Two candidates will go head-to-head on Tuesday to secure the only open seat up for grabs on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. Warren Slocum has served as supervisor of District 4 for more than 10 years. However, his term is expiring, leaving an empty seat that Lopez and Gauthier are seeking to fill. The race began earlier this year with Lopez and Gauthier defeating three other contenders in the March primary to grab the two spots in the November runoff.
He was appointed mayor by his colleagues beginning in December , becoming the youngest mayor in the city's history. He is currently working on a doctorate degree at Stanford University while serving as East Palo Alto's mayor. His entrance into politics was sparked after seeing the impacts left by the COVID pandemic shutdowns. I got in there and learned the 'ABC's' of government. Setting policy as a freshman council member is no small task I worked arduously and ardently to bring vaccinations to the residents of East Palo Alto through cooperating with our churches and local clinics.
His biggest priorities include addressing homelessness, the high cost of living, public safety, ensuring access to affordable childcare and housing, and improving infrastructure. I'm running to make sure that we fill in those gaps and make sure that working families have a fighting chance to stay here.
In August, Lopez announced a plan to reduce homelessness by offering shelter and mental health services first before sweeps and emphasizing regional collaboration. I don't think that's the right solution," he said in an interview in August. It's a balloon problem. If you push the problem on one side of the balloon, it'll go somewhere else. This needs to be a collective, regional response. Lopez is proud of his work raising awareness on sex trafficking, a problem that he says is rampant in East Palo Alto but hides in the shadows.
As supervisor, I want to bring those beds back. In June, a man was arrested in San Jose for allegedly sex trafficking a girl from East Palo Alto who was found in the truck of a car one month after being reported missing, according to the San Jose Police Department. It's a high needs community. They live in the shadows.
