Pass Progress Platform

A job should pay enough to build a life.

Workers shouldn’t have to choose between speaking up and keeping their jobs. They should be able to organize without being threatened, fired, retaliated against, or forced into anti-union meetings.

• Every worker should be free to organize. When a majority wants a union, the employer shouldn’t get a veto. 
• Publicly funded construction should pay prevailing wages, use responsible contractors, and create paid apprenticeships. 
• Companies receiving public land, infrastructure, subsidies, or tax breaks should have to provide something real in return. 
• Major developments should commit to family-supporting permanent jobs, local recruitment, workforce training, and public reporting. 
• Wage theft, misclassification, retaliation, and unsafe working conditions should carry real consequences. 
• Small businesses, street vendors, worker cooperatives, and community-owned companies should have a fair shot at capital, storefronts, technical support, and public contracts. 

A developer’s promise isn’t a public benefit. Put it in writing, measure it, and enforce it.

People should be able to afford the community they call home.

Housing costs keep climbing while wages fall behind. Utility bills are harder to understand, and more of every paycheck goes toward basic needs.

Building more housing matters, but approving units alone won’t stop displacement or make the Pass affordable.

• Cities and Riverside County should create more permanently affordable rental and homeownership opportunities. 
• Public land shouldn’t be sold without clear affordability requirements and enforceable public benefits. 
• Community land trusts, nonprofit housing, social housing, and shared-equity ownership should play a bigger role. 
• Renters deserve protection from unjust eviction, landlord harassment, unsafe housing, excessive fees, and retaliation. 
• Local governments should fund tenant education, legal assistance, and code enforcement that protects residents instead of punishing them. 
• New housing should connect people to jobs, schools, groceries, healthcare, parks, and transit. 
• Utility customers deserve accurate bills, understandable rates, real assistance programs, independent oversight, and protection from dangerous shutoffs. 
• Affordable living also means access to childcare, food, healthcare, transportation, and other everyday needs. 

Housing is a human need, not just an investment.

Growth should improve life here, not come at our expense.

The Pass can’t keep being treated like open land for projects other communities don’t want.

Warehouses, data centers, and other major developments should have to prove they’ll make life better here before they’re approved.

• Warehouses and freight projects should meet strong labor, air-quality, truck-route, road-maintenance, and zero-emission standards. 
• Industrial projects need real separation from homes, schools, parks, and senior communities. 
• Heavy truck traffic should be kept off residential streets. 
• Data centers should disclose how much electricity and water they’ll use, what infrastructure they’ll need, and how many permanent jobs they’ll create. 
• Major projects should prove that our roads, water systems, electrical infrastructure, and emergency services can support them. 
• Developers should cover the public costs their projects create instead of shifting those costs onto residents. 
• We oppose new private prisons and immigration detention facilities in the Pass. 
• Public agencies should invest in trees, shaded bus stops, cooling centers, cool roofs, drinking water, and heat-safe public spaces. 
• Growth should protect our water supply, open space, wildlife, and Indigenous cultural resources. 
• Governments should respect the sovereignty of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians and consult early, not after decisions have already been made. 

If a project brings low wages, pollution, truck traffic, strained utilities, and little public benefit, it isn’t progress.

People should be able to get around safely without needing a car for every trip.

Too many neighborhoods don’t have sidewalks. Too many bus stops don’t have shade, seating, lighting, or even a safe place to wait. Crossing a major street shouldn’t feel like taking your life into your hands.

• The Pass needs reliable and affordable transit connecting people to work, school, healthcare, groceries, and regional transportation. 
• Fixed-route bus stops should have clear schedule information, safe access, seating, shade, and lighting. 
• Sidewalks should connect instead of ending without warning. 
• Streets should include safe crossings, accessible curb ramps, protected bicycle routes, and traffic calming. 
• New development shouldn’t create isolated neighborhoods, unsafe roads, and longer commutes. 

Public safety is also bigger than policing.

• Trained, unarmed responders should handle nonviolent mental-health, medical, and substance-use emergencies whenever police aren’t needed. 
• Public funding should support violence prevention, survivor services, youth programs, and street outreach. 
• Law-enforcement agencies need independent oversight, public reporting, clear rules, and real consequences for misconduct. 
• People returning from incarceration deserve access to housing, employment, healthcare, education, voting, and a real chance to rebuild their lives. 

Police shouldn’t be the default response to every social problem.

Young people aren’t campaign props or a box to check.

We’re constantly told that we’re the future. Then decisions about our schools, jobs, neighborhoods, and bodies are made without us.

We’re already part of this region, and we deserve power in it now.

• Public schools need enough teachers, counselors, nurses, technology, arts programs, safe facilities, and support for students who are struggling. 
• Students deserve an honest education that includes local, Indigenous, Black, Latino, immigrant, labor, civil-rights, and LGBTQ+ history. 
• Young people need paid internships, apprenticeships, fellowships, summer jobs, and career pathways that actually lead somewhere. 
• Unpaid opportunity isn’t opportunity for everyone. 
• Teenagers and young adults should have formal roles on commissions, advisory boards, planning processes, and budget committees. 
• Youth representatives should receive training, staff support, and a real opportunity to influence decisions, not a ceremonial seat in the corner. 
• Families need affordable mental-health care, substance-use treatment, recovery services, overdose prevention, and harm-reduction resources. 
• Everyone deserves reproductive freedom, including access to contraception, abortion, fertility care, and gender-affirming care. 
• LGBTQ+ and transgender people deserve safety and equal treatment in schools, workplaces, healthcare, housing, and public life. 
• Parks, libraries, arts, sports, recreation, and safe places to gather aren’t extras. They’re basic public infrastructure. 

Decisions about our future shouldn’t be made without us.

Government should answer to the public.

Residents shouldn’t need a law degree, an accounting degree, or hours of free time to understand what their government is doing.

Budgets, contracts, audits, development agreements, utility finances, campaign contributions, and voting records should be easy to find and written in plain language.

• Major decisions shouldn’t be buried in hundreds of pages or rushed through before residents understand what’s happening. 
• Governments need independent audits, whistleblower protections, strong conflict-of-interest rules, and transparent contracting. 
• Corruption and serious mismanagement should carry real consequences. 
• Public meetings should happen at reasonable times and include remote participation, language access, and enough time to review major proposals. 
• Young people and historically excluded communities need voter registration, civic education, multilingual information, accessible voting locations, and outreach between elections. 
• Immigrant families should be able to use public services without fear, regardless of status. 
• Local money, staff, and facilities shouldn’t be used to assist federal immigration raids, detention, or family separation. 
• Communities need immigration legal services, know-your-rights education, rapid response, and family-preparedness resources. 
• Boards, commissions, councils, and public agencies should reflect the communities they serve. 

Our belief in freedom and human dignity doesn’t stop at the edge of the Pass.