My Positions on Additional Issues

By David W. Brown

The following are my positions on other significant issues facing Marina:

ON THE JOBS-HOUSING IMBALANCE: Coming housing developments will make our jobs-housing imbalance even worse. We need to encourage job creation, not become more of a bedroom community for Monterey.

ON PROTECTION OF OUR WATER RESOURCES: In September 2014, I resisted intense pressure from Cal-Am water and out-of-town business interests, to allow a "test" well, without an environmental impact report, whihc would actually constitute a substantial part of Cal-Am's desal project to supply the Peninsula (but not Marina), and potentially impact out 180-foot aquifer.

ON SENIORS AND ON SENIORS' AND CHILDREN'S PROGRAMS: I was proud to be part of the 3:2 majority in 2011 that enacted mobilehome rent stabilization, which protected many senior Marina seniors on fixed incomes. Of the two Democratic candidates for Council this election, I am NOT the one who accepted campaign contributions from mobilehome park owners and then voted against mobilehome rent stabilization!

Also, I have consistently voted not to cut recreation programs, which amount to a small percentage of the budget, but provide greatly-leveraged benefits in terms of limiting gang activities and saving on vastly-more-expensive public-safety costs.

ON RENTS IN PRESTON AND ABRAMS PARKS: While on the Council, I voted to support a lawsuit to resist the sale of Preston Park to a private entity that would likely move to increase rents upon such a sale. That lawsuit is still pending, and while FORA has since retaliated against the City by freezing out the City from the co-management it formerly had, a lawsuit victory may well reverse that. In any event, city-owned rentals in Preston Park and Abrams Park should not be considered cash cows. To state the obvious, Marina residents live in Preston and Abrams. One Council member seems to have regularly insisted, at past Council meetings, that the City squeeze as much as possible out of renters at Preston and Abrams. Not so. A balance must be struck between a fair return to the City on this "investment" and being fair to those Marina residents. As a Council member I have, and will continue to if re-elected, scrutinize rent-increase requests very carefully, and monitor the performance of the City"s management company.