Quality of life is a frequent concern in Redding. Not surprisingly, candidates for Redding City Council are keen to address the issue. NSPR’s Kelly Frost talked to three candidates.
One issue that continues to pop up for candidates is that of homelessness and mental health.
Julie Winter is a nurse practitioner who has lived in Redding since 1989 after receiving a master’s degree from UCLA. She’s past president of the Redding area nurse practitioner alliance and board member of Advance Redding.
"When I look at our city, I see a lot of symptoms,” Winter says. “I see crime, homelessness, substance abuse, mental health.”
Winter says the issues are all interconnected and are an expression of what she called an underlying disease in the community.
“And I see the disease as hopelessness brought about by chronic economic malaise brought about by generational poverty,” she says.
She says the public safety issues are obvious, but more of a symptom. The heart of the problem is the economy.
"Right now we have different groups working on economic development, but they are all kind of doing their own piece of the puzzle,” Winter said. “I don't see an overall strategic plan, I don't see overall goal setting. I come from that medical background where you really have goals, you know what health looks like, you can measure it."
Don Kirk, a 69-yar-old street preacher and self-described arch conservative, nevertheless is pushing for a city sanctioned campground for the homeless. He says the answer to tackling homelessness is less about job creation and more about just making the issue a priority.
"Our former mayor has said that we need to fence in all the parks and the library,” Kirk says. “Instead of spending money on those iron fences they are putting up here and there, we could use that money for shelters and so forth."
Particularly, he says the money could be used for a homeless campground, something he favors. It’s an idea he says he’s received pushback on including form the former mayor and the Good News Rescue Mission.
"When I asked them why they opposed it, they said if a person is in a campground we cannot count them as homeless, and we get our grants by how many people are homeless," he says.
Kirk says instead of looking for more money, the city should use existing funds to build the campground and get help from businesses that have already pledged support. Kirk says it’s a strategy he’d also use on other priorities like road repairs. He says the city is $41 million behind. He’d start prioritizing that and stop building trails, and turn off fountains.
"That’s saving several thousand dollars a month right there with all the fountains we have here in town, maintaining them and everything,” he said. “There are ways we can cut back. We're not going to do all $41 million in one year. We're gonna have to do a half million dollars or a million dollars at a time. We can do it."
He said the city should prioritize tourism and supports moving the Win River Casino adjacent to the freeway.
Dr. Lea Tate, a North State native with a UC Berkeley psychology degree, says what’s really missing in Redding’s discussions and decisions surrounding mental health and homelessness issues is experience in the field.
"I don't think we've had a mental health professional working in the profession year and years,” Tate says. “I have the history of working in Hurricane Katrina in a crisis situation, I have the ER experience, I think it would add a different dimension, and I think it would be helpful.”
After working all over the world. Tate returned to Redding to work at the Department of Veterans Affairs. She worked as the campaign mananger for Brent Weaver in 2014.
Tate, who claims diverse support, is likewise focused on mental health, drug and alcohol abuse and homelessness. She supports a local sales tax increase that she said will help alleviate the problems.
“I really try to get kind of the breadth of who I see, who I talk to and who has buy-in on what I'm talking about regarding mental health, and drug and alcohol, the possibility of a sobering center, all of these things."
More from the five City Council candidates as we get closer to the November election.
