Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina
Santa Barbara Talks: Buellton Mayor Dave King Talks Disc Golf, Movie Theaters, Highway 246 Traffic
Dave King is running for a re-election as Buellton Mayor in the Nov. 5, 2024 election. King was first elected in 2008 to the City Council. King talks with journalist Josh Molina about his re-election campaign. King shares his plans to build a disc golf course, re-open a movie theater, and explains the plan to open a bowling alley in Buellton. In addition, King, a retired CHP officer, said he wants to bring more CHP officers to Highway 246 to slow down speeding on the highway. King discusses his time as mayor and his plans for re-election. Journalist Josh Molina host Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina and creates dynamic conversations on topics such as housing, business, education, culture and politics. Please subscribe on YouTube and visit www.santabarbaratalks.com to make a financial contribution to support these podcasts. Explore the podcast
- Broadcast on:
- 30 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
>> Welcome to Santa Barbara Talks with Jotz Molina. It's a special built-in addition today, and it's my pleasure to be with built-in mayor Dave King, who I had a chance to meet last year earlier this year. We had a little bit of breakfast over at Mother Hubbard and built-in, and it was so cool. I'm really looking forward to a conversation about your reelection campaign and just sort of talking to you about what is built-in, what's great about built-in, where built-in's been, where it's headed, and sort of just educate the public on where you see built-in fitted-in long-term and going forward. I appreciate your time, Dave. How are you doing today? >> I'm good. How are you? >> I'm great. Yeah. Thanks a lot for making time. You're running for reelection. Mary, it's been a long time. You are built-in in many ways. Retired CHP officer, so talk to me about why you're running for another term as built-in mayor. >> Well, some people know, some people don't that the mayor's position is an elected position now. It used to be a rotating, but it's only a two-year term. I just got elected in '22, and so this is coming up in the end of my two-year term. There's a lot of things I have in the works. We can talk about that as we go, but there's a lot of things that I need to get done, and sometimes when you're dealing with government agencies, it's hard to get things done in a year or two. It takes a lot of years for you to either convince them or negotiate, do traffic studies, et cetera, et cetera, take a long time. I need probably a couple more years to get some things done. >> You've been on the council before you were mayor, right? >> That's correct. >> Let's talk about, let's actually take a step back. What's special about built-in? Many of my viewers, you've driven through built-in, you've stopped for gas in built-in. Obviously, there's a whole community that lives there, and built-in is their home. Talk to me about built-in. What a city is it, how is it built? What is this economy, educate us? Let's start there. >> Well, started out as a very small town. It was part of a service district. Then in 1992, they became a general law city. They incorporated and became a general law city, and it's developed from there. Way back in history, if you want to go back, it was called service town in USA because Avenue of Flags was actually the 101. So when people went from north to south, they actually had to drive through built-in. So there were restaurants and gas stations and service stations that were along Avenue of Flags. Then when they put the actual freeway in, Avenue of Flags was no longer the 101, and this basically became like a bedroom community. A lot of the open land got developed into single-family homes. They were affordable. People could commute to either Santa Maria or down to Santa Barbara, and we basically became known as a bedroom community. Now, there are still obviously restaurants, hotels, gas stations. We got a multitude of gas stations. We have a couple of car dealerships. But it's still a small town. I lived in Los Angeles for a long time, while I was a high patrolman. And if you ran into somebody you knew at the supermarket, in Los Angeles it was a miracle. And one of the jokes that I say about built it is that you can't go and get a loaf of bread or some milk in five minutes because you spent 20 minutes talking to people you know. And that's the kind of community this is. You know, we know so many people. I mean, we just had the barbecue bonanza recently, and hundreds of people showed up for that. And half of these people showed up by actually no person. So, that's really the kind of town built and is. It's a family-friendly kind of a town where, you know, I also use an example of if you're Los Angeles, and you're going to a gas station, you're filling your car up with gas, you know, you don't dare talk to somebody else at a different pump. But you know, here total strangers will just start a conversation with you because they feel safe here. And that's, you know, one of the reasons I am running again for America is I want to keep it that way. Yeah, I used to live in Solvang, mid-2000s. And so, I'm somewhat familiar with the Valley. And, you know, Beelton's got a lot of cool stuff. It's got that, I think it's the Riverview Park, you know, and it's a good community area. I would take my kids there, the playground, the open space there, you know, we were out over there for the, not there, but Nin Beelton for the holiday lights, the Christmas celebration that they do, and that was so fun. And then, of course, after I moved out of there, Beelton's really developed. We have all those stores now. You have The Habit, and you've got Starbucks, and just sort of ballooning, sort of economic development. And, you know, it's a really cool place, you know, it's not just a place to drive through. A lot of people live there, but there's a lot of stuff there, too. And, you know, I used to eat at Allen's, you know, the restaurant there, always a huge line. It seems like there's always a line at every breakfast spot in the valley, you know. And so, yeah, and then I never actually ate a piece of bandersons. They, of course, famously, went on a business recently, you know, a couple of years ago or whatever it was. Talk to me a little bit about your successes on the council, Dave. What are you most proud of? What do you point to when you're talking to voters about why they should keep you in office? Well, there's a lot of things. I mean, going all the way back to, I think it was 2010, when we bought the Zacha Golf Course. That was basically the doors were basically going to shut on the golf course and it was going to turn into a wheat patch. So, we negotiated to buy that. And it's a city-owned golf course. We have an independent contractor running it for us. But that's a service that we provided for the city. Also, Marborg, way back in the day, we contracted with them, we lowered the price of our trash collection, you know, and got better service. Just recently, I got motors. It took me about two years. We had a full-time motorcycle officer, Jose Alvarez. And about four or five years ago, he retired, moved out of state. And it was very difficult for us to try to get one back. But I, you know, was persistent. And I talked to people that I know, my contacts in the eye patrol, my contacts in the Sheriff's Department. You know, I talked to them for a couple of years and finally got them to give us some part-time motorcycle officers. And then, I think next month, we're slated to get a full-time motorcycle traffic officer for the 246. And, you know, we've had a problem with people speeding through there because it's, you know, you've been in the valley. It's so wide that it looks like a freeway. And so people either coming out of Longpoke or going from Solvang to Longpoke, you know, they have a tendency to go pretty fast through the middle of town. So I'm working on that right now. The library project, we were able to do two things with that. Where the old library was, across the street from City Hall, we shut that down. The seniors, you know, Pam Nico needed some extra space for her senior center. So we're opening that up for the seniors to utilize. And then we moved-- we're moving all the library over to the Williamson property that we bought about five years ago, I think. And so there was a house there. So we're converting that house into a showcase brand new library for the city. Then the River Trail was able to ask our assembly member for some funding. If they had some state funding, and I was able to get $425,000 for the River Trail, and that's going to be a trail that's going to start at Riverview Park. And it's going to go all the way-- hopefully, at some point in history, it'll go all the way to the 154. So people don't have to ride their bicycles along the 246. I mean, to me, that's pretty dangerous. I mean, you've got people whizzing by at 60, 65 miles an hour. And you've got this little small shoulder. And we have had some fatalities from bike riders that have been struck by cars. So we're trying to move that River Trail to the north side of the river, and then run all the way along the riverbed, basically, to Solvang for starters. That'll be the first section of it. So people can ride their bikes. And I tell people, would you ride down the 246 with your eight-year-old kid? No. You own a bicycle? No. So we're going to make kind of a safe space for people to walk, to ride, to ride horses down there along the river. So that's something we're moving forward with. I'm also in negotiations with some people for some ballparks down the Williamson property. Now, that's in flood plain, so we can't put a permanent structure. Well, we can't put things like soccer fields, baseball fields, things like that. I've had some conversations with those people, so we're working on that. I'm also talking to some people about disc golf along that same area, river trail down in the-- If I lived in Milton, you'd have my book right there. Right? I mean, let me kind of backtrack a little bit here. I raised my kids here. I moved up here in 2004, so I've been here 20 years. And so one of the things I realized about the valley, and that's the whole valley, is there's not a whole lot for kids to do. There's not a lot of things for recreation, family recreation. We didn't have big ballparks. I mean, we did have a couple of cityparks where kids could go down there and play. But I want to have some kind of a structure that we have, soccer fields, and make them regional soccer fields. So these kids can come from other locations, like travel leagues, soccer leagues, baseball leagues, can come in the built-in, fill up our hotels, and let people eat in our restaurants and really have kind of a regional feel to sports activities. The-- some of the other things that I'm working on is narrowing down the 246, because like I just said, it looks like a freeway. So if we narrow that down a little bit, we'll get people to feel like they're being squeezed into a smaller space and get them to slow down. I've also had a bunch of issues with, you know, people in traffic, crosswalks. I actually stopped one time. There was a lady with a stroller and another lady crossing the street. The yellow lights were flashing. And two cars passed me on the right. Well, I was stopped for these pedestrians. So what I want to do is negotiate with Caltrans to put in red traffic signals on demand for pedestrians. So when you push that button, a red light comes on. You know, everybody knows what that means. So I want to kind of, you know, increase the pedestrian safety on those crosswalks. We have a bowling alley coming in. I just talked to the developers and the investors recently about the bowling alley. So that's coming in. So hopefully, by next year, we'll be breaking ground on that one. I'm also negotiating with the owner of the movie theater to possibly open up a couple of the smaller theaters, you know, and not necessarily the entire theater. But, you know, make it kind of one of those boutiquey movie theaters like some of us have been to. We've had the lounge chairs, you know, and they have food. And, you know, it's really kind of an experience to go to the movies. So I'm talking to them about that. I'm also starting up a program of 1,000 trees in 1,000 days, which we're initially going to put some very large mature trees in our parks for shade because, you know, up here in the valley, you lived here in the valley, it gets a little toasty sometimes. So if we can put some large trees in our parks, you know, people can put out chairs and picnic, you know, and have a cool place to sit in our parks. The other thing I'm really kind of proud of is our city and schools. I don't know if you've heard about this program, but myself, my city manager and the former mayor, we go into the 5th grade classes at Oak Valley School here, and we basically teach civics. You know, we will have what the city council does, what our engineering does, what our planning department does. And so week by week, we go to these classes and we teach these 5th graders, you know, about how a city runs, how a city works. We bring the fire in the police department out. They get to talk to them. They get to look at the fire trucks and the police cars. You know, so I'm really kind of proud of that that we're doing that for our, the kids that live here in the community. - Yeah, that's a lot. I want to circle back on a couple of things. I made my vote comment, you mentioned disc golf where my son and I, you know, we've been to like so many courses around the state. Whenever we find where we go to it and there's, you know, nothing and you got to go to Santa Maria. I think there's something in Longpoke and there's Colina, of course. Where would the disc golf course be? Where is that land? Where is that space? - Well, what we're kind of looking at right now is along the riverbed, you know, we have Riverview Park so you could start that at the far west end of Riverview Park and then we own the property just beyond the fence line. So that fence line goes down the edge of the park itself. And then we own that property, the Williamson property, which is 24 acres, four of them are where the barn in the houses and our new library for that's going to go in. And then we have 20 acres down below. So we can incorporate that disc golf in with the ball fields, you know, so it doesn't conflict with either one of them but you could have, you know, I'm a golfer, you know, I play actual golf and I know there's-- - I'll say actual golf. - Yeah, I know disc golf is just as much golf as golf is. And what I was going to say is you could put in some par threes on some of the shorter areas that we have to go up the hillside and then there's par fives, you know, they're going to be very long. You could run those along the river edge, you know, down to the edge of our property that we have and those would be your par fives and some of your par fours. And so I just recently had a conversation with one of the guys that designed the Chumash disc golf. I don't know if you've been to that one but one of the guys I work with, there's a disc golf out by Kachuma. Sorry, not the Chumash. - Oh yeah, I know the Chum, yeah. - Kachuma and he helped design that one. So we're having conversations now about I had him go down and take a look at that property and say, how would you lay this out, you know? So we're going to collaborate with him and some of the other people that work with him and see if we can make that happen. And I think we can make it happen pretty quickly. I mean, it's not a lot of infrastructure. It's just a matter of putting some concrete settings and then putting the baskets there and then make some little small pads. I don't play disc golf myself, but I guess there's like a concrete pad where you throw your disc from. I guess that's your T-box, right? - Yeah. - Okay, so I think we could do that fairly quickly. - Yeah, well, this golfers are hungry for space, so guarantee you build that, it will be used. But you mentioned a couple other things, the bowling alley, right? That was very controversial. Stop, start, stop, start. You're saying that now it's actually happening or it's gonna happen? - Yeah, and I'm fairly confident that it's gonna happen. I talked to Carol Peterson, which was the initial or original, she had the original idea of making a bowling alley here in Beilton. There were some things that happened. They bought a piece of property, there was a controversy about that, that got pushed back. She bought another piece of property. There was, she had some design changes on it and then COVID hit and then I think finally she just said, I'm done. So we had a group by that piece of property with the entitlements, which means all of the stuff that Carol Peterson had already done, the engineering, the environmental, the design, all that, they bought that. So that I think that they can very quickly now go forward and get that happening. - Yeah, and I like what you're saying about the movie theaters because, community needs a movie theater, it's a place to go and if you go to these places like, we'll go to the movies in Oxnard, 1,000, we'll make a day of it because it's so nice, it's so high quality, you can sit in these nice chairs or the vibrating ones, the debox, where they have the recliners, where they bring you the food and Santa Barbara movie theaters are not really modern at all and so it sounds like you're trying to do something pretty modern there in Beilton if you could pull it off. - Yeah, I've been to a couple of those, obviously not in this area, but down in Orange County, they've got these theaters that have the lounge chair and you can rock it back and just relax and watch a movie. So that's kind of the concept that I have for our movie theater there, but it's gonna take some negotiation. - Yeah, so let's talk about Beilton in terms of how it's changing. You said, a while ago, it was more of a bedroom community and we're seeing a lot more economic development, more recreation opportunities. What is Beilton now? Is it just a place for people to sleep and then go to Santa Maria, Lompo, Galita, Santa Barbara for jobs? What is sort of your outlook? How can Beilton change? I guess it ties back to economic development and housing, but what is sort of the future of Beilton? - Well, I think that we are getting some developments here, you know, many years ago, I was on the committee for Avenue of Flags and for quite a few years, we've been trying to get some stimulation for development on Avenue of Flags. We have a couple of pieces of property right now that were purchased and there are going to be a couple of mixed-use projects there. They're the very beautiful designs. I've seen the renderings of these buildings. They're going to be very, it's art deco, but the art deco that they use for these particular buildings is really, really beautiful. It's a beautiful building. And so we think that's going to stimulate some more development on Avenue of Flags, you know? I mean, once somebody is willing to take the risk coming in and putting a development into an area that needs to be revitalized, you have a tendency to get developers to come in and go, "Oh, look, that's a really nice building." I could buy that piece of property next to it and put in another really nice building there, whether it be apartment mixed-use, apartment complex, or, you know, restaurants or, you know, entertainment center, something like that. That's kind of like what we're stimulating right now. And so I think to your question is that people are not going to feel like they have to go somewhere else to be here in town. You know, if we have nice restaurants in some of these mixed-use buildings, entertainment, you know, like somebody could come in with a Dave and Buster's or something like that, you know? So people could feel like, "I don't have to leave town to take my kids somewhere to have fun." - Right, yeah, that's- - I think it's good, sorry. Well, I was going to say, I think the bowling alley is going to have a lot of that element as well. You know, it's not only, you know, any bowling alley that I've been to always has. Arcade, you know, sometimes out in the parking lot, they have go cards or whatever the thing is. So I think that's also going to be a stimulation for entertainment. - Yeah, it's interesting. You have only two-year terms as mayor, city council. It's hard to get a lot done in two years, right? So I guess that's because it just was recently a newly elected position and that's part of the deal is to test it out. But, you know, I feel like four years gives somebody more time to actually show a record that they can get something done. And after two years, I mean, as you know, you know, you work on these regional boards, SPCAG, et cetera. It takes a long time to move government, right? And to be measured and judged by what you did in a year and a half, essentially, by the time you have to start running again is tough, you know? - For sure. - So, go ahead, Josh. - Yes, you know, so it's, you're almost like a member of the assembly or the Senate, you're like, you know, or should say Congress, you're running every two years. And so it's tough to do and sort of stand on that. But when were you first elected to the city council? - It was first elected in 2008. You know, it was on council for four years. I didn't get reelected. And then in 2017, I believe, there was an opening, I was re-appointed onto the council, ran again in 2018, and then I've been on council ever since. - Okay. - Like I said, two years ago, almost two years ago, I was elected mayor. - So let's talk a little bit about your story, your backstory. You said you were a CHP officer, you retired. It sounds like you worked mostly in Los Angeles and then somehow found Bielton. So can you talk to me about your career and how you got started in law enforcement and what brought you to Bielton? - Well, I grew up in San Bernardino, back when it was all orange girls, back in the 60s and 70s. Joined the Navy, went to San Diego on boot camp, was an electronic warfare technician, went to Pensacola, Florida for a year for electronics. And then I got shipped out to Japan and I was on a midway, which is, you may well know that it's a museum now down in San Diego, if that doesn't make me feel old. And that, basically travel all over Asia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, we went down into Africa, Australia, just basically joined the Navy and see the world, and I actually did. When I got out of the Navy, went to college and then out of college, I got recruited to the highway patrol, the Highway Patrol Academy was up in Sacramento, went to Sacramento for six months for training, went to Monterey, was my first duty station. And after about a year and a half, I wanted to ride motorcycles. So that's how I got to Los Angeles, because at that time, Monterey didn't have motorcycles. So rode motorcycles in Los Angeles for about 11 years, and then Santa Barbara got motorcycles. And I said, "Whoa, I can be in this overcrowded, Los Angeles, or I can ride motorcycles in Santa Barbara." So I transferred up here, rode motorcycles until the end of my career, 2008. And in 2004 is when I moved up here in the same as Valley. So like I said, I've been here about 20 years in the Valley. And it's, like I said, it's a great place, you know? I mean, it's a friendly place where you don't feel like, you know, if you have a conversation with somebody you don't know while you're in a store that they're gonna go, "Ooh, you're a creep, get away from me." You know, that's kind of the vibe that I had in Los Angeles, you know? You don't really just strike up a conversation with somebody in Los Angeles, you don't know. I mean, but you can do that here in the Valley. - Right. So I'm interested in your career, talk to me about life as a CHP officer. When I intersect with the CHP, it's usually like, damn, you got it, right? You know, it's going too fast. Or, "Ooh, he's not gonna pull me over." You know, like I made, I got by it this time. So what was life like for you? Are you hanging out on the off ramps or the on ramps and waiting for speeders? Or what's your life like as a CHP officer? - Yeah, well, that's a lot of it. You know, we do, obviously, if there's an accident or crash is what we call them. In your area, your beat that you're assigned to, you know, you have to go handle that crash. And realistically, you wear a lot of hats because if somebody gets an accident and it's a major accident, there are injuries and, you know, a lot of people are, you know, they will go into panic mode, you know? So you really have to kind of be the calm in the middle of the storm. I mean, you can't come in and, you know, increase that panic that people have. You have to come in there and really calm everything down, get a fire truck coming out there. If they need extraction, ambulance, if somebody needs to go to the hospital, you know, talk to people, get their statements about what happened. I mean, really, you're basically keeping everybody low key and calm in a situation where otherwise it could be a lot of panic. - Yeah. - So a lot of crashes you're responding to accidents. - Right, and we do ride tickets. I mean, you've been pulled over, right? You know, one of the reasons that, honestly, Josh is why I joined the Hybertrol because when I was a kid before I went off into the Navy, I'd been pulled over a couple of times with a, you know, lead flick and they were always professional and courteous, you know, when they were addressing me, even though I had done something wrong. You know, so that was one of the reasons why I said, hey, you know, those are a bunch of good guys and maybe I can join them. - One of the best parts, you know, of my career was riding motorcycles and being part of what's called protective services, which is motorcades. - Oh, yeah. - And right here in the valley, we had President Biden was here. So they were having motorcades. So people up here got a kind of a taste of what some of the things I used to do when I was an officer. So if we had the president, vice president, you know, dignitary, somebody come into town, we would do motorcades. And that was really part of the, some of the best part of my job was the motorcades. - Yeah. Yeah, you know, I think I'm net, you know, benefit, you know, I've gotten away with more than the CHP has given me. So, you know, I consider that a win. But yeah, if you ever want to see the nicest Josh Molina in the history of the world, it's anytime a cop pulls me over. - Right. - You learn very young, if you just sweet talk them and stir and, you know, you know, depending, you know, if it's a woman or not, just be super polite and grateful, you're much more likely to get off the hook than, you know, and try to engage with them about why they're pulling you over. - Right. - So I think that's just human nature. You know, it's human nature how you interact with somebody. If, you know, why you pull them you over, why don't you pull over that other guy? You know, that's, that's just human nature, you know, you're an officer is also a person. And like, to your point, if you're like, "Hey, I'm really sorry, I'm late for work." You know, and when I saw you, I looked at my speedometer, realized, yeah, I'm going too fast. I mean, if you're going to get a warning, that's the way to get it. - Yeah, my wife's father, he's that little trick where he'd, yeah, so you put a CHP, he'd like friend of the CHP bumper sticker on his car, you know, and so he felt like that was some subconscious, like, you know, let them go. And, you know, he claims, you know, that, you know, it did help him, but he grew up in a small town too. And so, you know, he knew a lot of the CHP officer. So that matters too. And I guess like, you know, it's a little bit like that in Beilton, which is a very, a very small town, but there's no, no substitute for being nice to cops because they have the power of you in that. So let's talk a little bit about the context of this political campaign, right? So you're writing for re-election, you've served on the council for a long time, you're looking for another term as mayor. You've got some young, young, a young challenger, somebody who's new, I've had him on the show. And he's, you know, sort of saying that Beilton is not this stereotypically conservative, demographically older, kind of place, that it's actually a place for a lot of new blood, young people, people who are buying homes, Beilton is built housing, and there's sort of a newer sort of liberal bent to the city. And these are nonpartisan races, but, you know, still is a practical matter. People sometimes vote party lines. Can you talk to me a little bit about the context of this race? Do you feel any pressure from your opponent? Are you bothered that he has only served one term on council and is already challenging you for mayor? What's your take on that political aspect of this re-election campaign? - Well, to be honest with you, Josh, I don't really think it has to do with politics. I mean, when you're on city council and when you're the mayor, I think it's not really partisan. And, you know, like you just mentioned, it's a nonpartisan race. And I don't care what political party you are in, that doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that all the decisions that our council makes, especially decisions that I make that I try to influence, are what's in the best interest of the people that live here. You know, and I've been doing that for quite a few years, is when we're spending money, you're spending the taxpayer money of the people that live in our town. When you're developing something, you're doing that and how does that affect the people that live in town? One of the things that I'm, and if you ask anybody in my staff, I'll tell you that any kind of a project that comes up, I don't want those projects spilling out into the rest of the town. You know, if we have a project, I want to make sure that there's ample parking for that particular project. So you don't have a bunch of cars parked out on the street. And you've probably been to Santa Monica. I worked Santa Monica as one of the areas that I worked when I first came on the Hybertrol. And honestly, I say welcome to Santa Monica, no parking. And that's not the kind of environment that I want here for built-ins, that I'm looking out for the best interest of everybody in town. So it's not a matter of conservative or liberal or whatever the case is, because I'm sure there are people on both sides of the aisle. But that's not what I'm taking, you know, into consideration when making a decision about the town, of how we spend money, how we develop, you know, infrastructure, safety, public safety, you know, lighting, et cetera. I'm going to do that based on what's in the best interest of everybody that lives here. So to me, it's not really any, it's not politics. - Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. Can you comment at all on David Silva? I mean, I covered him at the Labor Day, Democrats' Labor Day picnic. And, you know, he said he wasn't going to talk about his opponent. And, you know, he had this approach of bless this mess was his quote. When I had him on the show, he didn't really, you know, he didn't say anything negative about you at all. He just sort of said that, you know, there's more opportunity for a more liberal, progressive, politically person to serve as mayor. And I guess my question is, do you think, built in, you know, is moving in that direction? Is it interested in having somebody who's more liberal, Democrat, progressive? Or do you feel like you're still more in touch with generally where the populace is, the voter populace? - Well, I don't really get that feel, you know, that it's moving any way conservative in the liberal, you know, or middle of the road, whatever. I just, it's like we talked about earlier. It takes a long time to get things done, you know? And you mentioned the boards, like SB CAG. It took me quite a few meetings to even figure out what SB CAG was about. And you mentioning that a two-year term is kind of difficult. If you know, you're getting a new mayor every two years, then when you get on these boards, like Airplace Control District, I'm on a Coast Rail Committee on, like you said, SB CAG, it takes you a little time to even figure out what you're doing and what they're doing, and then kind of get the backstory of why we're funding this or why we're funding that. So if you only have a two-year term, the next person coming in is behind the curve, just like you were, when you start sitting on those boards, like SB CAG. I don't think that it's really politics, like I mentioned earlier, it's not, it's about what's in the best interest of everybody that lives here. And some of the things I mentioned, things for kids to do, bowling alley, disc golf, regional golf, you know, those, what does that have to do with liberal or conservative? You know, I mean, that's really, that's really, you're doing something for the people that hired you for that job. And that's, and I need a couple more years to get some of those things done. - Yeah, you know, and so much of that small town too, is just like you said, you rented people in the grocery store and it's how you treat somebody as opposed to who you're gonna vote for, for president, kind of a thing, you know, and actually you probably wanna keep those things to yourselves, you're trying to get elected locally 'cause it will just do more harm than good. So I can understand that. So let's talk a little bit of, you mentioned that you grew up in San Bernardino, right? And so what was your childhood like? Were you a jock type, you know, you raised some kids, played sports? What was your upbringing, like your parents, are they conservative, liberal? Talk to me about your childhood in San Bernardino. - You know, middle-class kid had have an older brother, an older sister and a younger sister. You know, we all went to the same elementary school, same high schools and did all that. I did play baseball, my dad was my coach, no, when I was a kid playing baseball, did play football, but then my older brother started racing dirt bikes. So when I was about high school age, you know, I bought one of his hand me down dirt bikes and I started riding dirt bikes and then I got into motorcycle racing as well. Probably one of the reasons I wanted to ride motorcycles in the high patrol 'cause I grew up as a kid racing dirt bikes at some of the local tracks around the San Bernardino area. Not really a jock, it is a sport, but you know, it's not like one of those high school sports where you have motocross track out in the football field. I mean, that would have been kind of cool. But then after that, you know, when I graduated high school, I'm off to the Navy. So, you know, it's basically kind of a typical American, the small town, upbring. - Yeah, so what's your campaign look like as you're knocking on doors or, you know, are you, how are you talking to voters this reelection campaign? Because, you know, on one hand, you know, you've been there, people know you, you have all these connections, you've been on the city council, and you are, you do have a challenger, you know, seemingly a formidable one. So, talk to me about what you're doing to get your message across to voters. - Well, I do have a Facebook page which lists a lot of my accomplishments, you know, and that's going out as an ad. And then, you know, signs are going up, you know, knocking on doors, you know, we all know that the mail-in ballots are going out pretty soon. So, I think basically it's my record, you know, what I've accomplished and what I'm going to accomplish, you know, and it's gonna take me more than November 5th to get a lot of these things over the finish line. So, I think, you know, people want to know that there's somebody in their city government that's doing things for them, you know, and for their kids and for their family, you know, with some of these programs I'm trying to push through like the ball fields and the disc golf and the trees. And, you know, that's, I think, accomplishment is really what people want. I mean, if you're gonna hire somebody to be your mayor, and that's basically what people are doing when they vote, they're hiring someone, what have you done for me and what are you gonna do for me? And I think that's really where people are gonna go out and make their decision on, do I think this guy's gonna get all these things done or not? And so, going forward, you know, let's say you're reelected. The first things you want to focus on are what? These ball fields, these sports, these recreation, you know, what's your plan, you know, the next couple of years? - Yeah, absolutely those things. I mean, one of the big things, and we get a lot of people coming here to City Council and he's talking about speeding on a 246. So, I'm really, really focused on that. I'm talking with the Caltrans, the district five director and his, I guess, co-director if you want to call her. I have a relationship with those guys. We are just finishing up a traffic study, KOA as the engineering department or engineering firm that we hired to do a traffic study. And then once that traffic study is done, we're presenting that to Caltrans. And then in collaboration with Caltrans, we are going to try to narrow down those lanes as I talked about earlier. That's one of the first things on the agenda. The other one is getting a full-time motorcycle officer out there to let people know, "Hey, you're speeding through built-in, "you might get yourself a $350 ticket." So those are some of the things. And like I also mentioned earlier about, you know, recreation. I mean, that's going to be top of the list for these ball parks, you know, for kids to go down and play soccer on the weekends or, you know, have competitions down there. The library is going to be opening soon. I've got to get that, you know, get that over the finish line, the disc golf that I talked about. You know, I'm going to push that forward. So I really want a couple of more years to get the things that I wanted for my kids, for the young families that are here now. You know, and there's a lot of new families that have moved into my neighborhood. You know, the older people have moved out, young families have moved in, they've got kids. You know, so I, if I can get this recreation for the current batch of kids that live here in Beulton, I think that I will have accomplished something. - Yeah, we'll keep that holiday lights festival thing. I think that was super, super awesome. - It's fantastic. Yeah, we're in full support of that. So that's going to be here every year. I also have the cowboy Christmas. I don't know if you know about that, but we have a horse riding stables just to the east of the park. And they decorate it all up with holiday lights. They have horse riding in the arena. You can ride around on a horse and they have the Grinch usually there. Santa Claus is there, you can take pictures. So that's another event that happens here. And we're also going to continue with the fall fest. You know, that's in November. I don't know if you've been to that, but that's a three day event that we have on Avenue of Flags. And we're going to continue to fund that. And if you have an opportunity to come up, it's I think the third week in November, I'm going to have to look that up. But just look for fall fest in Bilton. And that's a really, really great event. - That's great. Just a couple more minutes. One thing I didn't ask you about is housing. As we know, the state is pressuring all local communities to plan for more housing. And I think Bilton's done a good job building housing obviously people live there. We are in the midst of this arena cycle. What is your attitude on housing and building and affordability? I know that's an issue that people care about, particularly well everywhere, really. But what is your take? Are we building on a housing? Should we be more? How do we build more? That's affordable to people who are multimillionaires. - Well, the state's really kind of mandating that we build some projects, some high density low income projects. And I think there's a need for that, Josh. Honestly, the price of apartments has gotten so outrageous recently that it's very difficult for especially young people starting out or people that maybe have a lower paying job. One of those things that I think there is a need for low income housing. But the part of the downside of that is, and I don't want to be Debbie Downer about it, but the state is really not taking into consideration of where some of these projects are going. Like somebody buys a piece of property and then shoe horns a project in there. And as a city, we would say, hey, we would have never built anything there. It's only got one access in and one access out. The state is giving them what they call density bonus, and they're lowering them out of parking spaces that are associated with those projects. And then so what that means is, and I'll give you an example, the project that's going in behind Albertsons, excuse me, that's 89 units. And our standard for parking would be 140 parking spaces. The state gave them a density bonus and they only have to put in 110 parking spaces. Well, if you do the math on that, if you have two people in every one of those apartments, that's almost 180 cars. So you're going to have 60 or 70 cars that are going to have people with cars that are going to have to find some place to park other than on their project. And when we have a planning department and we take into consideration those things. But the unfortunate thing about the state is, the state is mandating and we put these projects in, and then it's like we have to take the brunt of that project. So I think the state maybe should take a little more critical look at it and say, hey, how is this affecting the city that we're making put these projects in? You know what I mean? - Yeah, I mean, that's the big issue is, obviously more housing is better, more housing for middle income people. That's the missing middle. They're the ones who struggle. They don't make enough to buy. They don't make enough to essentially get like a voucher or section eight. And then so the state's trying to do the good thing in theory, but it's not a one-size-fits-all. Every community's different and your community should have its own ability to plan for where things go. Of course, some communities have neglected their housing. So that's why it's sort of this hard effort to say, well, you know, you need to do it. But in North counties, they'll have a lot more housing than the South County, for sure. - Yeah, right. - Annamaría, of course, and Galita too. So it's a tough one. But Dave King, I really appreciate your time and allowing me the opportunity to talk to you about running for mayor re-election and getting a better idea of built-in and your issues and where you stand. I'll give you the last word. You know, you've been pretty comprehensive talking about your issues, but, you know, you can just sign us off here with why people should vote for you. - Well, for starters, let me say thanks for having me on. It's good seeing you again. And realistically, the reason that I need two more years is what we've talked about during this podcast. Is that there are some things that I don't want to fall by the wayside because whenever you change personnel, you know, you're behind the curve on not just the projects, but on the committees and things that I've been on. And so I'm just gonna need about two more years to get some of these things done. And make this a better place for these young families and have places to go and things to do instead of always having to say, hey, let's drive the centemory and let's drive the Galita, let's drive the Santa Barbara to have any kind of entertainment. So that's something I need a couple more years to work on. So I hope that the people that are watching this will realize that, elect me one more time and I'll make these things happen. - Great. Okay, Dave King, thanks a lot for your time. Have a great day and I'll run into you soon. And someday we'll maybe have a breakfast at Mother Hubbard's again. - Yeah, all right, good seeing you. - All right, take care.