Katie Valenzuela has been a part of politics before she even knew it was politics. At thirteen, she served on a Bakersfield youth board to help her community solve issues like high rates of teen pregnancy. Her desire to help people continued, and as an environmental policy maker, Valenzuela worked to pass policy and create programs for the people’s benefit. Now as District 4’s (Land Park, Central City, and parts of Natomas) City Council representative, she says she “can’t imagine doing anything else.”
When Katie Valenzuela launched her City Council member campaign in April 2019, she knew she was going to have her work cut out for her. She was up against an incumbent, which is someone who already held the position, Steve Hansen. To turn the vote, she started a grassroots campaign completely run by volunteers and personally connected with voters by “asking questions to find out what folks were concerned about.”
Valenzuela decided to run when she realized that after eight years, Steve Hansen had lost touch with the community. She acknowledges that running was a huge risk, but “if you’re interested, you should run. If you see things going wrong and have different ideas about how to solve them, then that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Hansen was supported by Mayor Steinberg and the rest of City Council, which was disappointing to Valenzuela, who had worked closely with the council for a while. Friends of hers worried that running might make people angry, and some even asked her if she’d still be employable if she lost. Valenzuela worked through the pressure and credits her clear vision for change for her win.
Once she enters office this December, Katie Valenzuela plans to focus on a long term solution for a problem that brings all three neighborhoods of district four together; homelessness. This issue was a big reason for why Valenzuela ran because she was frustrated that instead of solving the problem, the city seems to be making it worse. “[homelessness] is not a mysterious phenomenon. The fact that we aren’t doing what we need to be doing is incredibly frustrating.” She plans to make change within the city while working together with the county and the state to find common solutions.
Valenzuela plans to be strategic about homelessness and describes the situation as being two buckets; triage and long term solutions. Triage, or immediate services, would be designated campgrounds for the homeless, equipped with bathrooms, showers, and trash cans. Next, Valenzuela would try to find more accurate numbers on homeless populations so that the city has a general understanding of how many people need mental health services and provide safety for women and lgbtq+ youth.
Her next plan revolves around long term housing units. She argues that the current situation of 30 or 90 day solutions are expensive and ineffective, because people have nowhere to go after the program ends. In addition to the high, cyclical costs, “it also harms the homeless population to go through this destabilization”. Valenzuela recognizes that we really need to focus on homelessness now more than ever before because “people are in crisis after the shutdowns. This summer, we met with people outside of City Hall who were thirsty because they couldn’t refill their bottles. People are thirsty and it’s 2020.”
Valenzuela says that another big focus of hers is rent control. “We have a massive affordability crisis and we need to protect where people are in now.” With all the new buildings in Sacramento, rent has become unaffordable. “Some of these buildings, they’re just so expensive. $1600 a month is too much, that’s like a mortgage cost…which means people can’t save and buy a house anymore.” What’s even worse is that people can not afford to move out, leaving them stuck. “It costs 5 grand to move in Sacramento, and people can’t afford that, especially with Covid.” Valenzuela hopes to create a Rent Emergency fund to provide temporary relief, preventing people from becoming homeless.
In addition to these issues she’s outlined, Valenzuela has to deal with the huge amount of debt Sacramento has incurred. Something she is especially concerned about is the Golden One center, which was supposed to be paid through parking revenue, but hasn’t materialized with the current pandemic. Debts are also being accrued through the renovation of the Sacramento Convention Center which is typically used to host large events. Valenzuela says that even though she doesn’t necessarily like the decisions that led to these debts, “if the city is in, then I’m all in. Let’s find a way to be strategic and make this all work.”
Balancing the budget is going to be a fight for Valenzuela because the first things cut are always youth and community services. She’s worried about this happening next year and says that, “We need organizing. You might have heard about the People’s Budget?”. Valenzuela wants to put more money into communities by making sure that no youth is more than a mile from some type of a community center. This way they can have access to the internet or homework help. “We have to be thoughtful about investing in and filling gaps. We know that some youth are isolated and we can address this”.
Reevaluating the role of the police in communities is another big issue Valenzuela wants to work on. She plans on creating a new department to look at 911 calls and track emergencies in order for the city to develop new resources for responses. As a policy buff, she wants to look into certain rules that give police too much power. “Police shouldn’t respond to mental health crises, but they’re the only ones who are given 72 hour hold authority”. While this is a state law change, she believes that it is critical in solving these issues that police in neighborhoods create.
Valenzuela believes that we also have to be more strategic with police money. This year, the police were going to be given a $10 million raise. Valenzuela argues that instead, we should invest this money in community programs, health services, peacemakers, and counselors. If everything works out, then more money would be taken from the police and reinvested into these programs, creating a gradual, transitional shift.
Valenzuela says the most important thing to remember is that, “safety means that you shouldn’t have to call 911. It doesn’t mean having the police on every corner. The best thing to do is to stop someone from shooting instead of responding to it.” Valenzuela is also a part of a group of women electives who have pledged not to take money from law enforcement and developers. She hopes that this will instill hope in her constituents because it’s important for people to feel invested in community issues.
The community is ready for change and City Council Member Katie Valenzuela is ready to bring that change. During her campaign, hundreds of people called in and sent letters to City Hall in her favor. The Mayor and the rest of the council tried to brush her off, calling her a “radical leftist” and saying that this is just a small fraction of constituents, but Valenzuela held firm, asking “at what point do we have to reach to show that this isn’t radical, this is what the community wants?” Councilmember Valenzuela starts her first term in December, and can’t wait to show Sacramento that “something better is possible”.