[00:00:00] Speaker A: Today on Podcast Byther Bay, we put.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Together through the pandemic protocols through our Department of Emergency Management that help our first responders communicate effectively.
And I think the work, and you're a big part of that, but the work that is being done there is probably one of the great things to come out of the pandemic, just the ability to plan, plan, plan, and with that, the use of technology.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: We speak with San Mateo Supervisor for District 5, David Canepa.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: I like affordable housing in transit rich areas. I think that makes sense. The nexus between transit, housing, not only are we lowering carbon emissions, but we're also getting people from their place of work to their home. And I think we've seen that be successful here in San Mateo County.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: All coming up on today's episode of Podcast by the Bay. Stay tuned.
Podcast by the Bay is a production of Bay City Communications and is sponsored by Liberty Realty. Liberty Realty, serving the peninsula and surrounding areas since 1986 for all your real estate needs.
Www.liberty realty investments.
And now another Podcast by the Bay.
[00:01:44] Speaker C: Welcome to Podcast by the bay. Today is October 2nd.
I have the honor of interviewing Supervisor David Canapa, District 5, also President of the Board of Supervisors. He's a fourth generation San Mateo County. I did interview him approximately a year ago, so I'm not going to get into too many details about his family background. David, I usually like to start out with one question. Obviously you were inspired a little bit to get public service somehow by either your mom or your dad or both.
What's the audience like?
[00:02:17] Speaker B: My parents did not want me to be in politics. My parents wanted me to be in business.
My mom and dad are my best friends, but no one really encouraged me to be in politics whatsoever.
I pretty much knew from a very early age, grew up in Pacifica, as you know, seventh grade.
I pretty much knew that I was going to be an elected official.
From there went to Sacred Heart, went to USF where I was senior class president, did internships, and then from there worked for elected officials.
[00:02:54] Speaker C: Well, David's background, he was on the council in Daly City, which is my hometown, and he was on council 2008, 2016.
He was also mayor in 2014.
Correct. Great town. It's one of the largest in the county. I know there's been a little reshift population and I think San Mateo is a little larger than Daly City. Or is that argument still going on?
[00:03:19] Speaker B: No, I think that argument through the last census has been determined to my chagrin. And I love the people of the great city. Of San Mateo. They are the largest city in San Mateo county with the great city of Daly City trailing.
[00:03:38] Speaker C: David was elected to the Board of Supervisors in the year 2016.
He was also honored to run in a primary for Congress. And we celebrate that because he took a lot of courage to run against probably what we would say, a favorite.
So, David, what motivated you?
And obviously there was some pretty strict odds against you in there.
What was your reason why you ran for Congress?
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Well, look, I mean, I've always had an incredible relationship with Kevin Mullen, actually. In fact, my grandfather, they were both schoolteachers and this is when Gene was alive. And I didn't know this until Gene Mullen had told me. And they were both USF graduates. But it was my grandfather who encouraged Gene to move through South San Francisco. And so I looked at that race, those sort of seats come once every 50 years. And I thought, you know what? I'm a fourth generation San Mateo county resident, I'm on the Board of Supervisors, why not go for it?
That loss was probably the greatest thing in my political career to happen.
I have an eight year old son. I'm able to see my son every day, spend a lot of time. I didn't realize at the time that you have to go to Washington D.C. every week. So I think it's worked out for Kevin. But in terms of, you know, my family and my son, it's worked out for me.
[00:05:09] Speaker C: Well, I want to thank David behalf of me as a citizen in the city of Foster City.
He had a golden opportunity, as he knows. I approached him a few years back on the Canadian geese situation. We still have the problem. As you know, he was the first to come out, do a press release and talking with the television station about it. And as you know, that geese situation went as far back as Washington D.C. and across the country. I was lucky enough through the persuasion of the council that we stopped the culling of the geese. And now we're in a situation with a contract that we're trying to mitigate the geese situation. I don't want to talk about that today, but I want to thank you, David, for showing up for us in fall.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: You know, let me say something. I want to thank you, Patrick, for your leadership on this. I mean, they were talking about culling all these, all these geeses. And I think your voice gave other elected officials like myself the ability to stand up. So thank you because that was a tough issue at the time.
[00:06:11] Speaker C: And one of the things that we all saw in my first year in election, and you Were on the board of Supervisors. Is Covid, what have we learned? Or what have. What have you learned as an individual, as an elected official on, are we prepared? Are we not prepared? How do we. How do we do a better job than what we did, even though I think we did an excellent job?
[00:06:32] Speaker B: Well, look, I think, Covid, it's changed all of us, right? I mean, we had to isolate. One of the things I think we realized throughout San Mateo county is that our partnerships with the cities, school districts, is so vitally important. Right? I mean, we were basically telling people that, hey, protect yourself by wearing your mask. Or, you know, we're playing. We've never been through a pandemic, so every day we're trying to figure it out. But I think what we were able to really do is to strengthen our relationships with the cities, strengthen our relations, fire districts and all these special districts and how we can work together, I think, as cities and counties. Remember, in San Mateo county, my understanding is we have 20 cities.
We have 20 cities.
And so for all of us to sort of come together, I think it really, really was important but very trying times. Now, the remnants of this.
The remnants is we ask people to isolate, right?
But when we did that, we did it to protect them, protect their health. And now we. We're sort of dealing with the mental health aspect of loneliness. And our office continues to work on loneliness.
We have this loneliness delight series. And how do we keep people connected? The county's made historic investments and programs that will keep people connected through social cohesion.
[00:08:01] Speaker C: I appreciate that.
So, as a county, how can we be better prepared for the next disaster, whatever it might be an earthquake or it could be another epidemic? What do you think we could do better? I know one small challenge that we had was out there at the fairgrounds, where unfortunately, we had a lot of vaccine that somehow got compromised out there in the fairgrounds. And I know that we had stored a lot of. A lot of stuff in it. Somehow, I guess the upkeep of the building or something caused the compromise.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Well, yeah, that's the first I've heard of it. But I think what we're doing right now is the Department of Emergency Management dem.
Working with the cities, that is. When you look at that rock, the name is Regional Operations Center.
So really, when we have a catastrophe, we see it. Wildfire fire in Pescadero, CZU fire. Whether we have issues with earthquakes, San Andreas fault, whether it's sea level rise, whatever it is, I think we put together through the pandemic protocols, through Our department of Emergency Management that help our first responders communicate effectively.
And I think the work and you're a big part of that, but the work that is being done there is probably one of the great things that come out of the pandemic. Just the ability to plan, plan, plan. And with that, the use of technology.
Right. And so how do we use technology to protect people? And I think those sort of things have really, I think, improve dramatically.
[00:09:53] Speaker C: I'm one of the only unique cities on the Bay Area that does have a levy.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:58] Speaker C: In regional Bay Area. I know the county has worked desperately.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Good question.
[00:10:04] Speaker C: No, I don't want to use the word desperately, but use the word to encourage surrounding cities to work on their levy. How's that coming along? I do sit on the emergency services or I did for a year task force. How can we do a better job of finding the financing and money so that the surrounding cities, whether it's South San Francisco or Daly City or Brisbane to be able to get those levies up?
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Correct. So Foster cities demonstrated incredible leadership. Right. If I recall, and correct me if I'm wrong, the voters passed a tax measure, is that correct?
[00:10:43] Speaker C: Yeah, we passed a bond about 84%. Now to this. We were lucky in the respect that we got a bid during COVID so probably far less than it would have cost by today's standards.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: My son and I, we ride from Seal Point and we ride that levee into Foster City. It's a really remarkable space. Amazing location, amazing space. And so I think cities around Foster City can learn a lot from Foster City in terms of how they were able to accomplish that. But let's talk about the airport in particular. The airport in particular.
You know, they're looking at a grand plan that is potentially South San Francisco Sam Trans to see what they can do to address the sea level rise. As you know, there's the coma canal that that runs through.
But I think these sort of regional partnerships are important. I sit on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
The need around sea level rise in the nine Bay Area counties is $100 billion.
That's a huge, huge 100 billion. And so when we look at one shoreline, we look at the various partnerships that are out there.
It's very capital intensive, but we know it's the right investment.
[00:12:06] Speaker C: You know what strikes me and I know everybody's been working on the levy and any way we look at a levy is pretty much parallel to 101.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:12:15] Speaker C: So when we think about it, why isn't. I haven't seen in any of the plans, the reconstruction of 101, we've done nothing but a patchwork. If we take a look at 101 north and south, that's pretty much Bayfield.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:12:29] Speaker C: And what are we going to do there? I mean, once we get the levees up, I think it's going to be astronomical because I was told that sea rise level that we're losing a quarter of an inch yearly near the airport and it's not going to take much time before it'll be a crisis.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Remember, sfo, I believe, has put in a significant amount of money, I think to the tune. I might want to fact check between 100 and $200 million to secure the airport. That is something that's already been completed or maybe the.
Which would be the southern side of the airport.
The other thing that I think we have to look at, you bring up a Valid point, Highway 101. As you know, there have been some talks and it's sort of controversial in some circles about the expansion of lanes. Right. And then looking at from the airport to the San Francisco border and doing potentially toll lanes. And so that area I think about. And you, you know this area very well, that area is prone to flooding just before you get to Candlestick Park. And so I think at the end of the day, if you look at all the companies, we're talking companies that are worldwide companies, Visas, you know, Meta. We just had the ability. Last week I met with Roach, which owns Genentech and the board of directors. You're probably talking about a trillion dollars in assets. And so we need to sort of figure out what the plan is. But as you know.
[00:14:14] Speaker C: So are you really. You're really suggesting and for. Is of some partnerships have to. Yeah. With these organizations we have, as you know, one of our biggest is Gileads.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:14:25] Speaker C: And you know, we had our business license tax that we went up quite a bit. And those big companies are real critical, whether it's Visa or Gileads. I think those partnerships are important.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: No, you're right. I mean you can't. Thank you. You can't do anything with public without public or private partnership.
And then I also think, you know, when you do these, these, these projects, infrastructure, the money you're able to get through the federal government is going to be critical at scale. Let me say this. You know, Genentech is about to invest $50 billion into San Mateo County.
The question is, is how many of those dollars can be. Can, can gentech contribute? Maybe. Maybe they want to because they understand the value of Their properties, which are all in south San Francisco. So big, big problems, but there's also big, big solutions, you know.
[00:15:27] Speaker C: You know, before you started office, there was a thing in movement San Mateo county called green.
And it was an environmental thing that the county had set up a policy on constructions.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:15:43] Speaker C: It appears that it's not done well. Okay, how can we revise that? I know we're in a political atmosphere where we're going to only speak here, California and San Mateo County. How can we do a better job with green? Because we had all these standards that we were going to have more double pane windows, more solar panels, more technology brought into the commercial buildings. I know some of the big companies have already done that.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I hear you.
You look right here and this, this building reflects the county's values. Right. This is where you're at right now is the greenest civic building the United States. Now think about that for a second. It's the greenest civic building built out of cross laminate timber. And you have all these, you know, when the sun go, this goes down, this goes down. And so in terms of living this principles, these principles, we're doing it now. I think you're referring to. When you say green, are you talking green business? What do you mean, green?
[00:16:48] Speaker A: No, we.
[00:16:50] Speaker C: Over 10 years ago, before you were on the Board of Supervisors, we talked in San Mateo county, made regulations for building which was green, which could have been insulation, could have been electrical, could have been plumbing, windows, that kind of.
We, as a real estate broker, we had a kind of a check sheet that San Mateo county had that said, well, just like San Francisco, San Francisco has a thing for energy. When you turn over your house, you have to show what you put into the building or what you might put into the building once you take it over.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, don't know too much about it, but definitely willing to explore it and work with you on that in partnership.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:17:37] Speaker C: You know, you touched on a couple things, and it's really relevant right now, not only for San Mateo county, but for the country is two major issues. Mental health and affordable housing. And those two tie together because if people have crisis, sometimes their crisis ends up that they're homeless.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:17:58] Speaker C: Or that they're not getting a care or that they act out in an odd way that causes the death of many people.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, the county is.
Is dealing. This is probably the most. One of the most serious issues, the housing issue. Right. So, as you know, in San Mateo county, the average house is $2 million. Okay, now you think about that, right? Two million. Okay, now you think about, okay, you pay tax for a year. If it's 1%, I don't know, $20,000 a year. So people to live here, it's a challenge. And so I believe that the production of housing. The county's done an amazing job. We're talking, they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars partnering with cities to see what we could do to create affordable housing. I like affordable housing in transit rich areas. I think that makes sense. The nexus between transit housing, not only are we lowering carbon emissions, but we're also getting people from their place of work to their home. And I think we've seen that be successful here in San Mateo County. Mental health, mental health piece is interesting because mental health, you know, we have to provide the space. The county, through our BHRs, we provide many services to a lot of people that people don't really see. Within our correctional facilities we have what's called imat. IMAT gives people the ability to receive counseling but medication as well. And so I think that ecosystem is, is. It needs improvement. But we're working on it. I think the other thing we've been acknowledged, our navigation center in Redwood City, really taking people to a place where they can live a better life. And I think what's. What we're responsible as elected officials is to see what we can do to give people, let me say this, a hand up, not a handout. So how are we able to help?
[00:20:03] Speaker C: Let's extract a little bit on the housing because I'm passionate about it because I've been in the business for 40 years.
Are we really just warehousing people? Because when we think about it, building studio apartments and one bedroom apartments to meet our arena numbers.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:20:21] Speaker C: One of the only social equity in my opinion is home ownership. So if we're going to continue to warehouse people, we're going to continue to have the mantra. I have an apartment buildings with one bedroom and studio apartments. And when we take a look back at the thing which you're about talking, talking about the cost of housing, which I completely agree. If we look at San Mateo County, 61% of your home ownership is senior citizens.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:20:49] Speaker C: They won't sell their homes because of the capital gains.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:20:52] Speaker C: So what I'm kind of extracting for a thought process and you may want to think about it, maybe we're charging too much taxes to the people that could eventually buy a house. Because you're right. When you look at child care.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:06] Speaker C: You look at Housing and taxation in San Mateo county, you can be in a section eight and have $120,000 income.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:21:14] Speaker C: Okay, so maybe we need to step outside of the box and look at how do we get a developer to build a two bedroom, two bath to purchase and give them instead of building the one bedroom studio apartment because are required to do 15 to 20% affordable house.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: This is very, very good observation. I mean we look at Midway Village, that's in over by the Cow palace. And one of the things is, and you're very insightful is that we were just going to do the apartments.
What we did is we created home ownership opportunities on the perimeter of the property. Where we also did that is Stone Cove. And so you're right, ownership equity.
I want to address the issue because I do think it's a real question that you raised around taxes and so forth.
I do get concerned with this. The ability of people, especially those 61% is a good number that lived on a fixed income.
Tough, right? It's tough. So we need to make space. I think our work around older adults, that's something worthy of exploration and to see what we can do to sort of make sure we don't leave anyone behind.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: Okay, that's great. I appreciate that.
You know, today's kind of controversial for elected officials.
Either you're on one side or on the other side. We're not going to talk about that because that's too controversial.
And I know how that is. I have somebody that I go out with. It's on the opposite side politically. Can't talk about school, but that's okay.
How do you think we can arrive in the middle? Because right now we seem to be on a. If you could picture the playground seesaw.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Yeah, he must have been at my lunch today. So we talked about for about 30 minutes. I think civility is the key. I firmly believe in this great nation that a majority of the people are in the middle, 80%. And then you have the people on the fringe and that's. Those are people who have been amplified. It's been amplified through social media.
But there's two words that I think are important. One is dialogue and the other is discourse. We need to understand each other better. We need to communicate.
And even when we may not disagree, we have to be open to finding understanding.
So in my career, I think I've always had the ability to talk with people, different sides. You know, I'm. I don't think it's an issue of trying to convince someone. I think it's an issue of, you know, how do you listen and your opinion may change. And so I think dialogue, discourse are important aspects of us moving forward as a society.
[00:24:22] Speaker C: Okay, I only got two more questions.
What do you feel that you've accomplished in the county of San Mateo? The you're proud of. And then you can also say that you're not proud of too.
[00:24:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, look, I think we saved a hospital.
I think we saved Scene Medical Center. I know we did.
I know. And of course, there are a lot of other people who are with us.
At the end of the day, I think when it came to Mickelson Pool and San Mateo, I think we were critical in saving that.
But I think the one thing that I'm most proud of and I, I came in with a strong vision. And you, you, you'll recall this because your hometown is Daly City.
I don't think Daly City was ever a part of the county conversation.
And I think what we've been able to do for the city of Daly City and my district in particular, is to make sure that we were able to get the resources they needed. And so whether it's, you know, the Vista Grand Canal and getting, you know, $20 million to make sure and infrastructure, it's not going to make headlines getting that done. Whether it's making sure that if I tell you this Gellert park wasn't renovated since the 1980s. 1980s, you imagine that and helping them fund that park.
But I think my work has really been focused in terms of policy. And I think we move the needle on a lot of things. But I would define it in three ways. One, I think when we talk about moving, advancing policy, I think loneliness, mental health.
I'm really proud of this. Age friendly, making sure that we advanced. Age friendly. Only one city left, Menlo park doesn't have it. But giving cities the resources and the ability to move forward with age friendly.
Finally, I think one of the things that I'm proud of is how we handled Covid.
I think Covid was so complex.
We were in it, Bill, day in and day out, just dealing with things.
And I think what I'm really proud of this is what I'm really proud of is 500 County center, because we had worked on this for 10 years. Oh, Bill. We worked with Don Horsley with Slocum. We worked with our staff and we were able to get out of all these leases we spent a lot of money on and really create a world class space with sustainability.
[00:27:05] Speaker C: One quick question.
Did we lease back the court to the state. Are we leasing?
[00:27:11] Speaker B: No. The agreement we put together. It's a great question.
The agreement we put together is we remember this was the old traffic court, a portion of the property. What we were able to do is for that we said that we would construct two new courthouses and that's our obligation. And for some reason I want to say it's between 10 and 11 million dollars.
[00:27:34] Speaker C: Thank you, David on behalf of Podcast by the Bay, we want to thank you for taking the time to speak with Podcast by the Bay.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Hey Patrick, thank you for all your work.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to this episode of of Podcast by the Bay. You can contact us by
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[00:29:21] Speaker B: Sam.
