Walnut Creek doesn't have the identical political vitality it did two years in the past, when anti-police protests and the pandemic fueled a crowded metropolis council race.
The 4 candidates — two newcomers and two incumbents — vying for a pair of at-large seats within the upcoming November election are considerably extra aligned on broad political points and the stakes are far much less dire.
A thriving outdoor-dining tradition has allowed the downtown financial system to totally rebound, whereas a proposed half-cent gross sales tax might carry the town much more income.
How ought to Walnut Creek evolve subsequent? Right here’s the place the candidates stand:
Matt Francois
A primary-term councilman and this 12 months’s mayor, Francois credit the town’s accountable improvement requirements in calling downtown and its outdoor-dining tradition “the envy of quite a lot of different cities within the Bay Space.”
Francois, 53, has voted with nearly all of the council on most selections with bigger political implications, together with new legal guidelines to maintain anti-abortion protesters away from Deliberate Parenthood sufferers and make gunowners maintain their weapons locked up at house.
Approaching these “various points” got here as an adjustment for Francois, a land-use lawyer and former metropolis planning commissioner who's extra vocal about his opinions on housing coverage than social points.
He's cautious of sweeping California laws that has taken away the ability of metropolis councils to resolve whether or not property house owners can construct secondary items for his or her single-family properties or if BART can develop large-scale housing on its property.
“The state takes a broad-brush method to housing, as an alternative of a surgical method,” Francois stated. “It could possibly construct resentment after we’ve already deliberate for the variety of items that the state has informed us to plan for. We’re doing our fair proportion; (state officers) must deal with companies and authorities companies that aren't doing their fair proportion.”
Francois does assist dense housing close to downtown, however says the “low-scale, low-rise nature of the retail institutions we've got there” ought to proceed to comprise the “feel and appear” of the town’s business district.
Cindy Silva
In workplace since 2006, Silva, 68, has seen the town by means of quite a few new legal guidelines and developments. However she resists providing concise opinions on the town’s main points — insisting, relatively, that the council’s incremental work needs to be handled with nuance.
“Fast-fix options normally symbolize a lack of know-how of the main points or the complexity of the problems,” Silva stated when requested about how the council can incentivize Bay Space companies to ship employees to the town’s out there workplace areas.
Like Francois, Silva believes the state usually tries to assemble housing in “one fell swoop,” saying Walnut Creek is already “approach forward of the curve of most cities” in planning dense housing complexes close to downtown.
Silva, who served this 12 months as president of the League of California Cities, believes fewer automobile journeys and higher pedestrian paths are key to combatting the local weather disaster. Having a walkable purchasing district downtown has made Walnut Creek much more engaging a vacation spot than cities with massive indoor malls, reminiscent of Harmony and Pleasanton, she stated.
Silva additionally defends the council’s resolution to spend 1 / 4 of its federal COVID-19 aid final 12 months on hiring extra law enforcement officials and shopping for further legislation enforcement devices after a brazen mob theft of the downtown Nordstrom.
“It was a speedy, decisive response, however one shaped on a complete lot of knowledge,” Silva stated.
Laura Patch
As a baby rising up in Orinda, Patch remembers spending many afternoons with pals in downtown Walnut Creek watching motion pictures, shopping the previous Barnes and Noble (a brand new location not too long ago opened) and snacking at California Pizza Kitchen. These are diversions typical of life in a developed suburban city.
However Patch, 33, now needs the town to evolve additional — envisioning Walnut Creek because the metropolitan anchor of Contra Costa County with tall buildings, non-vehicle transit choices and housing constructed atop ground-floor companies.
“I need to be sure we’re making selections that construct Walnut Creek as a metropolis, versus a sleepy little suburb,” Patch stated. “I do know that’s a bit controversial as a result of folks have lived right here for thus lengthy, but when we’re going to resolve the local weather disaster we have to construct with these concepts in thoughts.”
A senior product supervisor on the Sierra Membership, one of many nation’s largest environmental organizations, Patch has labored at a number of nonprofits and lived in several Bay Space cities earlier than shifting to Walnut Creek in 2018 with goals of city-wide bicycle trails and environment friendly bus strains seen in Norway and Eire.
When a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 met a forceful response by Walnut Creek police, Patch remained at house out of concern for her dad and mom, who're high-risk for COVID-19.
However she and her canine have been compelled to depart their house after tear fuel deployed by police throughout the road made it tough to breathe. She needs to carry again city halls for residents to weigh in on police ways.
“We want neighborhood areas the place you may handle points like institutional racism and mental-health discrimination.”
Brian O’Toole
As an lawyer, O’Toole, 46, spends most of his time steeped in paperwork to handle senior residents’ estates. As his household enters its third era in Walnut Creek, he needs to ensure his kids can affordably reside and work on the town.
On the similar time, nevertheless, O’Toole stated he's annoyed with what he describes as the town’s lax oversight method to improvement, particularly housing: “We’re beginning to put tasks earlier than folks, numbers earlier than neighborhoods.”
O’Toole’s inspiration for working was the town’s redevelopment in 2014 of the Encina Grande Procuring Middle on closely trafficked Ygnacio Valley Street — a course of that attracted a brand new Complete Meals location to exchange each the previous Safeway and Walgreens shops there.
O’Toole had labored as a grocery bagger at that Safeway within the mid-Nineteen Nineties and stated supply vehicles twice every week would drive into depressed loading docks from a service highway behind the shop to unload items, he stated. The service highway separates the shops from neighborhood backyards.
The a lot bigger Complete Meals makes use of the dock space for storage, and as an alternative unloads at road stage each night time, which could be very noisy, O’Toole stated. He blames metropolis officers for granting the venture and not using a sound wall and needs extra cautious oversight of future developments.
O’Toole additionally doesn’t imagine the town has the infrastructure to assist fewer parking spots and extra buses, saying the council ought to as an alternative “accommodate the realities of households which have kids.”
He additionally opposes changing workplace area with extra housing, and he’s skeptical of the town’s proposed half-cent gross sales tax, saying authorities needs to be extra prudent with its present funds.