I want the people who built this community to get to stay in it.
About one in six Albany residents is 65 or older, roughly 3,000 of our neighbors. They're the ones who passed the school taxes, planted the trees, coached the teams, and made Albany the place the rest of us moved to. What do they get in return? In a well-run city, they get to stay home in the neighborhood they know, near the people who know them, not priced out of Albany or stranded in a house they can't safely leave.
The experts call it aging in place. The idea is plainer than the phrase: most of what keeps an older person independent isn't dramatic. It's a sidewalk without a heave in it. A streetlight that works. A crossing signal that gives you time to finish crossing. A ride to the store when driving stops making sense. A warm lunch and familiar faces at the Senior Center. And when it matters most, a paramedic at the door in minutes.
Albany already does much of this well, and it's worth saying so. The Senior Center on Masonic delivers lunches, classes, and the connections that keep isolation at bay. The city coordinates home-delivered meals for homebound neighbors and twice-monthly groceries for lower-income seniors through county partnerships, and offers senior transportation for errands and appointments. Voters renewed a citywide sidewalk repair program in 2024, passed by more than 70%, because everybody understands what a bad sidewalk means for an 80-year-old.
My job is to keep it that way, and two things have my attention. First, the quiet threat: the Golden Gate Fields transition would take roughly $400,000 a year, about 20%, out of the parcel tax that funds our paramedics. Nobody feels that loss faster than seniors, who call 911 first and most. I will treat protecting that fund as a first-order budget problem, not a footnote, and I've laid out how on my Golden Gate Fields page.
Second, delivery: the sidewalk money voters approved should show up fastest where it matters most. I'll be asking the city to prioritize repairs along the routes seniors actually walk: to Solano, to the Senior Center, to bus stops, to the library. I'll also make sure the ride program and meals programs aren't just funded but known, because a service people haven't heard of might as well not exist.
Mostly, though, this issue comes down to showing up. Albany's seniors are the most faithful civic participants this city has. They don't need a spokesperson. They need a councilmember who comes to the Senior Center, asks what's working and what isn't, and follows through. That's the councilmember I intend to be, for the people who made Albany worth staying in.