Neighborhood Organizations Candidate Forum Questions 

1. Santa Cruz needs more affordable housing for people who already live here. However, more units will create greater density in existing neighborhoods. If elected, how would you balance the need for housing with the desire to maintain the integrity of our neighborhoods? (2 min.)

The answer is to put density where the infrastructure can handle it, and to leverage infrastructure that is already built. This means high density affordable housing should be encouraged along urban corridors (such as Front St.) where public transit and essential household goods can be accessed on foot and by bicyle, and in mixed use developments along commercial corridors. This also means liberalizing the regulations governing ADUs to incentivize construction of these units, and putting programs in place that make it financially and legally feasible to bring existing units into compliance with zoning and safety regulations. This will make enforcement of existing ordinances a realistic prospect, thus reducing the impact of illegal conversions on neighborhoods, and rationalizing the dialogue on housing by eliminating the legal fiction that a huge percentage of the city's housing stock doesn't exist. We need to quit lying to ourselves about what is happening, and face up to the reality that exists on the ground in our neighborhoods.

Our neighborhoods are already dramatically affected by the informal conversion of single family residences into multi-unit dwellings by college students and young workers, which displaces the families that would normally occupy these structures, and significantly increases traffic and other impacts. This is the result of a regulatory regime that has failed to properly incentivize development of an adequate supply of rental housing stock. We should be facilitating the construction of significant numbers of SRO and high density small unit rental housing in appropriate locations, to restore a more normal pattern of housing occupancy. This is the way to maintain the integrity of our neighborhoods.

The current Council has put into place token reforms to the regulations governing SROs and ADUs, knowing the resulting changes to the pace of development will be minimal. This type of symbolic lawmaking is a dis-service to everyone - it continues the head in the sand approach to governance that has created these problems in the first place. We need real reforms that will have real impacts on housing creation; we need a authentically progressive agenda that has substance.

2. Residents of our neighborhoods are concerned about health and safety, the deteriorating infrastructure, and other quality-of-life issues. Given the City's current budgetary shortfall and limited tax revenues, what suggestions can you offer to solve the economic crisis in order to better meet the needs of neighborhoods? (2 min.)

Quite honestly, the real answer to this is to reform the way government is financed at every level in this state - until that is done, the options available to us will continue to be unacceptable - I don't see Santa Cruz redeveloping the beach area into a series of hundred plus unit luxury hotels, and I don't see us liberalizing commercial development to encourage construction of massive office complexes throughout the city; nor do I think our infrastructure is capable of handling this. Until taxing authority is returned to local jurisdictions, and the state's role in financing local government is minimized, our ability to raise revenue to address these issues will be minimal, and we will continue to be forced to depend on secondary revenue vehicles like the utility tax that were never meant to serve the purpose they are currently being used for.

However, I do see one alternative that can produce significant revenue for the city without totally destroying its character, and that is to focus energy and attention on commercial corridors and areas in our city outside of the downtown. Being economically dependent on the viability of a single area makes absolutely no sense, and serious distorts any kind of dialogue around issues related to downtown. We need to figure out a way to encourage economic development throughout the city, both to reduce the impact of development on the infrastructure of our downtown, and to maximize potential revenue. One vehicle that has been used to good effect elsewhere is the creation of business improvement districts - these provide a formal vehicle for integrating the concerns of merchants and property owners into the process of governance. Similarly, formal support for neighborhood organizations like yours gives an official voice to the concerns of residents throughout the city, and helps faciliate the growth and development of new leaders for the community as a whole. The real solution to our problems is the progressive ideal: empowering and enabling the residents and businesses of this city to develop their own solutions.

3. If you were elected, what qualifications would you bring to the City Council that would enable you to understand and respond to the needs of our neighborhoods? (3 min.)

My extensive leadership experience in the world of business and community organizing make me the most qualified candidate to reach out and develop successful programs that change the paradigm by which this city is governed. My progressive Green values favor decentralized governance that empowers neighborhoods and community organizations to take the lead in developing solutions to address our problems - as a City Council member, I would work to develop outreach programs that bring City Government into neighborhoods and communities, as has been done recently by the CPRB, for example. Every City Commission should meet in a neighborhood location at least once or twice a year, this would facilitate broader participation and increase the familiarity of the citizenry with the mechanisms of governance.

I have founded and run my own business (twice), and have served as both an employer and an employee in that process. I have served in leadership roles in nearly every organization I've been a part of - developing solutions that work for everyone is second nature to me. I am throughly familiar with the operation of City government, both through having served on two City Commissions/Task Forces in Santa Cruz, and through extensive civic involvement both here and in my hometown of Santa Monica, dating back to my teens and even earlier.

I have extensive contacts in Santa Monica, a community very similar to our own where neighborhood based organations and business improvement districts have been very successfully integrated into the city's political and policy making process, and I think their successes can serve as models for this city, and their failures as lessons in what doesn't work. We don't have to completely re-invent the wheel when it comes to developing better government.

I also have extensive experience at developing and deploying Internet based communications systems, and have been participating in on-line communities and on-line community organizing since the late 1980's. I believe that we can utilize technical solutions to develop cost effective ways to support community organizations and to strengthen neighhorhood identities and community ties.

Each candidate will have 2 minutes to answer questions 1 and 2, and 3 minutes to answer question 3. In fairness to your fellow candidates and to the audience, time limits will be enforced. You will be given a 30-second warning by the timekeeper, who will hold up a sign to that effect. You may finish the SENTENCE you are speaking at the time, but you'll be asked to yield the floor to the next candidate after that sentence is complete. The timekeeper will judge what constitutes a sentence.

Please note that the sponsoring groups consist of a loose coalition that has come together for this forum. As a group, we will not endorse any candidate. Speaking for Downtown Neighbors Association only, I assure you that it is our policy never to make endorsements as a group. Our members will make up their own minds individually.

We intend to begin the question-and-answer period at 7:30 pm.

We look forward to an informative evening and look forward to seeing you. If you have any questions, please get in touch with me via e-mail.

Sincerely,

Robert deFreitas (Downtown Neighbors Association)