Justin Raithel is one of six candidates running for a seat on the Folsom City Council this November, campaigning for the second district. As part of an effort to provide balanced and unbiased insight into each candidate, Folsom Times compiled a list of key topics and questions, many of which were submitted by residents who participated in the project. In total, more than two dozen topics were addressed by the candidates, offering voters an in-depth look at their visions and positions.
According to his responses with Folsom Times, Raithel brings a blend of local governance experience and a business background to his campaign. As a long-time resident and small business owner, Raithel stressed that he values Folsom’s community-driven spirit and aims to protect its small-town character amidst growing urban challenges. His experience on city commissions, such as the Planning and Historic District Commissions, equips him with insight into Folsom’s development needs. Raithel advocates for measured growth, focusing on infrastructure, public safety, and improved city services through the adoption of modern technology.
His vision for Folsom over the next five years includes curbing overdevelopment, addressing the homelessness crisis, and enhancing public safety. He supports infrastructure projects like the Empire Ranch Interchange to alleviate traffic and believes in staffing up Folsom’s police and fire departments to match the city’s expansion. He also prioritizes transparency in local governance, advocating for app-based citizen communication and data-driven decision-making. Raithel is a proponent of Measure G, a sales tax increase designed to fund public services and infrastructure, positioning it as a solution to the city’s financial and service shortfalls Below is our full Q&A with candidate Raithel.
BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE
Q: How long have you resided in Folsom, and what do you love most about the city?
I’ve owned a small business in Folsom for 15 years and been a resident for 10 years. My favorite part of Folsom is the community. Folsom residents show up for each other by supporting our small businesses, serving at our non-profits, coaching youth sports, preserving our history, and so much more that continues to give Folsom that small-town feel. Folsom truly is a great place to live, work and raise a family.
Q: Candidates running for City Council have a variety of experiences in life and the city that they feel make them the most qualified to be on the City Council. What experiences do you bring to the table to make you the most qualified person to help lead our City?
Folsom is struggling with the impacts of growth. Our infrastructure, schools, public safety staffing and public amenities just haven’t been able to keep up. My experience on both Folsom and Sacramento County’s Planning Commissions has given me the tools to push back on projects that don’t make sense for Folsom and to stop upzoning to higher densities across the city. My engineering background also helps me to understand the challenges and get creative with solutions that are best for our residents.
Out of the candidates for District 2, I am the only candidate who has served our city on the city commissions that make policy and project recommendations to the City Council. I have served on our Library Commission, Planning Commission and Historic District Commission so I know how to craft policies and get buy-in on updating our municipal codes to put Folsom residents first.
I’m also the only candidate who works in private industry and has successfully grown multiple small businesses throughout my career. Whether Measure G passes or not, I believe the city can be a better steward of our tax dollars and I will work to use technology and better operating procedures to bring down the cost of services to our residents.
Q: What motivates you most to serve on the Folsom City Council?
We have a great city but we are experiencing some challenges with growth, traffic, homeless and a slow regulatory environment for our small businesses. What I’ve seen from our city leaders over the last few years is a culture of fear instead of a culture of doing what’s best for our residents. Too many times our city leaders and staff are acting out of fear of a lawsuit or even just potential liability. I moved to a Folsom where the city manager and the city council asked “What’s best for our residents?” and that’s what I want to get back to doing. Our residents are good people and we should encourage them to participate in city government from letting us know when and where things could be done better to volunteering or owning solutions to those problems.
Q: What do you feel are the top three challenges facing Folsom that need the most attention?
Preventing Overdevelopment – pushing back against state mandates for high-density apartments, building infrastructure on time to reduce traffic, preserving our heritage oak trees, ensuring bike/pedestrian connections to connect our communities, working with the school district to ensure sufficient capacity.
Addressing the Homeless Crisis – prioritizing public safety with city resources, reducing fire dangers and sanitation issues by quick removal of any encampments, ensuring our public safety personnel are working with county resources and our non-profits to provide successful paths out of homelessness.
Improving Police and Fire Response – fully staffing our police and fire departments to match our population growth, providing training to all of our first responders so our community is ready for any emergency, ensuring our dispatch center is responsive and working with our citizens to be the eyes and ears of our neighborhoods.
VISION AND GOVERNANCE
Q: What is your overall vision for the City of Folsom over the next five years?
My vision is for Folsom to be the best place to live, work and raise a family. I’ll work hard to make sure Folsom stays a friendly community that works together to make our neighborhoods safer and better. Housing growth would slow down and prioritize homeownership over high-density apartments. The Empire Ranch Interchange would be built and traffic would be reduced on Iron Point and East Bidwell. Our parks, trails and businesses would be safe from crime and patrolled by a fully staffed police department. Emergencies would be responded to by the best-trained firefighters with sufficient equipment at all stations. Our parks and trails would once again be the top in the region and we could host sports tournaments in Folsom again to reduce the drive time for parents and bring revenues into our city. Citizen communication with our local government would be app-based and much easier where residents and businesses could expect quick turnarounds for permitting and service requests. City data would be searchable and transparent so residents can find what they need and help fill the gaps in city services.
Q: What will you bring to the table to make government work better for Folsom Residents?
I’ll use my background in business operations and technology to bring accountability to our local services. We need to be able to see and track service requests and performance metrics in all departments. Many of us have experienced the slip in timelines, service levels and responsiveness in recent years and the increased concerns about liability from our city leadership. We need to focus on what’s best for our residents and ensure our processes are quick and efficient.
Q: What has been working well with the City Council in the past year that you would like to continue? What would you change?
I believe the 5-year Strategic Plan and Implementation Action Plan is the best improvement the City has made recently. I would work to speed up the implementation of our priorities. In many cases, we are waiting on funding to pursue action items and I would look to partner with others in the community who may be able to help us complete these goals.
A number of the disagreements amongst the City Council seem to be from a lack of detailed data. It is hard to manage what you don’t track and so my goal would be to get better at tracking our data so we can see what areas our City Manager and staff need to focus on.
Q: You’re running for a seat on the city council where you’ll represent your district constituents and vote on many city-wide issues. Do you see a difference in issues affecting your district specifically, and those affecting another district that you’ll have to vote on?
District 2 stretches across a good portion of Folsom and I feel the issues we are facing are representative of city-wide issues. Individual neighborhoods have been impacted more or less depending on their location by the fast growth, traffic, homelessness, crime, or lack of park/trail maintenance. Some of these issues require hyperlocal solutions and others do have more city-wide solutions.
Q: What can the city do to be more responsive to the public and what role will you play as a City Council member to assure that Folsom is listening to resident’s concerns and is responsive to the public?
Use technology to track requests and close them out with clear, auditable responses back to the resident or business who made the request. Use technology to aggregate these requests into reports so our City Manager can be evaluated on the services they are managing. We should have a city-wide dashboard where residents can choose which topics are of interest they have and they can get tailored communications on those topics. They’d also get the opportunity to participate and give feedback to improve our operations. I appreciate public comment at the council meetings but we can do a much better job in transparency and responsiveness by implementing modern technology. You can always call me directly with concerns also at 916-572-3205. My number will be the same after election day! 😊
Q: In your eyes, what is the role of the city manager in Folsom and what would you want to see in the talents and experience of an incoming city manager in Folsom?
The City Manager implements the vision and goals of the City Council, essentially the CEO of the city. I want a City Manager who understands the Council’s goals and can move forward in a timely fashion to execute those goals within their authority level. I’ve been pretty surprised at the small requests that come to the City Council in recent years for discussion when they are clearly consistent with the strategic plan or the budget. I’d like a City Manager that starts with the question of “What’s Best for Folsom’s Residents?” and can make decisions based on the vision, plan, ordinances and municipal code that has been set by Council.
PUBLIC SAFETY
Q: Obviously, public safety is a top priority in our community – police and fire. We still have fewer police officers in Folsom than we did in 2008, fewer officers dedicated to traffic enforcement and fewer detectives. Is this a concern and what can be done about it?
Measure G is the best solution. If we don’t pass Measure G, I will prioritize public safety and do my best to add officers commensurate with our growth but we will likely continue to be behind our regional neighbors in law enforcement staffing levels. Our neighbors have local sales taxes so they have an advantage for recruitment and retention.
Currently, we have many great officers who work for our city and they do an excellent job with the resources they have. Our citizens are supportive of our police from our Police Foundation to our Public Safety Awards and hopefully that helps to retain and recruit officers from some less safe California cities.
Q: Homelessness is on the minds of a number of people. What is your assessment on this issue and what should the city be doing to address it?
Folsom has experienced a surge in homelessness in parts of the city. For the safety of our residents, we must enforce our local laws on fire danger, littering, open drug use, and public defecation. I will ensure our public spaces are clean and safe for Folsom’s children. With the Grants Pass Supreme Court decision, we are again able to enforce our camping ban on public properties and I am working regularly with residents to reclaim our parks and open spaces.
Personally, I have volunteered at the HART winter shelter to learn more about the issue and I’ve done service projects to improve the facilities at Powerhouse Ministries and Twin Lakes Food Bank. I have great relationships with our non-profit partners and I will continue to work with our local non-profits to find solutions for any individual who wants help.
We also must partner with the County of Sacramento for health and navigation services. Unfortunately, the County of Sacramento has not been a leader in solving homelessness and we need to encourage the county to look toward other counties for solutions that are working. We should ensure the county is providing services to those who want them and ensure the county is accountable for helping to solve the problem particularly health services to those with severe mental illness.
Q: There are many people concerned about camps in some of the woodland areas and parks. Is that a concern of yours and what can or should be done to address that?
Certainly, there are many homeless people who would be willing to get assistance. What can and should be done by the city to help those who want help?
This was already addressed in detail in the previous question but I’ll summarize. The city should focus on public safety (fire danger and sanitation risks) and quickly remove any encampments. The city should also coordinate with non-profits and county health services to ensure anyone who wants help is able to get it.
Q: Proposition 36 on the November ballot seeks to increase penalties for certain drug and theft crimes, particularly involving retail theft and fentanyl. Do you support this proposition? Please explain your stance and how it relates to Folsom.
Yes. Prop 47 has had significant unintended consequences and we need to correct those. Most importantly, serial theft should be criminalized again and drug treatment needs to be an option again. Vote Yes on 36.
BUDGET AND ECONOMY
Q: What will be your budget priorities if elected, and how will you work to balance the city’s budget in the coming years?
Public Safety, Trails and Parks, Modernizing our Local Government to Save Tax Dollars. If Measure G doesn’t pass, public safety will continue to be prioritized but will be similar levels of service as in previous years. Parks and Recreation will continue to bear the brunt of the cuts and we’ll need to seek more Public-Private Partnerships. I’d help to set up a Parks Foundation to seek more private funding to fix our public amenities. I have some experience with this on Community Service Day and my Rotary Club where we’ve stretched private donations with volunteer sweat equity and expertise to fix trails, boardwalks and parks.
Q: Measure G, on the November ballot, proposes a 1-cent sales tax to raise an estimated $29 million annually for police, fire, parks, trails, and economic development in Folsom. Do you support this measure? Explain the reasons behind your stance.
Yes. The city has a revenue problem due to the increase in online shopping and I don’t see Amazon going away. Folsom’s public safety agencies and our parks and recreation department are all short staffed and we can feel it in our homeless response, traffic enforcement and our degrading trails and parks. I moved to Folsom because it was safe and has the best public amenities and I am happy to pay a little more to ensure it stays that way.
I’ve volunteered with the Yes on G committee to ensure the measure had significant tax protections like specified funds where the money doesn’t just go into the general fund, the restriction on increasing pensions and the Citizens Oversight Committee. I also fought to include infrastructure funds in the measure to reduce traffic congestion in Folsom.
Finally, if you have kids that use our sports fields or if you’re out cycling on our trails you know the conditions are deteriorating. I can’t stand by and watch this happen. The outdoor amenities are so important to my family and I am happy to do my part to get them fixed back up.
Q: There has been discussion about privatizing or forming public-private partnerships for city amenities like the Aquatic Center and the Zoo. What are your thoughts on this idea?
I believe the Aquatic Center and the Zoo are great, lower-cost amenities for our residents that have significant benefits to our community in improved health, community connections, recreational opportunities and wildlife education. These benefits can be hard to put a number on but I think tracking community use over time gives us a good indicator of whether our community values them. My understanding is that both of these places are popular with residents and the zoo draws a significant number of people to visit Folsom. We can use modern tools like Placer.ai to better understand the economics beyond just ticket price cost recovery.
I also believe Folsom has a culture of volunteerism and we can lower the costs of both the zoo and the aquatic center by using volunteers to help more in operations and maintenance.
Q: What specific ideas do you have to strengthen the business environment and facilitate economic development in Folsom?
Folsom is no longer viewed as business-friendly since our permitting procedures are so slow and convoluted. Have you tried to hire a contractor lately and asked them what they think of working in Folsom? The best thing Folsom can do for our business environment would be to fix our permitting and construction inspection system. We should also hire in-house plan checkers and building inspectors to have consistency with our code and our local control. As I mentioned previously, the first question should always be “What’s Best for Folsom?” and if it fits we should move quickly and efficiently to get it done. If it’s not best for Folsom, we should move quickly and efficiently to say No so we can move on.
I’m a small business owner and I can tell you the best thing would be easy-to-navigate codes with a quick response time on permit requests.
I also think the River District, Central Business District, the Folsom Ranch Town Center and the Premium Outlets have significant economic potential and I look forward to working on making those great spaces that integrate our natural environment with our local businesses and our public amenities connected by the great trails Folsom is known for.
Q: Folsom has been home to large companies like Intel and VSP, some of which have faced financial challenges and staffing reductions. Do you have any ideas for how the city could transition these large facilities if this trend continues?
Folsom has done a good job lately at diversifying its technology businesses. That being said, if we end up with larger office facilities that are not being used we may need to look at other uses.
Q: If major companies in Folsom continue to reduce their workforce, what ideas do you have to provide opportunities for displaced employees to remain in the Folsom community rather than relocating?
Businesses have been relocating here to take advantage of that talented workforce that is being freed up. We should continue to work on business attraction for larger companies that value proximity to the Bay and the better quality of life that can be found in Folsom. I’ve also participated in a number of Folsom startups and these businesses should be encouraged to create jobs here in Folsom. With the Northern California Innovation District and the great community at Granite City Coworking we have some resources available for funding and collaboration. I’ll continue to support the start-up community and help reduce regulations that stand in local businesses way when they are expanding.
Q: Proposition 32, on the November ballot, would increase the minimum wage from $16 to $18 per hour by January 2026. Do you see this as beneficial or concerning, given current economic challenges? Please elaborate.
Concerning. Inflation has made the cost of living really tough in California and the minimum wage increases have helped exacerbate the problem. I think we need a break from the minimum wage increases until inflation cools. I also loved my minimum wage job as a teenager and the large increases in minimum wage have hurt youth employment opportunities. I wish we had an exception for younger, unskilled workers so they could get some work experience and employers would be willing to spend more time with them to help them learn new skills.
TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION
Q: Many residents express concerns about traffic in Folsom. What are your ideas for improving traffic safety and congestion?
Building the Empire Ranch Interchange is my top infrastructure priority. It was planned to be built back in 2007 and a lot of the traffic on East Bidwell is a direct result of this interchange being delayed. We need to leverage local funding to get state and federal grants and move this project forward now to relieve the East Bidwell traffic.
While we have a traffic operations center, many times I am confused as I hit every red light driving across Folsom. We need to do a better job of timing our lights along our major arterials and again tracking performance to show actual improvements with our use of technology.
Q: City staff has reported that just a few years ago, Folsom had the highest rating for street conditions in the region – called the Pavement Condition Index. Staff also report that we are now 3rd and sinking quickly. Recently, the city also had to reject bids for a repaving contract as they came much higher than the amount budgeted. Further, the city is only able to invest a fraction of what’s needed each year in pavement, curb, gutter and sidewalk repair. Millions more dollars are needed. Do you have any ideas on what should be done to address this problem?
Have I mentioned Measure G yet? I’d love to say I know a way we can do this cheaper and better but the reason our neighbors in the region are passing us by is that they have passed local sales tax measures and are using those funds to fix their roads. In the absence of these funds or another revenue measure our city will continue to do as much as we can but it’s unlikely that the trend will reverse.
LAND USE, DEVELOPMENT AND PARKS
Q: The city’s General Plan has called for certain forward-thinking planning projects that are now in process – the Central Business District and the River District. Are those important to the city and why?
Absolutely. The Central Business District has a lot of potential but businesses struggle to stay open. I’d love to see fewer curb cuts so we can increase traffic flow but also an improved pedestrian environment and some public spaces along the corridor. While our family does ride our bikes there it is challenging to navigate when you are not in a car which decreases the local traffic from neighboring communities. Just think…if I have to get in a car anyway maybe I’ll go to Palladio or the Historic District? The large parking lots are often not needed along this strip and I’m excited to bring this area back to a thriving, commercial hub for our residents.
One of my favorite things about Folsom is the integration of our open spaces and parks with local businesses and our neighborhoods using our trail system. The River District has lots more potential for this Distinctive by Nature living and I support making it even easier to walk and bike in and out of state parks and Lake Natoma. The Corp Yard relocation is a great opportunity to expand our vibrant historic district with connections to Lake Natoma.
Q: The South of 50 portion of Folsom is obviously booming and we have many new residents. How do you see the City incorporating the residents of Folsom Ranch into the whole Folsom community so we don’t have two separate areas?
Building the Folsom Ranch Town Center soon is important to give Folsom residents on the northside of the highway more of a reason to head south. The planned trail network integrated with local businesses and the oak woodlands of Alder Creek will also be a draw as it gets built out. We also should use Community Service Day and our many non-profits to welcome our new residents into the spirit of volunteerism.
Q: Folsom’s slogan is Distinctive by Nature, yet the city has not been able to put money into renovations in our parks and trails. Maintenance has already been significantly reduced in our parks and on our trails. What are your thoughts on that and any proposals to address these key features in our community?
Have I mentioned Measure G? That’s the best plan. Absent Measure G, I will use my public-private partnership experience to privately raise funds for volunteers to use to help maintain our parks and trails. If you know how to do asphalt repair, I could use your skillset so please give me a ring. It really will need to be all hands on deck to help keep up and fix as much of our parks and trails as we can with volunteer sweat equity.
Q: City staff estimates that the accrued deferred maintenance costs in parks and recreation facilities is in excess of $20 million, and another $2 million just in trails. These are BIG numbers. What ideas to address this problem will you bring to the city council discussion on this topic?
The best solution is Measure G. If not, we need a Parks Foundation. Parks Foundation won’t be able to generate this size of numbers but we can help and do our part.
Q: With Folsom’s growing need for schools, the city has been working with Rancho Cordova, the School Board, and developers to discuss options, particularly concerning rising costs. As a councilmember, what do you believe is the best plan for addressing school needs, student welfare, and school safety in Folsom?
The school board is ultimately responsible for building schools to meet capacity but we need to continuously provide data to help with the projections of capacity needs. We can also help program the infrastructure and parks around schools to help meet those needs along with making sure school resource officers are prioritized and have full backup to ensure student safety.
LOOKING TOWARDS AND BEYOND ELECTION DAY
Q: In the event that you are not elected, do you expect to remain involved in city affairs? If so, in what capacity?
Yes, I’ve served on multiple commissions in the past and would be honored to serve the city again. I’d also be happy to serve on the Measure G audit committee (if passed) to ensure the funds are spent following the voters’ priorities.
If a voter has not learned enough about you here, what is the best way for them to meet you or learn more?
Visit JustinRaithel.com;Email justin@justinraithel.com ; Call or text me anytime at 916-572-3205.
