and Susan Bonilla, the candidates for Congressional District 10 and California’s 11th Assembly District.
Many diverse ethnic groups attended, including a group eight people from the Sikh community of the East Bay, and organizers from the African-American, Philippine, Latinio Community and a group of vocal Antioch citizens.
The early part of the meeting focused on many of the CD-10 issues and then the last third of the meeting, when it was opened to questions from the floor, went straight off into a bitch and moan session with complaints and outright accusations of racism, discrimination and like aimed mostly at the Antioch Police Chief, while bringing up issues about Section 8 housing and the school districts in Pittsburg and Antioch.
One interesting questioner was a High School student who complained that she got into a physical fight with a school teacher and that she was blamed for it. There was also an appearance by Kenneth Sessions (who claims to be the head of the largest African American Real Estate company in Northern California) who hosts an Oakland based TV Real Estate show. Sessions blasted the City of Oakland’s Attorney for a case where he was accused of evicting an elderly tenant.
Throughout, Garamendi showed perfect poise in the face of the crowd that wanted to know what he was going to do about their local personal issues by taking the positions:
1. Illegal actions by officials need to be taken under investigation by the proper jurisdictional party (he offered to write a letter to request a look into one of the accusations),
2. The appropriate mechanism for review locally must be used, typically the school board for school discipline issues,
3. City Councils are there for getting the local mechanisms working,
4. Political action to remove elected officials that are not doing what you want is the purpose of politics
Supervisor Susan Bonilla, who has regular contact with the County Section 8 Department, got down to taking names and contacts at the end of the meeting.
Amongst the CD 10 issues that Garamendi dealt with directly:
1. Supports Federal Funds for the widening of Hwy 4, and a Bart Extension to Antioch
2. Supports a Public Option on Health Care and the Obama Reform effort
3. Supports expanded help for schools making note that Harmer’s anti public school stance is not the way to go.
3. Supports Medicare, Social Security and is opposed to the Republican positions on privatization of Social Security
4. Supports Employee Free Choice Act.
5. On Illegal immigration Garamendi held the position similar to the McCain-Kennedy proposal to: control the borders, prosecute employers that exploit illegals, provide a path to citizenship, penalize those already here illegally, and create a guest worker program.
6. Supports the Philippine WW2 veterans family reunification program
7. Supports a two state solution in the Middle East and
8. Emphasized that he was the person with the contacts and the experience to get things done for the District and that he has the will to bring government to bear for the benefit of the community. Used the phrase: “I am in the know” when it comes to knowing who to contact to help the community.
Amongst the local issues that Susan Bonilla addressed:
1. Supports education funding being more community directed closer to the local level
2. Had seen a change in the Section 8 Housing Department head and had thought things were getting better in the department, and now will re-look at that area
3. Sees education and literacy as a key component in reduction of crime and the cost of prisons citing that over 60% of the prison population cannot read above the 1st grade level.
4. Strong supporter of the diversity in the community making note that her Father was born in the Phillipines and she had relatives held in an internment camp there during World War 2, and that she comes from a Latino home.
5. Cutting funds for fighting Domestic Violence is indefensible. There needs to be more networking to mitigate the damage to the community.
At the end of the meeting, which went on well past 9:00 p.m., there was a generally positive feeling that at least these candidates were making themselves available to the communities at large.
