Berman faces Democratic challenger in District 23 in San Mateo County

Statewide legislation now mandates that local governments approve developments and negate their own zoning policies if proposals meet quotas for affordable housing. Per-city housing requirement allocations have also become steeper in recent years, in an effort to keep up with demand and mitigate California’s housing crisis. 

Kou termed these policies deregulation efforts that benefit developers at the expense of local communities and said state legislators should be promoting “harmonious development” coexists with single-family neighborhoods, rather than destroying them. 

“​​Right now, cities are so hampered with trying to meet their [Regional Housing Needs Allocation Numbers] and trying not to be punished when … these are the things that are created by the state, and we’re left holding the bag in order to solve these problems,” she said. 

She suggested bringing back local redevelopment agencies, which were designed to assist cities and counties in building affordable housing but dissolved in 2012, as well as building short-term modular housing for those experiencing homelessness. 

But as a representative of one of the most expensive districts in the state, Berman — who has introduced several affordable housing bills to streamline development and prevent fees during his Assembly tenure — said that statewide development streamlining was a last-resort solution to a decadeslong crisis. 

“I wish we didn’t have to do it. I wish we had done a better job over the past few decades building the housing we need in the Bay Area and California. And we didn’t, and now we need to do new things,” he said. 

He referenced a 2013 debacle over a Palo Alto affordable senior housing complex, which he voted in favor of while serving on the City Council. Residents, including Kou, opposed the development, calling it outsized, and it was eventually voted down via ballot measure — a situation that might not occur today, Berman said. 

“Some people would say, with a straight face, ‘We don’t need senior affordable housing. There’s not a need for this. This isn’t a problem.’ And that has changed dramatically,” he said. “I think everybody now recognizes that we have a serious housing affordability crisis in our community and in the Bay Area.

Education

The candidates concurred that bolstering education, particularly in underserved communities, is another way to address the Bay Area’s affordability crisis. 

Early education is an important tool in providing a stable future for constituents, Kou said. 

“One of the first things we have to look at is to boost education in those communities, to ensure that the schools have the funding to ensure that the children are reading when they reach fourth grade or third grade,” she said. “We cannot forget about people with disabilities, including those who are from the [intellectually developmentally disabled] communities.” 

Berman emphasized a skills-based approach to educating young people so that they’re able to successfully enter the job market. He’s championing a bill, named Computer Science for All, that would require all California high schools to offer computer science education and has worked with organizations like Code.org and Microsoft that promote computer science literacy. 

“There are more than 30 states in the country that require that every high school at least offer computer science, and it’s embarrassing that California is not one of those states,” he said. “It falls predominantly on our poorer communities and our more rural communities and our Black and brown communities, where the students that go to those schools don’t even get the chance to take computer science in high school.” 

Berman has authored another bill that would incorporate artificial intelligence literacy into the educational curriculum for K-12 students, he said.  

Budget

In addition to authoring bills, the California state government had to mitigate a challenging fiscal landscape and a $45 billion budget deficit this year, a job Berman believes the Assembly handled well by amassing reserves while money was still flush. 

“If you put in that work early, then the impact of a softer economy, the impact of less revenues, is less severe, because we have the reserves necessary to soften that blow,” he said. “I’m proud that we had the fiscal discipline to save all that money.” 

The state’s $297.9 billion spending plan relied on those reserves and made $16 billion in cuts for programs like prisons, affordable housing and health care workforce development. 

Those spending plans need more oversight, Kou said, reestablishing consistent anti-Sacramento critique with concerns that money is being thrown at nonprofits and state agencies without tracking success or how funds are used. 

“There’s so many of these laws, and there’s so many of these organizations that have been created that they can’t keep up,” she said. “The State Audit Department can do audits, but there’s no case behind it. So I think that we do need a third party in order to have these audits, so that it is transparent and accountable to the people.” 

Other issues

Critiquing Berman’s tenure in the Assembly, Kou said she would have liked to see him prioritize holding Pacific Gas and Electric accountable for burdening rate users with its infrastructure update costs. If elected, she would also prioritize ensuring coastside residents maintain access to their electric and power utilities, Kou said. 

Both Berman and Kou agreed that the current vehicle licensing fee reimbursement system, which works well for a majority of California counties but often leaves San Mateo County at a financial loss because of the school funding formulas that decide property tax reimbursement, needs reform. 

When informed of the issue, Kou said she would be supportive of looking at reforms to come up with less convoluted policy. Berman worked with a coalition of Bay Area leaders to ensure San Mateo County cities received in-lieu VLF funds this year, but agreed that a more long-term solution would be ideal. 

“I think everybody would benefit from coming up with a permanent solution, so that we’re not constantly kind of fighting this every April, May, June, and so I hope that there’s an appetite to come up with a more permanent fix,” he said. 

Ultimately, Kou’s platform focuses around Sacramento working for “regular people,” she said. 

“Sacramento is working for the big donors and the special interests and the career politicians. It’s not working for average Californians,” she said. “We get the slogans from the politicians, we get press releases from Sacramento, and we get blamed for their problems that they started, but we’re not seeing the results.” 

Aside from priorities like housing and education, Berman said he would continue his legislative work protecting democracy and voters from deceptive technology like AI-generated “deepfakes” that can generate fake images and videos of elected officials and candidates. 

“It’s past time that we put more responsibility on the social media platforms to do more to regulate and label deceptive and artificially created content,” he said.