It is time for Sacramento's war on affordable housing to end. 

Continuing to raise taxes and adopting regulations that limit the supply of housing only increases the price of housing.

Cities like Dallas, Phoenix, and Atlanta have managed to stay affordable by simply allowing housing to continue to be built as their populations grow. California should do the same. 

The State should immediatly start cutting taxes and regulations so that more people don't fall into poverty, as housing costs are the biggest reason people fall into poverty. 

I will address and promote the civility issue by doing what I have done in the private sector, lead by example. Period.

San Diego county is a leader when it comes to managing our water supplies. Reclamation, water storage and building the largest desalinazation plant in the Western hemisphere has made this fact a reality.

The rest of the state needs to do a much better job of managing their water sources. We need to invest in water infrastructure, capture the millions of gallons of water that flow into the ocean every year and invest in more desalinization plants. 

I've sat on the board of a leading Charter School for many years. In order to be accepted, and there is a long line of applicants waiting to be accepted, the parents of the applicant must not have gone to a four year college, they must be from a low income family and they must accept a longer school year. The vast majority of those accepted are minority and, by design, are poverty stricken. The graduation rate has kept steady at 99% and almost all go on to great four year colleges. Allowing parents to have more choice in where they can send their children, when so many of our public schools are failing, is an outstanding way to solve our educational problems. 

Stable communities, an important public policy goal, require accessible housing and jobs among other things. However, I believe the premise of the question highlights the pervasive bias that "the State" (whether referring specifically to 'State Government in Sacramento' or to regional and local government as well) needs to do more. Much of what can be done to lead to more affordable housing actually consists of the State doing less. I also believe that the issue of affordable housing could be better addressed if the public discourse on the subject was more realistic.

Policy makers should first recognize that their apparently insatiable desire to grow California's population without the necessary infrastructure (water, housing, etc.) in place has resulted in the predictable shortage of water, abundance of traffic, and sharply increasing housing prices. In addition, homeowners should recognize that this same dynamic has resulted in sharply increasing home equity wealth that has enabled many people to fund their children's college expenses and/or retire with greater financial security. State intervention to significantly increase so-called affordable housing would likely result in either a reduction in home price appreciation (or even a decline in home prices) or a massive perpetual increase in State spending to build and maintain a material amount of subsidized housing.

Effective steps that "the State" can take to increase the availability of housing and minimize its price are to reduce the bureaucracy, taxes, and litigation that drive up both the cost of new housing construction and diminish the ability of the marketplace to develop the best type of housing in the most effective locations to meet demand.

Rental market regulations also impact affordable housing availability. Studies show that in the long term, rent control laws actually reduce affordable housing availability because fewer units are built as potential developers choose to build in alternate locations that don't impose rent control. However, I generally am opposed to State intervention to change any current rent control terms for any current tenants.

As a rule, the free market, shaped by thoughtful and transparent general planning, is the best mechanism to address demand for housing. State (and national) policy makers should accept responsibility for failing to accept the predictable result of decades of policy decisions that have disrupted both the demand and supply sides of the market for housing and undermined the supply side of the market's ability to respond to California's population growth.

Keeping in mind that most of the policy makers currently in control of State Government have come to accept the concept of "induced demand" when it comes to freeway expansion, I am disappointed that they seem entirely unable to grasp the same concept when it applies to housing. In any case, it is entirely inappropriate for State Government to continue to experiment with the community character of the District in order to try to cover up for the predictable failures of their growth at any cost policies - especially when the cost are always born by us, not by them.

As a dedicated advocate for common sense public policy and public service, I have worked diligently over the last four years explicitly reaching out to community groups and voters across the entire political spectrum. As someone who was raised in a politically mixed family (Democrats, Republicans, & Libertarians), I am fortunate to have over 40 years of experience bridging chasms of thought, belief, and rhetoric, and I believe that I have a particular talent for listening, identifying elements of shared beliefs and values, and cultivating mutually respectful dialog. As many people are aware, I have engaged with a wide range of community/political groups in the District over the years. I would continue to do so after being elected regardless if political leaders of either party approve - a legislator's duty is to cultivate connections in the community to foster progress, not to create division for short term political gain.  I believe that it is important to convey to the community that just because people disagree on a particular policy approach or even on priorities, we share a future together in our community, our state, and our country, and an enduring commitment to civil dialog is paramount, recognizing that no one is perfect.

My intention once elected is to continue to reach out to the entire District and to represent the entire District to the best of my abilities, transparently and with integrity, and to interact with those who disagree with me as much as I interact with those who agree with me. I believe that this approach will provide me with 1) the most insight about what's transpiring in the community, 2) the most opportunity to challenge my beliefs and share my views with the community, and 3) the broadest network of community members with whom I can work to address our District's problems, challenges, and opportunities.

Personally, I believe that while it is important to cultivate civility at the youngest ages in school, it is equally important to practice these skills throughout life. I intend to proactively seek out staff and advisers from a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints in order to best avoid falling into an echo chamber of manufactured approval. I also intend to host regular community engagement events where a variety of perspectives are not just tolerated, but actually encouraged, and I hope that these events can set a standard for civility and serve as venues for increased understanding and, if necessary, dispute resolution.

In a nutshell, civility is much less about "agreeing on substance" than it is about "listening and learning, agreeing to disagree when necessary, and staying engaged."

The State of California, in conjunction with water districts throughout the state, needs to develop and implement municipal scale water recycling for agricultural and industrial purposes which will then free up fresh water supplies for residential use.

Funds should be redirected as possible away from increased storage plans which will be less or completely useless if efficient and effective water recycling infrastructure is brought online. Billions of dollars have already been raised under Proposition 1 (2014) for increased water storage, but they have yet to approve a single related project.

Water recycling is a proven technology which has already been implemented on a national scale in many countries throughout the world. The costs and reliability of water recycling are well known which will simplify the planning process and allow for transparent cost projections.

Individual water districts should take the lead in designing specific projects and then work with the State of California and the private sector on financing construction and operation of these new systems based on local supply and demand factors. The State of California should assist with funding research and technical expertise as well as providing any appropriate and effective regulatory relief or clarity to facilitate these projects.

Any attempt to spend billions of dollars building new pipelines under the Sacramento River Delta will be a complete waste of funds if not also an environmental disaster. Installing pipelines in the Delta to move water from one place to another is just like putting more straws into a single glass of water - it does not increase the supply of water at all, and in fact it simply drains the glass more quickly.

Water recycling actually increases the supply of water, and can be implemented around the state in quantities flexibly tailored to match local needs.

The educational needs of the youngest and most poverty stricken Californians can best be met with an educational system that empowers the people who know the needs of these students the best - namely their parents. Building and maintaining a successful educational system requires that teachers, administrators, and school board members be held accountable, and the only way that this can be achieved is if parents have choices about where their children attend school. Ensuring that parents have school choice for their children, in addition to the option of home schooling, is a necessary requirement both to hold schools accountable as well as to respect the fundamental authority of parents over decisions affecting their minor children. Children develop rapidly, and delayed community feedback via intermittent school board elections is simply not sufficient recourse for parents seeking to address immediate deficiencies in their children's educational environment. Children do not have the luxury of getting a "do over" when it comes to their education. Commensurate with the responsibility that society places on parents to raise their children responsibly, society has an obligation to respect parents' liberty to make critical choices that effect their child's development. There is probably no more important decision in child rearing than the choice of how to educate one's child.

For context, 'school choice' should not be a political football. Federal judges have already issued decisions indicating that the system of teacher tenure offered to public school teachers is unconstitutional as it is particularly harmful to children in vulnerable and historically disenfranchised communities. Additional reform is necessary in this area to ensure that all children have access to a quality education, and a quality education will ONLY be available if teachers, administrators, and school board members are held accountable for their performance.

For post-secondary school students, I believe that investments in community colleges and vocational training programs are some of the best educational investments that can be made in the personal and professional development of California's next generation. My preferred strategy would also include efforts to expand four-year degree options at community colleges particularly in STEM fields in order to provide affordable and rewarding career development pathways to a greater range of students and which will better address the needs of local businesses. Creating more valuable and effective local options for post-secondary education will have the added benefit of helping students maintain their local family and community connections as well as incentivizing industry to participate in long term partnerships with schools that can serve as reliable pipelines for their human resource needs.