A Breath of Fresh Air: For City Council, Back Democrat Gilpin-Hayes Over Republican Largaespada

By Stephen Golub, originally published in the Benicia Herald on October 7, 2024

Images added by BenIndy.

While four candidates are vying for two Benicia City Council slots this November, the key race (for reasons I’ll explain in a subsequent column) is really between Democrat Christina Gilpin-Hayes and Republican Lionel Largaespada. They’re both good, smart people, with backgrounds in business and public service. They both love Benicia.

But they differ in crucial ways, which is why Gilpin-Hayes is by far the better choice.

Energy and Perspective

Gilpin-Hayes is a breath of fresh air with creative ideas on everything from addressing the budgetary crisis that threatens our city services to better community outreach that will keep us updated about vital government deliberations and decisions.

In contrast, Largaespada is on his fourth run for City Council in eight years. The one time he won, in 2018 (before losing again in 2022), he wore the mantle of supposed fiscal responsibility – yet sat on the Council during a crucial period when our budget crisis intensified and went unaddressed.

Endorsements

Moderate Democrat Gilpin-Hayes has endorsements stretching across much of Benicia’s and Solano County’s political spectrums. They include Mayor Steve Young, Vice Mayor Terry Scott, Council Members Kari Birdseye and Tom Campbell, former Mayors Jerry Hayes and Elizabeth Patterson, Solano County Supervisors Monica Brown and Wanda Williams, Supervisor-elect Cassandra James, State Senate candidate Christopher Cabaldon and, last but not least, the Solano County Democratic Party.

To his credit, conservative Republican Largaespada has secured labor endorsements, including from our police and fire unions – though that does not mean those groups or individual members necessarily oppose Gilpin-Hayes. On the other hand, the largest though indirect backing he’s received over the years has come from Texas-based Valero Energy, through political action committees (PACs) that have spent many hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting him and/or attacking his opponents in misleading and mean ways.

Our Budget Crisis and Credibility

Along with Mayor Young, other Council members and other leading Benicians across the political spectrum who have made courageous decisions to back steps to balance our budget, Gilpin-Hayes supports Ballot Measures F, G and H, which will help repair our decaying roads and more generally shore up the City’s finances.

She also favors revenue-enhancing initiatives that will increase Benicia’s appeal as a place to visit and spend money and to make it easier to do business here, without sacrificing our community’s charming, small-town character.

Largaespada agrees that Benicia needs to be more business-friendly. But he opposes the three tax-oriented measures without proposing effective alternatives for maintaining our police, fire, parks, public works and other services. Instead, he promises apparently illusory savings: e.g., from the $9 million of spending that the City currently contracts out annually. In doing so, he overlooks the fact that such contracted-out expenditures could be even more burdensome if they instead involved hiring additional City personnel, in view of City employees’ benefits, pensions and other accompanying costs. In this and other instances, he seems to juggle budget categories without providing sound solutions.

What’s more, such services are by and large for crucial public works and public safety needs, ranging from protecting our water supply to employing the license plate readers that have helped keep Benicia safe. We can’t simply cut them.

One has to wonder, again, where was fiscal conservative Largaespada when he served on the Council in 2018-22 as our current fiscal crisis overtook the City, and why his return to the Council would prove more effective this time around.

Public Safety and Health

Gilpin-Hayes takes a responsible position in backing full funding and support for Benicia’s Police and Fire Departments. She favors a strong industrial safety ordinance (ISO), while also taking account of Valero’s financial and other contributions to the community and what she feels are at least a couple of legitimate concerns it raises about a draft ISO prepared by a Council subcommittee.

I do not trust Valero and I feel that Vice Mayor Scott and Council Member Birdseye have done a fine job in spearheading that draft, which among other things could prevent Valero from again pouring tremendous toxic emissions into our air for at least 15 years without informing us – as it finally was forced to do in 2022. But I also respect Gilpin-Hayes’ position in staking out (along with Mayor Young and Council Member Trevor Macenski) a moderate middle ground that hopefully will still yield a strong ordinance.

Contrast this with Valero’s indirect but massive and often misleading campaign backing for Largaespada over the years, and what this might portend for future industrial safety-and-health challenges. Consider too his unfounded suggestion that the proposed ISO would duplicate the work of a rather toothless Solano County agency.

I’m not questioning his integrity at all here; but I am wondering about why the Texas-based oil giant has chosen to make such a political investment in him. Maybe it has something to do with his supporting its extremely dangerous but fortunately unsuccessful crude-by-rail project several years ago or potentially aligning with the corporation on other hazardous initiatives down the line.

I’m also concerned about whether our Police and Fire Departments, which consume a large chunk of Benicia’s budget, could continue to function well despite the inevitable City cutbacks that Largaespada’s opposition to additional revenues entails. I’ll equally admit to uneasiness about his stance opposing a mask mandate back when Covid raged, as well as his apparently solicitous stance toward the Solano County public health director, whose questionable advice at the time starkly contrasted with that of most other public health authorities, including throughout the Bay Area.

Finally, let’s note Gilpin-Hayes’ dedicated, longstanding involvement with rescue services for endangered and abandoned dogs. That won’t necessarily make her a City Council star. But as a fellow dog lover, to me it marks her as someone with a big heart.

Christina Gilpin-Hayes has my vote for Benicia City Council.

[Note: I have donated to the Gilpin-Hayes campaign.]

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The BenIndy has also endorsed Christina Gilpin-Hayes for City Council. Learn more about her campaign by clicking the image below and visiting her website.