Homelessness, business growth top of mind for northwest Modesto Council candidates

Voters in northwest Modesto will choose among the incumbent, a transportation planner and a former councilman in the November election to represent them on the City Council and grapple with such issues as homelessness, housing and economic development.

John Gunderson, 68, served on the council from 2011 to 2015 and this will be his third attempt since then to regain his council seat. He works as a guest teacher. Joel Campos, 34, is a senior regional planner with the San Joaquin Council of Governments, a transportation agency.

Councilwoman Rosa Escutia-Braaton, 56, was elected to the council in November 2020 and is seeking a second term. She and her two challengers are running to represent City Council District 1, which includes Kaiser’s Modesto Medical Center and the Vintage Faire Mall.

Escutia-Braaton

She said she is seeking another term to build on the foundation the City Council has built. Unlike the previous council, she has served on a council whose members have worked well together and treated one another with respect.

She said because of that, the council has restored the public’s trust, which has lead to such accomplishments as establishing the Community Police Review Board and the park ranger program and passing Measure H. The 1% sales tax increase voters approved in November 2022 is expected to bring in about $42 million to the city’s current budget.

The tax has allowed Modesto to shore up its finances and increase spending for public safety, parks, homelessness and other quality-of-life basics.

Escutia-Braaton said she wants Modesto to do more in public safety and homelessness, including expanding the Police Department’s Community Health & Assistance Team, whose civilian outreach specialists work with people who are homeless.

She also advocates Modesto spending more on its Camp2Home program in which it partners with the nonprofit Downtown Streets Team to provide people with a way out of homelessness. As of June, DST has helped more than 300 people since it started in February 2019, including 153 with housing and 82 with jobs.

Escutia-Braaton said she believes Modesto is on the cusp of major accomplishments. That includes the opening of the new downtown courthouse in June 2025 and the city’s discussions with United Soccer League about bringing men’s and women’s professional soccer to Modesto and building a stadium to host the teams, as wells as concerts, festivals and other events.

Advocates say the stadium would serve as a catalyst for restaurants, shopping, housing and other development.

“The city is moving forward,” she said. “This isn’t a matter of if, but when.”

Escutia-Braaton spent 25 years in Sacramento before coming to Modesto in 2011. She said during her time in the state capital, she held a variety of public policy positions, including as director of public relations for the California State Lottery during the administrations of Govs. Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Joel Campos

Campos is a senior regional planner for the San Joaquin Council of Governments and focuses on public transit, sidewalks and bike lanes. He serves on Modesto’s Equity Commission. He also is chairman of the Stanislaus County Republican Party.

Campos said he understands that the City Council is a nonpartisan office and that his job as councilman is to make sure the city fills potholes, paves streets and carries out other basic services.

His priorities includes tackling homelessness, bringing more business and jobs to Modesto and infrastructure. Campos said because of his expertise as a planner, he wants to ensure Modesto does not miss out on grants that will pay for streets, sidewalks, public transit and bike lanes.

Campos said besides developing long-term solutions, the city also needs to focus on quick wins.

For instance, he said the city should be in discussions with the owners of empty storefronts to find out why the properties have not been redeveloped or occupied by new tenants. He said the city should take the same approach when it comes to attracting businesses, such as Chick-fil-A, that residents want in Modesto.

Campos said that by doing this, the city will learn what more it can do to attract business and jobs and the taxes they produce.

He said the city should take the same approach to homelessness by making sure beds are available for people who come off the streets. There are not enough beds to meet the demand at the Modesto Gospel Mission and Salvation Army shelters.

For instance, The Salvation Army has about 160 emergency shelter beds and a daily wait list of 10 to 20 people, according to shelter director Jim Stokes.

“If we don’t want (homeless people) on our streets, then we need to provide them (the shelters) with the resources they need,” Campos said. “Otherwise (homeless people) will be in our neighborhoods.”

He also said the city needs to do more to build consensus in the community when it considers major proposals. He cited the Beckwith-Standiford-Highway 99 interchange as a prime example of where the city has fallen short.

The City Council in April 2023 approved hiring a consultant at cost of $7 million to study traffic patterns, design options and review environmental impacts over 39 months in an effort to remake the busy interchange, which is a gateway to one of the city’s busiest commercial centers, including Vintage Faire Mall.

The proposals the city is considering call for a major transformation, including reconfiguring roads, adding roundabouts and acquiring private property, including more than five acres and several hundred parking spaces from the mall. The details are spelled out on the project’s website, www.beckwith-standiford.com .

Vintage Faire sent a letter to city officials Thursday saying it recognizes the interchange needs to be improved, but what the city is proposing would significantly harm the mall and surrounding shopping centers.

Campos said Modesto awarded a contract, spent money and embarked on a project “without consensus from the major stakeholders in the area. I don’t think the city is doing a good job. The city should not be doing anything in a bubble.”

Escutia-Braaton said she also does not support the proposals but said the city has solicited input from the public, the mall and major property owners affected by the project.

She said the city will gather more input and data as it moves forward and she’s confident the city will come up with a project that protects the mall and other shopping areas while improving the interchange’s traffic flow and safety.

The project is in its early stages and construction could start in 2028, according to a project timeline, but that also would require multiple council approvals.

The Bee backgrounds candidates for elected office and Campos’ showed he pleaded guilty in 2013 to trespassing on an MID canal by Bangs Avenue and wet and reckless driving.

Campos said this is from a late night in December 2012 when he and two friends were drinking along a canal and firing his rifle at a sign in a nearby orchard. He said Modesto police arrested him later that night when he was on his way to get fast food.

He had been charged with felony negligent discharge of a firearm and the misdemeanors of driving while under the influence, having a blood alcohol level of 0.09% and trespassing, according to court records. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail, ordered to pay $1,084 and complete a 12-hour drinking driver program and was placed on three years’ informal probation.

He said he completed all the terms of his sentence except the Sheriff’s Department assigned him to its alternative work program in lieu of going to jail. Campos said he did yardwork at the Public Safety Center for about a couple of weeks.

Campos also has had several speeding tickets, but the last one was about a decade ago.

“I made a mistake,” he said about the December 2012 incident. “I was young and dumb. All I can say is that I would ask that voters take a look at what I’ve done since then.”

He said that includes earning a master’s degree, working as senior regional planner and serving in the California Army National Guard for about a dozen years. Campos holds the rank of first sergeant and his service includes about 10 months in Iraq and Kuwait during 2017 and 2018 as part of Chinook helicopter crew, according to records reviewed by The Bee.

Background checks of Escutia-Braaton and Gunderson show she was cited in 2015 for speeding and he was sued by Citibank in 2014 for $14,578 in credit card debt. Gunderson settled the matter with the bank.

John Gunderson

Gunderson said the primary reason he wants another term on the council is to take on homelessness.

He said Modesto needs to work much more closely with churches and other property owners as well as Stanislaus County and Modesto City Schools to provide tiny or micro homes.

He envisions churches and other property owners providing land for the homes, the county providing services for the people who live in the homes and students in the school district’s building and construction trades program building the homes.

Gunderson said he wants Modesto to duplicate a Eugene, Ore., micro-housing program called Community Supported Shelters .

But he said he’s open to other solutions. Modesto has pursued several initiatives and projects in recent years to reduce homelessness with, at best, mixed results, and the number of people who are homeless has remained about the same.

This year’s annual count of homeless people in Stanislaus County tallied 2,052 men, women and children. Nearly half of the people counted were unsheltered, and nearly 80% live in Modesto.

“I would like to see Modesto be a leader in the statewide need to shelter those who are without,” Gunderson wrote in his Bee candidate questionnaire. “It’s a moral obligation. Keep in mind, not all homeless are addicts or mentally challenged. Regardless, they should be sheltered as well. No, there are the categories of the elderly, those with morbidity, turned out foster youth, battered women, veterans, (and) folks just down on their luck.”

Gunderson said a benefit of getting people off the streets is that Modesto will be more successful in attracting high-end businesses and reaping the benefits that come from having these businesses in the community.