Q&A with District 3 City Council candidate Brandon Evans

On June 2, Richmond voters will cast ballots in a primary election. Richmond Confidential interviewed the two District 3 candidates and the three District 4 candidates, either in person or by phone, unless noted. We are publishing their verbatim responses, with light editing for clarity or brevity.

District 3 includes Atchison Village, Coronado, Pullman, Park Plaza and the Richmond Village/Metro Square neighborhoods

Brandon Evans, District 3 challenger

What are District 3’s top two priorities and how would you address them? 

District 3’s top two priorities, I would say quality of life issues around blight — issues with our unhoused neighbors living in the public right of way and along our rail corridors, and opportunities for employment, I would consider those the quality of life issues. And then, the second biggest issue is public safety. … In terms of just addressing blight and illegal dumping, we just need to staff up in those departments. And we have seen the city manager kind of balance the budget using  positions that are either frozen or just kind of sitting on the books. So I would just say we need to staff up. We need to get more bodies into those departments specifically. Parks could also use a couple bodies, the abatement crews, the streets crews. They just need more hands.

When we’re talking about public safety, I think we want to ensure that we have a fully staffed Police Department, that is hitting the minimum threshold of required sworn police officers that we have allocated in our budget. So ensuring that we have a fully staffed department, but I think we also need to continue to invest in the police alternatives, or public safety alternatives. One of those is [Reach Out with Compassion and Kindness]. … So when they receive a call to dispatch and the person does not have a weapon, is kind of talking to themselves, having a mental health episode, ROCK is then dispatched. And they are on the radio frequency and are able to take that call directly from dispatch. RPD does dispatch a patrol car out first. Once they deem it safe, then ROCK is able to access that person or access the scene. So, we need both. 

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How would the Chevron settlement money be put to best use in District 3?

So, let’s do the easy things first. I think addressing the quality of life issues: blight, cleanliness of our commercial corridors, maintenance of our medians and our streetscapes, those types of improvements that make people feel good when they walk outside their house. They see a well-manicured median, they see new trees going in, they see new signage. I was just driving down Cutting today and the light poles are just beat up and could probably be swapped out. I think those types of things, the trees need to be pruned, right. 

I think immediately, again, investing in staffing capacity, we can address some of those issues, just getting more bodies. I think after that, we really need to see how we leverage the settlement funds into long-term revenue streams. One of those ways is that we can invest some of that money into long-term investment strategies. 

Another part of it is we do need to use some of it to address our unfunded pension liability, which is debt that the city has incurred related to individuals who were previous city employees. And this is really a state of California issue. Most cities and counties in the state of California, their biggest financial liability is in unfunded pension obligations. I know there are some who believe that we should spend all of the money on the unfunded pension liabilities. I don’t subscribe to that same train of thought, but I think that we should put some aside, maybe make a lump sum payment towards it. And, I think, the rest we need to invest in our built infrastructure, especially downtown. So, how do we attract and incentivize growth and development in our downtown corridor?  I would love to see a partnership with Kaiser. Maybe we get a new hospital downtown, if the city is actually able to put up some funding. As well as housing development, entertainment development. I would love to see a convention center downtown. I think there are mechanisms to fund this public infrastructure that will allow us to leverage the settlement funds versus just spending the settlement funds outright on some of these larger infrastructure projects. 

Would you be likely to support the continued use of Flock license plate readers when the question returns to the council later this year?

Absolutely. So, I think it is slated to come before the council in December. Of course, once I win, I won’t be on the dias until January, so that decision can be made at that time. I think that in the current status of our [police] department, with our department being understaffed, Flock is a tool that allows us to leverage technology to respond to some of these incidents that we are seeing. Flock has three primary functions. They have the license plate readers. They have the CCTV cameras. And then they also provide drone support when our officers are responding to a call. From the conversation last night, from the neighborhood council, our Flock cameras are actually still off. So they were voted to be turned back on, but they have to manually click a switch on every camera across the city of Richmond. So we don’t know the timeline in terms of actually when it will be back up and running 100%. Critics will say, ‘They are using it to mass surveil us.’ Well, if you live in America, you pretty much opt in to being mass surveilled. … The mass surveillance is not within the realm of our City Council right. So opponents will say, ‘Well, they’re using it to mass surveil us, they’re using facial recognition software to identify individuals who have varying documentation statuses.’ And that simply is not the case. The cameras do not have any type of facial recognition features, but will pick up license plates, CCTV, and then provide drone support. So, it’s one of those issues that became super volatile in the context of Richmond issues, where it pits groups against one another. And in actuality, I think it’s simpler. These are tools for our Police Department to be able to leverage. They are not mass surveilling. 

I think the contingent around Flock is the ability for Federal Immigration Enforcement to access some of the data and what preempted Richmond turning our cameras off was that there was an internal feature that you can toggle on and toggle off that would allow neighboring cities and other cities across the United States also using Flock to be able to access your information. And that was the cause for concern that led to the cameras being turned off. Our data had not been accessed and as an additional safety measure, Flock agreed to pay, I think, close to $300,000 per occurrence of anything going astray. So, is it a drop in the bucket, but that’s just another safeguard. 

What makes you the best candidate? 

I think what makes me the best candidate is that I have the most experience. And not just my educational background. Urban studies and planning prepares you for a number of different roles in city life. I could have become a city planner, but becoming an organizer prepares you to work in the nonprofit space, prepares you to work in a number of roles in public service, civil service-type capacities. I think that, coupled with my years of direct service experience — I was actually a city of Richmond employee; I worked in the employment and training program, only candidate that has ever been a city employee. So I have experience inside of the organization and see there are issues on council, but there are also issues within our organization. In addition to that, I think I’m the only candidate with county government experience from my time at the county supervisor’s office. So understanding where city and county officials interact and opportunities that exist to leverage a much larger pot of resources that are afforded to us through the county supervisors office. Our current county supervisor is John Gioia. I worked in the District 5 office under supervisor Federal Glover and then Supervisor Shanelle Scales-Preston.  I went to policy school, so this isn’t a hobby for me. I didn’t wake up and say, ‘I want to be a community organizer.’ You absolutely don’t need a professional degree to do the work that I’m doing, but I think the difference is that it went from being something that I was interested in to being something that I went and got an education in. I think that context is important. … I have also served on the Economic Development Commission for eight years, was the chair numerous times. Also served on the Planning Commission. So, I think I have the most experience, even though I have not been elected. But running campaigns, serving in an appointed capacity at the city, serving as an appointed district representative for our county elected official, I’ve been in that role and comfortable in it. 

(Top Photo courtesy of the candidate)

Coming Wednesday: A Q&A with District 3 candidate Doria Robinson

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