Op-Ed

Op-ed: Water is Life

Published 02/22/2024 7:53am PST

As a lifelong, vested resident of this community–a proud husband, father, and grandfather who has raised his family here in Pomona, my dedication in protecting our water quality is not just a job to me, it’s personal.

Water is Life and must be safeguarded. It is our job at the water district to continue to provide our retail customers with a reliable source of water, and we pride ourselves in making sure of that, by working closely with the Water Resources Department in Pomona, our tap water is potable and safe for all your daily needs at home. In fact, to this day, I still drink our water from the tap.

Keeping Pomona’s water clean and affordable is no easy feat. One of the most significant fights in doing so was against the Cadiz Corporation plan to extract large quantities of groundwater from under dry lake beds in the Mojave desert from the Bonanza Springs. They are water speculators whose bizarre scheme was to drill for water under California's deserts and sell it to your area, which threatens springs that desert life depends on. This was not the solution to our water management and sustainability issues because Orange County would have had priority access to this water, and this water resource would have been depleted in a heartbeat. That is why I voted against it, even if I was a lone wolf in this decision. Ultimately, with the help of the Sierra Club, Native American tribes of the Mojave desert, community stakeholders and other water district colleagues who supported me in putting the project to rest.

Over the past 12 years of my tenure, the water district also strengthened partnerships with our local retail agencies like Pomona, Walnut Valley, and Rowland Water Districts in joint projects throughout our service area, to educate our community about water conservancy. This entailed how one exactly can become a wise water-conscious consumer through establishing drought tolerant landscaping, using water-efficient shower heads, toilets, and sprinklers in your homes and businesses.

Establishing career pathways, in partnership with other agencies and organizations in the water industry, for our students here in our community led to the initiation of the youth Junior Water Protectors Pilot Program. The goal of this program was to acclimate participants to the importance of water in their everyday life. This is something I will continue to advocate for to give students in communities of color exposure and access to careers that actually pay a livable working wage while tackling the drought issue. Many have joined our apprenticeship program and have gone on to obtain employment at various water districts.

Looking forward, it is imperative for us here at home to shore up our water supplies through stormwater capture and recharge of our basins and aquifers. Water reuse and recycling must also continue to be a priority. As we continue to deal with climate change and its effects on our weather, we must look at all options, including new technologies in desalination. By doing this we will lessen our dependence on imported water and ensure our water sustainability here athome for our community. If elected to the California State Assembly, one of my goals will be to continue this work for a better and safer future for all.

Carlos Goytia, an elected Three Valleys Municipal Water Board Trustee, is currently running for Assembly Member of Assembly District 52.

Op-ed: Addressing Homelessness

Photo Courtesy Chara Swodeck

Published 02/13/2024 | 8:00am PST

Back in 2011, I attended a meeting at Club Nokia (LA Live) hosted by the new United Way and the Downtown LA Chamber Joint Task Force called Home For Good. Their objective was to focus on chronic homelessness and create Permanent Support Housing (PSH). 

These organizations spoke of ending chronic homelessness in Los Angeles in 5 years, and they stressed how much more affordable it was to actually house people in PSH, rather than to leave them living on the streets. At that time, they estimated the costs of housing the homeless to be about 42% less than leaving them on the streets.

Their challenge was getting cities to buy into the idea. It required each city in the County to have their share of PSH available (small housing facilities with 6-8 units) in order to house the unhoused in their community while providing supportive services.

These organizations aimed to address the fact that many well-meaning organizations only sought to house, feed and clothe the unhoused, but failed to deal with their mental health, physical health, or career development. Working with the unhoused community in the City of Hollywood, they were successful in bringing organizations together to create pathways not just to housing, food and clothing, but also to long-term mental, physical, and financial health.

These were brilliant ideas, but these were also ideas that relied on the support of communities - and that support was not always there. As time went on, the project had to adapt as city by city refused to allow Skid Row residents to be placed in their city.

Even so, today, this program has raised and aligned more than $62 million in private funding through the Funders Collaborative, leveraging more than $5 billion in public resources while setting new standards for helping people currently living in encampments to successfully transition into stable housing.

During all those discussions with these organizations, I learned that the term ‘homeless’ gets tossed around as a catch-all term for anyone on the streets and rarely refers to families. I also learned the difference between someone who recently lost housing and someone who is “chronically” homeless. In Pomona, we average just over 700 unhoused individuals during our annual counts, but the number neglects the 3,114 children classified as homeless according to the 2023 California Dashboard. When residents and business owners talk about the “homeless” problem, they often only refer to the ones who sleep in front of stores, build fires on street corners, leave trash in alleys and needles in playgrounds, but there are so many more who are dealing with homelessness.

Our local communities must come to understand that part of the challenge of housing the homeless is that we are facing an ever-increasing housing deficit. I personally have worked to help find housing for many families - particularly during the pandemic. I have built a tremendous relationship with Donyielle Holley, City of Pomona Homeless Services Supervisor, and know the very real challenges we face due to limited motel vouchers, long housing waiting lists, and delayed mental health intake. All these challenges are compounded by the fact that our local Hope for Home had to reduce the number of their shelter beds due to COVID protocols, and that there are those who simply refuse to live anywhere else but on the streets.

Everyone’s looking for a solution that is hopefully fast and inexpensive, however most are guilty of  throwing the entire homelessness conversation into ‘one large bucket’ - so to speak. In truth, there has to be as many solutions as there are unhoused people. We need to break it down to find sustainable solutions. We need to distinguish programs for recently unhoused families from programs for families who still have housing, but are in danger of being unhoused. We need to prioritize unhoused students and find safe quiet living spaces for them to succeed. We need to take into consideration unhoused Veterans, many with PTSD, severe health challenges, and lack of medicine. We need to realize how it feels for someone with extreme anxiety or paranoia to sleep in a bunk bed in the center of hundreds of other people under a large semi-permanent tent.

I am grateful for Donyielle (CIty of Pomona), Reggie (Volunteers of America), Patty (PUSD Family Services),who do so many others who do everything they possibly can every day to address this overwhelming challenge by seeing, listening, and caring. Mother Teresa once said, “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.”

There are so many programs. Some that seem to work, others that don’t. Programs like Pathway Home, which I saw work firsthand recently with 43 unhoused individuals from Holt and San Antonio who were given supportive housing. This program is part of the Los Angeles County’s Homeless Initiative and has funding from Measure H. Other programs like Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Court, which seems like an effective idea, but has yet to prove effective. Jerel Ezell, in an article in Time magazine stated, “Going back to the early 18th Century, American prisons and mental health wards have used coercive or involuntary treatment on their populations, while so-called drug courts, invented in the 1970s, often make enrollment into substance use treatment programs, like methadone, a condition for favorable adjudication terms. CARE Courts are presented as a more compassionate and flexible iteration, yet can still involuntarily retain patients under a variety of open-ended scenarios, while their ultimate value in solving California’s problems is very much open to question.”

We cannot continue to utilize blanket solutions to highly specific challenges. We must address clear milestones and programs for each specific unhoused demographic; asking who are we helping and what are the steps needed to provide sustainable progress. We must implement various paths, whether through rapid re-housing, permanent supportive housing, voucher programs, or homeless prevention, coupled with jobs programs, substance abuse support, and basic needs relief. We cannot just keep trying to move people around from corner to corner without building trust and providing stronger mental health support on the streets, in the shelter, and in the motels, camps, and RV Parks. Lastly, but most importantly, we must do this together. This can’t be a problem that we drop on the City’s understaffed departments, or on underfunded nonprofits.

The Pomonan sent an open invitation to all candidates to submit substantive op-eds stating their position on an issue (or issues) that they consider critical to our community.

Chara Swodeck; is a community member of 20 years in the city of Pomona, a wife and mother, business owner, community collaborator, problem solver and dreamer. Chara brings ideas to life with goals, milestones, and conditions of satisfaction. Chara Swodeck is running for city council person District 4.

After collaborating with Mayor Tim Sandoval and 20 local black community leaders, the need for a space to build community came up. This led to a small group creating the African American Advisory Alliance (Pomona4As) and opened the Alliance Cultural Community Center in Downtown Pomona to provide a space for programs and collaborations from the Black community for the entire community.

Op-ed: Government Funds Mismanagement

Photo Courtesy of Veronica Cabrera

Published February 6, 2024 | 11:48am PST

No money will ever be enough when there is mismanagement of city funds. It’s not that different from one’s personal finances.

Governments often outsource public services. Sometimes they privatize public property with the fallacy that it will save costs, but the reality is that with these economic practices, the private sector is the sector that benefits the most. Privatization opens doors to potential corruption, monopolies, loss of citizens' autonomy, and citizens' financial distress.

Cambridge Dictionary defines outsourcing as paying privately-owned companies to get some work or services done for the public. Privatization is selling a service provided by the government to the private sector for their control and management.

Here in Pomona, we can talk about one recent example, the privatization of the city-owned trash company to Athens Co.

Pomona has had its own city trash company since the city was founded, but In 2022, the current Mayor and five city council members decided to transfer the trash service to Athens, a privately-owned trash company. By speaking with hundreds of small business owners, commercial property owners, and residents, I learned that their trash company bills went up from 200% to 400%. In this instance, evidently, Athens Co. charged the citizens more than enough to provide service, they charged them to make a profit, and, in this case, also cover the city’s franchise fees. Athens received an exclusive contract with the City of Pomona. The citizens of Pomona are stuck. Nobody can  hire any other trash company apart from Athens, and since the company is not accountable to the citizens, the risk of corruption runs high. 

The City of Pomona has not provided a decent explanation to the citizens about how they have created a monopoly, an aberrant practice that violates the antitrust laws. To learn about antitrust laws, click here. The citizens, businesses, and property owners in this transaction have lost the right to have direct contract with those who are providing their service.

The Pomonan sent an open invitation to all candidates to submit substantive op-eds stating their position on an issue (or issues) that they consider critical to our community.

Veronica Cabrera is a resident of Pomona. She is also running for the mayoral seat for the city of Pomona.

Op-ed: Why Transparency is Important and how Pomona Can Achieve it

Transparency is the principle of allowing those affected by administrative decisions to know about the resulting facts and figures and about the process that resulted in those decisions. – ICMA

Published January 12, 2024 | 7:35 am PST

The principle of open government is not new. Throughout our nation’s history we have made progress on making government more accountable and accessible to voters. Yet, many people still feel that government is not responsive to their concerns. This cynicism about government leads to low public participation in elections. In California, 81 percent of eligible voters are registered to vote, and only 41 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. In Pomona, off cycle elections typically see a turnout of 25 percent of registered voters. The lack of voter participation is due to a lack of transparency in decision-making. The voters can change this by insisting Pomona adopt a transparent budget process that engages the community and values their participation.

If you ask any elected official in Pomona if they think government should be participatory, they will likely answer in the affirmative. If you ask these same officials what they are doing to make governing more participatory, you’ll probably get a blank stare. Pomona struggles with finding constructive ways to engage residents in the decision-making process because the city schedules meetings at times that are inconvenient for residents. In 2023 the city announced budget meetings for March 27 at 5:30 pm and another on April 5 at 3:00 pm. These meetings are not accessible to people who work, but then maybe that’s the point of scheduling meetings at times where public participation is not possible. Participatory government is one whose intent is to make itself accessible to residents where they reside and at times that are convenient to them. The metric for these meetings should be the number in attendance, not the number of meetings. Having meetings at times that people cannot attend demonstrates a desire to prevent citizen participation. We should not accept a situation where our elected officials refuse to create forums for meaningful citizen participation.

Government should be collaborative. A collaborative government seeks to find ways to obtain community and stakeholder input on policies and community priorities. It uses an iterative process to inform decision-making. By creating a feedback loop, an iterative process ensures that policies can be adapted to changing conditions or as new information exposes flaws in previous approaches. A collaborative process ensures a dialogue rather than a focus on point-in-time feedback. The City currently employs surveys to obtain resident feedback but does not engage in ongoing discussions about policy implementation, updates on approaches, or alternatives to current approaches. Quarterly and midyear updates and meetings on important city projects should be the norm to ensure that residents remain informed about the status of these projects. These meetings should be more informal than council meetings to ensure that residents have the opportunity to engage in a dialogue with staff and elected officials.

Government should be transparent. Transparency is more than informing the public what the decisions are, it is about informing residents how decisions are made and what factors were considered and rejected, and why. We know the city formulates priorities, but we do not have any understanding why or how these became priorities, or even what issues were rejected and why. Santa Monica employs a budget process where it holds year-round town halls to listen and document community priorities. Through these meetings the city formulates a budget, which is a political document that reflects the values and concerns of the residents. Without question, this is arduous work, but it is necessary towards ensuring a well-functioning and transparent budget process. More importantly, it allows residents to see their participation come to fruition as it becomes city policy.

These ideas are not new, they are part of the core values for Public Administrators and should act to guide elected officials. If Pomona made a sincere effort to adopt these values it would see greater resident participation, greater satisfaction with government, and a city whose policies are more closely aligned with resident values. We must not accept the status quo and must continue to insist that our elected officials agree to abide by these core values; and we must be willing to oust those who are reluctant or refuse to adhere to them.

Guillermo Gonzalez has a Master of Science in Public Administration from California State University – Los Angeles where he graduated with honors. He has been a resident of Pomona since 2011 and is currently a candidate for Pomona City Council.