John Pimentel

• Office: Board of Equalization
• Election Date: November 3, 2026
• Candidate: John Pimentel
• Due Date: July 1, 2026
• Printable Version

Thank you for seeking GrowSF's endorsement for the November 3, 2026 general election! GrowSF believes in a growing, vibrant, healthy, safe, and prosperous city via common sense solutions and effective government.

As a candidate for state office, your day-to-day responsibilities in office will affect not just San Francisco, but California as a whole. As a representative of the people of California and of San Francisco, the policies you bring to Sacramento should reflect the best of what we have to offer.

The GrowSF endorsement committee will review all completed questionnaires and seek consensus on which candidates best align with our vision for San Francisco and have the expertise to enact meaningful policy changes.

We ask that you please complete this questionnaire by July 1, 2026 so we have enough time to adequately review and discuss your answers.

• Your Policy Goals
• Your Leadership
• Personal
• Thank you

Your Policy Goals

We’d like to get some details about your high-level goals and how you intend to use your elected office to achieve them.

John Pimentel - GrowSF Questionnaire General Election

California Board of Equalization, District 2 | June 2, 2026 Primary

Board of Equalization Candidate Questionnaire
Office: Board of Equalization, District 2
Candidate: John Pimentel
Election Date: November 3, 2026

What policies do you hope to change or preserve by running for Board of Equalization? Please be specific, and list them in order of priority.

1. Make BOE a model of transparent, competent, taxpayer-centered government: public calendars, clear recusal standards, never allowing no-bid contracts, responsive, timely and clear answers to taxpayers, plain-English explanations, and measurable service standards.
2. Modernize property-tax administration so county assessors can do their jobs accurately and consistently. This should include aggressive implementation of AI tools that can better detect inconsistencies in assessment practices within counties, better training in modern information management tools, provision of shared data tools and standardized information management platforms to the counties, clear and timely statewide best practices, faster assessment appeals, and faster refund payments.
3. Work with the Legislature and the Governor to pass legislation that would lower the cost of living by eliminating the sales tax on food and to oppose tax structures that get passed through to restaurants, food delivery services, food trucks, and other forms of prepared food vendors that increase the cost of living for working families by adding sales tax to eat.
4. Aggressively oppose broad tax increases like the SEIU/Lieber sponsored “Billionaires Tax” that are illegal takings by the government and which discourage investment, entrepreneurialism, job creation, housing production, and consumption. Rather, support targeted efforts to close narrow, unfair tax loopholes used by wealthy taxpayers and large corporations which are often inconsistent with the intent of the tax code. Examples of this are the “Water’s Edge Election” and the so-called “Invest, Borrow, Die” loophole.
5. Use BOE’s authority and bully pulpit to encourage legislative changes that actually encourage economic growth and upward mobility: eliminate regulations that discourage new housing construction and investment in necessary utility and transportation infrastructure, encourage an appropriately-paced, consistent transition to clean energy by enabling a fair return to investors so private sector investments will occur, encourage the expansion of free community college as a way to help working families affordably pursue post-secondary education that improves earning power. And, support and advocate for efforts to both better prioritize public spending and to make our tax system more fair and predictable by reducing the dependence on highly cyclical income taxes.

Why those policies?

California does not suffer from a lack of good intentions. We suffer from a lack of follow-through, accountability, practical execution, and the discipline to say “NO”. That is where the Board of Equalization can matter. The BOE is not a legislature, but it can make property-tax administration more uniform, transparent, and modern across 58 counties. That affects homeowners, renters, businesses, schools, counties, cities, and special districts.

My campaign is built around a simple idea: affordability requires practical reform. Food, housing, utilities, insurance, and taxes are all pushing working families out of California. We should not add to that burden with hidden, pass-through taxes or broken administrative systems. We should make government work, close unfair loopholes, and remove obstacles to the housing and infrastructure California needs.

I also embrace using the BOE as a platform to advocate for statutory changes such as eliminating the sales tax on food and closing loopholes used by corporations and the wealthy to avoid paying taxes in the original intent of the tax code.

I may be the only serious candidate, ever, to consider eliminating the actual organization for which I am running. See San Francisco Chronicle endorsement. I believe government should perform the constitutional functions assigned to the BOE (oversight and auditing county assessors, and performing assessor function for unitary assets), however, I question if value is created or destroyed by having 4 elected, usually retired legislators, in an oversight role in what is a technical, administrative function. Government savings and focus would be achieved by transferring these responsibilities to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration who would perform such functions under the Governor's Administration.

I also have a track record of improving performance of existing government institutions, fighting waste and corruption, thinking creatively to solve vexing problems. Incentive based contracts to speed emergency freeway repairs, merging state agencies, free college, cancelling a corrupt chancellor’s emeritus do-nothing contract, pursuing civil litigation against deep-pocketed firms that paid bribes, setting up an internal auditor and anonymous tip line, using city-owned parking lots and community college campuses for affordable housing. These are all examples of actual accomplishments I pursued in state and local government, and got them done.

Explain why your #1 goal is your #1 goal.

My first goal is to make the BOE a model of transparent, competent, taxpayer-centered government because trust with the taxpayer is the foundation for everything else. If the agency is not trusted, it cannot credibly lead on modernization, uniform assessment practices, or tax fairness.

I have spent my public and private career fixing broken systems:

• Rebuilding earthquake-damaged freeways in record time with incentive-based contracts, and prioritizing the retrofitting of existing freeway structures
• Spearheading efforts to consolidate duplicative state law-enforcement agencies (merging the California State Police into the California Highway Patrol)
• Building more than $1.5 billion in clean energy and water infrastructure (Pacific Ethanol, Foundation Windpower, Panoche Valley Solar, Sustainable Water Solutions),
• Delivering free community college which has had tremendous impacts: 24% enrollment increase, including 33% from East Palo Alto
• Confronting waste and corruption in a public agency, including creating an internal auditor position to improve policies and procedures and serve as a watchdog for best practices and creating an anonymous whistleblower hotline where anyone, especially insiders, can report potential misdeeds without fear of retribution.
• Fighting corruption at the community college district also included pursuing civil litigation against the deep pocketed builders, architects, and project managers who bribed the former chanceller. This effort resulted in $20 million recovered of taxpayer funds that will be returned to the District.
• Converting municipally-owned parking lots and community college campuses into affordable housing which are both happening now.
• Affordable childcare facilities at community college campuses to enable working families attending college. This is underway using modular construction techniques.

The BOE needs that same doer mindset. A fair tax system is not just a set of slogans; it is rules, data, training, appeals, audits, calendars, disclosure, and execution.

How will you build the coalition and political capital to enact your #1 goal? What obstacles will you face, and how will you overcome them? Will the power of the office of Board of Equalization be enough to achieve this goal?

I will build a coalition around competence, not ideology. For my #1 goal, county assessors, taxpayers, business groups, labor, local governments, housing advocates, and fiscal watchdogs all have an interest in a BOE that is professional, consistent, and transparent.

The BOE has only two constitutionally mandated responsibilities, and they are doing neither well. The first is to oversee the 58 county tax assessors, but they failed to see Gus Kramer, Contra Costa County Tax Assessor trading bags of cash for depressed valuations on apartment buildings. The BOE also performs assessments for statewide assets, however, the Board approved a massive tax break for PG&E by allowing them to accelerate depreciation and pay no further property tax on the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant which continues to supply 8% of California’s electricity and make millions for the utility.

The obstacles are predictable: institutional inertia, uneven technology capacity across 58 counties, suspicion after the 2017 BOE restructuring, and the temptation to turn every tax question into an ideological fight. I will overcome those obstacles by starting with areas where the BOE clearly has authority: using the Income Method to assess PG&E, increasing audits on county assessors and assessment practices surveys, aggressive implementation of AI tools to make work more efficient and accurate, technology provision and standardization throughout the 58 counties, more frequent and clear assessor guidance, training, forms, taxpayer education, public hearings, and faster, more accurate assessments of state-assessed property valuations.

The power of the office is enough to make real progress on transparency, technology standardization, administration, guidance, training, surveys, and culture. An example of this is PG&E’s effort to shirk its tax obligations related to the restart of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. The issue is wonky and complex. Essentially, in 2016 the state directed PG&E to close Diablo Canyon in an orderly fashion which included accelerating remaining depreciation. As a result, PG&E has stopped paying property tax on the significant assets. In 2022 the state changed its mind and directed PG&E to keep running until 2030, and is likely to extend that date to 2045. The whipsaw has created all sorts of practical management issues at PG&E and has left local governments stymied over a loss of property tax revenues. I believe this matter is solvable if the Board of Equalization had any sort of vision or willingness to provide leadership. I completed an analysis for Sen. John Laird and encouraged him to supplement his legislative effort SB 931 by demanding the BOE apply the income method to assessing property value and return some or all of the lost property tax to San Luis Obispo County.

To supply new AI-enabled technology to the BOE and the counties, or make other data management investments, will require budget authority from the state Legislature and Governor It is not enough by itself to rewrite tax law or fund every county technology need. Where legislation or budget action is required, I will use the office to build the record, convene the players, publish the data, and make the case.

As for my deeper goals to reform and make more fair and stable California’s tax structure and systems, these will require an act of the Legislature and a Governor’s signature. To accomplish this I will use the same approach to achieving Free College for San Mateo County. I will identify the broad group of interested parties, use my formal position on the BOE to convene those parties and find common ground on what is politically achievable and break the very large problem into smaller component parts. Then I will work to enact each of those smaller puzzle pieces until we have a broader reform completed. This may take years to complete and will require persistence, compromise, and a practical strategy.

As for the concept of eliminating the Board of Equalization itself. That will require an amendment to the State Constitution approved by voters which can be done either through the legislature, or by qualifying an initiative. I plan to pursue both avenues if necessary.

Generally, I believe it’s healthy for government agencies and policy makers to occasionally review and question the need for a particular policy or program. And, if the mission has been met, or if a better way to approach a problem exists, then our political leaders need the discipline and courage to modify or rescind a previous decision or organization. Unfortunately, this rarely happens in government and new programs and new approaches get layered on top of old programs that were ineffective but never abolished because they had developed a constituency that perpetuates their existence

The Board Of Equalization was originally formed in 1870 and ratified in the California Constitution of 1879 because County assessors had figured out that if county assessment levels could be reduced then the residents of their county would pay a smaller share of the state tax. At that time, counties were gaming the property tax system and actually assessing property at a fraction of their total value. For instance, San Mateo County in the 1870s was assessing property at 15% of its actual market value. (For reference see: California’s Tax Machine, Second Edition by David R. Doerr. It is a great book that elucidates some of the BOE's darker eras)

I also believe regular and rigorous audits of the 58 county assessors to ensure consistency in assessment practices from County to County is quite useful and even necessary. In fact, It may be that a five-year audit cycle is insufficient to ensure county assessors are using consistent methodology from county to county in their assessment processes. However, the question I’m raising here is if this could be better accomplished with administrative experts accountable to a single elected official (the Governor) just like other state agencies. I don't see how an elected board improves this function.

I also question if better application of artificial intelligence and/or supplying standardized technology to County Assessors would be more effective at creating transparency and "equalization" than a staff of hundreds with a $35 million budget. Likewise, my opponent talks about how she personally has solved some tax issue for an previously incarcerated person who failed to pay his taxes for many years. While there may be some value in having an elected board member in the field to help individual taxpayers with their issues, it strikes me as a very haphazard and inconsistent way for a government agency to provide a service.

So, my point in saying I would consider eliminating the BOE is not necessarily to eliminate all the BOE's functions, but to actually improve upon that mission, and to consider changing the vehicle and the tools to be more effective and transparent than funding a rest home for retired legislators.

Will the power of the office of Board of Equalization be enough to achieve the other goals?

Partly, and no. The BOE has direct authority over important parts of property-tax administration, including county assessor oversight, rules, forms, training, guidance, welfare exemption clearance, legal entity ownership information, and state-assessed property. That is enough to improve uniformity, transparency, taxpayer service, and technical competence. BOE could reverse the PG&E tax break administratively.

Other goals, such as eliminating the sales tax on food or changing the Water’s Edge Election, require legislation and gubernatorial approval. I will be honest about that. I will not pretend the BOE can do things it cannot do. But BOE members have a statewide platform, technical credibility, and regular interaction with taxpayers and local governments. I will use that platform to push practical reforms that lower costs and make California more competitive. And, as described above I will work to build coalitions to pass legislation that will make our tax system more fair and less volatile. That will be a major lift, but it is a necessary reform that will require external pressure from a political leader who is willing to do the right thing -- even if it leads to his political peril.

What is an "out there" change that you would make to state/local government policy, if you could?

I would create a regional Housing and Infrastructure Delivery Authorities with real power to coordinate transit-oriented housing, infrastructure financing, and permitting across city and county lines - but with strict accountability, deadlines, and metrics. The Bay Area economy is regional, the housing crisis is regional, and transportation is regional. Our governance is still fragmented into dozens of local veto points. Consolidating the Bay Areas multiplicity of transit agencies would be a good start.

The key is not to create another talking shop. It should have a narrow mission: unlock housing near jobs and transit, coordinate infrastructure funding, and remove duplicative delays while respecting local character. Create new towns connected to employment centers via transit. As I argued locally in Menlo Park, we can have both housing and parking, both affordability and livability, if we stop treating every tradeoff as an excuse to do nothing.

Another no-so “out there” idea is to consolidate the BOE’s functions into one of the other tax administration agencies such as the Franchise Tax Board or the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration as a way to reduce government spawl and scope creep.

Another idea would be to forbid public employees from moonlighting. Right now the vast majority of state employees are still working from home under Covid-Era rules/practices. In my personal experience in state government most bureaucrats had side gigs of all sorts: landlords with rental properties, restaurants, coaching, etc. Their primary attention may or may not have been on their primary state job. In fact, my opponent, Sally Lieber, employs a person named Jordan Eldridge who is paid $134,232 full time salary by the state while he simultaneously owns and operates a full service eponymous political consulting firm. That strikes me as a direct conflict. Having workers focus on their primary job seems sensible.

If you could propose one structural reform to California’s fiscal system—even beyond BOE’s current powers—what would it be, and why?

I would simplify California’s tax base by broadening fairness and reducing volatility: eliminate regressive taxes on working families for necessities like food, close narrow loopholes that allow sophisticated taxpayers to avoid tax, and stop relying on unstable boom-and-bust revenue streams (primarily income tax) that make schools, cities, counties, and safety-net programs vulnerable every time capital markets turn.

The goal should not be “tax more” or “tax less” as a slogan. The goal should be a tax system that is fair, stable, pro-growth, and simple to understand. California’s current system too often punishes work, building, and ordinary consumption while rewarding complexity and avoidance. A more honest system would make it easier to build, easier to create jobs, easier to understand your obligations, and harder to game the rules.

The reason why these reforms are critical is that California has become completely unaffordable. We must reform our land use, regulatory, taxation, and social policies, but those will take a long time to impact the daily lives of Californians. Eliminating the sales tax on food is an action that can have immediate impact. Right now over half our food spending is outside of the house and we pay sales tax on all the hot, prepared, restaurant, and delivered food. It is grossly regressive for working families trying to balance multiple jobs, school, and a frenetic lifestyle. We can help them spend less on the basic need of eating food.

I also would reallocate budget priorities to afford Free College statewide. I believe Free Community College is the most effective investment the government can make in promoting social and economic equity. I estimate this would cost about $2 billion which would be about a 0.5% belt tightening exercise on a $350 billion state general fund while creating massive upside and increased earning potential for 1.2 million Californians currently enrolled in our community colleges.

Your Leadership

Why are you running for Board of Equalization?

I am running because California’s tax and spending systems are too complicated, too expensive, and too often disconnected from results. Families feel squeezed. Builders face delays, fees, and regulations that discourage new housing construction. Taxpayers are asked for more, while too few public agencies can clearly show tangible results.

I have a record of getting hard things done. I helped rebuild freeways after the Northridge earthquake, consolidated duplicative state agencies, built major renewable energy and water infrastructure projects, led free community college in San Mateo County, recovered money stolen from taxpayers, and fought waste and corruption in a public agency. I am running to bring that practical, results-oriented approach to the BOE.

In your own words, what are the core constitutional and statutory responsibilities of the Board of Equalization?

The BOE has only two jobs outlined in the State Constitution: (1) ensure a consistent and uniform property-tax system by overseeing the assessment practices of 58 county assessors, issuing rules and guidance, conducting assessment practices surveys and compliance audits, prescribing statewide forms, training and certifying appraisers and assessment analysts, administering the Legal Entity Ownership Program, and (2) valuing state-assessed property such as utilities, railroads, pipelines, telecommunications networks, insurance companies, and other intercounty property.

The BOE also performs a taxpayer support function, including the Taxpayer’s Rights Advocate Office which provides independent assistance to protect taxpayer rights and the annual Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights hearing.

After 2017, the BOE is a narrower agency than it used to be. Approximately 90% of its staff and budget was transferred to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration due to concerns that the Board itself was corrupt. This smaller scope limited to the Constitutional responsibilities is a reason to be more disciplined and focused, not less effective and efficient. A smaller mission should mean clearer accountability.

What makes you uniquely qualified for this position?

I am a builder and a reformer. I have worked in state government, local government, and the private sector. I understand budgets, infrastructure, labor, tax incentives, project finance, and the practical ways government either helps, or hurts, progress.

As Deputy Secretary for Transportation, I helped manage major state departments, led the charge to rebuild damaged freeways quickly, and successfully consolidated duplicative agencies.

In the private sector, I developed more than $1.5 billion in renewable energy and water infrastructure projects that created thousands of jobs. That included hands on experience fighting through the byzantine labyrinth of government regulations, environmental lawsuits to obtain the right to build. I also faced the unequal property tax assessments on our various wind projects across multiple counties and dealt first hand with assessments and assessment appeals processes.

As a community college trustee, I led the effort to deliver free community college, increase enrollment, create a culture of transparency, and confront waste and corruption.

As a Menlo Park Housing Commissioner, I supported turning underused downtown surface parking into housing while also respecting the need for parking and livability.

Most candidates talk about delivering results and accountability. I have actually done it.

What three measurable outcomes should Californians use to evaluate your success after your first two years in office?

1. Transparency: 100% public calendar disclosure for all Board Members BOE-related meetings, a published recusal policy, and plain-English summaries of significant votes and policy positions.
2. Modernization: a public BOE modernization scorecard covering new technology adoption and standardization including aggressive use of AI to make processes more efficient and accurate, county assessor guidance, standardized forms, digital e-signature/e-filing progress, reduced assessment appeal timelines, open data, and more efficient training curriculum and broader training participation across counties. I hope to include a program to help county assessors finance the upgrades of their information systems.
3. Uniformity and taxpayer service: measurable reduction in repeat findings from assessment practices surveys, clearer statewide guidance in high-confusion areas, and a documented increase in taxpayer-facing materials written in plain English.
4. Legislation introduced and analyzed for cost to taxpayers to do the following:
   1. Create a financing authority to support county assessors in IT upgrades
   2. Eliminate the Sales Tax on food
   3. End the Water’s Edge Election
   4. Appropriately tax liquidity achieved through the “Invest, Borrow, Die” loophole.

The Issues

Since 2017, the BOE’s authority has been significantly reduced. What evidence can you point to that the agency has or hasn’t earned back public trust since then? And what safeguards will you commit to (public calendars, recusal policies, or financial disclosures beyond what’s required) to ensure accountability?

The 2017 restructuring was a clear message: the old BOE had lost the confidence of the public, the Legislature, and the Governor. The restructuring narrowed the scope and staff to about 90% of the 2017. This shows consolidation into an agency managed by the Governor can effectively deliver the BOE’s mission. This should make accountability on the remaining elements of the BOE much easier.

There is evidence of progress: the BOE now focuses only on its constitutionally described property-tax responsibilities, it maintains an Open Data Portal, conducts and publishes assessment practices surveys, holds Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights hearings, and convenes work groups with assessors and taxpayers to improve consistency and performance at the county assessors offices and assessment appeals processes.

But “less scandal” is not the same as full public trust. And there may be scandals yet uncovered. My opponent, Sally Lieber, employs a person named Jordan Eldridge who is paid $134,232 full time salary by the state while he simultaneously owns and operates a full service eponymous political consulting and campaign finance compliance firm. That doesn’t seem like an effective use of public funds, does it?

The question should be whether taxpayers, assessors, local governments, and businesses can see what the BOE is doing, understand why it is doing it, and measure results.

I will commit to: (1) a public BOE-related calendar; (2) a written recusal policy; (3) voluntary disclosure of significant meetings with parties affected by pending BOE matters; (4) plain-English vote explanations of highly technical tax policies and decisions; (5) no use of the office for political favoritism; and (6) an annual public scorecard on my commitments.

Property-tax equity and transparency remain contentious statewide. What reforms do you support to improve consistency across county assessors? And how would you measure whether those reforms are working?

I support statewide best-practice templates, faster and clearer Letters to Assessors, stronger and better training for appraisers and assessment analysts that can be scaled and automated, better sharing of legal entity ownership information which includes using AI and other large data gathering and processing tools to actually track changes of ownership over multiple years that should trigger a property value reassessment, and a public dashboard that tracks recurring findings from assessment practices surveys. I also support making BOE guidance more usable for ordinary taxpayers, not just experts.

A practical reality is that various county assessors have created data management systems which are customized and stovepiped creating high risk of inefficiency and inaccuracy. Likewise small counties lack the resources to invest in technology that could make their jobs easier (and maybe redundant). I would make it a major priority to drive the BOE toward adopting a standard technology platform and encouraging counties to migrate to a consistent system. This would make county to county comparisons much simpler and more accurate. Such a migration could be implemented through BOE leadership working with the Legislature to provide financing mechanisms to help county assessors pay for upgrading local technology. This would result in a more uniform information system statewide.

I would measure success by tracking and reporting on: repeat findings in assessment practices surveys; time required to resolve assessment appeals; county adoption of model forms and processes; training completion and buildout of replicable and automated training curriculum; taxpayer complaint patterns; and whether similarly situated taxpayers are being treated consistently across counties.

The point is not to take away local assessor judgment or centralize power. The point is to make sure judgment is exercised within a clear, fair, consistent, and professionally supported system, and to facilitate information system integration to enable effective management.

Digital modernization of tax assessment systems is an ongoing challenge. What technology or data-sharing improvements do you think would most reduce errors or inequities—and what precedent or pilot project would you model it after, if any?

The highest-value modernization would be a shared statewide property-tax administration backbone: standardized technology platform, simple and standardized forms, digital e-signatures, secure and comprehensive (multi-year) data-sharing for legal entity ownership changes, searchable guidance, digitized and scalable training materials and training records, appeal status tracking, and an open-data layer that allows the public to see system performance without exposing private taxpayer information.

I would start with practical pilots, not risk a giant failed IT project (our state government has many terrible examples of such value destroying major procurement failures). The BOE already has an Open Data Portal, and recent work groups have discussed assessment appeal modernization, including electronic signatures and applicant resources. I would build on those pieces and expand: pick several counties of different sizes, pilot common digital forms and appeal tracking, measure error rates and processing time, then scale what works.

AI can help in this mission. It should be used to flag anomalies, reduce paperwork, summarize large volumes of public guidance, and help staff spot inconsistent treatment. It should not replace human judgment or due process.

I also think AI could help close the loopholes that are inherent in the Legal Entity Ownership Program (LEOP). Here property owners stage transactions over multiple years. These structures effectively change control of ownership without triggering a reassessment. AI could be used to track these transactions over time to at least provide data on the amount of local property taxes behind circumvention, and to provide insights to changes in rule or statute to ensure these properties are appropriately reassessed under the statute’s intent.

What is one BOE policy or decision from the past five years that you disagree with, and what would you have done differently? Please cite the specific vote, ruling, or policy.

One recent decision I would have handled differently was the Board’s May 28, 2025 State-Assessed Property Value Setting vote for gas and electric companies, including the approval of Pacific Gas & Electric Company’s 2025 unitary value at $51,648,400,000. The minutes show that Sally Lieber moved approval of the staff-recommended gas and electric company values including that of PG&E. Like most staff proposed actions, the motion passed unanimously. This was part of the annual constitutional function by which the Board sets unitary values for state-assessed properties.

My concern is that the Board approved a major utility valuation without, from the public record, forcing a transparent discussion of how Diablo Canyon’s continued operation through 2030 should affect the valuation, allocation, and local fiscal impact of PG&E’s state-assessed property. This matters because Diablo Canyon is not a theoretical asset. It is a large, operating energy facility in BOE District 2 that supplies 8% of California’s electricity and generates millions in annual profits for PG&E. Its continued operation without paying property tax has direct consequences for schools, counties, special districts, emergency services, ratepayers, and local taxpayers.

Reporting and CPUC filings show that the original Diablo Canyon unitary-tax framework was tied to the plant’s expected closure as directed by the Legislature, but the plant’s operations have been extended. The unitary tax expired with the planned closure date even though the plant is now expected to operate until 2030, and will likely operate until at least 2045. A CPUC filing states that Diablo Canyon property taxes were $21,350,920 in 2018 and that PG&E expected property tax to fall to about $700,000 in 2027. Diablo Canyon unitary-tax revenues had averaged about $21 million per year and supported 91 local agencies in San Luis Obispo County.

This amounts to a major tax break for PG&E approved by the elected BOE on auto-pilot unwilling, or unable, to pay attention and ask the difficult questions.

What would I have done differently? I would have asked for the item to be pulled from routine approval and required a separate public staff presentation on the Diablo Canyon component of PG&E’s unitary value. Specifically, I would have asked staff to answer four questions before the vote:

1. How Diablo Canyon’s extended operating life was reflected in the PG&E valuation;
2. Whether the income approach, cost approach, and depreciation assumptions properly reflected five additional years of operation;
3. What the fiscal impact would be for San Luis Obispo County and affected local agencies;
4. Whether the Board had administrative options such as switching to the income method for valuation, or needed to formally recommend legislation, to avoid an unintended windfall to PG&E and an unintended loss to local taxpayers.

If the law required legislative action, I would have said so plainly and immediately. But I would not have allowed the Board’s most important annual property-tax function to proceed as a routine consent-style exercise when a multibillion-dollar utility asset, a nuclear power plant, and tens of millions of dollars in local public-service funding were at stake. The BOE should be a watchdog for fair, accurate, and transparent assessment — not merely a pass-through body for staff recommendations.

This issue also illustrates why my background matters. I have developed and financed large energy and infrastructure projects, worked with regulated assets, and served in state government. I know that small assumptions about useful life, depreciation, allocation, and income can move large amounts of value. As a BOE member, I would bring that practical experience to the Board’s valuation work and insist that decisions affecting local governments and taxpayers be explained in plain English before the vote, not discovered after the damage is done.

While I disagree with this singular vote to provide a tax break to PG&E, I also raise concern with the BOE’s slow pace of converting work-group findings into enforceable, measurable modernization. The 2025 County Assessor and Assessment Appeals Board Issues Work Group identified real issues: assessment appeals scheduling, applicant resources, recruitment and retention, and technology such as electronic signatures. Where is the progress on any of those recommendations? Is there an implementation plan? A scoreboard for maintaining progress? If so, I can’t find it. I would have pushed that process into a formal implementation calendar with named owners, deadlines, public metrics, and pilot counties.

My concern is that the California government too often studies obvious administrative problems without building the machinery to fix them. I would support the work group, but I would add execution discipline: a 90-day implementation plan, quarterly status reports, a public dashboard, and a requirement that the Board vote on which recommendations will be adopted, deferred, or rejected.

Personal

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I started painting houses on weekends when I was 13. In high school I worked 20 to 25 hours a week in a banquet kitchen in Stockton prepping food, washing dishes, and cleaning toilets. In junior college I worked 30 to 40 hours a week unloading trucks, organizing a stockroom, and delivering and installing appliances for Sears Roebuck. At UC Berkeley, I worked in a machine shop and a library through financial aid work-study.

My grandfather was a farmworker. My father entered kindergarten speaking no English. I am the first generation in my family to graduate from college. I started at San Joaquin Delta College, transferred to UC Berkeley, and later earned an MBA from Harvard. Affordable, high quality, public education, especially Free Community College, changed my life.

On a very personal level my life story includes challenges that many have faced and worked through, and some unique experiences that I hope no one would ever know, all of which have fundamentally shaped my worldview. My parents were alcoholics. My childhood was chaotic. I had a little brother born with Downs Syndrome and institutionalized who I never knew until adulthood. I have a gay older brother who was essentially chased from the family as a teenager, but thankfully later returned to my life, was best man at my wedding, and worked with me in our wind business for a decade. Another older brother dropped out of high school, got lost in a lifetime of drug abuse, and now is in jail for life, for matricide. My two older sisters who effectively raised me, suicided. One off a bridge, the other through alcohol and drugs. My wife and I are now blessed to help raise one of my sisters' two wonderful daughters who are now starting their own families.

Mine wasn’t a normal family experience, but in many ways I realize my experiences guide me to maintain my nuclear family as my top priority, to always make the ethical choice, and to respect that individual decisions have life impacting consequences. Looking back on it all, I feel like I am the luckiest person in the world to have lived through these experiences.

My career has been about practical reform: state government, transportation, infrastructure, clean energy, free community college, fighting corruption and inefficiency, building more housing, and youth service. I believe the government can be a force for opportunity, but only when it is competent, honest, and focused on results.

I have been sufficiently successful in business to control my own time. At this stage of my life I am committing to investing my time and accumulated skills to make California a better, more affordable place to live and work.

How long have you lived in California? What brought you here and what keeps you here?

I have lived in California most of my life. I was born and raised in Stockton in a big Portuguese-Irish-Catholic family. California is where my family worked, struggled, learned English, got educated, built careers, and found opportunity.

I left California for a few years to attend graduate school and work with a major consulting firm. While in Boston I was blessed to meet my wife with whom I have been married for 26 marvelous (mostly) years. When we approached the stage of life to start thinking about kids and taking out a mortgage, we decided to return to California to put down our roots.

What keeps me here is the same promise that shaped my life: California can still be the best place in America to build a life, start a business, raise a family, get an education, and contribute to something bigger than yourself. But that promise is under stress. I am running because I want my children and every working family to have a real future here.

What do you love most about California and/or your hometown?

I love California’s scale of possibility. We build things here. We invent things here. We grow food, educate millions, welcome people from everywhere, and create industries that change the world. I also love that my own story - community college in Stockton to UC Berkeley to Harvard, then public service and a successful business career building clean energy infrastructure - is a classic California story.

There was a time when California’s leaders possessed the vision and made the tough decisions to invest in our infrastructure, both physical and intellectual. I long for a time when our leaders could build the State water system and our highway infrastructure without undue impedance from the California Environmental Quality Act, or invest in the Master Plan for Higher Education to provide literally EVERY Californian with the opportunity to pursue a college degree or technical pathway.

But, in our effort to create fairness, not leave anyone behind, and protect our open spaces, we’ve gummed up the power of progress with too many rules, regulations, and barriers. As a result, the much ballyhoed innovation economy in California is limited to brand new industries in technology and information sciences, where the politicians and bureaucrats have not yet created a maze of regulations and rules.

I am not just longing for the “good ol’ days.” I recognize that people and ecosystems were permanently damaged by California’s rapid growth. I respect that structural racism exploited many and continues to frustrate the advance of some still today. I have experienced the downsides of uncontrolled growth that impacts our landscapes and quality of life.

That said, I am advocating for a return to balance in California. When a large solar project I was developing was held up by litigation from the Sierra Club for 7 years even though I had included a 15:1 mitigation ratio of valuable habitat (sufficient to allow the Giant Kangaroo Rat to be removed from the Endangered Species List!)... Well, we have gone too far and we have allowed well-intentioned rules to discourage entrepreneurial risk.

I grew up in the country. As a kid I made money harvesting walnuts and chopping firewood. Whenever I am out in the Central Valley my heart is full of the sights and sounds of the orchards and fields where I played and worked. I love the people who do the work without needing applause: students trying to get ahead, parents working multiple jobs, farm workers, builders, factory hands, teachers, coaches, small business owners, and volunteers. They deserve a government that works as hard as they do.

What do you dislike the most about California and/or your hometown?

I dislike that California has made it too hard to live here. Housing is too expensive, energy is too expensive, insurance is too expensive, taxes are too confusing, and government too often makes it harder to build the things we need.

I also dislike the polarization of our politics that has become so entrenched. California’s diversity is beautiful and marvelous. I think it makes us stronger, more creative, and more entrepreneurial. I just wish our passions and politics could be mutually tolerated and our society had a stronger ethos to respect each other’s interests or positions and just agree to disagree.

What frustrates me most is not that California has problems. Every place has problems, but in a government that is dominated by a single political party we still can't find a way to address basic issues like homelessness, affordable housing, water supply, commute times, and underperforming public schools.

I’m frustrated that we spend too much time arguing about ideology, and we choose process over results. We know we need housing, but we make housing infeasible. We know families are squeezed, but we add taxes that show up in grocery and retail prices. We say we want renewable energy, then make it impossible to build a wind or solar farm. We say we want living wage jobs, but then regulate and tax businesses out of California. We know people are losing trust, but agencies resist transparency. This has to change and I want to help change it.

Tell us about your current involvement in the community (e.g., volunteer groups, neighborhood associations, civic and professional organizations, etc.)

I currently serve as a trustee of the San Mateo County Community College District, where I led the effort to make community college free for county residents, expand access, fight corruption, and improve accountability.

I serve as President of the Board of the Redwood City PAL Center, which provides academic enrichment, sports, and mentorship for hundreds of children in North Fair Oaks while supporting constructive community relationships with law enforcement.

I also coach and support youth sports, including Ravenswood Little League in East Palo Alto, and have been active in my children’s schools and community activities.

Previously, I served on the Menlo Park Housing Commission, where I supported converting underused downtown surface parking into housing while also addressing parking needs. That experience reflects my approach: solve the practical problem, do not just repeat slogans. See**:** Pimentel Almanac op-ed on housing and parking

Thank you

In conclusion, thank you for the opportunity to answer GrowSF’s questionnaire and for reconsidering your primary endorsement of Sally Lieber. I hope you will consider my responses above, and the following facts regarding my opponent who turned in her primary questionnaire on time, and who GrowSF endorsed in the primary election.

• Sally Lieber ACTIVELY SUPPORTS the Billionaire tax: In a candidate forum with me Sally proudly said she is, “In the field standing shoulder to shoulder with the SEIU in grocery store parking lots collecting signatures for the Billionaire Tax.”

  • I oppose the Billionaires Tax because and other unstable wealth-tax mechanisms because they are one time grabs for structural imbalances between spending and revenues, drive capital flight, and perpetuate revenue volatility. Rather, I’d like to enforce the original intent of our tax code by eliminating the Water’s Edge election and closing loopholes like the so-called “Invest-Borrow-Die” approach to avoiding capital gains taxes.

• Sally Lieber refers to the SEIU as “family”: SEIU-UHW publicly lists Sally Lieber as its endorsed candidate for BOE District 2. That substantiates alignment/endorsement by SEIU-UHW. Source: link

  • I support collective bargaining, and I am proudly endorsed by some building and trades and public safety unions, however, I have serious concerns about the corruptive influence of public employee unions donating to the elected officials who are responsible for negotiating and approving the contracts of those same unions.

• Sally Lieber authored anti-spanking legislation: Lieber made California a laughing stock in national news by introducing legislation that would outlaw spanking your own child. It is exemplary of her view of government’s role as a highly regulated “nanny state” Source: link

  • I did not spank my children when they were young, but nonetheless, I believe this type of policy and the mentality behind it is what has created so many of California’s problems. The government can’t solve every problem. I believe in a strong social safety net and appropriate government programs and incentives, however, there must be a role in our society for individual responsibility and people must understand that there are consequences for their choices.