City Council Election '24 Questionnaire: Sam Gould

This City Council election season, the Tattler continues its 15 year tradition of  disseminating answers put to City Council candidates for the edification of the voting public.  The upcoming City Council election features six candidates competing for three seats.  The six are: Mia Esperanza Brown, Calvin Dillahunty, Sam Gould, Sukhdeep Kaur, Matthew Solomon and Courtney Welch.  Courtney Welch is an incumbent as well as Sukhdeep Kaur (who was appointed to her position following the resignation of Council member Medina).   Unfortunately, both Ms Welch and Ms Kaur declined to take part in this opportunity to inform the voters about their ideas for our town.  Accountability being an integral part of any democratic polity, voters should take into consideration, candidates who don’t respect the community enough to answer questions.  

We thank each candidate that took the time to answer these questions for the voters to consider.  Our City Council is improved when democratic norms are followed, when the politicians show deference for the voters.  Accordingly, we thank Sam Gould, Matthew Solomon, Calvin Dillahunty and Mia Esperanza Brown.

Each of the other candidate’s answers to these questions will be posted in succession, the order of the names are random.  First up is Sam Gould.

Sam Gould

https://www.gouldforemeryville.com/

 1)  Name the three biggest issues facing Emeryville right now and what are your ideas to address them?

Cost of housing - I believe we should build housing for all income levels to drive down rents, fight displacement and housing insecurity, and bring negotiating power back to tenants. As the housing shortage will take time to address, we should be strongly supporting our tenants from unjust rent increases and evictions.

Street Safety - We should continue our efforts to make it easier to commute by modes other than single occupant automobiles and prioritize overcoming the traffic violence epidemic with changes to infrastructure.

Protecting our local businesses - The pandemic hit Emeryville hard and we are still struggling to recover. Collaborating with small businesses to build community safety as well as driving business through messaging and support are highly important. With work from home being more emphasized, a city with as large of a percent of workers vs. residents in our daytime population as we have makes us highly impacted.

2)  Emeryville is the East Bay city with the lowest number of families per housing unit.  Why is that and what do you suggest should be done about it (if anything)?

I believe this is primarily due to state housing laws restricting the types of housing we can build in our city, although our local laws also play a role. Despite single family zoning being effectively abolished in our city, our current permitting process and requirements make it very hard to build dense small-lot family housing (commonly referred to as missing middle). I will advocate for change at the state and local level to see more of this type of housing and make Emeryville more accessible to families.

3)   What do you think about Council collegiality?  Is being collegial with each other important to help facilitate the people’s work?

I believe council collegiality is important. I was a big advocate for the implementation of a code of ethics to hold our council members accountable and signed it when implemented as a member of our BPAC.

4)  Is there enough accountability between Council members and the constituents?  If not, what is the solution?

Yes, I believe the level of community engagement in our procedures goes above and beyond what would normally be expected of a city. However, I believe there is an issue with equitable access to council decisions, with the people most able to give public comment being those who are able to take the time away from their lives to speak to the government. I believe we should focus on conclusions drawn from community outreach over those who are able to take the time to give comments in person. 

5)  Is it important to build more park land in Emeryville going forward?  If so, how much do we need and how will you deliver it?

Yes, I believe our current park space is inequitably distributed, with our lowest income residents having the least access to green space within walking distance. Having park space within a 5 minute walk is what I believe is the most important metric, and we should accomplish this by looking for opportunities to build pocket parks across the city and strategic depaving and development of overbuilt streets, surface parking lots, and industrial sites.

6)  What tells you how much market rate housing to build in Emeryville?  Is it knowable (measurable)?

I think RHNA is a poor system for determining the housing affordability mix, and it should be seen as the floor of how many units (market rate and subsidized income-restricted affordable housing) we should be building. I believe we should build enough market rate housing to tip negotiating power from landlords to tenants, which means shooting for a vacancy rate of 5% based on studies from other cities around the world. Currently even our newest apartments have vacancy rates below 2% so we should be building more for all income levels.

7)  Is the ratio of rental housing to ownership housing in Emeryville good?  If not, how will you address this issue?

I believe we should be incentivizing more ownership housing, but we are restricted heavily at the state level in how we can get more built. You may notice that around 2007 the number of condos built in the city and state as a whole plummeted. This is due to Condo Defect Liability laws that make it economically infeasible to build condo style ownership housing because developers risk being sued for up to 10 years after the home was constructed. I will advocate for state level reform so we can get small-lot infill condos built in our city again.

8)  Should Emeryville have a public library?  If so, how?

No, I believe the Golden Gate Library serves our city well and we currently do not have the budget to support one of our own.

9) The City Council resolved support for the people of Ukraine, but not for a ceasefire in Gaza.  Was that correct in your view?

I fully support calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. I personally do not believe city councils should be involved in international politics, but resolving support for Ukraine set a precedent and a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza should have been authored.

10)  What should be done about all the empty storefront retail space in town?  Do developers have a responsibility to rent out their retail space they built?

This is definitely a problem, banks can call loans on a developer if they rent out space for less than they told the bank it was worth. For renters this means deals like “first two months free” rather than lower rents in new apartment buildings, but for commercial space with leases measured in years this isn’t feasible. I think we shouldn’t be requiring retail space without the population (both residents and workers) to support it, and for the spaces that do exist we should be making them more accessible with safer streets and more housing with residents that can shop there.