See Republicans, Vying To Replace Gov. Gavin Newsom During Recall, Debate In Sacramento

hello and welcome to special coverage of the sacramento press club's california gubernatorial recall election debate we are in the historic guild theater in the city's oak park neighborhood i'm vicki gonzalez host of insight at cap radio that's npr's member station in california's capital city the sacramento press club is hosting this debate and cap radio and the sacramento bee are co-sponsors i am one of your moderators and i'm joined by laura courty and sophia bolag both with the sacramento bee and sophia is also representing the press club there are two questions on this year's statewide ballot should governor gavin newsom be recalled it's a yes or no vote and if he's recalled who should replace him three of the candidates vying to succeed governor newsom are joining us at this debate they are all republicans and they are all polling at a percentage that merits their invitation former san diego mayor kevin felkner assembly member kevin kiley of rocklin and john cox a businessman who ran against governor newsom in 2018. republican candidate larry elder declined the press club's invitation to participate republican candidate caitlyn jenner did not respond and governor newsom also declined to participate also we want to send our thoughts to former congress member doug ose he had agreed to join us but suffered a heart attack on sunday and has since ended his campaign for governor today's debate will be one hour and it's going to cover four topics pandemic response housing and homelessness wildfires and drought and the economy and unemployment each candidate will have 60 seconds to respond to questions if the candidate is directly mentioned or criticized during another candidate's answer they may be allowed 30 seconds to respond at the moderator's discretion before we begin with the debate each candidate will have a 60-second opening statement and based on a lottery former san diego mayor kevin faulconer will go first your time starts now well thank you good evening thank you for all of you for joining us tonight i'm ready for governor because i believe that california's best days are still ahead of us and someone who can bring our state together and after a very difficult time just like i did as mayor of san diego we have a lot of choices on the ballot but i will tell you if you want somebody with the experience who's ready to lead day one who can bring our state together democrats republicans and independents on the issues that matter most to californians this mayor was somebody who effectively and compassionately reduced homelessness in san diego as mayor i stood up to the defund the police movement and won and as a candidate who is proposing the largest middle class tax cut in california history because i know what all of us know our state's too expensive and we have to make it more affordable for california families so i ask for your vote that's unlike gavin newsom who doesn't want folks to vote on the second part of this question i urge you all to vote and i'd be honored to have your support thank you your time starts now thank you i'd like to begin by extending my thoughts and prayers uh to doug ose who's a good friend and an outstanding public servant um i'm kevin kiley i was first elected to the california legislature in 2016. and in the last five years i've authored a number of successful bills and resolutions last year i was re-elected with the most votes for a member of my party in california history to the state assembly but what i've also seen over my five years in the legislature is that our state government is fundamentally broken it's why we lead the nation in all the worst ways poverty inequality homelessness and what's broken it is political corruption we have a state capital the capital that is altogether controlled by lobbyists and special interests i see that every day and we all got a glimpse of it at that infamous dinner that governor newsom had with lobbyists last year i'm running to change this culture of corruption i'm the only member of the california legislature that refuses all funding from special interests and i'd be ready on day one to answer the call for fundamental change that this recall represents with tangible reforms at our capital and a new direction for california so that we can start leading the nation in the right ways again thank you mr cox your time starts now i want to give a shout out first to my fellow businessman i want to give a shout out to my friend and fellow businessman uh doug ose who told me that i could use his uh favorite line uh and that was uh answer the damn phone uh this state is a mismanaged mess and the career politicians and the media personalities and all the people that we've had running this state for so long have made it that way if you look around the country red states as well as blue states have elected successful businessmen to run their states you look at massachusetts and maryland where larry hogan and charlie baker our governor you look at nebraska and north dakota doug burgum and pete ricketts are mayor you look at doug ducey in arizona not only are these governors able to solve problems but they also are the most popular governors in the country that's what we need in sacramento today we don't need more politicians we don't need more media personalities that don't show up for to face the press what we need are somebody who's going to solve the problems of this state someone who's going to be delivering results for the people this state make this state affordable and livable again and i hope we address all the topics that are making this day so tough right now thank you so with that let's begin our discussion of the pandemic assembly member kylie you will answer first nearly 65 of californians are vaccinated across the state that increases to roughly 75 percent when including those partially vaccinated our first question is one that has had among friends loved ones and businesses across california are you vaccinated and how will you protect people from this deadly virus as cases and hospitalizations once again increase statewide your time starts now i am vaccinated and as a member of the legislature i have done everything in my power to provide information and access to my constituents that's in stark contrast to gavin newsom who played politics with the vaccine last october he said that we could not take the fda's word for whether it was safe this drew a response from noah's authority than the chair of the senate united states senate health committee who said that the governor was attacking the career scientists at the fda that he was discouraging americans from taking the vaccine and he was costing lives and then he further played politics with a vaccine and had the slowest rollout of any state in the country and did not prioritize seniors so i would have done those things very differently but i think what california needs to do going forward is learn from other states we've had the most government control of any state in the country when it comes to all facets of the panama response whether it's school closures business closures masks or the vaccine where other states that have taken a more balanced approach and that have trusted their citizens have done a lot better by any measure mr cox yeah i'm vaccinated my wife is vaccinated my 16 year old daughter is vaccinated i believe in the vaccine i trust the vaccine it was created in the private sector a tremendous miracle uh thank god that that was done and done very quickly and safely for the people of this country but there's a lot of people that aren't taking the vaccine we have to ask ourselves why and the reason i believe is a lot of people have lost their faith and trust in their political leadership and government and that's writ large with gavin newsom this is the politician who went to the french laundry to have dinner with lobbyists in violation of his own rules but the lack of trust in mr newsome existed way before that uh this is also a governor who raised hundreds of thousands millions of dollars for his wife's charity to where his wife could get money you know that erodes the trust of the people this is also a governor who gave out testing deals and mass deals uh no bid contracts all over the place that erodes trust what we have to do is have a leader mr cox that evokes your trust and that that's what i'll try to do as a governor of the state thank you mayor falconer uh thank you i'm educated am i vaccinated education is the big part of this it's not about mandates it's about education my wife katherine is vaccinated my kids are vaccinated every opportunity i get in every public forum i say get vaccinated that's how we're going to get on the other side of this that's the sole way that we get over this as a state and as a nation so i urge everybody to get vaccinated i'm also going to agree with my two other colleagues here you have to take the politics out of it because when we start blaming one side or another that's what leads to folks with hesitancy on whether they can trust the vaccine we need californians to get the vaccine and we need a governor that's going to understand that it's not about mandating and taking a one-size-fits-all approach a top-down approach from sacramento we're going to have to have a governor and my approach is going to be we have to protect lives and we have to protect livelihoods and that balance of keeping our economy open and keeping people safe will be my approach thank you mr mayor uh our next question some vaccine mandates already are in place in california would you roll back the vaccine mandates newsome has put in place for school workers and health workers and would you prevent local governments from imposing their own restrictions mr cox will start with you i think the mandates are counterproductive and again i think it goes back to the trust that people have in government or the lack thereof um i would not mandate that this country believes in freedom this country has as very rarely if ever mandated we did once i believe with the smallpox vaccine which was uh smallpox was a hundred times more lethal than this and uh also uh smallpox didn't have animal reservoirs and so that was a lot easier to get rid of this disease is not going to be easy to get rid of if we can do it at all and i think mandating uh erodes people's trust i i think it it inconveniences people and makes people feel isolated i think it uh it is in violet of of our belief that we should be free to know what we want to put in our bodies and and to make those judgments for ourselves i urge people to get vaccinated i did and my family did but i think mandating it is counter to what america stands for um and just to to make sure yes or no would you roll back the vaccine this state is the only state in the country that's mandated this and i think that shows something so yes i would i would not mandate it and would you prevent local governments from imposing their own mandates i i'd have to consider the circumstances but i might yes thank you mr mayor we'll go to you oh thank you um i believe again that we have to let our local health officials and our doctors make those decisions on a case-by-case basis and a regional basis i was very vocal about that particularly in the early days of the pandemic as mayor and in fact our county urged for us to have that local control because we were put in a situation where the situation in san diego was the same as los angeles vastly different largest state in the country and so no it's not about mandates it's about letting the local public health officials make those decisions for themselves and we're not going to mandate our way out of covent 19 but we can and we must educate our way out of it and encouraging people to get the vaccine as we start to see these numbers go up it's a constant effort we can't stop we cannot stop until we get on the other side of this and this is something i feel very very strongly about so yes or no would you uh roll back the mandates that newsom has put in place statewide i do not support statewide mandates and i will allow local counties and local public health officials to make those decisions thank you assemblyman kylie now to you well i would most certainly roll back the mandates because they're not based upon public health uh we are the only state that has them so the other 49 governors not care about public health what they're about is politics the governor is looking for a campaign issue so he rolls out these mandates they don't exist in any other state and then less than a week later he's up running ads using the millions of dollars he's raised from special interests warning that if he does if the recall succeeds and his opponents will roll back these mandates and kobe is going to spread once again he's playing politics with covet and he's playing politics with the vaccine i think that personal choice is absolutely important here and there is a small minority of people who are opposed to an object to mental procedures of different kinds whether that's vaccines or blood transfusions or organ transplants and it's vitally important that we protect their rights for two reasons first we're a country that believes in minority rights that's in our national dna but secondly there's a much larger group of people who don't oppose vaccines in principle uh but who you know may have their doubts about this one and the way we treat that first group uh it sends a signal to that larger group of people as to uh you know the the level of trust that they have in government and if they see people whose deeply held beliefs are being violated by the coercive powers of government and that sends the wrong message thank you assemblyman just to clarify would you prevent local governments from imposing their own restrictions well my view is that the power to do that stems from the state of emergency which i would terminate and so that wouldn't be necessary thank you all right our next question is about masks in schools um do you support mask mandates for california schools and if not would you allow districts to mandate masks at the local level mr mayor we'll start with you yeah i believe that's a decision absolutely should be made at the local level again you're sensing a theme i think tonight which is we cannot have a top-down policy because the facts of the ground are very different uh in virtually all parts of the state um and it certainly is in los angeles which is different than sacramento which is different than san diego i kicked off my campaign in los angeles uh in front of a public school that was closed and i picked that location because right across the street was an open private school the same grade where teachers were safely teaching the kids were safely learning why because that school reported to parents but yet the public school that i was in front of that ultimately reported to gavin newsom was closed that's what i'm talking about we got folks can make the decisions and keep teachers in the classroom safe keep our kids safe and it's not about a statewide mandate you have to allow those choices to be made at the local level and i will support those choices being made at the local level thank you mayor falconer assemblyman kylie well i'm absolutely against a statewide school of mass mandate california is in the minority of states that has that and when you look to other countries like the united kingdom for example they've said we're not going to do a mass mandate for elementary schools because the harms for example to a child's development far outweigh any benefits and those benefits are actually quite uncertain as well and so i would not have that in place and i would you know certainly uh do whatever i could to make sure that this choice was in the hands of parents uh who knows who are the ones who know what is best for their kids i'll say as a final point that ideally we would have a well-developed school choice system in california so that you know if you wanted to send your child to a school where masks were required then you could and if you wanted them to send them to a mask at optional school then you could but we have a special interest in california that gives more money to this governor than anyone uh the california teachers association that has fought tooth and nail against the creation of any sort of meaningful school choice system in california so at the end of the day if you want to avoid these sorts of of conflicts then you know we should be moving towards giving more power and putting more power in the hands of parents assemblyman to be clear would you allow districts to mandate masks at the local level i think that my response is similar to the last question i think that authority stems from the state of emergency so it's not clear to me that they would have the authority to impose those without there being a state of emergency declared thank you mr cox will go to you next yeah i would agree that the mass mandate is not the right way to go uh ireland also did a study and found that the mass didn't help at all uh and frankly i think there's some damage associated with this our children are already scared enough about this uh we more children die to the flu than have died of covid and we never required mass when we had the flu but i think this also goes and i'll second what mr kiley said and that is uh this wouldn't be the case if we had total school choice we had to give the 15 000 that we're spending for each child and give it to the parents the parents found out during this pandemic how little control they have of their own kids education gavin newsom had plenty of choice about where his kids went to school and in point of fact his kids did go to school in front of a teacher but he hypocritically along with all the other politicians said no parents can't choose a school for their children well you know what one of my first roles as governor is to lead the people of this state the parents to demand the choice of their own school a competitive school a quality school where they have the choice of whether they're going to have a mask or not mr cox can you say yes or no whether you would allow districts to mandate masks i i would i would venture to guess that i would say would be local control again i would argue for local control each instance thank you all right well let's move on to our second topic housing and homelessness we'll be asking assembly member kiley to respond first as of january 2020 that's before the pandemic an estimated 150 000 people were unhoused in california affordable housing is just one piece each of you have detailed plans to address housing and homelessness but accomplishing those plans will take cooperation with a democrat majority state legislature as governor how will you work with democrats to take your plans from an idea to a reality with roughly a year until reelection assembly member kylie your time starts now i'd say first that i have you know worked where i can and tried to build uh bridges where i can and have authored bipartisan legislation that has passed our legislature on a variety of topics but it's true that as one member of the legislature i certainly haven't been able to create the kind of fundamental change we need on issues like housing and homelessness and the legislature and the governor have refused to act in any meaningful way in fact the situation has only continued to get worse in spite of massively higher spending so to your question in particular as to how do you work with the legislature what i know about our legislature having spent five years there is that the one thing that our state's legislators respond to is political pressure and this recall is going to create political pressure like they have never seen you know their one fear is losing their job so when they see the governor has just lost his job with another election around the corner then you know there will be a choice work with me to actually address the fundamental challenges and the fundamental call for change that the recall is about or face the same fate as gavin newsom in next year's election mr cox yeah this is another area these two crises are really affecting this state uh and it's the politicians and the media personalities that we've elected and it's about time we had a businessman that would go right to the cause of the problem the cause of the problem is government government regulations the lawsuits the delays all the mandates those have to be curtailed the first day i'm in office i call a special session of the legislature i bring them all in and i present a package of detailed reforms that get to the cause of the problem same thing with homelessness the cause of the problem is the cost of building which by the way happens to be the business i'm in i build and manage multi-family housing but it's also the result of years of neglect we have got to get people treated over half of the people that are living on the street are there because they're either addicted or because they're mentally ill we are doing no good just putting them in a hotel room or buying hotels what we need to do is get them treatment britney spears didn't need a conservator the people living on the street deserve a conservator to make sure they get the treatment they get the job trained and they get a chance to live a love wonderful protect productive life mayor falconer now i appreciate the question homelessness is not a partisan issue it's a moral issue and letting someone live outdoors in an unsafe unclean unsanitary environment means they're going to die in that environment we're better than that i completely changed how we did things in san diego i did not allow tech encampments on the sidewalk why because we care about people we care about people enough not to let you die out there on their streets set up a series of shelter networks i picked the locations myself provided all the wrap around services with our providers across san diego and the county we helped people get back on their feet and by the way all the changes that we made to answer your question on the legislature i did super majority democrat city council the city of san diego it's about doing what's right and when you phrase things in terms of common sense in terms of helping people and people see the actual results then you gain that support that's the approach i took as mayor that's the approach i'm going to take as governor because this issue cries out for real leadership and you can have you can say you know throw all the money in the world at it but if you don't have the political will make a difference on the streets it's not going to change thank you you have all said that you would address homelessness better than governor newsom has but can you explain how your homelessness plans differ from the other candidates you're debating here tonight mr cox we'll start with you well again i'm i'm talking about going right to the crux of the problem and that is the cost of building the politicians keep handing out subsidies and that doesn't do any good if the cost to build is 500 600 000 as a unit all the subsidies in the world are not going to make that affordable i build for 100 125 000 a unit in indiana that's where my business is located and and indiana's care every bit as much about the environment and traffic and all the man you know all the protections that californians do but the politicians keep enacting all these limitations all these mandates all these hurdles to construction i can get approvals in six to 12 months here it takes 12 years we need to solve the housing crisis that's a major part of the homelessness problem and again the politicians have continued to buy hotels and hotel rooms paying outrageous amounts for the taxpayers i'm a cpa i'm going to make sure that we use our money wisely and efficiently and productively thank you mayor faulconer we'll go to you now i have a fundamental belief that every human being has a right to shelter and i also believe that when we provide that shelter you have an obligation to use it i enforce that obligation as mayor of san diego that was a sea change i'm going to take that exact same approach as governor and again lead by example and lead by example on state property it was what we did in san diego that allowed us to provide that network to give people that help and the support that allowed us to reduce unsheltered population by double digits while it was exploding unfortunately everywhere else in california so it's that real world experience uh hard earned from the not doing what was always done in the past and about doing as i said taking the risk but also with one goal in mind how are we going to help people because if you keep doing the same thing over and over you're going to see what we see right as you get off the freeway to get into this theater tonight 10 encampments an unsafe unclean unsanitary environment we're better than that as californians i will leave the change as governor thank you assemblyman kylie now to you so it needs to be understood that homelessness keeps going up in california even though that's not the case in the rest of the country and in fact our unsheltered homeless population is now nine times larger than the next closest state and gavin newsom has stood in the way of reversing this trajectory as a member of the legislature i proposed a full audit of all homelessness spending in california to see what difference is actually making what programs are working which are not the governor's administration testified against it pressured a few members of the assembly and the audit fell one vote short of getting approved and then a bill by a democrat legislator that i co-authored that would have provided a more modest measure of accountability passed the legislature unanimously but was vetoed by the governor this governor's own mental health czar has said that homelessness in california is not a money problem it's a leadership problem and so what we need is new leadership we're spending 12 billion dollars more just this year but it's not going to make a difference according to our own nonpartisan legislative analyst unless there's a new strategy they said the money will quickly dissipate so i'd bring a new strategy and i'd bring new leadership i'd make sure that there is a place for every person to go some roof over their head and then i connect them with the needed services substance abuse treatment mental health counseling and so forth thank you many of you have said that you want to modify the california environmental quality act sequa more than governor newsom has done how would you get that through the democratic legislature and what else would you do to speed the pace of housing construction mayor faulconer your time starts now yeah it's unfortunate the bureaucracy involved in that is used as a weapon to stop good quality housing projects from actually happening in california i would note with interest actually governor brown made that a big focus that he wanted to change that need is absolutely real we took an approach in san diego called complete communities which had to do with city-wide city-wide environmental impact report but i did it because i wanted to go so you can make it actually easier faster and more efficient to actually construct the units the californians need and we did that now we can do that in terms of getting a permit over the counter we made those decisions we had that community conversation but we shouldn't have had to do over a year that it took to do that it needs to be streamlined we need to make it easier so we can actually construct the housing where we want it which is along our transit corridors that's where you want the density not in single family neighborhoods thank you mr mayor assemblyman kylie will go to you in you know in other states it can take weeks and thousands of dollars to get projects off the ground that here takes years and millions of dollars and the result is that the american dream is falling apart in california two-thirds of our residents now say the kids growing up in california today will be worse off than their parents and last year for the first time in california's 170 year history our population declined the cost of living is the biggest component of that and housing is the biggest component of our highest in the nation cost of living there are very simple steps that we could take to improve the situation certainly reforming sequa is one of them but there are other steps as well for example permitting fees which are twice as high as any other state in the country which are three to five times higher than they are in nevada and removing all of the other barriers that exist to getting these needed projects off the ground the fact is gavin newsom promised a marshall plan for housing but has delivered nothing of the sort as a matter of fact he's only delivered one-fifth of the new units that he promised thank you assemblyman well governor newsom has been an abject failure on this he came into office promising three and a half million homes in the next 10 years or something like that and he's way woefully short again it comes down to reducing the cost of building if the only building you can do is 500 000 a unit it's going to be luxury housing it's not going to price out anybody in terms of affordability we have people in the state now who are paying 50 60 of their incomes for housing they're living with two or three families in a housing unit this is not the way to live what we've got to do is reduce the cost and that means we've got to exempt housing from the sequel law i tell you what the politicians did a great job exempting sports stadiums and other things from sql or amending sql for those they'll have to do with this too and if they don't do it i'm going to do what a seliman kylie suggested and that is political pressure i'm going to pick out a whole bunch of districts i'm going to go recruit candidates raise money and we're going to elect people who will do the right thing there's no reason why it should take 12 years to build a home in cal in california when it takes 6 to 12 months to get approvals in other states that's got to end and it will when i'm the governor of the state you're listening to a debate with california gubernatorial recall candidates john cox kevin falconer and kevin kiley i'm your host and moderator vicki gonzalez with cap radio in sacramento this debate is happening as wildfires are burning across northern california and this will be our next area of focus so far this year these fires are outpacing 2020 and both the number of blazes and acres burned and 2020 was a historic year in terms of acreage the length of the wildfire season has extended 75 days according to cal fire heat waves and reduced snowpack are contributing to more intense seasons before we get to how you would respond to wildfires and drought as governor what role do you believe human-caused climate change plays assembly member kiley you answer first well i mean the expert consensus is certainly that you know climactic climate conditions are a contributing factor but by no means the primary cause of these catastrophic wildfires that we're seeing which is uh stems primarily from the condition of our forests you know we have 20 million acres of overgrown forest by some estimates in california and if we just put our focus on properly managing them then we wouldn't be having these catastrophic events with the regularity that we do now to take one example the creek fire last year which ravaged large parts of madera and fresno spared the forest around shaver lake because that forest had been properly managed there was strategic removal of trees there were prescribed burns if we if we uh manage the rest of our state's forests like we did there we wouldn't be having these catastrophic events and nightmares year after year and the cause of this is no great mystery you know uh in 1990 we were logging companies were taking out five billion board feet of timber from our forest by the end of that decade it was down to two billion we have decimated our forestry industry by making it uh cost prohibitive to get a forest a timber forest plan approve or approved you have to get four different regulatory approvals it will take four years 800 pages of analysis and our forests are burning as a result thank you mr cox this is not a political issue these are management issues and that's what we need to attack these absolutely right assemblymen we have to gotta revive the timber industry in this state we've got to have a better response we have to have an air force that's going to apply overwhelming force to these fires we've got to build more storage so that we have more water to be able to fight these fires as well as provide the water that we need to drink as well as for our farming industry these are management issues and the trouble is that we've elected a whole bunch of politicians and a whole bunch of media personalities who aren't interested in managing and getting to the root cause of these problems they're interested in treating the symptoms yes the world has way too much global pollution we ought to be developing our natural gas industry and shipping liquefied natural gas to china and india because they're the ones that are causing the global pollution that's contributing to climate change california has done a lot to address climate change and pollution but we ought to develop a natural gas industry that reduces the demand for coal in china and india that would go a long way mayor falconer the climate is changing in california i would hope we would could all agree on that but what we see the governor doing is talking about climate change and he's not taking any action i mean the fact of the matter is in cap radio talked about this we have a governor who actually cut funding from wildfire preparedness in the cal fire budget last year we had a governor that came out and misled the public on the number of acres that have been treated lives are at stake that's how important that this is i've said very clearly we need to put our state on a war footing we use that term a war footing when it comes to wildfire prevention we have to absolutely do the brush management and the fuel reduction and to cut the bureaucracy and do it by a state of emergency if necessary to actually treat those acres to reduce that fuel as i said to do the fire breaks the emergency exits that have been on the books for so long but yet all we get is excuse after excuse as to why it doesn't happen i will take a dramatically different approach from day one and actually talk about action not just change for our next question we're going to start with uh john cox over 2.7 million californians live in very high wildfire hazard zones in light of the state's housing shortage would you take any steps to prevent further development in those hazard zones which are largely rural areas mr cox no i what i would do is i would apply a better forest management uh california only builds on about i think it's eight percent of available land uh we've got tons of land that people can build on uh certainly the wildfire uh residential interface you know has to be uh respected but we ought to have a decent response to these fires technology is a key uh we have satellites that circle the earth every single minute and we can identify a fire when it happens there's never been a time when there's more airplanes sitting on the ground not being utilized instead of spending four million dollars a day on a train to nowhere that three people are gonna ride what we ought to be doing is spending money on airplanes that are fitted with tanks that would be able to apply overwhelming force to these fires prevent them from becoming infernos at the same time we have to do the forest management and mr newsome has lied about the extent of his forest management and we also have to revive the timber industry because they helped us by cleaning the forests and building roads and doing the things that were necessary to prevent uh tinder building up thank you mr cox mayor falconer we'll go to you next i think i believe there's a lot of things we we can and should be doing including enforcing defensible spaces as i said part of my plan on wildfire management is to actually provide a tax credit for home hardening to ensure that we're doing that a lot more faster a lot faster than we're doing right now in california we have to provide homeowners that incentive to actually do that and i think when we do that along with the things that i just spoke about in terms of the fuel reduction in terms of the brush management and in terms of actually removing the regulations that prevent all of those things from happening right now you know if you keep doing the same thing over and over every year and don't actually change anything how do you expect us to actually get a handle on this from from wildfires and yet just like the drought where the governor comes out and gives a lot of rhetoric and word salad but no actions it's time for actions in california it's time to get out there it's time to reduce fuels it's time to do brush management it's trying to provide that incentive for home hard and neat and actually make it happen assemblyman kylie would you take any steps to prevent further development and wildfire hazard zones well i agree with john there's plenty of places to build and you know if you are building an area where there are some inherent risks that it gets you know priced into the uh factored into the price of the home and people know what they're getting into it's an entirely different scenario for people right now who are living in areas where there wasn't necessarily a risk when they bought the house but because of the state's negligence now they're seeing their fire insurance rates skyrocket or their coverage just get dropped altogether and a lot of people you know have to go to this fair plan which costs a ton of money or try to get you know from lloyds of london or some of these other sources and it's making their houses unsaleable so we need to do something i believe it should be in the form of some form of tax relief in order to help folks who have been caught up in this at the end of the day though as as we've as my colleagues have been talking about the solution is this just needs to be a higher priority on the part of the state the trade-off that john mentioned with high-speed rail is a very real one we have this big carbon reduction fund that's generated through cap and trade and the biggest line in there is high-speed rail funding the biggest line item should be proper forest management so that we're not just you know talking about doing that as gavin newsom has but actually prioritizing the 35 projects he's been talking about as well as the 500 prescribed burn projects that cal fire has on its books thank you assemblyman for our next question what would you do to protect air quality across the state mayor faulconer we'll start with you well um i'm going to jump into the topic we just talked about when you don't do the fire fuel reduction in forest management guess what we have some of the worst air quality right now tonight from these raging fires they're putting carbon into the atmosphere at record levels that's huge so it's only the right thing to do from a lives and property standpoint fighting fires is the right thing to do preventing them from happening is the right thing to do for for our environment uh one of the things that i was proud of is mayor we took a lot of time on this past bipartisan support democrat republican san diego climate action plan which really put that focus on building housing as i said next to our transit zones so we can get more cars off the road and providing those incentives to make it easier faster and better to do that the work we did in san diego on solar and encouraging that and providing incentives the work we did on water recycling which is incredibly important as i hope we get to the topic of the drought here in a little bit because again we have a governor that talks about it but actually won't move forward on the construction of new reservoirs we have to increase that supply i will as governor thank you assemblyman kylie well i would agree that the fires are the biggest source of unclean air i mean when you look at all of the emissions that we saved through california's various policy interventions in 2017 nine times more emissions came about uh from the fires than what was saved in 2018 than it was saved in 2017 and so that needs to be the number one priority but when it comes to the broader issue i believe that the future is clean energy but california's state policy has been one of ushering us into that future in the most ham-handed of ways by putting on regulations on what are still our primary sources of energy in a way that has increased the cost that we pay more for per kilowatt hour of energy than any other state in the country it's a big part of the cost of living and why we have the highest level of poverty here in california but what's more when it comes to renewables the state has been picking winners and losers so hydro doesn't count nuclear doesn't count even though it's emissions free in fact we're winding down the one operational nuclear power plant we had in diablo canyon so i would take an all-of-the-above approach i would draw from all of the uh sources of energy that we have at our disposal and i would also invest in future technologies and rather than locking ourselves into existing technologies thank you mr cox again in the most technologically advanced state in the most technical technologically advanced country in the world we're still facing these problems and why because the politicians and the celebrities have just let us down technology will be our saving grace there are new nuclear plants that are being developed smaller ones nuclear fusion is coming very very soon i would not uh idle the diablo canyon nuclear plant we're going to need that we should absolutely be developing our own oil instead of buying it from venezuela or having it shipped over rail or trucks from north dakota and texas and we need to develop natural gas we could have natural gas ports that would develop the lng and ship it over to china and india china and india are building a new coal-fired power plant every single week they're dumping tons and tons of carbon into the atmosphere that comes over here this is a global pollution problem we could develop our natural gas we could ship it over there make it competitive with coal and clean the world's pollution until we are able to develop other sources i drive a tesla i want the air clean here but we have to do this in a transition and we should be able to do that with technology all right our final topic will focus on the economy and unemployment assembly member kiley we're going to start with you california is the fifth largest economy in the world but affordability is a real issue for californians many just feel priced out when it comes to upward mobility and economic opportunity larry elder the leading republican candidate in this race has suggested that california eliminate the minimum wage do you agree and what do you think is a livable wage your time starts now well i i don't agree that we should eliminate the minimum wage and you there is a federal minimum wage that no that california policy makers can't touch um i will say that it's not an especially relevant issue right now because you have mcdonald's paying 22 dollars an hour just to get people to come into work we have so badly managed our unemployment system and the incentives uh that we haven't gotten people the help that they need when they lose their job but now we're putting incentives in place that make it iraq economically irrational to go back to your job so small businesses continue to suffer i will say with respect to the minimum wage in california i do believe that it's way off and it also probably needs to vary a bit more by region where the cost of living is different i do favor some lower base baseline level of minimum wage though even though the economic analysis might not necessarily uh you know dictate that i would say that it's it's a value that we hold as a society that you know there should not be sweatshop conditions uh in any part of our state in any part of our country and so there should be some baseline level that up of minimum wage in order to uphold that value thank you mr cox i sure wish larry were here to defend that position and he should be but listen the cost of living in this state is absolutely outrageous i mean it is the largest single factor pushing people out of the state first of all again the house the cost of housing is outrageously high i've already demonstrated that i know what's being done in california that's different in other states and those things i'll address as the governor of the state but i'm also addressing taxes taxes in this state are outrageously high a family that makes between 55 and 285 000 a year pays at a 9.3 rate i'm a cpa believe me that's higher than that's double what the millionaires in colorado pay the taxes in the state you add in the gas tax the sales taxes all the other taxes people in this state are literally being taxed to death with the cost of housing going into every cost into health care it's in food it's in clothing so is the cost of taxes so i've proposed the largest tax decrease 25 percent 30 billion dollars we're going to reduce the cost of living so that people can actually stay and live an affordable life here thank you mr cox mayor falconer well larry elder should be here to defend his positions but he's not because i think many of those are absolutely indefensible i wonder i was reading some this morning and i wrote it down when he said that women quote no less than men that they are easier to quote manipulate and that he believes that it's okay to discriminate against women including pregnant women in the workplace that's and we ought to call it that all of us on the stage and everybody running for governor and that's not who we are as californians when i think of my mom who went to night school and had a career raised us and kids when i think of my wife catherine to raise our kids who's a successful woman in her own career to all the working mothers out there you're going to have a governor that's going to stand up and support you and know how important that is and as governor i'm going to make sure the california daughters have the same opportunities as california sons that's what i believe all right our next question we're going to start with mr cox some of you like mr cox have suggested tax cuts as deep as 25 percent across the board for california taxpayers what state programs if any would you cut to replace that revenue mr cox you know economic growth matters a lot it matters to everybody who's not in this room by the way because if you're if you're struggling you need a growing economy you need new businesses started you need opportunity reducing the tax burden is what allows businesses to start and to stay in california most small businesses and i run a small businesses are taxed as flow entities like partnerships and llcs and things they're the ones paying this humongous tax rates and they're the ones moving out of california even elon musk moved out of california we have got to reduce the tax rates we cannot afford to keep them where they are i'm a cpa by the way when i'm the governor of this state we're going to practice radical transparency we're not just going to audit one agency we're going to audit every single agency in this government we're going to audit every board and commission to determine if it should stay most of these boards and commissions are sitting places for former politicians who can get a nice salary that's got to end and it will when i'm the governor of the state thank you mayor falconer you've also suggested tax cuts what programs would you cut to uh balance the budget you don't need to cut the programs and what we've seen so our state has a surplus and yes you're exactly right i've proposed the largest middle-class tax cut in california history because our families desperately need it families all walks of life in every part of california we've talked a lot about people are voting with their feet they're leaving they're leaving our state because our state is too expensive if we continue to do nothing if the only solution from sacramento is they want hard-working californians to send more to sacramento we're going to continue to see that exodus i want california families to be able to keep more of their hard-working dollars in their pocket because if we want to be able to as i said keep folks here keep our families employed make a state that's affordable for our kids to be able to be able to stay here to get a job to afford housing we've gotta lower the tax burden and it's not enough that we see when gavin newsom went around giving out 600 checks and saying oh boy isn't that great it's about lasting permanent tax relief in order for us to make a huge difference assemblyman kiley well yes i favor lowering the tax burden and uh you know uh what i think we need to do is improve the quality of government service gavin newsom just signed a 267 billion dollar budget largest in state history it's well over doubled in just the last decade and do you look around and say wow look at these beautiful dams and reservoirs look at these perfectly paved roads look at our sterling public education system of course not everything has continued to get worse and so we have to ask why why in california do we pay the highest gas taxes while driving over the deepest potholes why does education spending continue increasing to the point where in some districts it's 26 000 uh per child yet your child still isn't taught to read in fact there was just a lawsuit filed against the state for failing to change illiteracy why is it that in california we sacrifice the most and we get the least in return the answer is that our state government is broken what has broken it is political corruption that we have special interests and lobbyists that control this governor more than anyone else who have used the budget process and all of the instruments of state power in order to enrich themselves or the people of california have paid the price all right our next question is on the unemployment department we're going to start with mayor faulconer edd has had issues long before newsom and in fact the state has struggled with technology limitations for decades what are some fast solutions you would implement to find immediate improvement in your year on the job mr mayor well the stakes are so high because the problem is so big 30 billion dollars alone this year in fraud 30 billion went out this year many to criminals incarcerated fraudulent because there was no checking and the fact that as we sit here tonight we still have a million californians who cannot get their unemployment checks that's scandalous i've said very clearly i'm going to make fixing the edd our state's top technology fix should be able to actually call and get somebody to answer the phone you should be able to go online and get information in the palm of your hand very similar approach we took in san diego we moved forward with what we called the get it done app so you could actually interact with san diego city government you could report a pothole you'd get information back you could pay all the things that you need to be doing again technology and yet our state is so woefully out of touch you can't even send an employment check and check to see if folks are getting that that aren't supposed to 30 billion dollars in fraud alone as i said the technology is there you have to bring in the folks can actually do it i will make that our number one technology fix assemblyman kylie well gavin newsom cannot be blamed for inheriting a massive and dysfunctional bureaucracy but he certainly can be blamed by failing to do really anything to fix it over the last year and a half despite bipartisan calls for change from the legislature and two audits by the california state auditor to give you one example of how bad the problem with the edd is in joe biden's first weekly video address as president he had as his guest one of my constituents in roseville this woman had written a letter to joe biden saying she'd lost her job because of the lockdowns and had been unable to get her unemployment check from the edd and so what did she do she turned her local assemblyman me and we were actually able to get her check i can't take credit for that personally i have a great team but the fact that joe biden's first weekly video address as president was about me cleaning up gavin newsom's mess tells you a lot about where we are as a state and every single legislator in california can tell you the same thing that's been the number one focus of their office is dealing with just hundreds and hundreds of people who can't get in across the states but millions who can't get their edd checks the fact is with the wealth the technology the human capital that we have at our disposal california should not have to settle for substandard service and we need to bring that into government mr cox yeah uh this is a management issue again i love the politicians coming in and saying we're gonna fix this we're gonna fix this we're gonna fix this but they don't ever get it done you know in my little small business i've replaced my computer systems three times in the last 20 years california is still running cobalt which was in the 70s and 80s a computer language i mean it's just reprehensible that these politicians have not done this and there's a built-in disincentive because they don't want technology they don't want to save money well i do the people of this state work hard for their money i'm a cpa i know what it's like to save money i know what it's like to run things efficiently and productively and that's what needs to get done in this government the politicians have had this opportunity for decades i hope the people of the state and and to quote my friend you know the edd problem they got to just answer the damn phone and get this thing fixed they're not doing it the voters of the state have got to rise up in this recall and demand something better all right well before we end the debate each candidate will have a 60-second closing statement assemblymember kiley let's start with you well thank you very much for the opportunity to be here and i'll say that you know if you're someone who is frustrated with the direction of our state but maybe you're let's say reluctant to cross party lines then the recall is for you you know you're not signing on for four years you're signing on for one year so take a chance on change see if things improve and if not you can always vote to return to the way things were in next year's election but i think that you will see things improve in the quality of your life you know my approach my the guiding principle for my administration will be back to basics pave our roads store our water manage our forests maintain our grid fund our police do the things government is supposed to do do them well and do nothing else and perhaps most importantly return power to local communities and their citizens i happen to believe that we do a lot better when more voices are heard when more people are able to participate and have a say in their community and in the future of our state and i think that's perhaps most of all what this recall is about is renewing the meaning of we the people and so i would ask you to vote yes i'd ask you to consider finding my name on your ballot there are quite a few kevin's so i'd go with the last name kylie k-i-l-e-y and it's kylie for californ california.com if you want to learn more thank you mr cox imagine a california that works for you imagine a california where you can build a house that's affordable because you can do it in a short time frame and you don't have to go through years of litigation and fees and everything imagine a california where you have enough water where you have an abundancy of water where you have an abundance of electricity imagine a california where you don't walk over homeless all over the place imagine a california where we don't waste money on the edd and the dmv and all these agencies that are misrun where where caltrans actually builds roads at a decent cost and and doesn't without potholes imagine a california that doesn't have crime waves and and isn't threatened by wildfires that california can exist but we can't keep doing the same things we can't keep electing career politicians and media celebrities and expect it to change join the other states around the country maryland massachusetts i mentioned them all that have elected business people as their governors and they're popular because they solve problems that's how i built a successful business over 40 years i solved problems and got the job done and delivered results and that's what i'll do for california my name is the shortest name on the ballot now that douglas is not there so cox please thank you thank you mr cox mayor falconer uh thank you thank you for inviting me and thank you um for all of you for caring about the future direction of our great state what we need is a new leadership and a leader who can bring californians together whether you're a democrat whether you're a republican or an independent that's my philosophy and that's how i achieve results in san diego because really it's not about partisanship it's about leadership and if you treat people with dignity and respect even if you disagree you can usually find the solutions that are going to work i think that's what our state needs right now i know our state needs solutions i'm prepared to leave i'm prepared to lead on day one because you're going to have to hit the ground running to make a difference the top issues that we've been speaking about somebody proven leader who can actually reduce homelessness proven leader who's going to stand up and make our neighborhoods safe not do the politically correct thing but do the right thing to ensure safety for all of our families and a governor that understands that our state is too expensive and we have to lower that burden on our families that's what i believe if you believed that as well i'd ask for your help and support and your vote thank you very much and with that we're going to wrap up this california gubernatorial recall debate i'd like to thank all three candidates for joining us kevin falconer kevin kiley and john cox i'd also like to thank my fellow moderators laura cordy and sophia bolag with the sacramento b and the sacramento press club for hosting the debate i'm vicki gonzalez with cap radio in sacramento thanks for joining us [Applause]

2021-08-21 20:46

Other news