On the issues: Candidates for Sacramento City Council D1 seat, representing North Natomas

The following interview was conducted by members of The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board and the three leading candidates for Sacramento’s District 1 city council seat, financial accountability manager Nate Pelczar, Natomas school board member and attorney Lisa Kaplan and realtor Alyssa Lozano. It has been edited for length and clarity.

The Sacramento Bee: Can you introduce yourself and tell us why you’re running?

Kaplan: To understand why I’m running is really to understand how I grew up and what I’m passionate about. I grew up in a small town in Oregon. My mom had got custody of her three youngest siblings when I was 15 months old. And so they moved from LA to Oregon, because that was where they could afford housing. So I grew up with my grandmother and my mother constantly instilling in me how to give back. You got to give back, donating to those less fortunate. My parents and grandparents were not college educated. So that was instilled in me at a young age. When I was an exchange student in Sweden, I ended up volunteering for a children’s after-school program, and in college I was a volunteer at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center for Children. In law school, when I moved to Sacramento in ’97, I found myself volunteering at UC Davis, in the children’s ward. That led to me joining Rotary after I graduated law school, because I was a Rotary exchange student. Through Rotary I met individuals who said, ‘You should run for school board.’ I was 26 and single and didn’t understand why they were asking me to do that. But what I found is that I had a passion — because this was my way to give back. In November of 2002, I was elected to the Natomas (Unified) School (District) Board. For me, this has been about investing in our future — a passion for investing in our kids. And so I’m running because I like tackling difficult issues. I got elected after 9/11 and the economic downturn, and when we had to make budget cuts. I was board president in 2020 when COVID hit, and you didn’t hear Natomas Unified in the news because we came together for our kids. We created a vaccination clinic, and we expanded Joey’s Food Locker. For me, running for city council is about using my knowledge and experience and tackling the issues of housing and homelessness and safety and the economic support of small businesses. I’m hoping to use my knowledge and experience and investment and love for the community as the next council member for District 1.

Lozano: I’ve lived in our community for over 40 years, and it’s truly been a blessing to be able to watch and be involved in the growth of our community. We need a council member who is attentive and ready to address complex issues that our community and city are facing. My priorities are public safety, job creation and smart growth. Growing up, my mom was a restaurant owner and my father was a police officer. They both showed me how important it was to be involved in our community. They raised me to be a fierce advocate and to truly have a voice for those that don’t have a voice. A perfect example of that was when I was three weeks away from my high school graduation, my best friend was raped and murdered in high school by the janitor at 17 years old. I found myself talking to news reporters and demanding answers from the school board and testifying in front of the State Senate, which was an instrumental part in getting a bill passed called the Michelle Montoya School Safety Act, authored by then-Senator Deborah Ortiz and Assemblywoman Barbara Alby. This bill ensures that the school district vets anyone around our kids, but that was just a start for me and for all that I have done for our community. As someone who has been in the real estate industry for over 25 years, I’m a champion for our community. Great realtors don’t just sell homes, we get involved in our communities and we do everything that we can to lift them up. I’m a firm believer in educating first-time homebuyers, and I’ve had the honor of helping hundreds of families achieve the American dream. I’ve been selling in Natomas for over 20 years and I will continue to do so as the next council member. My husband and I raised our two sons here. And the past 23 years have definitely kept us very busy. They showed me a lot about that community, being a lifeblood of our community and how important it is to raise a family in a great community. I’ve been a coach for girls and boys soccer. I’ve been a teen mom and North Natomas Little League scorekeeper. My commitment to this community is unquestioned.

Pelczar: I’m running for Sacramento City Council District 1, hoping to replace current vice mayor and city councilmember Angelique Ashby. I’m really happy to have her strong support and her endorsements along with Mayor Heather Fargo and Councilmember Ray Tretheway — that’s about 30 years of district leadership supporting me in this campaign and I’m extremely grateful. I’m also very happy to have the endorsement of Senator (Dr. Richard) Pan and former Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, along with the strong endorsement of Sac Dems. Each of these people and groups know who I am, and they know what I’ve done for the community and the value that I’ll add to the city council, once elected. It’s great to have earned their trust and their support and I hope to earn yours. A few more things about me: I’m originally from a small Rust Belt town in northern Michigan, and it’s known for — as I like to say — potatoes and car parts. It’s one of the most economically-depressed areas in the country. I grew up in a union family. I learned at a very early age from my father that we didn’t have a lot, but that it’s very important for us to help lift up those that have even less that can’t help themselves. So I am running for city council because of my commitment to service to the community. The proof of this in my many years of service to the Natomas Unified School District’s Bond Oversight Committee. I was a member and a chair, a founding member of the Natomas Dems Club with many years of service and strong support from my LGBTQ+ community, through the Stonewall Foundation, the Stonewall Dems and the Queer Dems. My civic work shows you that my focus is on improving and lifting up communities, especially minority communities. I want you to know that I talk the talk and walk the walk. I’ve got the experience that allowed me to hit the ground running on Day One. In my current role, I help run an environmental nonprofit that focuses on solid waste and recycling. I spent most of the last 15 years as a management consultant serving government, clients and private business clients; honing my project management skills, my budgeting skills, my auditing skills. I’ve got the skills and abilities that District 1 needs now, and I’m the right person to lead District 1.

The Sacramento Bee: We want to start by asking you all about the recent mass shooting in Downtown Sacramento. I wanted to provide some space to get your response to it. What do you feel is necessary in a moment like this to bring the community together?

Lozano: It was extremely tragic to wake up and hear what had happened. My first response was that I actually picked up my phone and I texted Chief Lester and I let her know that I had my team ready to go and ready to help however needed. I can only imagine how the family and our community is feeling. I’ve been there and had a tragedy in my life and we were able to be strong because of family, because of community joining around. I reached out to her. I also picked up the phone and I called Deputy Chief Oliveira and asked him, ‘How can we support and help?’ And then I went to church and I prayed because, ultimately, that is a big thing in my life and something that I need to do. We’re here, and I have myself, I have my team available and my team with the chamber, but also my team as a community. I have my campaign — but for me, it’s not about the campaign. It’s more of the team of the chamber. I’m the president of the Natomas Chamber of Commerce. I reached out to them also and said, ‘Hey, if you guys are available today, if needed, do some community outreach and just be there to comfort,’ and they were all on board.

Kaplan: Yesterday, I woke up and saw that and it really hit me deeply because I am still dealing with and reeling from the fact that three of our students were just recently murdered by their father. Those were our Natomas students. I was talking to those students and those community members. No parent should ever have to deal with that. While this is Sacramento, and they were adults, that’s still somebody’s child — somebody’s mother or father or aunts, somebody’s grandchild. This is a societal epidemic that has hit epic proportions in Sacramento. California actually has the strictest gun control regulations in the United States, but that doesn’t stop people coming in from out of state. It doesn’t stop ghost guns. It doesn’t stop being able to find a gun on the black market. We know that violence is up from 2021. There was a 25% increase in shooting reports. And a 34% increase in guns. I very much support the Sacramento Police Department doing their violent crime reduction strategy and reaching out to community groups because I think we need to rebuild trust from George Floyd. I see it in our schools. We have more mental health needs in our schools. That’s why we have social workers, but we as a society have to come together, because nobody should ever have to deal with gun violence and the senseless murder of individuals. We need to continue investing in our youth programs and working with our public safety officers on resolving this and funding programs that we know work.

Pelczar: I woke up to a text from a friend in Indianapolis who asked me if I was okay. That’s the first thing I saw, and I couldn’t understand what was going on until I went to The Sac Bee’s website and learned about the horrible tragedy. It was shocking. I’m still in shock at the loss of life, and my heart goes out to the victims and the victims’ families and the pain and suffering that they’re going through now, dealing with this absolutely horrible, horrible tragedy. This really speaks to a number of issues, not just in our community, but as Lisa said, across our society. We’ve got a mental health crisis. We’ve got an obscenely large number of guns in our community from any number of sources that are out of our control when it comes to regulation. A perfect example of that is the ghost guns that you can buy online and then create your own at home. It’s just absolutely mind-boggling. There’s a lack of support for folks that need extra assistance in our community. And there’s a lot of frustration and desperation among certain individuals in our community that lead them to commit atrocities like this. It’s truly a shame that it’s in our community. But I’m not surprised because of the lack of mental health care services that some folks need, and there’s a lot more the city and county can do together in partnership to get these folks the extra bit of help that they might need to ensure that they don’t do things like this.

The Sacramento Bee: If elected, you’ll be sitting on a council dealing with the aftermath of this particular crime and the perceived danger that people feel on the K Street Mall and downtown. If you are on the council, how much of a priority do you think our police department is? Is it as large as it should be? And if you were on the council, what would you do to address that?

Pelczar: I’m a strong supporter of police in their efforts to increase community policing to get more patrols on the road in areas that need the extra protection. One of the first things that I will do when I join the council is I will help find the extra funds that the city needs to support additional police officers on the street as a community policing initiative. When I spoke with Tim Davis, we talked about some of the issues that are present in the city — to the Sacramento Police Officers Association and the police — one of the things they talked about was how little police departments expanded over the years since the last big budget crisis back in 2010 and 2011. The city has grown by 50,000 people and the quantity of police officers on the street has pretty much remained the same with very few fluctuations, so they’re stretched to the enth degree. District 1 is a strong supporter — they want more police on the streets doing things like community policing. And for the downtown areas, specifically the K Street corridor, a lot of the businesses rely on convention-goer traffic, and if we have a district that is not safe, conventions are going to stay away. We don’t want a situation where we’ve got a dangerous neighborhood around the Convention Center — around any place in the city, really. So we do all we can to make sure that we have a police department that has enough bandwidth to get out there and to proactively build relationships with business owners and folks in the community and make sure that everyone feels safe in the community, especially the folks that are visiting town, so that we don’t encounter another tragedy like what we saw yesterday.

Lozano: Having a father as a police officer, I know firsthand what our police officers and their families are going through. It is instilled in me to build and continue to strengthen the relationship that the police officers have with our community. I’m not afraid to obviously have conversations with police. But not everybody feels that way. And we need to build on that trust. As a community member and as a community leader in the Chamber, I try to have the police out at every event that I have. They show up, they’re engaging with our business owners, our community members. I had a mini-basketball clinic with Bobby Jackson last year in Garden Land, Northgate and at the park, and the police showed up. They had a booth where they were passing out all kinds of gifts to the kids taking pictures. They had a water balloon fight with them. It was so great to see. I have had extensive conversations with the police department. They have 60 vacancies right now. That’s terrible. They are working a lot of overtime. We have the funds, we just have to be able to recruit. So as a council member, recruiting is top priority. We need to find out how we can recruit from within our own communities. That will also help build that trust there as well. It’s important to continue to build on the relationships and I feel strongly I can do that. I already have those relationships there.

Kaplan: I think it’s important to look at not just what I say, but what I’ve done as a Natomas school board member. We’ve invested and worked with the Sacramento Police Department. I have school resource officers, but we use those resource officers as relationship building, because we need to rebuild the trust in Sacramento. A lot of studies have shown a broken relationship between the police and the community. We do that by creating relationships. We also have, at Inderkum High School, a Public Safety Pathway, because we’re one of the most diverse districts in the United States and we need to invest in our youth, but also invest in those who may be interested in public safety. If you look at what I’ve done, you’ll see I believe in those community partnerships, but I also believe that we need to continue investing. Sacramento started, in January 2020, the mental health first response and I think we need to continue that and expand that because we have a mental health crisis and we have mental health issues with our homelessness. And so we need to look at ways that we can create safety downtown. Maybe it means getting more community resource officers out on the streets. We need to work with our communities on how we rebuild trust. And we also need to partner with our community-based care providers to expand safety and really be able to address that. I honestly believe that every family member wants a safe downtown (and) wants a safe community. And I think we need to listen to our community about what is best to provide that safety. But I’ve done that with Natomas: If you look at what we’ve done in providing that relationship building and exposure for our young students to become that next generation of safety leaders in Sacramento.

The Sacramento Bee: Natomas is largely insulated from the homelessness crisis. Councilwoman Angelique Ashby acquired a motel for a women and children shelter, but was also a skeptic of safe grounds and sanctuary campsites. Given the scale of this crisis and the deficit of shelter, would you personally welcome safe grounds into Natomas? And could you also talk a little bit about how you would endeavor to increase the relationship between the city and the county of Sacramento regarding homelessness issues?

Kaplan: Starting on homelessness and safe grounds, I am absolutely supportive of looking at that in our community. But I also believe when you look at studies of how Europe has addressed it and how other cities successfully address it, wherever a site is situated also has to be connected with services. How is it connected with transit? Are there support services close by? There’s a bunch of issues that we have to look at that make Natomas a little bit harder of an appropriate place. But while Angelique supported the Women and Children’s Center, I think we can’t forget our families. As an autonomous school board member in 2020, we worked with legal counsel to do a GoFundMe for our community and we raised approximately $35,000 for our homeless students and their families, which was 25 students plus family members. We put them in a South Natomas weekly stay hotel. We provided our social workers, our counselors, provided food, Joey’s Food Locker, we gave them clothing sizes. For 10 weeks, on $35,000, we were able to really understand how we help address these issues for our children and our students — to get them online during distance learning. How do we help the family members who may be living in their car just because of COVID and they didn’t have the resources to be able to pay rent? That is an issue that is very important to me. And with the support of (Sacramento County) Supervisor (Phil) Serna and Supervisor (Patrick) Kennedy, I think we need to work together. I think everybody in the public is so tired of, ‘It’s their fault.’ ‘It’s their fault.’ And, ‘We can’t do it.’ We want everybody to work together, and with my long standing relationships with Eric Guerra and Jennings and Serna and, even regionally, Mayor Bobby Singh Allen and Dawnté Early. This is a regional issue because guess what? Homelessness doesn’t stop at boundaries. It crosses boundaries. And so we need to come together and sit down and look at how we can address this. Every school district is responsible for knowing where our homeless children are. We need to work better and coordinate among local officials to find places and get those students that stability, because if we affect that change for a child, we’re affecting their future — less touches with the criminal justice system, more likely to be a responsible citizen and to be active. With the siting issue, that all goes together. Because it isn’t just a city issue, we have to work with the county. And that’s what I bring with my years of experience of actually addressing really hard issues. I’ve done that as a school board member. I’ve had to make budget cuts. I have partnered with the city, I’ve partnered with the county, and that’s what I’ll do as a council member.

Lozano: The homelessness issue has not escaped District 1. We actually have a lot of homeless that gather, there is garbage out there. It’s sad to see. I can say that I firmly believe, as a council member, that we have to all start working together. We also need to work in partnership with the county to provide full wraparound services, just like Lisa was saying. And that’s going to take effort. I actually had a 45-minute conversation the other day with Howard Chan, our city manager, and I actually have a site in mind for Natomas and for District 1, especially since the hotel that was identified for District 1 is now in District 3. I don’t understand why we’re not using the nice yard, where they are currently housed. They have trailers there and they have tiny homes there. And so if we were to take some of that yard that the city owns already, why would we not be able to coordinate that off? It’s on safe grounds. There’s a big wall there already, all the way around, to make sure that they’re safe. They’re actually camping right outside of that yard. I think it’s time that we have to start looking at that site as well. They can put in and have services available to them, such as mental health and substance abuse services. Last year, I spent 18 weeks going out and visiting different camps, and I would take them food. I would go out with the Fleet Beat where they would give us shoes, and I was able to go out and meet with them and talk with them and I learned a lot and I will take that experience with me and make sure that we’re starting to look ahead because it’s not going to be addressed by just giving them a place to live. We have to truly have services. And I have great relationships also with Supervisor Serna and I believe that we can get their help as well.

Pelczar: Homelessness is in our backyard. In fact, it was — for a while — it was about 15 feet from my back door and right at the edge of our community. There’s a large cinder block and stucco wall just behind my house. For the month of December, I had somebody who was living in the bushes for a couple nights — barking at my dogs, throwing garbage over the wall and then he miraculously disappeared. I’m not sure what happened. I don’t know if that man is safe, if he’s okay or if he’s getting the services he truly needs. There are a number of locations in Natomas where we could have a safe ground, but I’m a skeptic too, because it really, truly depends on the services — providing the services to these folks that they need. The ease of transportation, getting around to specific amenities like grocery stores. There are a number of boxes that need to be checked before we can seriously consider a safe grounds site. We certainly do need to consider those throughout the entire town. But we have to make sure that these folks are provided with a safe location and the services that will help them get back on their own. Regarding your question on partnership, I will leverage my existing relationships with a number of county supervisors to make sure that they are doing what they’re legally obligated to do and that we’re actively and proactively working with them to find solutions that fit the needs of the unhoused both in the city of Sacramento and the county. It’s time for us to work together in a productive manner, to quit pointing fingers at each other and to really hold each other accountable for doing everything we possibly can to come up with safe locations for these folks to have the services that they need, whether it’s mental health care, jobs training, jobs placements, housing vouchers — they need long-term solutions. They need services to help them get back on their feet, to be contributing members of our community again.

The Sacramento Bee: You all may know that the mayor has proposed a right to housing ordinance in an effort to compel local governments to provide enough shelter and housing for the number of homeless people in Sacramento. It would come along with an obligation to accept offers of shelter for individuals who are homeless. There’s also a similar ballot measure in the works that could be on the ballot in November. Do you support this sort of policy or some version of it?

Lozano: I 100% agree with the “right to housing” statement, we need a right to housing. I think that building some more — we have a few other apartment complexes that are coming up — and making sure we have affordable housing for folks. But as far as our homelessness, I just strongly say that we need to have full wraparound services. Just focusing on a site for someone to go to that doesn’t accomplish anything. We’ve been doing that now for months. I’ve heard mention of our council going and taking a look at Haven for Hope down in Texas. That site is a great site — they provide services, they have the services there. So I think that that is really the key; and creating a workforce to get them back and engaged. Our workforce is struggling as well, they need employees. I do like what the city is currently doing down on the waterfront district. I think that that is an excellent program. The right to housing is important. But I will say that a lot of businesses are frustrated. It’s a safety issue. They are looking for places that are safe to go to and that they don’t have to worry about being hurt by other individuals. We need to make sure that we’re providing areas that are safe for them to go to and provide them with services and then also even a workforce. And then hopefully they’ll be able to get on their own feet and be back in our society and feel good about themselves because that really is what I’m seeing when I talk with them.

The Sacramento Bee: This is going to be a really important issue for you to consider if you are on the council: The ordinance would create a right to housing or shelter. It would obligate the city to provide housing or shelter and it would create a legal right of action. And the idea is to create a compulsion for local governments to ensure that there actually is shelter or housing for people who don’t have it in the city. And it would also come with an individual obligation to accept that shelter if it’s offered. Do you support that kind of policy, and why or why not?

Lozano: I think anytime we can provide options for our unhoused: Yes, 100%. I support that. That is what we need. But we need full wraparound services also. Because we need to be able to offer that. I’ve gone out and I have talked with a lot of our unhoused people in their campsite. I would have to look more into what the requirements are for them if they’re getting housing. We’re still not going to be addressing the root issue. The root issue, I believe with a lot of our unhoused, is that they have mental health and substance abuse issues. And so we need to start addressing those as well. But to answer your question regarding the right to housing, I do support that, yes.

Pelczar: I think it’s important to put a finer tip really on what the policies are and really how it’s going to impact us in our community. I support a right to housing, and everybody deserves to have shelter. But through discussions with a number of stakeholders, this is going to cost Sacramento an absolute fortune — money that it doesn’t have. It would bankrupt Sacramento in two weeks. Now, I verified this with City Manager (Howard) Chan. We have had a number of discussions on housing and the options that we can truly afford. We need to be really strategic about the limited resources that we have and how to best use taxpayers money to provide solutions for the folks that need housing and those wraparound services. We have to make sure that we recognize what funding is available, what resources we have available within our city and in our region to address these issues, and then recognize those limitations and then hold ourselves accountable. We need to make sure that we have affordable housing, inclusionary housing. I did take a look at the proposal from the Metro Chamber and actually sat down with one of the developers and talked about ways that we can actually build housing quickly and cost efficiently in a way to get folks the shelter that they need. When I found that the Metro Chambers’ proposal was — that it was actually providing business owners and landowners with protections they need to operate as businesses. We’ve got so many unhoused folks impeding business’ ability to function as businesses. We need to make sure the city is stepping up to protect private property, the businesses that are severely impacted by the unhoused, but also simultaneously take the resources that we have and all the political will that we’ll have after the election in November, and start working with the county to do as much as we can as quickly as we can and as cost efficiently as we can using our limited taxpayer funding.

Kaplan: This is, again, not just a city issue, but a greater regional issue in how Natomas and the greater city was affected also during the flood moratorium — where we were building and then we stopped, which has increased the lack of affordable supply and housing that is out there. And then the city of Sacramento has an eight year housing plan that I think is a great plan that we need to implement. We need to speed up Accessory Dwelling Units getting constructed and built and making it a streamlined process for homeowners to do. We need to streamline the construction process. And that all goes into the right of housing. I think this has been something discussed since the ’40s when the UN first came out that housing should be a fundamental right and it should be something that everybody has. I’m an attorney. I have my own law firm. I work with school districts, architects and construction companies on building schools and then around housing mitigation agreements. It’s the details. What does this mean? What are the costs? So first, you have to look at: Where are the resources? How are we going to educate the community? And how are we going to implement this on the right to housing? The only way that you have to be successful to implement it is CCRI: the continuous cycle of learning and improvement. Do we have the adequate supply? Do we have the support to get it out there? Do we have the timelines to make sure that this happens? What are the pathways for compliance if it’s implemented and what’s audit accountability? I think it sounds great. And I believe everybody has a right to housing. But we need to look at the plans and the things that we’ve already done and bring people together. That’s why I have the support from many of these organizations who believe that I can get in and tackle these tough issues and bring those who inherently are on opposite sides together — from the building trades and the laborers and from the Apartment Association and from the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. They support me and my ideas of bringing people together to address these issues and do it in a right way that is detailed, that is specific, that has accountability built into it, because we can’t just throw something out there and expect it to work without the timeline and the progress. How are we going to hold each of us accountable for what we’ve promised? Here’s what the voters and the taxpayers want. They want us to use our taxpayer resources wisely. But they also want us to get things done. We’ve been talking about this. So let’s do it. Let’s implement it. And let’s hold ourselves accountable and responsible. There’s a plan. So let’s work together to get it done. And how do we know how to get that done? As a city council member, we work together and ask Howard Chan to implement that. I’ve been doing that for 20 years as a school board member. So I know how to do that as a council member if elected.

The Sacramento Bee: You all believe in the phrase “the right to housing,” right? But the ordinance would allow people to sue the city if they didn’t move quickly enough to create housing. Would you vote in favor of setting up benchmarks to where someone could sue the city if they felt that the council wasn’t moving quickly enough?

Kaplan: As drafted, without extensive detail, I am not supportive of the right to sue because funding has not been identified, appropriate benchmarks, accountability, timelines — it is in the details, and I believe more details need to be explained before I would be supportive of something like that.

Pelczar: I’m a numbers guy, I worked for the last 15 years as a management consultant helping some of the world’s biggest business organizations make very impactful huge dollar amount decisions. This one sets the city up for failure. We don’t have the funds to provide the housing — we simply don’t. And even with Measure U money and funds from the state and funds from the feds, unless there’s a windfall that will pay for it this will bankrupt the city. To leave ourselves open to being sued sounds like financial insolvency. So I do not support that as presented.

Lozano: I feel the same way. I would need to have more details. We are stewards of a large trust for a short time. I’m just not willing to say whether I am for something right now when ultimately I don’t have all the details. So I am all for housing — take the talking to stakeholders. We need to get cooperation from the city, the state, federal. I believe there’s a lot more funds out there that can help, but we need to see more details with that.

The Sacramento Bee: From smoke pollution and air quality to violent storms and flooding, the effects of climate change have and will continue to affect us all. Sacramento’s young people will continue to be affected if today’s leaders don’t act with urgency. What specific plans do you have to meet this moment and mitigate the effects of climate change in our region if elected?

Pelczar: This is a really big deal. As somebody who has helped run an environmental nonprofit for much of the last four years, I understand what’s at stake and the importance of taking action. The organization that I help run is the California Product Stewardship Council, and what we do is we work in solid waste and recycling. And we help hold accountable those that are producing products that are hazardous and toxic and contributing to the problems with climate change. With that as my background, I consider myself to be the green candidate in this race. And because I understand the scope, the enormity of the situation and how important it is to have the right skill set to move forward with proposals that will actually move the needle. I’ve had a lot of experience working with local governments across the state of California on ordinances that can be passed to help clean up the communities as well as writing laws and writing regulations and doing everything we can on a statewide level, too. So I’ve already been there and done that not only talking the talk but walking the walk. I helped accomplish some of these very important things. I know that the mayor has talked about a Climate Change Plan. I haven’t seen all the details, but a number of components within that plan are exactly what we need to do. But I want to make sure that we have all the right stakeholders at the table: the businesses, the residents, the minority groups that are impacted most by climate change. We have to have all these folks together in the room, talking about substantive things we can do to move forward. I think some of the things we can do are pass some ordinances to get certain types of packaging out of our waste stream. We can do other things as well, but we have to have a solid plan. We’ll start by bringing together the right folks into the room to make the decisions in consensus. And that’s one of the skills I’m most proud of is my ability to get diverse groups of stakeholders together in a room talking about areas where we can work together, where we are on the same page and not only the importance of moving the needle and reaching our goals, but actually taking concrete steps to get there. So I think a good place to start is to get folks in the room. Get that Climate Change Plan drafted. Get the right folks on board and pass ordinances and start making some very positive changes.

Lozano: It’s definitely something we need to be aware of. You’re right that there needs to be some urgency behind it. What I will do is really seek to the state and federal level and see if we can get grants. Water right now is such a huge issue even though we have rain in Natomas, so that was a good thing — a little bit today. As a council member, I would love to be able to offer our homeowner’s associations funds, to where they can then offer funds to any community member who would like to desertscape their home or their front yard. I’m big on building relationships. I’m very big on making sure that it doesn’t need to come from me as a council member. It can come from the HOA companies directly or the associations. And so I would work with them to make sure that they provide funds. I love that Natomas already has our regional Jibe Transit, and partnering with them as well — I actually partnered with them for two different videos and have promoted them as their chamber member. They do a lot of different things — offering bikes to our community members, walking school buses and I’ve been a big, big advocate for that for a long time because I actually did a video last year promoting their walking school bus. Those are things I’m currently already doing. They’re going to be having a bike swap that, as a chamber president, I’m involved with and helping provide bikes to Natomas Unified School District. It’s important to strengthen the relationships that we have with people with their feet on the ground — as a council member, that’s what I will do. But the funds can’t come from our city budget. The funds are going to have to come from somewhere if we are going to be tackling a lot of these issues. And I believe that those funds can come from the state and federal and I will advocate for that.

Kaplan: This is actually really personal to me. I’m a mom of two young girls — they are that next generation. They are Daisy and Brownie Girl Scouts, and I am their Brownie Girl Scout leader this year, and we’ve actually worked a lot on teaching them about sustainability and water and energy. SMUD has some great resources to teach them. I believe in not only talking about it, but walking it — so I am a walk-to-school bus leader, I do it for my girls’ school. I meet about 10 kids every morning and make sure they safely get into school because that also gives me time to talk to them about the importance of exercise and we walk mostly through a park. These are the things that every child deserves: Having a clean place to grow up. There are places in Sacramento where we need to plant more trees. We know growing up around parks and trees affects the development of their lungs. Sacramento already has air quality issues. Our children are aware of that — my children in kindergarten and third grade are aware of the effect of fires, not only just wearing COVID masks, but now understanding how hard it is to breathe smoke and the danger of what that can do for our lungs. The city of Sacramento did a climate plan, and there are a lot of things we could do. Importantly, I spent a year in Europe, so I’ve seen transit-oriented development, and we really need to invest in that — not just downtown, but why can’t Natomas be a hub where you’ve got mixed-use housing, commercial space on the bottom and housing up top that’s linked to transit that can get you anywhere you need to go downtown? We need sustainable land use. We need to do new construction and ask for continued electrification for small businesses. How can we incentivize businesses electrifying without going bankrupt? How are we supporting zero emission vehicles? As a school board member, we’ve taken the lead in developing — if you look at Natomas Middle School, we did the first green roof. We got a lot of flack for that, but we have to use our taxpayer dollar resources in a wise way. We showed by investing upfront that the maintenance of it was lower in the long-term. One of the biggest reasons our kids are not in school are asthma and breathing issues. How do we create our schools as a safe place? It’s all connected. We need our schools, our city and our county to work together because the biggest issue we have to work to do is reduce transportation. That’s where our missions come from. And that’s where I’m very supportive of transit-oriented development and expansion of jobs and other transportation resources.

This story was originally published May 26, 2022 at 6:00 AM.