LAUREN DODGE
Candidate – El Cerrito City Council 2024
Please scroll to see the following:
- About Dodge
- Why City Council
- Candidate Statement
- 3 Core Efforts
- What She Stands For – City and State Ballot Measures
- Reach Out!
ABOUT DODGE
A defining truth about Candidate Dodge is that she is a self starter. Fearless about failure, Dodge engages every opportunity as learning opportunity. She puts all of herself into working hard in support of others.
Candidate Dodge works as a Design Researcher and a Landscaper.
Her new employer, Partners in Public Innovation, is a consulting firm based in California that helps city and state government agencies improve their processes to serve their citizens better. Working with others to solve complex problems makes Candidate Dodge’s brain light up the most.
Her other part-time employer is Hidden Gem Gardening, a small, woman-owned, local business founded and managed by her sister Meg Dodge. Dodge cares for gardens around the East Bay and helps the installation team create beautiful, water-conscious gardens for private residences.
In her free time, Candidate Dodge manages a professional men’s and women’s cycling team. AUTOMATIC | ABUS Racing was founded by Dodge and her co-founder in 2019 and they are one of the most winning teams in the country. They specialize in a style of road racing called Criteriums. San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland have criteriums if you ever want to check this out!
Dodge earned a Bachelor of Science in Dietetics from the University of Georgia. She then worked for Georgia’s Women, Infants and Children (WIC) as a nutritionist. Here, she co-founded a county book partnership where she wrote grants that allowed the partnership to buy and distribute over $50,000 worth of books. The partnership included the library, the school district, and the health department where Dodge worked.
Next, she completed her Dietetic Internship at Keene State College where she completed rotations at Dartmouth Hitchcock, Dartmouth College Athletics, and Dartmouth College Food Service. Most recently, Dodge earned her Master of Fine Arts in Service Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Dodge was recruited to SCAD for a full athletic scholarship for cycling and raced in 4 Collegiate Nationals. Her master’s thesis is titled Female Technician Retention: A systems thinking analysis of systemic inequality in male-dominated professions; where she looked at how one might design a solution to a systemic problem.
WHY CITY COUNCIL
Candidate Dodge has been interested in politics since she was five years old. Family gatherings have always centered conversations about what is happening in the country and the world and what forces are at play in creating our reality.
While in high school, she volunteered at the city hall to help during elections. In college, she canvased in Georgia for national and state elections to register voters in this critical swing state.
Now, Dodge seeks to be elected to El Cerrito City Council to help build and protect the city she loves. Candidate Dodge is not seeking to drive a personal agenda onto the City Council. Instead, Candidate Dodge strives to represent the needs and ideas of the community members and the mouthpiece of these needs in local government.
EL CERRITO MEASURES
Measure G
Measure G is not a tax increase. Measure G is a vote to maintain current tax levels. Measure G allows for continued support of critical local services.
Details of the measure can be found on the El Cerrito City website here.
VOTING YES
CALIFORNIA PROPS
Prop 2
Political Proficiencies
This bond issue would authorize the state to borrow $8.5 billion for K-12 schools and $1.5 billion for community colleges for construction and modernization.
Voting YES
Prop 3
Same Sex Marriage
This constitutional amendment would remove outdated language from Proposition 8, passed by voters in 2008, that characterizes marriage as only between a man and a woman.
As a member of the LGBTQ+ community: Voting YES
Prop 4
Climate Bond
This bond issue would allow the state to borrow $3.8 billion for drinking water and groundwater programs, $1.5 billion for wildfire and forest programs and $1.2 billion for sea level rise. In part, the money would offset some budget cuts.
Voting YES
Prop 5
Voting Threshold
This constitutional amendment would make it easier for local governments to borrow money for affordable housing and some other public infrastructure projects by lowering the voter approval requirement from two-thirds to 55%.
Voting YES
Prop 6
Involuntary Servitude
This constitutional amendment would end indentured servitude in state prisons, considered one of the last remnants of slavery. The California Black Legislative Caucus included the proposal in its reparations agenda.
Voting YES
Prop 32
Minimum Wage
This initiative would raise the overall minimum wage from $16 an hour and adjust it for inflation, fast food workers received a $20 an hour minimum on April 1 and health care workers will eventually get $25, though not until at least Oct. 15.
Voting YES
Prop 33
Local Rent
This is an attempt to roll back a state law that generally prevents cities and counties from limiting rents in properties first occupied after Feb. 1, 1995. It would also limit affordable housing development in the state.
As a renter: Voting NO
Prop 34
Patient Spending
Sponsored by the trade group for California’s landlords, this measure is squarely aimed at knee-capping the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has been active in funding ballot measures (see Prop. 33).
Please note that this is a highly targeted proposition to this particular organization that is abusing their power as a foundation for personal gain of a few individuals.
Voting NO
Prop 35
Health Care Tax
This initiative is sponsored by California’s health care industry to raise more money for Medi-Cal and block lawmakers from using the cash to avoid cuts to other programs. The tax is set to expire in 2026.
As a citizen who depended on Medi-Cal for a chronic illness: Voting YES
Prop 36
Criminal Penalties
This measure — supported by Republicans and law enforcement but opposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and most Democrats — may be the most contentious on the ballot. It would partly roll back Proposition 47, approved by voters in 2014, that turned some felonies into misdemeanors.
Voting NO
Information about each ballot measure was produced by CalMatters.org. This is free content but it is not free to produce. Please consider donating to help them continue their work keeping millions of voters informed.
CANDIDATE STATEMENT
The city’s main responsibility is to provide services to their community. The delivery of this responsibility has been strained because of the financial challenges El Cerrito has face over the past many years. I bring a unique skill set that I plan to use to help the council work more effectively together and to elevate the voices of my fellow residents.
The first efforts I will champion are as follows:
Creating a City Revenue Optimization Strategy: The current council created a strategic plan that outlined five goals. What is missing, is the roadmap of how to achieve these goals. My experience as a service designer and instructor for public service employees will allow me to work with the residents, city employees and businesses to ensure the creation of a feasible and community beneficial Revenue Optimization Strategy. One way that we could raise money without cutting services is to implement a VIP fee structure like they have in Los Angeles, allowing people to pay a premium for expedited services like permitting. This will not change your daily service experience, can improve others, and will raise money without spending the city spending money.
Better communication between resident and council: All residents have a voice as long as you talk to the right people. I want to make this task easier for the resident. I will do this by improving El Cerrito’s public comment system.
Service transparency: I want to map all city services. It’s impossible to utilizes services provided effectively if you cannot find them or do not know who to talk to. By showing how services are funded and how to access them, the people of El Cerrito can better utilize service offerings and the city can see which services are of highest value to the people. This won’t cost the tax payer any money, because this is what I do for work and fun. Let me use my time and energy to help you get the most from your city.
I want to empower citizens to ask for what they want and provide the tools to know who to ask for it. As City Council member, it will be my job to balance the desires of the individual and the needs of the majority of citizens to create a beautiful and sustaining El Cerrito long into the future.
3 EFFORTS
