To lead San Leandro, elect Thomas, Pon and Tate
San Leandro wants measured and well-informed leaders to work by the monetary challenges and police staffing points that confront town.
Within the Nov. 8 election, one of the best selections are Lee Thomas for mayor and Kenneth Pon and Monique Tate for Metropolis Council.
Town’s cautious budgeting with stable reserves has helped them climate the pandemic, however the long-range forecast reveals years of spending exceeding revenues. Compounding the issue, funds on town’s $397 million pension debt are siphoning off funds, plus there’s a mounting record of unfunded wanted capital bills.
On the identical time, town, like most within the East Bay, struggles to assist the homeless inhabitants and fill key jobs all through town. That’s very true within the Police Division, the place, due to extreme understaffing, officers are recurrently working obligatory time beyond regulation. It’s the results of a confluence of occasions.
Town, which had been traditionally supportive of its police, divided when an officer in 2020 fatally shot 33-year-old Steven Taylor inside a Walmart retailer across the identical time that the nationwide police defunding motion was accelerating. Town grew to become one of many first to trim police funding.
The Alameda County District Lawyer’s Workplace later charged the officer, Jason Fletcher, who resigned from the pressure, with manslaughter, making him the primary officer in Alameda County in additional than a decade to be charged in a deadly police taking pictures. And the Metropolis Council this yr established a Group Police Evaluate Board.
The problem for brand spanking new members of the Metropolis Council might be in rebuilding group belief of the Police Division whereas shoring up its staffing inside the budgetary constraints town faces.
The problem for voters might be navigating town’s voting system. Like some Bay Space cities, San Leandro makes use of ranked-choice voting by which voters quantity their high preferences somewhat than choosing only one candidate. However San Leandro provides an uncommon twist: Metropolis Council candidates run in district elections primarily based on their residency, however voters citywide vote in all of the district elections, not simply the one they dwell in.
Mayor – Lee Thomas
Thomas, who served on the Metropolis Council from 2014-18, is a college supervisor for the Oakland district. He brings a mix of human sensitivity and an understanding of town’s coverage points.
He speaks from his expertise in his personal San Leandro neighborhood and dealing in East Oakland when he talks of the necessity to bolster the staffing of the Police Division and the necessity for East Bay cities to unite to offer regional providers for the homeless, somewhat than watching unhoused folks migrate from one metropolis to the subsequent.
Underneath town’s ranked-choice system on this four-person race, Juan Gonzalez is a stable second alternative. He’s an economist who makes a speciality of statistical and financial evaluation on the international KPMG accounting {and professional} providers agency. He desires to construct a tradition of cooperation between the council and cops.
Bryan Azevedo, a sheet-metal foreman, was unfocused regardless of serving almost two years on the Metropolis Council. Christopher Bammer didn’t reply to invites to take part.
District 1 – Kenneth Pon
Pon, knowledgeable accountant, former faculty board member and present member of the Planning Fee, is the standout candidate on this race.
He has a deep understanding of San Leandro’s funds and desires town to deal with public security and primary providers, equivalent to street repairs. He’s rightly involved concerning the short-staffed Police Division. And he neatly desires to get forward of town’s pension debt by utilizing an unbiased actuary somewhat than counting on the state pension techniques’ delayed accounting and unrealistic funding assumptions.
In distinction, Celina Reynes, a former highschool instructor and present regulation faculty pupil, doesn’t acknowledge the worth in Pon’s strategy to town pension debt and says that that is no time for town to follow austerity. In brief, she doesn’t grasp the basics of San Leandro’s present monetary scenario.
As an alternative, our suggestion for a No. 2 vote beneath town’s ranked-choice system is David Anderson, an Oakland faculty board trustee from 1987-92 who has lived in San Leandro for 19 years and is at present a member of town’s Senior Fee. Anderson understands the seriousness of town’s underfunded pension fund and helps rising the variety of town’s cops whereas reforming division practices to protect towards abuses.
District 5 – Monique Tate
This race options two weak candidates, each of whom must be taught much more about metropolis funds and the problems the council will face within the years forward.
Their expertise getting ready them for a Metropolis Council seat comes primarily from the varsity district. Tate is a member of the San Leandro faculty board, the place, amongst different issues, she accredited inserting the district’s Measure N bond measure on the March 2020 poll. Bowen is on the district’s bond oversight committee.
Sadly, neither appeared to grasp how the tax charges for these bonds are decided, a lot much less the very massive tax burden the district’s sequence of measures has positioned on householders.
We suggest Tate due to her elective workplace expertise and her recognition of the necessity to rebuild group assist for the Police Division.
