welcome to the league of women voters twenty fourteen election coverage i'm this with with the league of women voters of berkeley albany and emeryville this is one of a series of programs designed to showcase candidates for berkeley city council and the berkeley school board and today meeting candidates from district one which is in the northwest quadrant of the city from left to right we have linda mile  merrily mitchell welcome you will ask each of you the same question and you all have one minute each of you will have one minute to answer and well that rotates so that first will begin with linda next time we'll have all the kinder and next time we'll have merrily and rotate around so you'll each have a chance to be first and a chance to be last and accept a direct statements or said that with a rebuttal will be allowed and that will not count in the time so let's begin with you linda remember we have one minute and this is a general question so you'll have to prioritize what are the highest priority needs for the entire city of berkeley let me begin by thanking the league for having this form for the candidates appreciative a great deal we have different needs in different parts of the city but i think overall one of the overarching concerns in the city across the city are public safety and adequate services for that basic services sort of like housekeeping after that there's different sectors that are experiencing different issues in particular we have an affordable housing what i would call a crisis in the city of berkeley we have people who are seniors who are on fixed incomes who are looking for places to live even if they must live together because they really can't afford to live in berkeley and it's not just berkeley it's the it's the whole east bay actually because we're feeling a lot of pressure secondly i think there's a mental health crisis in berkeley we see people on the street who really shouldn't be there and we have and that's absolutely true but we shouldn't be in a crisis mode right now i have a solution to solve that problem that's the windfall profits on mega landlords here who are really raising prices on rent but extracting our money out of this town we need to have that money come back and i have a plan for that also minimum wage we have a lot of minimum wage employees here in this town but yet we don't have an adequate minimum wage to make a near living sunshine is one of the sunshine in our neighborhoods as well as government and what i mean in our neighborhoods when they come to do development the big development and then another development com they block the sunshine shining in the windows and the same thing in individual homes in that single family home neighborhoods and what happens is that the house i guess  i'm comfortable being looked at that close so you're going to have to look someplace else so what what happens is is that windows some light coming through windows is twenty five percent efficient and that's way better than solar and when we block that and so development is a big thing taking parking from people selling off parking lots for nothing to build affordable housing that's political base housing as far as i'm concerned and the developer controls the price so it's never affordable and my down yes thank you very much ink you a minute goes fast now let's move to your district district one what are the critical needs in your district and how do they differ from the rest of the city yes i've been fortunate enough to be legislative aide on the berkeley city council five and a half years i've seen the issues in district one rise up and essentially there's several components to what district one needs one we need  air quality we have manufacturing in west berkeley and recently i have helped the residents in west berkeley there was ninety three residents business owners and employees who have passed the city over  the last fifteen twenty years some responsible it's on the air quality issues they haven't gotten that and so i'm going to be leading that charge and i've been working with the residents to do that that's one issue we need a crime reduction obviously and so i believe that we need to have a gun and bullet buyback program open did that san francisco does that we need to do that moreover we have traffic issues and that's why i ask everyone to vote for mr beebe we need traffic control pictures in berkeley and affordable housing again and we need a responsible represented in district one and i will be that person thank you merrilee ok when i asked residents in district won the to the come up all the time of our development and parking in the park and then assume i don't drive a car but what happens is it's duplicitous the problem is is that the current city council members are selling parking lot for like a dollar for developers to develop so called affordable housing the turns out never to be affordable and meanwhile the university is flooding the city and there are up to forty five thousand students now thirty and i thought that was the feeling and so they're floating it they don't know where to go the residents can't park downs they get one ticket and they're gone off to else rid of they have to drive more so forget the climate action plan because it doesn't work if they're forcing those people to drive more and so there i agree on the air but they set this the bare boards tom bates i mean the head of it people at time they step they've set the bar so high that they're not it's ridiculous whatever they do thing they never get stuck ok thank you merrilee linda gray thank you so air quality is really a major issue in quite west berkeley this city doesn't have statutory authority over that the air district does but we work with them very closely and i've done that since two thousand and eight and since that time we've we've conducted a health risk assessment we've had monitoring their pecans they just to see just what's in the air we've done a lot of work with the  major we still have work to do but you keep working on those issues water quality and flooding is a big issue in district one that's where the water goes when we have a major storm which we should hopefully have soon and the tide is high so it just hits right there and back up into west berkeley it's not just the flooding but there's also water quality issues that maybe i can address later thank you thank you a minute is very short it is your yes it was raised  about development berkeley has a really unique culture it's a great culture and style that some of us think is one of the best parts of living here we have a robust artists and community especially in west berkeley we have mom and pop stores and we want to buy berkeley is it possible to retain that culture in that style and still have the development that we need for some of these issues we've raised like housing merrily well it's too much development and the development that they're making for example the building that in the papers eighteen story building of the bank of america i would rather keep the bank of america the eight hundred story building we have so many variances in the variances dumbed down to high standards that we have in the code and they want to go zoning board we've got of the same people on the council pretty much for years and so it's stacked on the zoning board so that you they agree with all the various things so that what that does a friend of mine says is making you know really really poor building and in the future we're going to be paying for them they're going to need all kinds of retrofits and so i believe we can do it but i believe that the plan the mayor's plan for the big development is is not and i believe that most people have no clue even what i've interviewed three hundred people and they don't know what plan b area is which came in last summer and it sets up a regional government and we don't have we're not going to have any power in the morning you merely thank you linda cole thank you so years ago when we passed a neighborhood preservation ordinance we made an agreement actually culturally city wide that we wouldn't put major development in the neighborhoods we're protected so we need to have more housing for people because berkeley has a housing jobs  balance more jobs fewer housing units so where do they go if they don't go into the neighborhoods which we all totally agree with then they have to go in the major corridors in the development has to go downtown that's why  focused so much on the downtown because we have good pop up transit there in my district the cars come flooding in from the north through our neighborhoods and that's not ok the commute traffic just has to be cut and one way to do that is to actually bring people to live in the downtown where we have transit ok thank you alexandra so i think your question is about how can we support the business really it's can we keep the culture of small businesses are the same community and so on and still have the development that we need ok so we need to streamline permitting to support small businesses we need to close a corporate poll and when we have a vacant store front for longer than a year we need to tax them because when those storefront is vacant we have less traffic and it hurts everyone the council had an opportunity including the incumbent to create of the forty's they can store fronts and it was not done and it's still put up over and over and over including this last council meeting and so i think we need to encourage more co ops like she's born and we have  administrative board that that offers of small business loans and i think we should be able to do that and really promote that program and really at the end of the day to increase minimum wage to substantial level because the more money people make the more money they spend and they spend at the local level thank you so we're talking about development on the topic of economic do i get the answer you began or do you mean recognize that we're  and thank you for that but on the topic of economic growth and development so adding adding in the economic growth piece one other measures on the ballot is measure our which seeks to make changes to our current downtown plan the downtown so we could actually have that rich environment down there and support all of the things that we want down there including housing money to go into affordable housing and now this  measure on the ballot will just turn back the clock on all that work that was done it's really unfortunate that it happened that way if there could have been some changes maybe they could have been proposed as the council has flexibility to change the original measure in this new measure which i oppose you can't change anything once it's set in stone it's set in stone thank you alejandro so measure are this measure are as a result of the city councils a sexually being for developers without community benefit and what measure are does is i have a list here that i that i wanted to share with with the viewers one it's revising the green vision and what that means is we get part of bike bike parking for every room that's developed eleven eleven electrical charging stations per building we get on site units of affordable housing ten percent guaranteed with an additional ten percent option and the developer can either pay or build them and that's a potential twenty percent on site affordable housing and that is so important if we're trying to have a diverse community and keep a multimeter of economic background around common which are so important if we're going to have a democracy and the buildings that are there when the we had a pack i went to every meeting and people said keep the down that commentary with the post office city hall scepter the farmer's market very keep that exactly the way it was an everybody agreed everybody that i remember and it's because of the trees and the sunlight and the beautiful buildings and you know you have your council meetings you go to the post office you see your friends rather than the vision of the plan there is that people don't know about is really tall buildings fast buses the don't really take the people or ride buses where they need to go and so  we i want to protect those commons and the other parts of this measure are really good does what i was saying about the variances they they say no you've got to having read buildings that we always talk about don't do and we need that because there is protect the people and prevent earthquakes etc thank you we've talked a little bit about the climate action plan when and when we first formulated that there said that we wanted a climate action plan berkeley voted for it with over eighty percent so i think we have a real strong support in our community and we've now put together that plan and we've got recognition internationally and nationally but how effective do you really think that climate action plan is and what if anything should we do differently alejandro thank you for the question you know as as a legislative aide i've overseen quite a number of in terms and number one thing we need to do is have a sustainable funding source so that we can actually get things done what i think we ought to do is if we're asking residents in solar rise their their houses why in the cities solar rising their buildings secondly i believe we firmly need to have electrical charging stations in berkeley richmond surpasses us and all kinds of other areas when my aunt comes to berkeley she's always looking where do i charge my electrical car and we need in solar cells and just little bit and so when we block that by big buildings for all the affordable housing which to me is political base housing because we don't ever get what we want it's not very good and so it's political base housing because the machine that's been berkeley for many many years is they can if they're not like homeowners we're down to forty one percent homeowners but they can turn out people they have to get in those buildings patrick kennedy whatever and they hand out little flag cards and they tell you to vote for whoever obama say and then all the taxes and whatever but we have taxes glore the thing about the the plan it's phony green baloney because it takes the people in berkeley out of their residents who pay the taxes out of their cars they can't shop locally they gotta go out of the city and then the university is flooding in that shows the phony despair there are other ways if i could i could point to them the charts and stuff like that it's been phony all along i do they did for take three years because the phon we what we know is that even if we we will look at the outer years we know we're going to we're going to need definitely help from the state particularly in cafe automobile standards but berkeley has a chance to join with other youth their communities to do community choice aggregation which means we pull together and buy our power together ourselves so long name for doing that and if we can do that we hope to be able to drive the market so that we can push for more solar for more wind for more sustainable energy it's going to happen on that larger level much just in berkeley thank you so for the last question we'll each have forty seconds instead of a full minute which is even more challenging and i'd like to go back to the ballot for this one one of the measures is measure d which would impose a general tax on distributors and sugar sweetened beverages so let's start with you merrily what are you feeling i measure am for it because of education reasons we need to do something but it was unconscionable that the last minute that which is supposed to be for alternatives the money for alternative and they put it in the general fund when this runs program i was i couldn't believe it but i'm still for the concept because we need to educate people but i have an idea for example we should try with things like this when you start doing things right away because right in front of berkeley high you could have a food court instead of have the kids go to mcdonald's and get their cokes and junk they can you would only have a really healthy food like zachary i think the whole wheat oh thank you ok linda good so this is this critically important our kids are being hospitalized for diabetes at an alarming rate now we chose to put in there on that would only need fifty percent plus one of the voters because we wanted to pass the industry will throw tons of money at this the fact is we have supports all across the city from organizations from churches from health care big authors are where we will make sure that money is spent on our kids the important thing is for us to understand who's funding the opposition which is the soda industry the beverage industry and make sure we vote yes on measure day which i am on the executive committee for in november to address our kids crisis in health thank you alexander yes in two thousand and twelve i h rich men with their measure unfortunately we lost there i support the measure here berkeley but what lessons are learned is that voters don't like general fund measures but on council if if i get elected i want deafening make sure that this money goes to health issues you know latino and african american you are at it alarming rate being disproportionately affected from you know the beverage sweet beverages and you know i can just look at my friends from high school and to give each two minutes to tell us why we should help for you linda ok thank you i'm purely running on my track record i've been on the council for a couple of decades now and i started off creating a loney park with my neighbors i then started a nonprofit housing organization which has gone on to do wonderful things very early in my career i eliminated thirty three guns dealers from kitchen table gun dealers i'm now there you focused on the things that i talked about earlier improving our watershed and continuing to work on slowing that water down cleaning it up so that what we put in the bay is not polluted we all need to look at our what happens in our streets we know what sin in the gutters well when there's a big storm guess what that all lands in the bay and so it's important for us to slow that down to make the watershed improvements in the plan that i put forward hancock assembly member skinner the entire berkeley school board the building trades members of the library foundation there are very many more over one hundred fifty linda mio dot org that people can actually go to i particularly concerned too that we step up and address the mental health services that are abysmally in our city every time we see a person on the street that's on the street in crisis they should not be there we should have  that address thank you ali thank you i'm running because i feel like there's a void in leadership in district one there's been a long time working across the hall from district one where eventually people call our office and i've been working councilman worthington's office and i saw district one problems with and also i look there's nobody between the ages of thirty one and fifty nine on the city council i mean that's three decades there's nobody was school age children you know on council and that's also a missing piece you know i come from a family of activists and i've been doing activism work since i was fifteen years old and i have a drive by the passion i love people i love to work for people i like to solve issues district one needs that type of leadership we need to end privatization of our city workforce and that's why divorce worth i endorsed me that's why i see are you ten twenty one endorsed me that's why the labor council did a dual endorsement because not many people can get a do indorsement when they're facing the challenge and then come back for twenty two years gale mclaughlin the mayor of richmond supports me because she knows i'm a true environmental leader i believe in a regional approach to air quality controls and that's i went to the beer air quality management district last week to fight for their state for their struggles because i know they're going to come and help us fight for ours and i'm a true fighter for the people and i will be fighting for district one and i hope i can get your support thank you ok i'm i'm a real independent but i like many of the people like andrea if you go on the council of joe i can but many everybody on afro american in many latinos and in ever americans they said it was for alternatives and then slam dunk i didn't even know i got up speaking for it because i favor doing something about it it goes into the general fund and there's no strings that's not ok and so i i i watch and i see this all the time with things the climate action plan truly is phony and in many ways and so we're not getting to all those little wonderful things that are there that everybody should be doing and we're losing it but guess what you see made their grade two years ago or three years ago guess why because they're flooding our city with cars and we're paying for the homeowners are getting stuck with it they don't pay for the cars just go downtown i can hardly breathe when i go downtown which is often when i get home i cannot i cannot smell a rose for four or five days and so if the air is really bad it shouldn't be bad downtown but it's all this traffic from people that shouldn't be there you see shouldn't be flooding our downtown are our own people should be able to go there and keep our small businesses alive but instead we have seven walgreen's hobo tell me he said ok and there's all kinds of phony baloney there was no opposition to the mayor's plan to do all this wonderful development that linda told told us about i'm not going to go into who did it but he's sitting here and when he knows he dropped the ball there was no opposition at all and so  i was trying to look down here at some of the sunshine issues and the but see i'm sorry the thank you like to thank the candidates it was very interesting and it seems like a short period here just a half an hour to get through all of this so for more information you can look on the op for on either candidates or ballot measures go to smart voter dot org which is a league web site you can also go to the league website for the league of women voters of berkeley albanian emeryville that's easy to remember the first three letters of each of those l w v b a dot org we will be posting pros and cons and will be for candidate information the do go to smart voter dot org so thank you all for watching and don't forget to vote