On Feb. 13, the last of four forums were held at Delta College hosted primarily by the League of Women Voters of San Joaquin County. Candidates running for San Joaquin Board of Supervisors for District 1 were hosted at the Dawn Mabalon Forum.
Five candidates are running for the seat of District 1: Mario Gardea, Lilliana Udang, Mark Stebbins, Terence West and Chris Rouppet. Unfortunately, West did not make an appearance for the forum.
Most of the candidates have experience in San Joaquin County politics.
Mark Stebbins has been running for city council since the 1980s, trying to make his mark in Stockton politics.
Lilliana Udang has worked in the California State Assembly and Senate working with Senator Susan Eggman.
Chris Rouppet has worked as chief of staff for current District 1 supervisor, Miguel Villapudua.
Political newcomer, Mario Gardea, has been a ‘lifelong resident in the City of Stockton.’ He has worked as a Stockton firefighter for 20 years.
The candidates only have a minute and 30 seconds to answer the questions. Panelist, Hannah Workman from the Stockton Record asked about the issues of homelessness, how would they address it and have neighboring communities to help.
“During the pandemic,” said Rouppet. “Myself and the team: the individuals from the behavioral health, public health departments, law enforcement, animal rescue league, Salvation Army and the child abuse counsel went out to the encampments for two years. The homeless outreach. We built relationships and understand what the issues are.”
“First hand, I have seen the impact with the homeless within our community,” said Gardea. “It’s not a housing crisis. The city of Stockton has 70% of the county’s homeless. Only 60% of the beds are being used. It’s a drug epidemic and fentanyl is taking over our community. And I believe the homeless population will double if we don’t handle that.”
“Whenever we talk about policies with homelessness,” said Udang. “It’s not going to be solved overnight, it’s not a quick fix. However, we should be able to have long-term and short-term financial solutions and have those solutions tested. We have neighboring, Stanislaus County that has many different programs and solutions that make sense for their population, that we won’t even try here. It’s not that San Joaquin County isn’t going in the right direction, it’s that they waited until state dollars were there to even get started.”
“In 2014, San Joaquin County wanted a committee to study homeless,” said Stebbins. “They studied it for a year. And came up with a plan, a plan was to appoint a homeless star, which they did. By doing that, they decreased homelessness by one person. And one person got a salary big enough to keep him in a house. We have not done nothing to increase the salaries for all the rest of the people, not enough for them to stay in a house.”
The next question was asked by panelist Cindy Milford, from the League of Women Voters of San Joaquin County. She asked what the challenges were within their district and how they fix them.
“The biggest issue is a sense of community disinvestment,” said Udang. “Not just from our government but from ourselves. The district board and city board have been around for so long that we feel like we shouldn’t be part of the decision-making. And that’s further from the truth. We need accessibility to our elected officials, we need transparency from our elected officials and we need our voices at the table when those decisions are being made.”
“We have deprived the entire district,” said Stebbins. “Of any economic base, so that there are no professional offices, no financial offices there is a complete deprivation of economic activity within District 1. One of the reasons why I suggested that we have an agricultural amusement park inside the San Joaquin Fairgrounds, is so it would be an economic engine for District 1 in particular, but also for the entire city.”
“I’m very, highly engaged in the communities,” said Rouppet. “All of them. We’ve held over a 115 community meetings and currently have meetings going on in Weston Ranch every month since 2022. We have them in Country Club, east Stockton, south Stockton and southeast Stockton. We have meetings all the time. And you can tell us what your needs are. Housing is a big issue, housing affordability. Who pays and rents here? Rent is higher than mortgage payments.”
“I’ve been knocking on doors,” said Gardea. “And it’s a common theme out there, District 1 is about public safety. When we talk about public safety a lot of our kids go to the parks and there’s not many parks in District 1 that kids can go out and play in. Because there’s a lot of illegal activity. RVs are parked at the parks dumping sewage in the gutters and illegal burning. Citizens are tired of the illegal dumping in the community.”
The event was sponsored by the League of Women Voters of San Joaquin County, Delta College, the Business Council of San Joaquin County, the Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce, CSU Stanislaus (Stockton campus), the African American Chamber of Commerce, San Joaquin County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Central Valley Asian American Chamber of Commerce, NAACP and the Stockton Record.
The forum event lasted under 55 minutes. The election primaries are on March 5.
