A new Mayor in Berkeley, CA

Adena Ishii has been mayor of Berkeley, CA for less than a year. One local article called her the Can Do Mayor and when you listen to her, you will hear a dynamic leader just getting started.

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Transcription

David Martin: This is the good government show.

Adena Ishii: One of the reasons why I got involved was because I actually felt so disenfranchized. And really, the best way to feel like your vote actually matters is to get engaged. I think when we were talking about, you know, young people getting involved in politics, you just people getting involved. Period. I think that having a young leader is something that can be very exciting for the next generations.

And I really got to see that on the campaign. One of the reasons why it takes so long to count our votes is because we are really careful. We are really thorough in the way that we go about doing things, and it’s so important that people have trust in our systems, you know, otherwise they’re not going to feel comfortable voting.

We want to make sure that we create job opportunities, too, that keep those students and folks engaged and living in our city. You know, we don’t want folks just living in Berkeley, heading across the Bay to San Francisco for jobs. I think it’s amazing how we are a huge country, and yet many of us are dealing with so many of the same issues.

David Martin: I did have issues in her first year as mayor of Berkeley, California. I really like talking with younger elected officials. It does give you a good feeling to see young people getting involved. And as you’ll hear, Berkeley is in good hands. Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m Dave Martin. First, help us share the message of good government by liking us and sharing us where we are on Facebook.

YouTube, Instagram and blue Sky. Please share our show with your friends and review us where you’re listening and join our good Government Show community. Check out our website for the link. I was so impressed talking with Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii and you will be too. The more young people who get involved and stay involved, that’s just good government for everyone.

I talked to Mary in January. She had just about a month on the job. Since we met, I got on her mailing list and I see the mayor in my inbox regularly. She’s very good at getting the word out. One recent article written about her calls her the Can-Do mayor. That’s impressive. As you will hear prior to being elected mayor.

Adina spent time working with the League of Women Voters, and we discussed elections, election integrity. And as you will hear, your vote matters. Prepare to be inspired. If anything, Mayor H’s election to inspire others to get involved. Government has to change. It has to grow. It has to be inspired. Inspired by new leaders who bring a new passion to the job.

Coming up, my conversation with new mayor Adina Ishii, a Berkeley, California.

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Download The Royal Cousins now on Kindle. It’s powerful, timely and just $0.99, and all the proceeds support our work here on the Good Government Show. Just search the Royal Cousins on Amazon today. Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m happy to have with me as our guest, Adina Ishii, the new mayor of Berkeley, California. Welcome, mayor. Thank you.

Adena Ishii: Thanks so much for having me.

David Martin: Are you used to people saying Mayor yet?

Adena Ishii: Not quite yet. It’s just been a little bit over a month.

David Martin: So maybe at home you could say how you don’t doubt my mother. Is she just from now on, just not a bear.

Adena Ishii: Maybe. Yeah.

David Martin: Good luck.

Adena Ishii: With that. I know I don’t think my daughter will go, and she’s like that.

David Martin: So one of the reasons why I certainly wanted to chat with you is because I’ve talked with other mayors and political leaders in your area. You’re in Berkeley, California, a lot going on, a lot going on. And I know that there are two big issues that everyone is dealing with in the Bay area is housing and homelessness. And then as a result of that crime, Berkeley is a little bit, not one of the worst areas, hit with some of those problems.

But I know those are challenges. You just ran for mayor. Were those issues on your campaign? And what are you doing?

Adena Ishii: Yeah, absolutely. Housing and homelessness, public safety and infrastructure were my top issues. So you hit the nail on the head. Yeah, I get it. Okay. Yeah. And in terms of, you know, what we’re doing. I think that with our city, we’ve actually made a lot of changes around housing in particular. I mean, obviously housing homelessness are so inextricably linked.

Sure. Yeah. And, I think with homelessness right now, one, I think we’re facing a lot of the challenges, same challenges that they’re facing really all over the country. It’s amazing to speak with other mayors about, you know, mental health, just finding enough places for people to go. Making sure people have the right resources and support that we’re doing it in a compassionate way, but that we’re also being, effective in the work that we’re doing.

David Martin: So prior to this, you you were not in city government at all, right?

Adena Ishii: No, I was not formally elected. It’s my first time in public office.

David Martin: This is your first election. You’re water. No.

Adena Ishii: Yes. That’s right.

David Martin: Okay. What inspired you to do it?

Adena Ishii: Yeah, well, actually, I got involved in local politics. Really? In the budget cuts to education. I was a student at Berkeley City College and helping to organize my peers on budget. Cut rallies up in Sacramento. And then I got very involved with the League of Women Voters. So I love that you have The Good Government show, because of course, we talk about that all the time with League.

David Martin: Now that is something I got a chance to do a little bit of research about you. You were a director of a voter services.

Adena Ishii: I was actually our president, our youngest and first woman of color, elected president of the local league, in 107, League of Women Voters in 107 years. And then I was also vice president of the California State League as well.

David Martin: Let’s talk about elections. Let’s talk about voting seems to be a topic that’s getting a lot of press. Are the elections free? Are they fair? Are they well-run? Are they well managed? What did you learn and tell people to reassure them that? So voting goes pretty well in this country.

Adena Ishii: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I know that we have a really fantastic voting system. I think one of the reasons why it takes so long to count our votes is because we are really careful. We are really thorough in the way that we go about doing things, and it’s so important that people have trust in our systems, you know, otherwise they’re not going to feel comfortable voting.

And, and just I think voter turnout is something I am incredibly concerned about in our country, because then we’re not really representing the whole country if not everyone shows up to cast a ballot.

David Martin: I remember talking to some young guy and he said, oh, that’s that’s all for you old people. I said, you don’t vote yes, because now why bother? And so what do you say to somebody like that?

Adena Ishii: Yeah. I mean, I think understanding where people are coming.

David Martin: From must kill.

Adena Ishii: You, by the way. Yeah, it does, it does. Yeah. You should see my face right now. I definitely I saw and that is really it’s really painful, especially as a person who was very young that got involved in politics. One of the reasons why I got involved was because I actually felt so disenfranchized. And really, the best way to feel like your vote actually matters is to get engaged and see what’s happening.

Once you know how our systems work, once you got a chance to see change, actually happen, especially on the local level, that really helps you feel like your vote really does matter. And you can see, like even in my race, I only won in first place votes, by a few hundred and a thousand votes after, was it a choice voting?

After ranked choice voting, I won by a thousand over a thousand. But in that first.

David Martin: Briefly explain ranked choice.

Adena Ishii: Oh, gosh. All right. So ranked choice voting. And in addition to it. Yeah. In a nutshell, it basically allows people to rank the choices. And once the bottom vote getter gets eliminated, then your votes go to the next person, etc., etc., etc. basically allowing for local jurisdictions mostly that are doing it to not have to have runoffs because it’s a very costly thing to have many different runoffs.

And it allows people to also have an election where people are being less divisive, I would say, because you want to try to get people second choice votes.

David Martin: And some people are touting this as, the future of voting and a positive path forward for for elections. Do you agree?

Adena Ishii: Yes I agree. The League of Women Voters has been a strong proponent of ranked choice voting, and it’s a system that I’ve known about for a long time. I think that a big issue here for a lot of folks, is just understanding how that works and why it’s a good thing. I think when we’re talking a lot about democracy issues, we want to talk about making sure our elections are fair.

And I think when things I ranked choice voting are really confusing, it makes people more uncertain. But there’s some great videos online on YouTube that explain it in a in a really clear fashion. It’s more visual.

David Martin: Well, I thought you did a pretty good job. There are people that I talked to, friends of mine who have said, you know, the election was rigged, the election was stolen. You worked in this arena. Tell me why it wasn’t.

Adena Ishii: Yeah. I mean, in this presidential election or. You mean just locally?

David Martin: I mean, the presidential. I mean, last, you know, the last one, certainly.

Adena Ishii: I think that’s something people need to think about is that each individual vote is counted for there to be any kind of, election fraud. It would have to be a massive amount of, of votes that would have to be, fraudulent. And there are so many different safeguards in place to prevent that from happening. There are so many different people involved.

They even had video of people actually counting the ballots, which I actually found quite shocking because it feels like an invasion of their privacy. They’re, they’re they’re doing their jobs. You know, I no, I have not done that myself. Yeah. The League of Women Voters, you know, we do really encourage people to be poll workers, but I think my work was more around engaging people to do that work and, and activity in the community.

David Martin: I was a poll worker.

Adena Ishii: Oh that’s great.

David Martin: I’ve worked at.

Adena Ishii: I. So you should tell us why. Why should people trust, you know, our voting system?

David Martin: Because you walk it, your vote is counted. They headed to the next guy who puts it in the system, and you walk out the door and everybody knows what they’re doing. And I don’t see how, you know. And I’ve worked at the same polling place now for a couple of elections. I don’t know how you could fake it.

I don’t know how you could how you could tamper with it. I it seems like it’s impossible to me.

Adena Ishii: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think if you go and you actually talk to poll workers, you really get a chance to see, you know, how well trained they are. I was so impressed. I love to actually, even though we can do vote by mail and state of California, everyone gets a vote by mail ballot. I love going to vote at my polling place just to see my neighbors and to interact with folks there.

It was really, really well done.

David Martin: So you have your, your, your campaign manager, with you watching, making sure I say that. Ask myself.

Adena Ishii: Who’s now my staffers, not your your staff.

David Martin: I saw that, one of your endorsements was from an organization called run for Something.

Adena Ishii: Yes.

David Martin: Tell me about run for Something. And they encourage you. And were they helpful? Because I think this is a great idea.

Adena Ishii: Yeah. Run for something is trying to encourage young people to run for office. I’m 34 years old, so I don’t know if it’s young or not. I know you’re young. I guess compared to most of the mayors here, I probably am, and I think it was really helpful. I think just bringing that to the forefront that that is an issue we should be talking about is it’s important.

And I think when we were talking about, you know, young people getting involved in politics, you just people getting involved, period. I think that having a young leader is something that can be very exciting for the next generations. And I really got to see that on the campaign.

David Martin: And I think also, if I may, when you see a young person running and winning, I think it makes it more accessible. Do you agree?

Adena Ishii: Yes. Yes, absolutely. I mean, a lot of people were saying, you know, you’re the underdog. There’s no chance you’re going to win. And, you know, here I am sitting with you in D.C..

David Martin: You’re a winner as well.

Adena Ishii: Right.

David Martin: So a couple of things, I just, you know, I like I said, I did a little bit of background on things that are going on in Berkeley. I understand you have something called an early intervention software for the police department. Are you.

Adena Ishii: Doing stuff? Yeah, yeah, actually, that’s an initiative that came out of our chief’s office. And that is something I’m really proud of because our chief really is trying to show the public that we are a transparent, system. And I’ve been really proud of the work that we’ve been doing around police accountability and trying to encourage that because it’s not about, you know, accountability versus policing.

It’s actually we need accountability to help build trust in our police department.

David Martin: And how is this going to do that? I understand I read about this briefly. It it I guess targets or identifies police officers that maybe aren’t so. Yes, positive members of the force, shall we say.

Adena Ishii: No. So it takes a look. I think that they really try to take it from a positive angle. Okay. It’s early warning system. Right. So taking a look at the data, the stop data to see are there’s some concerns here. Is there bias whether implicit or explicit. How can we address that now. So it doesn’t become an issue later.

And that’s really important because you don’t want to catch a problem once. It’s already a very serious problem. Right. You want to catch it early.

David Martin: And in Berkeley you have a wide diverse population right?

Adena Ishii: Yes, yes. We’re really proud of our diversity in our city. You can even see it in our logo.

David Martin: Are you the first, Asian American?

Adena Ishii: I am I am the first Asian American mayor. I’m the first woman of color to be mayor. Really? Yes. Okay.

David Martin: Did you set out to be a groundbreaker?

Adena Ishii: No. You know, I didn’t set out to be a groundbreaker. I am super proud of that accomplishment. I really like to say I hope I’m the first of many.

David Martin: Okay. And, who what are you doing to bring people along with you?

Adena Ishii: Yeah, I really love that. I have this background of League of Women Voters, because that is about democracy, which really means all of the people. And so making sure that we are reaching out to people who don’t normally engage in our political systems and making it more accessible, how are we getting information out to people? How are we using social media and other tools?

How are we keeping in mind that folks, you know, have disabilities, speak different languages, have children, so they can’t come to city council meetings? These are all things that we’re considering as we’re moving forward and in my mayorship.

David Martin: And have you heard from any of your alumni, your fellow graduates from Berkeley, like you’re there, like.

Adena Ishii: What.

David Martin: We heard from them? Are you still in touch with oh number folks?

Adena Ishii: Yes, yes. Actually, so many people volunteered on my campaign from my time at Berkeley City College, from my time at UC Berkeley, from my time in law school, actually, my staffer city and I actually went to law school together.

David Martin: City is sitting right here next door watching over me, making sure I do what I said I was going to do.

Adena Ishii: Exactly. Okay. Yeah. And, I think that that’s what’s really wonderful is like, I have been so tied into our community and so tied into my peers that, I think many of the folks who really know me aren’t, aren’t super surprised. Honestly.

David Martin: So is city the. What is this? What are you talking about?

Adena Ishii: So I’ve known you.

David Martin: Since you were 19? No, you were so raga.

Adena Ishii: This is. You know what? I think Sydney is great at, calling me out. And that’s the thing. The other thing I talk about a lot is accountability. And as mayor, I think that sometimes people like to say like, oh, well, you can get a really big head. You know, I’ve only been here a month, right? I don’t know what that looks like yet, but, it’s important that people that ground you, that say, hey, you know, this is what you said you were going to do when you were running for office, and we expect you to do that.

This is what you the promise that you made to the community. And I always want our community to be in touch and paying attention to what’s going on so that we can make sure that we’re staying on the right path.

David Martin: So I know you’ve only been mayor for a months now, and you talked about the things you ran on. What’s like the first thing worth saying is you’re trying to tackle what are you, like, sinking your teeth into?

Adena Ishii: Yeah. I think that the biggest thing that I would say that’s coming up right now, actually, is that we are putting forward an item to reestablish our sanctuary city status. Okay. That’s really important to me. And also really just building up a good team like we just started, even though I’ve been here a month, we only really got into our office I think two weeks ago.

Okay. And so just really trying to make sure. Yeah, they were doing at the desk. Yeah, it feels great. I mean they were doing some LED remediation work, so I’m glad they did it before us. But but yeah, just building up our team and really kind of forming these relationships with the city council members, since actually we have quite a new city council this year.

David Martin: And how many of these people did you know from prior?

Adena Ishii: I actually know all of them before we did. Yeah, I mean, that’s that’s one of the best things is that I don’t feel like I’m completely starting fresh. All right, that’s good. That’s how relationships with these folks already. And I’m really proud to be working with them. They’re they’re great folks and I’m excited. I know we’re going to get a lot done this year.

David Martin: So there is something again, I noticed when I did my research on Berkeley, you know, talking about the housing issue, it’s called Adu, which I guess.

Adena Ishii: Is accessory dwelling units. Thank you. Yeah. Granny, why don’t.

David Martin: You explain it better than I can?

Adena Ishii: Yeah, sure.

David Martin: So it’s it’s a good project.

Adena Ishii: Yeah. So. Okay, so, you know, granny flats are in-law units. They’re called a lot of different names. But a lot of times they’re kind of like a building that’s in the back of someone’s house, where, you know, they wanted to create more opportunities for housing. And so we have a great program that council member when grass put forward that was, accessory dwelling units, allowing them those that were illegal to basically be grandfathered in.

Is that what you were talking about?

David Martin: I think so, yeah.

Adena Ishii: Yeah, yeah. And,

David Martin: But this is another way. I mean, there’s it’s a multi-pronged approach, I’m sure. Right. Yeah. Right.

Adena Ishii: Yeah. Housing is is such a challenging issue. We need to make sure that we’re looking at it from a lot of different angles, and it uses just one of those angles. But I think it’s a great idea because there are so many, people who, for instance, they are older couple and they want their kids to come live with them, so maybe they’ll build an Adu for them or vice versa.

You know, there’s a young family and they want their parents to come live with them. You know, Adu right there. Or maybe, you know, someone wants to just house a student or a young professional. There are so many different options for these ADUs. I’m really excited to continue to streamline that process and make it easier for folks to to add them.

David Martin: What’s the criticism of ADUs?

Adena Ishii: I think the criticism is mostly generally around density, period. I think that there’s a lot of concern. Well, you know, what happens if there’s too many folks that there’s not enough parking or, you know, up in the hills, for instance, there’s some concern which is totally warranted, that if there are too many people will be harder to evacuate.

Obviously, we’re having a lot of conversations about fire in California right now. Yeah.

David Martin: You have, very large student population. You have a large university, and you have a lot of residents. Their housing needs and desires are don’t always line up. How do you balance that?

Adena Ishii: Yeah, that’s a great question. We talk a lot about our town and gown relations, and it can town and go town and gown. Yes. That’s right. So you’re a you had a goatee. Yeah. Exactly. Well and I’m really proud of that. I think it’s, it’s great that I have the background of not only having attended UC Berkeley, worked there.

My daughter is actually a student there right now. But our current chancellor, it was the dean of the high school business where I was in my undergrad. And I’m really looking forward to working with him, because I think the big part of this is a university.

David Martin: You know.

Adena Ishii: Everybody. Well, that’s what happens when you’ve been really engaged in your community for a long time. You make those relationships and and those folks, you know, they move on to different jobs and you never know who you’re going to meet. But yeah, it’s of coming back to the housing piece. You know, what happens between town and gown.

The Chancellor I know is really interested as well in building more housing for students because we actually have a student population, unfortunately, that’s struggling with housing insecurity.

David Martin: Yeah. And how many of those Berkeley students stay?

Adena Ishii: You know, that’s a good question. I’m not sure if we have actual numbers on that. But there are many students who stay because, I mean, I’m one of them, right?

David Martin: Right. Well, I mean, in the Bay area, that’s certainly a place that lots of folks live in and move to. That’s why you go to Berkeley, right?

Adena Ishii: Right. And we also we want to make sure that we create job opportunities, too, that keep those students and and folks engaged and living in our city. You know, we don’t want folks just living in Berkeley, heading across the Bay to San Francisco for jobs. There are going to be options locally as well.

David Martin: All right. Well, we’re going to come back. We’re going to talk about your philosophy, your personal philosophy of government. So get.

Adena Ishii: Ready. All right.

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David Martin: All right, here we go. You’ve you’ve only been a month in government. So I’ve got to couch some of this. So if I’m not going to trip you up necessarily. But I do want to, allow for the fact that some of this may be new for you. One month in to find good government.

Adena Ishii: Good government, to me, is a government that’s responsive that is actually listening to its people. And I think two themes that we’ve already talked about. But accountability and transparency, I think are also really important to be a good government. And also I just think functional generally, we need to be able to communicate with each other and, interact in a way that civil.

David Martin: Civil discourse one month in how you do it.

Adena Ishii: How am I doing on those things? Yes.

David Martin: How are. You doing?

Adena Ishii: You know, I, I like to think I’m doing okay on that. I will say that I’m, I just hired a communications director, and so I’m really hoping to get the word out more about some of the things we are doing.

David Martin: We’ll try to help. You are the good government. Yeah.

Adena Ishii: Yeah, yeah. And I’m really looking forward to that because for me, I want to make sure we’re really connecting with the public and showing them about the work that we’re doing and engaging them in the work we’re doing.

David Martin: And how will you decide? You know what will you use as your yardstick other than Sydney, to see how you’re doing?

Adena Ishii: Well, I mean, being in touch with the community also means you’re receiving regular feedback from the community. And I’m someone who asks for that feedback a lot. I want to know what people think. Am I doing a good job? What would you like to see? What can we be doing better? We should always be working to improve.

David Martin: And how should people hold you accountable, you know, going forward?

Adena Ishii: Yeah, I mean, I think exactly that, you know, giving me that feedback, and we’ve been getting it I think that the city of Berkeley is a highly engaged population. I think that what one of the ways that I would say, would show our success even more is if we were hearing from people who were not normally hearing from.

David Martin: When people don’t like what you’re doing or what you’re saying, what would you like them to do?

Adena Ishii: I think starting with, was something that I like to do when I don’t understand something, or I’m unhappy about how something is. I like to come from a place of curiosity. So I really think that a great way to approach me would be like, why is it like this? Why is this happening? Why did you just make this, make that decision?

And if they’re unhappy with my answer, then saying, I’m unhappy with that. You know, I think that that’s okay. I think that that’s part of our civil discourse. I mean, that’s part of our democracy.

David Martin: What have you learned in your first month? Was there anything where you’ve encountered where you said, oh my, I didn’t know that, or, you know, I or oh, I had no idea it was going to be like that. It’s anything like that happened.

Adena Ishii: Yet I am very grateful to say that there has not been anything that’s been surprising to me so far. Good. I will come. Yeah. And it’s funny, actually, one thing I do find interesting is people keep saying this expression, oh, do you feel like you’re drinking out of the firehose? Yeah. And, I actually don’t feel like I do feel that way.

I mean, it’s a lot of information, but I’m someone who’s like, you just got to take it one day at a time. One step at a time. Do your best. That’s all you can do. And just really have realistic expectations. And I think that that’ll help me stay balanced throughout my, my marriage.

David Martin: So where do you get your news from? And do you read about yourself?

Adena Ishii: I get my news. We have really excellent local news. We have Berkeley side, we have the Berkeley High School jacket. We have Daily Cal, we have the East Bay times, East Bay express. There’s so many different local news, places that we can go for our news. I mean, the radio is great. If I have the time, I would listen to the radio more.

And. Yeah, I mean, I do think it’s important to read about myself, but I always like to say, don’t read the comments, right. We live in a time where people can be so toxic, especially on social media. So I’ve got great staff who can read the comments for me and, and tell me if there’s something that we just piled at that time, what exactly.

David Martin: Do you listen to? Podcast.

Adena Ishii: Yeah, when I have the time, but I really have. Not recently, honestly. Okay.

David Martin: Did someone inspire you to do this? Do you have a political hero? Do you have like a mentor or do you have somebody who, like said, if they did it, I could do it.

Adena Ishii: I have so many mentors. Good. And I think that there was not one person who really inspired me to run for office. I think that there were many people. I think that just seeing and hearing from people in my community about the things that they wanted to see and really feeling like, you know, there’s more that I can be doing to serve my community.

I really think it felt like a call from the community.

David Martin: Did you ever see yourself running for office? Yeah.

Adena Ishii: I think I knew I was interested in running for office, but I think one thing I wasn’t sure about was what level of government. Yeah. And I will say that the best thing about being a mayor is that you really get to interact with the public. Like throughout this conference, people are talking about how people come up to them at the grocery store and tell them about something or lobby them for some other reason.

And I actually kind of like that. I mean, I don’t mind just saying, like, yeah, that sounds really interesting. You know, why don’t you write my staff and we’ll have a conversation about it later?

David Martin: We’re here. We’re here at the Conference of Mayors, what have you. What’s your takeaway been so far on day one?

Adena Ishii: Oh my gosh, I just I think it’s amazing how we are a huge country. And yet many of us are dealing with so many of the same issues. I think that that’s a huge takeaway and also just how supportive everyone wants to be. I’m really encouraged by that.

David Martin: Did you ever envision where your class president really that stuff?

Adena Ishii: No, I was not class president. I actually think with legal women voters, I’ve always kind of been on the outside. You know, encouraging government to do better. I mean, I think people always think of the league as just voter services and voter registration, but also there’s a lot of advocacy as well. And, and that’s the piece that I think people don’t realize.

David Martin: And how many times when you’re our League of Women voters and you watched The Candidate, did you think I could do better?

Adena Ishii: I don’t know. I’ve I’ve led a lot of candidate forums and hosted, moderated a lot of the debates myself. I think I, I tend not to be that way because I know it’s a really tough job. It’s it’s hard to do to answer these questions on the spot.

David Martin: Yes. All right, so if I’m coming to Berkeley, where are we going? What do we have? What’s the what’s the dish of Berkeley?

Adena Ishii: Oh, my gosh, there’s so many I, I couldn’t, I couldn’t possibly pick. There’s so much great food in the city of Berkeley. Yeah. We have good Asian food. We have good Mexican food. We have great pizza. We’ve got cook. Yeah, I cook. I’m a huge foodie. I mean, Berkeley is all about food. Yes, I that’s why I asked.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I mean gosh and then there’s like sharpness, you know, the home of California cuisine and you know things like Top Dog which is got this very political lens. You know, we’ve got a lot of vegetarian.

David Martin: A bit of The French Laundry.

Adena Ishii: Oh, you know, I have not been a probably not.

David Martin: A good idea to have that. You’re better.

Adena Ishii: Yeah.

David Martin: What do you make.

Adena Ishii: When you’re home. Oh, I you know what? It’s so funny. My parents are both from New York. My husband’s from New York. I make a lot of Italian food. Really? Yeah. Italian food. And then. Yeah. But, I also make Japanese food. Chinese food. Really kind of anything that’s fresh. We’ve got this great grocery store called Berkeley Bowl.

Oh, that’s what you really should do. If you ever come to Berkeley, you see our amazing grocery store, Berkeley bill.

David Martin: All right, so this is the good government show. We always bring it back to good government. You’ve only been here for a month. So let’s talk about the good government project that you’re going to jump on.

Adena Ishii: Yeah. You know, if I were to think about good government like I spoke about earlier, what is important, I think connecting to the people. And so, you know, we’re going to be looking at a lot of initiatives to be connecting more directly to people and have them be able to give feedback, and also for them to hear and learn about what’s going on in their local government.

I think that would be the biggest success to me.

David Martin: Adena Ishii the new mayor of Berkeley, California one month and now here’s the deal. I’ve been a call. What if one or both of you up in a couple of years, are we going to do this again? We’re going to see how you’re doing.

Adena Ishii: Okay, that sounds good.

David Martin: Check back with you and see how things are going to Berkeley.

Adena Ishii: I’m looking forward to it. Thank you so much.

David Martin: Thank you for being with us on the show. Good luck.

Adena Ishii: Thank you.

David Martin: Thank you. After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City for mayors. Kasim Reed of Atlanta and Michael Nutter, a Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation.

Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen. Dot org slash podcasts.

First woman of color. First Asian-American mayor. That’s what the people of Berkeley, California, have for Mayor Adina. She is just what you want as mayor. She’s young, she’s committed, and she’s enthusiastic. She’s got good people around her, and she knows the city. More importantly, she got involved. I hope she serves as an inspiration for future government leaders. Just like her.

She’s only been in the job for less than a year, but already liked her answer to what is good government. She said government has to be functional. That’s a good outlook. Well, that’s our show. Please like us and share this with your friends and our viewers right here where you’re listening. And check out our website. Good government show.com for extras.

Help us keep telling stories of good government and action everywhere. Join us again for another episode right here. I’m Dave Martin and this is the Good Government show.

The Good Government show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin, that’s me and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe, then share and like us and review us. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

Then listen to the next episode of The Good Government Show.

**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.