Anna Caballero, the former Secretary of California’s Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency and current candidate for the 30th Assembly District seat that represents San Benito County, had coffee with a crowd of 40 locals on the evening of Aug. 8 at Mars Hill Coffee House on San Benito Street to listen to local concerns and priorities.
Caballero provided an overview of California’s current budget and how it affects local residents in San Benito County and throughout the region. She also highlighted the successful local effort to relocate and build the state-of-the-art county courthouse in downtown Hollister: an effort that she championed while serving in the California Assembly before agreeing to join Governor Jerry Brown’s cabinet.
Caballero’s campaign provided a recap of the meeting:
Local residents voiced concerns about the growing need for affordable housing in Hollister and the surrounding regions, the increased traffic problems on roads leading into San Benito County and the question of funding for early childhood education.
Secretary Caballero said that she wanted to continue the work that she had started in the governor’s cabinet to bring affordable housing to rural areas such as San Benito County, and also talked about the crises in education and youth violence, and the need to set up and support programs like the “Partners for Peace” program she developed in Salinas, combining family services, after-school programs, recreational opportunities and community policing to attack these problems from all angles. In particular, she discussed seeking new funding to experiment with training and providing a curriculum to daycare providers to help children enter school with the tools that they need to succeed.
Caballero told the residents, “This is one of my highest priorities, and why I have decided to come home to run for the Assembly again. Teachers do a wonderful job with incredibly limited resources, but more and more of our children are just not succeeding in our education system, and we have to figure out why and fix it. When the education system fails our children it is a huge loss for us as families, as communities and as a society.”
Caballero placed first in the June primary over Watsonville City Councilwoman Karina Cervantez-Alejo and the two will be on the ballot in the November runoff election to represent the 30th Assembly District, made up of San Benito County, the Salinas valley, Watsonville, Gilroy and Morgan Hill.
For more information, Caballero’s campaign can be contacted at annaforassembly.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/annaforasssembly/.
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