Steve Barr Hopes to Bring Fiscal Responsibility to County Board of Supervisors

Steve Barr, a Brentwood City Councilman and candidate Contra Costa County Supervisor District 3 believes he is the right candidate for the job based on his fiscally conservative financial track record.

He was first elected to the Brentwood City Council in 2010 and served as Vice-Mayor 2011 and 2012. In 2014 he was re-elected for a second term on the council in an uncontested election. During that time, Brentwood has been able to ensure it kept its 30% reserve during the economic downturn.

Barr says he is running for County Supervisor because residents of District 3 need someone who will listen to the many needs while providing the community with a voice.

“East County needs a voice on the board of supervisor that understands the issues in East County. I feel that Brentwood is in real good shape and I have a good conscious in moving to the Board of Supervisors and help a little more with what we have been doing in Brentwood and the surrounding areas,” explained Barr. “I have the experience in Brentwood of successfully managing our budget, our economic development, making good sound decisions that benefit our community. I think those expertise can be used in Martinez to not only benefit Brentwood, but the entire county.”

Barr says that his goals if elected will be to fight to preserve agricultural viability in East Contra Costa and support the farmers, work on an East Contra Costa Fire Protection District solution, and work to bring jobs to East County.

He explained that supporting farmers while preserving agricultural is a rather easy fix that does not involve money, but requires an effort and commitment.

“It’s making those farm businesses not have to go through so many hurdles to improve their operation,” says Barr. “How do they sell to the public? I have spoken with people who have tried to create a winery in East County and was given a list of road blocks an inch high of paper of all the things they had to do to make wine in East County.”

Barr says Alameda County and others surrounding us is doing it, the question is why is Contra Costa making it so difficult on our farming community. The County needs to create ordinances that are more business friendly on the farming community to allow them to be more economically viable.

“A farmer should not have to stay economically viable by having to sell their land. That is not good for the future if they continue to move down that path,” says Barr. “They have to be financially viable. These are business people who have to make a living. I want the county to better help those people. Not with any money, but it is taking some of the ordinances that create the roadblocks and changing them.”

In terms of fire, Barr currently sits on the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District Board and says although ECCFPD has financial issues, they are not the only one in the county experiencing a hardship and the solution should be a regional approach and commitment.

“I believe the solution to fire is a more a regional approach. Brentwood is not going to fix it on its own and I don’t expect the county to pay to fix East County, but the approach has to include the county. If it does not start with the county, the regional approach fails,” explained Barr. “A regional approach is the best way not only for East County, but other districts in the county. It’s going to take a giant cooperation and it needs to be based on the revenue which means the levels of the service are going to be different depending on where you live in the county.”

Barr says that under a regional approach, communities could decide to add supplemental service or stations. Under this scenario, he explained that maybe Brentwood wants to fund an additional station and enhance their service area—contracting out stations/firefighters.

“A regional approach removes the balancing act of response where the number of engines being provided is counted,” explained Barr. “It’s now this is what your tax base supports and if you don’t like it, then increase it.”

Another issue Barr wants to tackle is how to better bring jobs to East County from Antioch out to Discovery Bay. There needs to be a commitment to an economic development plan similar to what the City of Brentwood achieved. He does not see the county putting much effort into East County or setting up the District to become successful.

“By working together, we can attract a large job generator by showing the area versus a single city and all competing,” says Barr. “Now that the economy is coming back, we need to sit down and figure out a plan. If it’s not a regional approach, it’s going to be just a couple cities and you can already begin to see that. There is room for everyone to grow.”

Barr says this can immediately be improved by cities not fighting one another for a business while the county board of supervisors should be playing a better role in providing support.

“You also grow economic development by making sure a community is safe. Is someone really going to build a multi-million facility if there is no fire department? Are the employees going to be safe walking to their cars on the way home? These are basic public safety issues that a lot of communities out here have to address,” says Barr. “We have to start by making ourselves attractive, and then start selling to large companies. In Brentwood, our plan has made us attractive; there is no reason why others cannot also be attractive.”

With regards to the sheriff’s department and how they continue to lose deputies to other agencies, Barr believes he can take a template used in Brentwood to begin to retain and grow the department.

You don’t have to look very hard to figure out why people are leaving. The entry level non-lateral transfer employee starts at $45,000. You will not retain police officer for that salary. I know what Brentwood officers start at ($70,000 range), you have to start with salary and see where they are leaving to and those pay scales and see how you can get it relatively competitive. If you are not, you are a training ground.”

Barr says the county cannot continue to be in a position to lose deputies one after the other and they need to make it a priority to fix it and re-build belief in the county. The solution is not just pay either, but work environment also needs to improve.

Barr noted that to fix the problem, they county must make a commitment to salary studies and find the money to make them more competitive. The fix will not come easy and is not a fun process, but it can be done.

“You take that 400-page budget and you start flipping pages and you find it,” says Barr. “It’s exactly what we did in Brentwood. It’s easy to say you can’t do it because you have to cut something. Okay, let’s make that decision if public safety is the number one priority then give me the list that I am going to have to choose between to be able to increase that salary and keep sheriff deputies competitive. “

Barr highlighted that during the process, the county needs to be fully transparent of what is going on that the priority is public safety and that the grass may not get cut every week, but it may be every third week.

“I think by not making the decision; you are not serving the public the way they are supposed to be treated. We are supposed to make hard decision. For example, if we say we are not going to cut that grass every week or fix that street for two years, not build that park. I that is a hard decision but those are the questions I will be asking,” said Barr. “

In Brentwood, Barr say he and the council worked hard to maintain their police department during the economic downturn. It’s one of his favorite accomplishments where they never lost one police force job—in fact, they added 4 over-hire positions.

“We were able to make adjustments in other parts of the budget to maintain our staff. Now that we are coming out of that recession, we have added four over hire positions to allow our police administration to add positions if there is pending retirements or medical injury to ensure the police department does not become understaffed,” explained Barr. “We were also able to open a dispatch center which may be open later this year pending construction.”

Barr says he is proud that both the community and council made it a priority.

“Public safety is the number one priority, its more than mowing the grass every week. It’s a priority and I would like that priority to be the same at the county level and I am not sure it is,” explained Barr. “Everyone talks public safety, but for Brentwood, my record shows it’s there.”

Other accomplishments that Barr is proud of while serving on the City Council is maintaining financial stability of the city by holding onto their 30% reserve which allowed them to do things without having to ask taxpayers for money. One example, is a library that will begin construction later this year.

He is also proud of being a good steward of the farming community by working on preserving farming acreage in perpetuity through agricultural easements. He plans to do the same at a county level.

When asked about the 33% raise the County Supervisors tried to award themselves last year, Barr said the timing was poor and not explained very well. He says the gap between labor groups and the supervisors raises was too much at a time when the supervisors were asking unions to make concessions.

“I think they should have been in line with the general workforce and not exceeded them. They needed to be more consistent. I would like to see that county supervisors look at the general labor negotiations and take the average and be similar,” said Barr.

One knock on Barr was that he recently ran for Mayor against Bob Taylor and lost. Taylor won by earning more than 63% of the vote. Some claim if Barr lost his mayoral race, why does he think he can serve at a county level.

Barr says although he lost, he learned from the experience and has helped him become a better leader.

“I learned the community of Brentwood really loves Bob Taylor,” joked Barr. “The reason they love him is because his number one priority is Brentwood. I learned how it was about how he felt about Brentwood. Even though we feel the same way, everyone knows he takes care of Brentwood like its one of his kids. Everybody sees that and respect him for that. That was the biggest take away from that”

Barr acknowledges they have now become great friends since the race and seeing how the Mayor acts has only improved how he does things.

One topic of discussion that has come up since Barr announced his run for County Supervisor was that he switched political parties in November of 2015 from Democrat to Republican.

“People are confused by my voting because I think the conservativeness probably fits my voting closer than democrat strictly from the fiscal conservative nature, my voting is that way. I think Brentwood has benefited from a fiscal responsible individual. Everywhere you look in town is based on saving money and spending it in the appropriate way and not wasting money,” said Barr.

Barr states that during his 5-years on the council, he has always maintained a 30% reserve in their budget and made sound fiscal sound decisions that have benefited long-term Brentwood which was re-negotiating labor agreements that offset some of the pension. He says it was an approach that put Brentwood closer to a “pay as you go” approach.

Barr says the county has taken some steps with regards to addressing pensions, but that the county still has further to go.

“If we spend more money on retirements than we do on services, pretty soon that is where all your tax dollars go. Do our employees deserve a retirement, absolutely, but the current ones, past and future deserve that same retirement,” says Barr.

Barr says the gap of where he stood as a Democrat between Republican grew so large that he could not continue saying he was a Democratic when there was very few things he still believed in that the Democrat Party shares.

The reason he switched parties was ultimately because of the San Bernardino shooting.

“It was when the President of the United States told the American people that the terrorist action in San Bernardino was because of workplace violence when the Federal Borough of Investigation said that it was domestic terrorism,” says Barr.

He says what happened in San Bernardino further highlighted the need to provide greater transparency between government and the public which he is committed to doing both now and in the future whether the truth be good, bad or indifferent.

“The public needs to tell us if we are not doing a good job otherwise an elected official does not know. Criticism is sometimes good,” explained Barr. “All anyone has to do is look at National politics and know that people are angry and not happy with government and want government to be more responsible to them. I am one of those people and do not believe government leaders at a higher level listen to what the public is telling them.”

When asked if he believes Brentwood is doing a better job at listening to the public than other cities or agencies, Barr says he believes they are.

“We take those public comments and what people tell us to heart. I do not think a single member of our council, when we enter that council chamber, has our mind made up before they hear that public input. One of the reason why we do not comment on social media as much as we would like to is because that is part of that open meeting, open mind until we actually vote and everybody gets a chance to weight in,” says Barr. “Making a decision and creating a course before you vote goes against everything I believe in.”

Barr says voters should support him in the election because when he makes decisions, he will give the public a voice to be heard.

“I balance common sense with what I am hearing in the public with what I think the public needs should be. I think our community wants a decision maker who can show that decision was made because it was in the best interest of the community and not a special interest,” said Barr.

Barr is anticipating launching his campaign website sometime over the weekend.