City Council candidates Q &A: Crane
Editor’s note: We asked all seven candidates running for two open seats on the Ukiah City Council the same four questions and will be publishing their responses. Here are the answers from Ukiah Mayor Doug Crane, who is 78- years- old and a construction manager
QWhy are you running for City Council again?
AI am running for a fifth term because I still have things that I want to see accomplished for this community that I believe will benefit from my
talents, expertise, and institutional memory. I want to continue to advocate for taking the long view in all aspects of City business and encourage fiscal responsibility in budgeting and making government more open and accessible to the public. As a citizen of Ukiah, I believe it is my obligation to try to preserve and improve the quality of life in our community. The City Council has a lot to do in the next few years and I am ready to continue that work on behalf of the people of Ukiah.
QCan you tell us three goals you have if elected to serve again?
A
lenges The faces in city any many of given Ukiah chal- year, and we must balance the needs and wants of the community with limited resources. It is evident to me this balance will be a much more difficult to maintain in the next few years and I believe I can make a difference in the outcome for the betterment of Ukiah. Three goals are: 1) Annexation. 2) Revisions of and additions to the city’s electrical utility for reliability, fire resilience, public safety power shutoffs, local power production and storage of the greener power while maintaining rates lower than Pg&e or Sonoma Clean Power. 3) Improve the process of constructing and updating the capital budgets for infrastructure, the performance of the work and the review of the projects to inform future budgets and works.
Q
Rate the city’s response to Covid-19 and the economic effects of the pandemic.
A
A letter grade of B-. The city is under the state and county health officer rules. The council has authorized the use of various city assets without charge or fees, including sidewalks for businesses to resume or con
tinue operations, and offers technical assistance for business to operate in compliance with the ever- changing dictates. Primarily through staff the council advocates for more equitable, less restrictive treatment of small businesses and the greater community. While efforts have been made to continue to provide services both to the public and internally, the city mitigation measures have been allowed to cause substantial delays to work product. Covid-19 has become an excuse for some, and some form of impediment for virtually all.
Q
What is one thing the city does really well? What is one thing the city fails at?
A
According to the state of California we are doing much better than our peers in the area of housing. The city of Ukiah is one of only 29 agencies of about 540 California jurisdictions that are in compliance with the state mandates for low and moderate, as well as market-rate, housing. This has only been possible as a result of public private partnerships. By the city encouraging and facilitating project development, zoning, assisting with funding (via the city’s revolving housing loan funds) as well as assistance with identifying and securing other low cost loans and grants. A major failure of the City of Ukiah is decades of no annexation. Without a logical, contiguous and consistent program of expansion through annexation the region suffers and the quality of service is negatively impacted while driving higher cost for those services and encouraging sprawl. While the city has, in recent years, been working towards the ability to do annexation we remain very much behind the curve. We need to get the long discussed tax sharing agreement with the county resolved so long-term land-use planning can be done to not only catch up on the decades of stagnation, but also set up a long timeline strategy for our future.