In Black America; Mayor of Stockton, CA., Michael Tubbs

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is In Black America. At that point, a lot of things have been going well for me individually, like I just got done with Google, after White House, at top grades, my matches and matches at the same time, on my way to Cape Town, thought I was going to make a lot of money after I graduated or something. But then when my cousin was murdered, it caused me to really think about sort of what all this was for. And then seeing the pain in my family's eyes and in my own pain, made me realize that I need to come back. And at other experiences, I had a way for stocking, where it's been if it's stocked in a more concrete way than writing papers or giving speeches about it, actually being in the day to day grind. I figured out how do we make it better and how to be creative, communities of opportunity where young people don't die prematurely. So that's the only reason why I came back, actually, it was the death of my cousin, but

for his murder, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been back to stocking, at least not as soon. The honorable Michael Tubbs, Mayor of Stockton, California. During the 20th century, Stockton was a commercial hub between Sacramento and San Francisco. It had military installations and was regularly used as a Hollywood set, but when Tubbs grew up there in the 1990s, gunshots were heard in the streets, and more than half of the city's high schoolers dropped out before graduation. Tubbs was raised by his mother who had them at 16, and a high school essay Tubbs described meaning his father for the first time at the age of 12. He was in chains and dressed in the orange jumpsuit at the current county prison. His dad responded, quote, prison is your destination. From birth, you are set up to fail. You're a black man in America, and it's either prison or death end of quote. His father's words have never left him. They settle in his core and drive this ambition.

In less than two decades, he graduated from Stanford, captured Oprah Winfrey's attention and worked at Google and the White House. I'm Johnny O'Henson, Jr. and welcome to another edition of M-Black America. On this week's program, the Iron Bro Michael Tubbs, Mayor of Stockton, California, M-Black America. In the way government structure in Stockton, the city council is part time. I was part time on council. I was a fellow at Stanford. I was teaching full-time at high school before that. I was working at a University of Pacific before that, and it was just really hard to balance the full-time expectations with the part-time job, but then secondly, we had a lot of work in my district. Over the four years, we were able to bring in a bank, we were able to close our problem. Liquor store, we were able to create this whole problem in its own strategy in my district. I became a finalist. There was a lot of momentum, and then, at council meetings, people would begin to say, well, Michael Tubbs only cares about self-socking, and I was like, well, this is the only time you're penalized for being too good at your job.

But did I maybe think that, no, what people were saying is that the whole city needed leadership. And you can't do that as a council person. You have to look out for your district, but as a mayor, you can speak for the city and think citywide. So that's what maybe runs for mayor, and you're understanding that I have more influence on the things I care about. In January of 2017, after serving four years on the Stockton, California City Council, Michael Tubbs was installed as mayor of the town where he was born to a teenage mother and an imprisoned father. At age 26, he is Stockton's first African-American mayor. And the youngest mayor in American history of a city with a population of at least 100,000. He oversees a diverse community of 350,000 people, a place with big city problems that include a high-violent crime rate, a struggling school system, and a growing homeless population. So why would Tubbs, who graduated from Stanford University with bachelor's degrees in comparative studies in race and ethnicity, and a master's in policy leadership and organization studies, choose to take his talents and intellect back to Stockton?

In 2010, his cousin was murdered at a Halloween party and his focus changed. Tubbs decided he didn't want to be another educated young person leaving his hometown. He wanted to make a difference. His goals he set for himself as mayor of lofty, lowering unemployment, raising graduation rates, lowering violent crime, and attracting a major philanthropic investment like the $816 million Detroit received from the Ford Foundation and other donors, the Savior's Arts Museum. Recently in Black America spoke with Mayor Michael Tubbs. Oh, that was last month. Oh, last month. So have they come down a little bit? Well, I think oftentimes the reports kind of mask what's really happening. It's not a group or large group of protestors, it's about 5 to 10 people, half of whom aren't from Stockton. And for those of them that have legitimate concerns, we've met with them. We've clarified our policies. We've put them in touch with the appropriate agencies who can actually answer some of the

questions they have, because a lot of the questions have to do with things that aren't under my jurisdiction. So in terms of release of surveillance camera footage, which the district attorney has, or if something happened with an off duty sheriff's office, that's a sheriff's department issue. So it's been a lot of educating it in that way and hearing those concerns which are legitimate. Right. And for our listeners who do not know much about Stockton, California, give us a little history lesson or civic lesson about Stockton. Stockton, I call it the American City. It's really a microcosm of America. It's the 62nd largest city in the nation, about 315,000 people, almost located in the California Central Valley, an hour away from the Bay Area, an hour away from Sacramento. It's incredibly diverse. It's 32% Hispanic, 26% Asian, 11% African American. At one time, we had the largest Filipino population outside of the Philippines in Stockton. We had the oldest Sikh temple in North America in the southern part of the city.

Stockton was also once the state capital, but it's really, I would say, ground zero for kind of a lot of issues facing the nation, but also has a lot of opportunity. Largest inland poor, great access to transportation with the freeways and railways, and we also have a large inland delta, which provides a beautiful, wider front landscape, but also some real natural diversity as well. Tell us about growing up on the south side of Stockton? Yes, sir. I was born and raised in Stockton. My father's been incarcerated for the majority of my life, and my mom, she had me while she was in high school. For growing up, we lived in a lot of the quarter-core hot zones in the city, or areas in the city that get suffer from lack of opportunity, and therefore also have things like high-rate to crime. Really, I was really blessed to have a mom and a grandmother who really showed it to me and had some support from the community. So it was community things like rec leagues and basketball leagues, and mentors, like people from my church, that really kind of kept me structured and focused, and then I was able

to go to public school, but I was in the international back of the right program from seventh grade, so I was given a really good, solid education underpinning, so a lot of the realities of growing up in communities like the South Park. Of South, I was really shielded from because of my family and the structure they provided, but still just the narrative around growing up, growing up poor, and always having a lot, having to do with moving around a lot, having to do more with less. I was very much a part of my upbringing. So it was truly a village that helped raise you? Oh, absolutely. What was some of your favorite subjects while you were in high school? Man, I loved history in English. I loved reading about what people had done in the past, just to make sense of where we were today. And I loved English. I loved reading literature, writing about it, talking about ideas and concepts, and trying to get make sense of the world, or just learn lessons from history and from literature in terms of how to live a good life, so it was definitely my two favorite subjects.

I believe your grades had to be more than just satisfactory to go to Stanford. How was that experience? Oh, I loved Stanford when I actually moved in late, because I thought I wanted to fit in. I was the first one I found to go to college, first went to my school in a long time to go. So I was like, I don't think I'm going to fit in here, I don't think I'm going to like it. And then when I got there, it was such a liberating experience. I stayed in the African-American theme dorm, Ujima, my freshman year, my junior year, and I staffed it in my senior year. And while I'd Stanford, I met some of my best friends, I met my fiance, I was able to work at Google in the White House, I was able to get my master's ambassadors, I was just exposed to a world of, yes, because growing up, because of resources, a lot of it was, no, you can't do this, we can't do this, we can't do this, we can't do this. But Stanford is exactly opposite, it's like, no, you can't hear the resources you can do it. So it really opened my eyes to kind of the world and innovation and technology and being entrepreneurial and thinking about solutions to some of these intractable issues. So how did you come upon those internships that Google, of course Google was in the area,

but the White House is on the other coast? Yeah, well, God is so good, so my sophomore year in college, senior advisor at the time to the President, Valerie Jarrett came to Stanford and spoke, and we met at a reception afterwards and I had applied for a Stanford in Washington program. And she said, and I told her like, hey, I'm going to be in Washington, I would love to see you when I'm there as if we're like, when we were friends. I was 19 at the time, I didn't have no training. And then she was like, why don't you just work in the White House? And then six months later, I started as an intern in inter-governmental affairs, which was interesting because my job was to work with mayors and council members nationwide and spend 12 hours a day learning what different mayors and council members were doing to improve their communities throughout the nation. So once you completed those internships, what brought you back to Stockton, excuse me? Well, actually, at the time I was entering into White House, one of my cousins was murdered in Stockton, and that was a real kind of reflection point for me. I was a junior in college at the time, and at that point, a lot of things have been going

well for me individually. Like, I just got down with Google, I was at the White House, had top grades, it's been my master's in bachelor's at the same time, it's all my way to Cape Town, it's all going to make a lot of money after I graduated or something. But then when my cousin was murdered, it caused me to really think about sort of what all this was for, and then seeing the pain in my family's eyes and in my own pain, made me realize that I need to come back and that other experiences I had away for Stockton were to benefit Stockton in a more concrete way than writing papers or giving speeches about it, actually being in the day-to-day grind, figuring out how to make it better and how to be creative. Communities and opportunities where young people don't die prematurely. So that's the only reason why I came back, actually, it was the death of my cousin. But for his murder, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been back to Stockton, at least not as soon. What was it about running for City Council in 2012 that launched your political aspirations? Well, so in 2012, the community looked a lot different than it looks now. It was, at the time, we had, back to back year, it's a record of homicides, records.

So we had more homicides per capita at that time than Chicago. We had just declared bankruptcy at the time, where the largest city in the nation to declare bankruptcy. So we were just named a miserable city by Ford's and I didn't. So I ran it in the worst of times, but ran it with a real sense of purpose that this was a real opportunity to actually make a big difference, to help still the community back on track and be part of that team. That does that. If you're just joining us, I'm Johnny Owens in junior and you're listening to In Black America at KUT Radio and we're speaking with the honorable Michael Tubbs, Mayor of Stockton, California. Mayor Tubbs, what led you to run for mayor after serving on the Council for six years? Four years. Four years, okay. So four years, and in the way government structure in Stockton, the city council is part time. So I was part time on council, I was a fellow at Stanford, I was teaching full-time high school before that.

I was working at the University of Pacifica before that. And it was just really hard to balance the full-time expectations with the part-time job. But then secondly, we had did a lot of work in my district over the four years. We were able to bring in a bank, we had to close our problem liquor store, we were able to create this whole problem zone strategy in my district, I became a finalist, there was a lot of momentum. And then at council meetings, people were beginning to say, well, Michael Tubbs only cares about South Stockton. And I was like, well, this is the only time you're penalized for being too good at your job. But then I made me think that, no, what people were saying is that the whole city need a leadership. And you can't do that as a council person, you have to look out for your district, but as a mayor, you can speak for the city and think citywide. So that's what maybe runs for mayor and understanding that I have more influence on the things I care about if I was full-time and I wake up every day and my job is to figure out how to make Stockton better and to advocate for the needs of the whole city. So that's what made me decide to run for mayor. What lessons did you learn from running for mayor that you didn't learn when you're running for city council?

Man, I think the biggest lesson, and it was a new lesson of the, it was a confirmation of a lesson. A retelling of a lesson is that one of my political role models, Mark Ridley-Thomas, a super rising L.A., I asked someone, I was a council member, I was like, how do you stay calm in all this? And he said, Psalm 371, fret not. And then I had that in the back of my mind, but running for mayor, especially this past year, it got really dirty. There's a lot of mud slinging, a lot of the ups, dashes, and lies. It was fake news before, it was fake news. They were doing that down here and here first in the campaign, so just really learning not to worry, and to really stay focused on the issues, and just understanding that people are going to pick and prod and poke at you because they have no policy defense, they have no record of accomplishment, so they'll try to get you off your game and make it a personality contest rather than one of competence. So that was a lesson, and another lesson is just, again, was just the importance of relationships. Now all the relationships I had built over the past four years were super helpful, and

people who weren't supportive when I ran for counsel were now my biggest supporters because they saw the way I worked, they watched how I interacted over four years. So understanding that you're always auditioning and people are always watching, so always be excellent. When I was doing the research, was the incumbent mayor in the relationship to the police chief? No, no, no. It's about the same last name. No, so the police, the police public information officers, Joey Silva, and the last mayor's last name is Anthony Silver, but they're not related, no. What are some of the things that you want to accomplish as mayor of Stockton? How much time do you have? We got 20 minutes. Three minutes? Okay. Well, number one in violent crime is a huge issue. It's a drain on our resources, the public safety issue, and the lives of the men and the families impacted do matter. So in Stockton, it's less than 1% of the population that commit 80% of violent crime. So right now, it's about 87 guys who will drive our homicide rate, and I actually was

in Chicago and spoke with former Secretary Arnie Duncan. I lost some of the things they're doing in Chicago around the same thing. So my top priority is figuring out 40s, 87 guys. What can we do by way of opportunity to get them to drop the gun, to kind of be a part of the solution and make it as community better? Understanding that law enforcement in jail has a role, but that can't be our primary response to every social ill because it's proven it hasn't worked and it won't work in and of itself. So finding opportunity for those guys, number one, and really focusing on them to reduce our violent crime rate. Number two, there's also five hot zone areas in the community. These are areas that are historically and today higher in crime than the rest of the city. And they're interesting because in most communities, they're usually concentrating on one part of the city, but in Stockton, there's literally one in every single council district. So part of it's really figuring out, again, the crimes, not the only thing these communities are dealing with, but they're also dealing with lack of opportunity in terms of high

unemployment rates, lack of jobs, not great schools in the area, etc., etc. So working with nonprofits, residents, private sector, philanthropy and businesses to figure out, we can't do everything for these five hot zones, but what more can we do to just put more cops there? How do we connect these residents to opportunities and the services that exist in a real strategic way? Those are my top two priorities. In addition to that, there's a lot of talk about economic development. So our strategy, number one, is to really create an entrepreneurial ecosystem in the city, focusing on first of all, small businesses helping them expand from five to 10 or 10 to 15 because that's really how you grow an economy. And also just for now giving our proximity to the Bay Area, how do we fit into the total tech ecosystem? So how do we work with our school districts to align resources to our kids, align how the code, how do we talk to Silicon Valley and other companies about the availability of cheap land, good real estate, and smart workers and stuff, and so think of stopping as a place to locate some of their services.

And then on that front, we're also, there's this thing called the skills gap, and it talks about how, in a lot of communities that have unsolicited people unemployed, the issue is not that it's not jobs. The issue is that people aren't trained for the jobs that exist, or part of the issue that people do the skills gap between the jobs that exist and skills requiring the skills the community has. So working with, again, all our school districts, our community college, our university, and our private sector to figure out where the skills that people need to access these jobs and where can they go to get them, so addressing the skills gap. And then thinking kind of bigger, a lot of communities have these promise programs where they basically provide a cradle to career pipeline of support for young people in their community. So whether my dreams, for you my listening, it wants to help, whether my dreams will be to really build that out in Stockton, so there's something that lasts longer than my 48 years as mayor. Do you see yourself coming back to Stockton, giving a little hope to those of your generation that are still living in Stockton?

Yeah, I think for my generation, but also for the entire community, just to know that number one, that Stockton can be a destination, because growing up so much of the narrative was that to be successful, I had to leave Stockton, but that was a sign of success. If you stayed, that means you weren't successful. Literally. So coming back and redefining success, I know you could leave and come back, that Stockton can also be a destination, that you can be here, love being here and do good work here. And then also just giving the community hope that we can't, we're not going to solve every issue in 48 years, but I guarantee you, we won't solve anything if we don't do anything. But by being really strategic, by using the resources we have and aligning up with need, we could get some stuff done and understand that we're in a 20-year transformation journey, but these next 48 years would be a big catalyst. Being in that Silicon Valley area, how are you getting those tech companies to buy in to your ideology and the future of Stockton? A lot of it is just spending time going down there and talking to people, because a lot of it is that people just don't know.

Like people know San Jose, San Diego, Mountain View, San Francisco, Play Ho Hayward. But people don't know Stockton, like I tell people we have the largest inland port in California. They're like, what? Or I tell them about the amount of industrial land we have of warehousing spaces. They're like, really? I tell them just how close we are, they're like, for real? Or just how 40,000 people, 40,000 of our residents commute to the area for work, meaning there's an educated workforce here that can be put to work. So a lot of it's just talking to people whether it's the media or going face-to-face and talking with these folks and really selling the city so they know. You talked to me earlier before we actually started taping this conversation of educating young people, of those who have a disagreement with what's going on. Is that an ongoing process? Because if you don't know, you don't know. Yeah, it's definitely an ongoing process. So working with my staff to figure out what's the best way to do some day information. So what we do now, every Friday, we release a weekend review, like this is all the stuff we did this week.

Okay. We did nothing, here's everything in real time. We do a council meeting kind of synopsis after the council meetings where we kind of explain the folks who don't watch the meetings and who aren't going to read the newspapers, but we'll read Facebook so they can understand what actually happened at the council meeting, whether we vote on why it's a matter. I'm just talking and getting out to as many forms as possible, and I think oftentimes it just takes longer to do it, so that's why a lot of people don't. But for me, it's just really important because especially in a way our government is structured, one person, one office, one institution can't have all the answers. So I don't like getting blamed for stuff that has nothing to do with me. The part of it's selfish. It's like, you're not going to be able to let me if it's not a Michael Tubbs decision. If I have no power over this, I'm going to tell you who does and how you could talk to them. So how does your mom feel with all your accomplishments thus far? I think my mom and in my grandma, I think they're all proud. My mom is just I think for her being a mother in politics could be very petty and ugly.

Right. So just seeing all the lies and all the misinformation, I think she takes it personally sometimes. She gets really upset. And she's like, you know, you don't have to be here. Like, you could be like, why are you or I've been wrapped around after my four years on council. She's okay. You're going to leave now. Like, you did your part. You did a lot. Like, you can go now. But she, I think she's going to understand that for me, this is really purpose aligned and purpose driven. So she's designed to the fact that I'm going to be stalking at least for the next four to eight years. And it should have to deal with people saying crazy things. I also read where you got one of your Stanford classmates to come to Stockton and help you with your campaign. And he eventually is on the school board now. Yeah. One of my best friends, Lane Lentow, he wasn't good enough for Stanford. So he went to Harvard. Okay. But we knew each other in high school. He's a Stockton native as well. So he came back and ran my campaign in 2012 as my field director. And then went to Malaysia on a full-body scholarship, came back, started to help start teach for America and Stockton, and now just recently went to see for school board.

So it's exciting to have a partner who's also saying progressive for thinking at the school district. So now they're sitting in the school board working more closely together. I also saw where Oprah Winfrey helped me out with a little something or something. Oh. Yeah. I was running for city council when I had just announced she happened to be at Stanford and we ended up in the same room and by the end of the time she said, hey, how do I donate for your campaign? So that was essentially incredible blessing in 2012 because it really kind of showed people just how, number one, how important Stockton was, like, wow, Oprah cares who's running for office in Stockton, right? Like, that's a big deal. And number two is also Catholic for me because it showed people I wasn't just some 21-year old who didn't know anything, but I was a 21-year old who didn't know anything about people believing, which made it a little bit easier for the rest of the campaign. That's far what differences have you seen in the city of Stockton as you being mayor? In the past 90 days of mayor, number one, we've already partnered with the school district

to provide the Scali app for students. Number two, Chuck Todd has agreed to come to Stockton and moderate the governor's debate with me. Okay. Next year. Number three, we've had all these high profile visitors from Tom Sire to Agpedia coming to Secretary of State next week who are interested in figuring out how to make a partner and help Stockton. Number four, Sierra Health Foundation, we're working with them to convene all the Central Valley regional elected officials to talk about how to be able to strategy for the Central Valley of California to address the shared problems, concerns, and opportunities we have in regards to our residents. We've also increased the amount of philanthropic commitment to the community in the past 90 days. After we've scheduled our first city county joint meeting on homelessness, we're putting together a mitigation fund proposal for homeless housing this month. So we've done a lot and that's just, that's it. We brought HUD in.

On my first day in office, we brought the reason I made sure from HUD to talk about the ways the feds can help us in reaching our goals and improving our community. And then May 18th is the same as the city, so I'll make sure I'll send you the speech because I will have a full synopsis and a couple exciting updates. As a Detroiter, you know how I may have got himself in trouble. Do you feel any added pressures being one after the American and being one of the youngest after the American man? Yeah. I mean, I know a little bit more pressure on me than myself, so I make sure I surround myself with very smart, ethical people who aren't afraid to tell me no. My merit tells us not right. That's not good. I'm also a pretty boy and pretty straightforward. I'm just, I'm very simple, live a simple life. I think given just kind of my family where I come from, that we are going to be really focused on just the job I hand. Who are some of your mentors, the people that you need to balance your ideas off of? One of my mentors, his name is Steve Phillips. He's an amazing guy.

Another mentor or a couple of local pastors. Another mentor or just some of the city fathers and mothers, some of the people like that. When you look at your career thus far, any regrets? No, I think everything, whether good or bad, that's been very instructive and helped me get to where I am today, so no regrets. I just wish I could have did more. When you look back five, ten years from now, when you're out of the mayor's chair, what do you want to see Stockton? What do you want to look like? I want Stockton to look like the community you live in. I want Stockton to be a community of opportunity, a place where people are happy to live in, where families are strong, where we're children are thriving, where schools are functioning well, and there's economic opportunity that people are giving access to capital to create jobs. There's a real downtown, there's strong employers outside of government. And the city, and that's a safe community, and it's a healthy one. Once you leave the mayor's office, the neighborhood and education, what do you want those two

entities to look like? Man, I want the education to look like every kid in Stockton has access to A3G courses, which are the courses you have to take in California, even apply, to go to a University of California or CSU campus, so every, that should be the graduation requirement, that should be the floor and not the ceiling. I think that if we get this promise program up and running, every kid knows if they do well, there will be a real opportunity for them to further their education, or those get a job, or go and learn to skill our trade. But there's real opportunities, there's a real goal in the rainbow. That's on the school side. And with a high quality, 21st century curriculum, where kids also aren't learning how to code and things of that sort, and they have access to arts and stuff. On the neighborhood, I just, neighborhoods not to have slum lords who are predatory and having people live in bad conditions. The animal, Michael Tubbs, Mayor of Stockton, California. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions ask your future in black America programs,

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