Monterey County Weekly Endorses Alan Haffa for Re-election.

I'm appreciative that the Monterey County Weekly editorial board recognized my work for the city of Monterey by endorsing me. Their endorsement interviews are among the most interesting because unlike most candidates' forums where everyone is asked the same question and has a prescribed amount of time, the Weekly asks follow up questions and asks some questions unique to individual candidates. They asked us about Cal-Am's desal project, the city budget, Covid 19 response, affordable housing, Measure Y--the hotel tax ballot measure, and more.

Here is what the Weekly editors said about me in their endorsement article:

A thoughtful and well informed two-term incumbent, Alan Haffa deserves reelection. Haffa reflects the overall tenor of the current council: deliberative, technocratic and collaborative.

Like many of local electeds, some of Haffa’s most important contributions to the community take place outside the Monterey council chambers. Haffa was a board member of FORA and helped lead the path to that agency’s sunset. He is a member of Central Coast Community Energy’s policy board, representing P.G., Monterey and Carmel, and has helped nudge that organization to better realize its clean energy potential.

It is true that the Fort Ord Reuse Authority board, which oversaw redevelopment of the Former Fort Ord and where I served six years was one of the most contentious and divided boards in the region. I am proud of the work I did to bring the board together so we could resolve critical issues as we had to unwind the organization and prepare for its sunset in June of this year. We needed to allocate assets and liabilities and protect the organization and all the cities from future litigation. We successfully issued bonds for 26 Million that will be used to remove blighted buildings in Marina and Seaside. We also allocated 14 million for Habit Maintenance to the various cities and now each city will be responsible for habitat on their own Fort Ord land. I managed to secure 6 million for South Boundary Road to be improved, which is necessary for Monterey and Del Rey Oaks to develop our Fort Ord land. And collectively, we closed the agency down without any outstanding law suits.

The Central Coast Community Energy board that the Weekly mentioned is another board I have serve on. That new agency provides 100% Carbon Free energy to the residents of Monterey and does so at a discount compared to PG&E, offering all ratepayers a refund at the end of the year. We also are using agency revenue to build the infrastructure needed for a greener economy such as EV charging stations and solar battery storage.

If you want to see all the Weekly's endorsements, click here.