Thanks for taking the time to check out my first experiment with podcasting. I’m much more comfortable behind a keyboard than a microphone, but as I continue to expand my Martinez News and Views newsletter, I thought I’d give the Substack podcasting feature a try.
It should come as no surprise that I decided to feature Mayor Brianne Zorn for this first podcast. As many of you know, I wrote about her and the other mayoral campaigns extensively when I launched this newsletter for the November election. She made history by becoming the first directly elected female mayor in the city’s history, and Martinez’s first first new mayor in 20 years after Rob Schroder’s five terms.
I sat down with Mayor Zorn in late February to discuss a host of issues from the election and her first months as mayor. Given the length of the interview, I’ve decided to break the podcast into episodes, starting with the election campaign and how she prevailed in a tight race over five other candidates despite not having the most experience, most name recognition or most campaign money; in fact, she was a relative newcomer to city politics, having only been elected to the City Council in 2020, and was heavily outspent in the 2022 campaign by several other candidates. We also discussed whether Martinez should continue to directly elect its mayor, given that most cities in Contra Costa County don’t (opting to rotate the mayoral position among council members), and whether ranked choice voting should be utilized in future elections, given that she was elected in this six-way race with roughly a quarter of the total vote.
In future episodes, you’ll hear us talk about some of the hot-button topics she has grappled with in her first months as mayor, most notably the Thanksgiving “spent catalyst” toxic dust release and other incidents at the Martinez Refining Co., as well as her vision for the city, from the waterfront to Alhambra Highlands to meeting the city’s housing needs. We also get into topics such as the city’s antiracism initiatives, public safety, the unhoused and more.
I hope you find the discussion as informative and enlightening as I did. Feel free to email me your thoughts or leave a comment.
Thanks to River Lazzeretti for the audio editing and technical assistance in producing this podcast.
experiment.
Podcast Episode 1: A Sit-down Interview with Mayor Brianne Zorn