Stefani ready to serve Assembly District 19

“What I heard, too, a lot of times San Mateo County felt they were not always considered, not always thought of, it was more of a San Francisco focus,” she said. “It’s going to be my intention they never feel that again.”

Stefani — who honed her political chops in San Francisco, first as a staffer, then as county clerk, and finally as a member of the Board of Supervisors — said she’s committed to supporting specific, local projects whenever possible.

At the same time, she maintained, the big-picture issues Peninsula and city residents care about are intrinsically similar. Those problems include public safety, the cost of living and domestic violence.

“What I would say to people, really, I want to focus on a safer and more affordable California,” Stefani said. “I didn’t say that just because it sounded good. I said that because that’s what people were talking to me about.”

Addressing California’s affordability issues has been designated a priority for both the state Assembly and Senate for the upcoming legislative session.

That starts with building more housing and a careful give-and-take between local control and state legislation, Stefani said, citing work with local municipalities to assess their existing eligible property stock as one example.

“To bring down the cost of housing, we have to build more housing,” she said. “On the Board of Supervisors, I’ve been very intentional about how we do that, and working with developers and working on certain projects. It’s not just passing one law that’s going to fix everything.”

Other focuses during her tenure on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors included an active collaboration with law enforcement — “I’ve never been a ‘defund the police’ person,” she said — passing the first ghost gun ban and developing a robust gun violence restraining order program.

Still an active attorney, Stefani’s background in the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office continues to inform her political work and public safety emphasis.

“Working on prevention is what I like to do, making sure that people don’t end up hurt in the first place,” she said. “I really had this perspective being on the end of the spectrum when people were hurt and wanting to be involved before that outcome, and really wanted to work on policies that would protect people before they even ended up in the criminal justice system, either as a defendant or a victim.”

As an assemblymember, Stefani said she would be quick to join other San Mateo County representatives in an aggressive push to combat climate change. As one of the most sea-level rise impacted counties in the state, the need for protections against an increasingly volatile climate landscape is clear.

The desire to prioritize climate is also personal for Stefani, whose 15-year-old daughter is deeply concerned about environmental issues and advocacy, she said.

“To have a daughter who’s so affected by it and just so worried about the future, and not even wanting to have children, because she doesn’t want to bring children into a planet that she says is on fire — it’s something that I will be focused on,” she said. “She said to me, ‘Mom, if you don’t do any environmental work up there, we’re gonna have a problem.’”

Her time in the thorny world of San Francisco politics has been a comprehensive education for defending constituent needs above all else and tuning out the rest, Stefani said.

“I am stronger for it,” she said. “The thing that I have learned most is to not be afraid, to stand up for what I believe in and stand up for my constituents and what they want me to do, and I can’t be bullied into doing anything different.”