Local Candidate Questionnaire: Nikki Fortunato Bas, 2018 Candidate for Oakland City Council
Here at TechEquity, we believe that voting down the ballot is crucial for active, local citizenship. While a lot of the national spotlight is on congressional races, there are a multitude of local candidates that have the potential to make significant impacts on your communities.
We’ve reached out to candidates for San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Oakland Mayor, City Councillors of Oakland and Berkeley, and CA State Assemblymembers to answer our five-part questionnaire. Check out our index of the seats on the ballot and the candidates who have responded to our questionnaire.
Below are the questionnaire responses from Nikki Fortunato Bas, 2018 candidate for Oakland City Council.
Disclaimer:
We’re a nonpartisan 501c3 non-profit, which means we cannot and do not endorse candidates. With that in mind, we gave every candidate that we could reach an opportunity to fill out our questionnaire.
Displayed are the unedited answers from each candidate as they came to us. We are publishing these questionnaires to educate voters on candidates’ positions; we do not endorse their positions nor statements.
Candidate’s Name:
Nikki Fortunato Bas
Office for which Candidate is Seeking Election:
Oakland City Council
Jurisdiction in which Candidate is Seeking Election:
District 2
Candidate’s Website:
The East Bay has changed drastically as a result of the growth of the tech sector in our region. What role do you think the city should have in attracting companies to our city or in reducing negative effects created by their arrival?
Technological advancement can improve all of our lives, however that depends on how we use technology and who has access to it. Our goal should be to shape technology to benefit both longtime residents and new transplants, creating more equity and inclusion in our economy and our communities. We must ensure that our education and workforce development systems are supporting longtime residents and young people to fully participate in the tech economy and benefit from the growing number of jobs it provides. We must also ensure that all the jobs in the tech economy provide workers with the wages and benefits that allow them to support their families in dignity — — from “gig” workers to subcontracted service workers. In addition, we must create new rules for the new tech economy to meet our goals of equity and inclusion. This includes making sure that short term rental (STR) and transportation network/ride sharing companies (TNC) pay their fair share for using our city’s infrastructure and provide information to ensure transparency and equity. This also means driving housing solutions to stem displacement. We must view tech companies as partners in building Oakland and our region as a place where we all feel we belong and our communities can thrive.
The housing crisis is the most urgent issue for our members, and it is TechEquity’s top advocacy priority this year. What is your view on how we can solve the housing crisis and make the Bay Area an affordable place to live for people at all income levels?
Oakland’s housing crisis is out of control and we need experienced, compassionate leadership that recognizes housing is a human right. The need to improve and increase affordable housing and provide options for the growing homeless population requires a champion who can bring residents, developers, and housing advocates together — and collaborate with the county and state — for win-win solutions.
We must have a balanced approach to building more housing in Oakland, in the Bay Area and across the state to solve our housing crisis. California has a surplus of 300,000 luxury housing units which means simply building at all price levels only exacerbates our housing crisis because land is a fixed good. Building market-rate-units alone will not alleviate our crisis because it creates competition between existing low-income families and higher income earning “transplants.” We need to expand affordable housing opportunities to ensure we have safer, stronger, and healthier communities and not just push low-income families further and further away from their jobs.
A variety of market- and below-market-rate housing is essential to solving the crisis. We must ensure our public lands (the City of Oakland owns at least 36 vacant lots suitable for housing) are used for public good by supporting a public lands policy that prioritizes affordable housing. 3,600 new units of housing could be built on the City’s 36 vacant lots.
When you consider that 20,000 market-rate housing units are under construction or in the pipeline compared with only 1,500 units of below-market housing, we must increase the balance towards affordable housing.
We should also preserve existing affordable housing by updating policies on condo conversions and single room occupancy buildings (SROs) and adopting a policy on short-term rentals; and advance longer-term housing policies that support ownership, including community land trusts, tenant ownership, and low-interest loans for repairs and maintenance.
How will you address the homelessness crisis? Do you think the City’s current budget allocation for homelessness is adequate? What solutions do you think are working, and what else would you implement?
We must allocate more of our city budget to homelessness and continue to partner with the county and state.
We should ensure our public lands are used for public good by supporting a public lands policy that prioritizes affordable housing and permanent supportive housing projects, and designating city-owned parcels for sanctioned camps that move homeless neighbors off dangerous streets. We should also increase resources to provide our homeless neighbors with rapid measures that move people into stable temporary housing while we work toward permanent housing solutions, as well as provide increased health services and sanitation to our homeless community.
I support many of the proposals of the Homeless Advocacy Working Group, which include:
- Holding the city and county accountable for improving current services;
- Disseminating and distributing current information affecting the unsheltered population;
- Advocating for daily services improvements, coordinated food distribution, job-training services, mental health and medical services, and sanitation standards;
- Giving voice and dignity to the homeless while advocating for faster transitioning to sheltered housing;
- Keeping the lake area safe, stable and secure, a shared treasured environment;
- Enabling a “pilot project” of “alternative housing models” on city owned land;
- Increasing resources for people who are at risk of displacement to prevent homelessness; and
- Having clear designated spaces for homeless folks and navigations centers, increasing temp beds, making clear where homelessness will not be tolerated (i.e. kids play structures — something the parks and recreation department is pushing currently) by ensuring adequate and accessible services to those in need.
How would you create more stability for renters in our city, especially for low- and middle-income renters?
I would strengthen and enforce tenant protections to put a stop to unjust evictions and illegal rent hikes. This includes: enabling adequate funding and resources. Currently legal and counseling resources are over capacity — we need more resources to serve the community and do proactive education; and supporting the rent board with education and rent adjustment programs with resources for more staffing to take on cases, etc. (right now there’s a backlog of cases that hurts tenants and landlords, they haven’t been heard because the rent board hasn’t been meeting and the staff are also overwhelmed).
I support Prop 10, the state Affordable Housing Act to repeal Costa-Hawkins, allowing Oakland and other California cities the flexibility to create smart renter protections that work for us.
How do we modernize the city’s transit and mobility system to accommodate the rapidly-changing needs of the city’s residents?
Equitable transit is about working people riding green public transportation that gets them home in time to have dinner with their families. It’s about seniors being able to get to their doctor’s appointments. It means teenagers can get to school and back safely and efficiently. It’s about having options of decent, affordable housing that’s near a bus or train line, and safe streets for walking and cycling. As Councilmember, I would collaborate with city staff and listen to constituents to understand the unique needs of the neighborhoods in my district as well as all of Oakland, then establish priorities for my first term to support multiple modes of transportation, which — based on voter feedback — includes improving AC Transit service, as well as safety for cyclists, pedestrians and drivers.
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