 Good evening. This is what's going on. I'm John Lee. Our guest this evening is Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, the mayor of Winners and a candidate for the assembly in the Democratic Party election in June. Cecilia, I want to thank you for being on our show. Thank you so much, John. I really appreciate the time and you've been thinking of me to come over, so thanks. Oh, for sure. For sure. My pleasure. So the fourth assembly district includes six counties. Napa County and Yolo County make up two-thirds of the population of the fourth assembly district, but all of Lake County, part of Colusa County, part of Solano County, part of Sonoma County are all in the district. Rohnard Park is in the district. Dixon is in the district from Solano County. None of the city is in Colusa. There's only two, but they're not in the district. So that's agriculture, but all of Lake County with Clear Lake is in the district. And then, of course, the Napa County, it's all of the county. So that's St. Helena and Calistoga as well as the city of Napa. In Yolo County, it's the western half of the county. So it's Woodland, Winners and Davis. So you're the a longtime Winners person. So I am a longtime Winners person. That's right. So start at the beginning. Start at the beginning. Well, in 1957, my father interviewed for the high school agriculture teacher job at Winners High School. And my mother had never been out of San Luis Obispo. She was raised there. She was one of eight. And my father basically brought her up to Northern California. It was about 105 degrees that day. No air conditioning in the car. She was miserable. Mr. Family. And he went for his interview and she sat in the hot car. He came out and said, well, I have a job. And so he was incentivized by a couple of the farmers and they paid for our rent for the first two months when we came to Winners. So we moved up. My brother at the time was about a year and a half, and I was about three. And we moved to Winters. And that started our long time in Winters and my community. I absolutely love and I've seen so many changes. So that's how I got there. So tell me a little about your dad. Well, my father was a high school agriculture teacher and he always emphasized leadership. And he taught parliamentary procedure to many of the FFA students. So he started the FFA program. He taught students how to do welding, driving forklift, raising animals. And so, of course, we were drug along to many of those events and they were always really, really fun. There's many times I wish I didn't have to go, but I did learn a lot. And so we had many students come to our house and we even had sheep shearing in our backyard. My dad taught kids how to sheep shear and just take care of animals. So it's always been ingrained in us to be part of agriculture. And primarily is to have a really good work ethic. And so from young age, we were brought to the cutting sheds when Winters had a lot of apricots and we learned how to cut apricots. So as long as you could stand on a fruit box, you were able to work in the sheds. And so many of my friends, lots of my friends, we were there and we would learn how to cut apricots. So I remember distinctly my very first check. The woman who wrote my very first check is still alive. She's 101 years old, very good friend of mine. My first check was for 50 cents. And I remember that and I thought to myself, I don't think I want to do this the rest of my life. So that's when I thought I'd better go get a good education and go off to college. So that's that was a valuable, that was incredible. It was the most valuable lesson. I mean, my father then realized, you know, he'd come from, he was in the dairy business when he was a child. So he milked cows and then he was a phenomenal basketball player and he played in a southern cow in Fresno area and then went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and he was the first one in his family to get an education. But through hard work, he had to do that and he paid for his own way to go to school as well. So he brought us up with a really strong work ethic and I can't thank him enough for that. You know, when he finally was able to make some money, he purchased a, he started the first car wash in Yolo County and it was called A&B Car Wash and it meant Agri-R Buckmaster, who was his best friend. And we had a car wash and then eventually they sold it and he bought his ranch because he always wanted to get back on the farm. And so we initially had 40 acres of orchard and he was a pretty smart guy. He bought an orchard that had 10 acres of apricots, 10 acres of peaches, 10 acres of almonds and 10 acres of walnuts. And he did that so that my brothers and I were working from May until October. And so that's how we, you know, we all were raised on the ranch and then eventually when his manual labor all went away and went to college, he bought another ranch and we farm 80 acres of walnuts. But it was all just one crop made it a lot easier so he could handle the work without us being there for a couple of years. Well, it's more concentrated. It's more, it's a higher level of labor during a shorter period of time. Exactly. So, I mean, so Apricot, I didn't get one of them. Apricot, almonds, and walnuts. And peaches. Oh, peaches. And peaches, yes. So we had them all and, you know, from early in the morning he'd get us up and he'd say, OK, everyone's going to go do sprinkler pipes and we all get out of bed and move sprinkler pipes. Or if there was a freeze, years ago a lot of people aren't familiar with it but there used to be called smudge pots and they were placed out in the orchard and they were like diesel buckets and he'd say it's freezing and we'd get up in the middle of the night with a torch and run through the orchard and start the smudge pots to keep the trees warm. And I think that's one reason why Northern California doesn't have very many fruit trees anymore because it's just so susceptible to the weather. And if it freezes, you lose your crop and lose a lot of money. So there's not as many fruit trees in the area like there used to be. In fact, Lake County, just as an example, used to be one of the top pair producers and they've even cut back because fruit is very difficult to raise and harvest. So where'd you go to college? Well, I went to Chico State for two years. I was involved in politics at that point. I was the director of ethnic and intercultural affairs. So basically it was an event planner, but it was great. I went there for two years and decided that I had learned how to do all my socializing that I ever needed to do and I got serious and went to San Jose State, San Jose State and got my accounting degree there. And during that period of time, I went to a community college for a little bit to get back on my feet because I was raising, I had gotten married and was raising one of my daughters and then I got divorced and ended up having two children, two of my girls, and I ended up coming back to Winters. And I'm really grateful that I had a strong community to come back to, to help me through some really difficult times that I never want people to have to go through, but many do, you know, so. So I mean, that is life. It is life, but you know, life, you learn so many wonderful lessons, you know, wrong or right, you have to get back on your feet and you have to make sure that you're a good example for your children. And both my children have graduated from college. They both have fabulous jobs and I'm expecting my first grandchild any day now. So I'm just delighted. So what kind of work have you been doing? Well, you know, right when out of college, I went and worked for a company called Automatic Data Processing and I did processing apparel systems from small companies to very large corporations. And it was a really interesting job because my degree was in accounting and I thought, oh, you know, auditing. You know, I'll do some auditing during this period of time. But I did a really good job at that and someone saw me at a symposium and kind of whispered in my ear saying, you're looking for another job. And I really wasn't, but I couldn't refuse. I worked for Oracle Corporation and I worked for Oracle for about eight years and traveled all over the United States. And it was difficult because I had my young children at home and I would fly sometimes in the morning to Denver and fly back that same night so I could be with them. So I did that for like three weeks. And then after eight years of that craziness, I left and got offered out of the blue a job doing public outreach, which is my heart and soul. What I really, really enjoy doing is trying to collaborate, making, bringing people together, solving challenges, issues in a community. And I've been very successful at doing that. I helped with a billion dollar water project similar to the Davis Water Project, which was called the Freeport Regional Water Authority. And it's just south of Sacramento. And it was a JPA with the East Bay Mud. A JPA. Yeah. Excuse me. Joy Powers Authority. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. I'm glad to remember these two. That's my job. With East Bay Mud and Sacramento Canyon Water Agency. And it was a phenomenal project for many reasons. There was 30 years of litigation over water coming off of directly off the American River to Folsom South Canal and they worked together to come up with a compromise as the water came off the Sacramento River. So it was a great opportunity. I met some of the most genuine elected officials that really mentored me. And they said that I had done such a great job that they thought I should pursue maybe getting on a planning commission or whatever. And so I got on a planning commission in winters, ran for city council. And now I'm the first mayor, woman mayor of winters. So talk about your experience on city council and being mayor. I can't think of a better job. I really can't. You know, I think I was destined to give give back to my community. And when I first came back to winters, I always remembered always being a welcoming place. And when the apricots and the dried all the fruit went away and they didn't have the train going through town. Winters was bustling in the 50s and 60s. They were building Lake Berryessa on Monticello Dam. We had three car dealerships. We had four grocery stores. We had pharmacies, dry goods stores. The town was bustling. But when all that went away and the highway went away from downtown winters, we really fell apart. And when I came back with the children, the girls and I were just saying, man, this is a sad place. Downtown was boarded up. And that's when I said, you know, this is the time for me to give back. And I went and I noticed at the high school, one of the welcoming places you come into winters, the tennis courts where grass was growing out of them, the nets were falling down. And I picked up the phone and called a half a dozen of my old classmates. And I said, you know what, our high school looks really, really bad. And so we got together and we got some bids and we fixed that up. And then all of a sudden people thought, wow, this looks cool. And then when I got on the planning commission, I started looking for little projects also worked on the new fire and police department, our new safety center, a new swimming pool in town. So all those things started coming together. But the main part was that I knew that winters was never at the table. We just never got to the table. Many people thought being on the city council meant two meetings a month. Nothing else. In reality, there's a lot more behind being on the city council and are being elected official. There's opportunities with Sacramento Council of Governments for funding. There's opportunities with the Yellow County Water Resource Association. There's all these things that worth funding that's just going by us. And that's when I said, you know, I'm going to run for city council. I'm going to get involved. I'll do whatever it takes to get winners back on its feet. And that's that's what's been happening. It's been delightful. You know, when we when the economy went down and we lost redevelopment during redevelopment, we started to do some really good things for downtown winters. We started to paint some of the buildings and we encouraged new businesses, particularly local private investors. And we would say to them, if you want to get some money from us through redevelopment, we'd like to have like a three pronged approach your storefront, internet sales and help us with doing some kind of community event that would bring people to winters. And by gosh, it worked. And so what do you mean by the three things? So for instance, we had a gentleman that wanted to make guitars. He was making them out of his garage. And so he was approached by one of the local businesses. We said, why don't you come downtown? We'll give you a storefront. The city helped initially with some redevelopment funds to help augment his rent and he started his business. So he's making guitars. People would walk by in the window and admire his beautiful guitars. Then he'd have guitar classes. So now he's got a little bit more income coming in. Then he put internet sales and he now sells his guitars and does repair from all over the world and he comes and does events periodically. So those kinds of things really generated a lot of interest with local private investors. And it really has gotten the ball going in winters. So after we got that, we kind of got that going and redevelopment went away and everyone's going, oh, woe is me. You know, what are we going to do? The economy is down. Everybody in every city in California is saying exactly the same thing. Woe is me. Redevelopment agency is gone. What are we going to do to drive the economy? That is not the answer to the question. That is the old answer and it didn't work and it's a bad idea. So we looked for opportunities and I said to the council, the best thing we could do is be ready when the economy does turn around. And that's what we did. So we thought, well, what's the first thing that people want to know? Are your schools good? Are your schools strong? Our schools were struggling. We hadn't put any money in the facilities. The school district just didn't have the money. The facilities were falling apart, just textbooks, just many things. And to get the morale back in the schools is something. We just looked at each other and said, well, let's see what we can do. And my sister-in-law was at the time the president of the PTA, which had maybe 20 families. And we decided to rally around the PTA. They found a grant through the Yochitihi tribe up in Cape Valley. They applied for it. I went with a presentation with them as well. And we received $300,000 in investment for the schools, for technology, for kindergarten through fifth grade. Well, that was really exciting. The school was delighted for printers or just PowerPoint and just software. But then the Winners Education Foundation called me and they said, well, what do you think? This is like nine months later. There's a grant again. Can we do you think we should go after it? And I was like, I really respect the tribe. I know them really well. And I said, well, you know, I don't know that this is the best time. We just got 300. Let's make sure that we use the money correctly. But we went and did a presentation. And luckily, about two weeks before the presentation, the tribal chairman and some of the committee came to Winters and watched the laptops in use by families. And they took pictures and they said, this is exactly what an investment is. So they invested twice in my community. So with a total of $600,000, it was able to get us going for technology for kindergarten through high school, including our continuation high school. And but we were able to leverage that for another $200,000 through the California Emerging Technology Fund. That money we leveraged and it was able for us to put tablets for every sixth grader to have a tablet to take home, provided every parent attended, not they didn't have to, but the parent had to attend a training class and then the child could take the tablet home. I was challenged by by Sunny McPeak and she said, Cecilia, you know, Sunny. She's great. Sure. Sure. She's just got the energy. Right. She said, well, you know, you'll be lucky to get 85 percent of the families. Eighty-five percent. I said, you know what, I'm getting a hundred. So I talked to the principals, talked to the teachers. And before you know it, every student's parents got trained. There's nothing better than seeing that gives me goosebumps to watch families sit there during training and say, oh, my gosh. Oh, Mia, it's so exciting. I have my first email address. You and I take that for granted. Well, maybe you don't, but I take that for granted. Many people take that for granted, right? And to know that now that they can keep track of their child at home, they get to use the laptop or the tablet at home. They could check their grades because many of our farm workers can't go to parent-teacher conferences, but at least they can have that access to what's going on at school. And it's opened the doors for these students of like, who would have thought that they could sit and travel the world at home in the comfort of their home? So that that project went really well. In fact, it went well, so well. Is it this year, sixth, seventh and eighth graders all got to take tablets home and all the parents got trained. Now, some parents decided not to take advantage of the tablets. And I truly understand that. But to open the doors for this is just been the degree to which institutions impose things on people is enormous. The degree to which students have independence and the degree to which their parents have control, their own education is also problematic for a parent to decide to turn down the choice of having a tablet. It is certainly their prerogative, but to make it optional and available to every student in the classroom is incredible. Right. And, you know, and, you know, we had some challenges along the way because taking the tablet home meant that a student needed to have access to the internet. Many students don't have access to the internet, but parents did step up and some did end up getting internet connectivity. But there's about 30 to 40 families that didn't have that. And I called Winners Broadband, a local independent service provider. And I said, hey, Brian, I need some help. I got about 30 or 40 kids that can't use these at home. He said, I'll help you out. So the children have access to the internet from four o'clock until eight o'clock, which is perfect. They can do their home during their homework during that period of time. The parent knows that it's going to be turned off, but at least they all have access to it at home. And granted, they can go to the library and that works just as well. But it's just it just really got the community behind that project, which eventually we leverage that because of excitement. We now have over 300 families in the PTA. They all go to events. Parents from all diverse communities all show up now at these events. There's 300 families. And it just is just got the momentum of other things going on in town. So but there was one big challenge is that we want internet for all in Winters. And we've been looking at trying to make us a gigabyte city. Now, I know Davis is working that as well. Napa's trying to. But communities such as Lake County, where poverty is just at the forefront. We need to make sure everybody has access to broadband. So I've been doing some testing and working with USDA had different groups trying to do a pilot to try to figure out how can we be a gigabyte city, which would help job creation, economic development, health, telehealth, all kinds of opens the doors. So we're still working on those things that we hit your head periodically against the wall, but it'll come together. But what I'm doing, what we've been doing in Winters, I think we can take that to other communities. And as you said, this is a big, big, diverse district. And those ideas are things that people are listening. They want to know about, they want to know to how to leverage money. And I think my experience is going to and my hands on, because I'm hands on will really be a benefit to this this district. So so that started that. But then we, you know, in the meantime, we have a new PG&E, 75 million State of the Art Technology Training Center coming to Winters. There's a lot of benefits for that. Obviously, we don't have a UC Davis and we don't have Community College of Winters. But you know what? I can say of the State of the Art Training Center in my community. For PG&E. For PG&E gas operations only. And they are working with the community right now. It's for education, for pathways to success for some of the for the high school. They're going to invest some money into the high school. So give some technical skills to the students. Things that they would have never had before because not all of our students go to a four year college or even to a community college. So opening those doors are really exciting. And they're also working PG&E is also working with Solano Community College. So we have a really nice little story that we're telling and trying to make sure everyone has an opportunity to expand their knowledge, get out of poverty, you know, whatever. And I think having that that center come to town, it's going to be fabulous. 50 percent of the PG&E employees will be retiring in the next five to eight years. So they need to start hiring new people and the technology for gas operations has just changed. So it'll be a nice addition to that community. So any last comments about winners before we talk about the rest of the district? Well, you know, I'm just this is all snowballed all the, you know, between the the project with the PG&E, but we are now going to be putting in a hotel in downtown Winters, not at the highway, but downtown. We want to keep that authentic piece of art community going. The Bikorn is I mean, I don't know for sure what's happening to the Palms. Palms is still there. The building was for sale. They decided not to sell it. And I've known Dave Fleming for a million years. So, you know, it's it's he's worked really hard for a long time. So it needs to move on. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well, we're lucky that the Davis gave up the palms and we got them. So, you know, because that was one of the main things that generated the activity in Winters and the Palms, the Bikorn. They were our go to for such a long time. And I think Davis needs needs a little hiatus. He's trying to figure out what he's going to do. And I totally understand what he's going to do next. What he's going to do now. I'm sure it'll be quite creative, right? But but now with the hotel coming, we just we're doing some senior housing, great project for senior housing. And the the dearest thing to my heart is that we're going to actually have a senior citizen center, a community center. And as Mariko Yamada will say, and I I laughed or I laughed at her at one time about about the silver haired tsunami. Well, you know what? I totally believe that because I'm on my way myself. So having this community center when my father was ill, prior to him being ill, he was a single gentleman living alone and he was lonely. And I learned a lot about seniors at that time. You forget that luckily I was family and I could see him. But I thought there's a lot of people that don't have a place to go to socialize. And so my dad and I would talk about it at length. And we met a woman who felt the same way. And before, you know, when my my father passed, we did a foundation and we started a foundation. And again, we leveraged ten thousand dollars for towards a two million dollar senior citizens center that's going to be built and also leveraged it for another five hundred thousand dollars for operations and maintenance. It's a lot out of ten thousand dollars. Oh, man. Yeah. Let me tell you, I work hard of figuring this stuff out. But you know, luckily I have so many good mentors and help and collaborate with so many great people. That's how you get these things done. Yeah. Good. Yeah. So now it's tied politics. So in the fourth district in the race in June, there are two other candidates are Dan Wolk and Don Saylor. Don Saylor was on the school board in the city council. And now he's on the board of supervisors. And I have to say that when he was on the school board, the vote was four to one unless he was present on the board and then it was five to nothing. And going back in the 30 years of this show, the vote was five to nothing on every vote with the board of the school district, except when Don Saylor wasn't the president. So he created antagonism in the school board. He created antagonism on the Davis City Council, which became famous for that antagonism. And now on the board of supervisors, he's lost the support of his four colleagues. And so his candidacy is because he has nothing he can do in Yolo County. I've known Don for 25 years and I'm disappointed that he's running. Dan Wolk is running because his mother wants him to run. I interviewed him four years ago. You can watch that interview. He didn't have any idea why he was running for office. Then he has no idea why he's running for office. Now he knows less about the city of Davis than anyone else who has ever been on the Davis City Council. He is running for the assembly because his mother has been in office for 14 years and she has termed out. I think that you have a lot to say about what should happen in the district. And I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say. What we're going to talk about in the next few minutes are jobs, agriculture, and education. Three things that this district needs to talk about. Thank you. Jobs, what do you want to do? Oh my gosh, there's so many things I want to do. I remember distinctly when we sat down at one time in winters trying to figure out bringing some kind of business to town, get economic development going, and it was such a struggle. Because first of all, you have to really think about do you have an educated workforce? What kind of business can you strum up? And so, whether you're in Lake County right now or Napa County or Solano County, wherever you are, you've got to realize who do you have working in your workforce and where are they coming from and how can you build upon that. So I think that we have to really evaluate this diverse area. For instance right now is that, I look at it as that in green technology right now, we have to look at some technology opportunities, particularly for agriculture. As we know is that many of our new tractors and equipment, manufacturing equipment, they all rely on high technology to move those kind of projects forward. So for instance, if you see a tractor in the middle of a field, you might think, why is this sitting down in the middle of the field on a rainy day? Well, it's because probably it's on GPS and many of these tractors can pretty much run on their own. But you can't get them from point one to point eight if you can't get the satellite. So tractors are breaking down, we don't have people that can fix those kinds of things. So in this area, we have to think mainly about agriculture opportunities, okay? So whether it's that, fixing, working on new drip irrigation or if we're working out in Lake County, we have to look at some of the jobs over tourism. Because jobs up in that area used to be really vibrant with tourism and recreation, but that's not happening any longer. And so I've met with the economic development people up in Lake County saying, how can we get tourism going again? How can we get this lake, even the lake be safer, because it does have plumes of blue algae that happens every year at the end of the season. So trying to bring those kinds of jobs are going to be difficult, particularly in Lake County. Jobs are also a big issue for Napa County. Many people cannot live in Napa County. It's very expensive and affordable housing is difficult to come by. So we have a lot of people traveling from the bay, from, excuse me, Vallejo, Fairfield, Petaluma, and coming up to the county, up the valley, looking for jobs or doing their jobs, but there's no housing. So there's also a lot of transportation issues. So trying to make sure that there's a jobs housing balance as well is really important to me. And I think it's a topic that when I do go to the Napa Valley or even to the Sonoma, it comes up almost every single time. What are we gonna do about jobs? What are we gonna do about transportation issues and housing? So those are big ones. Well, agriculture's obviously the biggest issue in the district when they did redistricting. Oh, yeah. They tried to stick Davis with Curtis Park in downtown Sacramento and they decided that it should be with agriculture in no small part because of UCD. So every county in the district has a major agricultural concern. Right. So talk. Well, everybody does. There's a lot of things about the beauty of being in Yolo County is because we get to have access to many UC Davis professors and programs that they're running here at UC Davis. So for agriculture in Yolo County, we're pretty darn lucky. We have the most beautiful soil in Yolo County. We have water in Yolo County. But we do have some issues. And just to bring up one that we're dealing with is that we have walnuts. And if walnuts, we have a disease that comes through and it destroys the tree. We're in the midst of deciding as a family is do we take out a whole block of walnuts? Well, if you take out a whole block of walnuts, yes. That's a 15 year crop. You plant a tree and then 15 years later you start to get production. Oh, you get production before that. Now they have some new root stock and stuff. So you get a crop maybe in about three or four years. It just depends, you know? Well, but it's not an overnight decision in it. No, it's a difficult decision because when you take out a block, you have to deal with new irrigation systems. You've got to deal with what are you gonna do with the remnants of your trees? Now people think, oh, you just pruned down the tree and you can sell the wood. Well, obviously we can't sell wood any longer because fireplaces are now pretty much are going to be going away. But you see people say, well, why don't you just chip the wood and just put it back into the grounds biodegradable? You know, many times you can't because those roots and the root stock might be diseased. And you're just gonna bring the disease back into the orchard, right? Or during harvest, and you're trying to harvest, you're gonna not only pick up walnuts, you're gonna pick up all those chips. So for us, biodegradable, there's a cogeneration plant that used to be in Northern Yolo County and they had to close down. So now for us, if we were to go with the chipping, we have to ship it up to Redding or Red Bluff. And does that make sense when we're trying to reduce greenhouse gases and we're shipping stuff everywhere? Anyway, it's just one of our little things that just are very difficult. But with agriculture right now, many people and the farmers will tell you, regulatory is always an issue. And that's always a big one, probably the number one concern. But the one that really has risen is workforce. Getting a reliable workforce in agriculture has become very difficult. And we're struggling with it in winters. They're struggling with it in Napa. Trying to get people to work in agriculture is not as easy as it used to be. Many of our workers have come from Mexico in the past and they are staying there now because there's some good jobs, right? And they can stay and have a good life. And so trying to find good workers has been a real challenge. And many people are surprised at the workforce issue that we're all dealing with. So that's something I hope we can figure out. Even if it's mechanically done, some of the tomatoes and stuff, you still need people on a good workforce to work those jobs. The flip side is to remind you of when you got your paycheck for 50 cents. 50 cents, yeah. And the decision making that you went through at that point and hearing the stories of the farm workers and Cruz Renoso was just honored by the Bar Association in Sacramento. And he talked about when he was a boy. And it was the same story as your, I mean, your dad had a house. Your dad had the benefit of walking into your room and saying, come on, get up, we're going to work today. And for him, it was a choice to have you go to work where with Cruz's dad, there was no choice. The kid had to work, the kids all had to work and that was their life. That was what they were going to grow. And I did a lot of work in Yuba City and in Southern Yuba County and the Kling Peaches, a sacred institution. And the reality is that there's a time period when you need labor and the rest of the year you don't. And so people go up and down the valley based on the harvesting peaches, apricots, walnuts, and almonds. Yep. But they weren't interested in only 10 acres at a time. No, of course not. But the point is that he kept you busy during the whole season. All season long. So when something got ripe and then it was done, then you moved on to the next crop. Moved on to the next crop, yeah. And well, a lot of complaining along the way. Well, that was the education. But you know, I love that part. As a kid you're kind of like, oh man, we have to do that. But I just still remember just so many fond memories because even neighbors wanted to come with us. Now you're sounding like the Japanese guy that writes in the Sacramento Bee about the peat. Yeah, I mean, that's the religion that's dying of the American farmer family. And it's certainly as Hispanic as it is white. But the sustainable agriculture and the organic farming movement grew out of that discussion. That's exactly right. Yeah, but I think when you think about all the opportunities in agriculture, but you know, I really, I reflect a lot on our workforce. When you think about many of our farm workers are working two and three jobs to make ends meet. And I also will say that many farmers consider their farm workers as family and that they've had the same employee for their whole, almost their whole life. And they attend quinceanetes, they attend their family weddings, they attend barbecues. I mean, it's like an extended portion of their family. And many of the farmers that I know, particularly the smaller ones, not the big corporate ones, they take really good care of their employees. I mean, from helping them purchase some property so that they have their own little ranch. And we have really good examples over in winters. I mean, various gap vineyards, the Martinez family have done a phenomenal job with some of their workers that if they've had their entire life that all are part of that business. And it's very rewarding to see when people really appreciate how hard people work and make them part of their family. The most famous study I know of about that is called the Goldschmidt study. It was done in 1948. And Yusafu Jumoto redid it in 1968. And what it is is Goldschmidt compared a farm-based family and a corporate-based family. And it was Danuba and Arvin. And Arvin is corporate farms and Danuba is family farms. And when the recession hit, then you said to your employee, I can't keep you on the payroll anymore. Will you sleep in the barn? And that was in Danuba. And in Arvin, you were fired. And so the stores disappeared and then they came back when the economy came back where Danuba just kind of struggled along and it maintained. But that's the tradition of agriculture going back 10,000 years. Right. Yeah, it's really, I love seeing these young farmers come back. And just like many youngster in their high school, they said, I can't wait to get out of this place. We all did it. In winters, it happens in Dixon, it happens all over the place. And then they start coming back when they want to raise their family. And it's so wonderful to see them back in working on family farms and bringing new technology and new ideas. I mean, even myself is that after my father passed is that I've always wanted to upgrade certain things at the ranch. But I never wanted to rock his boat, right? Because his heart and soul was that ranch. And so now we're looking at maybe possibly doing some solar. Things that, bringing in some new technology. And I see these young farmers already doing that and they're on the cutting edge. And it just makes your heart feel good. It's like, look what they're doing that it's gonna change the world. They're gonna feed people. So. UC Davis finally put in a sustainable agriculture program. Nicole and your staff is one of the recent graduates of that program. It took us almost 30 years to get that program into UCD because soil science and fruit crops weren't willing to talk to each other. They weren't willing to share a common student. So all that negotiation went on with all those silos of departments at UCD to talk about a sustainable family farm. Well, what's funny is that all the years that I've lived in winters, it's amazing sometimes of how many professors haven't even been to winters. And they're in ag, right? And I just shake my head. Have you ever been to winters? Or they'll say, well, where do you live winters? I've never been there. How long have you been a professor? And you haven't seen the beautiful lush, agricultural community that we have even all the way up to K-Pay Valley? So sometimes I can get out of your classroom and go see what's around you because there's just phenomenal things happening out there. So the third topic is education. Oh, good. Oh, you know, it's the lifeblood of everything. And I believe in universal preschool for everyone, all students, immigrants. Everyone deserves to have a right to a good education, an excellent education. And I'm adamant about that. I have hands-on experience a couple of ways. But primarily is that, you know, I don't know if you've ever had opportunity to go sit in a kindergarten class or a pre-kindergarten, read books with the kids. And you learn so much sitting there. Not only do you learn about the child and how bashful they are, but you almost can smell sometimes a sense of poverty. When you sit there with a student that hasn't had anything to eat and will tell you that, they'll tell you everything at kindergarten will, right? They're walking in late to class. It tells so much about a child. And every child deserves a chance. And it starts, obviously, at home, but many homes can't do that. But if we can have universal preschool, give that kid that extra chance. You know, there's many people out there that have helping hands that want to help along the way. And the instructors of these schools, they do so many things. I mean, you know, I've been all through this district. And I've met with teachers. And I've met with school board members. And they all have a similar story is that we need to make sure we can help these youngsters when they're early. And it's so true that we need to make sure they can read when they're young. So universal preschool, the other one is that, obviously, is that I'm really into vocational education and went away. And many students at high school really need that hands-on work. You know, whether, like I said, is driving a tractor or a forklift or whatever, those are really important jobs. The mechanics, you can't find a mechanic anymore. You can't find just your basic jobs. And so I think it's really important to give people many avenues to get their education. And I miss it. I miss them. I have a friend who will remain anonymous, although he was on the Davis School Board, who liked to say that his wife took welding and he took sewing and cooking. And he considered those to be survival skills. So I don't think it's limited to vocation. I think it's an important part of understanding how the world fits together. And it's an introduction to, I mean, I remember very distinctly when I learned to throw on a wheel and make a bowl out of the shape of clay and the magic that happens because of the plasticity. Well, you just start to learn and then it's a whole new world. Yeah, exactly. But when you go to these classrooms, they're large. We need to get back to small classrooms. We need some more one-on-one. I mean, you can't expect an instructor to be sitting there with 40 kindergartners that are still trying to figure out where they're going and their maturity level's all different. But just having that opportunity to be in a smaller classroom again, better facilities. If you have a chance and you go up and down Highway 505 or five, you're going to Williams, you're going to. If you have a chance to go into the schools, you'd be appalled. The high school, I went to at Winters High School. That high school is still the same building when I went to school and their old Army barracks that were there probably 15 years before I was. And there's plugs everywhere. I mean, I want kids need to be happy about the environment and be proud. And it would be nice that facilities were upgraded. Now, granted, we had a bond in Winters because where that money is going to, deferred maintenance. That's really hard to tell the community, where's $14 million going? And they're saying it's deferred maintenance because all those years, that wasn't done. That term was invented in the 1990s in the education system. I mean, for the last 20 years, they've been saying, we're going to defer the maintenance. The bills come due. Yeah, exactly. You can't defer forever. No, you can't because there's cost a lot more. No, you can pay me now or you can pay me later. But you know, and then also safety for our students at school and the teachers and the staff. We've seen some unfortunate situations throughout the nation. And I would really want to make sure that our teachers feel like they're in a safe environment and that the students are safe. I mean, we behold our children to this wonderful institution. And it'd be nice to, when you walk away or even as teachers, it's a safe place for them to be. So those are some of the things that I'm really concerned about. I will be giving everything possible and working with all schools. And everybody has a place in a school. And everybody just is a wonderful avenue, right? And you have an education and it can help you get a job. And not potentially not getting into poverty. I mean, there's different things. You know, it just gives you access to so many more things in your life. Delayne Eason is supporting you. I know, isn't that great? Explain who Delayne Eason is. You know, I've known Delayne from afar for probably about 10 years. And you know when someone walks in a room and you just go, I like that woman. I don't know what it is, but I really want to be her friend. And through the years, we've become friends. And she always has some little poem or recital or something she'll tell me that just gets me going and gets me excited about. So if somebody doesn't know who Delayne Eason has been, explain who she has been. Oh, she's been the state superintendent of schools. And she's been a teacher. And she's got a charter school named after her. I mean, she is education. And she was in the state of San Francisco. And the state assembly, yeah. She just has a plethora of information. And she's willing to share it. And I stopped by her house periodically, and we just sit and just talk about life. I mean, she knows about water. She knows about so many things. And she's been a great mentor for me. Helen Thompson, she's always been behind the scenes and not necessarily in this race, but she's been a mentor to me. There's many people, you don't do this by yourself. You have to collaborate. You've got to find the right people. You have to network with people. And Delayne happens to be one of those people. Betsy Marchand has also been a good mentor. So you can go through this list. I want to be a good mentor for someone. And I've been doing that with 15 young ladies and a young man over with the, I started, we started a youth council. But I'm also doing that with a group that we started called the Hispanic Advisory Committee. And we're looking for leaders. And it's sometimes risky as a leader to stick your neck out and see where you're going to go. And I want to help do that. So from Delayne through all the women that I've worked with and men, thank you, thank you, thank you. I love what I'm doing. So what's your vision for the future of California? Oh my gosh, there's so many. Well, I'd like to have, that's a good one, John. And you probably told me this a million times. My vision for California is to make sure that we have opportunities, opportunities for all, whether it's education, jobs, access. I want people to have access, access to transportation, access to health, access to health care. I just think everybody needs access and not to have any doors closed. I think there's a lot of doors closed on people. So there's a lot that I want to do. This is like a big jigsaw puzzle, putting it all together. Someone's got that last piece. And it's in someone's pocket. I'm going to find out who has it. Well, or you can put it together and make it. We're going to make it. You know, someone asked me, what are you going to do when you get over at the Capitol? I said, well, I'm going to walk in with my integrity. And I'm going to walk out 12 years later with my integrity. That's my promise to you and to everyone. This is a really important race because of that. The speaker has just been picked. Term limits are different now. So the person that's selected in this race will probably be in office for at least a decade. Isn't that exciting to get things done? I worked in the building before term limits. Term limits has done a lot to change. It means that the institutional memory is very confused. And it means that the leadership is very confused. I think that the new speaker is a very intelligent man. I believe he has a good heart. That's a very unusual combination for a speaker. I have great hope for him. However, he's in the middle of the political scene. And he's going to have to deal with it. Well, I'm hoping with the 12 years or the 10 years, whatever, it's just I think it was unfortunate in the years ago when Helen's term limits went so quickly. Here's somebody that had so much power, not even power. She just had respect in a heart. And she did all the right things. In six years, two governors, both sides, she had more bills passed than any other member of the assembly, six years in a row. And to have something like that happen for somebody who's doing so well, I think the thing is is that you're going to be able to make some decisions that are really difficult decisions and slowly move that ship. One thing that nobody wants to talk about, and we're not going to talk about here, but just is unfunded liabilities, right? Enormous, billions. It's enormous, billions and billions and billions. But that ship is going to take a long time to remove. And it's going to take a long time to have a strategy and a vision. And so hopefully in 10 to 12 years, we can make good on that. Between the stock market and world politics, a lot's going to happen in the next six days. So in the next six years, the next 12 years, there's going to be tremendous change. And the unfunded liability problem is going to be underneath a lot of the problems that are emerging. So it will come out in a variety of different ways. But it's still the 800 pound gorilla in the room. No one wants to talk about it. For every city, for every county, for every special district, and for the state legislature, it is an enormous problem. And the city of Winters, ours is about 850. By the time it's about 3.5 million of unfunded liabilities, that bothers me a lot. That you're aware of. Oh, that we're aware of. So this is the place to wrap up. This is not the place to go into detail about the financing of cities. However, it is at the crux, at the very heart of the range of issues that the legislature has to struggle with, so it is a good place to conclude. I want to thank you for being on our show. Well, thank you. And I hope I'm here in 12 years and we'll figure out that unfunded liability will come back in six months one way or the other. If you're the mayor of Winters, we'll still have plenty to talk about. That would be great. Thank you so much, John. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for being on our show. Thanks. This is what's... Thanks, buddy. My pleasure. This is what's going on. Thanks for watching. Good evening.