Mission: San Diego

Transcript

0:00 Welcome to Radio Abundance, a podcast by YIMBY Democrats for America. It's time to build again, folks. Fascism never made America great, but when progressives build, that's where you'll find American greatness. Tonight, it's a double feature episode with a few YIMBY pioneers from San Diego. First up is United States Congressman Scott Peters. His staff calls him a YIMBY OG, and they're right to do so. Congressman and YIMBY original gangster, Scott Peters is a founding member of the Congressional YIMBY Caucus. He's also a founding member of YIMBY Democrats of San Diego. Hey, that sounds familiar. That's right, there are brave souls out there who've trod this path before us, and they got to do it from the paradise of San Diego, California, which I recently learned from the movie Anchorman is actually from the German phrase for, you know what, never mind. Tonight, we sit down with YIMBY Democrats of San Diego's founding president, Maya Rosas, co-founder, Colin Parent, and current President Manny Rodriguez. I think you're going to love it. That's coming up right now on Radio Abundance. You're listening to Radio Abundance, a podcast by YIMBY Democrats for America. Now let's get to the show. Please welcome your host for the evening, YIMBY Democrats for America Executive Director Steve Boyle. And to kick things off, here's Steve. I'm Donald J. Trump, and I hate these guys. Hello, hello. Welcome to Radio Abundance. I'm Steve Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America. If you missed yesterday's episode, Fascism Comes to America, a response to the Trump administration's escalation of violence and military mobilization against the city of Los Angeles, as well as his threats to arrest California Governor Gavin Newsom and other Democratic lawmakers and officials, do check that out. We feature a montage of remarks from nearly everyone we've spoken to so far, both on Radio Abundance and in the fall's presidential campaign. We feature Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Brian Schatz, Governor Wes Moore, Governor Jared Polis, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, Congressman Robert Garcia, Congressman Jake Auchincloss, Congresswoman Laura Friedman, Congressman Richie Torres, Congressman Ro Khanna, Congressman Scott Peters, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, Jersey City Mayor Stephen Fulop, New York State Senator Zellner Myrie, Pod Save America co-host John Lovett, and Maryland Secretary of Housing Jake Day.

2:31 We ask them all, is Donald Trump a fascist? How is he a fascist? What is the threat of Donald Trump's fascism to America? How is he destroying American greatness, destroying the rule of law, destroying our rights and freedoms, shredding the U.S. Constitution, stifling the U.S. economy, punishing his enemies, and bringing down the hammer against people who oppose him, and people we should be boosting and lifting up and raising up? We ask them, how can Democrats respond? What can the party do to stand up to Trump? What do Democrats need to do to win, to win elections, to win the battle against Trump, to thwart his mission, to bring fascism to America, to puncture his cult, to weaken him, to oppose him in Congress, to oppose him in our states and cities and courts, to build out a better model for this country, a democratic alternative of real American greatness, progressive American greatness in our states and cities, so that we can bring it to the entire nation? And we ask them, what can you be doing? You, meaning you, the listener. It is a question on my mind. It is a question on everybody's mind. How can we, ordinary citizens, people who maybe have never even gotten involved in politics before, what can we do? What is our individual power to thwart Donald Trump, to stand up to fascism, to defeat fascism? What can we do, individuals, nobodies, just us, just ordinary people, to rewrite the course of American history and world history, to save America, save democracy, save the world for generations and generations to come? You're going to want to take a listen. I'm pretty excited about it. Today's episode is a double feature. It may be our last double feature for a while, but this one had to be a double feature because we started by chatting with Congressman Scott Peters, who represents San Diego in the United States Congress. And he told us in the interview you are about to hear today, that our efforts in the fall presidential campaign as YIMBYs for Harris was in fact, the catalyst for the new bipartisan congressional YIMBY caucus, that our marketing for that event, identifying YIMBY democratic lawmakers in Congress was a key inspiration for that new caucus's formation, that we showed just how many YIMBY lawmakers we had in Congress and how many we had in the Democratic Party, that we showed the strength of their numbers, and that we showed the strength of our numbers, an energized, engaged, mobilized constituency ready to stand up and bring Progressive Abundance to America and to have their backs in Congress as they take risks and take bold stands to do so. Congressman Scott Peters is not just a founding member though of the Congressional YIMBY caucus, he's also a founding member of YIMBY Democrats of San Diego. That name sounds a little familiar. That's right, we at YIMBY Democrats for America, we may be the first national organization for YIMBY Democrats, but we are not the first ever. There is a precedent. We do have a forerunner, just one, just a single one that I know of, one lonely light in a sea of darkness, YIMBY Democrats of San Diego. And we just had to bring on their team, founding president Maya Rosas, co-founder, former city council member and CEO of Circulate San Diego, Colin Parent, and current president Manny Rodriguez. We asked them about their journey starting YIMBY Democrats of San Diego, why they decided to be not just YIMBYs and not just Democrats, but YIMBY Democrats.

6:06 We asked them about their relationship with Congressman Peters, their journey since their founding, what they're up to today and what advice they have for us. We're honored by all of our guests for this episode, and we think you're going to love it. Let's get to it. Here's our interview with Congressman Scott Peters. Congressman Scott Peters, thank you so much for joining us on Ready for Abundance. We're super excited to chat with you today for a few reasons. You are a founding co-chair of the new congressional YIMBY caucus, which we're very excited about and excited about you taking that on and seeing what we do on the national level. And you are also, you go way back in this movement. I think one of your staff members, we were talking and they called you a YIMBY OG. And if you're happy to hold the title, I'm happy to call you that because, you know, I remember we've gotten such an amazing response to starting YIMBY Democrats for America. A lot of folks saying the time has come to raise our hands and say, we are both YIMBYs and Democrats. We believe in both of these things and that this is the future of the party. And I remember once writing, hey, we're the first big official organization to be both YIMBYs and Democrats. And I had to change that to national organization because we have a forerunner and it's the YIMBY Democrats of San Diego County.

7:14 You are a founding member of that. So I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about your origin story in this movement and how you came to be a YIMBY and what you're bringing of that energy to Congress. So I have a particular story. I was, when I was, uh, I was practicing, I practiced environmental law for about 15 years. And at one point I just got mad at the city and I thought, um, I thought I might be able to bring some expertise by running for city council. My wife was okay with me taking a pay cut. And there were a few issues that, that came up. And one was people in this one section of La Jolla, which I have to represent, were really upset about a road that went through their street on La Jolla Boulevard. It was 83 feet wide. It was, it was a concrete highway through a neighborhood where just a block away, you couldn't find a house, even a small house for less than a million and a half dollars, really nice neighborhood.

8:04 But the, um, businesses would fail. It was always unkept. People were scared. You couldn't like sit on the sidewalk for fear of the fast traffic was too loud. And they said, fix it. Right? So I said, okay. So I get elected. And in April, after the election, I set up this thing called Bird Rock Nights, which is the neighborhood. And we had one night of finance, one night of traffic, one night of design. And we came out with a sort of standard thing where we were going to, we were going to like put diagonal parking to slow down traffic and a couple of traffic lights. And, uh, I announced it and the community came unglued. Now, these are the same people that I, when I knocked on their door, they said, fix the Boulevard. We did a thing that came from, you know, 50 of their neighbors, but not all of them. And they were extremely miserable. And my, my, my chief of staff then told me, he says, this is my first time in politics is you've got to go into the neighborhood and let them blow off steam.

9:01 So I went to Bird Rock Elementary School, August 1st, 2001. And one by one, they came up with me and they called me names. How dare you do this to our community? And these are the people I said, you know, I, I, I started to get annoyed because I gave up a legal career for this, or yelling at me or trying to fix the problem they told me to fix. So I, I kind of a little fed up because I said, you know, I said, you know, I kind of don't deserve this, but I said, look, we're not going to do nothing. And we're going to figure out a way to, to make this street function really to do was, I didn't know what then was like a complete streets kind of thing. And I said, I had met this guy named Dan Burden, uh, at a, um, at a seminar I went to, and he talked about like making streets complete and everything. And so, and street, uh, road diets at that point. And so I said, I'm going to give you this consultant. You're going to, I'm going to point a person from each block in this neighborhood, like 22 people.

9:59 I had some good community leadership. I had some skeptical, but open-minded like high-end lawyers, you know, the one was a mom and they liked the idea of doing something. I said, you come up with something, don't build any tunnels or overpasses. I said, but you come up with a plan working with this guy and we'll find a way to fund it. So Dan came in, he looks like a hippie. I think, you know, even at that point he was, you know, as in his sixties, he had like long white hair and he said, we'd do two things. He did like a, a walk around the neighborhood with them. And then he would do a charrette where they did design. And we, um, he came up with this five modern roundabouts on this, this road. Uh, and they were worried about cut through traffic. So we did some roundabouts. They designed some roundabouts for the side streets. And part of that was we had an old dilapidated hotel in La Jolla, which is a fancy neighborhood. And I swear, I think they rented by the hour, you know, it was, it was a parking lot with this crappy hotel in it. Uh, we had a proposal to do a, a housing project there, 138 units. And part of that would pay for two of the roundabouts.

11:08 And, um, as this comprehensive thing, we did, what we did was we had 138 units in a neighborhood where, you know, they would panic over five units. We redesigned the streets. We want all sorts of design awards for this. We now have a beautiful neighborhood that the neighbors assess themselves to do, uh, the landscaping that they want native California landscaping on a median, some diagonal parking, the shops can survive. You can have a cup of coffee on the street. And we added 138 units. So my, what I learned was if you're willing to, to take the battle, like sort of get, you know, sort of not quit, uh, you get community leadership and you can, you can add housing that improves your neighborhood. And that should be what we want to do. So, um, the, the funny thing is that that I'll tell you at that, um, uh, opening of Yimby Democrats, we did a little rally. Actually, Scott Wiener came down for the now famous, uh, Yimby Senator.

12:06 I kind of had too much to drink before at the dinner before that. And I gave a very relaxed speech for me, uh, you know, cause I, I, I tend to be careful, but I said like, we, we got to see, stop treating density. Like it's a scourge. You can, you could, you can, you couldn't, and you should use housing to improve neighborhoods. And I said, we shouldn't treat it like it's a civic enema. So that's kind of like around San Diego. That's, that's what, you know, we talk about like, no, density is something you should look for in the right place. So regulate to have, if you want to develop coastal wetlands, I want to make it really hard for you. But if you want to develop a surface parking lot in the middle of the city, uh, we shouldn't treat it like it's a coastal wetland. And that was been, been my principle since then. And that's sort of been working on, um, in the general plan I wrote, I've been writing about, um, redefining the California environmental law, the NEPA analog, which can be used by one person to stop planning of all your neighbors. And, um, that's how I got started anyway. It's, and, um, I've gotten a lot of, uh, of good response for it. And, um, you know, trying to spread the word.

13:16 You know, it's funny. The thing that struck me about your story is that I guess it's just, do you get the sense? And there's always a balance between like, you want to have community outreach and engagement, but it's also the case that like, you know, if you had this same process for like everything we do in America, like the country would grind to a halt, right? Because no matter what you do, there'll be at least one person who doesn't want you to do it. And even if there isn't, they'll make it up because I'll use that as leverage, right? Like, I mean, California, for example, a lot of political groups have openly admitted, we use the California environmental quality act, I remember them, sorry, uh, CEQA to extract negotiations and leverage, right? And so they'll get some sort of financial concession and suddenly the environmental concern went away.

14:05 How do you balance like the questions of when like outreach is needed and we should engage versus when like, this should just be a ministerial process. We make a decision and it happens.

14:19 Um, so my new colleague, Laura Friedman had a bill that I think Buffy Wicks has taken over that I think is the right answer that you should do CEQA at the plan level. So when we talk about how the neighborhood is planned and where are you going to put housing and we're going to put, um, facilities, then do the, do the environmental impact report, right? I, I get that. And, you know, figure out what the impacts are. Now we shouldn't, by the way, we've over-credited traffic as an impact and, you know, I, I get that, but, but that, but, you know, we should, we should do that at the planning level, have all that input, the community should have input, but not at the project level so that you have a, now you come in after you've done a plan, you've certified the plan, you voted on it. Maybe you've litigated it. You've got a plan set.

15:08 Then the building out of it can come without litigation. It just makes sense. Right. So that would be a nice balance that you do CEQA at the planning level, but not at the project level. So that when the, when the apartment building comes online, it comes up for a permit that's consistent with the plan you approved through all that process. It just gets approved. I think that's the right way. Politically. I think the way to balance too, is I, you know, we have, you know, we, one of the things I, I, I'm very conscious of is that we have nice places to live in California. We don't want to get in the way of that. That's really important to us, right? That is a value we have. And also it's an economic value because urban economists will tell you that talent seeks place that people who are talented, you know, and, and our brain can, can help support us in our brain power economy. They want to live in a nice place. San Francisco's one, San Diego's one.

16:05 Um, Oh, I think that's also a nice way to say, okay, we're going to plan. Uh, but you know, we're going to plan for more housing. And once we certify the plan, we're going to, um, we're going to approve the buildings that are consistent with that plan. So, on environmental regulation, I think one thing, you know, we have this discussion around abundance recently, that recline block and, um, the Mark Dukumberg block and others. And one of the things that I've sort of in my time as an activist have really seen is there's kind of two types of environmental laws. There's like NIPA and CEQA, which are based around the idea of, you need to create a review and the legal process is always, oh, you miss this part. Right. And so it's sort of constantly expanding because, you know, theoretically, like anything could be an environmental impact. Yeah. Um, like you had in California where like you have to pass a law to say like students partying is not an environmental impact housing. Right. And then there's stuff like the 15 air act, which is more like prescriptive, which is like, these are specific things you cannot do, right. Levels of pollution and so on. Um, I personally think that like the latter is like a more effective form of environmental law. Right. And that's sort of like what a lot of countries like France and Germany are more likely to do. Um, what are your thoughts about like the relationship between those kinds of laws and whether you think we should move more towards like the latter?

17:33 I 100% agree, Armand. The, the thing we can, we know is, but first of all, NIPA was 1970, the clean air act and the clean water act were 72. Um, you know, back when NIPA was passed, we were trying to stop bad things from happening today. We have these effective tools, the clean water act, clean air act that subsequently say that you, if you want to admit a pollution into the air, you have to have a permit to do that. And you know, you're, that will be limited. It will be regulated. We have the super fund law that really incentivizes companies to take care of their hazardous waste. The spills are strict liability. They have to clean up. Uh, we have, um, OSHA to protect workers. Those are substantive protections and they're quantifiable. And where you have those, I think you can lean on those and not argue so much about this impact report at the beginning. In fact, my question, whether, if you know that the clean water act is going to regularly, uh, is going to handle the disposal of pollutants into the waters of the United States, maybe you don't have to analyze that in a NIPA document.

18:38 So I do think that, that we know that there's a redundancy. This is really critical to the success of the abundance movement is like, how do we get out of the way of our own process? I mean, we can celebrate 55 years of the best environmental regulation in the world that keeps our water and air clean. Um, but we also, we, we know we can rely on that and maybe we can look backward and, and sort of adjust and modify this environmental, environmentalist to meet the challenges of today, which is about building stuff. Yeah. Well, I think that's a great transition to, I heard you share a story about like the Pixar, uh, forest act about how NIPA regulates like forests and forest fires. I'm curious if you could sort of tell us that story, because I think it was really illustrative.

19:24 Let me tell you, we start with the Sequoias actually, because there's a personal story. So I'm on an international trip. The guy sits down next to me and says, can I talk to you about the Sequoias? Well, you know, there's no place to go on an international trip. You're, you're in a, in a plane and he sits down next to you. So, um, the guy stood down next to me was a guy named Bruce Westerman. Bruce Westerman represents Arkansas. He went to the University of Arkansas, got a degree in engineering. And then he went to the Yale school of forestry. He's super smart, even though I always kid me talks too slow. Uh, and he, um, super smart, knows more about forestry than anybody in Congress. And he told me about the Sequoias and the story of the Sequoias was this for 1200 years. We didn't lose a Sequoia to fire because the base of the fire, the base of the Sequoias meant to guard against fire. Actually, the Sequoia seeds need fire to open them up. So fire is a natural process.

20:19 But we've suppressed fire in many of the Western states, including California, so that, uh, plants that wouldn't normally grow if natural fire occurred had grown up like a pine tree or a fir tree. And in 2017, one of those shade tolerant trees conveyed fire up, uh, into the canopy of the Sequoia, the only place that's vulnerable, 300 feet from the floor, uh, and killed the tree. And since then, he told me, Bruce told me, we've lost 20% of the Sequoias in the same way. We're going to lose the great Sequoias to fire. He says, now the answer is what, what you want to do, what you want to do is, is pretty simple. One is you have to go to the 60 groves where Sequoias are, and you have to treat them to the, to, to restore the conditions that would have existed had natural fire occurred over the last century. I mean, it's taking out a lot of those trees and brush that shouldn't be there.

21:20 And then you have to do permit reform because you can't do a four year study on every grove.

21:26 48% of environmental litigation is about forest projects, just literally managing the forests. And so I said, well, that doesn't make any sense. Bruce, let me work on that with you. And I thought it would be widely embraced and it wasn't California. The Redwoods league loved it. The tribe thought it was the right thing to do. Uh, the local and bar rows in California loved it, but bring it to DC and they hear modified NEPA. And I got all this crap about slippery slope. And, you know, I always say they treat NEPA, like it came from Moses on tablets, right? Did it, it came from people no smarter or better looking than us using IBM Selectric typewriters, you know, and we have to modernize those laws. So I felt very strongly that this was the right thing to do. We got a lot of Republican and Democrat, we're going to co-sponsors.

22:14 And then my, just for a second, sorry, just to give the audience a little context. One of the crazy things about NEPA, if I'm correct, is that even if you wrote it, had no, no real intention to create the current process. It was like a quick review. The first NEPA documents were 15 pages. Now they're like, we had to put a page limit in, you know, one, one law, like 150 pages. I mean, it's in the, you know, many of the reviews, reviews take four years. I mean, it's insane. It's insane. Particularly when, you know, you're, you're looking at an environmental law that's getting in the way of you saving the great sequoias. I mean, John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club, he would be, you know, it seems to be, he'd be spinning in his grave, but yet the enviro, a lot of the enviros out here, um, were opposed to it. Now we got really good help from the conservancy and environmental defense fund. They've been very reasonable. They've been also helpful on the bigger, bigger forest bill, but, um, this notion, you can't try to change NEPA. I think we're gonna, we're, we're, we're, we're chipping away at that, but it's actually ironically in the way of environmental protection. So we, we passed that bill out of the house. It's part of the farm bill. I hope it gets passed, but it makes a lot of sense. Um, and Bruce Westerman was chair, became chair of the natural resources committee. So we could get a good hearing. Just the other funny thing that happened, like, this is how stupid it is. We, we had a hearing on the bill in his committee. And what happens is the majority calls three witnesses and the minority calls one witness. And so the Republicans call the Redwoods league, they call our people, the environmental group and the tribe. Right.

23:49 And the Democrats who don't want to make the Sierra club angry, their witness, the guy, I think the professor from Berkeley say, um, but you know, some, some professor during the hearing, the professor says, you know what? I'm changing my mind. This is the right thing to do. Wow. The guy who opposed it said, I can't. So I mean, I've never seen that happen. So that passed, uh, is unanimously by voicemail, but we've worked on a bigger forest bill that we have. We had 60 Democrats vote for, um, to really help manage our forests in a better way. We've got a lot of such a backlog from litigation in our forest planning that prevents us from doing anything, uh, remarkably close to restoring natural conditions and natural fire so that we don't have catastrophic fire all the time we have natural fire. So Westerman and I did a bill on that called the fix our forest act. I think in this week, we're going to get a Senate companion that lines up really nicely with what we're doing. We have to get, uh, eight Democrats to agree to something, put it on the, put it on the, uh, uh, pass the filibuster. I think we're going to get that and we're going to pass it and we'll have that we'll be able to give the forest service the tools it needs to deal with wildfires. The reason I'm interested in that, I'm not, I don't have any logging in my district or like big forests, but I do a lot of work on climate and wildfires has become a much bigger climate problem than even the entire utility industry of California because of the black carbon emits. Um, and it's obviously terrible for things like asthma as well. I think I heard that the, uh, LA fires alone this year caused more CO2 emissions that have been saved by the entirety of California. Let's tap and trade ball. And it's the second time that's happened. Actually the fires in 2020 wiped out 19 years of progress. So we're behind because of wildfires. And again, you know, really is it, is it about preserving litigation rights or is it about lowering carbon emissions? And I think, you know, the environmental community, we were imploring them to sort of think about it in those ways. Think about really the problem is carbon emissions. How do we reduce that?

26:02 And how do we build more clean energy? By the way, which is really hard to do. We've made it really hard to do. Well, you actually, speaking of that, um, the other, I promise this is the last wonky question I asked, but I, you've written so many great bills. I think our audience would love to hear about it. Um, for you also work the wires act, which is to help build clean energy transmission. And one thing that really struck me was that China has built, uh, in one year transmission, like high voltage transmission, the United States people in its entire history. Yeah. Um, and so I was happy to see your bill, but even your bill was saying, oh, we will cut this process of 15 years to maybe not over the exact number of bills. So like many, many years. Right. And I don't understand why the environmental community or just, there's not energy around trying to get it down to like one year when we're, you know, I hear all the time that climate change is this really urgent thing. It's going to kill us all.

27:01 But now on the other hand, people seem very fine with a status quo where it takes, you know, decades to build transmission and transmission is super, super key. It's like infrequent energy, like solar and wind. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Actually it was with a, um, it's a crisis, right? And we, you know, we heard of where there's a 10 year time limit. We're in year six, but actually one representative of a very prominent environmental group said, when we asked, we asked, we asked that person, what should we be doing now? That person said, we should be preparing for what we can introduce in a democratic house of representatives after the next election. And then working with the president in 2029. I mean, that's, it's nuts. So first of all, no one sent me here to sit on my butt.

27:49 Uh, you know, well, while I wait for the elections to change, but there's a lot we can do to make things faster. So just a little, a little bit about what you said is trick. So Jesse Jenkins from Princeton did research on the importance of transmission to clean energy. It's something like 80% of the climate benefit of the IRA, the biggest, the inflation reduction act, the biggest down payment on climate action in the history of the world, 80% of it depends on tripling the size of the grid in the next few decades. The grid is old, it's dumb, uh, and it's, uh, small and it's gotta be big, smart, fast, and robust. And we've got to really expand it. Now you're a little bit about our record on that, which expands on what you said, Armand since 2014, North America has built seven gigawatts of high voltage transmission. So say that's a gigawatt is roughly a nuclear power plant. So, um, say that, so say a little bit less than half of that's in America, but say we have four in the United States, the comparable number in Europe is in South America is 22 gigawatts.

29:02 Wow. And you broke 44 gigawatts in China, 160. So that's six, 160. Yeah. So you can't, we can't, we really can't compete. Yeah. The other thing I'll just tell you too, it's, um, this is a addition to the problem is that the demand for power from artificial intelligence. We just had a hearing yesterday in energy and commerce, um, about how important it is for national security and for, for economics, for us to win the war. But my, uh, Microsoft apparently for their AI needs, they want 10 gigawatts. So that's 10 Fukushima's, right? Uh, so we, we have to get on the stick, right? If we don't do it by the way, it's going to be coal and natural gas. Um, you know, as of last year, 85% of the energy projects that wanted to get built, they're in line to get built are not emitting the 15% or say oil and gas. Take that, you know, as a climate advocates, we take that bet, right? We'd, we'd make that trade, you know, this, you know, go, you trade 15 to get back 85, you know, we should do that and we should make everything faster. The second time you do that at a casino in Vegas, they kick you out. That's such a good, well, also I've always personally, like, I don't really understand, like coal has a lot of like negative emissions, um, around it.

30:30 Right. So I'm a hundred percent on board with like, we should just try to shut down, you know, in a fair and just way for the community as much coal as we can. Um, but this idea that if we just like stop using like natural gas, then the rest of the world will stop, you know, it doesn't really work. And so the idea that like, even the 85, 15 trade-off isn't really true because um, the 15 we don't produce, there's like plenty of oil, natural gas around the world. They're countries to step up. And the way I see it is like, all we can win is by making clean energy so much more competitive. I was wondering if you've thought about it from that, like, or I'm sure you've thought about it from that global perspective.

31:11 Well, I mean, I, I want to, I think we should face facts about natural gas. I mean, there's a, there's a, um, a mood that we should get rid of natural gas altogether. I know no one showed me a plan for how to do that or how much that's going to cost. The fact that as natural gas is here, it's going to be in our future for the foreseeable. And, um, I think we should be concentrating by the way on making natural gas cleaner is while it burns cleaner than coal oil produces much less carbon dioxide. There's a short lived climate pollutant called methane, which is, uh, which we got to be concerned about. And a big contributor of methane is fugitive emissions from natural gas production and distribution. We should all agree. And actually, the industry is very open to this because they don't like the back and forth, you know, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump kind of regulations. We should just agree on legislation to regulate that. And that would make that cleaner wherever it was used. Uh, and then the other thing I would just say is that, um, Texas has as close to a free market for energy development as any place.

32:19 And they're about to, they're, they're the biggest producer of wind and they're about to be the biggest producer of solar, uh, because that makes economic sense. They're not, it's not because they're tree huggers or anti-oil and gas. They see that, um, that's a really important part of the energy mix. Solar right now, you can do it about a year to a year and a half. A natural gas facility takes about five years because of supply chain constraints on turbines. So, I mean, really we gotta, we don't have to sell that, that hard, um, clean energy because I think it's competing right now, uh, head to head pretty well. And we just have to make it easier to build. Yeah. I want to make sure we talk about the YIMBY caucus for a moment. I think there's a lot of excitement out there. A lot of people wondering what this means, uh, at the national level. Again, you've been ahead of the curve. I, I think you introduced it to build more housing near transit act back in 2019. So you go way back. Uh, I'm two things. One is, you know, in your dream state, what can Congress accomplish on housing nationwide? And, uh, what, what might be on the roadmap for the YIMBY caucus, uh, in 2025? Um, well, first of all, I think, you know, we, I was on a phone call of YIMBY for Harris. I think you were on that. That was, was it your thing?

33:37 That was us. That was you. Okay. And so you're the reason that we have a YIMBY caucus in Congress because, because Robert Garcia was following me and he says, oh, other people are interested in this. So we put together this group and, um, Oh, sure. And we didn't know that.

33:53 Yeah. So I said, you know, you sort of put us in the same room, uh, virtual room as it was. And we decided to do that. And, um, you know, I think it's a recognition, Steve, that housing is a huge problem. Uh, in California in particular, we sort of suppressed the production of housing for 30 years and it's the biggest obstacle to the continued prosperity of the gold estate. And I know you have that issue. We have that issue in San Francisco. We have that issue in San Diego. I think San Diego might be the place where the distance between income and housing prices is the, is the farthest, you know, like we're the least able to afford the housing in our market. Um, and so from a national level, you know, we want to do things like support the low income housing tax credit, the stuff we can do to provide resources for, uh, for housing. Um, we also want to provide technical assistance for regulatory reform in cities and counties and states. A lot of small cities don't have that kind of thing.

34:56 Um, I want to, I think you, you mentioned my build more housing near transit. I think we should use the leverage of federal funding to ask for good results from cities. What my bill on fix, uh, the, um, build more housing near transit would make your housing production, part of the competition you get for federal funds for transportation projects. So when you ask, like we built, we just built, um, something I'm working on when I was a council member. It was a light, a light rail line line from our downtown up to the university of California, San Diego, or UCSD, which is a big employment center. It was a $2 billion project. We posted a billion dollars from locals sales taxes. We came to the federal government. No one asked us like where the train was going to go. Right. But part of the competition would be like, how do I know people are going to ride this thing? Are you going to build housing next to it?

35:48 Um, what's the fare box recovery going to look like, but what, how many, how many cars you get off the road that should be part of the competition. Right. And so, um, that's what we would do. The Biden administration put some of those things in administratively, but we still have bipartisan support for making it a legislative requirement. Why should we give away this money without getting results? So any way we can support or incentivize good decision making around housing, I think is something we want to do. Uh, amazing. And Hey, that team from YMBS for Harris, now YMBS for America is to support you guys in whatever you need. Uh, we got to let you go in a minute. I would be remiss if I didn't, I mean, we, we hadn't heard that before. Uh, we had an inkling that the timing was similar. Uh, Congressman Garcia is a friend, uh, of ours. And, uh, and I think we were the first people he told about when the caucus would be announced. Um, I wonder if you could, uh, just, uh, sort of tell us that, that story again of how, how YMBS for Harris led to the, the congressional YMBS caucus. Uh, and then we'll get you out of here.

36:54 And, and, uh, and, and over the coming months, uh, we'll, we'll work together to, to make this a reality. Well, first of all, I was very honored to be asked to be sort of the first member of Congress on your list of people. And so I, I was, you know, I, I, it's nice when people notice the work you're doing is it's like, this is like really in the weeds kind of stuff, but, um, it was really great. And so I was on there. Um, and by the way, I think, you know, if the Harris campaign or any campaign needed more time to roll out that whole idea, but, um, but it was great. I thought it was a really good phone call. It was a video phone call to tons of supporters. And there were a few members of Congress who heard me speak and, um, sort of started the same stuff. And Robert, Robert Garcia, who is a mayor and I think is a real leader on these issues as well. He said, we should do a YIMBY caucus. We got it together. We got some Republicans from high cost areas like New York, uh, to join us and, uh, you know, announced it on a cold day out there with some of the groups, uh, who've been really pro housing. So, um, you know, that's, that's kind of things happen around here. Some of us, sometimes it's accidental, but it's nice because we've all been working on this. We all recognize that while it's not a federal issue, it's a huge issue for people. Cost of living is, is a generally a big issue, but housing has become a trigger. And by the way, tariffs, not a good idea.

38:20 No, you know, my God, I like, we import all of our drywall, you know, a drywall from Mexico, all of our, like so much of our timber from Canada. They're our friends. What are you doing, Don? It makes no sense. Well, we just make it more expensive for them. Don't bring back like blue collar, high paying jobs, like housing, housing construction. Like, right. I mean, there is a role. I, you know, everyone says there's a role for tariffs. I don't know. Kind of, I kind of like, you know, there's a, there's this funny memes about Americans making socks. We do high value stuff here. It's okay. We can be who we are, but you know, we, but you know, if trees grow in Canada, let's not make it more expensive. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. So, um, that's another thing we, I think we should be advocating on as well as part of the Indy caucus. Well, thanks to you guys for spreading the word. I appreciate being on here. Let me know if you have any more good ideas, uh, you know, my way. Um, and you know, I think I would just, one of my adages I would say to my fellow legislators is leadership begins when you talk back to your own people. So you have to have some hard conversations with labor about CEQA. You have to have some hard conversations with environmental groups about people and changing those laws. Uh, but we're elected to do the business of the people and it means building housing and, uh, and protecting the environment. I think in the end, everyone will win. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on Radio Abundance onto the business of the people. All right. See you. Bye guys. That was our interview with Congressman Scott Peters. Pretty cool. Uh, you don't need to hear from me anymore. I think let's get to our interview with Yimpy Democrats of San Diego. Hey everybody. We are so excited to be sitting down today with the team from Yimpy Democrats of San Diego. We have Maya Rosas, the founding president of Yimpy Democrats of San Diego. Uh, we have Manny Rodriguez, the current president of Yimpy Democrats of San Diego. Uh, and we have co-founder Colin Parent, who is also a former city council member for La Mesa. He is the CEO and general council of Circulate San Diego. One of the reasons we are talking today, uh, is because we recently spoke with Congressman Scott Peters, uh, who is a member of the all new bipartisan congressional Yimpy caucus, as well as a co-founder of Yimpy Democrats of San Diego, uh, and actually, uh, uh, uh, for a co-founder of, uh, circulate San Diego along with Colin. So, uh, we are so excited to be talking with you today. Um, you know, I was joking when we first, uh, kind of created the, our website and our story for Yimpy Democrats of, uh, for America. Um, I, uh, I wrote down that we were proud to be the first official organization, uh, for both Yimby's and Democrats. And, uh, a few days later had to go back and tweak that to say we were the first national organization for Yimby's and Democrats, uh, because we have our forerunners, our pioneers, uh, our forefathers and foremothers, uh, with Yimby Democrats of San Diego. We're so excited to talk to you today. Um, and would love to hear a little bit about, uh, who you are. What is Yimby Democrats of San Diego? Uh, and, uh, you go back, uh, a number of years now at this point. So how'd this all get started? So I can jump right in.

41:35 My name's Maya. Hi everyone. Um, so in 2017, which seems like a century ago in politics, um, I was working at circulate San Diego, um, doing city planning work, which is my background. And I met a young guy, a young Yimby who was running for city council, uh, here in San Diego. And over drinks, he was telling me about the process going through the democratic party to try to get an endorsement. And he was telling me about all these clubs he had to visit and how the people at those clubs did did not look like him and I, they were much older. They had been in the party a long time.

42:22 And, you know, no matter how thought through and informed and a policy wonk, like a CNB czar, no matter all the good points he, he had, he was getting zero traction talking to these groups within the democratic party about how to keep San Diegans, especially young San Diegans in San Diego because of the housing crisis, getting a lot of people, um, to be priced out. So over drinks, I just had this idea.

42:52 Well, if there isn't a club or representation for people like us in the party, then let's make it. So we had this idea. I went and told Colin the next day and you could tell he thought that was a pretty good idea. And so we ran with it. We started figuring out what's the process for chartering a club. We did that official process, made it a real thing and, um, decided to take it off with this really big party. I don't know, Colin, if you want to add anything else from that very beginning stages of our, of our club. Well, yeah, no, I think that the only thing that I'll add is that I recall in our conversations, you, I think, I think you weren't, weren't decided as to whether or not to call it a YIMBY organization, maybe an urbanist organization. Um, and, and I was definitely the strong view that it, and at first life, that's what we were talking about. And then, and then, uh, and then you had said, well, I was thinking about maybe doing YIMBY. I was like, oh yes, absolutely. Like there's a lot of energy around that. And, um, and, and I think, you know, and at the time, and I think you're still, you still have that there's, there's, uh, um, you know, there's some skepticism with that word. That word doesn't ring well with everybody, but it, boy, it is, it is how you get people who are to want to be excited about this brand is really valuable and it says so much. And so I think it was really important for, um, for catalyzing interest, uh, in the club.

44:16 And I think as we've seen the YIMBY movement, you know, proceed from then that that's been a, it was, I think a really, uh, good choice to have made, um, for, for getting this club started.

44:27 And how did you become YIMBYs? Yeah, go for it, Maya. So how did we become YIMBYs? Well, I grew up in Santa Monica, um, in a rent control department and, um, you know, I had, I felt very fortunate growing up in that situation, being able to live in Santa Monica, even though we weren't a wealthy family. And then, um, I went to college to a private liberal arts college and realized just how different people's life experience was based on growing up in the suburbs versus growing up in the middle of a big city. And that was just, you know, over time, I started to really just see everything in terms of kind of city planning and urbanism and just how much that our built environment shapes our life. And then living in San Diego, the housing getting more and more expensive, getting on Twitter and prime Twitter days when YIMBY was coming into fruition about a decade ago and definitely, um, definitely falling into the online Twitter YIMBY world.

45:35 Just, it just made so much sense. It was obvious I was converted right away as soon as I learned about it. What's crazy to me is that like, I, so my journey is that like, I live in San Francisco around 2015. Um, I already had like opinions on housing because I worked as a analyst on local housing tax credit policy and something I learned there working over time. It's like, even when we funded affordable housing, there'd be these things called NIMBYs trying to fight it everywhere. Um, I went to a vet at a panel that senior trust spoke. Um, and like within a week, um, I was like attending the sunshine task force or the planning commission. And, um, so it's like always wild when if you're, you know, for us, it was just like this one crazy lady and like her, like region of Mr. Boys following her around. And at the time, but there's like all these, like, you know, as this is becoming a thing, like nationally, there's all these people who are like catching wind of like various sparks of this and like having their own parallel, like Yugi journeys. And like, yeah, it's like, I, it's a silly thing, but I always think about like the American revolution and like the French revolution, where there's just like a bunch of young people in cafes, like intellectuals having ideas and so on. And you only really see your little corner of it. And then at this much time has passed, we realized like how much bigger all this was and how many different little groups of people who are just like, I'm one crazy person and my friends are obsessed with this. And like, and then we all found each other. And, and I'll just add, it wasn't just theoretical or online where this Yimby conversion or, um, just realization happened. I, um, joined my local community planning group, the Uptown Planners and was, you know, by a decade or two, the youngest person on there, one of, you know, four women out of a group of 18 and like the minority voice there during a community plan update process where they were trying to freeze Uptown in time and not allow any more housing to be allowed in this very urban neighborhood. So that, that was all happening at the same time, but I'll, I'll let someone else share their story too. Yeah. I'll go ahead and share your mind. Um, you know, my eyes really started opening in college. Um, I grew up in Chula Vista, which is like South of San Diego, uh, suburbs right below it. Um, and it was like a lot of single family homes, wasn't wealthy at all, at least not my side of Chula Vista. Um, but I always walked everywhere. Um, I never had a car growing up. Uh, my mom worked two jobs, but she could never really shuttle me around anywhere. So I walked all the time. Transit always sucked. Walking felt like embarrassing, which was so strange to me. I feel like walking is a normal thing. Why does it feel embarrassing to walk to school? And, uh, in college, I, uh, studied around in South Korea and Seoul.

48:32 And that's when my eyes opened, like, Oh my God, cities can be so much different and have like public spaces and walkability and like all these nice amenities. Why doesn't the allegedly richest country in the world have any of these amenities? And so that kind of got my years going. And then as I got older, I started realizing that I wouldn't have the lifestyle that I wanted with me and my friends growing up because it was just too expensive to live here, unless we all continued to live with our parents' houses. But like, none of us wanted that. I didn't want that. And I found myself kind of like forced to like, you know, get a, you know, get a degree and work in like a higher professional job just to be able to stay here in San Diego. And I didn't really like that. That was like one of the the only options to stay here. And, you know, so I kind of got to thinking like, what, what, what can change about the city to kind of free up more opportunity and make it so like, you don't have to make so much money to live here. And like people that I kind of grew up with can kind of stay around here. And, um, that's when I, all the research kind of led me to Yimbi and not, not just the research, but also like the energy behind it. As Colin mentioned, like the name Yimbi and the movement has like a lot of positive energy to it that I just kind of got attracted to it. So I was like, I want to make a difference and, you know, make sure that people like me and people I grew up with can stay here. And, uh, this movement was here with, you know, the research solutions keep the Yimbi movement has solutions. Um, a lot of people just complain.

50:03 And so that's how I kind of got attached to this movement. And now I'm deep in it.

50:09 You know, it's funny. I, uh, I'm very distracted by Armand having mentioned the clubs and salons of the American revolution and French revolution. I can think of nothing else than trying to figure out which French revolutionary club we are, uh, most like I, they're all pretty problematic. I'm somewhere between, I think the society of 1789, which is the one Lafayette founded and the Girondins. So kind of like staunchly pro human rights, but not political violence, something like that. All of those people got their heads chopped off eventually. Um, but, uh, I am, I am curious if you can give us a little context around San Diego, you know, it comes up less than say San Francisco or Los Angeles, but man, it's probably the best weather in the entire world. And unsurprisingly, a lot of people want to be there. And, uh, uh, so you've both got, uh, sort of skyrocketing rates and, and also kind of a big, I think, suburban culture flanking, uh, the internal, uh, sort of, uh, yeah, the internal city. Um, so I'm wondering for folks who haven't done a deep dive in San Diego. If you can tell us a little bit about the, the scene there.

51:12 Yeah. Well, I'll say 2018, there was a democratic convention there for the California democratic party. And I remember distinctly when I was like walking around, I was like, wow, if like Yimbi is one here, this would be the greatest city on earth. Cause the weather is fantastic. It's like beautiful. Um, like I love San Francisco and I like the weather here, but like, like if you could get Tokyo density in like San Diego, I give you the biggest city on earth. It rudely co-opt our own podcast and talk ourselves. I just think it's a really important point that I think about all the time. And I think about this mostly with regards to San Francisco, but it's like, I like, shouldn't we be building the greatest cities in the U S and the greatest cities in the world and the greatest cities in history, the kind of cities that people centuries from now will look back on and think as the glory days. And when you think of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, all of them have everything they need to be the greatest cities in history, right? You've got incredible weather, incredible nature and, and water and trees and parks right there. You've got people who want to be there and flood that place. You've got artists who want to be there and create culture and counterculture. You've got money that wants to go in there and create jobs and innovate new technologies and ideas. And when you have that money, you have more opportunity to spread it around and have the most progressive and supportive and equal cities in history.

52:39 So if you want to build the most progressive, the most just, the most ethical, the most artistic, the most culturally vibrant, and the most pleasant cities on earth, this is everything you need. And I would argue it's our own laws and NIMBYism that has prevented that from happening organically. Who wants to do a New York winter when you can build the greatest city on earth in San Diego? So, um, yeah, I'm, I'm, uh, I'm curious for your thoughts on, on, uh, on, you know, where, where, what the, what is the limit in the sky for San Diego and, uh, and what are the hurdles that, uh, and that you're tackling now and how specifically does, does NIMBY Democrats in San Diego tackle? Yeah, I, I think, you know, uh, some things to think about for San Diego in, in the policy context that I think oftentimes is overlooked is that, you know, we're the, we're the, we're the city in the United States that's furthest away from our state or national capital, right? Not something that people think about, but it is true. And we're also in the biggest state of the union. Right. And so, um, so a lot of the policy, um, expertise, the people who are young people who want to make a go in, in this sort of thing, don't stay in San Diego. They'd go to move to LA, they move to Sacramento, they move to the Silicon Valley Bay area, those sorts of things. Um, and so, uh, and so that part of why you don't hear about us as much, right? We're also, you know, the, the interesting geography, like we have Camp Pendleton right north of us between us and Orange County, we have Imperial Valley to, to the east, the ocean, to the west, and of course an international border to our south, to the south. And so in, in a lot of ways, it's kind of carved out, um, uh, from, from, from the rest of California. Um, and so that's an interesting, just sort of dynamic. And I think that's like why I think some of our, our housing policies are different and been more successful.

54:20 That's why, uh, you know, we've had some, some innovation and in some of these, uh, uh, things because we are sort of different and separate. Um, uh, but, but I think it's also, you know, but I think that, that creates some opportunities. I mean, there are some things that San Diego has a lot of citywide housing policies that are, are successful in, in, in, in achieving more, more votes. Uh, we've, we've pioneered some, uh, things like, uh, uh, density bonus enhancements that have been said statewide. Uh, and I think it's been, uh, um, I think our work at Circulate is part of that. And I think the MD Dems is part of that. And I think the, the policy entrepreneurship from, from Maya and the, uh, the, uh, folks at the city are, are all part of that. And I think that's, uh, um, it's an interesting, yeah, we are like, we're there, those are, I think some, some distinct things about how we sort of exist in, in, in the policy framework, uh, and, uh, and why I think we've been able to do some things that maybe just a little different than other folks. Now we're talking today because I really think that you are the first organization to kind of raise your hands and say, we are YIMBYs and we are Democrats, right? The YIMBY movement is both proudly and intentionally, uh, has been bipartisan and nonpartisan. It's been a huge area of success to have that cross-party appeal and, uh, to work against the, uh, intransigence in both parties. Um, but you did a really big thing in, in saying we're both and don't you dare, uh, impeach our democratic credentials and our democratic, uh, motivations are why we're YIMBYs. So I am curious how you decided to do that and, uh, and, and what's been the impact, uh, what has it meant to be both YIMBY and democratic and what have you learned along the way as you've navigated that? Yeah. I'm particularly, I'm really interested in sort of your relationship with the democratic party in San Diego from the beginning and how that's changed too. Well, I'll start by sharing a little more context about San Diego back in 27, 2018. We were not a blue city. We were still purple, definitely going in the direction of becoming blue like we are now, but it was a purple city. So it did kind of matter Democrat or Republican, Republicans were still a thing. Um, and truthfully, part of the motivation besides seeing someone who I thought was great candidate who was not getting any opportunity, um, despite fantastic YIMBY policies.

56:35 Um, besides that, truthfully, I was looking at Twitter. I was seeing what was going on in San Francisco and I wanted to, we were like not yet at a full blown YIMBY movement in San Diego yet. And I wanted to learn from San Francisco. I don't know if I want to call it mistakes, but just how divisive the movement had already become by 2017.

57:01 And I thought, well, let's be clear about who we are. YIMBY says something about our policies and our vision, but it doesn't necessarily say something about our values in terms of that we are Democrats, we are progressives. And I thought it was really important because of our local, um, you know, Republicans still existing. And also just to be clear that YIMBYism, I didn't want it to be pitted as just people speaking for the building industry and people with no connection to our underserved neighborhoods that, you know, we were bigger than that. And we were, um, a part of the solution and the progressive solution. You know, it's interesting. I, uh, like I speaking only for myself, right. I think of myself as an abundance liberal because I am a staunch progressive who desperately wants governments, cities, state feds to build abundant public housing, to build abundant public infrastructure, to build abundant green energy. Uh, and also thinks if a private citizen wants to volunteer to spend their time and their money to do all of that themselves without charging the taxpayer, that that is having your cake and eating it too. And, and what a, what a great deal.

58:16 Let's do all of that. Um, I, uh, would also point out that, you know, YIMBY Democrats for America is a national organization very purposefully. The goal is to drive a national message. YIMBY Democrats of San Diego is a local organization where you can really have local impact and really strong local relationships, local knowledge, local context. You are in and of, and part of, uh, the community. And so I'm curious both how that's manifested in your work and also how, what you recommend for anybody across the country who's like, I'm a YIMBY, I'm a Democrat. Like, first of all, please join YIMBY Democrats for America and, uh, and send some money to YIMBY Democrats of San Diego. But also if they're thinking, man, I would like to follow in their footsteps. We need YIMBY Democrats of Austin and YIMBY Democrats of New York and anything else you can think of. Um, what would you, what would you recommend to them?

59:08 I could tell like new people that are thinking about doing this is that oftentimes decision makers and people in policy or people in the city want there to be a YIMBY movement. They want a voice for growth. There are a lot of bureaucrats who, you know, they've studied planning. They have a good idea of what good urbanism is. And they acknowledge that like, oh, the current city council members or mayors are not YIMBY or progressive enough. Or there's staffers for the council members and mayors or the mayors themselves who will, you know, won't, maybe won't say it publicly, but they'll say the YIMBYs for like, you know, providing that voice and that support for more housing. So to people who are thinking about doing it, um, there are probably likely, you know, decision makers and policy makers and city bureaucrats who want you to do it too. Um, it's not just, you know, grassroots people who want it.

1:00:02 So I'll just add process wise, at least locally, we had to get some signatures. I had to start going to county democratic meetings. Um, and eventually we got chartered just simply by filling out some paperwork, having some signatures of enough registered Democrats. And we were in, at least in San Diego, once you're a club, you become a voting member of at least the area caucus. And that matters when it comes to endorsement, every vote matters within that. Um, so it was one vote out of many clubs and, and different, um, elected to have, um, a voting power within the democratic party, but it was really important to us to be officially a part of the party. And I just kind of want to add on to what Manny was saying. And some of what you were alluding to with your question is that we, um, we actually had our launch party it during the 2018, um, convention. And because the whole date was here, it was perfect timing. And, you know, we felt good about this. We had some, some people locally elected and, um, people involved in politics who were definitely invested in creating this. So, but, but it was a small but mighty group. We had no idea what direction this would go in, how, um, how controversial it might be, uh, and who would actually show up and want to claim this title and be identified with Yimby Democrats so boldly. So we threw this big party, um, downtown, a few blocks from the convention center, and it was a huge success. We had at least a couple hundred people coming by.

1:01:38 We had state Senator Scott Wiener, um, Senate pro tem. Tony Atkins was there, uh, then, you know, one of the most powerful electives in the state. Uh, we had local electeds, um, then assembly member Todd Gloria, who's currently our mayor. Uh, who else, Colin? Obviously, Colin Parrott was there, then a council member. A Colin Parrott. Uh, was Congressman Peters there? Cause he mentioned to us that he gave his speech. Exactly. Yeah. Yes. He was there too. Um, I think the only Congress member there and then a ton of local elected officials and people running for office in 2018 were there. So any doubt we had that this would be something people would actually want to put their names to and be able to see their name next to Yimby, um, to the voters of their districts that people wanted that they were dying for that.

1:02:29 And what did, uh, go for it. Yeah. Well, I think I just wanted to, to, to, uh, you know, add is that the, you know, club, if, if people are coming to this because they're a Yimby, not a, like a, a party regular in the democratic party, you know, let me just let you know that clubs are a big part of the democratic party, not just in San Diego, not just in California, but like all over the place. And so you, uh, and the rules are different and different places are different in San Diego than they are even are from LA, but you can go and find out, go to your central committee, go to your party party office and find out what it, what it takes to set up a club. And that's like a normal thing. So like that, don't let that be like a, uh, how do we do this? No, there's a, there's a process for doing that in just about every place. It's a big part of how people get involved in democratic politics is through clubs. And so, so people can and should consider, uh, setting, setting one up in, uh, in their own, in their own communities for that. But then I think the, the other thing I just wanted to touch on is just that there, there's real value. And I think one of the, there's been real value in having a democratic club for Yimby's in San Diego, especially around endorsement. This is something that I think, uh, that, uh, uh, has been a real powerful tool.

1:03:39 Is it, you know, we all know there's some Democrats who are not NIMBY or not YIMBYs, right. We're that bad, the ideas about housing and, and they even think that they, and they, and there may be a person, a perception that most Democrats feel that way, or that, or most people in your community or democratic party feels that way. Um, but one of the things that I've observed time and again is that, uh, you see candidates seeking the, the Yimby Democrats endorsement in San Diego, really figuring out how to give a pro housing message of Yimby message. And then it, and then they, and then it helps them take a better, uh, adopt better positions and vote better, uh, if, and when they're elected. And that's just something that you can't do with a nonpartisan Yimby organization in the same way. And it's, uh, and it's been a real, a real value add to the sort of the overall political environment in, in San Diego for housing. And that's something, and that's like, and it's power, it's influence is if you're interested in being, uh, uh, you know, having your city council candidates take better positions, uh, on these issues, you know, setting up a club, making them go through an endorsement process and, and, and all that really can, um, uh, they'll do it. They'll show up and they'll fill out the forms and they'll come to the meeting.

1:04:51 And, uh, and, and it, and I think it provides a lot of value. And I think that's been one of the, the real successes that we've had, uh, locally, um, from, from this club and this movement. And what is your message to Democrats, whether it's, it's lawmakers or especially voters, um, who are, uh, who are, are Democrats, your fellow Democrats, um, but maybe skeptical of, of Yimbyism. What's the sort of ambassadorial outreach, uh, to, to those folks, whether that's a lawmaker or especially just an ordinary citizen and an engaged voter, what is your message to them in order to connect as fellow Democrats and, uh, spread the gospel of building housing?

1:05:29 Yeah. So, you know, it starts always like just hearing where, where they're at, you know, do they have kids who are having a hard time, you know, staying here or are they younger and also getting priced out and, you know, trying to get folks to think about, um, not, not saying explicitly, but also like an abundance, like there, yeah, like there could be more homeless and there could be, you know, more places for us to live here. I mean, we all didn't have to compete for, you know, this, the, a few apartments that there are in this nice neighborhood, you know, um, I think that's one of the things that I go to a lot is, you know, stressing like how, how much improved the quality of life would be if we weren't all spending half or more of our income on rent, um, how that would make all of us a lot more happier. And I'm always trying to get people to think about, um, you know, abundance, like more, more homes can, you know, and maybe not always being explicit about like, yeah, a five over one or a big store building. Cause yes, big things that get some scares on people.

1:06:37 So I, I like to just be a little bit more broad. Um, but I also think that, especially with our Yimby Dems club, it's, it's a space for us to organize ourselves. It's not necessarily a space to convert. Like, I think it's important for everyone to be able to use their own story and connect that way with people who are reachable or at least to humanize where we're coming from. But at the end of the day, sometimes it's okay to have a space for your group or your group to strengthen and grow and not necessarily be a place for trying to convert or to get everyone in the same place or, um, to compromise, frankly. Speaking of, um, man, it doesn't work. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Just that, you know, I think what my saying is really important and, and, uh, something we touched on a little bit in our, our pre pre discussion was that I think, you know, democratic clubs are, are, are really about, creating influence within the democratic party. Right. And, and yeah, of course, you know, I mean, talk to regular people, you know, don't have like an off putting message, but like, but that the goal is really to try to, to, to, it's, is about sort of, you know, this being a pro housing pro abundance faction within the democratic party and, and being, and being a voice for that within, within the context of democratic politics. Um, and then, and then, uh, and that's, I think really the, where, where I think it's had the most success and where I suspect the, the, the, the Democrats of America are going to have the most success to make sure that other folks who are, who are self-identified Democrats who are involved in democratic politics, know that there are people like us who are, who are, who are Democrats and committed Democrats. Um, and to help, help more of them feel like they can be, be also, you know, a part of that part of that. Well, I mean, exactly to your point, I think a lot of our mission is to make it so that like, when you're a Democrat, you broadly may not be an expert on like every specific issue, but like, you know, that like I'm pro choice, I'm pro with the environment. I'm pro like LGBT rights. Um, and right now in housing, there's still not, I think like a consensus nationally of like, I'm a Democrat. So obviously I'm EMB. Um, and our goal was to influence the democratic party. Uh, and really, I think a lot of it is just like, let the elected officials and the people of power know what their voters already believe. Um, my strong belief in the data shows is that like our voters are generally pro housing. Um, but I actually want to touch about the topic of abundance that may touch on that word. You know, I know we're all primarily focused on housing. It's a housing conversation, but I feel like with all these books coming out, like Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's book, um, there's this bigger idea now of taking the the philosophy of EMB and applying its things like transit and clean energy and sort of a broader abundance. I'm wondering if that has influenced your work at all and how you guys are thinking about sort of abundance beyond just housing. Absolutely. And in fact, you know, uh, you know, Manny's head is obscuring it a little bit on the Yimby Democrats logo. There's a little treen it was added on. And I think it was because right at the beginning, the people were, it was, you know, it was like, well, we're also for, for, we're for more housing, but we're also more for more trades at two. Right. And more bike lanes. And so that was kind of like, you know, you know, put in there. And I think that just sort of reflects what, what's been going on with this abundance movement is it's, it's, um, a lot, the people have been saying, or we're YIMBYs, we're also YIMBYs for transit or we're YIMBYs for this other stuff. And, and that's, what's been so great about this abundance frame is to sort of be able to capture and package a lot of these sort of parallel, um, uh, complimentary, uh, things to together. And so in my work at circulate San Diego, we've been sort of, we've been doing, you know, we work on housing, but we also work on transit and bike lanes and, and, and, and sustainable growth kind of stuff. And we didn't have the word abundance to describe how, how we, how all those things fit in together, but now we do. Um, and I think it's been, I think it's been great to, to have some sort of some new language and some new energy, um, that kind of puts together and in certain intellectual concepts, it's not like, it's not just, we need more housing. It's also, we just need more of the good stuff.

1:11:05 Right. And that that's an important, um, uh, uh, development in, I think my understanding, but I think in broadly the movement, you know, when you talk about being both Yimby's and Democrats, um, I'm picking up on a theme of belonging, uh, right. Yimbyism is about homes and sometimes mostly that's homes as brick and mortar and a roof over your head and shielding you from the elements and a place to be and live and be with your family. But there's also homes as a community. And I think you've talked a little bit about Yimby Democrats in San Diego as a home for people who are Yimbys and Democrats. We think of ourselves that way too. And there's also the idea of making sure neighborhoods can be a home for anybody. I think there's that really core progressive value of everybody belongs.

1:11:50 And if, you know, if a neighborhood got together and said, Hey, the whole, the opinion of our entire neighborhood is that we must not allow this type of race in our neighborhood. Well, rightly, we would all say that is bonker balls and bullshit. You are welcome to your opinion. That is simply not your call. Other people's human rights is not an appropriate neighborhood decision. And it seems to me that when you say, well, the neighborhood got together and the entire neighborhood thinks this type of housing is not a fit for the neighborhood, that that is very much a euphemistic version of that same, that is outside the scope of your call to deny other people their belonging when they are citizens of this country and have freedom of mobility to find a home and an identity in your community that you cannot put walls around it. And that feels really important. I'm wondering, you know, as you've gone on this journey and have, you know, seven or eight years ahead of us, I'm curious what lessons and sort of hard-won advice you've picked up along the way that as we now go on this journey and go on this journey with you as YIMBY Democrats for America, what should we learn from your experience and what advice do you have for the road ahead? I'll just start from at least within my term as the president. I was the president for the first two years and that was, you know, the beginning stages of building it up. First, this is kind of a response to the last couple of questions plus this one, but part of identifying as a progressive YIMBY for me, and this might be influenced by me taking improv classes around this time, but to me, I always felt that it should be yes and in my backyard. We are about pro-housing abundance in all those other ways you talked about, but I think there's other ways that we take care of our neighbors and we take care of ourselves. That's more than just building new housing, whether it's affordable, public housing or market rate. We need more than that. The truth is we do need tenant protections.

1:13:49 And so I know that has been a third rail in some conversations within the YIMBY community. And to me, part of being a progressive and being a democratic club is being open to those harder conversations about how do we take care of everybody and not just like the theoretical economics of more homes in 20 years or whenever we can get them built, but like, how do we take people care of real people right now? So I just, I think that that's an important part to be open to those conversations because you're going to lose people if you're not in touch with the reality. The people right now are losing their homes and those houses that we want to get built are not getting built right now. So that to me is really important. But it's also, I think, important to be confident that we have a winning message.

1:14:36 And the one example I did want to share is we were founded in 2018. That was the beginning of a big mayoral race for the city of San Diego, you know, eighth largest city in the nation. It was a race that became between two Democrats in the end. And then assembly member Todd Gloria was running, got the Yimby endorsement. He was at that Yimby launch party, proudly a Yimby. And his opponent was not, frankly. And she ultimately, near the end of the campaign, actually used a picture from our launch party in one of her ads. She used a picture of me calling Todd, assembly member Gloria, now Mayor Gloria, as well as Scott Wiener and a few other folks who were, you know, smiling and having a great time at the party behind that Yimby Dems logo sign that we have. And they use that in an ad attacking Todd Gloria. And he won his election race with 56% of the vote. So I think, you know, when you know you have the winning message, when you know this is the most important issue to voters, it's also just important to not shy away from it. And actually, if you claim it and you're successful, then more power to you. Literally, you're able to make the big changes that you're envisioning.

1:15:53 I was going to say, you guys have a great sign game, by the way, because when we did Yimby's for Harris, y'all did an actual live party, which is amazing. And y'all produced like the first like original like Yimby's for Harris, like yard sign things. And they were so like, I really wanted to make it work to print them, but we didn't want to do non union jobs. And it was like so late in the game and come on, you know, according to the market. But they were, yeah, you guys are the best in the game in terms of signage, by far.

1:16:25 That's pretty cool. Enormously flattering. Also, Maya, I have to tell you, it's very dangerous that you have disclosed you have an improv background. I will not be surprised to hear that I do too. And we will certainly take advantage of that at some point for entertainment and educational purposes in the weeks and months to come. I always had the vision of a yes and improv. True. Yes. And we're running on time. So I just want to quickly get in a couple more San Diego specifics. So you mentioned Tom Gloria, the mayor. I'm curious. And Colin had mentioned earlier, like policy innovations that you guys said sort of originated. We have a very like nerdy audience. I'm sure they would love to hear like details on sort of the specific policy wins that you guys thought were special and like break them down exactly what they were. And yeah. Tell us more about that. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think the, the, the thing that's probably been the most impactful, uh, in terms of total number of, of homes produced has been, um, density bonus law. Um, and so in, in California, uh, when I first started getting involved in this, uh, density bonus law basically said that if a developer built 11% of their units is affordable, then they could build 35% more overall. Um, and, uh, sort of the idea being it's a win-win, you know, you build, give, give some affordable and you can make some more money on your project.

1:17:50 Um, really the purpose not to do bigger projects, but to, but to incentivize creation of those deeply affordable units. Right. And then, uh, and then when I was at the housing commission, uh, uh, which is a public housing authority in San Diego, uh, we came up with a proposal to, to increase that locally to, if you built not 11%, but 15% affordable, then you could get a 50% bonus, not the 35% bonus. And then, uh, when I joined and circulate my and I, uh, among others, you know, help push that to get that, uh, applied in the city of San Diego. And then a few years later, uh, in 2020, we got that extended statewide. And, and then a few years after that, we, we doubled it. And so now you can build 15% affordable, 15% moderate, and you can get two 50% bonuses. And, uh, we're preparing a research report right now, uh, at circulate to sort of measure the impact of that. And we're talking tens of thousands of units that have been created because, and this is something that's, uh, you know, I think we were in a unique situation to be able to get a policy like that through at the city of San Diego. Um, and we were, and you know, with YIMBYs and others, we were able to get that across the finish line and then, um, and then subsequently, you know, take that successful local model and, and bring it and bring it statewide and have a, and have a real impact. And that's just a great total win-win for, you know, if you really care about market rate housing, well, boy, oh boy, this is making a lot of market rate housing. If you really, really care about those affordable units for those, for those lower income people, boy, it's really creating a lot of them for those folks too. It's a real win-win. The only person who doesn't win is the person who doesn't want housing at all. And I don't think anyone on this podcast is too concerned about their, uh, first.

1:19:31 Before we get you on out of here, what haven't we talked about that we should, it could be ideas. It could be accomplishments that we should know about and learn from. It could be questions you're grappling with or are curious about or have for us. Uh, what, what should we make sure to get in there before we get you out of here? Well, one thing I just wanted to say is it's good. If you're going to be interested in this, you have to know your, their people who work in government, uh, who are doing this, whether politicians or candidates, but also like the bureaucrats, my, my YIMBY origin story was that, uh, I was a, an appointee from Jerry Brown at the State Department of Housing and Community Development in California. And there were people, and this was like in 2011, and there were people in, who had cubicles on their cubicles, had little signs saying that they were YIMBYs. It was like, before that was like a phrase that anyone knew. And, uh, so they were like early allies. I got, became a, I became a YIMBY myself because I read Matt Iglesias is the rent is too damn high while I was there in 2012. And that kind of, you know, radicalized me. Um, but those are really important things for people to, um, if you want to be involved in the space, great to, you know, follow Armand on Twitter, listen to podcasts, but also try to get to know some people in your community who are, who are actually responsible for, for making some of this.

1:20:43 Well, and you would be amazed. That's just that I just want to tell folks, you'd be amazed by how little it takes. Like people think the government's unaccessible. It's like, oh my God, it's so big, but like every city council person went office hours and they're like desperate to meet constituents. Like you can get five people in a room consistently on an issue and like your city council person will care. Like, uh, the barrier to entry is not that high. Well, speaking of, yeah, what is the right way to do this? Because what Armand's saying is very much been my experience as well, that it has been, it is weirdly like folks in government, like want to meet you. They sort of need to meet you. Um, so it's very doable, but I've also seen folks do this badly, right? Like, like, you know, uh, the scenarios in which if you just sort of crash a party and ambush somebody, it's, you know, that's not going to be the ideal place to get out your message, even if you can get FaceTime. So what is knowing that it is very doable and necessary to connect with your local reps, but there's also ways to mess it up and then be disappointed and reject the system. What's the right approach for somebody to create a relationship with their local representative or local bureaucrats?

1:21:53 I will say I now work for a council member in the city of San Diego, Dairy Pro Housing. Um, and you know, we, something that I think is true across the board is that you don't need a majority. I think at least in my experience, most counselors aren't necessarily tallying. Okay. There's been five yes and four. No. So I'm going to support it. Like, it's not like that much of a, like they need to see a majority to be able to take a hard position. They need just enough. They need just enough people to show up, to make a good reasoned argument that they can say, look, this isn't just me by myself. Like there are people in the community who were able to make it here, or who have a day job who care enough that support this. And, um, so I think showing up at city council, um, even if you're not part of an organized group, you may meet people who are there. Um, and you may, uh, be a really important voice, even if you're a minority voice supporting a council project. I know, um, um, that was, uh, that was a huge learning experience for me that empowered me was, um, being a minority voice and watching the city council make a tough decision. Um, um, that was a YIMBY decision after I'd spoken in public comment is one of very few people doing that. Um, and yeah, that you're absolutely right. Council members want to see you, want to meet you and want to see, um, council members of the public who can, even if it's just, you know, really brief, but like explain why they support something to their neighbors.

1:23:25 So take us out on this. So you mentioned to show up to city hall, give public comment, huge. Give me one more tactic. Should you send them a cold email? Should you write to their comms director? What is, give me, give me one more tactic, something along the lines of a cold, cold engagement, cold email. Like what is, what is one other way to, um, appropriately and successfully get in touch with your government? The most impactful way to develop a relationship with an elected official is to be involved in their campaign. And, and so, um, well, if you were, if you're interested in getting involved in this kind of stuff, find someone who you think is, you know, close to your values and, and get involved in the, in their campaign and, and do that over and over again. Um, and that's just really the, the, every, everyone remembers who everyone is in elected office remembers who volunteered for their first campaign. And, and you get, and you, and they're like a nobody then. So you get their phone number, but they're going to have lunch together. Like, uh, it's that stuff really, really sticks.

1:24:24 And, um, so that's, and you know, we're, we're Democrats, we're Democrats, we're active partisan Democrats. Right. And so like getting involved in campaign shouldn't be a, shouldn't be a, uh, a scary, a crazy thing for us. We should all be doing it. And it's great to get involved for, you know, when someone runs running for president, but boy, you better believe there's a city council member or, or, or a supervisor candidate or a school board candidate, uh, in your, in your area. And they will be like shocked and, and super pleased for, uh, for the random stranger to, to show up and get involved. And then, and then they'll let you talk to them about housing a little.

1:24:57 Amazing. Well, we are so grateful for your time today and this like really exciting and interesting and actionable conversation. We're also just so excited by and, and, and grateful for, and in, in reverence of the work that you've done and the trail that you've blazed, um, that we get to walk with you now and, uh, grateful for that overarching partnership and everything we will do together in the years to come. Grateful to be able to follow your lead and grateful to be able to spend some time with you now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, my, I'm Andy Collin. We will talk to you soon. Thanks for joining us on radio abundance. You've been listening to radio abundance. Join the movement for Progressive Abundance at yimbydemocrats.org. Yes, we can build again. Yes, we can trounce the fascists. Yes, you can be the difference. This is AI, by the way. You think these jokers actually got Obama?

1:25:55 Check in with me in a few months. It'll happen. Thank you for listening to radio abundance, a new podcast by Yimby Democrats for America. Now it's time for you to join the movement. We're building a big tent and it's going to take all of us join us and together we'll fight to build America, defeat fascism, and unleash the era of Progressive Abundance. Join the movement at yimbydemocrats.org.