Fremont Councilman Vinnie Bacon will try to unseat Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty in District 1 during the upcoming 2020 elections.
Haggerty, who is on his sixth four-year term on the Board of Supervisors, has run unopposed since 2000 and is welcoming the race.
“I think it’s great, I think that elections are held for a reason and I think that it’s important to give people choices but I am confident in the work that I’ve done,” Haggerty said in an interview. “I work very hard and I think it’s an opportunity to give my message out and highlight some of the things I’ve done over the last 23 years.”
Both men are Democrats and Haggerty is a former Republican who switched parties in 2009.
Haggerty has been on the Board of Supervisors since 1996 and is also an appointed chairman to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) an agency that allocates federal and state funds to transportation projects in the regional area.
“I’ve been very successful at assembling billions of dollars not only in the city of Fremont but in the Tri-Valley also,” said Haggerty.
Bacon has been a Fremont council member since 2012 and his term will come to an end in 2020. He plans to base his campaign on a platform of addressing the job-housing imbalance crisis in the Bay Area, more specifically the Tri-Valley.
“I have a background in city planning, and what we’ve seen a lot of in the Bay Area is the job-housing imbalance,” said Bacon.
Bacon has lived in Fremont for more than 20 years and has earned two master’s degrees in City Planning and Transportation Engineering from University of California, Berkeley. He has worked on numerous projects around the Bay Area, according to the City of Fremont website.
District 1 includes Livermore, Fremont, Dublin, Sunol and other unincorporated areas of Alameda County. Bacon promises to limit what he called the overdevelopment of urban infrastructure to help the problem of traffic congestion and overcrowding in schools.
Bacon also intends to promote the idea that job sites can be spread around the area and not be limited to Silicon Valley, which only touches the base of the traffic congestion problem.
“The good tech jobs that allow you to afford a home in Fremont are typically located in Santa Clara County, the Peninsula or in San Francisco, It’s all very congested, and I think that it is actually a result of bad planning,” said Bacon.
Bacon has pledged not to accept any campaign money from housing developers or Political Action Committees (PAC’s) since his Fremont Councilman campaign back in 2008, something that he sees as a challenge when it comes time to fund his campaign.
“I will be relying on regular people to fund my campaign,” he said. “That does make it very hard but I think I can raise enough to run a viable campaign.”
While Bacon maintains his focus on bringing up transportation issues during his campaign, Haggerty wants to emphasize the work he has done as Chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and as part of other Environmental Agency projects.
“I would put my environmental record up against him (Bacon) or anybody that decides to run,” said Haggerty.
Haggerty said he also plans to address the rising homeless issue in the Tri-Valley area during his campaign.
“I need to solve the homeless issue, a lot of those people have mental health issues, that we really need to get wrap-around services to so we can not only get them back into housing but also help them get a job,” he said.
Recently, the county bought the previously called “The Islander Hotel” in Fremont and turned it into temporary housing for homeless people.
Bacon said the incumbent has enormous advantages over a challenger.
“They can raise more money from people since they already hold that office,” he said.
“They can use the power of their office to influence elected officials and others. There is also a feeling among the political class that you don’t challenge one another as a courtesy.”