Ukiah’s biggest challenges according to city council candidates

This five-part series of Q&As with Ukiah City Council candidates runs Wednesday through Sunday. Each installment presents a key question alongside responses from the seven candidates who responded to the Mendocino Voice. Today’s question:   

What are the two biggest challenges that the city faces in the next four years and what would progress look like? 

Robert Bazzani 

First: maintaining and improving the infrastructure we already have while remaining financially responsible. Progress would mean establishing clear priorities, addressing the most important maintenance needs, and giving residents transparent information about costs, timelines and results. 

Second: building a stronger local economy while addressing housing and homelessness. These issues are connected. We need more opportunities for people to work, earn good wages and build a future here, while also increasing housing opportunities and maintaining safe, livable neighborhoods. 

For me, progress isn’t measured by how many announcements we make or how many projects we approve. 

It’s measured by whether residents see better roads, reliable services, thriving businesses, more housing opportunities, safer public spaces and responsible use of their tax dollars. 

That’s what Community First. Policy Over Politics. means to me. 

John Strangio 

I believe our two biggest challenges are maintaining essential services while remaining financially sustainable and creating economic opportunity and housing for the people who live here. 

Ukiah faces increasing costs for public safety, employees, infrastructure and other essential services. Progress would mean establishing clear priorities, measuring results, controlling unnecessary costs and directing taxpayer dollars toward services residents actually see and use. 

The second challenge is making Ukiah a place where families and businesses can afford to stay and grow. 

Economic development and housing are connected. Businesses need employees, employees need attainable housing, and the City needs a healthy economy to fund public services. 

Progress four years from now would mean more businesses opening than closing, fewer vacant storefronts, measurable housing production, faster and more predictable permitting, improved streets and public spaces, and residents feeling safer in their community. 

I don’t believe every problem is solved by spending more money or creating another program. Sometimes government needs to remove obstacles, establish priorities, work with the private sector and other agencies, and hold itself accountable for measurable results. 

Mari Rodin 

The rising costs of doing business are a major challenge, especially combined with the current decline in sale tax revenues, the City’s biggest source of income. We’ve experienced exponential cost increases in, for example: street projects, fulfilling unfunded mandates; health and other types of insurance; equipment; vehicles; gas, and technical upgrades. We have been successful in offsetting much of these costs via grants and economizing as much as possible. And we are always looking for ways to diversify our revenue streams. We will continue to pursue these efforts. 

The other major challenge I see is overcoming the harmful political divisions that are eroding our community’s ability to resolve critical issues. I’ve seen evidence of partisanship in this campaign, and the city council is not a partisan body. This divisiveness impedes the community’s ability to face its biggest challenges, including water reliability, housing, and economic development. We are a poor county; resources are strained. We cannot afford to be divisive. We need to approach our differences with civility and a focus on practical solutions. This is how I conduct myself now, and it’s the approach I will continue to take as a council member. 

Susan Sher 

Vulnerability of Electrical Grid: Ukiah operates its own electrical utility department but uses PG&E’s high voltage transmission lines. Demand for more air conditioning in the summer adds stress to the electrical grid. The 5-day Public Safety Power Shut Off in 2019 was an inconvenience for some but an emergency for older and medically fragile people. Recent studies have shown that the electrical grid is vulnerable to weather extremes, wildfires and cyber sabotage that could cause indefinite power outages. We need reliable backup power. To address this scenario, I am on an ad hoc committee exploring building a large solar array and battery back-up system. This could store daytime energy for night use and provide emergency outage power. It is also clean sustainable energy unlike fossil fuel generators that add more greenhouse gases to our environment. This would be a very effective solution to safety as well as environmental concerns. 

How Do We Keep Young People in Ukiah? We can all agree that too many young people who grew up in Ukiah leave because they can’t find livable wage jobs and affordable housing. Ukiah is almost all “built out”; there is little vacant land on which to expand. Without enlarging our boundaries, we have limited opportunities for economic growth. That is the reason annexation of County unincorporated land was explored. The County does not seem to have the expertise or inclination to undertake more housing or job opportunities. The City does not have available land on which to do so. Now that some vocal members of the public were successful in halting annexation, I hope we can come together as a community and work to sensibly address these issues. 

Matt Froneberger 

1. Plans under way for the raising of Coyote Dam, NERF project on hold, development of more off river storage, expansion of the recycled water project including storage 2. A reduction of homeless persons by means of existing and new programs, most notably Core 2.0. Citizens able to use public spaces and sidewalks without fear for their safety. Routine evaluations of nonprofits and NGOs that provide homeless services, to determine which programs are working and building upon those successes—what gets measured, gets done. 

Sean White

Ukiah’s two biggest challenges over the next four years are securing our future water supply and addressing homelessness. 

Water. PG&E owns the Potter Valley Project, has been losing $8M a year on it, and is leaving. We can’t force a private company to maintain an asset it doesn’t want, and no qualified successor exists, since keeping the project would mean hundreds of millions in repairs, fish passage, lawsuits, and relicensing. A real solution has been decades in the making: the New Eel-Russian Facility (NERF) would allow seasonal diversions to continue after the dams come out, and modeling shows water is available in every year studied, even the 2021 drought. Storage is the challenge, so we’re pursuing expanded Lake Mendocino and new storage in Potter at the same time. Progress means completing NERF and storage in sync with PG&E’s decommissioning, so we don’t end up high and dry. 

Homelessness. It’s real. But the County runs social services, behavioral health, and the Continuum of Care, not the City. The County receives millions in state funding, yet homelessness rose 22 percent in 2024. That’s a gap in delivery, not dollars. The City can help by fast-tracking supportive housing and coordinating public safety with County services. Progress means better County delivery and less impact on residents and businesses. 

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Juan Orozco did not respond to this, but answered previous questions.

Mia L. Uribe did not respond to requests to participate.