Liccardo meets with Coastside constituents
After just three weeks as a new congressman on Capitol Hill, Sam Liccardo returned to the district last week and met with Coastside constituents in Half Moon Bay and Pescadero for the first time since being sworn in.
In Pescadero, more than 80 residents discussed immigration and the status of federal funding for area agencies with Liccardo.
Liccardo said that when he was mayor of San Jose during the first Trump administration, he called the acting western director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and asked about potential raids. He said the official told him that ICE was focused on people who had criminal convictions or had received a final order of deportation from a judge.
Now, with Trump in office again, Liccardo said he called the director again and was told that ICE is focusing on public and national security, so the focus will be on people in the same categories.
“I just want you to know before you react, before we start the contagion of fear, we’ll do everything we can,” Liccardo said. “The most important thing is that your children go to school, that you go to work, that your life continues without being so horrifically burdened by the fear that we know pervades much of our communities.”
On federal funding, Liccardo shared that he was assigned to the House Financial Service committee that handles housing and insurance, among other key items. While he is a freshman congressman, Liccardo said he wants to find a way to work across the aisle with Republicans despite the deep divisions at the moment.
One farmworker who lives in Pescadero asked the congressman how he could help college-bound students who need a lot of financial support to get through college. Many quit school because of the costs.
Liccardo agreed that college is too expensive. He said that in addition to federal programs such as Pell grants, colleges and universities need to be innovative and find more cost effective ways to deliver education.
As an example, Liccardo brought up the creation of a three-year degree program in computer science at California State University, Monterey Bay, so students avoid taking four to five years to complete their degrees. This program has led other universities to do the same.
Another program Liccardo said he hopes to pursue to improve educational opportunities in underserved communities is giving tax credits to teachers willing to teach in schools with high poverty levels in order to help keep the schools fully staffed.
Veronica Mazariegos-Anastassiou, a co-owner of the Brisa Ranch fruit and vegetable operation, asked about the congressman’s housing strategy.
“I want to know how I can be supportive if we get community funding grants to support housing,” Liccardo said. “One thing I'm working on now with folks in the Ways and Means Committee is on this idea of using a tax credit to rehabilitate a lot of the vacant retail, office and hotels that we have all throughout the Bay Area, throughout the country.”
During the campaign, Liccardo said he wants major cities to tackle the housing crisis by giving tax credit to builders to rehabilitate empty office, hotel and retail buildings into apartments and condos, a process currently underway in the Bay Area. He acknowledged that these efforts don’t necessarily apply to the situation in Pescadero.
A member of the Farmworker Advisory Council who was in the audience asked Liccardo how he could help farmworkers get health insurance. Liccardo said he didn’t have an answer but offered to sit down with San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller to talk it over.