On Sept. 11, the San Joaquin County Civic Alliance hosted a town hall meeting at Dawn Mabalon Forum at Delta with newly elected San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors members Mario Gardea of District 1 and Sonny Dhaliwal of District 3 to speak about the supervisors’ first nine months in office.

Both have a long history of public service. Gardea is a former Stockton firefighter of 22 years, while Dhaliwal was the mayor of Lathrop for 12 years.

The discussion was moderated by associate dean of CSU Stanislaus’s Stockton campus Dr. Matthew Derrick, Delta’s politics and law club member Beatrice Rosas, and Stocktonia executive editor Scott Linesburgh.

The town halls are held to reach out to the community for questions and for the public to hear the supervisor’s accomplishments and upcoming plans for San Joaquin County.

Gardea says their biggest accomplishment is the Be Well Campus. 

The Be Well Campus, which broke ground on Sept. 10, is an initiative passed in April of this year to build behavioral health services and transitional housing for the homeless on 18.6 acres of county land in French Camp by the San Joaquin County hospital.

“Our homeless is our biggest issue in our community, and right now, my opinion is housing is not going to solve everything. We’re going to have wrap-around services, and we broke ground yesterday on the Be Well Campus, which is going to change the trajectory of our homeless situation in our community,” said Gardea.

The topics discussed include: the effects of federal budget cuts, building warehouses that may bring jobs, but the jobs are low paying and the warehouses cause pollution, how San Joaquin County’s Measure K is being used for transportation, homelessness, lack of affordable housing and rising rent costs, crime, and Proposition 50. 

The county’s Measure K predates Delta College’s Measure K bond, and is being used for roads and public transportation.

Dhaliwal brought up preventative action when discussing crime in San Joaquin County.

“If we can intervene at an early stage, the teachers, the parents, I think that will help. We cannot just do enforcement only, we cannot start taking kids off the street and putting them in jails, then we lose them… We need our youngsters to be safe, educated, and create opportunities for them, and that’s where our responsibility comes in,” he said.

The supervisors discussed concerns with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids taking place, both reaffirming that the sheriff’s department will not participate in ICE operations.

California law states that local law enforcement doesn’t cooperate with ICE according to California Values Act (SB 54).

These town halls are an opportunity for community members to get in direct contact with their representatives. 

“I think these town halls are important for you to get to know the person you’re going to vote for,” said Abby Avila, president of Delta’s politics and law club.

Gardea agreed. “It’s all about community engagement,” he said. “We think we always have the pulse on what’s going on in our communities, we really don’t, we need to really get out there and find out what people are really thinking.”

This town hall is following another held at Delta on Sept. 4 with newly elected Stockton City Council members Mario Enriquez of District 4 and Vice Mayor Jason Lee of District 6.

The different associations that helped put on these events within the San Joaquin County Civic Alliance includes: Delta’s Political Science department, the Business Council of San Joaquin County, CSU Stanislaus Stockton campus, Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce, African American Chamber of Commerce, San Joaquin County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Central Valley Asian American Chamber of Commerce, NAACP, the Stockton Record, Stocktonia and the League of Women Voters of San Joaquin County.