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INTERVIEW BY THE GOOD TIMES WEEKLY

Saturday October 18, 2008
By Good Times Weekly
source: http://www.gtweekly.com/elections/wcc/luis-alejo
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The Good Times Weekly, Octomber 18, 2008

http://www.gtweekly.com/elections/wcc/luis-alejo

 
Luis Alejo | Print |  E-mail
Written by Chris J. Magyar   
Tuesday, 07 October 2008

Attorney, District 2

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Watsonville has nearly the same population of Santa Cruz, but only half the city budget. Does the city need to increase revenues? How should that be done?

The city has had a struggle to increase revenue for multiple reasons. One of the biggest is to bring in new businesses, and I’ve always been a strong advocate for local business. The only jobs we’ve had recently are minimum wage, which people can’t live on in the Central Coast. We had the Bird’s Eye cannery shut down, the aluminium plant shut down, so that’s hundreds of jobs lost. We need to bring in new jobs to create more money to spend locally, which increases sales taxes. The Manabe-Ow business park was approved a few years ago. Prior to the downturn in the economy, businesses complained that there was nowhere to locate here, though now that’s slowed down with the economy. The struggle is to make that business park happen and attract new business. We’re going to open a new vocational school with Cabrillo at the old library, and I’m hoping we can have our local workers trained for any new business that comes in. Hopefully we could have a job lined up for students who graduate there. We had a big fight against Wal-Mart, and that’s not the vision that we have. We want good paying, union jobs with a diverse workforce. Alternative energy is a possibility. Unless community leaders envision that for our community, we’ll be left out of that booming industry.

Are you in favor of the Atkinson Lane development?

It’s not an easy yes or no question. There are two parts: I do support the long-term smart growth plan approved by voters in Measure U. We brought a lot of stakeholders together with many meetings about where we’re going to live in 25 years, and where we put the boundary to protect agricultural land. I’m supportive of the zoning that came out of that, and we need to plan for additional schools. But the second part is, do you build right now with the economic downturn, when there are a lot of houses on the market? Just like the business park zoning, this is not the best time when people want to come in and invest. The timing might be off right now, but in the future, as the economy picks up, that’s definitely the area.

Is the district system working for Watsonville, or should there be an at-large mayor to represent the city as a whole?

I think the district system is working very well, in that there’s better representation in our community. Through that, you have the representative from that part of town. My district and District 1 are the poorest areas of town, and in the mid-80s, they used to have three or four councilmembers from the affluent area, and these poor parts never had any representation. We’re going to fight and be a strong voice and accountable to our neighbors. If you compare demographics from 20 years ago to now, it’s much more reflective now, it actually looks like the community. You have conservative Latinos and a progressive Latinos, and people like Kimberly Petersen who’s not a Latina but has strong support from that  community. Same in the school board, you have Sandra Nichols and Karen Osmundson who are strongly supported by this community because they work to help the diverse needs of our community. At-large election would go back to the old discriminatory system. The way we elect our mayor was designated by the court decree from the landmark case that created district elections in the 1980s. This is something being pushed by local conservatives who want to go back to the old ways of doing things in Watsonville. Instead of focusing on a divisive issue like that, we should focus on the real problems in our community.

Last thoughts

My alma mater, Watsonville High School, only one out of two makes it out with a good job. Those young people need opportunities. We cannot have a great city without great schools. We can’t afford to keep seeing it as a separate issue that’s dealt with just by the school board. As a city council, we could be drawing community-wide attention to the needs of that district to make drastic improvements.