Seven candidates are running in the March 5 primary to replace longtime California Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia as the District 36 representative in Sacramento.
On Dec. 11, Garcia announced that he did not intend to run for a sixth and final (due to term limits) two-year term, surprising many. He endorsed Joey Acuna Jr., then the only announced candidate, for the office he was vacating.
On Dec. 15, Garcia issued a statement explaining his decision not to run for re-election.
“Next year will mark 10 years of service in the State Assembly,” Garcia said. “Ten years of delivering for our constituents. Also, 10 years of commuting to Sacramento Mondays through Thursdays or Fridays—away from my family. My son was 10, and my daughter was only a few months old as I held her in my arms to take my oath of office. He is now a talented, creative young adult, and she is now a smart, charismatic 9-year-old. I can’t count the number of basketball games and back-to-school nights I’ve missed in this vocation. … Ultimately, I want to be present for more of these precious moments with them.”
Garcia started 2024 as either the chair or member of four standing Assembly committees and six select committees. It will be a challenge for his replacement to establish the breadth of legislative influence that he has cultivated over his decade of work.
“Together with my time in state and local government, I’ve dedicated 20 years in public service,” Garcia said in his statement. “I am proud of the innovative, equitable policy work we have been able to accomplish on behalf of our constituents. Importantly, the unprecedented resources we have delivered to address local priorities and rectify deep-set disparities. Public service remains a passion of mine, and I will always seek opportunities to serve my community and apply my experience to make a difference in people’s lives as I transition to this next chapter. Our work, our mission continue. We have another year to finish strong.”
District 36 includes far eastern Coachella Valley communities such as Coachella, Indio, Mecca and North Shore, as well as all of Imperial County; part of northeastern San Bernardino County, including the city of Needles; and portions of Riverside county south and west of the Coachella Valley, including Hemet. According to the CalMatters 2024 Voter Guide, voter registration in the district is 43.8% Democratic, 27.3% Republican and 21.3% with no party preference.
The Independent recently spoke with all seven candidates, and asked each of them the same slate of three questions. What follows here, in alphabetical order, are each candidate’s responses. They have been edited only for clarity and style.
Joey Acuna Jr. (Democrat)
Currently the president of Coachella Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees, Coachella resident Acuna has served on the board of multiple nonprofit organizations; he’s a founding member of the Coachella Valley Education Foundation and has served on the Imperial Irrigation District’s Energy Consumers Advisory Committee. Acuna works as a development manager for health clinics and as a grant writer for a local tribe.
“I believe that Joey is the best candidate to succeed me in the State Assembly and continue the fights to address climate change, build affordable housing, expand access to higher education, and improve mental health-care infrastructure,” Garcia said in his statement endorsing Acuna.
As of Feb. 10, Acuna had raised $229,000 (per the CalMatters 2024 Voter Guide) and has received at least 50 endorsements from high-profile individuals and organizations.
What are the two most important issues facing the constituents of District 36 in 2024, and what would you do to address them if you are elected?
Actually, there are three issues and they all tie together. They’re the main issues that we’ve been talking with people about: education, health care and infrastructure/housing. Education obviously has not only K-12 components, but workforce development components—college and career technical education and apprenticeships. So there’s a lot about education that also helps with our workforce. Obviously, getting kids to college is important, but there are other students and adults who are changing jobs, who need a lot of the workforce development and the apprenticeship programs. So we believe that education … is really important. I think one of the things that I can bring, for this particular subject, is my experience of being on the school board since 2014, and even back when I was elected from 1992-2000, when I was a younger man. So it’s not always about legislating more things. Sometimes it’s about removing some of the barriers that are in Sacramento to help the local school districts make really good local control decisions. I think that is the experience that I bring in that particular area.
You know, everybody keeps asking, “What’s your first legislative bill going to be?” And I said, “Well, it might be about removing some things, not adding more to it.” There are plenty of laws up there, but maybe let’s get rid of some of them that will help fix some of these barriers that are holding back local communities, local governments, local school boards, and not allowing them to do that. That’s No. 1.
Health care, obviously, is a very important issue. We just came through the pandemic, but even before that in our communities, it’s not only having health care insurance, which is a big issue, but it’s access. Our district has lots of rural areas, and, in many cases, if you live in the Imperial County, you’re driving to San Diego for services, especially specialty services. But even in some of the more rural areas up in San Bernardino County, ambulance services, first responders and EMTs all fall under health care. They’re spread out there.
So it’s not just simply going to the doctor, and I think one of the things that my work currently at Innercare—doing a lot of admin work and looking at how this is structured—gives me a lot of experience of how to try to put coalitions together with everybody working together. And again, health care is a big deal for a lot of parents—you know, where they’re one bad accident away from going bankrupt or going homeless. I think it’s very important. At the program I work for, we have promotoras (promoters) out enrolling people. I do the data; I do some of the reporting, but they’re the true champions who are out there registering people. They’re enrolling people for services like Covered California, through the Affordable Care Act, and also the MediCal program that we have here in California. I believe those issues resonate a lot through the valley—all the valleys, Palo Verde Valley, Coachella Valley, Imperial Valley and the San Bernardino areas. I think it really resonates with a lot of people.
The third one is infrastructure and housing in a sense, because they go hand in hand. I’m not only talking about the physical infrastructure, but the internal infrastructure that we have in our in our area. I mentioned EMTs, but there are hospitals and ambulances, and even fire protective services. We need to fix our infrastructure to be able to respond better to our communities and our rural communities.
Then obviously, there’s water, sewer and power. If we want to build more houses, we need to put in the infrastructure. We have to do that. I think Assemblymember Garcia has done a great job in bringing a lot of those resources and those monies to the district. With his help, picking up what he’s started on, I plan on continuing putting those groups together, the coalition, and bringing those resources back to the district. But again, economic development needs infrastructure; housing needs infrastructure. Anything you want to start talking about, we need the infrastructure, and unfortunately, this particular district has very limited infrastructure when we’re talking about the rural areas. So it’s really hard to do that.
There are a lot of key environmental issues unfolding in District 36, including the restoration of the Salton Sea, the Colorado River water disbursements, industrial-scale solar projects, the responsible development of the Lithium Valley industries, and the future of the Chuckwalla National Monument proposal. What would be your key environmental priorities should you be elected?
I think mine goes back to health care in a strange way, because a lot of these environmental projects, they talk about them as economic development drivers, and each one is in its own way. But at the end of the day, Imperial County has one of the highest asthma rates, and we really need to fix that. I think the New River—you didn’t mention that, but the New River is an environmental tragedy happening right now, and it’s hurting the people of Imperial County. So I guess my approach to these things is to make sure that everybody’s in the room. All the groups, not only environmental groups, but labor and business and government officials—get them in a room and just say, “Hey, how do we do this responsibly?” Not promising everybody the world, but doing this responsibly, because at the end of the day, we all have to live in this district. Trying to do things just for an immediate short-term result may be nice if you’re an elected official for two four-year cycles, but people who have to live there all of their lives, it’s going to affect them forever. So again, I think all of those issues are environmental issues in how they relate back to the health of our community. I mean, environmental policy is also health policy, right? We do things good for the environment, and it’s good for us. They go hand in hand.
I’ve always considered myself progressive in policy, but a pragmatist in implementation. We have to live in the real world. We have all these great initiatives and these great thoughts, but we can’t do them overnight. We have to have transition times, but these environmental things like the Salton Sea—that we’ve been working on since I was a little kid and still haven’t gotten done—I think we need a little bit more from the federal government. I think the state, and again Assemblymember Garcia, have done a great job in providing some of those resources out here, but we need to get the feds a little bit more involved and actually turn loose some of that $200 million that they have set aside for the Salton Sea, and actually start building things and doing projects. They’ve already started, but we need to kind of speed that up.
With regards to some of the other areas that you’re talking about, again, we have to be very practical in moving forward to get everybody in the room. Get a consensus, and move forward. I think I’ve been able to do that over the years, with a lot of the projects that I’ve done locally.
Again, to me environmental issues are health issues at the end of the day. The better our environment, the better our health—not only the health of our people, but the health of our economy as well. So I think it all goes hand in hand.
From 2022 to 2023, the homelessness population in Imperial County increased by 24% for individuals, and 30% for households. In Indio, the counted homeless population increased from 322 in 2022 to 427 in 2023. How do you propose to address the homelessness challenge in District 36?
I think it’s important to understand the difference between homeless and transients. There are a group of people who are homeless for a lot of reasons: mental health reasons, an economic disaster that happens at their house that forces them to be homeless, or some drug issues. Many of our veterans, unfortunately, are part of that homeless population, and we really need to help them. Again, a lot of this comes back to the health care part of it, right? We need to have health care, shelters, things like that.
But we have to understand that there’s a growing population of transients, and, we’ve worked with a lot of those transients, because they kind of hang around the school sometimes, or they’re on private properties or at some of the businesses. The transients don’t want help. The transients want to do whatever they want to do, and they don’t care if it’s legal or not. So that’s a separate issue, and we need to separate those two groups, because the transients don’t want help; they want to be left alone. They want to be able to break the law at will, and I have a problem with that.
Going back to the homeless problem: We can’t house anybody if we don’t have the infrastructure to help put them in some kind of some kind of shelter. We need to expand some of our programs. I think we have the will out there; I just think some days, it looks like such a big problem that we don’t know where to start. I think we start by working with our local shelters that are already here. How do we help them expand their services? There are a lot of great programs out there. I don’t think we have to reinvent the wheel. There are a lot of great programs around the state, so we just have to pick up on them and actually implement them. Again, you know, it’s going to take resources. We’re going to have to do some priorities.
For many in the homeless population, it’s an economic thing that puts them out in the streets. They want help, and they’ll take help, but we have to give it to them. So I think it’s really important to understand that there’s a difference between those two groups, and the transient problem is a growing problem. And unfortunately, sometimes—I hate to say it in this way—it becomes a criminal problem. Again, these aren’t people who want help. These people want to be left alone to do what they want, and kind of wreak havoc on our businesses, right? You know, most of the homeless people who want help are asking for help. These guys don’t want help. So it’s very important to separate the two. One is a law enforcement issue, I believe, and the other one is about health-care issues, mental-health care issues and housing issues. We really need to focus on a lot of those programs to help, and I think people are willing to help, but it has to be targeted. We have to have a plan. Don’t feel that it’s so overwhelming. Just start. It’s like starting everything else—one step at a time, one person at a time, and you just keep moving forward and taking the next person as they come.
Waymond Fermon (Democrat)
A lifelong resident of Indio, Fermon has served as an Indio City Council member since being elected in 2018. He became Indio’s first African-American mayor in 2021-2022. For 20 years, he has been employed at the Calipatria State Prison in Imperial County. According to his biography on the city of Indio website, “Fermon has a passion for supporting local youth sport and academic pipeline programs … (and) has been active in numerous outreach programs throughout the Coachella and Imperial Valley such as school fundraisers, career day, guest speaking engagements, and youth interventions.”
According to CalMatters, Fermon’s campaign had raised $26,800 thus far, and his campaign website showed more than 30 endorsements from individuals and organizations including numerous regional council members, and the mayors of Blythe, Cathedral City, Indio, Palm Springs and Palm Desert.
What are the two most important issues facing the constituents of District 36 in 2024, and what would you do to address them if you are elected?
It’s kind of tough to narrow it down to two, but let me see what I can do. Probably the biggest in the district is the Salton Sea restoration, and I’m planning on working collaboratively with our local, state and federal elected officials, collectively, to continue to move the needle forward and provide us solutions to restore the Salton Sea. I believe that the Salton Sea is paramount to our environment, health and well-being, not only in Imperial County and the areas surrounding it, but also the Coachella Valley. We know the dangers of the receding waters and the air pollution that’s emitted from the Salton Sea. That’s a big thing, and what we have to understand is that there have been a lot of ongoing studies around the Salton Sea, and a lot of efforts. But right now, we’re in emergency mode. We don’t have time for any more studies. We need to continue to move forward with the plans that we have now. We do have the eye of the federal government with the help of Congressman Ruiz, and local elected officials have been working tirelessly for years to restore the Salton Sea. I want to get the state on board and keep working collaboratively with those folks.
Two: With the growth of the Lithium Valley, and with the economy, and the cost of living going up, affordable housing is a big thing. It’s a big struggle in our district, from Indio all the way down to Imperial County, Blythe and Hemet. With talking to other elected officials, in Blythe, Imperial County, Hemet and locally, I believe the strategy I have, that we’ve been able to utilize in Indio, will be key to getting these areas over the hump. I’ll share that with you, and you won’t hear this anywhere else: Affordable housing starts with planning, and also zoning. Because we have to build our communities connected; we need connectability to amenities. When we build our communities, we need walkable amenities such as our schools, our grocery stores and our churches. Once we get that, then we can start on the affordable-housing complex itself, because we need to provide affordable living situations first. Now, with the structure itself, I have great relationships with developers. As you see in Indio right now, we have over 800 affordable housing units in planning or in construction as we speak. That comes with having great relationships with the business and development community, and also our nonprofits and our other elected officials, such as our state and federal elected officials, who could assist in getting those funds. That is a blueprint on how we could really tackle affordable housing, and you have to have that kind of experience and knowledge to go to Sacramento and advocate for our communities. If we do not have—I shouldn’t say we—if they do not have the experience of building affordable housing and enhancing infrastructure, how can they go to Sacramento to advocate for that in our district? I have the experience.
There are a lot of key environmental issues unfolding in District 36, including the restoration of the Salton Sea, the Colorado River water disbursements, industrial-scale solar projects, the responsible development of the Lithium Valley industries, and the future of the Chuckwalla National Monument proposal. What would be your key environmental priorities should you be elected?
I think having relationships with Imperial County Irrigation District (IID), and the CVWD (Coachella Valley Water District) is paramount, and supporting their efforts as well. Moving forward, energy and water have to be on the forefront. Without those things, we have nothing. In Indio, what we’ve been able to do to reinforce our energy grid here is form a JPA (joint powers authority) with IID to fund our power infrastructure in Indio, so we’re financing our own substations—something that no other city in the IID service area is doing. Other cities will be able to join us if they want, but it’s just IID and Indio now. That gives us the ability to purchase transformers for our community to (address) growth, redundancy and reliability in our energy grid.
We have to come up with innovative solutions and be open to other technologies when it comes to power such as solar, geothermal and lithium. We have to be open to that, and we also have to find the happy medium to where we’re not impeding on our natural lands and our natural habitat. That’s where the (proposed Chuckwalla National) Monument comes into play. You have an area such as Blythe which borders on the national monument. Blythe may need to utilize more solar to enhance their energy. So we have to find that fine balance between how we can still secure our natural lands, and also have a diverse power grid in the region.
My stance on the lithium is that there are still a lot of ongoing studies. There’s been a lot of progress in the last 10 years with the Lithium Valley from local officials in Imperial County. I’ve met with county officials there, and they gave me a brief on their efforts. There’s still a lot of education going on in the community as it pertains to Lithium Valley and any impacts to the community. However, the baton will be in our hands at this time. We need to usher it in with environmental impacts in the forefront, along with economic opportunities for the region, and educational and academic opportunities for the region, which is one of the most impoverished regions in our country. So we have to make it also work for the people in that area, keeping in mind that we need to mitigate any environmental impacts to that region. We need to work with the industry for the people. We need to enhance infrastructure in that region to support it. We need to enhance housing to support it. And we also need to work with the community to enhance health care services, because the population will go up when construction starts on that industry.
From 2022 to 2023, the homelessness population in Imperial County increased by 24% for individuals, and 30% for households. In Indio, the counted homeless population increased from 322 in 2022 to 427 in 2023. How do you propose to address the homelessness challenge in District 36?
I have an immense passion for working with the homeless folks. I’m the vice chair of the Coachella Valley Association of Governments (CVAG) Homelessness Committee. Homelessness is very diverse. Those numbers, I get it. It gives us a benchmark. However, they’re very fluid, and I’ll tell you why. Cities like Indio, we have homelessness services like Martha’s Village and Kitchen, the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission and other nonprofits. So a lot of folks countywide sometimes migrate to our city, or they get brought to these nonprofits. Sometimes they stay; sometimes they don’t.
However, those numbers don’t reflect that people are chronically homeless on the street by themselves. Some of those folks are sheltered, but they just don’t have a home. So let’s talk about the chronically homeless people who we see on the street every day. A lot of those folks are what we call housing reluctant. Those are some of the folks who have some challenges such as mental illness, such as substance abuse, such as maybe they’re running from domestic violence or human trafficking. So what we’ve done in Indio, which I believe I’ve been a champion for, is mental wellness. One of the things we did is we worked with the community, and (the City Council) passed a (motion to create a) behavioral-health clinic here in Indio, which was just opened. So we have a behavioral-health clinic here in Indio which serves our community. Another thing is that within our police department, we have what we call an Unsheltered Persons Unit. They work strictly with chronically homeless individuals on the street, and along with the Unsheltered Unit, we have a clinician that goes out with them. So they’re able to respond to folks who have those mental-health challenges. … They’re able to tackle those situations. Now that doesn’t stop the chronic homelessness situation itself. Those folks do receive services, or might accept resources, but it doesn’t stop it.
One of the things I’ve also done when I was mayor was support the governor’s CARE Court initiative, which is a conservatorship. Family, community members or doctors can have someone committed who is having those challenges. It’s court-ordered, and they have to stay in this program to receive services. I was one of the mayors who supported Gov. Newsom’s CARE Court initiative, which is now active in the western part of the county (of Riverside). So homelessness is very diverse, but I’m a champion of addressing homelessness.
You have to support our nonprofits, our faith-based communities, and you have to fund your missions to be effective. But it all starts with going back to affordable housing. Those folks migrate to our region because, if you look at Los Angeles and Orange County, it’s a higher cost of living there, so they’re migrating into this region. We have to be cognizant of that. Also, something that’s dire in Imperial County, but that we’ve championed in Riverside County, is working with our emergency management systems to receive migrants into our community, get them to the nonprofits, and get them to their sponsors. This way, they’re not just going into Calexico, or El Centro, and being released onto the streets and becoming homeless. In Riverside County, we’ve done a great job working with our elected officials and our nonprofits and our faith-based communities to accept those folks and get them on to their sponsors.
Edgard Garcia (Democrat)
Edgard Garcia, a resident of El Centro, is an attorney who established his own law firm 12 years ago. Garcia’s LinkedIn profile describes his firm’s focus as being “bankruptcy, family law, DUI and criminal defense.” He has served as an El Centro City Council member since 2015. Over the last few years, Garcia has represented Imperial Valley in the League of California Cities, serving on both its Finance Committee and the Public Safety Committee. Garcia is married and has three sons, age 14, 13 and 11. He told the Independent that he’s proud his wife and sons are all active supporters of his campaign.
According to CalMatters, Garcia has raised $18,000 for his campaign to date. His campaign website had no listing of endorsements.
What are the two most important issues facing the constituents of District 36 in 2024, and what would you do to address them if you are elected?
As a practicing attorney, and as somebody who’s been involved in politics for several years, I’ve been working hard at the state level to address our issues. I think that the two main issues that we have are infrastructure and job creation. We need to bring industry to our district. We need to make sure that we are prepared, not only educationally, but also to have people who are ready to work in industry, and there are many different facets to that. It could be energy; it could be water; it could be commercial. Those are all areas we’re focusing on right now. But one of the big things that we have to do is also make sure that we’re prepared to step into those roles.
There are a lot of key environmental issues unfolding in District 36, including the restoration of the Salton Sea, the Colorado River water disbursements, industrial-scale solar projects, the responsible development of the Lithium Valley industries, and the future of the Chuckwalla National Monument proposal. What would be your key environmental priorities should you be elected?
I was at the Hell’s Kitchen (a combined geothermal power plant and lithium extraction facility) opening. I am very invested in Lithium Valley to come to our district to provide jobs and resources for all of us. As far as the Salton Sea is concerned, there have been multiple studies done, and we find ourselves in a situation where studies are done time after time after time. We need to put those studies into action in order to protect our Salton Sea region, so it doesn’t affect the residents of District 36. The No. 1 thing those studies have told us is that the solution is conservational wetlands. So we need to stop doing these studies and put them in action. Conservational wetlands are natural filters that do not disturb the environment. In fact, they will work for us to make sure that our kids are taken care of, and we don’t have these high asthma rates. So I’m committed to put them in action, and to get the necessary funding to do the work with our environment.
As far as Lithium Valley, I’m committed to not only have them generate lithium extraction, but I want refinement, and I want battery production. I want to make it an industry to help everybody who’s working here. I’ve already spoken with (Imperial Valley College) and (California State University, San Bernardino) in terms of making sure that we have programs to educate our young people to fill those jobs.
From 2022 to 2023, the homelessness population in Imperial County increased by 24% for individuals, and 30% for households. In Indio, the counted homeless population increased from 322 in 2022 to 427 in 2023. How do you propose to address the homelessness challenge in District 36?
I love that question. I’m on the Public Safety Committee for the League of California Cities, and I take that responsibility highly. No. 1, it’s not an issue about addressing housing. There are multiple layers of issue, and it comes down to treating the people. We need to treat them. We need to help them in every capacity that we can to make sure that they’re not dealing with difficulties like drugs or mental health. That is the key. It’s not just building houses; we can do that. But we need to address the underlying issues. That’s why I’m a big proponent of CARE Court. That’s why, you know, as an attorney, I’ve seen this time and time again. We’re doing big new initiatives in Imperial Valley—veteran court and drug court are trying to address the actual issues that we have. These people are now in the street, because they don’t have a home. Most of them have underlying issues that come down to drug addiction, and it comes down to mental health because of the drugs. We need to address it at a core level, and I’m a full proponent of helping people. These people are disenfranchised. These people don’t have a voice. I want to fix the problem from the ground up and not just put a politically-correct face on it. We need to help them. We need to get them on the right track, and then they can become functioning members of our beautiful society.
Jeff Gonzalez (Republican)
On his campaign website, Jeff Gonzalez describes himself as“a combat veteran, small business owner, pastor, community leader and father.” Gonzalez enlisted in the Marine Corps and served for two decades before retiring to become a local pastor. On his website, Gonzalez describes how that transition occurred: “Motivated by the tragic loss of 10 fellow Marines to suicide, he (Gonzalez) felt a calling to serve as a pastor to protect those most vulnerable.” He is a dedicated husband to his wife, Christine, and the father of four children ranging in age from 17 to 31.
According to CalMatters, Gonzalez had raised $25,000, and had garnered more than 20 endorsements from individuals and organizations, including Rep. Ken Calvert, California Republican Assembly Leader James Gallagher and the Imperial County Farm Bureau.
What are the two most important issues facing the constituents of District 36 in 2024, and what would you do to address them if you are elected?
I’ve had the opportunity to just talk to people across all three of the counties, and what’s interesting is everyone has separate issues that they believe are the most important to them. I would say each county is kind of facing different things. So it’s interesting to be able to answer that question when different communities feel like different things are important to them.
Let me give you an example: In Imperial County, one of the issues that I hear about across the entire county has nothing to do with Democrat or Republican; it just has to do with the people of the county, and it is health care. Specifically: Will they have a hospital in this coming year?
AB 918 (signed by Gov. Newsom last year, creating one consolidated health care district in Imperial County) has impacted the community significantly. What you have is almost like a division that’s taking place right now, and it’s kind of sad to see. One side of the community has had a hospital that has been good and solvent, and unfortunately, the other side has a hospital that has some challenges. Because of that, they’re developing a single health care district. Well, because of the lack of clarity to the constituents, one side feels like the hospital is going to go away, or the hospital is going to go bankrupt, or something’s going to happen. So yes, that is the problem. But the true pain that they feel is, “How will I get my health care?” So that’s huge. I mean, yes, there are water rights issues. Yes, there’s agriculture and yes, there’s business and homelessness, and so on and so forth. But really, if you take today’s temperature in Imperial County, that’s the No. 1 thing that people come up to me all the time about.
You talk to residents in Niland, in Salton Sea, in Calexico and Needles and in Indio, the one issue that I hear across the board is they don’t feel heard. They want to be a part of the solution. It’s almost like government is doing their thing and not paying attention to the people that are living it day to day. So that’s the kind of complaint I hear across the board, whatever the problem might be, whether it’s health care, or affordability, or business, whatever it is. You have some really smart people across the district, and they’re like, “Man, if someone would have just had a roundtable with us, we could have helped out to make this better.” But unfortunately, there were a lot of closed-door meetings where there was a lot of, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, we hear you, but we’ve got a better idea.” That’s not how people in the community want to feel. They want to feel like they’re involved. They want to feel like they’re heard, and they want to feel like action is being taken, whatever that problem might be, right? Whatever that issue might be. So, the No. 1 issue is health care in Imperial.
Now, you talk to residents of Riverside County, and that’s a whole other piece, because they’re not dealing with, if you will, the health care problems of the Pioneers (Memorial) Hospital and El Centro (Regional Medical Center) Hospital. They’re dealing with safety and affordability. Those are the two biggest things that I hear in Riverside County, because obviously, they don’t know what’s happening in El Centro. Safety and affordability. We have gangs running in and stealing things in retail, you have people that are getting off on minor (crimes) because of the laws that are in place. So, they don’t feel safe. Moreover, as you know, the community is a 70% Hispanic community. But no matter what the demographic might be, you’re talking about families who are saying, “My kids don’t feel safe at that school in Coachella, in the Coachella Valley Unified School District.” If you remember the gun issues last year, and they weren’t communicated to. So, they’re like, “You’re not hearing us.” And then students walk out. I’m thankful that students use their voice to talk about an issue that’s pressing to them. So they’re talking about safety, and when our kids are afraid, we should definitely be afraid. I’m thankful that they had a chance to do that in Coachella Valley Unified School District. So that’s the issue here in Riverside County.
The biggest thing that I hear in San Bernardino County is affordability. At a lot of the places that are part of the district, like Needles, that are a little bit off the beaten path, they still get impacted by affordability. It’s just too expensive to live in the city. “I would rather live out here, but, yeah, out here is still very expensive.”
In a diverse community with multiple counties being represented, and you’re talking about rural, urban cities and so forth, everyone has their issues. As a pastor, I get the chance to just use the things that are on the side of my head, my ears, versus using the thing that’s on the front of my face, which is my mouth. I do a lot of listening. And my listening says, “Government is just not listening.”
There are a lot of key environmental issues unfolding in District 36, including the restoration of the Salton Sea, the Colorado River water disbursements, industrial-scale solar projects, the responsible development of the Lithium Valley industries, and the future of the Chuckwalla National Monument proposal. What would be your key environmental priorities should you be elected?
I’m going to answer this generally, and then specifically, if I could. Generally speaking, we have to be responsible tenants, if you will, of our Earth and of our district. Right? And by responsible, I mean (avoiding) any pollution, any illegal activity, not caring for our sites. We have to be good stewards of what was given to us. I had a chance to speak with some folks about Lithium Valley, and where we stand with that, and my response to all this great, cutting-edge technology is: No. 1, what are we doing to help the people of the district? When something comes in like cleaning up the Salton Sea, the Lithium Valley, industrial solar, what are we doing to help the people of the district? What I mean by that is jobs, infrastructure, because we’re talking about places like Niland, Salton Sea and all throughout these little towns. What are we doing to help the actual people there by putting this in? What are we doing to hurt them? Because we have to look at both sides of the scale.
No. 2, what are we doing to improve jobs and education? If we’re going to do this, then let’s make sure that we’re partnering with the schools, the trade schools, so that we can have a trained workforce that’s local that can support these different pieces—making sure that there’s education, because with everything we do that’s not natural, there’s going to be an impact. How are we mitigating that impact? How are we either stopping or starting something? I think sometimes, as a business person I say, “This is great. And it’s going to bring in revenue, so on so forth.” But I always think I have to be conscious of the secondary and tertiary effects of anything we think, say or do. So, when we say, “Salton Sea, OK, let’s clean it up.” Got it. We’ve been talking about this for a long time. There have been a lot of plans. But what are we doing to continue in the cleanup efforts? I used to go fishing there. I can’t go fishing there anymore. So what are we doing for a long-range plan to improve the Salton Sea? Not just say, “Hey, let’s just fix it and call it a day.” We have to have a long-range plan to ensure that that those small particles (from the seabed soil) don’t continue to impact the lives of kids and families throughout the community. So how do we restore the sea? How do we restore it ethically? How do we restore it responsibly? You know, the waterfowl that no longer come down this way—how do we bring them back? Those are the types of things that we have to be looking at. We have to have a long-range strategic plan, and we have to act on it.
I feel—and a lot of people who I get a chance to talk to feel—like we’ve been talking about these plans, and talking about these plans, and talking, but we never hear anything. And if there is something happening, guess what. It’s not reaching the average everyday person. So when it comes to these key environmental issues, I believe we have to be, No. 1, responsible by asking all of the questions; No. 2, understand the secondary and tertiary effects that it will have both positive and negative. No. 3, we have to communicate and educate the region on all these issues—not just the (people) who live right next door to it, but everyone from Brawley, Calexico, Needles, Blythe to Indio. Everyone’s got to be informed. And to say, “We’ve had a couple of tabletop sessions,” that’s not informing. That’s just kind of spreading the word. We need to be sure that every single community is aware of what’s going on.
When it comes to Lithium Valley, there’s a lot of hype going on—a lot of hype. You know, my hope is that there’s innovation taking place, and that this region will be a region of innovation, but responsible innovation, not just, “Hey, let’s dig and kill everything around it.” Right? I don’t want to see that. I want to see responsible stewardship of our land. And also, if this is something that we’re going to go through with, (I want to see) that we’re doing it in such a way that it benefits the community that it’s in. There are a lot of places that it just keeps on going out, and also, it benefits the businesses that are coming in. So, the example I give is the Acme Lithium Company, as the Roadrunner might say, right? Acme Lithium Company comes in, and they want to do some work here, and it’s going to be great. But here in California, we’re going to tax them, because we see so much benefit, and we’re going to get so much money that California is going to get rich off of it. But we’re going to tax them right out the door, and that, I don’t agree with. That’s not being a responsible steward, either. So there’s the side of being responsible as people who live in the community. There’s responsible as being a community member; there’s responsible as being a business owner there—but there’s also being responsible in government. We have a lot of businesses that have left California to go to places where it’s a little bit better when it comes to business. I don’t want to do that. I want to bring businesses back to California responsibly. I want to help agriculture. If Lithium Valley becomes this great thing, and it’s responsible to the environment, then I want to help make sure that we don’t tax them and hurt them in such a way that they go and move somewhere else.
From my understanding, 20% of the taxable revenue will go to the community, and the other 80% is going to go to the county, yet the way in which we’re taxing them is not in a percentage of what’s yielded (in lithium). It was done in such a way that it doesn’t flex with the amount of lithium that’s extracted; it’s just at a set rate. So, for instance, if you get 100 pounds of potato, and you’re going to get taxed for 100 pounds—say, $100 for 100 pounds of potato—but then if you only produce 20 pounds of potato, you’re still going to get taxed at the 100-pound rate. That’s not fair, but that’s how it’s constructed. So that’s when we’re not being responsible stewards of the businesses that want to do work here. So we need to look at that.
For these key environmental issues from Salton Sea to Chuckwalla Valley, I always say, “First, ask the questions. Define the problem. Define the opportunity. Let’s be responsible on how we do it.” And by the way, some things we might not be able to do, because it’s not responsible, and sometimes we will be able to do it. But all stakeholders need to do their piece in being responsible stewards. From government, to county, to landowners, to businesses, to community members, to legislators, we all have to do our part. And we have to (ask), as we like to say in Rotary, “Is it fair to all concerned?” If it isn’t, then we need to make it fair.
From 2022 to 2023, the homelessness population in Imperial County increased by 24% for individuals, and 30% for households. In Indio, the counted homeless population increased from 322 in 2022 to 427 in 2023. How do you propose to address the homelessness challenge in District 36?
In District 36. the homeless problem is a microcosm of the state of California. There is homelessness; I believe we’re leading in homelessness in the nation. So, when we talk about District 36, you know, we’re also referring to California. And how do we fix this problem?
You know, homelessness isn’t just about someone who doesn’t have a home. It’s not just that, “Hey, I don’t have a house, so I’m homeless.” It’s not a simple problem set. Some people choose to be unhoused. Some people, unfortunately, have met some bad circumstances, and they are unhoused. Some have mental-health issues, and they are unhoused. Some have addiction issues, and they’re unhoused. So there are a whole bunch of reasons why people are unhoused. So how do we how do we fix the unhoused problem?
We also have to look at the affordability problem if we want to fix the unhoused problem. My son, who’s 22, who saved his money—can you believe it, a 22-year-old who saves his money?—wanted to buy a house. And I said, “Buddy, right now’s not the time. The market is not good for you. I know you’ve been working hard and saving money. But you can’t afford to buy a house. Your whole savings is going to be gone.” So that’s the challenge of trying to buy in California. So, affordability, inflation—that’s a huge problem. If we’re talking about mental health, that leads me down one road, right? Access to mental health counselors is huge. In the military, PTSD runs rampant. I served four tours. Access to mental health (to combat) the stigma of mental health, we have to continuously make that available.
No. 2, for people who are unhoused because of an unfortunate situation, we have to find ways to work with the county in order to get rapid re-housing—and then communicate that, because people don’t know about rapid re-housing and where they can sign up. They didn’t know that they can go over to the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission with their family and work into a program to get rapid re-housing, or (they don’t) even (know) where the Rescue Mission is. So, there’s an education piece.
How do you fix this monster of an issue when it comes to homelessness? We have to take one bite at a time of this whale, so to speak. It’s an issue of availability. It’s an issue of affordability. It’s an issue of inflation. It’s an issue of mental health. It’s an issue of taxation. It’s an issue of fees that developers pay, you know, one fee after the next, after the next. You know, you get a house in Texas versus a house out here—it’s ridiculous. You can get a mansion there, and a shack here. That’s not fair to all involved. So, this complex problem needs to be addressed, and it can’t be addressed in a simple manner. It has to start with the top. It begins with, No. 1, how do we make it affordable to live in California? How do we make it affordable to build homes in California? No. 2, how do we make it easier for people to get mental health help? How do we make it easier for people to access programs where they can end their addiction? We have to find roads and in-roads. It’s not a partisan issue. It’s a community issue. And right now, we can’t lower taxes; it’s an unbalanced Legislature. And unfortunately, people suffer because of it.
So where do we start? We start at the top. We start at Sacramento. We start with affordability and health care, which includes mental health and addiction. It starts there. Let’s make it easier to live in California, and thrive in California. Whether you just moved here, or you’ve lived here your whole life, it’s just really hard, and that impacts the community, because taxes are not a district thing; it’s a California thing. Lower taxes improve the district. Access to better health care improves the district. But we also have to be responsible about it. I keep on bringing up that word “responsible” and “fair,” and I don’t think we’re being fair. The way we start is with the Legislature. You want to fix some of these problems, OK, let’s come to the table. Let’s truly make a concerted effort, not to put our parties first, but to put our people first.
That’s why I’m running. I’m not a politician. I’m just a Marine, a pastor and a dad who sees problems and people hurting. I know that in order to fix, as they say in the Marine Corps, “the tactical,” we have to go up to “the strategic,” and that’s in Sacramento. We have to fix the problem there, because that’s where the centralized planning is taking place. And that’s what’s hurting California and the 36th District.
Kalin Morse (Republican)
A first-time candidate, Kalin Morse is a nonprofit director from Westmorland in the western Imperial Valley.
According to CalMatters, Morse’s campaign had raised $350. No online campaign presence or any record of any endorsements could be found as of this writing.
What are the two most important issues facing the constituents of District 36 in 2024, and what would you do to address them if you are elected?
The first issue is definitely taxes, and this is an issue that expands beyond just Assembly District 36. It’s really statewide that we’re seeing issues among people who make minimum wage on up to people who are in the top 1%. They all have an issue with the amount of taxes that are being paid. So, the first issue that we need to take care of is lowering the tax burden for individuals. I think the government needs to stay out of our pockets, and there are a lot of constituents in Assembly District 36 who are homeless or on government assistance programs. It’s really disheartening to see that we’re having to live that way when the government is really bringing in so much money and could do a lot more. You know, during COVID, we had the stimulus payments, and that was really good. But that’s the government sending money. We can do a similar thing of putting more money in the pockets of the constituents, when and if they no longer have to pay nearly as many taxes out of their paychecks every month. That will be the first issue that I want to accomplish.
The second issue in my top two affects a small portion of Assembly District 36, but we really need to strongly oppose AB 918. It’s trying to create a health care district in Imperial County. I understand they did that in Riverside County under Eduardo Garcia. So I think we need to strongly oppose that and make sure that everybody here has access to quality health care at a reasonable price.
There are a lot of key environmental issues unfolding in District 36, including the restoration of the Salton Sea, the Colorado River water disbursements, industrial-scale solar projects, the responsible development of the Lithium Valley industries, and the future of the Chuckwalla National Monument proposal. What would be your key environmental priorities should you be elected?
Environmental protection is really something that’s a core value of mine—not in the way that many organizations such as the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) seem to believe, but it really is something that’s important to me. I operate, and I’m the director, of a nonprofit that seeks to promote wildlife conservation and wildlife habitat conservation in Westmoreland. That’s the city that I live in. With respect to the Salton Sea restoration program, I’ve been involved with voicing my opinions. I’ve been to meetings, and I think it’s really something that we need to focus on, because the asthma rates in this district are really terrible. That’s because of the Salton Sea. We’ve had studies to show that, and so we definitely need to make sure that we take care of that, to improve the health of our citizens here.
The way that they have implemented this Salton Sea restoration program has been extremely wasteful, and it’s just been in a manner that’s really not effective. They have plans for 2,500 acres, but I don’t believe that they are anywhere near restoring that much. They’ve run into many different issues that could have been avoided with better management. So it’s really something that touches close to home. You know, I do a lot of the work with my nonprofit very close to the Salton Sea restoration program. I understand the struggles that need to be overcome in order to be successful, and I think that would definitely be one of the key things I want to get done is to oversee that, and make sure that they do it in a really effective and strategic manner.
As far as the other issues, I really do trust the Imperial Irrigation District in their negotiations with other states over the Colorado River water. I think they’ve done good in the past. Those are the issues that I really want to take care of, as far as environmental protection.
From 2022 to 2023, the homelessness population in Imperial County increased by 24% for individuals, and 30% for households. In Indio, the counted homeless population increased from 322 in 2022 to 427 in 2023. How do you propose to address the homelessness challenge in District 36?
In my opinion, the key issue is that California is not a state that is easy to do business in. The people who employ our constituents are businesses that are producing goods, selling them and making a profit. We have a state that is legislating businesses to close because they make it so incredibly difficult to make a profit here, and to follow the regulations. If we can ease up on that, the economy can come back in a roar. We need to eliminate a ton of restrictions on businesses and allow them to hire more people. I think this is actually at a federal level, but the payroll taxes are really what’s hindering a lot of businesses from employing more people and paying them better. It’s kind of absurd for a business to pay somebody $20 an hour when they have to also pay $5 an hour to the government, and then that employee has to pay $3 an hour in taxes. It’s really absurd.
We’re being taxed in areas that we don’t even recognize as a tax, like with vehicle registration and with the California Highway Patrol giving out tickets. There’s so much money being taken out by the government, and it’s preventing our businesses from employing people. It’s preventing, really, any type of economic growth in this state. So when we can loosen that up and let people make money in a free enterprise, you’ll see employment rates naturally grow, and poverty rates naturally get lower.
Talking about the homeless problem, we’ll never solve it, because there are some homeless people—that’s the way they want to live. And I believe they have the right to live that way if they choose. But it’s not necessarily that all of them are choosing to be that way, right? There always will be people who prefer to live that way, but for the ones that don’t, if we can create an economy that is robust and growing and thriving, they will have plenty of jobs to apply for, to get, and that they can be qualified for. In this state, at least here in Assembly District 36 at the Imperial Valley College, we already have a lot of resources that will help people, at really no cost to them, to be able to get qualifications if they need, such as an associate’s degree. So that’s how we can improve the homeless problem for those who want it to be improved. The ones who want to stay there, that’s their right, and we can’t make them want to be a productive citizen.
Tomas Oliva (Democrat)
An El Centro resident since early childhood, Tomas Oliva said he was first introduced to Sacramento governmental workings when he was chosen to be a Richard G. Polanco Fellow, and interned in the Attorney General’s Office, where he researched the underground economy and its effect on California’s revenues. In the second part of the fellowship, he served as a legislative assistant for then-Assemblymember Jose Solorio. In 2008, Oliva campaigned in support of V. Manuel Perez for the California Assembly, and was hired to be on Perez’s staff in Sacramento. During his time working in Sacramento, he dealt with issues related to water, taxation, local government, health and the green economy. In 2018, Oliva was elected to the El Centro City Council, where he has served since. In 2023, he accepted a role as senior field representative for the U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz’s campaign.
According to CalMatters, Oliva had raised $14,000. A list of endorsements provided to the Independent by Olivia included the Imperial County Democratic Party, the Teamsters Local 542, and more than 20 area officials, including the mayors of Calipatria, Brawley, Imperial, El Centro and Holtville.
What are the two most important issues facing the constituents of District 36 in 2024, and what would you do to address them if you are elected?
There are a lot, but if I have to stick to the question and do just two, I would say housing—affordable housing, access to housing—are all issues in Imperial County. Housing is an issue in places like Mecca, Thermal, Coachella and around the Salton Sea. I know that Indio is developing quite well, but just the economic ecosystem of the Coachella Valley means affordability of that housing certainly is something that needs to be looked at.
The second thing is public health. In terms of environment, the Salton Sea is a public health issue for a lot of us, and its impact on our air quality. But also, access to a sustainable, reliable health-care system, in the classic, traditional sense of health care, is an issue.
What exactly would I do if elected? I’d bring my knowledge of housing, affordable housing and development to look at how the state can partner with local municipalities and developers in order to build housing. In 2022, when I was the mayor in the city of El Centro, I sat with developers, and we had a housing roundtable to ask the private sector, “Why are you not building?” To them it was cost in infrastructure, specifically, because they would have to put up the funding for roads, for connectivity or for a utility substation, and in their mind, it should be the utility company providing that infrastructure. Also, it was the length of time to go through an approval process. It would take a developer 18 months, minimum, to get their plans adopted, to get the permits from a city, to get through the approval process from the Planning Commission or perhaps even the City Council. Sometimes they would take a year and a half to three years, and what they pointed to was just how volatile the market is in housing sales over a three-year length of time. They said that in just the time period of COVID, interest rates for homes skyrocketed, and what they projected to sell in 2019 or 2020 was completely wrong by 2022-2023. For them, it was important for localities to expedite that process. So it’s about working with the municipalities and with utility companies in order to build, and it’s also about redesigning the way that we build our homes with a large footprint. We need to start thinking about smaller footprints and about a development project that is not so heavily dependent on water and on landscaping in order to protect our resources. So it is about bringing along more affordable, attainable housing and having them designed to meet the needs of what the current market requests. And what the current market requests is not the classic, traditional sense of housing—a single-family 2,600-square-foot home—but something a lot smaller. I know that there have been studies that have looked into the next generation and what type of housing they look for, and it is not our parents’ preference, right? So we do need to model the next generation’s expectation of housing, and what a home means to them. That’s the perspective.
Public health access in such a rural district as the 36th is not as good as it should be. I know that in Imperial County, our issue is sustainability, patient out-migration and a lack of acute care services. So what we need to do is strengthen our ability to recruit and retain clinicians, acute-care clinicians, in order for us to be able to have the services in the desert region that are currently making our patients travel out to Arizona, to Mexico, to San Diego or even further, to, like, Point Loma, because we can’t find those services in the desert region. Since my answer has to do with public health, that certainly has to do with the traditional sense of our public health-care system.
When it comes to the Salton Sea and air quality/asthma rates, I certainly would like to continue the efforts that have been made in order to address the Salton Sea mitigation and restoration. I hear loud and clear from the public that there have been enough studies. We need to get shovels into the ground, and we need to implement a lot of the projects on the plans that are already adopted. What that requires is funding from the state government and the federal government. So if elected, I would work with the state government and the current governor. In the future, I’d tap into my contacts and my relationships within the federal government, having worked for two members of Congress for the last eight years, in order to ensure investment from the federal government, and from the Department of Interior to support the projects of restoring and mitigating the Salton Sea.
There are a lot of key environmental issues unfolding in District 36, including the restoration of the Salton Sea, the Colorado River water disbursements, industrial-scale solar projects, the responsible development of the Lithium Valley industries, and the future of the Chuckwalla National Monument proposal. What would be your key environmental priorities should you be elected?
I wouldn’t list them in terms of priority, implying some are more important, or least important. I certainly would state that addressing our air quality, as it relates to the Salton Sea mitigation and restoration, is a high priority for the quality of life of the residents, specifically in the 36th District. I would go further and also say that our water quality is important, and slightly separate from the conversation on Colorado River water allocation. I know that the Coachella Valley Water District and the IID struggle with ensuring water quality. I know that municipalities have also been monitored by the federal government, in terms of their wastewater treatment, in order to ensure that the water provided meets the safety thresholds set forth by state and federal governments. For example, we have high levels of selenium in the water that is presented in the northern end of this district, and that is concerning to residents that live within the Torres Martinez tribe, or the CVWD service area. Those are focuses, that again, I think are part of our quality of life.
Now, as it relates to Lithium Valley, I would say a few things. The recovery process for the lithium, specific to the Salton Sea and to the 36th District, is unique. It’s important for people to understand that, because its impact to the environment is significantly less than any other lithium recovery process that exists in the rest of the world. That is because it’s a closed system, and this closed system means little to no impact to our air quality, to our environment and to our water supply. That’s why everyone is excited about it, and that’s why everyone is looking at this as the next gold rush, so to speak. But we do need to be mindful that, as we expand in geothermal, it’s going to require us to utilize more water than we currently do.
That brings me to the point of our Colorado River. IID has been phenomenal, along with the CVWD, in advocating to retain and minimize what we agree to in terms of using less of our Colorado River allocation. So the agreement of the southern states, where we’re going to use about 100,000 acre-feet of water less, is phenomenal, considering how much less the “seven state compact” would like us to use. That means that we’re able still to depend on our agriculture, depend on IID, depend on the CVWD and be able to expand on our footprint for geothermal energy production, and lithium extraction and recovery. I think that because of the interest in lithium within the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense, and lithium being dependent on an expansion of our geothermal energy generation footprint, that is going to be the leverage that we have in any future negotiations about retaining our water. And I think what we’re going to have to remember is that our transfer of water to larger metropolitan organizations, like in San Diego and LADWP (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power), is going to be coming up soon. It’s very likely that whomever we elect as our next assemblymember is going to have to weigh in on whether or not they support future water transfers. So that’s also part of the conversation about geothermal, the success of the buildout and whether or not we can continue our agricultural identity in the 36th District. Also, our housing growth, residentially and commercially, is going to depend on additional water sources.
So certainly, all of these policies need to be in the mind of the next assemblymember, and I’m inclined to want to take our Colorado River water allocation and focus it on us, with all due respect to the larger metropolitan areas. But I say that because I do support the projects of pumping water from Northern California to Southern California in order to make up for any disparity.
From 2022 to 2023, the homelessness population in Imperial County increased by 24% for individuals, and 30% for households. In Indio, the counted homeless population increased from 322 in 2022 to 427 in 2023. How do you propose to address the homelessness challenge in District 36?
I appreciate the question, and I’m going to take this opportunity to share my personal experience in working with homeless individuals throughout my career. There are, what I believe to be, three types of homeless population.
There’s the soon to be homeless, the ones who lost their job recently, or just got an eviction notice. They probably have one to three months before they have to vacate their dwelling, right? And then the second category would be the recently homeless. These are the folks who, within the last month or two, have found themselves either having to couch surf, or they’re sleeping in their car, or staying with friends. They still don’t have a consistent roof over their head. With those two categories, I feel that if you provide housing, if there are affordable-housing projects, or Section 8 (the federal Housing and Urban Development subsidy program) availability, if there’s housing that fits their budget, they can easily transition back into housing, because these are folks who still know what it feels like to close the door, lock it, and lay your head on a pillow, or even just place clothes in the closet.
The issue that I think a lot of us have is that we, as a community and a society, have allowed the people in those first two categories to remain unsheltered and transition into the third category—which is long-term homelessness. And when you become long-term homeless, you probably don’t remember what it’s like to hang clothes in a closet, or lock a door, or go into your own restroom. It’s important to understand that, because people who have been homeless for five years have been out and about, and have more likely been exposed to assault, to rape, to abuse, and to substance abuse. So providing them housing and expecting them to be able to just bounce back is completely wrong. Those folks need behavioral health services in order to help them get back to what you and I and others take for granted—that we’re stable, and we’re able to live under a roof, and know what that feels like, and remember what that feels like.
So I think that the reason why we have seen an increase in homelessness recently has a lot to do with the lack of housing options and the lack of housing affordability. But it also has to do with the market skyrocketing. It’s home prices going up. It’s rental units going up. It’s landlords and the powers that be perhaps trying to make up for their losses during COVID right away. They’ve raised rates and have raised costs, and it’s now becoming unattainable for folks who were barely hanging on. That is why we’re having conversations now about rent control. I think rent control, once upon a time, at least for me, was something that I could certainly wrap my head around for coastal communities, because that’s where we have seen prices just go up. Now I see that happening more and more in the Inland Empire and inland California. So it is something that we certainly need to consider in order to protect our families who are renting or wanting to purchase their first home and are trying to live the American Dream.
And so, in answer to the first question, how do we improve? The housing affordability could be worked on with developers and cities to do that, but I think that there’s something to be said about how, as a society and as a community, we have turned our back on people who have found themselves outside. We’ve written them off, consciously or unconsciously saying, “You know, they’re drug addicts; they’re alcoholics, and they’re whatever.” I think the wake-up call that we all had is that there are people out there who need help, and there’s a level of empathy and compassion that needs to be observed when providing facilities. I know there’s a new behavioral health facility in Indio that just recently opened up, and that is great. I applaud Indio and the county of Riverside in the partnership that they have there. I certainly know that Imperial County needs a facility like that as well, and, at least in my time as being the president of the El Centro Regional Medical Center, it has been conveyed to us that, not only does Imperial County need additional bed space for “5150” behavioral health issues, but if we were to have a facility here, that would also help communities in regions like San Diego. The fact is that they also have a need for behavioral health services.
So to round up my answer here, homelessness needs to be approached from multiple angles: the accessibility, the affordability and the attainability of housing in and of itself, the ability for us to be able to rapidly re-house individuals who meet the first and second category that I described as far as soon-to-be homeless, or recently homeless. But for the people who have found themselves out on the streets for far too long, it wouldn’t be so easy for them to transition back. We need to support and invest in behavioral health programs to help them bounce back in order to have an honest shot at success and being provided housing.
Eric Rodriguez (Democrat)
Born and raised in Brawley, Eric Rodriguez has worked as an El Centro Police officer and is currently working as an emergency response social worker with Child Protective Services of the County of Imperial. The father of five children in a blended family, Rodriguez has served as an elected trustee for the Central Union High School District Board, where, according to his campaign website, “he has been a driving force behind many positive changes, including strategic allocation of budget funds, increased student and staff morale, creating new employment opportunities, transparent governance and policy, and ensuring positive outcomes in significant school site projects.”
According to CalMatters, Rodriguez had not reported raising any money, nor had he reported any outside expenditures in support of his campaign. No endorsements were listed on his site as of this writing.
What are the two most important issues facing the constituents of District 36 in 2024, and what would you do to address them if you are elected?
The first issue is that, (as I was) born and raised in Imperial County, it’s the generational crisis we have at the Salton Sea. I can’t speak about the Salton Sea without including the New River crisis. For those that don’t know, the New River has been polluting the Salton Sea for decades. My goal is to is to make this issue into a national issue and declare the river a state of emergency, (declare a) Salton Sea state of urgency, and collaborate with our congressmen, collaborate with our senators, in ways that haven’t been done with our current assemblymember—and finally give our community results.
I can say that I grew up blocks from the New River. I grew up smelling the New River, seeing the New River, playing and riding my bike around the river, and I don’t think something like that would be acceptable in the Coachella Valley, and I say that respectfully. In Imperial County, we seem to accept it, and I think it’s time for our representative to stop that. So that’s my first issue.
The second issue is—as a former police officer in El Centro and a current child welfare social worker in Imperial County, and as a school board trustee—I’ve seen a lot of generational struggles that some of our community members face. It deals with what I describe as a triangle, but I really haven’t figured out how to articulate this triangle. But this is a triangle that’s affecting our community, the Coachella Valley, Needles, Hemet and Blythe. The issues that we’re having involve mental health, homelessness and substance abuse. So the state has policies in place that typically allocate funds to one of the three, and I think that you can’t address the one without addressing the others. I would love to advocate for committees, utilize bipartisan solutions and help to address this because, it’s affecting all of our community members. It doesn’t matter their socio-economic status; it’s affecting all of us.
There are a lot of key environmental issues unfolding in District 36, including the restoration of the Salton Sea, the Colorado River water disbursements, industrial-scale solar projects, the responsible development of the Lithium Valley industries, and the future of the Chuckwalla National Monument proposal. What would be your key environmental priorities should you be elected?
Being a desert community, and (with me) growing up here, the Salton Sea is a priority, and I feel our community deserves some results. It is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful piece of water. It’s amazing how large it is, and how beautiful it is, and the amount of animals that it attracts. But unfortunately, water is our lifeline here in the Imperial County, and (that water) does go through several states, several counties, several water districts, and what’s scary is protecting our water rights. I think that our agricultural commerce, our agricultural businesses, need the water, and I want to protect that. I also want to protect water for my children, my children’s children. I think in order to do that, I think we need to bring back water conservation efforts and collaborate with our water districts and our cities and our counties to push that effort forward.
From 2022 to 2023, the homelessness population in Imperial County increased by 24% for individuals, and 30% for households. In Indio, the counted homeless population increased from 322 in 2022 to 427 in 2023. How do you propose to address the homelessness challenge in District 36?
I think it’s important to acknowledge that we do have a problem. I know this is an issue that many cities don’t acknowledge and give a lot of attention to. I know this as a child welfare social worker, and as a police officer who helped thousands of families in crisis and in need. There aren’t many available resources, and there aren’t available solutions to help families. The first thing is utilizing out-of-the-box solutions. I think of tiny houses and trailers. You know, here in the Imperial County, we have old FEMA trailers that are unused, and have been unused for several years. Also, (there’s) using my resources and partnerships with unions to promote construction of affordable housing, and (providing) incentives for these companies who want to build affordable housing in our district.
Updated on Feb. 21 to include Tomas Oliva’s endorsements.