FORBES RANKS VALLEJO 6TH IN CALIFORNIA. IS IT LEGIT?
Ranking has been received with positive feedback among residents but confusion alongside it, as some said they feel it doesn't capture the challenges the city faces
Joey Carrizales knows what the pulse of the city is.
He discovered it trekking across the central and northernmost parts of Vallejo. Carrizales spent up to two-and-ahalf hours on weekends last year canvassing for candidates in the city council election.
A resident of Vallejo for more than a decade, he says the experience opened his eyes to a sentiment shared by many of the residents whose doors he knocked on.
The pulse of Vallejo, says Carrizales, is “mistrust … disenfranchisement, or fear of being disenfranchised.”
Much to his surprise, Carrizales said he was overjoyed when learning that Forbes magazine named Vallejo the sixth-best city in California to live in. He says the positive portrayal comes as a relief, given what he and other community members describe as waves of negative press on the city over recent years.
Vallejo's ranking has been received with mostly positive feedback among residents but confusion alongside it. The mixed reaction highlights the diversity within the city — a quality residents take pride in — and shines a spotlight on the varying experiences across its people, who look to City Hall to address their concerns particularly surrounding housing and policing.
Carrizales sees the Forbes list as intending to highlight the city's positive features. But he says the ranking should have included some of the challenges Vallejo is facing to present a holistic view on the city.
Visit Vallejo President and CEO Michael Browne, meanwhile, points to the how of Forbes list as the explanation for the why.
Forbes compiled its list using what it describes as lifestyle factors: Data including median home prices and crime rates. The list points out Vallejo's accessibility to the Wine Country, the San Pablo Bay and San Francisco.
“Part of the reason we are on the list is that we believe people are finally recognizing us as a final frontier, so to speak, here in Vallejo,” said Browne.
The city's tourism industry is rebounding following a decline in visitors during the COVID pandemic. Hotel room occupancy is around 50 percent citywide — a number Browne said should be anywhere from 60-65 percent.
Visit Vallejo partners with City Hall to promote the city, and the organization has plans to use the Forbes ranking as part
of a marketing campaign to further boost tourism. It seeks to attract San Francisco tourists, who largely set the tone for Vallejo's own industry, and markets the city as an affordable alternative to San Francisco with direct access to Napa.
Conversations surrounding Vallejo and the Bay Area's affordability span back years. It's something Cassandra James on the Housing and Community Development Commission thought of when first seeing the city's ranking.
“I chuckled a bit,” she says.
Vallejo's median home price is more than $600,000 — in comparison to the median income of almost $75,000, according to Forbes.
James described Vallejo as the “treasure of the Bay,” crediting the city with being the place she's matured since becoming a mother and wanting it to be a source of pride for her son.
She said she's learned to love the city so much that it prompted her city council run last year. Vallejo's cost of living, however, has her worried for what she calls one of the last affordable cities in the Bay Area.
She said she worries that her son will be unable to afford to live in the city he was born and raised in. She wants Vallejo to be more than a “survival city” for its residents, but rather a “thriving city.” For the average community member, James said the Forbes list doesn't represent them.
The Vallejo Police Department's relationship with the community is also a source of concern for James.
The department has had more police shootings per arrest than 97 percent of departments, according to its Police Scorecard. Its force is overwhelmingly white, with a majority of fatal police shootings involving Black and Latino victims. James said she has her own anxieties toward the police and has had conversations with her son about how to engage with law enforcement.
The former city council candidate said it's up to both City Hall and Vallejo residents to come together to address the challenges they face, and to do so in a way that addresses truth and equity.
“We have to get out of ourselves and our groups and start these conversations,” James said.
Vice Mayor Rozzana Verder-Aliga said the city council has used public feedback in addressing police reform on multiple fronts — but added that large-scale change takes time.
The police department released a report in 2020 assessing its internal operations and offering suggestions for change. That report recommended changes Verder-Aliga said the city is actively pursuing. Such recommendations include how VPD conducts outreach with the community and establishes an independent form of oversight.
As of late 2022, only two recommendations have been completed.
The city council established its Surveillance Advisory Board in 2021 to address community concerns surrounding policing surveillance technology. It recommended last year that the city council reject installing a gunshot detection system across Vallejo, an ordinance the council unanimously voted to move forward with anyway.
Ther city council also passed its police oversight model last December, following years of efforts to do so. It defers serious police incidents to a thirdparty investigator, occurring alongside internal police investigations.
The model also forms the Independent Police Auditor Office to make recommendations to the police department using both internal and external findings.
“In order to provide public safety, you need to build trust in your community. And so that's the challenge that has faced us,” VerderAliga said.
For Carrizales, it's important for City Hall to tap into Vallejo's pulse and recognize how residents are feeling to then remove the barriers between community members and government. He said the city should pursue further dialogue with its people to do so.
Carrizales said that it's ultimately the people of Vallejo that make it a city he loves.
“This is a small city with big city problems,” he said. “However, I do believe in the city, I do believe in the people, I do believe in the people making changes — we as citizens just have to do our best to get involved.”