13 The Civic Tech Candidate, Kalen Gallagher
We engage in a conversation with [Kalen Gallagher](https://twitter.com/kalengallagher), School Board Member, and candidate for the San Jose City Council. We talk policy, civic tech, inclusion, and what it's like to be a candidate for office.<br><br>### Resources and Shoutouts:<br>- [Kalen's Campaign site](http://www.kalengallagher.com/)<br><br>##### Music Credit: [Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds)
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Transcript
Hello. I'm Ryan Cook, and this is Civic Tech Chat, a podcast about the civic technology movement. We seek to harness the power technology has to improve the delivery of public services to people everywhere. Welcome to another episode of Civic Tech Chat. If you've enjoyed our content so far, I would urge and ask of you that you hop on over to the iTunes podcast store and give us a five star review. Doing so helps us reach a broader audience, and it helps encourage me to spend more of my time making these things. So if you wanna hear more, definitely go and do that. Now this week, I think we're in for a bit of a treat. We're joined by Kalyn Gallagher, a, individual that serves on a school board in San Jose and is also a candidate for the San Jose City Council. In addition to that, he has helped cofound the Code for San Jose chapter for Code for America there, as well as the new leaders council chapter for Silicon Valley. So let's go ahead and hop into the discussion we had and learn a little bit about what it's like to be a civic technologist candidate. Kaelin, thank you so much for joining us on Civic Tech Chat this week and for taking the time out of your day to do so. Could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what you do?
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Just to start it off, my name is Kalen. I live in San Jose, California. I'm currently running for city council here, and we just made it through a big primary, election in June, and we're moving on to November. Super quick about me, I grew up here in San Jose, ended up going to UC Davis for school. But when I came back, I became a teacher, and started paying a little bit more attention to what was going on in our community and and starting to see where, you know, there's some room for improvement. And so that kinda has led me to, you know, a lot of different ventures. One of them being running for school board in 2012 and getting elected, another one being starting the code for San Jose chapter, which is our local brigade, with a few friends, and running that for three years. So that's super quick about me. And, yeah. Excited to be here. Thank you again.
Now one of the things that is a theme, for our episodes is the idea of starting with personal why. So to that end, can I ask you, what what is your personal why? What what drives you to get out of bed in the morning and do the work that you do?
Yeah. That's a that's a good question. I think, you know, at the end of the day, I feel really lucky to have grown up here and have, been able to kinda, like, make it through and and have an opportunity to be a little bit mobile in my life. You know, when I was a high school student, actually, my senior year of high school, my friend called me and she was talking to me about college. And she was talking about, you know, trying to figure out where I'd applied and things. And it was actually something I'd never even thought about. I had not applied to any of the colleges, and, it was the night all the applications were due. And I was literally leaving my house, but she came over to my house, and applied to college for me. And that's the only reason I went. And that you know, when I got to to school, I started to see, how abnormal that story was for a lot of people or how common that story was for certain people and started to think a little bit more about, you know, how things are structured and how, you know, a strong education system can really help out people's lives. And so, that's you know, fast forward a few years, that's why I ended up becoming a teacher. And, basically, everything I have done since then has been to try to, make things more fair and equitable for, I don't know, I guess, the the people that that our system isn't currently serving.
Now you mentioned there, of course, that part of your background is yourself being an educator and having that firsthand view of the education system. Could you talk to us a bit about that and and how it reflects your general worldview?
Yeah. I mean, I think so I taught in a an area of San Jose, in a district that had historically really not served a a wide segment of the population there. So a lot of my students, came from, backgrounds where they were considered low income by the state and were on free or reduced lunch, or renewed to the country and learning English as a second language. And I think what was really unique and refreshing about the school environment I was in was there was a a huge belief in these kids. You know, I think a lot of times there's deficit mindsets that come with with kids who are battling poverty or kids who are learning English as a second language. That really wasn't the case at my school. And, you know, there was this this true belief that, you know, we could help these kids pursue whatever their passion was and and take try to take as many barriers out of the way as possible. You know, and that's really, I've carried that with me, you know, ever since I left the classroom. It's it's really expensive to live here on a teacher salary, and so I ended up leaving the classroom after a couple years. But it's, you know, something that I think about a lot as a school board member as we try to restructure things here.
And you also mentioned that you helped cofound Code for San Jose. What's the story there? How did that come to pass?
Yeah. So I think I first got interested in Code for America after I got elected to the school board. So after I taught, I ended up working for a really early stage start up, that was building a tool for teachers and for kids. And so it was kinda, you know, in my day job, you know, working in a tech company in Silicon Valley. And then at night, you know, working in a as a school board member and kinda interacting with government. And you'd you'd assume that well, my assumption was that, you know, our our, local school board or city government would be very innovative here in Silicon Valley. But that really wasn't the case. And I was working with a lot of people who, that wasn't that wasn't at the forefront of their minds of how you can, you know, deliver services in a more effective way using tech. And so I started going to up to San Francisco and, going to Code for America events. And I was always kinda shocked that, you know, one of the brigade kinda popped up in San Jose. So yeah. So, basically, just started running some Facebook ads. You know, we, like, built a website, ran some Facebook ads throughout the city and said, hey. Anyone interested in this should come out. We're gonna meet up. We found some space for free. I basically paid for the pizza for the first couple months into a customer's sponsor and, took it from there.
Well, that that sounds like a a quite a story to getting that started. It definitely seems to start with that I that, engagement piece that we're probably gonna talk about quite a bit as we go along here through the, the interview. Now another thing that came up as far as organizations that you helped cofound is, I noticed you also helped cofound a new leaders council chapter for Silicon Valley. Could you tell us a bit about the mission of that organization and, how you got involved?
Yeah. So, it actually started through right when I moved back here, I was interested in being a fellow for new leaders council. And when I went to apply, I realized that there wasn't a chapter, down in Silicon Valley. And so, you know, their answer was like, hey. You could come up to San Francisco, but, you know, that's 50 miles away. It really I don't really feel a connection to that city. And they're actually looking for people to start the local chapter here. And so me and a couple other people got together and said, okay. Well, what would it take? And took it from there. But the the mission really to actually answer your question, you know, the mission is to get young progressive people together. NLC is a non partisan organization, but everyone self identifies as progressive, and get them together in a room and go through some leadership training, build some networks, and kinda see what happens. And so, we had a lot of success in our first year and then it kinda grew from there. So I was co director for five years, and then ended up, you know, serving on the advisory board and new people took it, you know, to the next level after that. So it's a really good way to get to know a lot of young, civic minded people pretty quickly.
You mentioned that that that label of progressive. It it sounds like it's a bit of an anchor, for folks that are in involving themselves in that group. What what does that mean to you in in your viewpoint? How does that apply, to the way you go about, leading?
Yeah. I think it you know, it's a discussion that we actually have in the first weekend of our institute every year is what does that word mean. And I think, you know, what we found is it means different things to different people, but I think at the core, there's an there's an idea that, you know, the current systems that we have, although they work really well for some people, they don't work for really well for a lot of other people. And there is a path forward. There are changes that could be made that would make things better for more people. And I think that that resonates with, you know, most of the members who end up applying and end up becoming fellows, the idea that they wanna be a part of the change to make things better in the community.
Now before we hop into questions that are more about the campaign you're currently running, there is one that I've been reusing a lot lately, throughout these episodes. It's one that I asked a lot of folks at the the CFA, Code for America summit that happened just recently, close to your neck of the woods. And that's the question, what does civic tech mean to you? What's your answer to that question? Yeah. So to me, civic tech means that,
you know, it's a tool that we can use to drive better results, for government and drive it in in cheaper, more efficient ways. You know, I think there have been times in our history where the government has been very innovative and has used technology to create to their advantage to, carry out the mission of, you know, whatever local entity it is. And there's been times that it hasn't. And I think, you know, we're in one of those troughs right now where, you know, I can wake up in the morning, I can press a button on my phone, and something will be delivered to me within, you know, two hours. If I wanna fill out a permit to, put an extension on my house or, to, you know, get a new garbage can because mine broke, it might take weeks. And so how do we, continue to revamp, and revitalize local government so that it's effective and that more people are benefiting from the services?
Now I'd like to go ahead and have a shift gears and and let's talk a little bit about your campaign, for the San Jose city council there. So in a similar spirit to how we started this interview, the face of it is a pretty basic question, but it probably has a deeper meaning, for you. And that's simply why did you decide to run for the city council?
Yeah. So I think a big part of it is, you know, I grew up here in San Jose. I it was a really good place to grow up. Right? It's you know, my my parents you you know, we didn't have a ton of money. My dad was a mechanic at the airport. My mom stayed home and and took care of the kids. But, you know, we had access to really good schools and and good parks, you know, a lot of hiking trails and just different things that made it a really good place to to live. San Jose has changed a lot since then. The, you know, the whole Silicon Valley economy is is great, but it also produces challenges that, you know, go to make it I don't know. I guess the challenges are you know, it creates jobs, but it also makes it harder to live here. Right? We're in a gigantic housing crisis. Lot of families are spending, you know, three hours to work and back every single day just to, you know, put food on the table. And I think it's you know, we need some more leadership at city hall to help, you know, make this valley continue to thrive in a way that has been the last, you know, twenty years. What I'm hearing from you there are some things that sound like they're starting to hit at some core values that make up who you are.
If you were to name some of those, what would those be, and what importance do they have for your ability to lead?
Yeah. I mean, I think one of my core values, I guess, as a elected official has always been to be a problem solver. Right? There's I mean, there's always different things coming at people, in whatever system you're in. Right? As a school board member, it's often about, you know, results for kids and and how are we doing. But I think it's important to, you know, start there, not being super dogmatic about one thing or the other, but, you know, looking at the set of problems and and driving the change that's necessary. I think the other core value is being, you know, community driven. I think too many times, our elected officials get they get into office and then they go sit in some office downtown all day instead of being out in the community. I don't think we can make real change there. And I think the third is just independence. Right? I think there's it's interesting to watch politics now with all the, you know, special interest money that comes into play and all the different political action committees that are, you know, throwing money at people left and right. But then can you be effective once you're in office if you're, you know, taking $200,000 from someone, before you get in there? So, you know, that's been something that we decided early on. Like, we are, you know, not gonna take money from these groups, which is a big risk. But I think if we if we pull it off, then we have a lot more, our ability to actually make the change increases dramatically.
You mentioned that being a little bit of a risk. Is this act by you something that would be akin to, like, a unilateral disarmament? Is there a lot of that sort of activity, with these city races?
Yeah. I mean, I think it is. Right? There's you know, we're able through, you know, a lot of phone calls and a lot of, you know, pestering people and and that kind of thing to be able to raise, you know, a decent amount of money from from a lot of people, but we didn't have the big money that was getting spent on some of our opponents. And so I think we got outspent seven to one in the primary, but only came a couple 100 votes behind our our competitor now. Yeah. And so it's tough when, you know, some special interest groups are sending mailers to the entire district every day for twenty days straight, and you're relying really on door knocking and, you know, sending a couple mailers and doing some online ads. So it's it's tough, but I think it's I still think it's the right it's the right move at the end of the day.
Now as you mentioned, you're currently a school board member, and, you have been since, 2012. Is it is that correct? Yeah. In in that time, what would you say that you and and your board, have accomplished that you would say you're the most proud of? Yeah. So so when I ran initially,
you know, we'd run I ran against two incumbents because there was a lot of issues in our schools. And, you know, only around I think it was, like, 42 of our kids could apply to a college because the district kinda gave them the right classes. When you looked at low income students and, people from our Latinx community, it was much lower. In some schools, it was around 10%. And there wasn't really a lot of leadership in that area. And that's part of what sparked me to run and and, you know, got us all the support that got, you know, a 29 year old kid in there. Right? And I think the big accomplishments kinda go to, that piece of, you know, what what tools do kids have when they leave high school that can propel them into the future. Right? So some kids are gonna wanna go straight to a four year school. Awesome. Let's make sure that they're prepared for that. Some kids are gonna wanna go to a two year community college and then transfer out. And others are gonna wanna go straight to career or go straight into, you know, the workforce or or get a certificate or whatever it is. And so, you know, those numbers have shot up dramatically. And, you know, it's not like I think we we did anything that magical. I think it's just funneling the resources in the right direction. And then secondly, when I got elected, you know, we're the school district that's, like, right in the heart of Silicon Valley, but we only had one computer for every 93 kids. And so, you know, these kids were coming in, you know, with cell phones and computers at home and all this stuff and then going back into a classroom that felt it was, like, in 1910. And, you know, you know, we've, you know, built out pilots and gone, towards the direction where kids have devices in the classroom so they can learn in more modern ways. You know, I think that's been something that, the community really wanted to see and be able to pull off.
And you alluded to this a bit a moment ago, but, you did have a rather impressive showing in the first round of that general election on, I believe, it was June 5, placing second with, 30.5% of the vote, which I believe was only one and a half point shy of the the top vote getter. What would you attribute that success to without you being kind of a a newcomer to the the, city electoral process but still managing to get that kind of vote count?
Yeah. I mean, I think it's a couple things. Right? Like, I think there's definitely a piece of you know, we've been and I I use we a lot, but I, I guess, you know, but there's there's a group of us who have been using my position on the school board to drive change for the last six years. Right? And we've been able to do a lot of that. So we have a pretty solid base of people who, you know, have been part of that change. And then I think beyond that, it's it comes down to door knocking. Right? We spent a lot of time going out there and knocking doors. I started knocking doors about a year ago now and just having conversations with people. Because I think a lot of times when someone shows up at your door, you know, they're selling you solar panels. They're selling you, you know, pest control. They're they're selling you on stuff. And I think sometimes candidates fall into that trap as well of, like, hey. I have this person for thirty seconds. I need to get their vote immediately. But We try to take a different approach and I, you know, I never actually asked for a vote. I'd always just ask what people, you know, the changes they wanna see, and start to, like, build real authentic connections that I hoped would lead to votes in the long run. And if it didn't, great. I made a new friend. Right? So I think those two things really helped get us through. And then, you know, the financial support of friends. Right? We raised $50,000 from about 500 donors. So that's, you know, a $100 a person on average. And a lot of people stepped up and were able to, you know, make some stretch donations that helped us, you know, pay for flyers and pizza and all that kind of stuff.
Now to, give folks an idea of of scale, especially with your own personal involvement with door knocking, do do you know roughly how many doors you you've yourself had to knock on as well as, I guess, maybe the bigger pool of your whole team?
The the district I'm running in has run a 100,000 people. About 47,000 are registered to vote, across, like, 30,000 households. And then you obviously, like, narrow that down a bit based on voting patterns. Like, there's some people who register to vote who literally, you know, haven't voted in thirty years. You know? So at the end of the election, you're probably not knocking that person's door. But we did we did a lot, and it and it was basically going out every day, going out on weekends for, like, ten hours, you know, whether it was pouring rain or a hundred and ten degrees outside, we were we were out there. And,
yeah, I think it I think it helps at the end of the day. Yeah. I I I agree. That definitely does. That that face to face interaction is is powerful, for the electoral process there. One of the highlighted priorities I noticed, from your campaign materials seems to emphasize a focus on improving education, for the city there. What are some things that you would like to do in in support of that aim?
Yeah. So I think as a very well, before I answer that, you know, the the way we end up getting that list, was I kinda did the, like, the lean start up method, right, of just going out and listening to people and kinda building the list from there. I think what was interesting is as we went out, I had, like, a preconceived notion of what the top issues might be for people. And a lot of times that overlapped quite a bit, but there's some things that popped up that, you know, you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. And so one of the top things people talk about is their kids' schools, right, which makes sense. Even though you're not running for a school board, they're very concerned about, you know, can are my kids getting the best education? Right? And one of the biggest blockers to that in the Valley is the cost of housing. Right? So, we're now you know, depending on the list, we're, you know, in the top five most expensive places to live in the country. And our state is not really funding our education system in the proper way. And so a lot of teachers are struggling to live here. Basically, unless you have a spouse who's in tech, it's really hard to make ends meet. And so that's something that families wanna see solved. And I think beyond that, it's you know, a lot of big cities across the country do more in the education space, with summer programs and after school programs. And, that's not really, the reality on the ground here in San Jose. And I think people wanna see us move in that direction.
I I think you're keen to bring up the the housing situation, which I believe is also one of the the things that's prominent in in your campaign messaging. And it it's certainly understandable that you would do that. And kind of taking a peek at the situation myself, I found that according to CityLab, between 2010 and 2015, Santa Clara County, where where San Jose is located there, added about a 171,000 jobs, but only 29,000 housing units. And while perhaps that's not quite as bad as some other municipalities like San Francisco, it still seems to show that there's a pretty stark need there. Do you do you have a sense of things the city might be able to do to try to alleviate that pressure?
Yeah. So I think I think a piece of it is, you know, we have to start thinking regionally. Right? Because currently, the way cities are funded in California, it makes a lot of sense for a city council to approve, you know, a gigantic job center. It doesn't actually make a ton of sense for them to approve a giant housing center. Right? It's just it's the the the way, cities are funded through through tax revenue. It just the the incentive is not there. Right? And so starting with that, either you change that law or you get together as a region and say, hey. Look. This is not working anymore. Kids who grow up here are, you know, 12 years old and already searching about where they're gonna move when they grow up because they know it's just not an important place to be, and that's that's not the way you build a healthy community. So, you know, I think what it starts with is, it's it's pretty interesting. There's a lot of young people who are running for city councils up and down the peninsula between San Jose and San Francisco, who are running on on, you know, having real conversations about this and actually trying to solve, the core underlying issue. But, yeah, I think it takes recognizing we're not in this alone. Right? This is happening in in gigantic metropolitan areas across, you know, the world, really. And then two, it's San Jose can't solve it by itself. San Francisco can't solve it by itself. New York and Oakland and New York and any of the small cities that, you know, go between us. We really need to sit down and
and solve the core underlying issue. Is there an existing, I guess, framework or mechanism for cooperating in that manner, or or is that something that those leaders, but perhaps including yourself, will have to to build in order to to start that work?
There is to an extent, but I don't the way it's currently structured, I don't think it's gonna lead to the change. Right? So, it might be utilizing some of the existing networks that exist. It might be building something completely new, and I don't know if I can answer that yet. But I think it's it's looking at that problem set, trying to figure out, like, okay. Here's the avenues that we have. Is that good enough for now? If not, like, let's build something new. So we'll see.
Now the other thing, of course, that came up in our conversation there, of course, was was jobs. Now based on where San Jose is geographically, I would imagine that there's a considerable amount of competition between municipalities up the peninsula there as you put it, for those high-tech jobs that you mentioned. Do you have any thoughts on how San Jose would act to position itself to compete in that environment?
Yeah. So, San Jose is really unique in that it's, you know, we're the tenth biggest city in the country now, but we're the only big con only big city that actually has more people in it at night than during the day. Right? So most big metropolitan areas, people are going into it every day to work, and then they go back out to the suburbs to, to live. Right? And so cities benefit from that because, you know, you're buying lunch there. You're buying toys for your kids. Like, whatever it is, you're doing your shopping in that big city. San Jose has the opposite problem where we actually a lot of people live in San Jose but work outside of San Jose. So our city budget, you know, suffers as a result. Your initial question was, how do we compete? Right? So, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I've been through the experience of what it's like to be, you know, sitting around in some disgusting apartment and had just raised, you know, over a million dollars for a start up. Right? And you're just kinda like three kids sitting around being like, okay. Now what? And I think San Jose can do a better job of attracting people who are kind of in that stage. Right? Looking at, like, who y Combinator is funding. How do we make sure that we are getting in front of those people early so they locate in our city, in our metropolitan downtown as opposed to going to Palo Alto or San Francisco or Oakland, where it's a lot more expensive to, you know, get office space. You know? And then those companies can turn into medium sized, big sized companies, and then we have less, you know, people commuting north every day. So I think there's a lot of, opportunity that we have. It's just tapping into it in a way that we haven't really done yet.
Related to that well, I guess in in the same vein, if you were to pitch, say, one of those companies, say you had the opportunity, you're you're standing in front of them right now, What what would you say about San Jose as far as, like, reasons they should should be should locate themselves there versus those other places like Palo Alto, that you mentioned?
Yeah. So I think, you know, that pitch starts with, first, even getting in front of them in the first place. And I think that's that's a piece that we're missing right now. But I think once once we're there, talking about, you know, we have amazing people who live here. Lots of the engineers in the valley live down here, and a lot of people who who are not technical, who are still part of the, you know, start up and tech ecosystem live in San Jose. You get happier employees because they're not commuting north for an hour and a half each way every single day. And, you know, I think if you're looking for a place that has people who are coming to it from all over the world to be a part of this innovation economy, San Jose is the place to be. It's also a bit more cheap, than it is to get office space in San Francisco and Palo Alto and Oakland. So you can kinda get more bang for your buck, when the that money really, really matters in, you know, your angel rounder or series a.
An another theme that comes up a lot in this program is this idea of striving for inclusion, whether it's in the the project finding process, the development of those projects, or in policy making or the kind of civic engagement side of it. And that's something that I I sense that your campaign seems to acknowledge as well. In your view, how can local governments like yours attain a high level of community input?
Yeah. So I think I think it starts with, you know, making sure that you are hiring people and training people in a way that makes them ask that question to themselves over and over and over again, right, of who's not in this room and how can we get their input. From there, I think it's actually not that complicated. Right? Like, I think a lot of it is just, you know, spend a weekend go knocking doors, go talk to some real people, you know, and trying to break down those barriers. Because I think if we're building, you know, a civic tech movement that is not inclusive of of the community, then we're not really achieving the the goals of what we're setting out to do. So I think government's the exact same. It's how do you get more voices in the room, how you, show that you're open to feedback and that you value and build things based on that feedback.
That that last that last statement there, really resonates with me. And, as a follow-up question, I'm gonna go ahead and do some fourth wall breaking for the listeners. Yeah. Yesterday, I was interviewing, Open Savanna, a panel there, and this will be an episode that will come out next week, so after they listen to this one. But one of the themes that came up, had to do with a sense that at times, it was something that one could sense that the government in question either wanted you to come to a particular public forum or they were just sort of doing it because they had to. Is is that something that you've observed yourself? And if so, I guess, like, what sort of things drive that? And maybe are there ways to try to make it so that all of them seem to have that that government interest as far as in that community input?
Yeah. I think I've definitely seen that. You know, there's most people working in in city government and school districts, like, they're they're really good people. Right? They're they're trying to do really big things with a very small amount of resources and a very limited amount of time. You know, and sometimes that can you know, if you're not training people in the right way, if you're not valuing feedback in the right way, you know, people just see it as a checkbox. And, like, oh, yeah. We held we held a forum and and, you know, we we ran an article or we ran a a newspaper ad in this obscure paper that no one reads. Therefore, people had noticed about it. Right? That's very different than actively going out and investing the resources and the time to actually get the real feedback that you want. Right? And that's, you know, we we passed a big school bond for our district in 2016. You know, I think the the the advice we got from some, like, professionals was, yeah. Yeah. Just, like, have a couple meetings. Some parents might show up and talk about some stuff, and then, you know, we'll submit the plans. But that but our board really said, like, no. We actually don't wanna do that. It might delay projects a bit, but we wanna go out and, like, actually, genuinely understand what people care about. Right? And we wanna have panels with students. We wanna do surveys. And sometimes that push from the top is what it takes because, you know, it's it's it's not, it's not cheap to do. Right? So it's do you have leaders who value that,
and then put money where their mouth is to to make sure it actually happens. Yeah. It it sounds a bit like the, I guess, like, human centered version of policy making, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Now I'd like to go ahead and step a bit into, some conversation about the experience of of being a candidate as opposed to, like, the issues of the the campaign itself. Now in the first question with that, it comes from a sense that I think we might have a little bit of kindred spirit in this shared experience of, what it's like to see yourself saying, like, a negative ad. Is that something that you've had to experience yourself, and what is that like?
Yeah. So, you know, part of running for office, you know, at certain levels means that some people are gonna attack you. Right? And if there's special interest that, you know, you won't take money from or or whatever it is, you know, it's it's very likely that they're gonna, you know, dig up some dirt on you and do some Google searches or whatever it is and and run some, mailers about it. And so for me, I think, well, a, you know, I think the stuff that in our election, basically, there was, like, a a a poll that went out. Right? I don't know if it was a real poll or a fake poll, but they're, like, alleging all this stuff. That wasn't true. And so, you know, basically, it was, like, playing that recording with friends, kinda laughing about it, and then not letting it distract you. Right? Because that's you know, what they want you to do is kinda go off the deep end and stop knocking doors. But if you, you know, if a tax flyer shows up in your mailbox and you go out and knock twice as many doors that day, you know, they lose. So I don't know. Just trying to have a thick skin, trying to laugh about it, and then, sticking to the plan.
That makes a lot of sense. I I I think you're absolutely right that a lot of the aim of those things is is to distract, the candidate themselves as much as it is to convince folks that you're somehow bad, for them. Yeah. And one thing I think is kinda funny, at least with what I've observed with some of these, types of ads, is that they oftentimes, in the attempt to say how horrible the things you're going to do are, seem to, like, inflate, like, the power one has. They they they they tend to give one this idea that this person is incredibly powerful, and they're gonna do bad things to your life. I is that something you've observed a bit yourself as well?
It'll be interesting because, you know, I think where most of the attacks are gonna come probably is in the next, like, sixty days. So I'm not sure yet. I'm not sure. I might have to get back to you on that one.
Okay. Well, I'll definitely, circle back with you on that. I'm I'm very curious to see, what your experience ends up being. In a similar vein with these other questions, what would you say is the thing that has surprised you most about being a candidate and the thing that surprised you least?
Well, I think the thing that's always actually surprising to me is, like, when you go and knock someone's door that they might actually be willing to talk to you. Right? Because it it's you you know, you go to someone's house on a weekend at 10AM and they're, you know, they're in their pajamas, you just assume they're gonna hate you when you knock the door. And I think that fear is what keeps a lot of people from actually, you know, doing it in the first place. But, you know, you occasionally get people who are really, really upset. But usually people are really appreciate that you're there and that you're spending the time to go and, like, gather input. So that's always surprising to me. The thing that's not surprising, I think, is just how much, you know, how how much the there are people with a lot of money who want to dictate where things go, how how prevalent that is, and how offensive they are if you, you know, don't take their money or or, you know, see things in different way than they do. So, unfortunately, that's just not surprising in this day and age, and it's definitely prevalent in our city council race and and beyond.
Now the, the audience here of Civic Tech Chat is, as you might imagine, choosing to listen to a civic technology podcast. They're either civically minded and likely civically engaged, whether they're in San Jose with you or in other parts of this country or the world for that matter. If they're sitting here listening and saying, you know what? Kalyn is exactly the sort of person I wanna see elected to public office. I wanna find a way to help. What ways do you should they kinda raise their hand and and try to assist you? And what sort of help could they provide?
Yeah. Thank you. Well, I I always point to three things. Right? Right? Like, I think if someone is local, and wants to come out and, you know, knock on 50 doors some weekend, to definitely just reach out and let us know, you know, or sign up on the website, because that that's really, really effective. I think outside of that, you know, we're, you know, trying to run a community fund campaign, and and contributions always help whether it's, you know, $3 or $600, which is the max. Those types of donations, I think help show the community that we have real support behind us, and also help pay for all the, you know, expensive things there are to do. And then lastly is just, you know, phone banking. Right? It's it's interesting because no one actually answers their phones anymore. And so a lot of times you're just calling and leaving messages, but, you know, doing 20 of those or doing 50 of those, can really, really help out, come election day. So I'd say those are the top three things.
Great. I I I'm sure there's gonna be folks out there that are gonna be interested in helping out that way. I know I myself am as well. I think it's really cool that a civic technologist like yourself is stepping up to run for office. Now as we start to draw to a close here, one of the things we do on civic tech chat is give the guest the chance to leave the last word. So what sort of concluding thoughts would you like to leave our audience with?
So, yeah, for the final word, I think what's interesting about our race so far is, you know, we went out there and tried to identify what the top issues were first and get really grounded on what the community really wants to see, and then try to couple that with, you know, my personal vision of where this valley needs to go, and come up with a platform. And if you look at it, actually, civic tech doesn't show up a ton on some of the materials that we send out. Where it does show up is when we talk about policy. Right? So when we're at debates, when we're going more in-depth with people, it's talking about how we can use Civic Tech to actually deliver these changes. And that has been it's worked really well because I think you know, initially, I was like, oh, I'll talk about Civic Tech all the time. It'll be the top of the top of the list on things. But I'm not sure that message works that way. Right? Like, I don't know if you can run on, like, hey. I'm the Civic Tech guy. I'm a do Civic Tech. I think it's more of like, hey. I've identified these issues, and this is one pronged approach we can use to actually drive the change. And did you know in this city, they've done this? And here, they've done that. And at our local brigade, we did this. That message seems to work really, really well with people. And so it's one that we are sticking with, and and, hopefully, once we get in, can, you know, kinda rock the boat a little and and do some of the do some of the work.
Thank you for those thoughts, Caitlin, and and and thank you so much for taking the time to be on our program. I know that this is the sort of topic that folks in our audience are up to get excited about. And, if you're up up to it, I'd love to check back in with you again maybe as we draw a little closer to the to election day and kind of see how things are going. Yeah. For sure.
Yeah. And then the absolute last thing I'd say is, you know, run for office because I think, you know, it does it's really all you do is you fill out a few forms. You get your name on a on a ballot, and then the rest is kinda up to you. And I think if you go out and and talk to people and, you know, really genuinely listen to to what they care about, and have intelligent answers of how you can actually try to solve some of the issues. You know, there's no reason why, you know, you can't get elected. If you don't get elected the first time, it'll happen the second time. And we need good people, from the civic tech community getting, taking those positions of power so we can start performing things from within as well. So, yeah, I just wanna say thank you for for the opportunity to come here, and, we'd love to check back in at some point soon.
Sounds great. Thank you again. You can follow us on Twitter using the handle at civic tech chat. Visit us on the web at civictech.chat, or subscribe to us for content updates wherever it is you download your podcasts.
