 I'm like, welcome to the Dublin City Council candidate forum. My name is Sameena Usman. I'm the government relations coordinator for the Council on American Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area Office. We put on these events so that we can inform the public about who these candidates are and who will be serving you as your next Dublin City Council member. If you can put on the slide, Soha. Thank you so much. So again, if you want to see our, so every, every other year, we put together a voter guide of both for the state issues and also for the local measures as well. And so you can find that at bit.ly for slash care CA vote. Again, we'll be showing you what the, how your elected officials, your congressional members and state representatives have voted on issues that are important to the Muslim community and important to civil rights as a whole. And likewise, we also, we give recommendations for statewide propositions and local measures as well. So please definitely take a look at that. If you, you know, to also check to see if you are registered to vote, we have the link for you to go ahead and check that. And also we have videos of all of the candidate forms that we've held thus far. I believe we've held about four. And also please make sure to, you know, sign to get out the Muslim vote. We have a pledge form and make sure to also register to vote. Again, we have it on October 19th. So make sure to see if you are registered, oftentimes people don't realize that if you change your address or whatnot, then you have to re-register. So make sure to go ahead and do that. So we have a lot of other informative webinars such as on prop 15, prop 16, prop 17 and a lot of other voter engagement videos for you to check out. So please, please let me take a look at that link. And without further ado, we'll go ahead and start the candidate form. I have reminded all of the candidates that they have one minute to answer the questions. I've sent them the questions in advance so that they can take a look at it. One thing I want to also mention is that I'd like to recognize the organizations and mosques that have cosponsored this event. So along with CARES FBA, we have MCC East Bay, the San Ramon Valley Islamic Center, the Northern California Islamic Center, and a council, excuse me, and the Muslim American Society as well. So all of these organizations have cosponsored this event that we have tonight. So again, if you have any questions, please enter them into the Q&A tab like by pressing the Q&A tab. Also the candidates will be including their information, their websites or contact information, also in the chat. So if you can go ahead and do that, so then you can follow up with them. And without further ado, let's go ahead and have the first question. So the first question for tonight will be, please introduce yourself, please include your involvement in the city and what are your top three priorities if elected? And we're gonna go alphabetically. So let's start with Mr. Khadri. Excellent. Well, good evening or afternoon. Salaamu alaikum. I'd like to thank the organizers care and the other organizing committees for putting this forum together. By way of formal introduction, my name is Kasha Khadri and I'm running for double entity council. Over the past 15 years, I've been serving the community in three main ways. One is serving underserved communities through healthcare, providing health fairs and clinics. The second is STEM tutoring, mentoring, coaching, specifically geared towards youth. And the third area is community leadership, specifically HOA's, PFC's and advisory committees. On a professional level, I've held a number of leadership roles, including business development, commercial operations, strategic planning and product development. And I think it's this unique combination of community service and professional experience and managing complex budgets, P&L partnerships with other companies and coming up with new innovative technologies to help address the challenges of Dublin. My key priorities are safety and traffic, resilience and preparedness and economic and environmental sustainability. I invite all of you to visit my website. Thank you. Also, let's also remind everybody to stick to time. I know you were pretty close to it, but also just letting you know if we go over five seconds, apologies, but we will meet you. Thank you very much. And also some people seem to sometimes have a little bit of a hard time seeing the timer. So you may want to, instead of going to speaker view, go to gallery view as well. So thank you so much. And so now we'll have Mr. McCoriston. Can you hear me okay? Okay, good evening. My name is Mike McCoriston. My wife, Sylvia and I have lived in Dublin for 26 years and we have two daughters who've gone through the Dublin school systems. My professional background includes a 35 year career in corporate treasury and corporate banking. I do serve on as a volunteer or a commission member on affordable housing and human services commissions within the Tri Valley. As far as my campaign initiatives are concerned, there are three elements. Smart development, we need to critically think about our future development efforts and create solutions for the needs of our residents. And at the same time, consider our remaining open space and conserve our natural resources. Another element is our affordable housing. Dublin has become unaffordable for most and I'm gonna look for creative solutions so people can live here, including our teachers, essential workers and our seniors. The third element is fiscal sustainability. My priorities are going to be to solve obviously financial imbalances as we go into COVID-19 without cutting desperately needed services. Sorry, Mr. McCorstin, we have to continue with the next person. So Mr. Koreshi, if you can speak. Okay, so I'm going to come. Thank you Kiar for hosting this event. My name is Samir Koreshi and I've been a resident of Dublin for nine years. I've been involved in many organizations. Since early on in my life, I've actually been on a Dublin planning commission. In addition to that, which is served in environmental commission, school board, human services and zoning board in other states. I have my wife and I have raised four children here and now for me, it's more about giving back to the community. I also would like to encourage younger youth to be involved in the political process and that's why I'm running. My campaign is focused around trust transformed together. What that means is really trust is about working with the community to make sure that I'm able to public safety is top of my mind. Transform is about smart growth, economic development and traffic and climate issues and together it's more about how do we work together with the community, with the school and as a group diverse community that we have in Dublin, how do we work together and live together? So to me, ultimately it's more about passion, giving back to the community and that's why I'm running. Excuse me, Mr. Castel. Hello and thank you for letting me come and hello gentlemen and ladies. Thank you for being here. I'm running because this is my 16th election. This is my 32nd year on the ballot. I am kind of show that to everybody that everybody can run for office, whether it be a disability, non-disability, whatever their disability, they could still do the job as well as anybody else. That's my first and foremost thing that I'm working on. The other thing is that I want to slow down our growth because we're growing so fast and we're growing with all of the stuff that is growing. It is for high priced people to move in and not enough for the low income. Now I'm working on the low income angle. I also want to help everybody. Thank you, Mr. Castel. If we can have Ms. Hu. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. So my name is Sherry Kuo and my family and I have lived in Dublin for over a decade. Both my kids went to public schools here and I'm running for the Dublin City Council because I want to give them back to the community. I'm an immigrant, came to this country about 20 years ago to pursue my PhD in architecture engineering and my specialty is in green building technologies and the environmental sustainability. So you heard a lot of people talk about their concerns about the over development. This is my specialty. I want to bring my expertise and experience to help the city out. So my priority including, you know, help the smart and sustainable growth of the city and provide public safety and security and help local businesses and high paying jobs. Thank you. All right, thank you. Ms. Muppety, and am I pronouncing that correctly? Forgive me. Yeah, Sherry Muppety. But thank you so much. I'm a big fan of Kara's work. I actually spoke to Zara Balu for a podcast a few years ago. So really glad to be here. My name is Sherry Muppety and I'm running for Dublin City Council to serve the community that I grew up in. My family and I moved to the Tri Valley in 2004 and I remember being one of the only few brown kids in my entire community. And I'm just so happy to see Dublin has become more diverse over the last two decades. But because of this wave of change, I think we need diverse and new ideas in City Council, especially this year when our country is facing so many challenges. Our city needs someone who's thinking long term for a future. And if we don't take steps right now to make changes in our infrastructure, our economy around climate change, around public safety, then we do not have a Dublin that we're proud of for the next generation. And that includes me. And I think that I'm a qualified to hold at this position because I hold prior experience working in government, having worked in policy at the State Department and the Federal Reserve. My priorities for Dublin aren't around local economy, recovery and growth, diversity and equity and building affordable housing. Thank you. All right, thank you so much. So the next question I'm gonna put in the chat and it'll go to Mr. McCorston. As of October 5th, there has been a total of 291 COVID cases in the City of Dublin. This pandemic has shaken our communities through sickness and loss of life along with negatively impacting the economy. So how should the City of Dublin be involved in the recovery as we deal with the COVID-19 crisis? Well, health and safety come first. We're now experiencing second wave of infections that are, you know, we need to look at things in a cautious manner and reopen local businesses and health with safety in mind. But immediate sustainability measures, we need to continue to offer these micro loans, rent deferment programs. We continue to need to work with state and local governments for further funding and grants. Longer term strategy, we can continue to work with small businesses to induce them with sales tax reimbursements, programs, grants, tax rebates, impact deferral fees for further development to enhance or to develop affordable housing and senior housing. So there's a lot of things that we can do and continue to do. So, perfect. Thank you so much. Mr. Cresci. Great. Similar to what Mike said, I think the City has personally, in my opinion, has done a good job on overall helping the businesses. We've done micro loans. So I want to make sure that actually continues to find more dollars available to different different programs. So I know the City is actually looking at some packages that they're gonna receive through CARES Pack, to receive, give it back to our community. Other things that would be looking at how we can help during these times, like improve some of the things for these businesses. So wherever they need help, whether it be improvement to the facade or so, those would be another important things. I think ultimately, we've got to drive more businesses. So there are so many residents in this town and with so much business owners here, let's make sure that they buy within Dublin, things that are actually, whether it be restaurants or things that are being sold. So those are important things to me that we support the business. We encourage them. We actually put up maybe a group of them together to see what's working for them and how can City continue to help? So ultimately, we got to, this is a small community. We got to make sure that businesses survive through these times. Thank you. Mr. Costello? Yes. What I was saying is that we, we all have to stick together. Not only the businesses and the people that live here, we all share the same property lines. We all share the responsibility of taking care of each other in this pandemic. We have to make sure that we're still getting all of our masks on, making sure that we're six feet apart at work. But the thing is that we got to go back to work. We have to make sure that we are still willing to help our neighbors. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Hu? So our school has done excellent job in COVID-19 and we are doing better than our surrounding cities. And we will continue work with the Alameda County Public Health Department and we will continue to adapt the new regulations about the safety. And also our city is doing better. So for our opening schedules, we might take some unique approaches, but we need to overall work with other organizations with the state, with the Alameda County to make sure it's safe. And especially for the school opening, for the business openings, we want to be cautious, but we also want to see how this can help with the business. Keep that in mind as well. COVID-19 might be going for months, even years. So we want to make sure our community will stay together and we'll fight together. Thank you. Miss Muppety? I think that safety is of utmost importance, especially as we're considering reopening COVID as a result of COVID-19, but I think that there's a lot we can do to support local businesses adjust to and recover from COVID. Some ideas are continuing microloan programs, providing workshops around important topics, for example, digital marketing strategies and exploring commercial rent caps. I also plan to ease the process of doing business in Dublin by implementing more user-friendly design to streamline permitting and licensing procedures, for example, for those who want to do outdoor operations. And then I think that we can also drive local employment through workforce development programs and entrepreneurship bootcamps. And I hold this experience in having worked in economic development. I studied economics at Stanford, worked in economic development at the US Federal Reserve as well as the World Bank and now work in venture capital. So I think these experiences will help me and the rest of the city to do a fantastic job in terms of supporting our local business community as well as ensuring that people are not losing their jobs and facing economic hardship. Thank you, Mr. Cottrell. Yeah, so through my work experience along with my educational background in both science and healthcare, I will definitely lead the community using a scientific evidence-based approach to reopening the city. So after the 2008 downturn, I was able to help businesses rebuild and thrive by diversifying product portfolios and roadmap. And I think we need to employ the same type of strategies and fiscal responsibility as a city as we begin to reopen. The city needs to provide the right type and amount of incentives to ensure businesses, particularly small businesses, can successfully reopen in a safe manner. The second point that I wanted to mention is particularly in light of COVID-19 and then also the fires, we need a planned resource and adapt to disasters and implement a holistic management system at all levels. And I think this specifically related to COVID, we need to have better communication, real-time communication and science in promoting and protecting everyone's health and the well-being of the citizens of Dublin. Thank you. So the next question is going to go to Mr. Koreshi. He's gonna be answering that first. So the current unemployment rate in Dublin is 10.9% and has increased by 8.3% over the past year. How would Dublin address the issue of people facing potential homelessness once the eviction monitoring ends? And how do we provide assistance to those who are unhoused or in need? Yeah, first, does Dublin have a big homeless problem? Not as much as you would see in other cities. I think what we have to do, we are such a small community. We have to take care of people, right? Some of the things we talked about, you just heard about businesses. So let's look at programs that have worked in other cities. Let's look at what funding do we have available that we can actually help some of these families in need. And let's look at some organizations that actually can help these folks too. So I think ultimately it needs to evolve around money that's available, money that can be brought in and how do we help these families survive through these situations, right? Like we're not gonna take care of them forever, but we gotta take care of them now when they need some help. So to me, I think ultimately it goes back to is, let's look at where the issues are, let's evaluate how do we help them, let's find resources, let's find organizations that can actually help these families. So ultimately that's how we're gonna have to keep our families together in Dublin and not have to lose them out of Dublin. Thank you, Mr. Costello? Yes, yes, the homeless is very, very important. Even the housing is important and it is very, very sad when people lose their places because they cannot pay and landlords are not going to go the extra mile. It is very, very sad when things happen and I wanna help people. I wanna make sure that when I'm elected the people of all races, all colors are all taken care of and homelessness does not matter what color that you are. It can happen to anybody, it could happen to me, it could happen to you, you don't know. We all are here together and we ought to help each other. Thank you, Ms. Hu? So our city has a higher unemployment rate and this is a similar situation that has happened to anywhere else in the country. So on one side of the city trying to help with the situation and on the other side, we want to help with the job opportunities. There's a certain ways we can help out. For people who lost their jobs, maybe there's ways to help them to get back to the workforce and the city can help them to find the skills or train them on different things for the employment opportunities and for the housing situations. We will try to help out, we'll provide loans and financial assistance to help everybody to go over this hard time. So overall we are neighbors, we are all same community. So we'll do what we can do to help everybody to survive. Thank you, Ms. Muffity. I think Dublin like the rest of the Bay Area is facing a dire housing crisis. And as a result, homelessness has peaked, especially during COVID-19. There is homelessness in Dublin. And I think that we need to do better in terms of providing services to help these folks. The ways that we can actually implement some changes is to take advantage of grant money provided by both the county, state and federal government to provide services to the homeless population. For example, around healthcare, mental health, drug addiction counseling and job training. For example, looking at Fremont, Fremont-Builte Homeless Navigation Center that assists homeless folks to actually be able to take advantage of these services to get back into housing. And I think that Dublin has a really great opportunity to make a difference around this because of the number of people that might be facing eviction as a result of high rents and not being able to pay off due to like being unemployed. So I think that Dublin has an opportunity to make some change. And I think that we, as city council members, can do better to serve this community. Mr. Cottrey? Yeah, so I think fundamentally Dublin is not immune to homelessness and as the economic downturn continues, as people continue to lose their jobs, they're gonna fall short on rent and the city needs to provide programs to both the renters as well as the home owners. So both the tenants and the people that are the home owners. I think fundamentally, Dublin needs to be more inclusive and increase the affordable housing footprint, providing houses and appropriate housing across all economic and income categories. And I think what we need to do is partner with housing advocates and experts. The city needs to do this to explore concrete action steps that city council and the city of Dublin can take to ensure that we prevent a homelessness crisis and address this gap. Thank you, Mr. Corston. Yeah, your statistics actually understating the true unemployment rate, which is somewhere between 15 and 18% if you were to consider discouraged workers and people taking temporary jobs to cover essentials. We need to stretch the bridge to recovery and one other candidate said, we don't know how long this is gonna be. So we need to continue with the rent deferral programs and other public assistance. This is a little easier for me because I'm involved in anti-poverty commissions. As far as helping the unsheltered, we can identify existing underutilized structures in Dublin that can be repurposed for temporary or transitional housing. We might even consider identifying or building a center that provides hot meals and showers and bathrooms and just a place to go. We could ask or work with the city to set aside land. So you can have a site that's highly regulated. One of the things that Livermore put together is something called a safe parking program where people who are living out of their cars have a place to be. I would think one of the things that's really important. Thank you so much. I'm sorry, we have to move on to the next question. So I'll go ahead and put that in the chat. So this question would go to Mr. Costello first. And so there are demands for more commercial properties, more residential properties and high density housing for low income families. At the same time, there are people who are opposed to overbuilding the land. Where do you stand with regard to future growth of Dublin? Would you support increased commercial growth, increased residential growth or downtown revitalization or maintaining the status quo? Well, I am a big, big person for do not overgrow us, that's for sure. We need to re-utilize the properties that are vacant right now. We need to use those for the businesses that are gone like cocos, like toys or rats. Use those for other businesses and have them come in. I would love to see other restaurants come in and thrive and not have the same restaurants over and over and over and over. Like we have 10 coffee houses, all the same name. We got to have all kinds of things in here, not just the same things. And we also have to, I'm sorry. Thank you. Ms. Hu? So I have really been doubling for over 10 years and have experienced tremendous growth. Well, we already heard about a lot of concerns from the residents about overdevelopment. So first of all, we want to start with what's the vision for our city? And we want to have a community involvement. So we want to discuss about it. We want to still have a suburban life but close to the city. And that's why we call our doubling the new American backyard. We never think we want to be San Jose or San Francisco, these large cities. And this is a question we need to have a, everybody sit down to think about what do we need? And we also need to consider our regulation requirement from the state. And there's a balance between it as an architecture engineering and the environmentalist. And I also want our city to have a sustainable development. Thank you. Ms. Muppedy? So to set some context around Dublin, Dublin was the first fastest growing city in all of California in 2018 and the 11th fastest in the entire nation in 2018 as well. And so as a result, the rate of housing will just naturally slow because we cannot be the fastest growing every year. And simply there's just not enough land. But to counter that, it is still very expensive to live in Dublin. The current median home is nearly $1 million and rent is between $2,600 to $3,000. And as someone who's grown up here in Dublin and into Tri-Valley, I can barely afford to live in my own community. And I fear that it's only going to get worse. And so I think our city needs to do a better job of building more affordable housing. In the past decade, we've focused primarily on market rate housing spending over 500% over our targeted greener allotment towards above market rate. And so I think that we need to do a better job of building affordable housing across all income levels to ensure that people like me, young folks, teachers, the seniors, can actually afford to live in Dublin and be a part of this community. Thank you, Mr. Contra. Yes, so I think as mentioned previously, right? We've been quick to add housing in commercial development has been slow to catch up to build a vibrant environmentally and economically sustainable city. We need to have that balance of both homes and businesses to promote a healthy and sustainable walkable, vicable city, right? And that has environmental implications as well, right? We can reduce the miles traveled and carbon emissions. And most importantly, we can keep tax dollars within Dublin to support the needs of the city in terms of infrastructure and the like. In order to ensure that Dublin can grow into this vibrant economically sustainable city, we need to set the tone for future developments. We need to be thoughtful about land use and planning and zoning and make sure that it is, in fact, inclusive to everyone. And along this line, the idea of a downtown Dublin is really appealing to me, right? This makes it more viable and thriving as a city. Thank you, Mr. McCorston. Okay, so as far as residential development is concerned, we need to focus and build around transit oriented zones. The strategy is gonna help address the arena deficiencies and mitigate pollution by reducing traffic flows around the city. Also an integral part about the strategy should be the focus on development of affordable housing, independent and assisted living facilities for our seniors or folks with disabilities. As far as commercial developments concerned, commercial development should be evaluated based on sustainability and its positive impact on the community. And it should be integrated with mixed use developments again within transit oriented zones. It should be looking strongly at redevelopment efforts and that would include a lot of the existing and older buildings that could ultimately be used for commercial and residential needs. Thank you, Mr. Koreshi. Yeah, no, a lot of stuff has already been said. My view is economic development is definitely something I think we need. Our revenues will come down over the next few years as development slows down. So we need to start thinking about how do we bring more revenue in? So if we focus more efforts on towards economic development bringing more commercial, but of course commercial has to be mixed with the right type of things that the community wants. So I think, you know, there are things on the housing commercial side. I would like to see Dublin become more like a med tech type of a hub where we can attract more medical technology companies that would actually come here and actually bring their businesses here. In addition to on the housing side, you know, we need to think about the transit oriented development. We need, we have to look at our arena numbers. We have to evaluate how do we look at those. Redevelopment will be another area that we could evaluate. Downtown, I think everybody in Dublin has been looking towards this downtown for a long, long time. So I think we have to bring that into play over the next few years and that would help overall the package of transit oriented developments. Thank you. So before I ask the next question, I just wanted to remind the audience that you were able to ask your questions in the chat room, either in this forum or on Zoom or also on Facebook as well. So please make sure to include any of your questions over there. And we will try to incorporate that if it hasn't been asked earlier during the forum. So I'm going to put in the next. So I'm actually going to combine the next two questions because I know a number of you had kind of touched upon issues on both of these questions. But what will you do to help improve traffic and pedestrian safety throughout the city in neighborhoods and in more commercial areas? And then also our environment is suffering from drought, fires, pollution and other issues. Do you believe in climate change and what would be your top new strategy that you would push forward to tackle environmental issues if you were elected? And this question would go to Ms. Hu. So we talked about the traffic and also the environmental issues. I'm a strong believer of sustainability and I believe we need to consider the impact to the environment when we approve the development of projects and we need to mitigate the traffic issues and we need to consider the environmental impact when we even start to approve the projects. And post the COVID, people will start working and there will be more traffic coming like we had experienced. So there's a few smart technologies we might consider to control our traffic such as adaptive traffic signals, real-time traffic monitoring and intelligent control of the signals. And let's talk about the environment as we want to make sure we do what we need to do as a citizen to help with the environment. Ms. Mapiti. So I think Dublin needs to do more to actually address climate change. I definitely believe in climate change rather than taking a very reactive approach to wildfires, heat waves and air pollution that we've been facing in the last couple of years, we need to be confronting the overall problem. This includes expanding our commitment to a low carbon economy by switching to renewable energy and electrifying buildings. We should continue building out EV charging, implementing bike lanes and spark development so that we actually reduce car centric culture and this in turn reduces traffic as well. And I think that we need to do a better job of strengthening our relationship with transit authority groups to ensure that we have clean and affordable public transportation systems hopefully when we're out of COVID. One community member actually mentioned to me that her daughter spends nearly an hour driving six miles from East Dublin to Dublin High School. And so I think that as the second high school is now being built, we need to ensure that we're working collaboratively with the school board so that we have more crossing guards, more speed bombs, we're evaluating drop-off zones to ensure that we don't have accidents and we can actually build a very sustainable Dublin community. Thank you, Mr. Codray. Yeah, so safety and traffic is definitely one of my top priorities. I think specifically, you know, bottom line, we all deserve a right, we all deserve the right to feel safe where we live, work and play. I think in terms of the traffic, right, we can employ smart technologies. We can try to increase public transit and we could try to just make more, you know, physical changes in terms of the flow and making crosswalks, for instance, more visible. Previously in the Bay Area, I served on a technical committee for bicycle pedestrian safety. I've actually joined the new Dublin Bicycle Commission and to help explore that a bit more. In terms of the sustainability, environmental sustainability, yeah, as a scientist, I absolutely believe in climate change. I think there's a lot that we can do being cognizant and being aware with up-to-date scientific information about how we're developing is really important with a special attention to wetlands. And Mr. McCorston. You know, I absolutely do believe in climate change. There are certain things that the city can do now. I would strongly encourage, as a council member, strategies that would reduce and focus on reducing congestion and pollution. And what you do is you focus again on new residential and commercial development that's focused in the transit-oriented zones and encouraging the use of mass transit systems. I would discourage further development around the outer barriers of our city, the natural boundaries. I would encourage city investment in transportation technologies. This is a futuristic kind of thing, but it can happen over time in some of the smart technologies, micro-mobility and autonomous vehicles. Most importantly, I think we can do right now is I work strongly to support clean energy solutions such as solar. And I would collaborate with the water district to support building new water storage facilities and explore recycling strategies. Mr. Karanshi? Well, I definitely believe in climate change. If you didn't believe it, you saw orange days where we came across. So it definitely tells you that the world is changing. So I think ultimately we have to take our own planet. We have to take our own communities traffic. You know, it's something that we all, you've heard everybody pretty much talk about, you know, adaptive signal using technology. I think that's an area that we could improve on. We have done a fairly good job. City has done a good job on putting those in Dublin Boulevard. We have other areas that we're going to have to start looking at. You know, looking at, you know, once we look at transit oriented development, we're going to encourage people to have, be able to walk, be able to have ability to take bike lanes. Things like those we have to start looking at. Electric charging stations that city can provide for the community to use, those will be important. Working with other companies to provide some incentives for residents will be another area. There are already programs. Let's just continue and make sure we enhance on this. So there are so many things that we could do, but we have to be realistic. Say, Hey, what can we do now? What can we do a year from now? Let's start to stagger them. Let's make sure the community understands. Thank you. Mr. Costello. Hello. Yes. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes. All right. This is one of my biggest things is that I'm on the, the wheels board. And we make sure that all the wheels buses and the per transit buses are all running. All right. But we need, we need more buses out there. We need more safety. I am out there in a wheelchair and I'm almost hit every day that I'm out there. People are not slowing down. They're going faster. And they have to realize that there's not just them out there, that there are the pedestrians, wheelchair people, people on and scooters, people all over the place that are trying to get to and fro and prone to. We are trying to make sure that we're all going to be safe. And I making sure that I tell each and every person slow down. So that we don't hurt each other. I went ahead eight times. You're in doubt. Thank you. So now we received a couple of questions from the community. And so I'm actually just going to. Hold on. I'm going to combine them both. So what experience. Do you have in civic engagement in the city? And do you have experience in building legislative consensus? And this question would go to. Yes. I have experienced working in. In public service. I volunteered on political campaigns since 2010. For 2010 and 2012, as well as 2016 for congressman, Jerry McNerney, as well as Hillary Clinton. I dedicated my early career towards public service. I worked at the World Bank as well as the State Department at the State Department. I was specifically focused on human rights policy in the Middle East. So in Oman, Turkey and Bahrain. And beyond that, I've volunteered across different nonprofits and organizations in the Bay Area. Particularly targeted towards women empowerment. And I have experienced working and building. Legislative consensus and working across bipartisan. Layers, which I think is really important. So while I'm a Democrat and identify as one, I previously worked for the former national security advisor, HR genomic master, who served under the Trump administration because I think it's important to be able to work across people who disagree with you. So you can actually be able to implement and learn from them to create overall holistic change. Thank you. So Mr. Country. Yes. So as I mentioned earlier, you know, I've had the honor and privilege of serving the community in a number of ways. Specifically around organizational management. I've helped with. Been on the board of HOA's. Have volunteered extensively within the parent faculty clubs. As well as those two. Technical committees specifically focused around bicycle pedestrian. Safety. Thank you. So Mr. Country. So as I mentioned earlier, you know, I've had the honor and privilege of serving the community in a number of ways. And I've had the honor and privilege of serving the community in a number of ways. And I've had the honor and privilege of serving the community in a number of ways. Safety. I think in the past, I've, I've helped on a number of different campaigns for various politicians. I've helped them not just with the campaigning part, but afterwards in trying to understand where the public stands on various issues and try to build legislation around topics of interest. As part of the master plans for the city of. You know, on the traffic side, it kind of larger within the county, within the city itself, as well as the public focused around building consensus and trying to find the optimal solution for, for some of these safety issues. Thank you, Mr. Carsten. You have to unmute yourself. Am I on there? Can you hear me? Yeah. Can you start that over again? Okay. In terms of public service, I've already mentioned that I've been very involved in anti poverty and housing. Initiatives here. Learning a lot about what's going on. The hidden disparity that's going on in our community. As far as consensus is concerned, I have 35 years of building consensus in the corporate world. And that is a huge challenge for many, many people. So I would say my background, I'm not a politician, but I have many, many years of building consensus in, in, in experience through life. Mr. Karachi. I've been working in public service for last 38 years since I was a little kid, whether it be starting at a political campaigns early on in my life to then getting involved in different organizations. So recently I was on Dublin mining commission. Prior to that, I was on a school board, zoning board, environmental commission and human services. And I've been working on a lot of these boards in other states and other counties. So I have basically done this for most of my career while I actually have a professional career. And this is because I've always cared about being in the community where I live, want to make sure I'm involved. So to me, I bring the experiences of in those boards and commissions and having to work with across the line with whether it be teachers, whether it be different legislators, understanding what the needs are, whether it be in the state of Dublin, whether it be in the state of Dublin, whether it be communities on congressional campaigns, Senate campaigns. So I have done all those. So to me, I think the experience I bring along with my professional experience will be very important to this role and to the city of Dublin. Thank you. I'm sorry. That'd be Mr. McCorst. No, I'm sorry. Mr. Castella. Hello. Yes. I, 1984 the city has asked me to help them with all the ramps in Dublin and I put a dot on each and every corner of Dublin saying put a ramp there and that's what I got to do for my very first week I moved to Dublin every since then I've been on all kinds of committees I'm on the wheels committee that's the attack T-A-A-T committee then I went to the the Dublin Housing Authority committee that was a commission I did that for four years I have been on on the PAC co-board we we passed out all the major B money when you pass the major B we we are the ones who wrote that thank you miss who being involved in public services for many years have helped local elected officers on their public services for example like open about a month ago when we say fire department they were fighting the fires and they need additional supplies and in my community we brought waters we bought snacks a lot of supplies to the two to the two fire stations in our city and I also serve at the school PFC and I'm also founder of non-profit organizations so we helped families and the students during the COVID-19 and we are trying to help out so for the building consensus I want to say the most important is to be a good listener and creative thinking and the brain solutions to the problems and I have a lot of experience with that thank you for the next question let me go ahead and put that in the chat so after the officer involved killings of Breonna Taylor George Floyd Steven Taylor among others there have been greater calls to reimagine defund or even eliminate the police do you believe that changes are needed to be made with local police departments and training and if so what suggested changes would you make and that would go to Mr. Codrie yeah so I think it's you know in terms of safety and safety kind of in general right we need to initiate more public oversight with the community involved that is going to create so much needed checks and balances within you know how we're how the police department and other services are providing services to the people of Dublin you know we need to have that we need to have you know just checks and balances to keep you know think transparent and accountable I think beyond that dialogue and conversation is absolutely critical right we need to create the right avenues the right forums for for people to express their their own viewpoints and diversity and and encourage that right so when we have more sensitivity training police officers for instance might be able to respond to situations in a better method or format and I think that's critical so more communication and more transparency accountability Mr. McCorstin yeah you know I'm a strong supporter of public safety we've seen some instances in communities not necessarily in Dublin but all over where the police resources have been stretched very thinly and situations have been really brutally mishandled with regard to the concept of defund police it's more it's more of a message it's really about reallocating resources to to other people who might be better equipped to handle situations for different forms of intervention and I fully support that you know I I I think that could be something that we could consider in Dublin with you know and I would strongly encourage ongoing discussions and oversight committees you know I'm for that I think we can't go wrong we need to always look at improving what we're doing improving our processes so I'm very much for that thank you I'm Mr. Karashi yeah public safety is one of my top priorities and you know Dublin police has done a overall great job keeping us safe so we first I want to thank them second I think when it comes to these topics I believe in more investing in more training I think there's training that needs to be done on how to handle mental health issues or how to handle autism people with autism or handicap but things like this that are important to the community make sure the police understand how to handle it second I think we definitely need a task force that actually works with community and the police to understand each other needs you know Dublin has got so much diversity you know we need more diversified police department public safety so let's try to encourage more different ethnic groups to get involved and participate and actually take jobs possibly so I think that's what we need we need more diversity in public safety we need to improve on training improve on specific things like mental health and other I mentioned ultimately I think that's where we need to invest and improve thank you Mr. Costello the police when they're doing a great job and I and I back up the police all the time but they also had to understand that that it's not not just them out there it is the whole world out there and they have to understand that people with disabilities like myself with cerebral palsy have problems saying what we want to say to these police officers and making sure that they don't misunderstand what we're trying to say is a threat to them because we're not I am not threatening to anybody I care about these policemen I want to make sure that their job is going to be good I want to make sure that we hire someone that is going to want to do the job and do it correctly so that no one gets hurt thank you miss who first I want to say my deepest sympathies go out to the families and friends of those people who have been killed in your machined tragedies and this is the moment that we all need to think about the equity and inclusion we truly believe public safety is number one priority for everyone and as you look at our doubling as a city our police department has done fantastic job they've done it very efficiently and they have kept us safe and I want to say thanks to them but while there's always a space for improvement and for the improvement right now there's a task force is working with the community to seek out the ways they can help them to improve from my point of view there's they can be more transparent and more community involvement there thank you miss um Obiti um I think that while our police services have been really useful and helpful to supporting the safety of our community here in Dublin I think there's always an opportunity for improvement particularly around increasing the transparency and accountability of our police services police in Dublin are contracted out from the Alameda County and so there is an opportunity to have a county-wide impact by increasing training towards police ensuring that there is more implicit bias training because there have been a number of families especially those who are brown and black who have told me themselves that they have been persecuted been even if they're just sitting with their family and so I think that we need to do a better job of ensuring that we have implicit bias training we recruit more diverse members to join police and then we earmark more funding towards first responder mental health crises and social case workers and support the community involvement across public safety especially like the citizen task force that is now hopefully going to be implemented here in Dublin all right so this would go to Mr. McCorriston um so racist and hate incidences have been on the rise especially you know throughout this time with COVID and also you know getting closer to the election so what efforts have you made to combat racism and Islamophobia and what will you do as a council member to tackle the issue and work towards inclusion I have to unmute yourself okay you know I've been around for a while my family and I we grew up in the Berkeley area we they were involved in civil rights movements during that period of time I've had lots of lessons in life I've traveled around the world I've seen some things I've seen the sins of man I've gone through the south I've looked at you know I've seen some of the things that we don't want to see internment camps and concentration camps these are just lessons okay but coming back to to messages that are going on now we need to combat combat this hatred and so getting to the point folks I would support programs that continue to be to bring a peaceful solution a peaceful social awareness to issues and I do that as not only a resident and a human being but as a council member bottom line is it's my responsibility to listen I haven't experienced this I've had a lot of lessons and I would really support a further oversight in our community to enforce these issues to make sure that we're not discriminatory and we're not producing hatred language. Thank you. Mr. Karachi. Okay you know I think you know if you look at my campaign slogan here together is one of the key things to me I think as a community so much diversity we need to do a better job learning about each other learning about our cultures religions respect each other and make sure that we are all represented in anything that we do as a community so to me this starts off with whether we Islam or any other religion let's make sure people are understanding what are things we need to do maybe as a community we need to look at you know let's do some cultural event as a you know community example as we do St. Patrick's Day Parade during early part of the year well what let's look at maybe doing cultural arts festival cultural event where we bring the community together where we actually learn about each other so I think things like this start off education starts over programs that we would create as leaders in the city and that's where I would be supportive of creating these programs making sure that the community comes together as a whole. Mr. Costello. Yes as I was saying earlier we all have to work together and I am not a racist person I've had many many many different caregivers taking care of me they're all different colors and I respect each and every one of them Filipinos blacks whites doesn't matter we're all we're all human beings we all have to be treated as human beings so when I say that that the winner is going to get together as we are together right now in this forum we're all different races and we're all people caring about each other trying to make sure that we're going to take care of you the people out there and and we're going to make sure that each and every one of you is safe. Thank you Ms. Hu. So I'm first generation immigrant myself I'm true believer of equal rights and I I'm against any discrimination based on the sex, gender, the religions, the age, sexual orientation, social class and I I think this is one of the culture our Dublin has done very well I heard from a lot of residents they moved to Dublin because they say the diversification and inclusion here and we want to keep this way for the national day of prayer we as a technical support I we hosted a prayer day with the people with the different religions Sikh Masih Hassan from Saramong Bali Islamic Center participated in other religions as well we want to celebrate that diversification and celebrate the culture of our Dublin together. Ms. Mahpadi. I think it first starts off by educating yourself as a city council person and as just a person who lives here in Dublin and across the world I believe that I've I've tried to educate myself by for example learning Spanish through my schooling I studied Arabic during college I lived and study abroad in Oman and Turkey I think it's important to be able to understand different cultures and immerse yourself to understand different people's perspectives and the way that you can also bridge and create collaboration and I think those opportunities are a way to do so in Dublin here as well but there are multiple ways that you can combat racism and Islamophobia for example calling people in you need to explain and really make sure that they're willing to learn rather than calling them out and making it sort of turning them off rather than just explicit over counts of racism there's also microaggressions that you need to be able to call in as well ensuring that there's implicit bias training in the public sector as well as D&I training in the business sector as well particularly targets towards teachers as well and then increasing D&I events across different culture events. Thank you Mr. Codrie. Yeah so I think first from foremost it's really unfortunate all of the phobias right not exclusively Islamophobia but all of the other phobias that exist we need to put an end to it I think we need to appreciate and recognize and celebrate the diversity that Dublin has and the diversity that that we have here and I think it's worth taking a moment to recognize you know the indigenous native people who should be celebrated today right and we need to recognize the large population of Native Americans living here in Dublin. Beyond that it there's a lot that can be done in terms of education and more importantly cultural awareness and I think there are certain things that people can unite on right as a city council member I would encourage festivals right celebrations that get people together and unite around food so we can have events like celebrating holy or the Chinese New Year's or Eid celebrations right getting people together and encouraging dialogue is the first step and that's how we start attacking and ending racism. Thank you we're coming to the close of our event but I'm going to combine I have a couple questions from the community and I'm going to combine in with our final question so and the and this would go to Mr. Kureishi so what are your final thoughts what do you want us to hear and why we should vote for you what made you want to run and then also what sits you apart from the candidates so that would be the final question so Mr. Kureishi. Great so why I want to run it's one I want to give back to the community I want our younger generation to be involved and that means for any ethnic groups you know we all come here from different parts of the world we want to get ourselves settled we want to encourage our younger generation to be involved and that's what I want to do is I want to set that motion to say hey let's get involved number one number two I bring experience to this position I've served my communities throughout the years and different different appointed board elected type of boards so you know this is something that are at the forefront right school board planning commission environmental commission these are things that are actually important to the city professionally I know how to balance the budget I know how to manage a larger organizations so I think these are skills that will come handy when I'm in this role for me it's all about giving back coming together and that's what I'm focused on so this is why it's important I want to encourage our community to get involved make sure they vote and listen to our voices so please consider me as you vote this election. Thank you Mr. Costello. Another reason why I'm running is that I I'm also on the human services commission last year the the chair was not available and I chaired the whole meeting last year and that was great and I got to see what it would like to be on the other side of the diocese and and I've been on so many committees that that I feel that I can really give of myself to this whole thing not only will I give all of myself but all of my time you know as office hours you know I I lost my job at Chucky Cheese because of the pandemic I want to make sure that everybody else has a chance to get their their jobs back and really really I want to thank you all for letting me come into your house being a part of your life too thank you thank you miss who thanks for the organizers I want to say the reason I want to run because I say Dublin has a lot of challenges right now and I believe my experience and expertise can help to take on those challenges with a PhD in architectural engineering specialization specialization in building technologies and environmental sustainability and working experience as an assistant professor as a researcher as a director of environmental protection services and also a business owner right now I have experience and expertise to tackle the problems to bring practical solutions and I also have the capabilities to bring the culture and the diversification to our council team that's the purpose I would become a bridge to unite people no matter what's your background what's your culture I'm a good listener and I can understand different people from different perspectives brings a city together thank you miss property I honestly did not expect to run this year it was more the consequence of the pandemic the recession the fact that friends were losing their jobs the social unrest caused by a lot of the police brutality that we've seen across the nation and now seeing the raging wildfires that actually literally we have like to-go bags packed in our home all the time now these types of instances should not be happening and as someone who is 25 years old this is the type of future that I'm going to be living in as well as my peers in the next generations and so I think that I decided to run because rather than intellectualizing a lot of the larger issues that we think about around affordable housing climate change you can actually make a lot of difference at the local level and I decided to run because I wanted to be able to create that type of impact I hold policy experience and economic development experience I've worked at the state department the federal reserve and the world bank I believe that these experiences as well as my perspective from a new generation and as someone who's a clean money candidate not beholden to the interests of other special interest groups I can bring a unique perspective and look out for me in the middle of the ballot. Thank you so much. All right Mr. Codrie. Yeah so there are a number of reasons why we choose to live in Dublin and more than anything I want to ensure that that vibrant you know diverse community exists for my for my son and the rest of the the next generations to come you know I think what separates me is my level of energy experience and the plan to not only maintain our quality of life for for Dublin but ensure that it thrives. You know coming out of COVID we need to take an evidenced based scientific approach to rebounding and and I can definitely lead the community through that. I'm definitely your candidate for transparency honesty and accountability in city government and more than anything I want to be your voice I want to listen to you I've been engaging with the community and will absolutely continue to do so. As your next city council member I look forward to working with all of you in order to keep Dublin safe resilient and sustainable for everyone thank you so much. Thank you Mr. McCorstin. I'll mute. I think you're muted. Are we good now? Yep now we're good thank you. All right let's go for it. Hey look look I've lived in Dublin for 26 years I've seen the place change I want to make an impact okay I think what distinguishes me from other candidates is I'm willing to listen and and take into consideration the views of others I've been doing that for 35 years. You know I unlike other candidates I've actually studied the issues facing our community over the last two years I've attended all the council meetings I've been involved in educational programs with the city I am a member of the human services Dublin human services at anti-poverty housing committees which gives me a really strong understanding of all the hidden and social disparity that's going on in the community. My professional background in corporate treasury and banking is based on trust and it's a fiduciary responsibility in dealing with you know really complex problems and initiatives. Yeah I have lots of endorsements and people believe in me in my message so I really do take this opportunity to represent you very seriously and I'm respectfully asking for your support during the election and and you can visit my website for more information at www.mikefordublin2020.com thanks. Thank you so much to all of the candidates for joining us tonight for sharing your platforms I want to give a special thank you to Mina for being the amazing timekeeper we truly appreciate it it's not an easy job I wanted to also just remind you all to make sure to check out our website in order to learn more about like the different events that we're having regarding voter education to also check out our voter guide that just got published again that's the care California voter guide with the scorecard for our congressional members and the the state representatives as well along with our recommendations for the ballot measures and also for the propositions so again that you can find that at bit.ly forward slash care ca vote that's c a i r c a vote and then also make sure if you haven't yet please fill out the census you have until the 31st again for every person that does not fill out the census it well it we could lose up to $10,000 or even more I've even heard in federal funding to the community so again it only takes you 10 minutes actually pretty much takes you less than that but 10 minutes to answer nine questions that are going to impact you for the next 10 years of your life so please make sure to fill that out again if you're not registered to vote you have until October 19th my birthday so hopefully you'll remember both those important dates so thank you again for joining us tonight we just make sure to get out the vote we have until November 3rd so thank you again and we look forward to seeing you at one of our other candidate forms tomorrow we have a candidate form for Oakland City Council members so check out our website and our Facebook page for more information on that take care thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you Samina thank you everyone bye bye