Dear Readers:

Election season is upon us. The City Council races are set, and this election is gearing up to be the most consequential in years. A majority of the seats of the City Council are up for grabs. And every race is an open seat.

And I know — I’ve been conspicuously quiet about all of it. But it has been for a good reason.

In the past ten days or so, I have had the privilege of interviewing each of the eight candidates vying for a seat on the City Council. After I finish the editing process, I plan on publishing transcripts of these interviews. I will also publish the audio of our exchanges if I can swing it.

Here’s what you can expect:

• Each interview runs approximately 35-45 minutes.
• The interviews were conducted between September 10th and September 18th, 2026.
• The interviews were in-person and one-on-one, with me. They were conducted in the beautiful backyard of super-resident Tom Arnold (Chair of the Finance and Pension Advisory Committee). Thank you so much, Tom!
• Each candidate was given the topics of the questions 48 hours in advance of his or her scheduled interview time. Candidates vying for the same seat were asked same questions in the same order.
• Some questions were the same across all of the candidates.
• Candidates were not permitted to bring prepared answers.
• The topics of the questions were selected by me. They range from issues that are specific to each district to matters of citywide concern. No candidate was permitted to propose, reject, edit or modify any question.
• The transcripts to be published will present the conversation verbatim, with edits made only for clarity, to remove cross-talk or extraneous noise, or to address interruptions to the conversation.
• Each candidate will be given an opportunity to review the transcript for accuracy only prior to publication.
• Interviews of candidates in each race will be published simultaneously.

I will publish the first pair of interviews as soon as they are ready. The rest will follow on a rolling basis as they become ready for publication.

I must also thank each of the candidates: Mike Buley (Candidate, Mayor), Loren Gameros (Candidate, Mayor), Daniel Morgan (Candidate, District 3), Cara Stewart (Candidate, District 3), Angely Andrade-Vallarta (Candidate, District 4), Fisher Derderian (Candidate, District 4), Kelly Brown (Candidate, District 5), and Steve Smith (Candidate, District 5). I deeply appreciate that you took the time out of your busy campaign schedules to sit and talk with me. It’s risky to sit down with a wee little blogger like myself and let her pepper you with questions, on camera. And it is riskier still when that wee little blogger has never done this before. Thank you for your faith in me and in my process.

And just to tease you: I am really, really excited about this project. I thought all of the conversations were excellent and I am so excited to share them with you. So stay tuned!

~ Jenn Tanaka (AKA, the Goat Wrangler)