Priorities

Keep Our Community Safe and Healthy

We need to make sure that we keep Tustin safe and healthy.  Too often, our neighborhoods, parks, and streets become unsafe for kids and families.  We need to:

• Prioritize funding to maintain fast emergency response times and ensure that neighborhood complaints are addressed quickly.

• Work with neighborhood groups to enhance crime reports, coordinate responses to habitual crimes, and connect home and business security cameras directly to the police.

• Address homelessness by pairing social workers with police who respond to homeless issues.  By making sure that help to those who will accept it, we can break the cycle of homelessness, and focus our police resources on those who pose public safety threats.

• Bring BeWellOC to Tustin and become part of a comprehensive solution for homelessness, mental health, and addiction.

• Ensure that Tustin is represented in regional crime control efforts to address fentanyl and other addictions, street racing and takeovers, human trafficking, and hate crimes.

• Add a Community Health and Wellness element to the General Plan, to addresses all aspects of health and wellness in our community

Develop the Local Economy for the Future

Tustin needs economic development.  The City has been slow to respond to opportunities in the past.  We cannot afford that now.  One of our historic hangars burned down, which has cost us dearly.  Our Old Town should be a bustling pedestrian corridor, not just a “hidden gem.”  And after the old Vons in Larwin Square was finally filled after seven years, there is now an empty Rite Aid.  We need an economic development mindset that will grow our business community.  It’s no longer good enough to just live and shop in Tustin—it’s time to make it a great place to work, too.  We need to:

• Immediately develop and implement a community-based plan to reuse our remaining South Hangar and the land where the North Hangar once stood.  Our development must benefit the community and honor the legacy of service.

• Preserve and promote Old Town by bringing more businesses to the downtown core, working with property owners to fill-up the vacant lots and under-used sites, and solve the long-running problem of parking for residents and visitors.

• Encourage businesses to create jobs for residents, and reinforce incentives with innovative ideas and actions for workforce housing.  Revenues from local businesses will pour right back into our city's economy when citizens spend it on housing and goods in Tustin.  Furthermore, new businesses we attract to Tustin should have a commitment to job growth suitable for recent college grads, young professionals, and skilled tradespeople.

• Develop creative models to increase the housing supply for both renters and homeowners, all while ensuring thoughtful planning to address traffic, parking and pollution for our growing population.

• Protect and enhance green space areas for recreation and exercise.  All of these things will ensure and expand the quality of life for all of Tustin's residents.

Build a Community for Families and Kids

As a new parent, I see more than ever how critical it is to support parents and kids in Tustin, and build the community for our kids’ future.  We need to: 

• Invest in entry-level housing so that our kids can afford to live in Tustin when they grow up, and so that our teachers, firefighters, police, and local employees can afford to live in the City that they serve.

• Preserve and protect our library, which will soon be the most visited library in the Orange County Library System.  The City of Irvine is leaving the Orange County Library system, which will put a new strain on Tustin.  We have to protect its resources, and support its volunteers.

• Work hand-in-glove with the school district to help under-resourced schools in the City serve the local residents, and make it possible for kids to safely walk to neighborhood schools, rather than being driven and bused all across town.

• Invest in preschool programs, quality childcare, and early literacy.  One of the most effective ways we can improve academic success is preparing children to learn before they enter school.  We should work to encourage the opening of more quality childcare centers in Tustin and should work with the Tustin Library to train childcare providers about reading development and the importance of early literacy.

• Provide quality after-school programs to extend the school day.  Students with positive after-school activities do better in the classroom and stay away from crime, drugs and alcohol.  As a kid, I attended the Boys and Girls Club of Tustin and I credit my time there with many of the habits that have bolstered my success.  Every child in Tustin deserves the same opportunities.  A partnership between the City, schools, and the Boys and Girls Club will enhance programs and support new programs and will benefit our kids now and far into the future.

Building Our Community With Responsive Leadership

Communities are built around parks and gardens; around libraries and book stores; around restaurants and coffee shops; around schools and small businesses; around friends and colleagues who meet up on street corners.

But communities must be built.  Communities don’t just appear.  Communities take hard work.  And they need responsive city leaders to facilitate the efforts—and get out of the way when there is progress.  Tustin has some of the most active non-profit organizations and community volunteers.  Now we need a City Council that is worthy of the city’s residents and volunteers.  We need to:

• Create a Community Troubleshooter to be all-purpose point of contact for concerns with local government and who facilitates a direct line of communication between the residents and the local city councilmember.

• Collaborate with leading Tustin non-profit organizations to help fund a full-time volunteer coordinator for all of Tustin.

• Be just as active in connecting with the community after the election as we are before the election.

Preserve Our Environment

Our environment is our most precious resource in Orange County, and through local action—in the City and in concert with neighboring cities and the County, we can help ensure that Tustin remains the best place to live in the world.  To accomplish this, we need to:

• Support expansion of transit options that can make commuting easier for our residents, and reduce traffic and pollution.  I regularly take the train when I have to travel to downtown Los Angeles, but we need more interconnected transit options for our residents and businesses.  As

• Create an active transportation plan to expand access for bicycles and pedestrians.  Both Irvine and Santa Ana have significant bike trails, paths and lanes, while in Tustin it’s often hard to even find a place to lock-up.  We need to connect to regional bike trails to promote commuters, and ensure safe biking areas for kids and families.

• Pursue community choice energy that can help bring lower cost, clean electricity to Tustin.  Neighboring cities including Irvine, Buena Park, Fullerton, Huntington Beach, and the County have all pursued community choice energy—a program where communities can purchase electricity on behalf of residents and businesses, in place of Southern California Edison.  This has the potential to both lower costs and reduce emissions.