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In this episode of Care More Be Better, host Corinna Bellizzi dives deep into local politics and community activism with John Lewis, a city council candidate in Scotts Valley, California. John shares his vision for the future of Scotts Valley, touching on pressing local issues like rising housing costs, the need for a town center, and the importance of personal agency in shaping our communities. This conversation is packed with insights on the challenges and rewards of running for office and what it means to be a “YIMBY” (Yes In My Backyard) advocate.

Key Topics Covered:

[00:00:26] Introduction to Care More Be Better and guest John Lewis.
[00:00:46] John’s background: Engineering expertise and community issues in Scotts Valley.
[00:02:21] Community engagement and motivation to run for city council.
[00:03:48] The need for a town center in Scotts Valley and why previous efforts stalled.
[00:06:37] Environmental and infrastructural challenges: From airport to town center.
[00:10:12] Essential traits and qualifications for running for local office.
[00:13:00] How city council can directly impact community well-being.
[00:18:55] Defining NIMBY vs. YIMBY and John’s endorsement from Santa Cruz YIMBY.
[00:26:04] Why John isn’t accepting political donations.
[00:28:42] The importance of local elections and civic engagement.

Call to Action: If you’re a Scotts Valley resident, consider voting for John Lewis to support local development that fosters community and sustainability. For resources on how to get involved, visit our website at CircleB.co.

About John Lewis: 
John Lewis has worked at a civil engineering software company that makes sure buildings, dams, and bridges stand up to wind and earthquakes, and another that ensures chemical plants do not have catastrophic accidents. He has worked at Stanford Research Institute startups, and the payments company Square.

Like most people here, he and his wife came to Scotts Valley to start a family. He wants affordable housing for teachers, first responders, and retail workers, and the 200 yearly SVHS graduates. He wants to build safe biking and walking infrastructure so we can leave our cars at home and give kids a safe way to get around. He also wants phased construction for our town center so we can finally see progress.

Connect with John Lewis:
website: https://www.johnlewissvcity.com/
linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-lewis-44784516/
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnLewisSVCity

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Building Community & Affordable Housing: A Local Leader’s YIMBY Perspective | John Lewis, Scotts Valley CA

Corinna Bellizzi: Hello and welcome to Care More Be Better, a Circle B podcast. Each week, I invite you to care more about a specific issue so that we can create a better world together. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to someone in my backyard who is working to be the change that he wants to see in the world, starting with our community.

His name is John Lewis. John has worked at a broad swath of engineering firms and Stanford Research Institute startups, contributing his work to civil engineering teams that make sure buildings, dams, and bridges stand up to wind and earthquakes. As a Scotts Valley resident in Santa Cruz County, he's become quite familiar with the dominant challenges our community faces of rising housing and childcare costs, increased traffic, and frankly, outdated infrastructure.

He's decided to run for city council to tackle these challenges on behalf of all of us. So I hope that through today's discussion, you'll both learn more about personal agency and what you can do to enact change in your community. And also think deeply about the value of voting, especially as it relates to local offices from your city council to your local legislators and beyond with that, welcome John Lewis to the show.

John Lewis: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Corinna Bellizzi: So nice to see you today. Now we got the chance to connect at our Scotts Valley market. Um, well, not the Scotts Valley market, but the farmer's market just down the street from there this last weekend. I think I grilled you a bit.

John Lewis: Oh yeah, it was great. I love good questions.

I like it even more when there's good answers to follow and a conversation after that. So thank you for taking the time to speak with me at the farmers market. And I'm excited to be here as well.

Corinna Bellizzi: Well, just one example of community engagement. The fact that you had a booth there to host conversations with the community directly was really nice to see.

We also had a mobile voting unit so people could vote. cast their ballots right there, which was pretty amazing. Now I understand that you and your wife came to Scotts Valley first to really start a family. So what attracted you to this particular community?

John Lewis: So I've been coming to the area for a long time.

When I was a little kid, I went to the beach boardwalk with my family for some rest and relaxation time. We also used to go to Mount Hermon just around the corner. For our yearly retreat with our church. I was a youth group leader way back in the day in junior high and high school. And I fell in love with the trees, the mountains, the fog in the morning.

It's a great place. And when my wife and I decided to look around a friend of mine had just moved back down the Soquel and we met for lunch here in Scotts Valley and I loved it. And then we decided that we'd start looking here and we fell in love with the house that we're in now and now here we are getting, you know, more familiar with the community and everything that's happening here and I've definitely decided to, pitch in and help out and see what I can improve.

Corinna Bellizzi: Yeah, well, let's talk about what made you decide to run for office in the first place, because as a relatively new member of the community, you don't often people see people saying, Oh, that's it. I'm going to run for our local council. What made you decide to make that leap?

John Lewis: Our real estate agent had said that there was a town center project that was just around the corner.

And I was really excited because Scotts Valley doesn't really have like a downtown you know, we have a collection of, uh, you know, some strip malls. A lot of, businesses along our thoroughfares, but we really don't have that 3rd place. We don't have a town square. And I was really excited about that.

I love all of those things about some of the cities that I lived in the past. And I wanted those here because it seemed like we were going to have a kid and spend some time here and, those type of places in rich community and build bonds across social divides and really bring a community together.

And then I started talking to some folks and they started giggling a little bit. And they kind of let me in that, that the town center project had been going on at least in ideas and dreams for about 40 years. And through my canvassing, I've heard a lot of details from people who've lived here for sometimes 60 years about all the different plans that have been suggested.

And, and ideas that people have been excited about and how let down people have been that nothing has really happened with that site, uh, the entire time they've been here. And so I got interested and I started, doing some research to figure out what's going on. And that really motivated me to start researching and looking into whether or not, um, I might be able to have a positive impact in city council.

Corinna Bellizzi: Now, a town center might sound like a. Of given in a community at our size or even larger I went to high school in cupertino and cupertino notoriously is where apple computers was founded, right? And also doesn't have a town center the closest thing they had was really just uh You know, a strip mall kind of on the road, across from De Anza College, and that is now apartment buildings.

So even they have lost that connection to community. That was kind of centered around this coffee shop called Coffee Society. So we really don't have that in our town and Scotts Valley. Now, I know that doing something like having a big project come in that costs millions of dollars usually has to have some sort of an anchor to get it started.

I had heard, for example, over the years that it was water issues that were holding up the project, or that it was power grid issues, or that, well, there wasn't enough faith that we'd be able to occupy all of the planned, let's say, above store apartment buildings and things along those lines. What is the truth of it?

Why do you think it's held up for 40 years?

John Lewis: So I've gotten really familiar with the holdups over the last 10 or so. Um, the Skypark location used to be an airport here in Scotts Valley. Santa Cruz really wanted to have its own international airport, but The location of some mountains surrounding the airport location and some wind patterns really made it not feasible to have the type of airport that Santa Cruz wanted to have and we had some hangers and airplanes.

And of course, a runway that was there because it was a smaller airport. Then the city of Santa Cruz decided to, you know, go ahead and relinquish it to the people who wanted to get started with Scotts Valley. And so, now we're in a position where the land needs to be evaluated for environmental contaminants.

I'm not. An airplane mechanic myself, but from what I understand, there's a fair number of chemicals that could work their way into the ground from airplane maintenance and the likes. And so they have to do an environmental study to make sure that everything is cleared and clean before the property can transfer and we were able to purchase 1 section of land a couple of years ago, and we're purchasing that and holding on to it for it.

So they could come in and build at the spec and you know, make some money by selling the properties and the city could get it's town center as an exchange for that without having to put forth a bond to build that sort of thing ourselves. And there are multiple pieces of land that also needed to be purchased as part of that.

And the. Current process that's in flight or purchase of this in flight, I believe is still an escrow and it passed the environmental review for the state, the CEQA. And now it needs to happen for the national environment, environmental review, which is the NECUA. And the last time I checked in on this was about three weeks ago.

So there might've been some developments there. I haven't heard whether or not escrow has actually closed. But there have been some holdups in, in making sure that the owners of the property. That currently hold the areas that are being considered for development actually want to participate with the development of the town center project.

Those owners are the city of Santa Cruz which is now hopefully going to be the city of Scotts Valley and and that's all going to fall in line. And then there is the Scotts Valley RV and boat storage location, which is currently owned by a holding company that is entirely owned by Safeway.

And we need to get their buy in and we haven't started investigating that just yet. And there's also the post office. We know what is required to help the post office move to another location. So we could redevelop that site. But from what I gather in, in the near term, and when I say near term, I mean, near term for a civic project.

So, you know, 10 years or so, it's all been about whether or not the property owners want to participate with the downtown project and. It hasn't really fallen in line, and we're still waiting on things to come together, and I think we could do a couple of things in parallel, like starting to work with both of those existing landowners to see whether or not they want to participate, so we know whether or not this is a feasible project.

Corinna Bellizzi: Very interesting. It's obvious that you've Study the detail here, but you're also revealing, I think, the amount of work that goes into a project that is big and that affects your community. I'm sure we have a few listeners who are inspired already by your story of seeing the problem and wanting to be a part of fixing it, but who also might question it.

If they have the qualifications needed to run for office, I wonder if you could both share what you feel positions you for success in this role and perhaps what qualifies you, what might qualify them.

John Lewis: So I've been working in tech on infrastructure projects for quite some time. Um, and it's always, um, you know, working with a very small budget.

With big dreams when you're working with a startup or trying to get a new product or project off the ground. And so I've been able to build new things with limited budgets creatively to meet requirements for the project for the product and get things started. And that seems like what is needed here.

We need someone who's got the experience in getting something started because for the last 40 years. We've had a lot of effort without a lot of, you know, getting the development started. We want to see, machines moving dirt and building homes and building the town square where we can actually go and enjoy those things.

And I really think that we need some folks who are focused on the end result and how to get there using some creative decisions. Maybe we need to use a phase development program where we don't just attempt to build everything at once. Maybe we take some in lieu of fees here there. So we can actually, like, build our own space.

Special purpose funding just to build the town center. If individual developers only want to build a section of the project there's we need to consider more options rather than just this goal of having, a beautiful thing grow straight out of the ground all at once. Sometimes projects have to be divided up into smaller pieces so they can be achieved one thing at a time until the entire project is done.

And it seems like 40 years of trying to get this entire thing done all at once has gotten us to where we are today. And I think having a couple of different ideas around project management and project development might help out with this project.

Corinna Bellizzi: So what do you think if if somebody was listening to you talk just now and felt like, well, I have no experience in politics

but I'm passionate about this, and I have the gumption to get involved and to follow some of these things through. I understand what it takes to break up a project. Would you say that that qualifies them for this type of work?

John Lewis: So, one of the things that city council members have to do is have an open line of communication, and they have to listen to the needs of people.

If you're the kind of person who can let someone explain the situation they're in, Rather than just try to find, you know, the immediate thing that's going to tell them what they want to hear, but actually listen actively and care about their perspective and realize that it's valid. It's your job as a city council member to take the concerns of the people who are in the community.

If they live here, if they do business here, if they worship here, or if they just spend time here. All of those opinions should go into the decisions that are being made at city council and city council has a limited set of responsibilities and they direct the city manager and the city manager in turn, hires, the employees that staff city hall, um, they give directives to the individual employees.

So a city council member does a lot of work with. Interdepartmental agencies like Metro and, you know, interfaces with the folks on the water board as well as the power production groups in the area and bag for housing and other arena and other things. But really, you are a representative of the people.

If you are a member of the community and you care deeply about what happens and you care deeply about the people around you, city council might be something that's for you. You don't necessarily have to have a political science degree. You don't have to have a specific background. It's a representative government.

And the idea is that we hopefully get a diverse group of people that collaborate together and ratify each other's ideas to make a stronger final idea that gets put into play. And that lets The city manager know what the people of the city want from their municipality. So, I absolutely think that if people are considering a run for local politics, they should give it some consideration, you know, find a political group in your area that has some ideas that.

That you agree with and go to some meetings and get to be part of that community go to some city council meetings to understand what happens at city council as well as some of the committee and commission meetings as well for parks and recreation development arts, you name it, go to some of those meetings and see if what they're talking about and the way that they're talking about it resonates with you.

And if it does, then maybe that could be part of your calling. Different cities have different methods of compensation for city councilors here in Scotts Valley. We do not pay city councilors any money for their work or their time. Um, there is a stipend that's used to defer costs like, you know, driving gas, car maintenance to get to the places that you have to go, but it is not a paying position.

 In Scotts Valley, someone running for city council will need to have between 10 and 25 hours a week that they can dedicate to talking to people who live in the city to commission and committee meetings reading materials, interfacing the city manager, the city attorney. You know, so on and so forth.

All of the commissioners and committee members. So that's really the big resource is time. How much time do you have available to invest in your community? And if you have the time and the work that the city council does resonates with you, then you can go ahead and throw your hat in the ring. Scotts Valley has a citizens academy that's put on by the people at City Hall, and they have all of the leaders of the different departments in the city come and present.

And talk about what the responsibilities are, what their impact to the city is, how they get their work done. And the city manager also explains where funding from the entire city comes from and this type of a class, you know, it's about 7 or 8 weeks long, usually in the different cities that I've heard about it in and.

It will explain so much information about how local government works. A lot of people have have some preconceived ideas of how local government functions and in the reality of the situation could be, you know, fairly far away from that, depending on how plugged in you were at your high school government class or your political science classes in college.

And so if you would take a Citizens Academy class I absolutely encourage people to do it. I took the citizens academy class and it, uh, we have in scotts valley here and it Motivated me to get more engaged. My wife also took the same class At my encouragement and now she is a member of the art commission And you know, she wants to do more work to bring art into our city and i'm going to be going to the art commission meeting and Sharing some information on different grants that are available that might provide more funding to our city so we can actually afford some artwork rather than having to pay for it out of the general budget here in Scotts Valley where funds are very limited, sad to say.

Corinna Bellizzi: As a bedroom community of Silicon Valley, I've often wondered why there weren't more funds, but our population also isn't that high, even though it is kind of this conduit to the rest of Santa Cruz County. Now, I'm really curious to learn your perspective on the NIMBY versus YIMBY world. And just for everybody else here, that means not in my backyard, that's NIMBY, or yes, in my backyard, that's YIMBY.

Among those that have endorsed you, is, I think, Yimby of Santa Cruz County. Can you talk about what these categorically, these ideas really mean? And why you think it's important that you've been endorsed by this group?

John Lewis: Um, so, I mean, the book that I have sitting next to me right here Homelessness is a Housing Problem it's, whoo, next on my reading list.

I haven't quite started it yet. And it's, you know, that, that is something I believe. If there are more affordable homes, people would live in them. We've taken a lot of very creative ideas and try to employ them for trying to figure out how to fix homelessness. And the one magic idea that we haven't tried is building people homes.

If you take a look at housing production numbers in the Bay Area at large and the Monterey Bay areas you'll see that starting 2000, housing development. Dropped. It just fell off. Scotts Valley, the most common number of new housing permits in Scotts Valley over the last 20 years is four.

Granted, the average is about eight or 16 a year. I forgot which when I calculated the numbers out might be 16 a year, but the most common number of newly permitted homes in Scotts Valley for the last 20 years is four. So if you're wondering where All of the 200 yearly high school graduates from Scotts Valley High are going to live.

That's a great question. I'm wondering that as well. The average high school graduate who strikes out on their own wants to live 12 miles away from their mother and, you know, I want my son to live, wherever he wants to. If he chooses to live here in Scotts Valley or, just close enough by to where he can visit his mom or me on occasion, I want him to have that opportunity and given that the average household price in Scotts Valley listing price is over 1.

3 million. That's pretty rough. That's going to limit his, number of employment options to only high paying jobs that oftentimes are very stressful that require, lots and lots of education which is great. I love education. I'm currently enrolled at Cabrillo in a class right now.

I firmly believe in continuing education and, and education for personal betterment, as well as career development. Um, but. Right now, we're, we're building a world that requires incumbent wealth by not building our world, and it's tough to say, where are our kids going to live? Because that is the question we're finally starting to ask ourselves, because our kids Are finally starting to grow up and figure out where their options are for living.

And when the city you're living in permits an average of, or, a mean four houses a year or four dwellings a year, the option is that they're not going to live nearby. And that's sad. And that also means that. The people who work in the city in retail the people who are first responders, sometimes definitely the teachers.

It means that they can't afford to have a house in the area. So when you ask me what it means to be a Yimby, it means that. Not only are we producing the future generation of people who are going to make our society, but it's also planning on giving them a place to live, giving them opportunities. It also means that we're considering ideas that aren't.

just single family homes, but we're thinking about, three story walk up apartment buildings and possible adaptive use, where if there is a candidate building that's an older warehouse or say, you know, a church or a movie theater that someone looks at that and says, how can we go ahead and convert this into housing to give this building a new life rather than just tearing it down?

Let's save the resources that we've already built. For some of these structures and repurpose them within their frames. And their footing so we can give them to the next generation or even the current generation of people who want to be here without having to respend all of those resources and money and labor to build from scratch.

It basically means let's take a look. All of the types of housing that have effectively been made illegal since the 1950s. And let's consider doing them again. So we can have a rich town center where people can walk from where they live to where they want to go and not have to drive a car. And. Park everywhere they need to be.

And that's not to say that we're trying to get rid of cars. It's just trying to say, let's build a city for humans and not necessarily just for cars. And that really resonates with me because I've lived in, Berkeley and Oakland in San Francisco, Lafayette, Danville, a couple of places in the Bay area, and I've lived as close to where I work as possible so I can walk to the office.

And I've lived a fair number of years last time I counted, I think it was about eight, eight years without a car. And I was healthy and I was happy and I walked to work and I walked to the grocery store. I rode my bike to go and see friends and I lived a life without having a car because. I was able to move myself closer to where I worked, because I was just a single guy, I didn't have a family I had to uproot, and I was able to move to an area close to where I wanted to work, because there was housing availability in that area, and I was able to walk from where I was to where I wanted to be, and it was a freeing experience, and I want that to As an option for people in the future, because we haven't been building in a way that allows that whether you want to consider mixed use development.

So people could actually have, stores and offices nearby homes. If we want to consider whether we want to convert a building from what it is now into something new and more appropriate, let's consider it, but let's not just go ahead and codify a rule that stops us from even having that conversation.

And that to me is the difference between a NIMBY and a YIMBY. It's yes, in my backyard, let's talk about what we can do to make the best use of all of these places. And it gives the owners of those properties the autonomy to do the things that they want to do with their property. It gives people more options for where they want to live, what type of living situation they want to have.

It's not as prescriptive and I think that's great because more people are trying to figure out what they fit into and who they want to be and giving people more options for that. Is really helpful.

Corinna Bellizzi: So I think that this connects nicely to the next question I have because yes, you've been endorsed by the Yimby group in our local area.

Yes, in my backyard, but you also aren't taking political donations. Is there a reason for this? Can you talk about why?

John Lewis: I didn't want to have to worry about where my donations were going to come from and whether or not it was going to limit my ability to represent a voting constituency. You know, there's a lot of money in politics and we've heard about, you know, all of the rules that have changed around how much money a political campaign can accept over the years.

And, and I wanted to make sure that I was in the free and clear and didn't owe any favors or. Or any appearance of impropriety, um, I'm trying to limit my campaign expenditures to a smaller amount and try to make my communications as effective as possible. And in a lot of ways that's shaping my campaign, but it's also making sure that if I get elected, I'm not going to have to worry about keeping people happy.

So they'll donate to me again. It's all about keeping people happy. So they'll vote for me again, which is, I believe the way the system is meant to work.

Corinna Bellizzi: It certainly will make it a little harder. I think, you know, to work through the all the election craze that is our current era. I did see that. Um, so far of all of the ballots that have been turned in that we're we're in the ballpark of about, I think, 23, 24 percent of the absentee ballots that have been distributed have actually been turned in already.

So I don't know what that means for your candidacy or how you're faring. Do you have any idea of where you stand this election season,

John Lewis: I'm hopeful local politics is an interesting, interesting arena. And there's a lot of factors at play that are different in local politics than there are in, in state politics or federal politics.

And, and that's great. You know, that's the way it should be. It's a different arena, and I'm comfortable not knowing, and I'm comfortable getting out there and doing the work and meeting people and talking to them and even if I don't get elected, I've got an action plan for different things I can do to have a positive impact in the community and I definitely think that everyone who runs for city council should be running because they want to have a positive impact on the community.

And whether or not they get elected, that should still be their mindset. So that's really the way that I'm thinking about it is, working towards a goal, hoping for the best, understanding what the possible outcomes will be and making sure that I'm okay with all of them.

Corinna Bellizzi: Yeah. Well, understanding the impact that you will have as an individual who's working as a volunteer, you should really come because you want to make the community a better place and represent the city and all of its participants, whether they be people who own, who rent, who visit, who enjoy the town of Scotts Valley.

Thank you so much for spending this time with me. I wanted to offer you the opportunity to share some closing thoughts, perhaps as it relates to. to the election as a whole, getting out and voting, whatever your mindset really is that you, you want to share before we part ways today.

John Lewis: Your local municipality has a lot to do with your everyday life.

In a lot of ways, local politics and city programs have more to do with how you live, how you live your life every day than what happens, at the state or even the federal level. The city is the one that decides whether or not you guys get to live your life. A new pool for yourselves, or whether or not they're safe walking or biking infrastructure, or whether or not it will even be built during a new road construction project they decide when the wastewater treatment system gets its upgrades and, and I know that's not exactly, uh, you know, the, the most wonderful thing. No, it's not, but making sure that you don't have to deal with that kind of thing and the city is actually taking care of its resources really does matter. You know, where does your clean drinking water come from? This is something that your local municipality and your local water board really have a lot to do with.

What are the quality of your parks? Are they invested in, are they. Green and beautiful. And are you proud of them? That is something your city council has a lot of impact on. Where does the money go? The city gets to operate itself. Are the roads clean and flat and smooth? And are the lines drawn well? And can you see them when it rains or when it's dark?

These are the things that matter. And so We have to ask ourselves, do we want that new senior center? Do we want to spend the money on it? Do we want to have after school programs for our kids? Do we want to make sure that our police are funded and that our health and safety are taken care of?

Taken into account as well as, inclusion and equity. Those things matter at the local level, making sure that there are programs to help people have access to affordable housing to affordable education to affordable after school programs. Um, so. I think the closing remark that I'd like to make this is my kitty is local politics matter a heck of a lot and I want more people to take an interest in what happens in city hall at the city council and all of the commission meetings.

And give it a look and see if it's for you. And you know, take a look at the schedule and the agenda and see if there's something that you want to offer feedback on. A lot of times the meetings that happen at city hall happen over zoom. So if you can't attend in person, hopefully you can attend virtually.

And if you know someone who can attend you can have them make a public comment on your behalf. The impact that, that, that. Your municipality has in your life is big and the more people. Understand that and respect it. The better everyone's life is going to be because when we have a cacophony of voices that all interact and that all strengthen each other's ideas, we come out with a better idea and a better plan that represents more of the people.

And that's what I hope we do here in Scotts Valley.

Corinna Bellizzi: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, John Lewis, for joining me today. I hope you'll sit tight with me for a moment. I'd like to wrap up with you after I do the close because I have a couple of private questions for you as we finish this election season.

Thank you so much again for joining me today.

John Lewis: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Corinna Bellizzi: To find out more about John Lewis, see the links that we provide with show notes. If you are a local to Scotts Valley and haven't voted yet, I encourage you to consider his candidacy seriously. And if you. Perhaps have already voted like myself, then please share this episode so that people can educate themselves around this particular issue, especially if they're local to Scotts Valley.

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