Irvine city council's candidate Kev Abazajian "will fight for more renewable energy"
UCI physics and astronomy professor, Dr Kev Abazajian, run for a seat at Irvine city council. His program mainly focuses on making Irvine a greener city. He insists on the need of cleaner energy and increase of public tranportation.
What is the state of Irvine right now in terms of environmental issues?
Irvine has had a history of being pretty environmentally friendly. A lot of the city planning has included open spaces and parks and preservation of some open spaces that are untouched.
Historically, it had a great impact soon after its founding as a city in 1971. Here, at UCI, there was a professor named Sherwood Rowland working with this post-doctor Mario Molina, they discovered that chlorophore carbons (CFC) destroy ozone, in a building next to mine, here, at UCI that is now called Sherwood Rowland. They discovered it in a lab and they wondered if was going to affect the atmosphere ozone and through modeling, they show it could go up to the ozone layer and because it was kind of a catalic reaction, it could continue to break ozone and to destroy the ozone layer.
Irvine as a city was the first municipality to compressively ban CFC. So, there’s been a connection between UCI campus and the city that has been very good on environmental issues since the beginning.
I think the discovering of the ozone destruction because of CFCs is an amazing environmental story that connect UCI with the city and the entire Earth.
If you look at what's happening now in our city council though, we've got people that don't think environment is a priority at all. The majority of them are climate change deniers. They don't think the city can do anything in terms of climate change or should do anything when in fact they could do a lot. They could adopt screen energy policy; community choices energy is one way of doing that and what a lot of municipalities have done in California. That allows the city through kind of joint aggregation purchase greener source of energy on the open market. You can go for more renewable energy and more carbon free energy than even the state requires us to. I will fight to make sure that happens as soon as possible. If you look at certain other cities nearby they have been able to increase their renewable usage by 25% while reducing cost by 5%. It is a win-win for everybody if you save money and you help the environment, it is an amazing and good thing to do and it is hard to argue not to do it. So, I think we should get on that band? line as soon as possible.
So, you are calling for local actions on climate change...
One of the impacts is that we could reduce our carbon output. If we go completely green in our energy usage, we could reduce our carbon output as a city. 200 000 people live here, we could reduce it by 20 to 40%. If it is 40% that's like 100 000 residents becoming neutral instead of just one person, you or I deciding to become neutral.
How are you going to do that?
By changing where are all our energy coming from. So, if we reduce our carbon usage by 40 %, and if you take 40% of the population that's a hundred thousand people. It is effectively 100 000 people becoming neutral.
But how are you going to force people becoming greener?
You don't force them to do anything. The city just chose to purchase cleaner and cheaper energy. That's what you do. People don't have to make a single change, they're just going to see a small electricity bill and the fact that their energy comes from carbon-free source.
Five days ago, you said to Voice of OC, « I believe the bill and the lawmakers crafting have a worthy goal we should fight for: a modern transit system and clean-energy driven" in California. What are your plans to achieve that goal?
Community Choice energy is one way to do it. I think we have to partner regionally and with the state to make sure that we have the energy resources in place that are green. I think if you don't make it a priority it's not going to happen and right now our cities are not making it a priority because of the powers that are in the city. That's one of the reasons. We need to locally, regionally, and as a State take actions and be greener.
So are you calling for local actions on climate change in Irvine itself and separately from Orange County or inclusively with it?
The county can be involved but it does not necessarily have to be. In other regions in California, it's been group of cities. Usually you need to be going some units of purchasing energy that's bigger than the size of Irvine. So sometimes, it's counties. For instance, Solano county, in Northern California, produced community choice energy for the whole county. Right now, our county is led by a supervisor that are climate change deniers, they have no interest in taking actions on climate change. They've done no steps in the state climate actions plan for municipalities. It's just a tragedy. We need to really change the leadership that is in our county to make sure that they take actions on most important issues facing humanity.
So, the county in a short-term probably won't be involved but we need to get partnership with cities which can happen that can put us together in a place to purchase and bargain for our energy. And that looks like it can happen there are some regional cities like Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach that would potentially partner for this kind of community choice aggregations.
Now, you talked about the politicians in Orange County who are climate deniers. There is a streetcar project which is supposed to be built between Santa Anna and Irvine. What is your opinion about it?
I think it should happen as soon as possible. Our region and our cities rely on cars almost exclusively for transportation methods. It's affected our emissions by traditional pollution and carbon. It's also affected our way of lives. We all have to sit in cars in traffic. I had to do it today just getting to the post office. We need to look at multiple modes of transportation that are also greener. It helps relevant traffic problems, it helps people getting around and helps us doing it in a green way. If we electrify our motor transport as well as getting electricity account from green sources, we can really change the impact regionally a lot stronger.
OCTA has a plan for a rapid streetcar in their long-range plans that would connect UCI with Santa Ana airport and then go up to South Coast Plaza. Actually, in the new plans, it splits it South Coast Plaza to go North to Santa Ana and then West Westminster. If you look at the highest density populations and in Orange County, that's where it is, in that region and more broadly. We need to connect this region with the way to get around that doesn't rely on cars in or around.
Are studying the possibility to have more streetcars lanes?
Yes. If you think about what Irvine needs, it needs not only to connect UCI with North of Orange County. We also need to connect within our own city. If you look at highest density regions in our city, there are Irvine Business complex which is near the airport and Irvine spectrum which is near the Amtrak station. We really should connect those two with some kind of mass transit which would alienate a lot of traffic through the major corridor of the 405 which goes right through the center of the city. I am not a transportation expert, I am a physicist, so I know about energy, but we need to partner with transportation expert to really design a way to get people around through the city that is more efficient and more environmentally friendly too. OCTA does have plans for bus rapid transit that would connect North of Orange county to Southern Orange county via the interstate 5 corridor so that would be part of the solution potentially.
Are your projects for the city in terms of transportation?
The mass transit projects are long-term ones. They take years of planning and then years of implementation. Short-terms we can enhance the Ishuttle program, again working with transportation specialists to make sure it's officially getting people around. Ishuttle program gets people from the local regional mass transit center, we do have metro link which has been useful to connect Orange county with LA but once you get to the metro link station it is very hard to get from there to your business or school or whatever you're doing in Irvine. We could connect better the Metro link and Amtrak station with local businesses and universities and colleges to get people around and we could even look at the Ishuttle doing that mass transit connection between IVC and spectrum.
Do you plan to increase buses? Do you plan to add dynamics lanes?
Ishuttle is like a bus program, it's is a small bus and OCTA is who runs the big buses through our city. We do need to make sure that OCTA is optimizing what it does for our cities. If you talk to students who come from all over California, they often complain that OCTA buses are much worse than were they grew up. We need to make sure Orange County mass transit buses are top notch.
About dynamics lanes, those were an idea that came up from someone. Irvine doubles in size, I don't know the exact numbers but roughly doubles in size, during business hours because if people coming in to work here. And of you are realistic about what that means there is a lot of people coming in one direction and then a lot of people going in the opposite direction in the evening. One wat that some municipalities have helped alleviate traffic congestion is by having dynamic lanes so find those major corridors where there are people coming in the city and then going out and maybe making more lanes and more directions during certain times a day.
You talked about students and how traffic can be high especially on mornings which are rushing hours where students would go to university. When students or teachers don't live on campus there are almost no other way for them than taking a car to come on campus and if they are able to take buses either they are really packed or there wouldn't be enough buses which would make them late. What do you plan to do for these people?
It's a real big problem. There is the Anteater Express shuttle the campus runs so that helps the students coming from various part of Irvine and other places in Orange County...
That's only on campus.
They actually go off campus too.
Well, except two or three spots.
So that would be look at expanding. I was an undergraduate student at UC San Diego and as a student there I was able to take a San Diego mass buses into a broad region actually of San Diego. Down the Pacific beach, where I lived I could take the bus for free and we should look into providing that for our students here at UCI. There is a border... Is it UCI's responsibility, the city's responsibility or the county responsibility’s? Honestly, it is all of these institutions' responsibilities. But UCI should make sure that students get what they need for their transit to get around so they're no impacted with parking or traffic. The city and county should take care of too, even if they're here for two years, four years, maybe six or eight years if they are grad students.
It does also have an impact on students' budgets because gas cost money and...
That's right. It is a big expense for students. I mean cars are very expensive. People think mass transit is expensive, cars are way more expensive. Because people don't think that everybody has the pain to having a car, having insurance, having fueling the thing and that's part of the expenses. Mass transit, you know, you think it is expensive but if look at the 405 expansion that's going on right now that OCTA is doing it is $1.4 billion project. That's a lot of money and it just adds a few lanes. It's going to help a bit but it's not going to solve all our problems of transit in Orange County.
How do you plan to say to people 'stop using your cars so much, take transportation now’?
You have it make desirable. It has to be a good alternative. If we're facing gridlock on the streets mass transit is going to look a lot more desirable. You also need to make it reasonibly costs. I lived in Washington DC for five years and for a lot of that time, I didn't have a car at all because owning a parking spot in Washington DC was $40 000. That cost more than the car I owned so I sold my car didn't buy a parking spot and took mass transit to Lynn Rose Mary college parkway where I worked. It has to be where it's desirable to not have a car as you are getting around. If you make it convenient and affordable then people will use it.
You talked a lot in your interviews about transparency and how you are really into the facts. Do you know how much your projects will cost for transportation?
Well, I don't think OCTA has even publish their cost estimate for these future plans. It's really... I don't know; even for the existing plans and not even the ones that are sort of just ideas at this point. To give a scale of the kind of the costs involved though, we can look at San Diego, again where I went to grad school, UC San Diego, they're putting in the trolley to connect UC San Diego with the rest of San Diego. That project cost $2 billion. That's expensive but again why letting a couple lanes on a 405 for 1.4 billion that doesn't count the cost of those cars on the freeway which are themselves very expensive for the people around.
How do you plan to raise funds for your projects?
There are funds that go in to OCTA, like the funds that go for that $1.4 billion project. You just need to prioritize mass transit over roads and funding is always a question and we'll have to address that if we need to increase the budget for OCTA which is responsible for the mass transit and road traffic management and development. We have to figure out how to do that and there are different ways of raising funds, so we'll see. But hopefully, we don't have to, we just need to reprioritize.
Do you already have an idea of the experts you would like to include in the work you would like to do?
Yes. We have a nationally recognized institute for transportation studies right here on campus at UCI. They have a lot of expertise in both mass transit and traffic with cars. We need to utilize than kind of talent. There is talent in the region and also in the city there are are a lot of expertise and a lot of knowledge for traffic and transportation solutions that we need to utilize and not just put people on our traffic and transportation commission that are political appointee that have absolutely zero knowledge of it which is what is the case right now.
Are you already working with them?
I have to talked to some of its members of that commission. They have some background with traffic and transportation largely in an administrative role and not in an implementation and design role. I think we need people with expertise and implementation and design of transit and transportation methods and not a bureaucrat.
Are you working as well with the experts on this issue?
Yes. I have met with folks in Institute for Transportation Studies, here on campus, and talked to them about what we can do for Irvine. Remarkably, nobody has contacted tat institute in over two years from the city. It's a real waste of resources, we should utilize what we have here in the city to help solve our problems.
What are their conclusions so far on what could be done?
Make connections. Not just use the city for narrow purposes. We need to make sure that we make connections with the talents that we have both in the city and on campus which is about one sixth of the city. One out of six people in the city of Irvine has a direct connection with campus, either work here or study here.
Transportation is also an issue linked to housing because the closer someone lives to campus, if it's on campus, the prices are getting higher and if students or teacher lives off campus farther from campus then the rent are a bit cheaper. What are your plan about housing to reduce the cost of the rent?
Housing is a crisis in Irvine, it's a crisis in Orange County and it's a crisis for the whole state of California and it's because we have a booming economy, but we don't have enough places for people to live. And if you look at the numbers only about 20% of those that work in Orange County can afford to buy the medium price home in Orange County and that's a big problem what that means is that you can try to have government changing prices and that doesn't really work too well, market is a lot better at managing prices. And so that means you need to build more but that doesn't mean we need to build two million-dollar Mansions. We need to build people that think the median income person can afford and we need to do that in a way that smart. It doesn't impact traffic. So, what that means is what the State is already actually promoting, which is called Transit oriented development.
If you see like these Transit projects like the streetcar project and the bus Rapid Transit potentially all of that needs to be part of actually this housing solution too, so you implement Transit and then you implement housing around them so that people can use that Transit instead of using cars. Again, like Washington DC is an interesting model where I lived there. They have a very nice light rail system called Metro system and all of the major stops are being developed to high density housing in Virginia, in DC and in Maryland, and they are managing have more housing without needing to expand the roads. So, I think that that's a often talk about solution and needs to be look at here in Orange County.
In Irvine, pretty much all appartments are owned by one company. What's your power on them?
There is very little power on terms of requiring prices. One of the thing that is kind of unique here in Irvine is the requirement for affordable housing. 15% of all new development has to be for those medium low-income or less. That's a good solution but it's not enough because some of those units are delayed by 10 years or more.
Like where in Irvine?
There is an entity called Irvine Community Land Trust and they develop housing that is fulfilling that requirement of affordable housing and it needs doing his job better. It definitely not doing it enough and that includes both purchasable housing and rental housing. I think that's the way to look forward, to make sure it is working properly and maybe increase that fraction instead of squeezing half the population into 15% on the market, maybe we should be expanding in 20% at least. There are some proposals to do that but the political will has to be there and I will only be one member on the council.
You talked about Washington, about San Diego and how your personal experiences have influenced your candidacy, what other experiences can you think of that also influence you now?
I think also being an immigrant affects my candidacy. I was five years old when my parents move to the US from Armenia, Soviet Armenia at the time. I grew up in Texas and there are great people in Texas but there are also lots of intolerance into immigrants. I saw that as a kid. You see it even now, you see it today including in Orange County, including in Irvine. We have to make we have an electoral representation that is sensitive to that issue and also listen to arguments on population to make sure we're representing them fairly and taking into accounts their concerns. Unfortunately, there's a lot of xenophobia and intolerance right now. You see that with the current mayor trying ot introduce a challenge to the sanctuary state law for our city to have local law enforcement and enforced federal immigration law which would break centuries where local law enforcement doesn't get involved with immigration issues.
Among your personal experiences which led you to build a program mainly based on environmental issues?
I love the outdoor. I don't do it enough, but I try to get out the national parks here in California. I tried to go on hikes even within Irvine like in Bommer Canyon and also Crystal Coast State Park. Our natural world is our world and we need to preserve and to protect it. If you see what's happening due to climate change in these areas, particularly I go to sequoia national park a lot, you can see that the tree line is completely devastated by routs and heat. Climate change is right in your face in these areas and the wildfires that we're seeing are a sign of that as well. It's a five-alarm fire to take actions on climate change. We need to have people that are elected that take it seriously.
San Diego, Washington, Seattle, which city really inspired you to build your program?
I think all of them. They all have similarities and differences with Orange County. We are probably more similar to San Diego County than we are with Seattle or Washington DC but they all have lessons to be learn; I don't know if there is any one that is singularly inspirational.
You also told me that you were in England last week. Do you take inspiration from abroad ?
Yes. If you look at transit across the world they are much further ahead than Southern California. I visited Japan couple times for conferences and with my smartphones, Google Map and a credit card, I could get around everywhere in Japan with mass transit and never worry about getting someplace late because it would tell me exactly how long it would take and where to go and it was all completely connected with everything from very high speed trains to subways and buses. So that's one kind of model. We probably can't have it here overnight, but then there's other places I even I went to this town in England where the hall where the meeting was that town with a hundred thirty-four people and but I was able to get to the nearby train station, which was a 15-minute taxi right away. It was all still connected in some way. We need to make sure that we can do that here to, but we have unique problems. I think it's easier to look regionally instead of at least four Regional models from the short-term like Orange County is just far behind LA county and San Diego County. We need to look at our regional partner to see how they solve their problems.
