ELK GROVE, Calif. — For two city councilmembers the next step of their political journey could be the California State Assembly, but after the November election, only one will be able to take that step.
The new 10th District includes Elk Grove, Vineyard, Florin Parkway and portions of Sacramento. Stephanie Nguyen currently represents Elk Grove on the City Council and heads the nonprofit Asian Resources, Inc. whereas Eric Guerra represents Sacramento and also works as a legislative director.
Both have their backers, with Guerra finding support from the California Democratic Party and Planned Parenthood and Nguyen getting endorsements from Asm. Jim Cooper and state Senator Richard Pan.
However, it'll be up to voters to decide who'll be taking the job at the state Capitol. Here's where Guerra and Nguyen stand on some of the issues facing Californians today.
The following interview has been edited for brevity.
Economy and Inflation
Nguyen:
"Inflation is a huge issue right now, gas continues to go up, groceries have doubled... I know this because we were doing fresh fruits and vegetable food distributions for our clients on a weekly basis and just two months ago for me to serve 300 families, it costs anywhere between $2,000 to $2,500. Just last week, or two weeks ago, it went up to over $5,000, and I wasn't buying anything more. It was the same product, but the price of groceries have just gone up tremendously and prices have gone up everywhere.
"I think what I would like to do is go back and take a look at a lot of these programs, a lot of these rebates that we have out there, and make sure that we're catering to these low-income families, these working families, because it's not. It's not the rebates that are out there or not and these one time rebates are great, but they're not necessarily helping as well."
Guerra:
"When dealing with inflation and the cost of families, you have to do a couple things is figuring out where the costs are coming from. Clearly in this region, the cost of housing is grown, so making sure that we're building the enough housing supply."
"The other thing is I would go after the price gouging at the gas pump right now. The increase in prices at the gas pump and the gouging that's happening doesn't just affect you as a consumer that has to drive to work or to school or to the doctor, but then increases the cost to the restaurants to our businesses to everyone associated with it. So I would be a strong voice for our families to address that, the issue of inflation."
"I will say cost of housing is one big issue, the cost of transportation is the other. But if we don't focus on creating local jobs here in our region, then people have to drive out, that means that's hours away from their family. It means that's cost for them as well, so that's why you can trust me as a councilmember, because I actually worked with our manufacturers to expand the manufacturing in our area."
Affordable Housing
Guerra:
"Clearly, cities have to be committed to supporting the mix of income housing, the mixture of types of housing. Not every young family can afford to buy it, a four bedroom, two and a half bathroom, three car garage house, but that's the only thing that they've been building and... unfortunately, the leaders in Elk Grove have been turning down affordable housing projects, and we need to make sure that we're building a mixture of housing we need to make sure that we have permanent supportive housing. We need to make sure that we have apartments for our young professionals, but... make sure that we have smaller units for our our middle-class families that can't afford those homes yet so that as they buy one product, they convince someone to move to another one. But if we don't have that mixture of housing, then we're never going to solve that issue."
Nguyen:
"Affordable housing is a problem up and down our entire state. We're all trying to figure out how do we make that work? And how do we bring in more affordable housing. I'm there as well, too, as somebody who grew up in low-income housing... but the house that I'm in right now, I don't know that I'd be able to afford to buy that house again. And you hear that over and over again with many families right now."
"I do know that the cost to build has gone up, right? And that's where the cost now to purchase a home has gone up. The cost to even get into an apartment has gone up because the cost to build has gone up. So maybe we need to take a look at some of those costs, those fees and the regulations that are in place that makes it almost impossible for some of our builders to be able to build and build at an affordable rate."
Homelessness
Nguyen:
"Homelessness is the number one issue that it's on everybody's mind when I'm out there knocking on doors, walking the streets, and somebody's walking their dog.
"One of the things that I did as a part of the homelessness task force, we put an ordinance in place, and it was popular and not popular depending on who you talk to. But my duty is to the entire city to my constituents, and while we do have a population of those that are unhealthy, that are homeless, that are struggling with some mental disabilities, some substance abuse - I understand that - but I also understand that there are families with young children and it's not OK to me when suddenly a family or a mother or father says they can't take their kids to the park anymore, that they don't feel safe walking outside anymore. And so at some point, I felt we needed to take control, so we brought forth an ordinance where we limited encampments to just four or less."
"The CARE Court that the governor just passed, I think that's definitely a step in the right direction. I wish we would have done something like that sooner, but it's better late than never. I think it's time that we start pulling folks in and saying that if you are not going to take the help, if you're not going to follow the path that we set forward for you, it's time for us to take control and give you the help that you really need and make sure that you take that help."
Guerra:
"Unfortunately, cities and counties across the state are facing, basically, what is years and decades of failures from the state that's been pushing down the the problem of homelessness onto the cities, from the time that Governor Reagan closed the mental hospitals, but didn't open up the regional centers, you created a situation where the counties were already set to fail without the local infrastructure."
"So what needs to happen here is one, the state needs to take ownership again of this problem and fund the counties and the cities and reduce the restrictions and barriers for counties to use the money that they already have. So sometimes, the counties have so many pots of money and they can't even pull the money together to make it effective. The other thing that I would do is I'd be the adult in the room and stop the parochialism, stop the finger pointing between one jurisdiction or another.
"What I would advocate as a state assembly member is coordinated enforcement, coordinated access to care, and coordinated communication between jurisdictions so that we can address the issue of homelessness by getting people into the services that they need, the coordinated enforcement and cleanup on some of the encampments. But most importantly, not pushing the problem to one another and actually trying to manage the solution in a way that recognizes the complexity of housing."
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WATCH MORE: Eric Guerra: Full Interview
WATCH MORE: Stephanie Nguyen: Full Interview
