentially
waiting.
A concierge can help to break through some of those areas.
We have to remember that a lot of our small businesses are owned by people where English
may not be their first language.
Perhaps they weren't born in America, and they need a little extra help in understanding
all the intricacies of what it comes to when you are doing business in a city in all the
different forms and where you're appearing in front of.
It's not just like buying an available area or getting a lease and then opening up your
doors.
The other thing I think that we need in having worked for Microsoft and Yahoo and having
to commute two and a half to three hours each day, whether it was on BART or down to
San Jose, we should look at something like in the north area, like near Geary along Main
Street, where we could have potentially a 200 or 300-desk operation that could be for
a large tech company where we have this opportunity where people from all over the East Bay can
come to Walnut Creek then and work. We've got two BART stations and freeway off-ramps.
We need to take advantage of that.
you. Some say that one of the impediments to business growth is traffic congestion and it's
one of the most triggering issues in Walnut Creek. I live off Ignacio Valley so I'm familiar with it
and the different hours where we get backed up, have to time my commutes. Cindy, what are some
proposed solutions to reducing traffic congestion especially during peak traffic hours? Great
question and it's funny it wasn't a question in 2020 when I ran the first
time but it's back. As all you know, as all you probably know, originally the
city was laid out with the idea that YVR becomes a freeway at some point in time
and that has not happened and so our development pattern is lacking the
access that was originally planned for. So what we need to do, there's a couple
different things we need to do. One is YVR needs to function as a freeway. I
I think of the rights and the left turns as off ramps and on ramps.
We need to make sure we have enough of a pocket so that people don't back up onto the road.
We need to continue.
We have some of the most cutting edge light timing in the state.
We need to continue to refine that.
We also need to look at other ways we can get people out of their cars.
The Shadelands shuttle was a great opportunity that the PBID put in out at Shadelands.
It picks people up at the BART station, takes them to Shadelands.
They have Wi-Fi on the bus.
They can be tapping away.
We need to find more things like that.
We need to continue to look at our development pattern
as we go forward to make sure we are doing smart things that
aren't making the traffic worse.
And we need to look at ways that we can foster work from home,
alternative work schedules, things like that.
Because Ignacio is gridlocked during the commute hours,
but there is still capacity during other times.
So help people stagger their work times.
So there's a bunch of things we can do.
There's technology we can bring.
There's changes in behavior we can bring.
Changes in development patterns.
But it is a complex and difficult topic.
And I know it really impacts people trying to get
their children to soccer at four o'clock in the afternoon.
I used to scream at my children, get in the car!
We can't right turn here in 10 minutes.
So it is something we are working on and very well aware of.
Thank you.
Craig, same question as to traffic.
How would you implement change to affect traffic congestion?
I think that speaks to how we plan housing
and how we plan economic development.
So I think one of the models that we're seeing now,
and I think what will be the model towards the future
is that areas of economic development need to also be areas
where we have public transportation and housing.
It's the biggest way to produce their carbon input,
carbon impact from driving from long distances.
And it's also very helpful for the folks
that are looking for housing.
They can find higher density housing
near places of job growth.
I think that we can also connect our bike system
and offer folks alternate modes of transportation
so that they have the option of taking electronic vehicles,
increase our EV adoption and EV charging stations.
And then I know that there's fiber going down
Ignacio Valley right now, so timing the lights,
smart lights.
You know, one of the things we don't do as a county
is we don't really coordinate between cities
to address traffic issues.
So right now, speaking with our county directors,
they see the transportation area as more of an area of funding
than actual coordination.
And what I like us to do is, for example, on YVR,
it doesn't just serve Walnut Creek, it serves Concord,
it serves Pittsburgh.
So we need to be coordinating with other members
and other leaders in other cities,
and perhaps that coordination can take place
through the county level.
Thank you.
Laura, let's go back to economic development for a moment.
What specific policies would you propose
to enhance economic development
and what does that look like for Walnut Creek?
Sure.
I would love to see some innovation ideas happen.
I think that Walnut Creek Downtown, as an organization,
does a really good job of having events
that bring people to the downtown area,
but I personally notice that a lot of them
are around drinking and alcohol,
and that's how they make their money
for holding those events.
But it's exclusionary to people who don't drink,
and as somebody who doesn't drink,
that's sometimes an odd moment when I'm volunteering with them, so I'd love to
see more events that maybe are focused on the activities as opposed to just the
like come get a wine at the board and brush store. Also in cities like Austin
we've seen really great programs that highlight small businesses that are
women-owned, queer-owned, people of color-owned to highlight where people can shop with their
values and I think that Walnut Creek is primed for something like that. So I would love to
work with the Chamber to see how the Council can support that. So I really believe that
the Chamber is the expert and I want to support any innovative ideas that they have and see
how we can work together. Thank you. Let's stay with you for one moment. We're
gonna switch over to safety and police. The role of the Walnut Creek Police
Department is more critical now than ever. Safety is usually the number one
issue on many people's minds, especially lately. How would you continue to
strengthen the relationship between the police department and the community?
Great question. I believe that if we bring back local beats to our police
Department that will help foster a community feel because police officers
will get to know that the specific neighborhood that they live in and know
what problems there might be occurring as well as being able to reach neighbors.
I think also more police officers on bicycles helps because it gets them out
in the community. You can talk to them. They can see what it's like to be on the
instead of in their vehicles. I'm glad that Measure O has some funding for
additional officers, so making sure that the police department feels like they
have the support of the council and the community through funding is also
important. Thank you. Cindy, do you think some of the heightened fears about
safety in Walnut Creek are justified? It's the complex issue. We've gotten
repeated briefings from the chief here in town looking at both the violent
crime and property crime rates and what he the number show is that there is a
small uptick in violent crime that is concerning beyond all shadow of a doubt
on property crime there's a downturn and we are trying to parse through is that a
lack of reporting on the part of merchants or is that an actual downturn
concern. And I think it's probably a mixture of both. So we need to proactively be working
on both the property and the violent crimes. On property crime, we just did a big sting
operation the other day looking at shoplifting at some of our local vendors because they
lose so much money to that shoplifting. We gathered up a bunch of people, went down and
booked them, and hopefully we'll get the word out that that is not welcome in Walnut Creek.
In the violent crime, the aggravated assault and things like that, we have worked very
hard when, for example, when the Rolex watches were getting stolen, figured out where they
were getting fenced, worked backwards and found the people that were doing it.
We need to continue to be vigilant on those areas and we need to make sure that people
feel safe and are safe.
It's a messaging issue, it's an enforcement issue, and it's something where we need to
make sure that our chamber members feel comfortable and feel like it's worth
their time to report crime to us so that we have a really good view of what's
going on. One of the other measure. Oh, met things that we included was a crime
analyst, and this is a position where they can kind of get into some of those
data driven numbers and make it something where we are following the
numbers and carrying out effective policing. Thank you.
Craig, you're an ER doctor, what do you see as one of the biggest issues with public health
in Walnut Creek and what are your plans to improve public health and facilities in Walnut Creek?
Yeah, thank you. You're right, as an ER doctor, I have a unique lens on our social issues. There
are issues that I see each day, like I'd say homelessness is a big one and mental health
issues is another big one. So on the homeless front, I think there's two things that we can do.
One is we can support local organization
like the Trinity Center.
It has a good model, in my opinion,
that is trying to help people get off the streets.
It's not as enabling as I think some of the systems
we're seeing in Oakland and San Francisco
that are more oriented towards passing out resources,
like sleeping bags and tents,
versus actually trying to get people off the streets
by offering them substance abuse counseling,
mental health, wraparound services,
social services.
So I think that supporting that local center,
trying to find something where we have an overnight shelter
all year round instead of just three months of the year,
what that allows is it allows law enforcement
to have a place to take people or offer them
a safe place of shelter if they're in front of businesses
or homes or if they're in parks that we don't want them in.
And then on the enforcement side,
our police right now are underpaid
understaffed and so we're ranking near the bottom of surrounding communities as
far as our police pay goes and we've lost positions like for example homeless
outreach program could have four officers right now we have one there's
two and one's injured so there's opportunities for improvement on the
enforcement side too. The other issue being mental health and there's a big
gap there I mean I see folks every day in the ER and we can put them on holds
and send them to inpatient psychiatric centers or we can send them back out for
outpatient follow-up, not knowing when that will happen. There are organizations
like the 3A program, anyone, anytime, anywhere, but we really need to try to
cover that gap in the middle, which is someone who's having an acute issue but
isn't necessarily needing to be institutionalized. Thank you. Kevin, let's
talk about emergency preparedness. We all remember the trauma of going through
COVID-19 and the aftermath. What measures will you implement to make sure the city
is prepared for natural disasters and emergencies going forward.
Thank you. So I first want to touch on what we did when it came to COVID and we
had we were looking at an economic fall-off. We were at a three million
dollar surplus and overnight went to a twelve million dollar deficit and we
turned on a dime and thanks to our city management and city manager and staff
we're able to really help to ensure that Walnut Creek responded effectively as it
came to economically as it came to our preparedness when I was mayor, I was
the first mayor in the East Bay to require all city employees to be
vaccinated. And that was something that we were able to do and help to lead the
way. Actually, when it came to COVID, thanks in large part to Rossmer as well,
we were the highest vaccinated city in the county, almost the entire way
through the emergent the the pandemic and i'm proud of that we had that reputation
it's something that uh that we showed that what we can do when it comes to the future we're
building a new center at uh thanks to our measure of funds at heather farm that's going to be a whole
emergency center we have everybody that are that are standby officers that are officers in an
emergency situation as is our staff as are we on the council and this is something that we talk
about this frequently when it comes to fires, when it comes to earthquakes. I
believe that Walnut Creek is better prepared for a emergency than really any
other city. We take this extremely seriously and we have staff that are
dedicated to ensuring that we respond quickly, effectively, and our police
department is truly second to none in being able to ensure that we're able to
handle any kind of emergency that happens. Thank you. Let's talk a little
bit about housing. We talk about the requirement to add and plan for affordable housing in Walnut
Creek, which is relative to the word affordable, but it is a challenge. Brendan, what are your
proposals or concepts to increase affordable housing options in Walnut Creek? Well, thank
you. As the resident real estate broker, I appreciate that question. So as I'm sure many of
of you know, uh, the number that Lana Creek has had to plan for, um, as per
the housing element that state addicted is 5,808 units over the next eight
years. Uh, and of those units fully half, if not more, fall into the middle to
low to very low income, which essentially means multifamily housing.
The state housing element is not going to be solved by building single family
homes because it's just simply not enough land. Um, so to that end, what we
need to do is plan for enough units where we can have people living. We do
not make traffic any worse than it already is. And that means putting the
buildings where they belong, which is near public transportation, existing
jobs and other amenities. The city has taken state grants, federal grants in
order to actually make, um, housing a little bit more affordable. The issue
though, is that, you know, and I see this because there are affordable units
that are for sale in Walnut Creek, but there are few and far between. And when
they do come up, my phone blows up from people saying, Oh my gosh, I saw this
condo. It's $350,000 and I have to patiently explain to them that, well,
actually, you probably make too much money in order to afford that. Or the
line is 45 people deep. So I think working with the city federal and
getting more funds in order to help speed that process and make more units
available, whether it be for sale for rent. I know the city has done a good
job. There's now there's a couple of different places coming up. As far as
low income in affordable housing, we have a few like Riviera, ST Paul's
Commons. We work with Habitat for Humanity and I support those efforts
as well. But it's a long road ahead of us and we need to make smart decisions to make
sure that the people who work here can afford to also live here.
Thank you. Laura, leadership always involves addressing competing interests. How do you
balance the need for new development with the preservation of the city's character and
green spaces? Well, as an environmentalist, I love green
spaces. They are fantastic. I believe that they also help fight the climate
crisis because trees and green space will lower the temperatures in our city
and as we continue to build housing that's important. I am a huge fan of
infill housing because that limits the impact on our climate. Spaces where
there's parking lots that aren't fully used most of the time are great for
housing and won't expand the city boundaries. I think that the city also
needs to do a better job of incentivizing new builds to be green
buildings, have solar panels, have wind turbines that could look like art in
them, making sure that people live in multifamily complexes, have access to
clean energy. For the impact that the housing is going to have, we also need to think about
how we make a walkable and bikeable city. It's not just that we need to avoid transit
on YVR, but once people live here, we don't want them to get in a private vehicle to go
half a mile, right, they should be able to walk or bike or easily access that half mile if they are
mobile and able to do so. Thank you. Craig, you talked a bit about homelessness. What incentives
would you encourage the city to adopt to develop housing that is affordable for essential workers
like teachers and first responders? Yes, I think that the biggest challenge we'll face with housing
is building the housing and as we know the city doesn't build the housing
developers do right now we are not the we are not regarded as one of the
easiest cities to build in and so I think changing that narrative is hugely
important I mean 5,800 units right now with the cost of labor with the cost of
money won't be an easy reach and so the affordable part of that will will make
it more challenging because affordable housing is more expensive to build, but
if we want to get it built, I think the the main thing we do is try to make
that process easier and I have that background. I've seen how difficult it is
to make a project pencil to make it make sense. I would like to see us focus
myself on the more moderate end of the affordable so that we can first house
the folks that that serve here, serve us here like our nurses, teachers, firefighters,
and police. So I one of the things that that I want to do is really look at the
ways that we can make that process smoother. I've talked to a number of
small business owners here who've wanted to abandon the project halfway through
building because they've found it just so difficult to do that here in Walnut
Creek and that can continue. Okay thank you. Cindy how do you see the city's
homelessness issue affecting business if at all and how do we see current
strategies working? This is a it's a it's a complex issue and you can see that
throughout the Bay Area but we are particularly lucky here in Walnut Creek
with the approach we have. I've been on the Homeless Task Force since well
before I was elected and what we've crafted in Walnut Creek is a three-pronged
approach to homelessness. We have of course the Trinity Center works very
close partnership with the city and with our other nonprofits as a place for
for people to go get services and in the winter
to access the shelter.
And that is a great place for the people
who are ready to accept services.
That's a challenge.
So the next part of the program is the core team,
which is a team of social workers
that are through the county.
They are funded by Measure O.
And their job is to go out into the community
and help the people that are living on the streets,
underhoused couchsurfing, whatever, find them and help encourage them to come into
services. Also help make sure like when we have a heat wave we do open up
cooling centers and it's important to find the homeless folks and help them
access those especially our senior homeless which is a unfortunately a
rising group. The third part is the hop team which is set up by our police
Department, and it is both to work with the homeless to help get them into services, to
help protect them from crime. They are a group that is victimized on a regular basis. But
also to get the message out, I always love, there's one particular member of the homeless
outreach team, and he likes to get people coming off of BART, smoking a little whatever,
and let them know if they're not here to be part of the solution, they just want to be
part of the problem. They might have just turned around and get back on burn. There
are some gaps. We do not have day services on the weekend because Trinity
is not open then. We do not have a year-round shelter and we do not have
adequate mental health and drug treatment beds. Those are a little bit
beyond the city's capacity at this point but it's a we're working. Thank you.
Kevin, what are some of the issues caused by homelessness that you see and that
you think still need to be addressed and how would you address them?
So what Mayor Pro Tem Darling had just talked about is exactly what we put into place right
now but it doesn't solve everything. There's a mental health issue too and when people
suffer from mental illness and they frankly don't want the help, our hands are a little
bit tied. We will continue to direct them to different services but if they're not committing
a crime and they're in front of a business, we'll talk with them. If they are doing something
even like smoking outside of a business, which of course is not legal in Walnut Creek, then
as long as the business calls our police department, they will come out and talk with a person.
But we also do things like clean up encampments. We don't want things to continue to proliferate.
We want to make sure that yes, we have homeless. And our numbers, though, are much lower than
you would think about when you hear of other cities. When I say that our numbers
are like 60 to 70 and homeless, people see one homeless person in Walnut Creek
and they think, oh my gosh, we have a homeless problem. We're aware of who
these people are. I've been so impressed with our police department. I've gone out
with those homeless outreach teams. I've gone out in the middle of the night with
them. They know every homeless person by name. They direct them to the places that
they can go. We know when the winter shelter nights are open and I'm on
record as saying that I would like to be able to support Trinity Center to have,
if not a 24-7 service, at least seven days a week. I think that we, that is
something that we can put and figure out a way to have that in our budget to help
them because homelessness is not a nine-to-five job or five days a week.
It's, it's a situation where every single day this happens. And I understand I was
out there at a business several times last week when I got calls from people
at the Chamber, at the business, the landlord and the tenant, that there was a
homeless person outside and they were disturbing customers going into the, to
their business and I can appreciate the challenge of that. We have to
continue to work with them. Hopefully they can direct the services and mental
health is an issue that we have to continue to help to direct people in
those ways. We have 988 now. There's the core service of the county and
that's something I think that we need the state to really be able to help with
as well. But in the meantime, I think we need to do all that we can for the
individual homeless that we see. Thank you. Let's switch over to larger scale
economic development. Brandon, you talked a little bit about satellite offices. Do
you have a plan for attracting larger businesses and jobs to Walnut Creek
while still supporting smaller businesses? And how would you grapple
with that? Sure, well I think to answer the first question first, what we need to
do as wanna Creek and he's in even a regional center is find out why businesses are here right. There's there's a lot of good medium to large size businesses which are here or are maybe thinking of coming here. Is it Bart? Is it the downtown? Is it the confluence of freeways? Is it the quality of life? Is it the weather? Why are they here? Let's find that out first. And then let's use that information to go out and recruit businesses.
and show them all the improvements that we've been making over the last few years.
The Shadelands, for instance, has done a great job making sure that it's set up to house
the booming industry of medical and med tech.
We have a successful track record of bringing in people who can support the hospitals and
the cancer centers here, so why not bring more of those?
So there's opportunity to go, you know, not so much even nationally, just regionally and
in the Bay Area, to make sure that people know that Walnut Creek is open for business.
And at the expense of small businesses, we cannot do this, right?
It's important to keep plugging away and supporting small businesses because those are the real
backbone of this community and why people want to live here.
So it's a two track approach, it's not either or, but we can get the people with the larger
businesses in, support the jobs, show them that the housing is a lot more affordable
than in the South Bay, and at the same time, those people can stay and visit our restaurants
and our local small businesses, and we can grow and raise both boats together.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Craig, on that line, we know some businesses struggled in the downtown area.
are some concepts that you have that will help them survive if any? Yeah, thank
you. Yeah, I think that's a really big issue right now in Walnut Creek is
supporting our small businesses and I know that right now talking to our small
businesses we are not seen as the most business friendly community. Folks have a
really hard time opening. It takes two years for the average business downtown
to open and many of them are going out of business by the time they do open.
I've sat on the downtown association meetings for the last year and listened
to what the businesses have to say and I've been there when the city's been
there to hear what the response is and the response has been more of a well
from the city what what do you need you know just push us whereas when I'm
listening to these small businesses talk about how hard it is to do business and
and how hard it is to get their businesses open my thought is well I
I mean, wow, I can't believe this is happening.
How can I help you?
What can we do?
So we brainstormed after one of those meetings.
And one of the thoughts we had was doing like a case study,
watching maybe two or three businesses in the area open.
Identify what the, say, eight or 10 hardest areas
have been for our businesses.
And then follow those areas through their opening process
and go into the government and see why is it sticking here?
Why are we having these problems?
Because what came out of that conversation
was just people feeling heard,
and I didn't hear any actionable steps.
I've talked to people like Bridget Powers,
who opened Smile Power Orthodontist over there.
She was a year into opening and she almost
closed down and moved to another city.
It was so hard for her.
I think that's going to be a big focus of mine,
is working on changing that.
Thank you. Cindy same question a plan for directly enticing larger businesses
to come to Walnut Creek but still supporting present mom and pops. Okay so
there's there's two different functions within the city there's economic
development and then there's community development economic development those
are the people that go out there and sell the city and we traditionally did
not do a lot of that we rested on our laurels we were just Walnut Creek and
you come to us and we over the last probably five to ten years have really
changed that model. We have economic development staff now who are out there
in the larger development community talking about Walnut Creek talking about
what we can bring to the table and then when people do decide to open in Walnut
Creek they have been acting as kind of ambassadors and helping people
understand the process and helping ease that. We had one of the economic
development folks and I went out to meet with one of the restaurants and the
restaurateur was really appreciative because the economic development staff
had looked at how we were treating their traffic impact fee. There's two ways to
calculate it. One was much cheaper. Economic development folks made sure
they got that cheaper fee. So that's that part. Community development is the other
part. That's zoning, permitting, all of that. I think a number of us have talked
about the different things that we've done to change permitting and zoning. We
We have changed how the Design Review Board operates, we've got objective design standards
out there.
And we're also reviewing the processes.
We had a great report from Community Development last week at the council meeting about the
different steps that they're taking.
We as the council gave them, here are some additional things we're hearing from the community.
I think we have always had a track record.
I don't think that we dismiss the concerns that we're hearing.
understand them. We're working to answer them. We're working to make sure that
our process is transparent, that it's possible for mom and pop to big
corporations to see where they are in the process and help them through it.
Great example. Toyota Walnut Creek approached us about a development
agreement. The city spent a couple years negotiating with them. We're getting 600
new housing elements, keeping the dealership here in town and getting a
lot of affordable housing out of the deal. So we are open for business. Thank you. Let's talk about
infrastructure and transportation. Kevin, what are your priorities for infrastructure improvements
in Walnut Creek? So first of all, what we've done in the last couple of years when it came to Measure
O and being able to rebuild and have the funds now to rebuild Heather Farm Swimming Center
and the community center there, as well as all-weather turf fields having coached for 10
and 10 or 12 years. If they're rained on Wednesday, we were not playing that weekend in many cases.
So now we have all-weather turf fields and lights, and those are the kind of infrastructure things
for recreation that are just great to see. It's going to help all of these next generations.
As we'd heard before, we also have the best in the state signal timing on our major roads.
We need to continue doing that, we need to move to dynamic timing as well because the infrastructure
that we're looking at when it comes to how we can make sure people are going
out of their cars and have more public transit is going to be key.
We talk about development.
We hear about these state mandates and that goes along with how we can help to house people,
but we also have to pay attention to climate action.
And if we're going to put developments out several miles from downtown, for example,
we need to have that infrastructure to get people downtown without having to be in their cars
Because otherwise, we're just adding to greenhouse gases, we're going against our own climate
action initiatives, we are not helping necessarily the jobs, housing imbalance.
And frankly, our direction has been to have more housing downtown where there is public
transit.
So when we hear about the state mandates for development, we have to have more of the infrastructure
for traffic and the transportation.
We have to have infrastructure to allow there to be stations like we're seeing at Shadelands
with buses that are going throughout there. And the biggest conundrum is, and sitting
on the board of county connection, is that first mile, last mile. People are still driving
to go to BART. People are still driving to get to the public transit. What can we do
to help with that infrastructure, to get people from that last mile that they're taking public
transit, or either coming from or going to? We have to be part of that solution. And that's
the biggest infrastructure challenge that we have.
Thank you. Laura, what in your opinion are some of the challenges to infrastructure improvements
and upgrades and how should they be addressed? For the longest time, Walnut Creek has been
planned to be a car city. And that is because it was a tiny little suburb. And it's not
that anymore. We have a very large residential number, sorry, and so we need to adjust our
planning approach to transit and transportation and infrastructure. I was really excited when
Walnut Creek had their pilot program with the Lime scooters as a way to get people out
of their cars to for small distances. And then of course the pandemic hit and we
never followed through with that after the pilot ended. So I would love to see
that come back especially if we can do it in a way that addresses concerns
people have about where the scooters get parked. If you go to some cities like
Washington DC or Montreal that have bike share programs with designated parking
areas, they succeed a lot better than just the kind of chaotic nature that, say, Oakland
does with their ride share program. So I would love to see that. I think we need better safer
bike lanes. Getting here from the library, for example, I have a shared bike lane that
then abruptly ends. And there's no sidewalk and no bike lane. So all of a sudden I'm just
in the street in my little electric scooter,
and it's pretty dangerous.
I do it because it's important to me,
but I can imagine if we had a 17-year-old on a scooter,
their parents are gonna be very scared
and tell them not to be things like that.
So, for me, it's shifting the focus of infrastructure
from cars to how do we get people out of private vehicles,
into buses, onto bikes, onto scooters,
other ways to share the community feel and not contribute to climate crisis.
Thank you. Brendan, and what are your thoughts on improving and enhancing the
focus on transportation, specifically public transportation and accessibility
in the city? Sure. Well, I can say without a doubt that nobody likes sitting in
traffic and I think there's certain things that we can do on a smaller
percentage level like increasing flow possibly smart signals fixing the roads
but my conversations with people that know a lot more about this than I do say
that if you're driving down Ignacio Valley Road and we've done these
improvements you might notice a small difference but you might actually not
and by the time that the technology which is very expensive gets put in it
It may be obsolete, so we have to make really smart decisions about what specifically we're doing in order to move traffic.
But to the larger point is that traffic is a function of putting people where they don't need to get in their cars all the time, right?
And that's a matter of putting houses and jobs centrally located, like, say, downtown, where the public transportation already is.
I think public partnerships with the county or even possibly private partnerships such as what
we've done to bring the bus from Pleasant Hill BART to Shadelands is a great idea to show people that
the first mile, last mile, if you will, to get from work to the BART without having to get in
the car. I totally support that. And specifically what I think we want to do when we're talking
about public transportation necessarily is let's look at how we can make the
downtown area more bikeable and walkable. I've always said I think that there's a
really good opportunity to just get over the the hump so to speak bike wise. You
can bike downtown but it's it's patchwork right now and if we could
maybe figure out a way to make it where it's just all one big system make sure
that Los Lomas and WCI are connected via bike where it's a little less dangerous,
getting across the main roads and we make sure that people who are downtown can just leave their cars
downtown for an extended period of time because they don't have to get in the car
and increase greenhouse gases and make everybody's commute even worse.
Thank you.
We've talked a bit about sustainability.
Craig, what specific actions would you recommend to address climate change
and promote environmental sustainability in Walnut Creek.
All right, thank you.
I think one of the first things that we can do
is try to help folks into EVs
by increasing our EV charging stations.
I think moving housing and living closer together
by offering higher density homes
near places of economic development
also cuts down on the carbon footprint.
we need to move to electrification, increased energy efficiency buildings, which means not
only transitioning from gas to electric appliances during upgrades and remodels, but in the future
having fully electric homes that can be supported by cleaner energy like MCI or solar panels.
We need to decrease the amount of waste that goes into our landfills, and we can do that
through recycling, repurposing, composting.
Offer alternate modes of transportation to folks besides getting into their cars.
So having a good public transportation system, connecting our bike system, which allows people
to use their scooters and transitioning to outdoor equipment that is electric instead
of gas powered that that will be a cautious slow process so we don't put a lot of landscapers
in financial hardship because I am friends with them too and that's not an easy transition
to make but I think it's an important one for the future.
Thank you. Cindy, since 2023 Walnut Creek has had a robust sustainability action plan
with clear goals? Since transportation is the largest single contributor to greenhouse
gas accounting for up to 70% of carbon emissions in Walnut Creek, how do we reconcile that
with potential growth? We have long recognized that bringing additional
houses and businesses to Walnut Creek needs to be looked at through the environmental
review process to look at what the environmental impacts are of that development and find ways
to offset it.
We, during the years on the planning commission,
we did major planning efforts of west downtown and north downtown.
We looked at, because those are both really close to BART stations.
And so they went, we went through and looked at ways to increase the number of new units coming
into those areas so that the people that are moving in there can use public transit rather
than relying on vehicles.
In one case in point, there's a couple affordable housing developments on Pringle,
one of which was developed with just a car share spot and no parking because the expectation
is we were hoping that the people that would move there wouldn't need their own car.
They could rely on public transportation and that has proven to be the case in that development.
So we're looking at making sure that the development occurs downtown.
We adopted, when we adopted the building code, we adopted a requirement that increases the
the number of car charging ports to be installed on those new developments.
We're looking at ways to include traffic demand management studies with new developers,
new so that they work with their employees to find ways to help get them out of their cars.
It's just a whole suite of different things we do in
the development process linking the sustainability action plan
to the individual decisions on each project.
We have an opportunity, we are going to start redoing our general plan, which this is a
really wonky thing for me because it's how you plan for the entire city.
And so we have a great opportunity as we go through that general plan to take our sustainability
action plan, to take our housing element and put them together in that general plan and
foster those ideas even further.
Okay, thank you.
Kevin, same question as to competing interests of planned growth, residential or commercial,
and the carbon footprint fighting climate change.
How do you address those?
Yeah.
This is something where we look at infill and because of the – the citizens own the
open space.
We can't go out any further.
Due to measure A, we can't go up beyond certain height limits.
I think we're going to have to look at some areas where we potentially modify Measure
A to allow for certain growth limits in some areas that would make more sense.
For example, the North Main Street area at the Pleasant Hill BART station, the height
limit there is about 40 feet high.
And these are all because they were set in 1985.
And when Measure A first came into effect, it was due to some of the 85-foot buildings
that were typically in the Golden Triangle and so everything was frozen at that particular
height wherever it was in 1985.
We have to change some of that because the only way that we're going to be able to combat
climate change is by having some of these projects that also can go up four or five
stories and have more people in there where they are electrified, where we are having
more EV stations and not just charging stations that are EV capable but EV ready so that when
people have their EVs they may or may not need two cars, they may or may not need two
different parking spots and so we separate the housing from the parking itself so that
somebody may see, we don't need a car right now, we can just walk to BART or we can take
a bus and others might need one or sometimes two parking spots so that's something that we want to
be able to separate that out have more EV stations and look at some areas that we could
potentially go a little higher than 40 feet for affordable housing and new development.
Thank you. Brendan, what specific actions would you take to address climate change
and promote environmental sustainability in Mona Creek? Sure, well I can only speak for myself but
I often feel that the idea of how are we going to solve climate change is kind of an overwhelming
thing, right?
There's a lot of messages out there, it can get jumbled, you kind of don't know what to
do, or you can feel paralysis by analysis, and that's just my kind of personal take.
So in order to get beyond that, I think what we need to do is show individual people the
individual simple actions that they can take to make an impact
because climate change is a lot of things, right?
And we can focus on energies by doing a few things right.
And at the city level, we can encourage people to take energy audits.
We can show them what the incentives for solar.
We can help them reduce their water use, whether at home or with the landscaping.
We can help them with EV chargers and the transition.
You know, it's coming up where you're not going to be able
to buy a gas powered car in California pretty soon.
And so I think that the future is not in a couple years from now.
The future is right now.
And we need to make sure that people can understand that the changes
that they can make individually to make a greater change for the climate.
We've done a lot of that at our house, solar panels, electric cars,
low flow drip, and I'm just somebody who is a normal guy.
I'm not a climate change warrior, but I've had to learn in order to do what I can do
and what I can promote and show other people that it's not an overwhelming burden,
but it's something that we can take steps positively right now
to take for the betterment of the next generation.
Thank you.
Laura, as you're probably aware, there are state mandated targets that must be meant
by 2030. The state has to be carbon neutral which is a tall order. What
recommendations would you have to help Walnut Creek be a factor in reaching
those targets? So in contrast to what's been said, I don't think individual
actions are actually going to get us there. One of my concerns about the
sustainability action plan as it's passed is it does focus a lot on what
individual homeowners can do to lower their carbon emissions, but depending on
what source you look at, either 50% or 60% of Walnut Creek residents live in
multifamily homes, and a lot of those are already constructed homes. I'm one of
those, and I can't easily put in an EV charger. I can't put solar panels on my
roof because I don't own my roof. We need to as a city help those types of
buildings switch and help them electrify already existing apartments and
buildings where people live so that we can make a huge impact. Like I said 50
to 60 percent of our population lives in those types of homes so the city needs
to work with those property owners. I also think that it's really important that Walnut Creek become
a tree city USA because trees will decrease temperatures by seven to nine percent and as
I'm sure as we're heading out of summer everybody's aware we are having really record high
temperatures here in Contra Costa County and Walnut Creek is hit by that because we do have areas
where there is a lot of pavement. That is particularly taking place in the downtown
area where we have seen an increase in housing. So if we're going to put people there, we
need to make sure that it's livable. I have a lot more ideas, so if you want to talk to
me about environmental aspects, please come up to me afterwards. Thanks.
Thank you. Let's talk about DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Cindy, what steps would
you take to further promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within city government and the
broader community? Yeah, this has been an important council priority
now for a couple years. Diversity, equity, inclusion, and we've added belonging to it
because it's important for us to have Walnut Creek feel comfortable, be safe, and be welcoming
to everybody. We want everybody to live, work, and play here together.
So there's a couple of things that we've been doing,
and there's places for that to expand.
One of the first things that we did was make sure that all city staff,
all city commissioners, including city council members,
take training related to implicit bias.
That's the idea that if you look at somebody,
the lizard part of your brain says they're different and helping us overcome that.
We've also incorporated a number of new training programs
within our police force to help them develop
a modern healthy policing culture.
We've also expanded how we recruited
commissioners in the last go-round
to make sure that we get the breadth of commissioners.
That's where we have now two commissioners who are
probably some of the youngest ever
on Planning Commission and Transportation Commission.
We have greater cultural diversity in
those. And the idea is that if you cast the net broader and make it feel
comfortable to come in, you'll get more of those diverse viewpoints on the city
commissions. The other thing that we've done is it's called a seat at the table.
Our youth commissioners who are all high schoolers came to us a couple of years
ago and they said, we want to make sure that we have a voice in city government
beyond just what we do as the youth commission. And they came up with a
great plan to add youth commissioners to a couple of the commissions and we've approved that. We now
have them on and it's been so successful. We've extended it. They are now permanent members.
So there's a lot of things that we can do working on our culture internally, working on celebrating
pride flag, festival cultural, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, making sure that there's a
celebration in Walnut Creek for everyone. Thank you. Brendan, how would you
promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within the city government and the
larger community? Sure, well I have to say one of the things I like most about
Walnut Creek is when you walk around, whether it be downtown or over by Larky
Park where I live, you are more likely than not to listen and hear another
language other than English being spoken and if you're paying attention
there's a number of different types of languages too it's not just you walk
down the street and oh that was interesting I heard someone speaking
Spanish I mean there's a well cultural mix of people in Walnut Creek and having
said that that's not exactly the representation that we see whether it be
you know on the City Council or commissions and so forth and I think
the city's taken some admirable steps. DEI is one of the five priorities. I
support that. We've had a really good turnover in our commissions and I think
it's been a record year for the number of people that apply to be a
commissioner with the City of Mone Creek, whether that be because people are
civically engaged. But I also think it's because of the outreach to people of
color, specifically different backgrounds that say, hey, you know, please join us
be represented. Because I think we can all grow and learn from each other from
varying different cultural experiences. And the last thing I'll say is, you know,
this is, it's on an individual level that we can make change, right? We all run
into everybody, you know, a lot of small business owners here. I've taken steps to
have on my real estate team and the people that are helping me with my
campaign of people who are immigrants, people of color, to make sure that I can
provide whatever small opportunity that I can with somebody who maybe has had
the means and the luck to grow up where I did and how I did and to make sure
that I can pass it down the road because I think that's our responsibility as
city council members as people who run the city to make sure that we bring the
people up with us as we grow and be representative of our rich culture here
in Wall Creek. Thank you. Let's talk about education. Craig, how will you
support local schools and educational programs in the community? So how would I
support our local schools? I think that having the schools be engaged in the
city is important so I think I would open opportunities for them to do things
like what like have a parade for homecoming or something through the the
city I'd like to see us support the cities by I mean the schools by finding
home housing for the the teacher so they can live closer to home I think we can
help the kids that are in school right now in in regards to mental health
issues that are that are helping that are really impacting our youth so I
I think reaching out to school systems in that way is important.
Actually, youth engagement and sports,
and in the age of social media,
getting kids together and playing on fields is important.
I think we could do a better job
accessing and activating our outdoor spaces.
We have grass fields that go unused.
you know, like People's Park here behind Civic could be a soccer field where kids could engage.
Okay, thank you. Laura, how do you see the council supporting local youth in Walnut Creek?
And how would you approve upon that? Well, I'm going to say, as the young person running,
I think that the city does a good job of making sure that there is an area for kids by having
this library, for example.
I think it's really important that students have a place to go after school hours.
I will note that the city council doesn't have much jurisdiction over the schools itself
Because we have five different school districts
that manage the schools here in the city.
But they do have some great programs
that are operating with the schools.
I'd like to see those expanded.
I love the Youth Commission efforts
that the City Council has done in recent years.
Our, the Youth Commissioner that sat
on the Transportation Commission recently
is just a brilliant person.
love to see them engaged. I believe that there's a little bit of an element that I've experienced
as a young person running for office that young people don't have the experience and
leadership skills yet to take leadership roles. And so the more that we can involve them at
a younger age, the more the city will benefit from those innovative ideas and plan a city
that's prepared for the next generation.
Thank you.
Kevin, what do you see as some of the issues facing
the local schools and school districts,
and how can the council address and support them?
So the first thing that I really became much more aware of last
week was when I was approached by a resident saying
that there was a lot of speeding and rolling through stop signs,
and she's a crosswalk guard as a volunteer
in front of Valley Verde.
I went out there, I was joined by Council Member Darling,
I was also joined by some transportation commissioners
and our staff, and what I saw was shocking, basically.
We are having our kids walk to school,
our students riding bikes, riding scooters.
People that are driving are speeding along
and rolling through stop signs at 7, 40 to 8 o'clock,
right when these kids are getting to school.
But also a lot of the kids aren't paying attention
to the rules of the road themselves.
So we need to work with the schools to get the messaging out, make sure that parents
are following the rules and all drivers in the neighborhoods
need to pay attention and really more attention than they normally do because we also have
the sun shining in the eyes of that time,
but also let these parents know and
teach their kids that they have to follow these rules. When our kids go to school we
expect them to be safe.
We expect them to come home and that
is not just with terrible tragic school shootings that we hear from across the country. I'll
talk about that in a second. But we have to make sure they can get to school and back
by people being safe on those. So safe routes to school, I think that is a critical piece
that the city can work with the schools on, and that includes crossing guards. When it
comes to ensuring the safety of our own students at schools, we've had school resource officers
in the past, actually one at Los Lomas, prevented a school shooting by disarming a student from
having a live active gun and while we don't have SROs right now and the
pandemic really put those off we need to work with the schools to ensure that
our city is prepared to respond immediately should any emergency there
happen. That is the most critical aspect of making sure our students are safe
from the time they leave home to the time the return home and everything else
that we do when it comes to involving school districts and how we can work
with them is all supportive of that. Thank you. I'm gonna ask one question and
each of you can answer. There are many likely reasons you decided to run for office but often
there is a single thing that happens or something that triggers you to decide to run. Can you pick
one thing that spoke to you that caused you to run for City Council? And let's start with Craig.
Yeah thank you. So for me I'm really about good governance and I think that you know what we do
in the ER where we listen to people.
I go into a room,
I talk to someone,
you form a personal connection,
that person feels heard,
you gather data, and then you make a decision together.
I don't make a decision for you,
I make a decision with you in the ER.
I'm really a proponent of good governance,
and I think one of the things that's, say,
triggered me to run has been watching
the divisive political narrative
that's been going on in our country for
the last 10 plus maybe 20 years.
I want to be part of that grassroots movement
to reclaim the middle ground in our political conversation.
I think there's a lot of room there.
I think I have a lot of experience talking to different people.
I can talk to anyone that comes in the room of an ER,
then I think I can do the same thing in the general public.
I think that right now perception is reality to a certain extent,
and the perception in the community,
and I've been walking the community and probably already knocked on a thousand doors out there,
and the perception is that sometimes folks don't feel hurt in our community.
They can't necessarily guarantee different outcome for decisions,
but they don't like the process.
Sometimes they feel they're being talked down to,
or that there's parents and their children,
and they're complaining.
And I wanted to spell that narrative by going to the community, connecting with them, and, you know, representing the new movement in politics, which is a movement to the middle.
Thank you. I'm gonna turn to Kevin, and since you're an incumbent, I'm going to say, was there some original thing that triggered for you to run? Or is there something you feel really strongly about that led to your decision to rerun?
Well, I first ran eight years ago, because there was a divisiveness on the City Council and having been on the Transportation Commission for eight years.
I really wanted to have a voice in helping to bring in coalesce the city together. I think that that's certainly happened.
We are we have five different opinions, but we all we all want what's best for Walnut Creek and have come to find the common ground and all of this.
We have a great collaborative council, which has been really refreshing for the last, certainly for the last four years.
And then seeing what we can do as a client, as somebody who was absolutely making sure
that we wanted to combat climate change, making sure that that was one of our priorities.
It hadn't been prior to my election in 2016, and now it's a mainstay.
Combating climate action and having our climate resolution and upgrading our climate plan
for 2030 is something that we have all now voted to approve.
And this is something that, again, the fact that it's there all the time now for every
year is a real accomplishment. The fact that we're also looking at what we can
do to continue to help our businesses, something that I've wanted to be
involved in, and public safety and making sure that people are safe down in
Walnut Creek. That when I met with a council member in Oakland a couple of
months ago, she said she shops in Walnut Creek because it's safe. We have to
ensure to keep that safety and I work with our businesses downtown and our
nighttime businesses to ensure that. But this time for rerunning has also added
another component and that is personal to me and that is standing up against
hate against across all communities we've seen in our council chambers with
anti-semitism and racism I'm working to get elected officials across the state
to also stand up against hate across all communities wherever it is it's one
thing when Jews stand up against anti-semitism and it's one thing it's
something else even more powerful when blacks and LGBTQ and and AAPI all stand
up against antisemitism and we're all standing up against racism across the communities.
That's incredibly powerful and that is a real prime motivator for me because I've taken
a leading voice in the region in standing up against hate and getting my fellow elected
officials across the region to also stand up against it and that's important to me and
that's why I'm running for re-election as well.
Okay, thank you.
Cindy, was there something that served as an original impetus to run and is that the
the same now or is there something else that's changed to cause you to rerun?
So originally, the decision to run,
it was kind of an interesting decision.
I'd been on planning commission for 10 years.
I was like, oh, I've done my 10 years on planning.
I'm going to go off and retire.
One of the last things I did was I helped Matt Francois on
his campaign and went through the process with him.
Sometimes those of us that are women,
they say you have to ask a woman to run like three times.
Well, with me it was like a lot more than that.
When I went through that process, I was like, I could do this.
And then I looked at how the existing council was operating,
and I could see a role that I could play on that council that
would take some issues and move them forward,
and help the council really get through, particularly
Measure O, the pool, and the community center,
and get that going.
so that was what originally drove me.
I am then 2020 happened,
and there's just all kinds of weird stuff that happened,
and I was like, wow, this is even more important now.
I went downtown the day after the big May 31st riot downtown and helped clean up and
saw the number of people in Walnut Creek who came out that morning with
their brooms and their dustbins and helped sweep up the broken glass,
and that made it even more important to me to serve the community.
And now I want to see the things that we have started come to completion.
I am really looking forward to ribbon cutting for the pool.
I am really looking forward to getting to a point where DEIB is just part of our culture
and we don't need to call it out as a priority.
I really want to get the general plan going in a good direction.
I just really want to continue to give back to my city and continue to see us going in such great directions.
Thank you.
Brendan, for you, any single trigger or impetus?
Sure. I actually can tell you exactly when and where it happened. It was about 10 years ago or so,
and
my wife and I used to live right down the street when we first got here where we welcomed our first child.
And we would come down to Civic Park all the time.
and then one kid turned into two.
And we used to go here just to do something,
just to get the kids out of the house or the condo.
And I had a moment when I would saw the kids on the playground.
We call it the Star Wars park because there's
something that's in there that looks like the Death Star.
So that's our family joke.
But there was something that just hits, you know,
in your life where you can remember certain moments.
And in the moment you're aware of what's going on
And maybe you can't elucidate it so much,
but there's a feeling that happens to you.
That happened to me right here at Civic Park
about 10 years ago when I said, I'm
going to do something here in Walnut Creek.
And I don't know exactly what it's going to be.
I'm not from here originally.
I'm from Illinois.
I didn't know a soul in Walnut Creek
until I actually just got here, and my wife convinced me to move.
And so it was really important for me to put down roots,
and make a name, and make my community better.
just in a very simple level.
And not long after, I got along with the city,
the TV show that we used to do,
and was asked to join the commission
for the parks and open space,
and that's led to other opportunities
and meeting people and growing into a leader,
and somebody who just feels like they're called
to keep Walnut Creek, the city that I fell in love with
when I was at Civic Park with my kids,
just pushing them on the swings.
So, that's my albeit corny answer as to why I wanted to run for city council and be involved,
but I would rather not be anywhere else.
Thank you.
Okay. I think it's time for closing remarks.
We're going to go in opposite order, like I said.
Oh, Laura, I'm so sorry.
Laura, I checked you off.
I'm so sorry.
Laura, what was your single trigger?
Sorry about that.
And then we'll start with you for closing remarks.
Do you have a problem?
I don't actually have a single moment.
My journey to here has been a little long.
I always planned on being involved in politics.
When I was in high school at Miramani,
I was in the public speaking program,
and I decided I really wanted to be a political speech writer.
Because words matter, and I think
it's really important that you translate
these intense, complicated policies into words
that the average citizen can understand and follow.
So I went to school, got a degree in political science.
I purposely took a year off to serve in my community,
then went to grad school to focus
on political communications.
And I was in DC when the government shutdown in 2013
happened, and it disillusioned me about government.
I was really depressed afterwards
because it doesn't work.
You had congressmen yelling at park rangers
for preventing veterans from going up to monuments.
And that you don't normally have barriers.
Those are free things that people can access.
And just the hypocrisy of it made me want to check out.
So I switched into nonprofits.
And I was like, OK, I can serve my community this way.
And then in 2016, like a lot of people,
I was pretty sad by the results because I did not feel like I was going to have the
same rights that my mother did at my age as a result of those federal elections.
And that has proven to be true.
So I got involved again.
And to me, it started becoming a, well, if I can't do anything at the federal level,
can I do to make sure that me and people like me have a safe community to live in and a world
that's going to exist where they have the rights that they need? And so that's why I decided to
run two years ago and I'm running for the same reasons. I want to make sure that Walnut Creek
exists for all. Thank you. Let's start with you for closing remarks. Okay that actually leads into
my closing statement really well. I am a different person and I lean into those
differences. I am a young person. I am a member of the queer community. I live in
a multifamily complex. I use a scooter as my primary method of transportation. So
So for me, running is about making sure that our City Council has a diverse set of voices,
and while I acknowledge that we don't add a whole lot of diversity because we are all
white running, I do believe that I offer a different lived experience than other candidates,
And studies have proven that diverse teams actually make better decisions and are more
impactful that way.
So by being on City Council, I think that I can represent voices that are not represented
right now and bring a unique perspective so that when we make decisions as a council,
it is representative and impactful for everybody.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Craig.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I think that what I would ask is, you know, what are we ready for here in Walnut Creek?
Are we ready for somebody with some new ideas, a fresh perspective, or for the business community,
do we want to continue things along the path that they're on right now?
It's hard to build.
It's hard for businesses to open.
We've lost our outdoor spaces.
You know, businesses are struggling.
So for the business community out there, I want you to know, you know, I'm here to help,
and I'm listening and that would be one of my top priorities.
Twenty-eight percent of the businesses in Walnut Creek are in health care.
We have no health care representation at the city level.
So I think if we're advocating for business communities like Shadelands,
getting businesses in health care and folks that can talk to them,
I'd be a great representative from that standpoint.
As far as youth and youth sports tourism,
I think that again, I'd be a great representative in that capacity for our business community.
because I have three kids in our local schools.
My oldest just graduated high school.
So I understand the needs there and have
some tremendous support from our families.
I'm only working part-time now.
I have a history of leadership and achievement,
but now I'm only working 24 hours a week.
I work three eight-hour shifts.
So I have a lot of time.
I've put in the time over this last year,
meeting with people, a number of you in this room,
I've met with, if I had coffee with.
That's how I started this process.
I went out to the community.
I started last fall.
I started having coffee with people.
I started watching city council meetings, taking notes.
And my platforms evolved out of that process.
So it really is, you know, a grassroots campaign.
And I didn't get here through city endorsements.
I wasn't appointed to be our next city council member.
I went to the community, found out what was important and that's the person
that I am that's who I represent.
So whether it's supporting our kids, our families, health care, housing,
dealing with issues of homelessness, sustainability,
I think I'd be a great addition to our council.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Cindy?
Thank you.
It's been such an honor for the last four years to serve the community and I want
to continue to put my experience, my ability to listen, my ability to find solutions.
I want to continue to put it to work for the community.
I have the support of literally hundreds of my friends and neighbors,
but I also have the support of Congressman DeSaulnier, Rebecca Bauer,
Kayhan, Tim Grayson, and a number of others, including everybody from Candace Anderson,
all the way over to John Joya on the county supervisor level, because that's the person that I am.
When I ran the first time, I had Dick Rainey on this hand, and I forget who the far left hand,
And somebody said, if they have both of those endorsements,
they must be somebody that can find the middle.
I also have the support of our public safety officers.
The Walnut Creek police officers have endorsed me.
They feel that I am a great candidate to move forward
and address the public safety concerns
that we hear on the street.
I have a great background in sustainability
with economic development.
I've done the work, walked the walk, talked and talked
with the years I'm planning commission,
the years meeting with local businesses,
helping them solve their problems.
I think we all recognize that there is more that we can do there.
There is a lot of permit streamlining work that I did in the past.
I was at the state level,
at the cabinet level working on permit streamlining,
and we're working with our staff to incorporate a lot of those ideas into it.
Then on public safety, there's a lot more we can do.
We can work with our schools on safe routes to school.
We can do a bunch of work, continue to work with mental health.
We do now have 24-7 mental health non-police response,
which was a huge accomplishment.
So I want to continue to take all my skills and abilities,
continue to put them to work day in and day out for you guys.
Because I believe in Walnut Creek,
we are the jewel of the East Bay.
And we can continue to be that and get better, better
and better every day, whatever that saying was.
Continue to get better.
Thank you, Kevin.
Walnut Creek has so many things going forward.
It's the best shopping and dining in the East Bay,
and it's a safe place to live.
We've had our challenges and will continue
to have unforeseen challenges ahead.
But with solid and experienced leadership,
Walnut Creek will thrive and continue
to be the economic driver of the region.
My experience of eight years on city council
and another 14 on city commissions has been instrumental
in ensuring Walnut Creek's economic stability
during some of the unexpected downturns like the pandemic.
It's also been an advantage in recovering afterwards
and becoming the envy of most of the cities in the state.
My priorities continue to be commitment to public safety,
ensuring Walnut Creek is a sustainable city
and fighting climate change.
And that means getting cars off the road
because that's the number one impact
when it comes to greenhouse gases
and what we can do to reduce that.
So that is huge.
Supporting our business community
and more high paying local jobs and affordable housing
and safe streets and schools.
We talked a little bit about that
and standing up against hate and antisemitism
in all of its forms.
I've become a leading regional voice
over the last eight years in the county
and I take that responsibility seriously.
I go to statewide conferences.
The endorsements have come out of that.
Endorsements from Congressman Mark Dassolnier
and Eric Swalwell, Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Cahan,
State Senator Steve Glazer, our dozens of mayors and council members from across the county,
as well as the Police Officer Association, Evolve, a variety of different clubs.
It's because they see me out there, because I go to events, because I am known as a strong
Walnut Creek advocate throughout the region and for what's right.
I have a common sense approach to the complex needs of our community and problem solving.
Nobody knows Walnut Creek like the people in Walnut Creek which is why I continue to fight for local control when it comes to
potential state mandates and I'll continue to be accessible to the needs of residents and businesses and be that strong steady hand to help
lead Walnut Creek in the next generation. This is the best city in the country and you can learn more about me at my website and I hope
I've earned your vote to represent this terrific city for the next four years as well.
Thank you, Kevin. Brendan?
Thank you. Thanks to everybody for being here. Thank you Angela. Thanks to the Chamber for being such great partners with the city.
I've enjoyed myself.
I believe that I am uniquely qualified to lead Walnut Creek into the future.
I have a vision of our community that is meeting tomorrow's needs while maintaining the character and
the values that we love about Walnut Creek.
I'm going to continue to be a strong independent voice on the council, and I
look forward to earning your support as the only non incumbent running. I'm the
only one endorsed by nine former mayors, City Council members, City
commissioners, business leaders, nonprofit leaders, Assembly member
Rebecca Bauer Kahan, Supervisor Ken Carlson, the Lamarina Democratic Club,
the Police Officers Association and 100 or so more friends and neighbors and they support me and
endorse me because they feel that I am the most qualified candidate in this race among the non
incumbents. My eight years on the PROS Commission, my co-presidency of the Community Arts Foundation,
my co-chairmanship of Measure O set me apart. I'm somebody who works hard. I have a vision for
Wallen Creek. I look forward to your endorsement and your vote in November and thank you all for
being here. Thank you. Well I wanted you all to get your closing in but we do have time for maybe
a couple questions. One of them is split up. The first one is to incumbents and we'll ask Cindy
first and then Kevin. What policy decisions as a council member are you most proud of and what
What policy decision would you take back?
Policy decision I'm most proud of was the consensus that we managed to build around
Measure O. It's not often that you get the Chamber of Commerce to support a tax increase,
but I think we did a good job of laying out why it was important, what the accountability
was.
The thing that I am least proud of, you actually have to go back to the Planning Commission.
approve the chick-fil-a on North Main Street without asking enough hard
questions and that is one I regret. Kevin. Measure O is absolutely at at the top of
the list along with things like requiring our city employees to be
vaccinated against COVID while that wasn't a policy was a direction from city
staff is something I'm very proud of raising the pride flag and being more
responsive to the needs of our community it's not so much policy based but being
responsive to all these areas when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusiveness, for
example. And now everything that we're doing is seen through a lens of that. For example,
when we do outreach to the community for our commissioners, we now look at that and how
we can appeal to even more people thinking about DEI. So those are the kind of things
that we've given direction and that I'm really proud of. Again, the policies that we've done
are important as well, and I do appreciate the direction that the City Council has given.
I think it's important that we want to be able to combat climate change and help the
jobs housing imbalance by having the housing that we are required to do downtown, throughout
the city, be focused downtown where public transit is and where there is the infrastructure
for that.
So I'm very proud of those directions that we've had.
In terms of something that I wish we hadn't done, I think that there are things that we
could do when it comes to our budget that I think we can put a little more emphasis
toward.
For example, additional library hours, more hours the Trinity Center is open and finding
ways in our budget that we can help more people.
It's not so much reversing what we've done.
It's amplifying other areas that we could do even better in helping homelessness and
helping people that need it and that we can do even a better job across the city in helping
people that are less fortunate and even more affordable housing and those kind of things.
So it's not reversing.
It's actually taking even more of a step forward.
Okay.
Thank you.
I'll start with Laura and then go down the line.
So this is for the new people running for candidacy.
What policy decision of the current city council are you most critical and how would you have
done it differently?
I feel like current is such a broad term.
I'm struggling with that right now because there's policies that might be ten years old
but I'd like to change but I guess that's not current.
Okay this is kind of a mixed answer.
I'm really excited that the City Council passed the Sustainability Action Plan.
I'm glad that we have that on the books, but to me, it didn't fully address the fact that
it is a climate crisis, and I really would have liked to see slightly faster timelines,
more expansion on some of the items that are in there.
For example, there's the leaf blower ban, great, I know that that was a big win for
the community because we hear a lot about them, but it is limited to gas powered leaf
blowers, where there are a lot of other small off-road engines that we could have tackled.
It calls for small businesses and businesses in downtown to add bike parking, but it doesn't
have any requirements around the city providing that. And I recently actually
had an issue where they removed a bike parking near City Hall and I didn't
know where to put my scooter. It took me a little bit and multiple emails to
staff to figure out where the bike parking was. So I think it could have
done more and been a little bit more aggressive to address the existential
crisis that people are having around the climate change thank you Craig do you
need me to read it again or okay what policy decision of the current City
Council are you most critical and how would you have done it differently so I
think when I look at the things that have happened recently and the areas
that we could have improved on I will just start with one I thought that while
we did the pool, I thought it was a missed opportunity to really promote sports tourism.
I thought we could have gotten a deeper pool and maybe expanded on the existing footprint
instead of building essentially the same pool, the same resources in a newer location.
So I thought that was a missed opportunity.
I don't know if putting in the Chick-fil-A was necessarily the wrong decision, but I
I thought the process, as was mentioned, I thought the process was not good.
And I would have liked to have seen us spend more time talking to that community.
I know that's how the Woodlands community feels when I talk to them,
when I knock on those doors and have those conversations.
So I think there was a better process option there.
Right now the outdoor spaces for our dining, I know the businesses are really hurting.
And I know we couldn't keep them forever without transitioning to something.
But I don't think we did the best job of making those accessible to the businesses.
Their $80,000 to $100,000 infrastructure upgrade and
then the businesses have to rent them back for $45 a square foot.
I feel like the city tried to recoup all of its money on the up front,
instead of really trying to activate those spaces, increase revenue through sales taxes.
I felt like there's other cities that have done a better job of getting outdoor dining space.
We only have one business doing that right now because it's prohibitively expensive.
So, and the people in the city like that, right?
So I think that was a missed opportunity there or, and then I'd say,
I'd say police funding right now is an issue.
You know, we're 11 out of 13 for the surrounding community.
We're losing experienced officers.
We don't have our school resource officers anymore.
You know, safety is a big issue.
have also been endorsed by the POA and and I think that you know we really need
to prioritize making those folks feel needed and wanted and paid well thank
you Brendan let me read it one more time sort of what policy decision of the
current City Council are you most critical and how would you have done it
differently there's not one specifically but what I would say is that what we
need to do as City Council members if God willing I'm elected is work to help
spread the money around equitably. There's there's parts of the city which
could use a little bit more love in that maybe the golden triangle the shalings
and I say that because downtown is a wonderful place to work and shop and
live and we need to bolster what we can bring to the downtown area but more to
the point, we can't do that at the expense of other areas where it be the
north downtown. I think there's a ton of opportunity that we could do with
looking at the north downtown specific the west downtown specific plan. If you
drive back in the area between near Almond Shoey, there's a lot of
opportunity there. And I know that, you know, there was decisions made to help
bring the developers in, but we haven't seen a lot of boots on the ground and
shovels in the ground, so to speak. Um, I think that it's admirable that we have
allowed businesses to keep outdoor dining. I would like to see that path
smoothed a little bit more just so it's not so cost prohibitive because that's
one of the biggest things that helped us recover from covid. And I know that
people just love eating outdoors. So there's opportunities there. Um, and
more to the point is that we just need to make sure that it's an equitable amount of planning,
especially with the general plan coming up, is that we make sure that all areas are equally given
a bite at the apple. Thank you. Thank you everyone for staying a little later. I'd like to thank the
candidates for participating today. The Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau
for hosting, doing the research, interviews, organization, and everything that it is involved
in making today possible and the Chamber staff because it's just another opportunity to thank
them in public specifically Ariana who held up the yellow and red cards and Chris who picked up
the cards. I'd like to thank again Bob Lindshide and Matt Gushard our chair. Also want to thank the
Walnut Creek Library what a beautiful and serene place to host these things and Matt Bollinger of
City of Walnut Creek for supporting today's technology and recording this
session and it's on the city's YouTube so you can see it again on the YouTube
channel and I want to thank all of you for attending and caring this what makes
the city truly a gem of the East Bay and remember to vote thank you and have a
good day. Thank you and thank you Angela. You're welcome.