California State Senate District 13 Candidate Forum and Links

Wednesday evening a forum featuring five of the six candidates running to replace California State Senator Jerry Hill was held at the Menlo Atherton High School Performing Arts Center Theatre. The five candidates present included Josh Becker, a public policy innovator; Michael Brownrigg, Council member and former mayor of Burlingame; Alex Glew, a licensed professional engineer; Sally Lieber, former assembly women and Mayor of Mountain View, and Shelly Masur, Vice Mayor and Council Member Redwood City. Candidate Annie Oliva, a real estate agent, sent a message that due to a recent death she would be unable to attend. San Mateo County Supervisor Dave Pine was the moderator asking the questions that had been submitted and selected by the various organizations sponsoring the event.

Candidates had a chance to introduce themselves in opening statements. Then they were asked to name their top three most important issues. In one way or another most of them identified housing, transportation and climate although they prioritized them in different orders as to importance. However in subsequent question and answer sessions it became clear that their actions would in most cases nibble away at solutions in these areas. As an example, all the candidates present were against high speed rail even though transportation had been identified as an important issue. There were some bigger ideas such as a Zero Waste program proposal from Michael Brownrigg.

Candidates were also asked to vote yes or no on whether or not they supported SB 50 the senate bill that would have preempted local control of land zoning near public transit stations. The bill was introduced by State Senator Scott Wiener in January 2018 and would have applied to areas within one-half-mile of frequent transit corridors. The candidates present except for Shelly Masur were against it but Masur noted that she had worked with Senator Weiner to incorporate some changes and he had accepted them which led her to support it.

As a Climate Change focused forum there were also questions regarding climate change and sea level rise. Audience members were also invited to submit questions but either they didn't have time to get to them or not very many were answered. Certainly my question wasn't. My question was given the discussion about sea level rise (I should have also mentioned housing) whether or not candidates supported a floating community in there district and if so would they be willing to author legislation towards ensuring that the existing floating community continued to exist and even thrive. If you have a question feel free to enter it in the comments and I will consolidate all the questions and submit them to all the campaigns for answers and publish the answers.

The primary elections scheduled for March 3rd, 2020 are coming up sooner than voters may realize. Mail in ballots will be mailed out starting on February 3rd. and voting centers will start to open starting with three voting centers district wide growing to forty two centers a couple of days prior to March 3rd. For more information on the process visit: https://www.smcacre.org/smcvote

For more information regarding the candidates for state senate district 13 see:

Josh Becker - https://joshbecker2020.com/

Michael Browrigg - https://www.votebrownrigg.com/

Alex Glew - https://voteglew.com/

Sally Lieber - https://votesally.org/

Shelly Masur – http://shellymasur.com

Annie Oliva - https://annieoliva.com/

Don't forget to vote! Only the top two candidates will move on to the November ballot.