 Thanks for joining us in the studio for another episode of The City Considerers here at Davis Media Access. My name is Autumn Labay-Rineau and I am your host for this series. And I'm very pleased today to have with us Davis City Council member, Rachelle Swanson. Rachelle was first elected to the council in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. And she has become known as a driving force in working to ensure good economic development and economic sustainability in our region. And so welcome, Rachelle. Thank you. Thanks so much for joining us. I said this to you earlier. Economic development is such a big term and it has links to so many things, from growth to jobs to the tax base and all of that. And there's a lot of ways that plays out in Davis. I took a look at the city's long range calendar, the council's long range calendar. You've been on summer recess. You all are coming back for your first meeting on August 28. And I know what fall is like in this town. You are going to have so much to deal with. So how do you begin to separate out what are your personal priorities with regard to economic development? And what do you think the council is going to be really wrestling with in the coming months? Quite a bit. And we're coming on the 29th. And I always have to make this caveat. We all five do this. When people say recess. We haven't been meeting on Tuesday nights. Understood. Right. It doesn't mean that work stops. I got you. Which is really important, though, because it's a lot of things that still go on in Davis and summer. But to answer your question for economic development, I think it's been overused, kind of like the word innovation, becomes a very squishy term that doesn't mean anything. And somebody throws it out and says, I'm pro-economic development. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean you shop local? Does that mean that you change underlying zoning in big districts so that you can bring in jobs in bigger companies? You don't mean something. It can mean anything. It can mean anything. It can mean adding parking. I mean, I know that the P word, another bad word in Davis. So that's part of it. So part of when you asked what's my kind of personal goals and what the city is looking at is, over the years, we've gotten, I think, more aggressive in a good way about trying to have more economic sustainability. And I think that's the key term that becomes incredibly important, sustainability. Is the sustainability part of it. When I got elected in 2010, we were coming out of a recession. We were projecting 3% growth, even though it was so clear that everything was falling around beside us. That really became a driver in many ways, right? Which is important, because necessity is the mother of invention, innovation, fill in the blank. So we were in a special time then, I think, that people were open to, OK, we want to really do cost containment, but we also know that we want to have some resiliency. And we really had pressing budget concerns back. Very much so. And we still do now. I mean, we still have unfunded liabilities. We have an incredible backlog from infrastructure. We're getting there. We're getting better at operations and maintenance, but that wasn't always built into projects. And that's always something that we are very cautious about. Around budget time, everything seems like it's looking up, but in reality, we still have to be really worried about job scarcity. And one of the overarching themes that always sticks out to me, I was thinking, OK, I knew that this was coming up. I just advised a client two days ago, remember that culture eats strategy. OK, it's fun. And as I had said that, I was like, wow, that's what I feel like we're in a boomerang right now, in that 2014, 2015, Davis was kind of vogue all the rage. Greater Sacramento area council was coming on board. We had a great presence at Cap2Cap, which is the annual trip with Metro Chamber. Which you had a lot to do with. Yes, and I had a lot to do with it, because they reached out to me. They were like, oh, you are an entrepreneur. It's true. I've had a successful consulting business since law school. And sometimes I've gone inside and done corporate work and then come back out. I suspended it during the stadium fundraising. But other than that, I have. And so they were excited that there was somebody that would speak their language. And that completely goes back to culture eats strategy. So we've talked a lot about economic development and economic sustainability. But then as we as projects come forward to the city for a vote, be it a planning commission or city council, suddenly there's a big pause. Oh, but wait, we want to have revenue, but we don't want that much traffic in our downtown. Or what about this over-crossing, under-crossing? Anishia is a great example. That really shocked a lot of people. They thought it would pass. And it harmed us. It has. It has chilled investment. Nobody likes to believe that, but it's true. And going back to that culture, again, is realizing that fostering an environment is really important. It concerns me that when there are events in Sacramento, when they tout Davis all the time. I mean, I travel to the peninsula once a week to check on projects. And they're aware of Davis. And I know we're there. And we've actually pulled a couple of companies up here. But we have a very small presence across the causeway. And so that makes it difficult for people to believe that we really are open for business. We say it, but then we have a vote like Anishia. And they wonder, well, where are those jobs going to go? Where are people going to live? Our housing crisis. So we're talking about economic sustainability. When people have to commute here, it makes it very difficult. We've also had some sort of start and stop on discussion about things like innovation power. And I imagine that that kind of feeds into what you're saying. Completely. Completely. I had one CEO share with me when the mace went down. We moved our headquarters here. We can't get housing for executives. They have to live in Davis. I had a colleague that I had breakfast with this morning and was sheepish about the fact that he had moved to Davis. And he said, everybody on our street, did we can't afford it anymore? It doesn't make sense. And the commute becoming an issue and parking. And not to be a downer about it, but I think we have to look at for what it is. Throwing up an incubator or saying workman for business isn't, it's not working. And that's the feedback is people watch what we do. They watch our votes. They get concerned about mixed use sounds really great in the downtown. But it doesn't sound like that's really supported. In that, we have to think about what message are we sending putting in our council goals is enough. And it's not going to get us across the line. And I think part of it is it's that growth as a community realizing to what innovation means. Having advised clients and done startups, I've had a successful company. I've started a company that failed, which was heartbreaking, and continue to work with startups. And what I find difficult when people come and talk to me or pull me aside, especially when I'm in Sacramento or even in the Bay, is they love our downtown and they think it's great. But they find the actual doing of business can be difficult. I know that I've personally talked to people very supportive, but they don't understand that doing a startup means you might have 3 AM calls because you have people spread all over the place. It means you need to be able to have a coffee shop that's open past 9 o'clock. You need to have a place that you can meet. It's six days a week. It's seven days a week. And that's still not really heavily recognized here about being able to do that. Innovation at its core means risk and change. It does. It does. And when we're talking about culture, one thing I've experienced here is the people who say, well, but I want it to be like it's always been. Even though I'm complaining about how it is, I still kind of want it to be like it's always been. So how then out of all of that, does the council begin to really hone in on, how do you make headway on these issues? I think part of it is doing what we were elected to do. We were at large for a reason. We don't represent a district. We have visions. We all go through all those wonderful forums that we talk about. It's being able to stay true to that even in the face of folks in detractors saying, but wait a minute, that's not what we meant when you said pro jobs. We didn't think that's what you've met. I've seen some of my colleagues just be like, ugh, we share with one another, thinking we've really bonded in that sometimes there's a disconnect there that, for instance, the downtown may be a perfect example, you go to the handled district in Sacramento. And if you go back, like when I was in law school, that was a part of town, you didn't go there. You just didn't go there. And now it's incredible. It's beautiful. I'm grateful that I have friends that live in Sacramento and go spend a Saturday walking around, have brunch. And so when people here say, I want it to be like it used to be, I remember when I came here to go to school, 27 some years ago, downtown had tumbleweeds in it. I mean, not literally, but figuratively, where Craveville is now, that's not a place that you hung out. Ken Hyatt a few years ago, it did a great thing on redevelopment. Where has it brought us? So it's not, it's the little bit of rose colored glasses. We've put a lot of investment. If we want people to be in the downtown, we have to make it a place where people are comfortable. But we also have to have, it's been shown time and time again, where does vibrancy come from? People in the downtown. And we need to, I think, be more proactive on how quickly can we move things, like the choir specific plan, and a couple of my colleagues have been working very hard to move that forward. We're gonna talk about it. And continuing to make an environment where people will remain engaged. And it's not an easy answer. And I think that's where I've personally found frustrating is some of these things are difficult. They run up against one another. And we have to think about as a community, what do we still want? The message has always been the same the last eight years. But it doesn't always necessarily come out as some of these projects, like you said, the Mace Innovation Center is a great example, Nishi's an example. Growth isn't the answer. I really don't believe that alone is gonna do it. And I think that getting heavier density meets our climate action goals. And these are all connected. And that's what makes California being renewable and green strong. It's why people wanna live here. And so that means we're gonna have to look at some compromise and that completely relates. So to give you a point. So yesterday I was pulled into a meeting because there is a startup here who has the wonderful problem about growing their space. They're literally bursting at the seams. Two years ago I sat at their conference table, nothing there. Now people are on top of each other. I was pulled in the meeting because we may lose them. And the reason being, well, we wanna be in the downtown. There's only a little bit of space, but it still takes a while for us to get through the process. We have great staff. Diane and Sarah are gonna work very hard on that. But part of it goes back to the culture strategy because I personally for my own businesses have looked for space. I know it isn't is not available. And from doing some of the consulting, it's not necessarily readily known. We need to be more open. If we have space or we know we're gonna have space, we need to communicate. But it's also being able to give that feeling of what you're really important. They had an incredible fundraising round. If you were in the business circles and sacramental people in a heartbeat wouldn't know exactly who I was talking about. They've hardly seen a beat here. And that's something that I think we need to work on continually as really embracing that and being involved. And that's that sustainability, that resiliency that we've talked about. Because if you lose one, you're gonna lose others for the same reasons. And I'm hearing individuals, I will not name them in town, say the vacant stores downtown are a huge problem, but I don't wanna infill. Exactly. You can't have it both ways. And especially, no offense to Amazon. But in this day and age where that's the case, we have to think about what makes a change. Well, if you go and you look around, it's because people who live in downtown, like Palo Alto is a great example. And if we wanna be like that, part of that is a culture. If we want that vibrancy, because that's what I hear often times people complain, well, why can't we be like that? Well, there's a list of reasons, but part of it is hype, part of it is companies in their downtown, part of it is people who live near their downtown. It's just a walk down to mains. Like getting down to University Avenue or even down to Hamilton. We can be the same way, but it's as tough as you say. I would don't want our storefronts to be empty, but I don't want it to be so dense. I don't want the infill. We don't wanna have density. Why don't we want people down there who don't need to get in a car? I think most people do wanna park their cars. I think that's all these reports why we have a lot of people moving into our region from the Bay Area, because they like the standard of living here. They can storefronts, parking and homelessness, this all connects and I have a feeling the council is gonna have their hands full if you didn't touch anything else. But what I heard you say is that it comes back to doing the job you were elected to do, which sometimes mean doing the right thing, doing the hard thing and not having people always agree with you. Yeah, I was warned when I first got started that you're gonna do 99 things right, and it's the one thing that you do, not necessarily been wrong, but that someone disagrees with, that they're gonna remember and that's true. It's sad but true and I think that's where you have to get to a place where you realize, these are the things I was elected to do. I see the bigger picture and I do try to take a lot of time, I'm always happy to sit down and try to educate what the issues are behind. I try to encourage people to come to council and speak for their public comment, even if it's just to explain what's going on and what the needs are. And we're coming through some difficult times. It doesn't feel like a welcoming place all the time where people have lives, they have their children, that they need to get ready for school the next day. People are stressed and by everything that's happening in this world. And people are really stressed, it's a really tough time and one of the beautiful, wonderful things about this community is that we're very engaged and engaged on a lot of areas and with what's happening at the national level is having an impact and I hope one of the things that this council can do going forward this year is really take a cue from Governor Brown and that, yeah, this is happening, but we're California and for us to say, yeah, we're Davis and we know that we can be a beacon and we can move forward and so that is in renewables and jobs, I mean, we've got Sunpower R&D in South Davis, we have, I can go on and on, all these great renewables. We're gonna keep moving on and civilly. Keep moving on civilly and at the same time, be aware of social justice issues because the two are hand in hand. The more prosperous Davis is, the more that we can do. I mean, and I think that's where we need to do a better job of making that crosswalk. Believe it or not, we're out of time. I'm not surprised. I told you we would go quickly, but I hope you'll, this is kind of, we've touched the tip of the iceberg and I hope you'll come back and talk with us in a couple months and kind of update us on what's going on. I would love to and hopefully come back with lots of good news. Thank you for your service and for joining us tonight. Thank you. You've been watching The City Considerers here on Davis Media Access. For more information about the City Council, you can go to cityofdavis.org and there's a whole page there. You can click on to get agendas, archive meetings, et cetera. Thanks for tuning in.