Being elected for the first time during a global pandemic brought all sorts of challenges, the most immediate being how to help our community during our darkest days. I’m proud to have joined with the rest of our council to pause utility rate increases during COVID, to relax collection requirements, and to help connect community members with state and federal resources to help with utility bills.
With help from Measure G funding we began a comprehensive Wildfire Mitigation program to clear underbrush from Crestmoor Canyon, Bennington/Madison Canyon and elsewhere around the City, in some areas the first work of this kind in decades. In 2023 we finally brought our police officers up to full staffing after having to leave officer positions vacant for several years due to budgetary constraints.
In 2021 I partnered with our council majority to form the Clean San Bruno Action Committee, a subcommittee to address a dramatic increase in dumping around San Bruno, likely caused by everyone being home due to the pandemic. Alongside Councilmember Marty Medina we held several community meetings (on Zoom) to hear from residents about the problem and find solutions. This resulted in establishing monthly community cleanups, where dozens of community volunteers came to gether to address the issue directly for the short-term. For the long-term, I’m proud to have suggested and, with council majority direction, implemented, a pilot program where dumping reports made via the San Bruno Responds app are routed directly to Recology for immediate attention. We also championed extending the two large pickups each residential customer gets each year to our neighbors in multifamily housing. Both of these programs were so successful they were built into our permanent contract with Recology and continue to this day. This committee also recommended and with council majority approved the replacement of garbage cans in our downtown, both for beautification and more importantly to add self-compacting Big Belly cans to combat overflow issues.