Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:42] Tell me a little bit about your journey to Vallejo and and how that journey has sort of led you to run for mayor.
Andrea Sorce [00:02:51] Yeah, we came to Vallejo because my husband got a job here. We were both coming out of grad school. We met in the Peace Corps. Prior to Peace Corps, we were both living in Oakland, so we knew we were going to come back to the Bay Area. We went to grad school and out of grad school he got a fellowship to come to go and work on economic development and neither one of us had really thought of Vallejo as a place to to live, to buy our home, to settle. You know, we’d moved around a lot and we just fell in love with the community. So we lived in an apartment on Georgia Street for a little bit downtown and then and then bought our house. I started getting involved civically, kind of in the activist space. I worked with some of the families impacted by police violence to start up an ACLU chapter here. We worked on things with unhoused. We worked on police reform and accountability. And I think I had never imagined that I would run for office, never something I had ambition to do. But over time, I think it just became clear that the type of change that I felt that I wanted to see in the community and what that I was feeling demand for in the community wasn’t going to be possible without a change up top. And I realized that my best way to push for change was to run for office.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:59] Well, I want to talk a little bit about what being mayor means to you. For folks who don’t know, Vallejo has a what’s known as a weak mayor system. All the people on city council and including mayor are part time. You hire a city manager who really kind of gets things working for the city. But what does it mean for you to be mayor in spite of that?
Andrea Sorce [00:04:22] I think there is a lot of power in the mayor’s role, the soft power and the power to set the culture from the top. We need a culture change in city hall. We need to we need a government that’s more inclusive, that’s more responsive to the needs of the community. We need to stop making excuses and operate from a position of strength, really highlight the good narratives and everything that’s great about our city. And I think the mayor can do that. The mayor can be a culture carrier and the mayor can also advocate for Vallejo regionally and with state and federal officials to bring resources in and kind of get us on the map, especially since Vallejo just moved to district elections. The mayor is now the only seat that’s at large in the whole city. So I think the mayor has a duty to and responsibility to bring the community together. And that’s something that I’m really eager to do and excited to do. While the city manager is managing the day to day operations of the city.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:05:13] So it’s more of the symbolism of it, of of being the only person who is elected to serve every person.
Andrea Sorce [00:05:21] Exactly. And that’s one of the reasons why I decided to run for mayor. I wanted to represent the whole community. And I think culture comes from the top. You know, I think you can’t you can’t get the level of change transformation that we need in this community without a really aligned group of leaders starting from the very top. And we’re very fortunate that we have some great council members coming in as well. I mean, we’re going to have a city council in Vallejo where nobody was in politics before 2023, and that that can be a little bit scary in some senses. But I think for Vallejo, it’s great. I think the voters signaled that they wanted something new. And I take that very seriously. And, you know, we’re not going to be able to change everything overnight or fix everything overnight. It’s not going to be perfect. But the community is really, I think, ready to try something different. And I’m excited to do the work.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:10] It sounds like the longer you lived here, the more clear it became, what problems there were with the city. Despite the beauty of it, the amazing community that you had fallen in love with. One way people talk about that is with this word “potential,” Vallejo’s potential. What do you think people mean when they talk about the Vallejo potential?
Andrea Sorce [00:06:33] Yeah, the buzzword here. People are sick of it, but it’s true. Vallejo is. It’s a gem. We’ve got this amazing history. The naval base. The naval history. We have an island on the San Francisco Bay, a gorgeous waterfront. And we’re so ideally positioned between the East Bay. We’ve got the ferry to San Francisco where an hour from Sacramento. We’re right on the way to Napa and we’re one of the last semi affordable places in the Bay Area. So we get a really nice slice of folks. We’ve got working class union roots. We’ve got, you know, professionals, white collar, blue collar families. There’s so much diversity in this community in every sense of the word. But we’ve had. You know, setback after setback after setback and leaders and special interests and folks running the city that just have not delivered and haven’t had the community in mind. And so we just keep hearing people get give this promise of potential and and folks are sick of the they’re sick of the stagnation because they go, how can we have such a gorgeous waterfront? How can we have this diversity? How can we have all of this culture and arts and, you know, athletes coming from here and musicians coming from here and all of this stuff. And yet we are still always in the news for scandal. There’s so much good happening here. Why are we not unlocking it?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:54] Going into some of the issues, I mean, one of probably the biggest symbols of scandal and, you know, probably the number one reason why many people in the Bay Area are familiar with Vallejo is because of our police department. You and I think are very aware of the the many violent police killings, scandals, high profile police shootings. I mean, how would you like to see the community’s relationship with the police change under your leadership?
Andrea Sorce [00:08:27] It has to change. Any objective observer looking at this situation knows that there’s a problem. It’s the worst kept secret in the region and in the country. It’s why we can’t attract and retain officers. And so that’s one of the things that I said during the campaign, is that Reno reform is not optional at this point. Reform is required and reform doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can actually be a really positive thing. What I would like to lead out of the mayor’s office is an initiative where we can actually sit down with the community and build our vision for public safety in Vallejo. So actually bring in different groups, bring in those impacted because people deserve to feel safe in their community. But it’s going to take acknowledging some of the wrongdoing as well. I think one of the things that most frustrated me over the past several years is you’ve just I don’t know that I’ve ever heard an official from the city of Vallejo actually acknowledge that there’s a problem in the police department or that there was a problem or that there has been a problem. And it’s not about pointing fingers or going after people. It’s about doing right by the community and saying, you know what you’re feeling, what you’re experiencing, this mistrust, this is real, and we are going to help get through it together.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:09:37] And on the issue of of staffing, I mean, staffing in the Vallejo Police Department is low and response times are really low. I mean, is that something that you hear anecdotally that is contributing to people’s fears around safety and just sort of feeling unsafe here? And what do you think needs to be done about that?
Andrea Sorce [00:09:59] 100%. I think the the lack of police response is one of the key reasons why people feel don’t feel safe, because if you look at crime statistics, they’re not up. They’re kind of flat. Some areas are up, some areas are down. You know, everything kind of ebbs and flows. But what has really changed in Vallejo are the response times and perception of public safety and people’s individual experiences is just as important. I maintain that. I think our police staffing is low because of the reputation of the department and the lack of accountability in the department. What we’re experiencing in Vallejo is not what other cities are experiencing. Vallejo has a $62 million police budget. It’s the highest budget we’ve ever had, and we were budgeted for 137 officers and we only have 70 something. Where is the rest of that money going? No one can tell you this isn’t we have police. We don’t have police responding because we don’t have the resources. This is something’s wrong. I just don’t know who would want to come here with that reputation with, you know, no one really having been held accountable for the wrongdoing and with the understaffing, no support, you know, going out on patrol, you only got four officers and then you’re consistently going out and dealing with the worst of human behavior without trust in the community. So it’s just, you know, we’re setting we’re setting these folks up to not be successful and to not be able to to stay here and grow here because they’re going to burn out. And then, I mean, I’ve told leaders in the city and members of department, I’ll be the first one out there recruiting.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:35] I want to talk about homelessness and housing in Vallejo. I know you support safe parking sites, essentially areas for folks who live in their cars to safely park and not be asked to move. Vallejo currently doesn’t have one, correct. Do you have a safe parking site in mind?
Andrea Sorce [00:11:54] I don’t. I think that’s a that’s a conversation that needs to happen with community because understandably, the folks that are in the neighborhoods near the existing encampments are frustrated. I, too, am angry. I’m angry at the city’s waste and negligence of the situation. But I will always advocate for a compassionate approach. I think you judge us. You judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable and playing Whac-A-Mole with people’s lives. With these sweeps, it doesn’t matter if you if you criminalize sleeping on the street and sweet people and there’s nowhere for them to go, they’re just going to go somewhere else in the community. And now you’ve made it even harder for them to get on their feet. So we need to clean up our public spaces and we need to create safety for everybody, including the unhoused, that are just trying to get their lives together. But they’re also victims of crime and arson and dumping and all of these things. So the solution to that for me is to create a space where people can go, where we can have dumpsters, basic sanitation, porta potties, maybe even security, you know, in better monitoring, lighting, the things I was talking about earlier with public safety, the location is something that I think the community has to be a part of deciding. So I have a few things in my head of where I think we could potentially have it, but we’ve got to get a sense of, okay, where are all the city properties? Where are the spaces that are even possibilities for this? And then bring the community in and talk, you know, have a real conversation about do we want to have a couple of these so that one neighborhood is a burden. Do we want to try to find a good spot where we can really secure it? You know, and I think there has to be there has to be public community buy in.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:28] And I mean, we’re talking about folks who are living in their cars. What do you imagine happening with folks living in their tents or just living on the streets? Is it about building more shelter in Vallejo? Is it about building more housing? Like, how do you and where do you imagine those people going?
Andrea Sorce [00:13:44] Yeah, I mean, nobody’s really figured out how to do this, how to do this. Well, we’re struggling across the state. And I think the one thing that the city below hasn’t tried really much of anything, there’s been there have been a couple of big housing projects that have been, in my opinion, just disastrous, just horribly mismanaged, hugely wasteful. You know, we have one in progress now that’s going to have 47 units. We don’t even know if they’re going to go to Vallejo. People, the thing cost $27 million. It’s just been an absolute mess in terms of the management. So one thing that the city didn’t do prior to those projects was actually survey our population and see what they need. Do they need privacy? You know, they might. They might because of certain conditions, they might want a locking key. So maybe we look at tiny homes. So I think you need to know your population. You’ve got to survey folks and say, what’s the nature of this population Are, you know, what percentage of these people are from Vallejo and, you know, lost their housing here? Why did they lose their housing? What can we do to prevent. Folks that are housed from losing their housing. Do we need to work with the county? Do we need to just build more transitional housing? Okay, let’s get funding from the state. Let’s convert a motel into affordable housing. But before we do that, let’s make sure that that’s actually what our folks need.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:14:59] At the same time, it it can take a lot of work and time to do that. To give everyone a seat at the table who is impacted. I mean, does that worry you at all? Because people do want to see results. And and when we’re talking about homelessness and seeing people off the streets, I mean, that’s a thing people want to see immediately. Right. And going out and surveying folks who live on the streets and asking them what they need is going to It’s going to take some time.
Andrea Sorce [00:15:28] Yeah. And we’re going to have to find a balance. You know, one of the things that I’ve said a few times in the campaign and even to the, you know, when I when I am working with the new city managers is something I’m really going to emphasize. Unfortunately, in Vallejo, trust is broken in government, trust in the police department’s broken and trust in the city is broken. And so we’re going to have to go above and beyond in a lot of ways. We might actually have to over go a little bit over over transparent just in the short term in order to rebuild the trust. And we have to be okay and prepared to do that, even if it’s not our preference, even if it’s in a perfect world, what we want to do, we need to on the side of oversharing over, including being over transparent because that’s what’s going to be required to rebuild given the situation we’re in.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:16:17] And then, I mean, overall, we have a housing shortage in California. Many cities and counties are facing a lot of pressure from the state to build more. Do you think Will needs more housing and if so, what kind?
Andrea Sorce [00:16:29] Yes, we need more housing and we need all of the types of housing. I’m very much I’m an economics professor as my day job. And the best way to address the housing shortage is to build more housing. And, you know, we have statewide rent control and a lot of advocates for rent control. That’s a Band-Aid. You got to fix the supply issue. And at the moment, Vallejo’s affordable housing is a little too concentrated in one part of the city. So I think there are models in other cities where you kind of mix do mix developments that have multiple types of housing. We need market rate housing, we need homes that people can buy, things like townhomes that are more accessible to first time home buyers rather than just your single family homes. I think we need to look at everything and mix it up and mix it throughout the city.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:17:16] Any sense in particular of areas of the city that you think need more housing?
Andrea Sorce [00:17:21] So there’s a lot more housing that can go in East Vallejo. I’d like to see more housing downtown. I would like to see market rate housing downtown. You want the low income housing in the market rate, housing to be mixed. And we’ve got the ferry downtown, the farmer’s market. There’s there’s a great opportunity to have some market rate apartments down there. But yeah, I think honestly, everywhere.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:17:39] At the same time, I feel like anecdotally there is some fear from people who live here and who’ve lived here their whole lives that people are starting to notice that there might be something here and that and that, you know, this is the last affordable city to live in in the Bay Area that, you know, there’s an opportunity maybe to come in, move here, buy a home. I mean, how do you balance the needs of new arrivals and building more with the concerns of people who worry about being pushed out, just like what’s happened in cities like Oakland and San Francisco?
Andrea Sorce [00:18:21] Yeah, the affordability crisis is already happening. I mean, it’s already hitting people, but it hasn’t fully hit the way it’s hit the East Bay yet. And so we know the wave is coming and we have a choice. We can either sit back and let the wave crash over us like it crashed over every community in the Bay Area. And our culture and our ethos and part of our community is going to be lost and people are going to get left behind. Or we can plan and we can be proactive and we can ride the wave because economic development, people coming here, that creates economic activity, that creates job opportunities, that creates tax revenue for the government to provide services. If you plan for your development to be inclusive, you can have the rising tide lifts all boats theory. I want to make sure that. When when it continues to hit Vallejo that we are lifting our most vulnerable. Providing opportunities for people to get if people are on the cusp of being able to get into homeownership that are renting, let’s get them into homeownership so they can be part of the the wave and they can build assets for people that are renting. Let’s try to put protections in for them against eviction. Let’s try to make sure that when development comes, it creates living wage jobs so that they can get a job so they can afford it. If their rent is going to increase, they can afford the rising rent because now they can have a higher wage. And let’s make sure we’re building housing of all types so that when people come here, we’re ready to build so that the prices don’t go up too much. But we got to act now. We don’t have we don’t have time to waste.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:19:57] What do you love about Vallejo – specific things, and how do you explain to people when they ask you, why do you live in Vallejo?
Andrea Sorce [00:20:05] I it’s the intangible. We have all these assets on paper. Obviously we have the diversity on paper. We have the waterfront. I mean, I live in Glen Cove. We have a view. I mean, we have views, we have gorgeous natural beauty.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:20:19] Best weather.
