The Mayor of America's Most Livable City

Adena Ishii is one of America's youngest mayors—that too, of its most livable city, Berkeley.

While her peers are still figuring out their careers, she's managing a $900 million city budget, trying to solve a housing crisis and fielding calls from politicians asking for endorsements. But the most interesting thing about her? She does not sound like any politician you've ever heard.

Join us for an earnest and optimistic conversation about the lost idea of "public service," Bad Bunny and the Democrats' "fun deficit" problem, whether California is truly a hellhole, and a newly forming millennial vision for what government can still do for people.

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things. 

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Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

My guest today is Adina Ishi. Adina is the mayor of Berkeley, California. She is the youngest mayor of a city of over 100,000 people. And the city that she runs, Berkeley, is consistently ranked the most livable city in America. I wanted to have Mayor Ishii on not just because she is my mayor, but because I've been obsessed recently with this idea of public service. See, public service, or being a public servant, was a virtue that we used to aspire to as young people. It was something we encouraged as a society. But in recent decades, that sort of started to die out. It got replaced with this much more cynical form of political opportunism. People were much more interested in being political influencers in the Senate or in Congress than being actual political public servants. And I started to lose hope for the idea of public service. But in recent months, I found a bit of a return to that old idea of public service. And I find that that return is being led by America's mayors. And Mayor Ishii is an excellent example of this. Mayor Ishii hates being described as a politician because that's not how she sees herself. When you hear her talk, in a second, you'll notice she doesn't sound like any elected official you've ever heard because she doesn't see herself primarily as a politician. She sees herself as a public servant. She is obsessed with the day-to-day lives of the people that live in her city. She's obsessed with how it feels to be in her city, how it feels to interact with her government. Found the conversation really refreshing and very encouraging. I think you will too. With that, I bring you Mayor Adina Ishi. Mayor Ishii, first of all, thank you so much for doing this. Um I cannot imagine how busy you are, so I appreciate you coming out for this. Um I want to start at a very sort of high level. And um I want to start with where you grew up and how your family ended up there. So Agora Hills, um, yeah, how did your how did you come to be there? How did your family come to be there?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yeah, so uh my parents were actually raised both in New York and they moved out to California to be in the film industry. So my mom was an assistant film editor, my dad was a camera assistant, and actually even before that, he was a sound editor. And so the story goes that he walked into her cutting room and started taking her film, and she's like, Excuse me, why are you taking my film? Who are you? And he was like, Oh, like I'm the sound editor. And that's how they met. And as two Asian people in the film industry back then, it was like incredibly rare. So of course everyone was like, You're Asian, you're Asian, you should date. And so, you know, my parents were like, Okay, we have to stay in Southern California, it's near the industry. But my mom had actually always wanted to move back to the Bay Area. Um, her mom had actually grown up in the Bay Area and East Bay. And so um, I don't know, it feels special for me to be in Berkeley.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Well, um, I on that point, just taking a step back, like tell me a little bit about sort of your family's history in America. Cause I think it's um it's very interesting. And I wish it were more unique, right? Because it's it's the story that so many people have. But tell tell me a little bit about.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah. I mean, it's unique actually in that I'm Japanese, Chinese, and Indian. And if you know anything about Asian history, uh, you know that those cultures don't always get along. And so I think that in itself actually is is interesting. Totally. Um, on my mother's side, she's full Japanese, so Japanese American. I'm fourth generation Japanese American. And on my father's side, his father was Japanese American and was a soldier uh in the MIS military intelligence service during World War II. He was stationed in China. And my grandmother, my father's mother, was actually born and raised in Hong Kong and Chinese and India. Um, and they were actually escaping. She and her sisters had dressed as boys to escape Hong Kong, running from Japanese soldiers. And so there she was in China, met this Japanese American man, and you know, fell in love and they got married. And you can imagine her parents being so upset about, you know, the idea that she had married this Japanese-American man when Hong Kong had just experienced really horrible things by Japanese soldiers. And um, it was really very brave, actually, of her to marry this person, to travel to another country. They had to travel by like steamer ship, you know, back in the day. Yeah. Um, I don't know the mechanics of ships. So I can't tell you, but they were on some kind of boat and they they traveled to the United States and um, you know, he brought her back to live in the country. And I really love that, you know, my family is mixed from so far back because I think it's it really has taught me a lot about the importance of understanding different cultures and acceptance, how it's so important that we are celebrating different cultures, because I've experienced so much racism just as a mixed Asian person, where growing up there were people like, oh, why aren't you pure this, or how could you be three things? People used to have more kind of like a gnarly weird word. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and nowadays there are so many young people who are fixed that it's so not a thing, even to say, like, oh, I'm these three things, five things, ten things, you know. So I really love that, especially about the Bay Area too.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Yeah, I I I should clarify also when I when I said uh I wish it was more unique, I I specifically am talking about the experience of um of discrimination and having to give up so much to become American, um, feeling so much pride in it, but also feeling at the same time not included in America, right? Um that I wish were I think everybody has their own sort of deeply specific and like you know beautiful story of getting here, but that experience I find is such a through line through all the immigrant uh experiences, right? Of like you do everything to become American, and America doesn't always seem to um see you as that, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, or more more explicitly reject you, right? The Act on Equal Exclusion Act, you know, the incarceration of Japanese Americans, even what's happening today, um, you know, attacking immigrant population. Yeah, absolutely. I think that is really heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah, it well, I guess I um I was gonna ask this later, but I'm curious about like growing up, given this family history, right? Uh of uh and I have in my notes that uh both sides' grandparents fought in World War II, right? Mm-hmm. And um and at the same time your family faced incarceration by the same country sorry, not incarceration, yeah. Um uh but I guess yeah, incarceration. Um by the same country that your um family was fighting for, right? So how did that sort of hint to your feeling of being Californian, being American? Like yeah, how did you feel was that part of your identity at all growing up?

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Oh yeah, I I you know, I I feel so I I really grew up felt so conflicted about it. You know, always so proud to be American in that we have so many rights and privileges here that I am really proud of that they don't have in other countries, and I really don't take that for granted. And of course, being really disgusted and continuously disappointed by our government that continues to be racist and discriminatory against people of color. And um, you know, just the history of the founding of our country is so problematic. I mean, every Fourth of July, I kind of vacillate, honestly, I have this experience of like so proud of like what our country can stand for and what we can do and the work that we're we're trying to do right now in in saving our democracy, and also just so frustrated and and upset. And I think many people kind of experience this. I think being Japanese American in particular, have tried to spend more time learning about what my grandfathers were kind of thinking back then when they decided to serve their country because I they never talked about it when they were alive. Both of my grandparents, actually, all of my grandparents are deceased. And um, you know, my grandfather on my mother's side, he was a medic in the 442nd, which is, I think it's the like most highly decorated battalion um for its size. Um, there are so many amazing stories about the 442nd. And I know that like my grandfather really wanted to prove he was an American. And similarly for the other grandfather, I was able to actually find letters that he had written um, you know, questioning why he was rejected from the army in the first place, you know, questioning this phrase that they were using, that he was an enemy alien. Um, and just how heartbreaking that is to read these kind of letters of him trying so hard to serve his country when I I never really saw you know my father's father as uh as like a patriot necessarily. Um, but reading these letters and looking through, you know, just what he did during the during those times, it was it was really kind of surprising to me.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Yeah. Um that's very powerful. I my own little window into it is, you know, I I immigrate uh myself. My my parents uh still live in India. And um I am truly, having spoken to a lot of people about this, I am as patriotic towards America as honestly anyone I've ever met. Um but there is this tension that sort of always and I'm sorry, but not only am I patriotic, I feel a deep sense of service towards America. Um but a genuine conflict that lives within me is you know, how much does your membership in a group uh depend on uh the other members of the group seeing you as part of it, right? Um and I think the the thing that I am kind of like come to, and I don't know if this is his cope as the the young ones call it now, but it feels like America is both things, right? America is both the thing being criticized and the one um criticizing it, right? And then and and the the rights of the person, the getting to criticize it. And I think like in that tension I I find my own sort of American identity is that like, yes, it is, it does have a Bellingham riots for Indian people. We've never talked about, but you know, this is and you can just kind of go on and on, like pogotsing tin. There's like a long history, it's a difficult history for Indians, just like every other group in America. And that is true and cannot be glossed over, um, no matter how hard we try. But at the same time, it is also the people that struggled against that, right? It is, and somewhere in the middle is what America is. Like it is both the thing being criticized and the person that gets to criticize it, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

I think it's always so important that we acknowledge the history of the past and we talk about how we want to change things and do things differently in the future. Yeah. You we need to be able to hold both of those things together. I think to me, that is what America is, right? Yeah. Like you said, it's all the all the things, you know, we need to be able to hold all of it. And something you said that that stuck with me is like, you know, how we're accepted by the other people. And I think that a lot of times people think of the others, they're always thinking of white people. Yeah. And so what's important to remember also is we are the other people too, right? Yeah. And so I think the more that um we have this sense of identity of being a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society, country, um, the more we can feel ownership over, we get to decide who belongs. Yeah. And we get to decide that that message of like, we are Americans. We are all Americans. And it's it's just about like who controls this narrative of like what America is to do. I think we have to be careful about that because I think a lot of people, for instance, have seen patriotism, they connect it with Trumpism. And I don't think that that's right. We need to sort of reclaim patriotism of what we think patriotism should look like.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

I my favorite article of clothing in my wardrobe is a sweater with the American flag on it, which I it's not the Ralph Lauren one in case everyone's like it's the $20 gap one. There's not a teddy bear on it. No, there's no teddy bear on it. It was I bought it the gap outlet in Livermore. Uh, but I love wearing it, and it was an odd thing to wear in like right after the election, because in San Francisco, because a lot of people um will assume your politics based off of it. But I feel like no, you need to especially um especially if you don't agree with what's going on. You we can't surrender the idea of America to the people we disagree with. Um, but I want to actually pull this way, way, way, way back. We got uh um I I I wanna I want to bring this back to to your specific household. Sure. You're growing up in Agora Hills. Um tell me tell me about your dad, and tell me especially sort of the the story of your early childhood, how uh he gets diagnosed with uh early onset dementia, and like how did that I I guess this at like a very tactical level, like how did that sort of affect the logistics and sort of the mood of your household?

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Yeah. Thank you for asking that question. I I smiled immediately when you asked me to talk about him because um I'm just I'm incredibly proud of my parents, my family, um, and just everything that they've been through. And my dad um was really brilliant. He actually got uh recruited out of high school to go to MIT during the space race. Well, um, he was an amazing musician. He could play harmonica and guitar and piano, accordion, and ukulele. He could play like whatever you wanted. And he would always carry his harmonica on his belt and he would just like pull it out and like do a little, you know, happy birthday or whatever was going on. And I loved that about him. And, you know, as you mentioned, um, from the time I was quite young, he started to uh get impacted. We started to see the signs that there was something kind of not right. Um, he ended up later being diagnosed with early-onset dementia, frontal temporal dementia. So it impacted his behavior. Um, you know, he would do kind of socially unacceptable odd things. Like he would walk into somebody's house and just like play their piano. And, you know, although some people might appreciate, like me, sick, of course, they're not gonna appreciate someone just walking into their home. Um, you know, and then it became, you know, about alcoholism, compulsive drinking, or he would go to Salvation Army and buy Hawaiian shirts or coffee grinders. He was just like doing things that were a little bit odd, and he wasn't able to keep a job. So you can imagine that that was incredibly challenging for my family. He was really our primary breadwinner at that point. And um my mom had to go back to work. I had a lot more family responsibilities. It's really hard, you know. They say uh when you're swimming in water, like you can't tell that it's okay, you know? And I think that's kind of how I think about my childhood. I don't think about it necessarily. Like, yes, it was very hard, and there were things that were really hard, but I don't know if at the time I realized what was going on, how serious it was. We really relied a lot on people in our community for support, be it family friends that would take my sister to school, and um, you know, other people taught me how to drive. And um, we were responsible for kind of figuring out a lot of things by ourselves. I I really credit this, even though it was a really horrific thing to happen to our family, with my strong sense of independence and uh my strong sense of of community also. It's it's kind of a fucking thing to say, but again, holding being able to hold multiple identities, I think is important.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Um, if I didn't know anything about you, do you think just by hanging out with you for 10, 15 minutes, you think I could figure out that you're a middle child?

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Uh maybe. I I think a lot of people assume I'm the oldest.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

I get I can see that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yeah. Yeah. Well, what do you think they're picking up on when they assume that that I'm the oldest? I think because I'm responsible.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Yeah, and I'm pretty clear-headed and I tend to take charge in situations. Um yeah, but I I think that my older sibling has always just like had a different path. And so um, I think that that's probably why I was the one who kind of took charge of situations. Yeah. You know, I did a lot of managing around the house and helping with my sister and cooking and cleaning and just like organizing and sort of being everyone's therapist.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah. Yeah. That is a very particular kind of middle child experience. I think uh yeah, you need to have the right type of older sibling to have that exact experience. Um, well, I how did your childhood um feel given this setup, right? Given uh your dad's diagnosis, given uh you being a middle child, given having an older sister that was finding her own path, yeah, younger sister needed to be taken care of. Um, did you feel like stressed as at a young age? Did you feel a deep sense of responsibility from a pretty young age?

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Yeah, I definitely always felt responsible. Yeah. I I think I remember so many adults telling me, like, you don't have to have the weight of the world on your shoulders. And I just, you know, I I just always felt like I had to be responsible for everything. Everything was always um my not necessarily my fault. I feel like that's the word that I want to say. But um, you know, if things didn't go well, I would be like, oh, I should have done this better, I should have done that better. And I think it's it's actually something that I worked really hard in my 20s to kind of be able to quiet that and say, yes, I'm responsible. Yes, there are things I'm responsible for. And also, like, we're responsible together as a community. You know, it's it's not just on one person and also some things I just don't have control over. And that's that's important. Yeah. An important lesson to learn. Um, I I still think of my childhood of there were so many happy times. My family is incredibly loving and um, you know, creative and so, so smart. Like having dinner at my family home is so fun and chaotic. And people are talking about like history and politics and uh, you know, a movie that they saw and and quoting things and just like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And I loved that about my childhood. And my my husband, when he first came to dinner, was kind of like, yeah, not insert myself with this cover.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

That was my wife of my family's first dinner. Yeah. It's it it it was just one quick thing off of that. Like, do you ever uh when you hear again we're going back to like stereotypes, right? But the stereotype that exists in particular of Asian immigrants, right, is one of like everybody's quiet at the dinner table. And if they talk, they talk about grades. And I look at my life story and I can't relate to that at all. My parents' biggest preoccupation as parents was to make sure that I wasn't a dork. And so they they can't work out that truly. My parents think I'm so boring. Truly, my parents think I'm boring. You have a podcast and oh again, so it's it's helping my stock on their mom. But they they genuinely think I'm way too serious. They think I'm way too uh like focused uh on like academics and so their whole thing was trying to do the opposite thing, try to get me to have a social life, try to get me to like be like, and it's the same thing for my wife. My wife, you know, with similar sort of circumstances as you grew up in a suburb of LA in the 90s. And, you know, my wife's a a painter and a designer, and her brother is a professional cellist. And I don't think at any point my in-laws her parents told her that she needed to be an engineer or doctor, whatever serotype exists. But um anyway, that is so that is really funny.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Cause yeah, I I feel the same. Like my parents, having both been in the film industry already, kind of odd. Um, my father's father ended up being an animator, like very artsy. Um yeah, I just don't think my well, and then you I don't know if I said this earlier, but both my parents, they didn't graduate college. Um, and so I actually feel like my parents could have maybe asked me about my grades more. I don't know. I think I think, you know, they were really trying to say like what's important. Yeah, you know, our values are so important, you know, caring about people, being kind, like those are important things. Yeah. And I'm I'm very grateful for that. And um, you know, and it is kind of funny that I ended up studying business and then getting my law degree and then becoming, you know, mayor of Berkeley. That wasn't really at all, I think, what my parents kind of imagined for me. I think they knew. Like, oh, you're gonna be some kind of leader, but not necessarily what that would look like.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah. Well, it to me, it makes perfect sense uh that if you grow up with this deep sense of responsibility, right? Uh and this focus and if you feel like you need to to make things all right, it makes perfect sense that you would go for like um a business degree and you'd go uh, you know, like you'd go you'd study the law and you'd want to sort of like be in public office. To me, that that tracks perfectly. But I want to actually like hear about that part of the story. So tell me about the journey from Agora Hills to not Berkeley City, you see Berkeley. Like what was that like for you?

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Oh, yeah. Um so you can imagine that growing up in a household where things are a bit chaotic, you know, my mom was working, my dad wasn't well. Um, you know, I had a lot of family responsibilities, like things like school kind of fell by the wayside. And I think by the time I was in 10th grade, you know, I was such an overachiever at the time, or an achiever, I should say, because I hate when people say over, that makes it sound like you're doing too much. Yeah. Um, but I was a high achiever. And um, and I just burnt out. And I was like, I just can't hold all of these things anymore. I just literally was holding the world on my shoulders. That's what it felt like, right? And so I ended up leaving high school in the middle of 10th grade. I took the Chespee, the California High School Proficiency Exam and tested out. And I went to community college in Southern California, Moore Park Community College. And um, at that time, somewhere around that time, I don't know exactly when, uh, my high school boyfriend had gotten into UC Berkeley. So I got a chance to go with him and his family to visit the campus and see what it was like. And I remember literally stepping foot on campus and it just this wave of emotion or feelings or something like hitting me and feeling like this is where I'm supposed to be. Yeah. And it was kind of insane because quite frankly, like I don't think I really understood, you know, the reputation of UC Berkeley, how hard it is to get in, you know, um, you know, even really like the history. And I just kind of had this feeling like, okay, this is where I have to be. Yeah. So, you know, I left Mount Park Community College. I ended up, you know, going to Berkeley City College. Um, I have lots to say about that, but I'll just, you know, skip ahead and say, you know, I transferred to UC Berkeley and it it was it was so it was an incredibly emotional experience for me. Yeah. Because I it was something I had worked so hard to do. It was so hard to leave my family. I really felt like I was abandoning them. You know, that just this this feeling, like I said, this this pressure of like always feeling responsible. And then to say, like, I really need to focus on myself and my education, and this is what I want to do, and I'm gonna make this decision and just go and do it. And I really didn't know, it was such a painful time because I didn't really know that many people up here. I have family up here, but I didn't grow up with them as much. And they've become such a huge support system for me. I really love my family up here and didn't really know that many people. Um, we didn't have a bus system in LA, not really. There's like the transit system, like all this stuff that was like completely different that I felt like I had to learn from scratch without the kind of environment that you have as a freshman when you enter a four university. I think that they kind of hold you a little bit more. And as a community college student, there's a little bit more like you gotta figure it out for yourself. So yeah, just it was a challenging time for sure.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Yeah. Um and I I can really relate to a lot of that. I think um at one part I'll like sort of I guess zoom into there is the feeling of Burke, the university, right? I because I had the same feeling and coming from a very different world, but I still I remember stepping foot on campus and just being like, yeah, this is where I'm supposed to be. I think they because it was it's this mix of like, you know, uh for not overachievers, achievers like you and I. Yeah. That are very focused. There you go. Um, that kind of academic rigor and everything, that's all great. But I remember I read a quote, I think it was um, I think it was Dr. King, he said uh that uh Berkeley, the university, uh is the conscience of the American academic community. Um I'm sure I'm butchering it, but that's the cool core of what he said. And I I was always this kid where like I every question is a moral question. Every question is a question of of conscience, right? In an in a way that is probably not good. Um and so I found that um Berkeley just like no other university, no other place I'd ever been to sort of um had that like mix of things, you know, of like wanting to do well, but also wanting to do good, um, and taking both of those goals equally seriously. Um and that's making no mention of how beautiful it is, how incredible the people are there, all of that, right? Yeah. Um but let's let's um let's kind of move forward in your story a little bit, right? And so you you go to Berkeley, you you you go to Haas, which is a business school, if for people that don't know. Um you know, you you were on a very solid like um career path, uh where you could have gone on and I don't mean to throw you a softball here. Like I'm gonna try to ask this in a real way, like you could have had a very successful commercial career, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Yeah, I could be making more money. I had a lot of money, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

I I know like everybody in the city work, I know how much the mayor makes. You could be making a lot more. Why um tell me about that early decision to um to go into public uh office?

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Oh gosh, you know, I it I think that it was an early decision to go into public service. That's how I would I would say it actually. Um I have a history of giving up my paid jobs for volunteer work. Yeah. So I actually feel like this is a step up for me in that like I have uh now get a chance to do work I would be volunteering my time on and I get paid for it. So that to me that's actually just a bonus. Um is really funny, actually. My first paycheck with the city for this job. Um, like I hadn't set up, you know, deposits and how to like, you know, automatic deposits, you know, you're gonna call it isn't that so funny. I think that that speaks to the fact I'm not doing this for the because literally my husband's like, are you trying to get paid? Do you get paid for this job? Are you trying to get paid for this job? Because you should set this up. And I'm like, oh, okay, yes, I should set this up. Um but yeah, so you you asked me, like, how did I end up in this? And you know, that really started in community college. And that's why I was saying I have so much more to say there about community college. Um, when I was a student at Berkeley City College, there were really massive budget cuts to education. Yeah. And again, like me feeling like, right, I'm like responsible for things. We have to, we have to do something about this. Like, this is not okay. Um, I started to um organize my peers on rallies up to Sacramento, you know, educating people about these budget cuts, how they were very severely impacting community college students in particular. And this is a population of, you know, students who are low-income, first generation, students of color, you know, we have foster youths, um, you know, vets, folks who are fully incarcerated, all these people who need extra support. And they were just not getting it. And I remember just being so furious and frustrated about that and being like, somebody needs to do something. Yeah. And realizing, okay, that's somebody is me, that's somebody is all of us. We all need to be getting involved with these issues. And I kind of caught the buck, you know, I really from this place of like, we need to do better for our communities. And I got involved with the League of Women Voters, huge part of my story. So nonpartisan politics, meaning we don't support or oppose any parties or candidates. And um, I would educate my peers about issues. I would volunteer for candidate forums, I would register people to vote, I would help with mock elections at Berkeley High School or the student government elections at Berkeley City College. Just really like all this getting involved in all this stuff. And it was incredibly fulfilling to me. And in wanting to make my community better, I was like, this is this is my jam. Like, this is what I want to do with myself, right? And even though I went and I studied business, um, I just kept coming back to this like, how do I serve my community? How do I make my community a better place? And that is something that has really driven me, even though I've done many different types of jobs and work in my life. This is the common theme, is like, I want to make our communities a better place.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Yeah. I um I I'm struck by how much in your story individually, and kind of in the broader story of Berkeley, broader story of California, like I um there's no way to read that story um or the positive parts of that story without seeing like without just being struck by how much generosity and how much of a sense of service it took for you, for Berkeley, for the state to be uh so successful, right? Like I was thinking about as I was working, uh as I was researching this conversation. Um, I was thinking about like, you know, you were you should be the poster child for uh the education system that the state set up, right? Uh Clark Kerr, we famously have a dorm named after, right? Like this idea of like we will have a three-tiered system and that every child, every son and daughter of California, if they want, can get a good education, right? I mean, uh, does this actually I'm is I'm showing my age now, but like, does it still exist the thing that like a certain, like what was it, like top eighth of every class could just get into a UC or something like that, right? That existed for a while. I think like I heard Ezra Klein say this uh one time um on a podcast recently. He said, I believe the University of California system is the best thing we have ever built. And I think he by we he was referring to America. And I think I kind of agree that I think like there's and you again, you are a perfect glowing example of why, right? That it's not just the University of California, it's at a more broader level, this sort of three-tiered system, right? Um again, I I just come back to this idea of like, um, I don't know how anybody could come and appreciate California and not be struck by like how much went into making, how many individual people's service went into making the system, right? Um but again, bringing this back to you, uh, I think um so you have this like strong sense of public service that, you know, in some ways seems like stems from your childhood, but has developed from your own experience of going to community college and doing doing this and like hearing the stories of people that are there with you. Um tell me, let's switch to the other side of this for a second, which is tell me about now the city of Berkeley, right? Like um, a place I have can be quoted hundreds of times on this podcast as saying is the best place on earth. Um It is. I mean, you know. To someone to the to the unacquainted, uh someone that has never been to or even heard about Berkeley, California. Uh let's let maybe you and I can collaborate on this. Like, wha how would do you describe the magic of Berkeley, California? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

I yeah. You know, so I bike to work basically every day. And when I get a chance to bike through our city and it's like the weather is beautiful, the sun is shining, you know, I see the kids playing at the park, I bike by the farmers market, you know, like I it's like I see housing being built. Like there's always there's so much stuff going on. Yeah. And just kind of going through the city, you sort of get a chance to capture this magic, isn't it? How I would describe it. Like almost every day I'm going through our city and and just like marveling at the wonders that we have in our city. I mean, obviously I'm mayor, so I'm incredibly biased. Yes. But we have just such good food. There's so much to do. We have so much art and culture. Um, the university is incredible. I mean, you know, number one public university in the world. Yes. Uh, there's so much to say about just that. And we have all these little shops and stores. I'd like, I bought this necklace, actually, like locally. You know, there's just so much going on.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

And uh it it it's hard not to be kind of blown away.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

And that doesn't even take into account our history and the free speech movement and how we're the birthplace of the disability rights movement, just all these different things that we've pushed forward as a city that I'm incredibly the first desegregated school district, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I think you nailed it. It's because I've had this experience of, you know, I've been uh in and out of Berkeley, but um mostly in Berkeley for the past 15 years, similar to you. And um I had this experience where people, uh, family members, friends will visit from out of town, carrying with them this like strong, I think sort of preconceived notion of Berkeley as some like I think they would describe it as like liberal hellscape, right? And they come in and like I again, this isn't me trying to like paint, I it's hard to explain the degree to which this people have this wrong, which is I'm not trying to paint something that's like kind of rough in a slightly better light. I'm literally saying it's the best place on earth. And people come in with this idea of it being, I don't know what they think it is. But it's like I I think to me, a lot of this comes down to just simply this a lot of politics, a line, a lot of public service, a lot of like just city planning, you know, uh government. Comes down to just one question of like, what does it feel like? Right. And I think being in Berkeley, living in Berkeley, um, again, there we have our problems, obviously. No one's more aware of them than you do, you are, but um being in Berkeley, living in Berkeley feels great. Um it true and just about everyone I know, including the people that came and think it was a liberal health scape, just sort of have to like scrape their jaws off the floor when they come around. They're like, what does it feel so good? It just smells good. It like if I have to hear it, it just smells beautiful. It's like you just like the most efficient way for me to buy bread is to go to my local bakery. The most efficient way for me to buy coffee or wine is to go to my local coffee roaster or local winery. This is just Berkeley. Like, and we're so spoiled. Oh, we're so spoiled. It's it's like I could the rest of the podcast could just be this. Is yeah, let's talk about how much Berkeley's. Totally. We could just gatch about Berkeley the entire time. It's like there's a tiny sliver of North America that gets uh what is called, I looked this up recently, warm summer Mediterranean climate. LA has hot summer Mediterranean climate, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's Mediterranean most of the year, but summers are hot. Um Berkeley and this tiny sliver of these ways, basically the only place in North America, uh definitely the only place in continental US that gets what it's it is most of the time how like Minorca feels or something. Just again, I don't know, I don't know how to tell people this other than just like it's scientific. You're just you're basically saying, yeah, I'm trying to like find like I'm trying trying to find math and like signsy sanny terms to justify my deep love or this idiot. But um, okay, so you've got the best place on earth and you've got this kind of deep sense of public service. Um, these come together at some point. I I heard, you know, a friend suggest that you should run for mayor.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Um actually, I will add a little nuance there because people always say women only run for office if someone asks them to run. And um in my situation, this person actually said like an off-handed comment, like, I don't know what anyone else who's running unless you are. Not like even saying asking me, but that was what planted the seed that kind of took me down this path. Yeah. So I I'm proud of that because I I I think that women like you don't need somebody to ask you to run. Just go run. Yeah. Do it.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Um, okay. I have a couple of things about that. But um one thing I would I so we've had a few um I I I know you wouldn't like to be described this way, and I wouldn't describe you this way, but we've had a few politicians on. Um, and I find that word idiot yet, but we um and we've had a lot more that I've spoken to in sort of preparing for this. And I'm fascinated by how much a certain kind of personality, and you are, I think, a great example of this, like a very hardworking, conscientious person, um, that is also very charismatic and charming, right? A certain type of person, like that is the compliment you get, isn't it? Like the people being like, oh, you know, you should run for office.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Like, is it has that been your explain? You know, I think my favorite compliment is when people say, Oh, you're like a normal person. Yeah. Because actually, I think, I think that people think of politicians as being like super polished and like maybe a little bit more standoffish, like careful about how they speak about things. And I I think, I don't know, other people have told me at least that I'm like a little bit more casual. Um, literally, uh, someone walked into my office. I mean, they're like, oh, like this is like less, you know, more casual than I expected, you know? Like that's stately. And um, and that was something that I feel like even on the campaign we talked about, is like, she's just kind of a normal person. Like she's she wants Berkeley to be a good place. She cares about people, like this is kind of what she's focused on.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

You're you're kind of answering what was gonna be my my question there, which is uh, why do you think you'll you won? Like, I understand why you ran. Why do you think you won? Warm Intro is brought to you by WeFunder. WeFunder created this thing called the community round that lets you raise money directly from your community. So instead of going to VCs and rich people, angel investors, you can go straight to your friends and your family and your customers. And, you know, this is not a traditional ad read. I used Wii Funder for my company three times. We ran three rounds in WeFunder, we raised over a million dollars. And I found that it completely changed how everybody felt about our business. Our customers all of a sudden didn't feel like they were just customers. They felt like they were owners in the business. They shopped with us more, they told their friends about it. My team felt like what we were doing was important because our community had shown up to invest in. I tell every founder I can find to go raise a WeFund around. Especially for companies that care about community, there is nothing greater you can do than letting that community invest. Go to WeFunder.com slash join to check it out.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Yeah, um, I I think the positivity I bring to this role is a little bit unusual. At least, again, this is what people have told me. Um the world is kind of crazy right now. And I think there are a lot of people who are are really afraid and concerned and disenchanted with our democratic system, with our country. And I'm someone who really believes, like, yes, we have to be serious and we have to take on these problems. And also we still need to have joy. Yeah. Um, joy is such a huge part. It's actually one of the values of our office and one of the values on the campaign is like, of course, we have to be serious about things, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun while we're doing this. Yeah. That's really important to me. And it comes out in a lot of different ways where we're really focused on community building, where, you know, I like to take a lot of time and talk to young people. Um, I love visiting schools. It's one of my favorite things and taking questions from students and trying to encourage them to get more civically engaged. Yeah. Um, I think that I I could talk about like so many different pieces of why I won. I also think policy-wise, I'm pro-housing. I'm really focused on having safe streets. Um, that's, you know, what some people have said. They think that that's why I've won. We had an amazing team. We had around 200 volunteers. We knocked at over 20,000 doors. I knocked on thousands myself. I was out there knocking almost every single day. So we brought, we, we really ran a strong grassroots campaign. Yeah. Um, and you know, I I think that the kind of fun that we brought in our campaign was sort of infectious. Yeah. I think people saw like we're out there, we're doing good work, you know, we're good on these issues, and we're having a good time doing it. Who doesn't love a party? Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Okay. I think this is this is something I've been thinking a lot about recently, which is um what got me thinking about it was the Bad Bunny Super Bowl performance, right?

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

Um, I know that I was thinking about it because Bad Bunny is not a person, unlike a lot of sort of public figures, right? That he he doesn't talk a lot about like the policies he wants to see, or like, you know, um, that's just not his vibe. Um, but what I found interesting about it was like um a lot of my most political friends, I can often be in this camp. Um, a lot of the people that have the strongest views about how our society should feel, how our community should feel, are also the most fucking boring people in my life, right? So if no, no, they're just like um I think this is a thing that we all, especially. Least progressives have to find a way to balance. It's like, yes, we need to be serious about our convictions, but you cannot become a person that nobody wants to be around at a party, right? Because we do it is like, and I think what I found so powerful about the Bad Bunny performance was he just shows you how he wants how it feels to live in Bad Bunny's America, right? As opposed to endlessly sort of proselytizing and just talking about it, like this is what it feels instead of writing another goddamn manifesto or another doctrine, like let's just let's be a really fun party that people actually want to be at, right? Again, I just go back to like this is how I feel about Berkeley. Like, you can think whatever you want about our policies or how the politics of the place, but just come for a second and tell me it doesn't feel great to live here, right? Um, and I think that's I so I I I really connect with what you're saying that I think uh and there's no better example of this right now than Mom Donnie, of course. His um his events, his campaign as social media felt genuinely fun to be a part of, right? Right. And we can talk all we want about this like dreamy America and this dreamy Berkeley we want to live in. But if I don't feel it, then hearing you talk, like, how much is that really worth?

SPEAKER_00 45:17

Um yeah, I appreciate you saying that. I think that that's really true. Um I I worry that our politics and I think people think C-SPAN, they're like, I'm gonna go. Like who's who's gonna say in our generation, yeah, I'm gonna go and just watch C-SPAN today? Like very few people, right? And I think like, how do we make our politics and civic engagement engaging um and interesting? Because we have to kind of do that. Otherwise, yeah, we're not going to engage young people. Otherwise, we are gonna lose folks who feel tired and overwhelmed and burnt out by what's happening in our politics.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

Yeah, I think the the really funny thing that that makes me think of is like liberals, we have sort of found ourselves in a very awkward position in the last decade or so, right? Uh because you've had this like right-wing assault on institutions, right? So now the left wing or the the liberals, we have to kind of be like, no, I actually love the DHS. Actually, not DHS, but I actually love the CDC, and which is like a very uncomfortable position for um for liberals to be in, because we weren't the people that were we hated the system, and now you guys hate it so much harder in a weirder way, so now we have to be like, actually, the NIH is the best thing ever created. No, we hate big market. Like that's all of it is such an odd predicament to be in as American liberals. That's just that the the intercenders of the institutions like, no, we we're supposed to be like railing against the system. You're making us do weird stuff, but yeah, it's like it wasn't perfect, but yeah, it's it's weird to be there's all happening chaos. He's like, we're supposed to be punk rock. What are you making us do? Like it's like a strange feels very awkward. That's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Well, and actually, this is something I've been challenging our other elected leaders on right now, is like, okay, everyone is focused on no, no, let's bring it back to the way it was. And I'm like, actually, let's bring it back further the way we want it to be, you know, like okay, we don't have to stop here at changing this system. Like, we don't want to just bring this back the way it was. Yeah, we actually need to go further. So, what are you doing to not only think about uh, you know, challenging what's happening right now, but making it, you know, aspirational and exciting. Yeah. That's actually so that's where I would say it's to help with the awkwardness of it. You know, be like, actually, we're gonna go further, even left. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

Well, uh, tell me about like one very specific way in which that conversation kind of like shows up for you, right? Um, which is knocking on 20,000 doors, which I know like I don't know how many you said 10,000 individually. Uh how many do you think I did?

SPEAKER_00 47:52

I wish I had kept track of that. Honestly, that would have been good thing. But it was like a lot. I mean, it did definitely thousands. I wow. I I was so in shape by the end of the kid. Yeah. Walking up all these stairs.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

We have a lot of Berkeley houses with stairs and hills, and yeah, it was I asked Connie Chan, um, who's running for Congress, of course, um if she had any tip for people running for office. And she said, buy good shoes. Yeah. Yeah. And I I think some some asshole and Twitter was being mad, uh, was making fun of her for saying that. But I thought it was a really like yeah, it was a good tactical point. It's like real. It's physically exhausting to do this. Yeah, I definitely burnt out a good pair of shoes, you know. Well, look, what did that sort of teach you about um about the community, maybe specifically the community we live in, but maybe at a broader level, like the work of politicking, right? Again, I know you don't like that word, but like the work of campaigning, the work of like building consensus, like, yeah, what is that experience like to knock on thousands of doors and to thousands of people?

SPEAKER_00 48:59

So backing up a little bit, just to say my background with the League of Women Voters taught me that way more people than you realize don't know what's happening in our politics. They don't know who the mayor is, they don't know what the policies are, they don't really read the local news. Um, and when you go knockdoors, you actually get a chance to see that. And that's kind of surprising because in Berkeley, people always think of Berkeleyans as being like super political. They know everything that's going on. Um, and it's true, like a lot of times folks do know what's going on and they are political, they're very highly educated, formally educated. You know, our our rate of graduation and uh graduate school education is higher than like almost anywhere in the country. It's very, very high. Um, and it was shocking how many people didn't know what was going on, weren't really following the race, um, and you know, spending time actually to tell them what's going on and, you know, why we think that they should vote for me and what are the issues and kind of doing some education at the door. Like that was that was a good reminder because when you're on city council, you hear from the most active, ardent supporters or opposers of every single issue. And sometimes it can be easy for political leaders to forget that that's not everybody. That not everybody thinks that this one issue is the most important issue, or not everybody is opposed to this thing, because I I think in particular the people who come out are opposed to things because they're they're active. Yeah. And so having had so many thousand thousand conversations with people here at the door in the community, I can I can say like I feel like I have a strong sense of where people are at and and what they actually believe in and what they what they care about. Yeah, that makes me feel much more confident moving forward, uh, that I have a a strong sense of of what people care about and what they need in that community.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

Yeah. Um so you go you go through this experience, right? You knock on your team knocks on 20,000 doors, you raise so many small individual contributions, right? Um, and now you're the mayor. And you wake up. It was just like that. Yeah, it's just 20 minutes. Um but you're the mayor all of a sudden. One day you wake up. And um I guess my first question is just what does your um to couple a couple of salient points that like I haven't seen you mention it anywhere, but as far as I can tell, you're the youngest mayor uh of a city this size.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Uh yeah, so Mayor Ergin, or before me, now Senator Ergane, it was the youngest. I can't remember how old he was, but we were pretty close, I think, in age.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Oh, sorry, I meant like uh currently serving um a from what I can tell from a city this size, oh yeah, and to the youngest in America. Um, and it's also, of course, as we've mentioned now, 700 times on the podcast, uh the most livable city in America, right? Uh I think rank as as such. But um, so you what I want to know is like to be the youngest mayor of the most livable city in America, um, what does your day feel like? Is it yeah, just just walk me through even the logistics of a day in the life of the mayor of Berkeley?

SPEAKER_00 52:17

Uh yeah. Do you mean like when I get to work or like from the beginning? Like when when you how do you get to work? Why is your time video to lie? Exactly. What is your day in the life? Yeah. Um, I well, I wake up, I read the what feels like hundreds, but it's not, uh, of messages and emails and news articles that have popped up on my screen.

SPEAKER_02 52:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Um, skincare is very important. Gotta watch, gotta put on sunscreen, right? That's important. Um, yeah, feed my dogs, take care of stuff, try to eat a little something, run out the door. I'm usually my staff can attest to this that it's very hard to get me into the office because people are like calling me in the morning, like there's all this stuff already happening. And anyway, I try to bike over to work as fast as I can. It's really only like a seven or eight minute bike ride, which is amazing. Um, what kind of commute? You know, that's an amazing commute. Yeah. And then, yeah, and then on Mondays, we have our staff meetings. I have my standing meetings. I feel like I have a lot of meetings, especially earlier in the week. Uh, Tuesdays are council meetings, but I think people forget. So not only do we have council meetings, but we also have closed session and special meetings and committee meetings. So I spend a lot of my time in meetings actually. And then towards the end of the week, we try to be more out in the community. Yeah. And that's the stuff like, and at evenings, weekends, uh later in the week. Um, that's just really like I love that. I love being out in the community. Yeah. Um, just one-on-one office hours, community events, um, you know, ribbon cuttings, visiting schools, all of that stuff is just like to me, like that is what keeps me going and excited in this job is just like hearing from the community, being out in the community.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

Yeah. I um the thing that in, you know, for every episode, for every guest, I try to kind of arrive at like, what is the thing I really want to talk to them about? What is the the the through line that I see in their life, right? And I have been thinking a lot about and kind of preparing for this, about um this sort of idea of service, or maybe at a broader level, feeling your responsibility, right, uh towards uh people other than yourself. And um I mean, I see that all the way through uh the story of your life. And also like in the story of America, I find that it and maybe uh for our generation in particular, it feels like it's a dying or dormant quality. Um there was a concept of public service that I find is if not going extinct, again, like going dormant for a little bit, that it's not really I don't remember the last time I met somebody uh that sort of in our generation that like and again, I'm not talking about being an activist, which is an important thing and people should do it. I'm talking very specifically about the the worked and the the philosophy of public service, right? It's really kind of on its way out, right? And I I think that there's nowhere that you see it more than um with the mayors of uh of smaller cities, right? That I find that that's the one place where it still kind of lives on. But I'm I'm curious to get your thoughts on that. That like um, yeah, what why do you think, well, firstly, do you think that that's happening? And um why do you think that's happening? Why do you think there aren't more people who think about public service the way you do? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 55:52

I I really appreciate you asking me that question. I actually have a lot of thoughts about this because again, League of Women Voters is such a big part of my um political upbringing. And uh one of the things that we talked a lot about is how um, you know, people were part of their like local, you know, their rotary club and they had sewing circle and they had all these different things. And part of that was actually because women weren't working. And and so that really impacted the League of Women Voters because back in the day um they would have more active members because women weren't working, and now because of course, just like what's happening with our economy, so many places women are working. And so they don't have time to volunteer and to run all these different clubs and organizations. Cause honestly, I think it was the power of women that were powering all these different civic organizations. And then now that we have to work, we have to be responsible for raising kids, you know, doing housework and a job. And so it's it's created this situation where these civic organizations, I think, aren't as active. I do agree with you in that. And I think that post-pandemic, I think that there are actually people who are really craving this, you know, in-person connection. And I'm starting to see more opportunities for community building, for civic engagement, people trying to find ways to connect. Yeah. And so I'm actually very helpful in that we're heading more in this direction. I didn't get a chance to really look into it, but I saw somewhere recently, like there was like a club of I think UC Berkeley students that are trying to get each other off their phones or something. And so I was like, great. And I think we kind of need that. I think we crave that as people, as just like human beings. So I am hopeful that we can head in that direction. And believe me, when I'm out in the community, I am talking about this all the time. Yeah. Like people, okay, you're you're mad about this, you're frustrated. Go do something about it. Yeah. Make a club, get folks together, come to our meetings. I try and make our meetings as efficient as possible because I want people to feel like it's a good use of their time to come, that their voice will be heard, that we'll hear them, and that they can go about their business if they want to, or they could stay and listen. And we love that. Yeah. Um, we even have like a bring your kid to council day. So trying to do extra, you know, work of explaining what's happening so that those kids can know what's going on. And during breaks, I'll actually go out and talk to them about what's happening in the pop in the process.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

Yeah. I um I think you diagnose the problem very well there. I yeah, I agree. I it seems like it's a mix of two things, maybe, right? The first one uh that you just said, it's that kind of classic Neil Postman, right? Like bowling alone idea of like, well, we used to go to the theaters and now we just watch a movie at home, and we're just not around the public anymore. And so it's harder to feel a sense of service towards something you're not around very much. Um and I do think that there's this other part of this that uh, and again, I'm gonna bring this back to mayors in particular. Um, I think there's this feeling people have sort of checked out of government in a way that I think is underreported. And you you kind of just touched on it back there, right? Of like when you would go in, you were surprised by how many people had no idea what was going on, who who the mayor even was. And I think like that is a again, because the way that these echo chambers form, right? Where most journalists are on Twitter, formerly Twitter, and they're surrounded by other politics nerds, right? Uh, and other journalism nerds. So they think people are so plugged in, where in reality I would say the default posture of the average American is one of like, yeah, government can't do anything for me. Anything that will happen that's good in my life, I need to go and fight for myself, which is it's not a terrible value to have, but it's like um government does for it to work, it does require something from you, right? Uh and I think people are so like people feel to basically the only relationship they feel with government is one of like inconvenience and being in the way, right? And uh it's very hard to feel a sense of civic duty when that's the core relationship you have with government. And I think that that is if people think about it as like it's been true forever, but it's really like a host I would say 1980s, like this deep sense that government can't do anything well, and all they do is make my life harder, and I don't want anything to do with it, right? Like that's kind of like a newer, and we were both born into that political era, right? But no, all of that said, I do find something I find really interesting is the ways in which that's breaking. I think again, no better example of that than Mamdani. Um, where this idea of like, no, no, no, you if we do this thing well, firstly we make it a fun party that people want to be at. Secondly, we solve problems. I love the Mamdani everyday post, the number of potholes they uh they filled in, right? It like it's so small and tactile. It's probably like number 95 on his list of things to do. But I like that his social media team does it because it makes people that's what people feel. You feel the pothole outside the apartment, right? And I think that there is this return. And I think the mayors are, you know, and you remember during COVID, everybody kept talking about how it was the era of the governor was returning. Well, it turns out Fuomo is a creep and nobody wants anything to do with him. Like if people were talking about how governors were gonna be the next big thing, I think what we are finding actually are the mayors are our sort of entry point back into like feeling connected to government. Do you do you agree with that? Do you do you feel like that's true?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:38

Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with that. Um, because our local government is actually what people have the most interaction with. Um, they can't go out to an event and talk to the governor or the president usually. Um, they may not even know what a county supervisor is. Yeah. And um, yeah, mayors are usually out, and hopefully, they're out in the community. You have the opportunity to talk to your mayor more directly or your city council member. And I think that that access makes it much more tangible. Yeah. Um, like you're saying, the potholes, um, you know, our our fire, our police departments, you know, just generally our our infrastructure, what does the city feel like, you know, um, what housing is allowed to be built and where? Yeah. I think that those are things that people can really see more directly. And we've actually done work too to try to help folks understand like, what is it that the city's doing well? Because something else that I realize is, you know, Mamnani's got a whole team of people who are doing his social media. Yeah. And, you know, we're a pretty smallish, medium-sized city. Um, we don't have the ability to do that. And that also means on the city side, there's a lot of work that our city staff do every single day that unfortunately people don't really know about. They might notice, like, oh, it's this road feels smoother or, you know, this park looks nicer, but they're not necessarily making that connection of like a city worker went out and did that.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

And I I think one of the other thing I think I love about being there is uh just going around the city and seeing our city workers doing things because I know about I get to read all the reports, I get to hear about all the great work that they're doing. And so we're we're trying to also help the community see that so that they can really feel like politics, you know, does matter. My my government is doing something for me. There are benefits here, and I can actually see them. Yeah. Because I think uh we can't all have great PR. That would be so cool. I would I would love that. You're way overqualified.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:44

That's um, but you know, I do think like in what you just said is a bit of a prescription, which I agree with, that um like if you feel you know, NPR, uh the NPR podcast I listen to, it um they start by saying, here's the news you need to start your day. And I think about that a lot. I'm like, you don't need any news to start your day. That's I mean, if it helps you, sure, go ahead. But like it's I think a a um again back to the same problem where uh because we feel so like uh disconnected locally, uh we feel the need to be super plugged in nationally or globally, right? But like uh the uh a uh God, a a a ship rams into a bridge, right, far, far away from me, right? And that will keep me up, right? Thinking about the lives of the people uh that are affected in Baltimore, right? A city I've I don't think ever been to, right? And then multiply that by millions, right? And that's the experience of being alive in today's sort of media um ecosystem, right? Is like constantly worrying about problems that are so, so, so far away. Not that they don't matter, but that they're so far away, right? And I find, back to the prescription, that if you want to feel good better about America, you want to feel better about government, go meet your mayor. Stop trying to stop like sniping at like the president or the secretary of the state. I mean, do that also if it makes you feel good. But more than likely, like if it's not making you feel good, tune it out for a second and get involved. Like get involved locally in your in your rotary club, get like join city government, like go talk to your mayor, attend a city, all like I do feel like that more of that will probably lead to a happier America.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:38

Totally. Yeah, absolutely. I think I think it's I I hear people say that to me. They they say all the time, I hear folks say, okay, what's happening on the national level, the global level is a disaster. But reading my local news or hearing about what you're doing or seeing a newsletter like makes me feel better. Makes me feel like, okay, there is, there are good. Things happening, you know, change is possible. And I think that's that's positive. It's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:05

Yeah. Well, I want to um actually now talk about what that feels like on the other side, right? You being on the receiving side of that. To have this day very busy with a lot of stuff. When you get home and your three dogs, three dogs, your your three dogs come running up to you and sit down on the couch. Like, you still you feel like the do you still feel that weight of the world that you felt as a kid? Like do you still feel this kind of like deep sense of response? Do you just immediately fall asleep? I guess is in my version. Like as soon as you get home. How does that feel to like close out your day?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:41

Uh I'm so social. This is gonna sound insane, but I also have a very active social life. I keep in touch with my friends. Like my husband and I have date nights on Fridays. Like I try to make time to like hang out with my daughter. We've been playing Scrabble a lot recently. Um, I don't know, like the like the day doesn't end until like my head touches the pillow, you know what I mean? Like there's always something going on, like, or we're gonna take the dogs for a walk, or I don't know. I'm kind of I'm really I'm very good at compartmentalizing. I think it's partially a survival skill. And also, um, you know, I used to work in the district attorney's office and the human trafficking unit. Oh god. And you can imagine those cases are the most horrific cases. And um I really had to learn how to compartmentalize and come home and just be like, okay, that's at work. This is here, this is at home, and I do the same thing. Have you seen severance? Yes, oh my gosh. Okay, so you know that literally that was literally how I feel. Like on my bike to work, I like turn on my uh, you know, I go into my in e, you know, and I I switch my brain and then I like bike home and I switch to my outie, and I'm like a much happier person for it. Very rarely do I like bring home work in a way that I think other people do sometimes when they're like running through it in their mind and they're worried about this and that and the other thing. Like, and like that's just actually not healthy, in my opinion. See, that's a strong feeling. Sorry if you're someone who does that, but um for me, I'm like, I need to be able to come home and just relax and decompress and hang out with my people and my dogs.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

Um zooming out. Uh I will say uh that the you being that extroverted might sound crazy to some people. It sounds perfectly normal to me. I am truly like ungodly amounts of extroverted. And so I there's no better way to decompress than going out and hanging out with 20 people. So I I'm I'm with you there. Um I think turning back to the work for a second, for my sort of like, I have a couple questions to closes out. Sure. One is um, you know, you zoom out and uh you think about like when your time as mayor is done uh you know, years, decades in the in the rearview mirror, right? Um what do you hope that the sort of the mayor-ish model of governance? What do you think the Berkeley model of of development, if people are referencing that in you know textbooks 40, 50 years from now, what do you hope they'll be talking about?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:18

Yeah, I actually really just hope that they say that I made Berkeley more functional. That that we were able to run a competent, organized government where we got things done and we made the community a better place. And that might sound very simplistic, but I think I said earlier, like I've I'm doing this because I care about our community and I care about people. And um, it's not like I have this particular policy that I'm hoping it's gonna pass, and then this is gonna be what I hang my hat on. Like, I want people to say, like, those were good times. I felt safe, I was able to find housing, um, I was able to, you know, go to school, you know, move on with my career and and just like enjoy my life. Like to me, actually, the best government is government where you can't tell that we're here. Like your life just is great, and you just go about your business and do what you want to do and be the person you want to be. Like, actually, that is is something that I think people forget. Um, maybe because sometimes people like they want to be known.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:24

And for me, I just I want people to feel like we did a good job. And and at the end of the day, like if our community is safer, happier, well cared for, that's those are really like my priorities.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

Um for the last question, uh, I want to talk about this at a more personal level, which is zoom out, you know, when they're teaching everything you did uh in textbooks. You and I are both in our 80s, right? Uh living hopefully in Berkeley that feels very similar to as it does now. And you know, you hear a knock on the door, right? And it's the a Dina Ishi of uh whatever, the equivalent of 2076 or something, right? Like running for office to be the mayor. Yeah, what do you what are you gonna tell her? What are you telling um yeah, what are you telling your successor 50 years out?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:22

I love that question. That's so I that makes me so happy to think about there being like another young woman, you know, knocking on my door. I that's that's what I want. I mean, that's that's the goal too, right? Um yeah, I mean, I I like to you know ask ask good questions. I like I'd be like, oh, what are you doing? How's the campaign going? What are your top issues? You know, I'd probably get into it like that. Um, but also, you know, a lot of there have been many young people who have been like, oh, how do I get involved in politics? What should I do? Um, and even if I am not perfectly like aligned with them policy-wise, I always offer advice and guidance if they want it. And so I would do the same thing, you know, if there's something that you need, you know, how can I support you? Um, and especially if I supported their politics, yeah, absolutely. I'd try to get behind them. Um, I really worry about the next generation feeling disengaged and disenchanted. My daughter calls them doomers. And um, you know, I want them to feel like there's hope, that there is an America worth fighting for, an America that they want to continue to be involved in and lead. Yeah, that they can see that bright light. And um, you know, hopefully it's not just that person knocking on my door. Hopefully, I'm already engaged with them. I'm already being supportive and helping them on their way. That's a beautiful place, and Mary Ishi.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:51

Thank you so much for bringing on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:52

Thank you. Yeah, thanks so much for the comments.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:55

Warm intro is produced by J1 Moon and Alex Ako, hosted by me, Chai Mishra. Presented to you by WeFunder.