San Ramon, with its low crime rate, is one of the safest communities in California. But public safety doesn’t just mean crime. Public safety means protecting ourselves, wildlife, and our pets from toxic pesticides currently used in our parks. Public safety means reducing the risk of potential wildfires on our hillsides. Public safety means ending entirely preventable traffic deaths. Public safety means protecting our immigrant neighbors from ICE. Here’s my plan to improve public safety in San Ramon.

• Pass a City Council ordinance barring ICE from using City-owned property, in line with numerous other Bay Area cities.

• Collaborate with San Ramon Valley Fire to pass a “Zone Zero” ordinance requiring 5 feet of defensible space around homes located in “very high” or “high” wildfire hazard areas (according to the CalFire Fire Hazard Severity Zones map). This is especially important for District 4, which has an elevated risk of wildfire compared to the western half of San Ramon because of its location at the wildland-urban interface.

• Pass a plan to end traffic deaths in San Ramon through better street design (called a “Vision Zero plan”).

• End the use of Flock license plate readers and oppose the further expansion of surveillance systems such as license plate readers (ALPRs). Across the country, Flock camera footage has been improperly accessed by Flock employees [click for link] and has been used to surveil people who were not suspected of any crime. These cameras are also not effective at promoting public safety: Flock has previously lied about the effect of its cameras on reducing crime [click for link]. The City of San Ramon’s continued use of Flock cameras also makes our city vulnerable to potential lawsuits [click for link]. Flock data itself is also weakly secured [click for link], endangering San Ramon residents.