I am running because we need to protect Pinole’s Future. Pinole’s Strategic Plan of 2020 acknowledges that we desire a “safe, vibrant, and innovative community with small town charm and a high quality of life.” (City of Pinole Strategic Plan, page 9). But that future faces threats, from wildfires and droughts to rising oceans, crumbling streets, and ongoing financial liabilities. The resilience Pinole needs to address those threats is undermined by a lack of transparency, because the major fiscal challenges we face aren’t immediate. My goal is to expose and explain those dangers, so we can prepare to fight them.
99% of surveyed residents in Pinole believe that maintaining fiscal accountability is important (FM3 presentation to Pinole City Council, slide 22). Yet 37% don’t know enough about the city’s finances to have an opinion on them (FM3 presentation, slide 10). That means the grave future fiscal threats Pinole faces are invisible to them, in a way that drought and sea rise are not, which in turn leads to complacency.
To be blunt, people think that if we do nothing things will continue as they are, in a broadly acceptable fashion. This is not true. Things will get worse. Our city’s roads will decay more rapidly the longer they go without repair, and inflation will compound additional costs. Our unfunded liabilities to pay for non-Pension post-employment benefits will grow, and come due sooner than we would like. Our historic under-funding of fire services has left us vulnerable to wildfire, a risk which is increased by climate change and drought leading to tree die-off. Our lack of investment in our sewer and storm systems causes us to pay Hercules every time our outdated storm-lines flush storm water into the sewers.
How do we fight this? First, by being aware that there is a problem. Without transparency, it’s easy to assume everything is fine and to remain complacent. Complacency has allowed Pinole to hide from the future for too long, deferring maintenance and costs to a future day. If we do not act, that day will be chosen for us, not by us.
Second, engaging everyone in the city, through social media, mailers, canvasing, and working with community groups, helps us build a common community. Everyone, Democratic or Republican, White or Black or Latino or Asian-American, Young or Old, cares about having a fiscally sound city.
Third, to be resilient, we need infrastructure (reliable roads, cooling centers, power reliability, planning for evacuations). We need resilient finances (enough funds to create the necessary infrastructure and support systems and have Pinole meet its obligations, short and long term). And finally, to get resilient finances, we need a resilient community, informed and engaged, that votes to approve the necessary revenues the city needs to prevent future threats, not just those needed to keep us operating on a bare-bones budget.
I ask for your support and your vote to make all those things happen- Transparency, Engagement, Resilience. Together, we can Protect Pinole’s Future!
Rafael Menis for Pinole City Council 2022 
