Crime/Safety
A Comprehensive Plan For Community Safety
One of the greatest issues affecting our city is community safety. During the campaign, I discussed a comprehensive plan to reduce crime throughout Salinas. It's a plan that brings together the elements that have been shown to work by the most successful police departments in America, including:
- Giving police the staff and resources they need
- Putting more officers on the street where they can form closer relationships with the people on their beats
- Involving community groups, businesses, churches and neighborhoods -- to prevent crime before it happens.
As with most hard problems, crime won't be solved by simplistic solutions or empty slogans. It will be solved by putting together the kind of multi-dimensional plan that's been proven to work in other cities. We know how to do it. If we share the vision, we will do it.
What's been done so far:
For the first time ever, the City of Salinas has a Director for Community Safety - a newly appointed position to help build strong neighborhoods with community based solutions for peace. The Director will work in conjunction with the Community Safety Alliance, a group of seven leaders who are spearheading a city-wide effort to address community safety. The Alliance includes local artists, community members, business professionals, education leaders, key non-profits, the faith community and law enforcement. Earlier this year, the City Council approved, $1 million for prevention programs, effective next budget year.
Economic Opportunity
The economy of Salinas sometimes looks to be caught in an inescapable trap, one built from skyrocketing land costs, competition from cheaper labor markets, the decline of our primary industry and the flight of our best and brightest.
The simplistic solution: “economic development”. The harsh truth: Our city government—like our county government—lacks the resources to solve this problem on its own.
Despite the seriousness of our present economic problems, I am full of optimism for our future. I believe that if we look again at those problems, we see that they are not only telling us what is going wrong, they are pointing towards what will go right.
That’s because the problem is structural. A city government does not have the power—and ours lacks the money—to solve such a problem. Furthermore, a faltering economy starves the city government of tax revenue, weakening it further. Thus a faltering economy can set up a feedback cycle, similar to the cycle of decline that afflicts crime-plagued neighborhoods, discussed earlier. It is critical for us to understand and apply the systems-level solutions needed to break out of such feedback cycles. One-dimensional fixes can only chip away at parts of the problem.
Despite the seriousness of our present economic problems, I am full of optimism for our future. I believe that if we look again at those problems, we see that they are not only telling us what is going wrong, they are pointing towards what will go right.
In economic terms, our problems are telling us to “move up the value chain”:
- Land too expensive to grow our crops profitably? — Use the land for higher value purposes.
- Foreign workers cost less? — Train our workers for higher value work.
- Traditional industries declining? -- Create an environment that encourages new industries—and that encourages older ones to reinvent themselves.
- Losing the most productive young people? — Give them reasons to stay.
How to do these things? By realizing that the story of our future is The Salinas Valley Meets The Silicon Valley.
This does not mean that we pave over the Salinas Valley for chip and software companies. It means we can create the same environment for innovation and entrepreneurship found in Silicon Valley. And we use it to foster industries based not on silicon but on biology and agriculture. It happens that biology and agriculture are the areas of greatest future economic growth, and it happens that Salinas is ideally situated to benefit from that growth—if we recognize the opportunity.
What's been done so far:
The city took a big step forward in this arena with the hire of an Economic Development Director. The Council also set aside money for a series of Economic Action summits that will focus this year on central city revitalization, alternative energy, nanotechnology and the biomass substitutes for petroleum-based products; bio-fuels, bio-resins, bio-lubricants, bio-plastics, and bio-packaging. The City of Salinas needs to lead the effort to revitalize our local economy, and to promote ecological health for the benefit of the community.
Additionally, we have proposed the creation of a special Youth Enterprise Economic Zone. The goal will be to attract recreation, entertainment and retail businesses geared towards younger citizens. Economic activity centered on youth will help expand the tax base, provide job opportunities for young people and help address the concern that there are too few opportunities for youth entertainment. This is a young city, and it is essential that we continue to advocate for this constituency, promoting positive alternatives every step of the way.
Image
The Town Hall meeting on Image focused on the Arts, City Beautification and Code Enforcement. Not only do Beautification efforts help with the overall asthetic of community, they can help attract tourism and support economic revitalization. Current initiatives include a City Flower Contest. Community groups and major employers have committed to efforts to clean up medians and plant trees. Salinas' extensive creek system could become a nature pathways program for biking, walking and running. Salinas has untold opportunities to become a leader in the "green revolution". What City is more logical than the worlds's biggest garden, to become green?
I also support the reinstatement of the Salinas Arts Council,and that effort is now underway. The range of arts interests in this community is deep and wide - whether it's promoting the arts, participating in the arts, arts as an agent of social change, public art, or arts for economic development. By nurturing the arts through our institutions we can transform this city, even at the level of community safety: Young people excited about their ability to dance, play an instrument, sing, design buildings, or develop software know there is a better avenue in life than joining a gang.
Speeches
Here are links to recent speeches:
