Desis On The Ballot: Nicole Fernandez For San Mateo City Council, District 2

Who is Nicole Fernandez?

Nicole Fernandez is a career public servant running for a seat in the San Mateo city council , District 2.

She was born in San Mateo, the first American born on both sides of her family. “I’m a Pakistani American of Goan descent – so that’s where Fernandez comes from,” says Fernandez.

“My parents are from Karachi. They were born and raised there from the Catholic Christian sort of subset in Karachi, a very vibrant community” continues Fernandez. She remembers a time when “we always had to cross the bay to Fremont to go to the Indian store because there was just nothing here.” Now she loves the fact that there are certainly more people that look like her now than when she was growing up here in the 80s and she is spoiled for choice for Indian groceries in her community.

“My dad is a high school-educated union machinist, and I grew up very middle class in a multi-generational household. My parents and grandparents had to buy a house together to afford something. I grew up in Belmont. I lucked out in a really great community, but no one loves their adopted country like an immigrant,” says Fernandez who grew up with a dad watching CNN all the time, and talking about national politics.

Why she is running for office

Fernandez is one of four girls and the first in her family to go to college. Her father was very glad about the fact that “I get to raise four girls in this country because you guys are going to have the opportunities that we wouldn’t be able to have back home.” Her father did not see America as some perfect utopia but saw it for its benefits. This allowed Fernandez to realize that “to change things and improve things and keep things better for people of color, you have to get involved.”

“You can’t change the systems unless you’re involved in the system. You can’t change anything unless you have a seat at the table. If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re on the menu. Growing up, she found my civic interest in government and realized that this was a job that she could do and was really good at. “I could make a difference in people’s lives, but I also could have had the opportunity to restore people’s faith in government, because I knew that the American government worked if you gave it a chance.”

Fernandez’s parents are still mystified with her career choice but they get her passion for politics. “They know that they’re not going into the fancy home when they get older, but they do definitely know that their daughters are committed to making a difference.” All her siblings have chosen careers in service –  one of her sisters works as an education director for Planned Parenthood, one is a librarian and one works with autistic children. “I think that that’s a success story in some ways.”

Her one minute pitch to voters

In the 20 years of working for state legislators, Fernandez has been able to see from a bird’s eye view the hard work that city council members do. “ And I think I would be a really good one, because I know how the world works . So it’s a little bit of management, it’s a little bit of communication, it’s a little bit of speech writing. It’s a little bit of entangling knots around problems that need to be solved and not a lot of people get to do that. And a big part of it is again, restoring people’s faith in government. We get to show the government works on a daily basis and I think that’s really important.”

Fernandez has worked in local California politics for a long time – in the field with Assemblyman Ruskin and Senator Jerry Hall to now being the District Director for State Senator Josh Becker .

She loves her job because it’s never the same day twice. “I really love what I do. I manage a team of eight people, and we are basically the Senator’s eyes and ears when the Senator is in Sacramento working on policy.”

Senator Becker’s district has a million people. California state senate districts are actually larger than congressional districts which are 875,000 folks.

“We are able to help solve problems with state agencies. We are able to help write policy based on the input we’re getting from different constituents and stakeholder groups. We build relationships with city councils and nonprofit leaders and other stakeholders.”

What challenges does the city of San Mateo face?

“My city of San Mateo has sort of, unfortunately, been in the headlines because of its  dysfunctional council,” admits Fernandez. Some personality conflicts are at play that have really de-centered the needs of the community.  “I believe that when you are elected to serve, you should serve with dignity and integrity, and that hasn’t always been the case, and I’ve had 20 years of doing that, and so I really just want to make sure that we center the residents and the voters in our in our group on the city council.”

“I’m excited about us making San Mateo boring again,” laughs Fernandez. She wants to just concentrate on the things that people care about, like infrastructure and bike safety and paving roads.

“Traffic is a huge issue –  like traffic citations, speeding, pedestrian safety. We just had a woman who unfortunately was killed by a driver last week, and she was in the middle of a crosswalk,” says Fernandez.

If elected her top priorities will be …

Housing

Fernandez’s district is traditionally a working-class district that primarily houses people of color – 43% Latino with many families in a house, “like what I grew up with, where my family and my grandparents lived in a multi-generational house. But sometimes it’s families that aren’t even related to each other. So one of the big issues that I want to make sure that we’re working on is not just building new housing, which seems to be the more controversial side of things but we have to preserve and protect the affordable housing we already have. So we want to make sure that landlords are connected to the nonprofits in our area that will help folks make their homes habitable.”

Additionally, the city has a measure on the ballot in November called Measure T that would allow the city to build higher in the downtown and on the transit corridor. And I’m for that, explains Fernandez “because the way that we build new units and affordable units are denser, smaller units, and I think that’s really key to us meeting our city housing goals.”2

The high cost of living has made it hard for the city staff and public safety officers to live in the area they serve. She wants to make their salaries competitive to help alleviate this issue. The school district is also looking at building workforce housing because they have a lot of vacancies as well.

Youth services

The city of San Mateo has a budget shortfall of about $12 million, explains Fernandez, but believes that there’s more that needs to be done to engage youth in a positive manner.

“A lot of that takes place at our community centers in San Mateo.  The city runs community centers which have not been modernized in a while, and I really think that a big part of us engaging youth is that the youth need to be somewhere that they’re proud to be.”

A non-profit called Alcove opened a youth enrichment center that’s connected to Hillsdale Mall and offers support groups and recreation, and that’s been super cool for the youth.

Fernandez would love to see the city do more to build partnerships where available, make sure that the city has a robust Parks and Rec program, and increase partnerships with the school district to solve this issue.

Aging issues

Fernandez feels lucky to have lived with her grandparents for as long as she did. “I think San Mateo should be a really great place to raise a family, but it should be a really great place to grow older as well.”

San Mateo County is actually getting older, observes Fernandez, faster than any other county in the state of California.  “It’s remarkably older, and a lot of the folks in our county are house-rich and cash-poor, so there are a lot of opportunities for financial abuse.”

Financial abuse is where scammers are trying to “take their money, or doing quick claim deeds, where they sign something and you think that you’re selling, selling your house and get to continue living there, but it doesn’t work out. So there’s a lot of hoodwinking that happens, and I don’t necessarily know that our law enforcement is prepared for that” explains Fernandez.

The fire department at San Mateo also gets multiple calls a week from seniors who fall down, and forget where their keys are because they have memory problems. Fernandez thinks that there’s more that we could be doing to make sure that we have a good safety net for older adults as well.

She is proud of the fact that when she worked at San Mateo County, they earned their age-friendly certification. Often, it’s simple things like “more curb cuts making sure that streets in front of senior homes or senior living are paved and at level, and there are fall prevention workshops that are available and I want to continue that mission,” vows Fernandez.

Climate change

Part of  Fernandez’s district abuts the bay –  on the east side of 10, and during really heavy storms, there’s flooding. “Not only do we have the bay, but we also have lagoons and other creeks and bodies of water –  we haven’t done a great job of dredging those. So when you have a lot of water coming via rain and nowhere for that water to go, especially if city staff are not living in the city and can’t get to the water treatment plant in time, there is a lot of property damage.”

Fernandez is excited to be a part of the flood-free initiative that happened last year. There was a vote last year where homeowners were allowed to choose whether they would pay a little bit in order to put money matching funds to the city and from the federal government to dredge the lagoons and create safe pathways for the water.

Another unique aspect of this community is that it is in a FEMA flood zone because it’s so close to the bay. With climate change, a lot of homeowners had to pay higher premiums and find flood insurance because FEMA mandated it. But because San Mateo has done such great work to protect that area, this requirement has been removed. That’s a win for the community.

Fernandez believes that cities like San Mateo should be partnering with federal, state and other cities to protect the citizens from the effects of climate change.

How she sees her primary role as a Council member

Representation matters – get involved

“Representation is really important to me, ” says Fernandez because the elected officials in the county don’t reflect the population of the community.

The South Asian community has always been the model minority but we’re not a monolith, she continues.  “We are different ethnicities, we have different experiences. We are different levels of immigrants, like documented, undocumented. More of us are intermarrying with other ethnicities. And there’s special considerations that come with that as well.”

Most immigrants don’t want to rock the boat and do not engage in the civic process but Fernandez believes passionately that there’s a place for you .

“What you need to figure out, if you want to get a seat at the table, if you want to change something – figure out your issue, and then figure out how you figure out what your place is there. If you don’t want to be the candidate, you can be a treasurer, you can be a campaign manager. You can be a walker or volunteer. If you don’t want to be part of campaigns, you can be a commissioner or an advisor to a city council member.”

What sets her apart from other candidates?

“I really believe that San Mateo needs experienced leadership, and I have that experience,” explains Fernandez.  As a native of San Mateo County, she has seen it change and has the relationships and knowledge of her city. “If there’s a question, if there’s advocacy that needs to happen, I know that those folks are going to pick up the phone because they know that I’m going to I’m not going to ask for anything that is not the most essential needs of my community.”

“I have four or five city council members in San Mateo supporting me. I have numerous congresspeople, numerous state legislators supporting me” says Fernandez as evidenced by her long endorsement list.

All the hard work that Fernandez has put in for the last 20 years not only in the state legislature but on nonprofit boards and as a commissioner with the city makes her ready for the moment. “ I know that this isn’t going to be easy, and governing is really hard, and it involves making a lot of choices, difficult choices, but I think that I’m the person who’s best prepared to make those choices.”

Bringing her whole desi self to the job

I’m sort of having a desi renaissance right now admits Fernandez.

“For a lot of my time, the only thing I wanted to be was American. My parents just wanted us to be super American” reflected Fernandez to make life as pain-free as possible. And she really loves the fact that we live in a time now where it’s less of a melting pot where you all sort of coagulate together, and it’s more about bringing your whole self into your work or your family or your civic engagement, and she really loves that.

“So I get to be Nicole Fernandez, who is a district director, but I’m also a Pakistani woman and a cat lady and all of these different parts of me that are going to make me a really great council member and make me a really good human being.”

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