This article is part of Folsom Times’ 2026 Coffee with Candidates series, featuring one-on-one conversations with candidates in key local races. Through video interviews and accompanying digital coverage, candidates respond to a series of questions developed with input from the community, giving voters an opportunity to hear directly from those seeking office on issues important to the region.
In this segment, we sit down with Mike Kozlowski, incumbent Folsom City Councilmember for District 1. Kozlowski was first elected to the council in 2018 and served as mayor in 2021 and 2024. A trained architect, he is an executive at Johnson Controls, where his work includes technology, planning, design and project management for energy-conservation projects. Kozlowski holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from Lawrence Technological University and has served on community boards and commissions, including the Folsom Utility Commission and Heritage Preservation League of Folsom and has coached track and field at Vista del Lago High School.
Q: Folsom continues to grow, particularly south of Highway 50. While the city also faces aging infrastructure and maintenance needs in established areas, do you believe Folsom’s infrastructure is keeping pace with its growth? What would you do differently, if anything, and would you ever support slowing or delaying development until necessary infrastructure is in place?
Kozlowski: Wide-ranging question, and affects our residents in multiple ways. I think that by and large the plan for keeping infrastructure ahead of development has been implemented the way that it was planned.
So as we’ve built the residences south of Highway 50, we’ve added parks, we’ve added schools, we’ve worked with the school district to add schools. We have added a fire station down there and all of the underground infrastructure that people don’t think about on a day-to-day basis but is vital to being able to serve those residents, along with a street grid.
Those things happen as housing development progresses, and invariably some people move into their house when it’s kind of pioneer days and none of that’s there, or not all of it is there, and then the last ones get the benefit of all of that stuff being in place. So I think largely it’s gone according to plan.
At the same time, what we have on the north side of Highway 50 is a patchwork of things that were built over the last 60 years. And those are in all different states of needing love and care and repair and maintenance and all those kinds of things.
And the cost of that maintenance goes up a little bit every year. And we now have such luxurious infrastructure in terms of parks and trails and great schools that the cost of taking care of that huge suite of amenities gets to be more and more and more every year, which has contributed to some of the budget challenges that we’ve had at the city.
Those things largely were planned for, but that escalation in cost has gone beyond what was anticipated. So there’s always a need to try and choose what to work on and when.
But in terms of vital services, the communication equipment that the fire and the police departments use, the sewer and water infrastructure that’s necessary to get everybody public services, those are in great shape, and we prioritize making sure that all of that’s there, even if we don’t fix every single tree root bump in the trail right away. But we’re getting to those.
Q: Traffic congestion remains a major concern, particularly around East Bidwell Street and Highway 50. What do you believe the city can realistically do to improve traffic over the next four years? And where do projects such as the Empire Ranch Road interchange, Alder Creek Parkway, and improvements to existing roads rank among your priorities?
Kozlowski: Transportation infrastructure is one of the principal reasons that I ran for election originally eight years ago and was one of the reasons I ran for reelection, and it’s one of the reasons I’m running for reelection right now.
We have a tremendous need, as we’ve added residents, for all kinds of services. The one that sort of lags behind always huge influxes of residents is the road infrastructure, and we’ve done kind of everything that we can do to make the flow of traffic on East Bidwell as delay-free as possible.
But the concentration of people trying to get to Highway 50 for commuting or going to school or all number of reasons has made it a real bottleneck right at the freeway interchange. And that leaks out onto Iron Point and leaks up into the city and definitely impacts the new residents that are south of 50.
A couple of relief valves are coming. We are in the process of getting started on improvements to Prairie City Road and the connection across on the south side along Alder Creek Parkway. Those I would expect to both be much improved over the next four years.
And that will allow more people to actually use the Prairie City exit to get to their new home south of 50. And reminder, that’s an underutilized interchange. So for those of you that live in the central part of Folsom, that’s a great exit for you to use rather than East Bidwell.
A little further up the hill, the really big project that’s been on the board for a while is a new actual freeway on- and off-ramp at Empire Ranch Road. That’s the one that ultimately will distribute the traffic much better because people won’t have to come down from the east side of town on either side of the freeway to East Bidwell to enter or exit the freeway.
That one is in the design stage right now. And the reason that I have wanted to serve on SACOG, which is the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, for this whole time that I’ve served the city, is because that is where federal and state transportation funding comes in and then gets distributed to projects.
We, over that time, have managed to get our freeway interchange project into the Blueprint, which is the master plan for the entire region. And we’ve gotten a decent amount of funding for it so far. The last leg is the actual construction funding, which we anticipate hopefully securing during the next four years.
I can’t say that that project will be built in that time. But that ultimately is the long-term goal, and unfortunately it requires some delayed gratification. I think, you know, five, six years from now that will be operating fully and be the perfect relief valve for that.
One of the things, though, that I didn’t fully answer in the first question about would I consider slowing down growth or development, I think there are some things that we can do that will help both with traffic and put a little bit of a slowdown on certain types of projects.
We’ve had a huge influx over the last, I don’t know, four or five years, not just of development south of 50, but of multifamily or apartment-type buildings north of Highway 50.
And with the city, we just used our low-income housing fund, which is a developer-paid fee that’s in lieu of building it themselves for low-income housing. We took those fees and are actually purchasing the large lot that’s out in front of Lakeside Church in order to hold it and build that when the time is right, after the infrastructure is relieved, after East Bidwell is a little bit more manageable.
So that’s an example of ways that we can actually slow things down by leveraging funding that we have available.
Q: Do you believe new development should pay for the full cost it creates for the city, including roads, parks, public safety and other services, as well as the long-term maintenance and eventual replacement of that infrastructure? Would you support adjusting development and permit fees if studies show current fees don’t fully recover those costs?
Kozlowski: I would. We’ve done that actually on a couple of occasions while I’ve been on the City Council, revisited what our permit fees are, and we’ve made adjustments for just that reason.
One thing that’s embedded in your question is the idea of doing things a little bit differently, where the replacement cost for that infrastructure would be borne by the developer. So developer fees pay for the installation of all of that stuff. Property taxes pay for those things, and they also pay for the ongoing maintenance and pay for the replacement of those amenities.
So that’s actually where the vast bulk of the money comes from. And developer fees, just calling it what it is, developer fees get baked into the price of the home that you buy or the project that you build. So it’s always the homeowners, it’s always the taxpayers that are paying for those things.
Should we front-load them more? Potentially. That’s definitely a way to sort of slow down growth by right-sizing what the first cost is for a project.
We’ve used a lot of different tools over the years to pay for those ongoing costs. Some of that is borne by the general property taxes that go to the city and come out of our general fund. Some of it’s paid by Mello-Roos-type fees. Some of it’s paid by HOAs. Some of it is paid in other forms and fashions.
And with the most recent developments that we’re doing, we’re actually including a developer fee and structure for some replacement costs down the road, so maintenance and repair of things that will wear out eventually. So your park structures and trails and things like that.
So we are trying to move toward that model. But everybody needs to realize that all that is is shifting it into the first cost rather than the ongoing property tax expenses that everybody has.
And then, you know, if you have a regular property tax and then you also have an HOA and you also have a lighting and landscaping district and you also have a Mello-Roos, that starts to become, you know, the monthly cost of your home goes up.
So balancing how much anybody pays for all of that stuff is a tricky business because some of it we all pay for, some of it is paid for by the discrete homeowner that makes the most use of it, right?
So the sidewalks in your neighborhood may be taken care of by a homeowners association. Things like that. The landscaping in your district and the streetlights may be under a lighting and landscaping district that is paid for exclusively by the people in your own development.
The aquatic center and the sports center, those are paid for generally by everyone. So there’s a mixed bag of how you go about that, but ultimately all we’re doing ever is shifting some things into first cost and keeping other things for ongoing payments that come from taxes and other service-type charges.
Q: Folsom faces increasing costs for infrastructure and city services while also having to maintain a balanced budget. Would you support asking voters to consider another local sales tax or other revenue measure in the future? If not, how would you address the city’s long-term infrastructure and service needs without additional taxes?
Kozlowski: Great question. I was plain about my support for Measure G when it was on the ballot a couple years ago, and the voters gave us a very clear mandate to do what we can to use the money that we currently collect. And I took that as a challenge and have tried to lean into finding ways to pull on the other levers that we have.
There’s sort of four ways that we can improve our situation economically. One is increasing taxes. Nobody likes that one, right? So let’s leave that push to the off position.
Economic development, however, is one that almost everybody is for, if you can deal with the growth that comes along with it, right? So right now, building more houses is not the type of economic development that we need. We’ve got plenty of that on schedule for the next, like, 10 years.
We’re fine in terms of adding new residents. And ultimately adding new residents just adds new service needs, right? So it adds all those infrastructure costs. So it’s kind of a net zero. It’s a non-change to the base situation.
The economic development in the form of new businesses and new employers and other revenue from those types of sources, that’s one that we can work on, and that’s what I’ve tried to focus my attention on over the last two years.
We also can adjust fees, as we talked about earlier in this, you know, what developers pay. We can also adjust the service fees that we charge for all the different services that are sort of on-demand things. So, you know, what we charge for utilities — not everybody’s favorite thing to play around with, but that is one way — and then the other is like, you know, joining a softball team, those kinds of fees.
So on that economic development one, I think that’s one of the principal reasons that I’m running for reelection. And that’s because Folsom has been living a dream for 40 years, and that dream sort of started with the decision by Intel to place its R&D center here.
And that meant that a large company had a lot of employees here, and it was the zenith of corporate Intel’s success and reach into the market. Over the years, they’ve developed all kinds of amazing technology, and those technology divisions have been spun off into other businesses.
So not only did we get the benefit of all those jobs from Intel, but we got the benefit now of having spinoff businesses like SK Hynix and Micron and all of these other related businesses that feed from the same pool of highly skilled workers, engineers, designers. And that’s why all those other businesses have located here or in Rancho Cordova, is because they want to be able to share that employment pool.
That is a core success story to Folsom’s growth, and it’s an economic development one. We need to look for what is the thing that is going to make us successful in that same way for the next 40 years.
And it may be growing the pot in terms of memory, you know, solid-state memory research and development. It may be that. It may be other things related to that, or it might be something altogether different. But we’ve got to be on the lookout for that kind of opportunity.
And I think part of that is making sure that we protect places within the city where, should another Intel come knocking and need a place, we have a place to put them. And we’re in short supply of that kind of development space. So we just need to be very careful and choosy.
And then along with that, we’ve got to make sure that we’re competitive against all the other communities that would want a business like that to locate in their home by being the best at getting permits out, getting businesses into their facilities, getting all the licensing that comes along with some of those things taken care of as swiftly as possible.
So improving our game in terms of permitting, key relevant economic development thing that we need to tackle.
And I think that if we focus on economic development, drawing those kinds of employers to town, they will spawn off all kinds of charitable giving, which was the story with all of those other businesses, and also fill our schools with young kids and continue to feed that pool of talented, high-paid workers and jobs that we have here in Folsom currently.
That’s our recipe for success, not raising taxes.
Q: Residents in established areas of Folsom frequently raise concerns about aging streets, parks, trails and other infrastructure. How should the city balance maintaining and improving existing neighborhoods with spending on infrastructure needed to serve newer development? What should be fixed first when there isn’t enough money to do everything?
Kozlowski: Obviously, the thing that should be fixed first is the street in front of your house. [Laughter.]
Realistically, though, serving on SACOG has actually opened my eyes to a couple of different metrics that we use regionally, and one of them is pavement condition index.
Our Public Works Department tracks that and reports on it so that we can be compared against our peers. Because for certain types of funding that we get for maintenance and repair, it’s vital to identify what the condition index is of a given piece of street or sidewalk or infrastructure.
So we actually have a pretty good catalog of the real condition in terms of what sort of maintenance is required. And our pavement index in Folsom, while not perfect everywhere, is very, very good compared to all of our peers.
We’re lucky that probably, geez, half of our city, the pavement is less than 20 years old or less than 25 years old, probably, and all of the stuff south of 50 is brand new. So we’ve got some time to prepare for those kinds of repairs.
We’re in the midst right now of doing seal coat and slurry sealing and sidewalk improvements through all of that mid-range part of town. And then in District 1, we’ve actually spent a bunch of money just in this past year resealing, recoating, resurfacing streets in the Historic District, which, you know, that’s the front door. That’s our living room here in Folsom.
And that’s the place that people see and interact with the most and needs to be maintained in a certain fashion, and we’ve tried to upgrade that.
Our city manager and our Public Works staff are very careful about trying to plan these things out. And I would encourage anybody to use SeeClickFix when you see a crack that is deviating vertically.
That’s the most important thing to report because those are tripping hazards, and they’re a sign that the subgrade has failed, right? If you see a crack in the street that’s widening beyond about an inch, that’s another reason to make sure that you SeeClickFix that so that we can get it reviewed and get it on the schedule.
And then for common, just generalized repairs, seal coating and striping and those things, every road in Folsom is on a schedule. It just may be several years down the road.
So we haven’t been able to take every single piece of road to the absolute top of the condition index. But in terms of the overall collection of roads and streets and conditions that we have, we’re very high on the scale, much better than our neighbors. And we’re managing it the best that we can with the resources that we have.
Q: As Folsom’s population and developed area continue to grow, what should the city be doing to ensure police, fire and emergency medical services keep pace? Do you believe current staffing and funding are adequate? And if not, how would you pay for additional resources?
Kozlowski: So the city has one primary responsibility, and that’s public safety. It’s the only reason that you form a city, is so that you can jointly protect yourselves, right?
But that also means public safety in terms of trash collection and, you know, water conveyance and sewers. All of that is public safety issues also. But let’s set that aside.
Those are covered by utility user fees largely, so they’re not pulling from the general fund for those safety items. The largest amount of money that comes from our general fund and our expenditures on the city budget is to have our own fire department and our own police department.
Would I like there to be more money for those departments? Absolutely. That’s why I mentioned that we need to really work on economic development so that we can be able to spend more on technology, spend more on additional officers, firefighters, paramedics or EMTs.
I think that both chiefs that we have right now have done an excellent job of organizing each department, police and fire, to do the job that we have today.
As we continue to grow, the needs of the city will continue to grow. But we’re doing an excellent job right now, and by every metric that you can find, we are as safe as any community in California in both respects.
I am enormously proud to have been endorsed by the Folsom Police Officers Association and by the firefighters union, Local 522. Local 522 has been a longtime supporter of mine, and I have been focused on public safety for my entire service. I am delighted that the Police Officers Association has also endorsed me.
We need to get more money for those services. We need to do it responsibly. And it will remain always the largest part of what we spend our money on in the budget.
Q: Housing remains one of the more difficult issues facing California cities. Within the authority Folsom still has under state law, what kind of housing growth do you believe is appropriate for Folsom? Do you believe the city currently has the right balance of apartments, higher-density housing and single-family neighborhoods? And where should future housing be concentrated?
Kozlowski: Wow, really great question and a difficult one to answer. So I, as a resident, as one of your neighbors, I would say no more housing. We’re good. We’ve got plenty.
It takes me a long time to get from my house to either McDonald’s — or any of the three McDonald’s in town, right? You know, the reason that we have the congestion issues is because we keep adding residents, right?
However, being the responsible city that we are, we do need to have places for senior citizens to live that want to size down from single-family houses. We need to give them that opportunity so that there’s places for new families to move into that are those single-family houses, right?
Because we’re going to stop building those at some point here pretty soon. Multifamily is where it’s at. That’s the infill of the next 20 years that will happen. And it needs to be for all different levels of income types.
One interesting thing about Folsom is that it seems like we’ve built a lot of multifamily in the last five or six years. And news flash, we have, in fact.
One of the things that we do at SACOG is administer the Regional Housing Needs Allocation, RHNA. Colloquially, RHNA basically gives an assignment to every community in the state and says, hey, you need to preserve enough land zoned for multifamily housing in your city so that there’s the possibility of building X-thousand units.
And we have done that responsibly over time. And as a result of our being careful and judicious about making those zoning choices, we’ve actually led the region in the building of multifamily housing. Every other community is behind us in terms of multifamily relative to single-family housing.
So we’ve done a great job on that metric, but it still feels a little awkward if you’re trying to think about traffic congestion at the same time. You kind of have to hold both ideas in your head concurrently.
Should we build more? Yes. But the thing that works in our favor is that RHNA just says that we have to allocate land so that it’s zoned in a way where it could be multifamily. It doesn’t demand that a developer show up the next day and build something.
So you still have the economic prospect of a developer wanting that piece of land, wanting to build multifamily or one of the other things that could go on that land, and then being able to make a go of it economically. And that doesn’t always work.
So that acts as a sort of a slowdown — not stopgap — but a slowdown or a relief valve so that we don’t just get absolutely inundated with those projects.
So do I see a slowdown north of 50? Yes. The city is literally trying to slow things down by ourselves purchasing the land at Oak Avenue and East Bidwell so that we can let some time go by before that gets developed.
And the place where you’ll likely see that additional housing growth is south of 50, as infill projects down there go onto the land that’s already been identified for multifamily.
Q: Folsom residents value the city’s parks, trails and open spaces, neighborhoods, and overall sense of community. While issues such as e-bikes, homelessness, code enforcement and neighborhood safety continue to generate concerns, which quality of life issues do you believe require greater attention from City Hall? And what specifically would you do about them?
Kozlowski: Well, I think the great battle that’s raging over pickleball courts versus tennis and basketball courts is definitely one of my places where I’m trying to put some attention. I’m making light of that. We need more of everything.
We’ve been asked for years for more basketball courts by the FYBA. They would obviously prefer more indoor gymnasium space, but those outdoor courts are really valuable to them for their programming.
There are still plenty of tennis players out there. The U.S. Open’s going on right now, and I’m sure that people are getting their rackets out to go do a little bit of that.
And there is a deep, abiding love of pickleball that is a little mystifying to me, but it seems like great fun.
In terms of how to address those particular concerns that residents have, and those are absolutely valid ones, the e-bike thing is so difficult to deal with. Homelessness, same, same but way different.
Those two things are things that we need to constantly be sort of keeping a lid on. And our new police chief, Chief Green, and his staff have really carefully tried to outline and communicate to the public what is an appropriate driver for every type of e-bike, what protection they need to have if they’re going to be operating that vehicle, who needs to be licensed to operate some of those vehicles, and where you can or cannot ride them.
And it’s a big puzzle because e-bike manufacturers make — there’s 10,000 of them — different styles, different amount of power, different amount of speed, different weight class, different reflectors and lights and things like that.
Some of those are just straight motorcycles with an electric engine. Many of them are just pleasure craft for, you know, for me to go ride on the beach, right?
The ones that all the kids that have been, you know, antagonizing people in the parking lots and riding in what appear to be like dangerous gangs, those are something less than that. They should be wearing a helmet.
They should not be driving the ones that go over 20 miles an hour. And if they have one that will go faster than that, they should have a license to operate it.
They shouldn’t be roaming around in the parks because they’re prohibited inside of our city parks. They should keep to the speed limit if they’re on any of our trails. And we have tons and tons and tons and tons of bike lanes adjacent to traffic. They should use those responsibly and stop at every signal.
So I will help to educate everybody that it’s the operators of those bikes that have to change what they’re doing.
One good thing, though, is that school has started and the complaints about the gangs of big groups of 11- to 16-year-old boys roaming around have dropped off dramatically because they’ve got other things that they have to attend to now and not so much free time. So summer was our peak season for that.
As it relates to homelessness, this one is a part of the human condition. There’s always going to be some homeless people.
The big increase in open camping all over town has abated dramatically over the last couple years, largely in part because the original court case that said that we couldn’t enforce our camping ban was overturned by the Supreme Court. So the Grants Pass decision overturned the Boise decision.
And now we can enforce the anti-camping law that we always had here in Folsom in the way that we want to.
There are plenty of services for people who want services. So for that homeless person who is, you know, sleeping in their car overnight because they just had a reason to become homeless, there’s outreach by the Police Department, Jake’s Journey Home, Heart of Folsom, a bunch of different organizations. There’s places for people to go to get help so that doesn’t become a permanent condition.
People that have been homeless or unhoused for a longer period of time that have a mental health issue or have dependency issues, there’s help if they’re willing to accept it.
Our point-in-time count was dramatically lower this year. The incidence of just random, you know, I like to call them hobos because they’re not really tied to Folsom at all, they’re passing through. There’s a lot less of that type of activity in Folsom.
So it’s an imperfect world. There’ll always be some unhoused, homeless people with dependency issues and mental health issues. We have the services to connect them to. We’ll continue to make that a focus of part of our Police Department to make sure that they always can do that.
And then we have magnificent local charity organizations like Jake’s Journey Home and Heart of Folsom that their outreach is helping to stem that tide as well.
So thank you to them, and thank you to the PD, and we’ll keep working on it.
Q: What should Folsom be doing to attract employers, restaurants, retail and other businesses that strengthen the city’s economy and generate revenue? At the same time, what could City Hall do better to support existing locally owned businesses?
Kozlowski: Yeah. So I touched on this earlier in my responses. Retail and restaurants follow rooftops, and they follow other employers.
What we need are technology-type businesses to locate here in Folsom or other primary-source, high-paying jobs first. And that’s been my focus, is trying to make sure that we have the space, the location and the right outreach team to attract those types of employers.
The thing that we can do the most to help the restaurants and the retailers and keep that side of our economic activity as vital as possible is by making sure that our permitting process is simple and fast. And we have never quite got that right, and we need to keep working on it.
But it’s definitely something that the city manager is aware of. All of my council colleagues and I are pushing for being faster to get a permit, being simpler to get a permit for a business.
Those are so, so important to all the small businesses that don’t have legal teams working for them somewhere else. So making sure that that’s as easy as possible and streamlined as possible is a key element of it.
And not for nothing, but making sure that there’s spaces for those types of businesses to move into. So some development of commercial space.
There’s a bunch that’s going to get built south of 50 so that there’s the ability to have those service-type businesses at the town center south of the freeway, which also is an anti-congestion move.
As soon as those are in place, there’ll be fewer trips across the freeway for, you know, a pizza or nail shop or something like that, or a variety of coffee like we enjoy here in District 1.
So I think that’s the key thing in terms of that. And then when we get the opportunity to attract those large employers that are going to plant a lot of high-paying jobs here, we have got to think like we are competing for our lives against other communities, because we are.
The fact that Intel came here, that was amazing good fortune when it happened. And we were in competition with cities in Arizona, cities in Texas and other places in California for that center.
And the city leaders at the time were successful in getting them here. We have to be ready for that opportunity to come around the corner, and we got to be able to make it as easy as possible for them to decide that this is the great place that it is.
Q: If elected, what would be your three highest priorities during your term? And four years from now, what measurable results should voters use to determine whether you were successful?
Kozlowski: Great question. I think distinctly for District 1, I want to see improvements to our zoning ordinance so that we can protect the Historic District and keep it the vital recreational space that it is, but also maintain its character.
That is so, so important to the identity of the city and particularly to District 1.
Part of expanding its vitality is being able to do some new development or changes to the land that currently is our city corporation yard. I have had, as a number one priority for a long time, moving the corporation yard.
I think we have two alternative plans right now that are in the works where I think we can move sooner rather than later to clear that out and see what developers might be interested in doing.
The composite plan that was developed by the River District committee, that River District committee came up with a plan that has some of the area identified for recreation, park space activities, some of it as an extension of the Sutter Street-type development across into that area and some of it for other smaller development.
And we need to see who’s out there that wants to help us implement that. But we’ve got to move all the trash cans and garbage trucks first.
And I’m absolutely locked in on making sure that we get that place cleared out as early as we possibly can so that we can find a path to the River District master plan implementation in that area. So that’s my number one thing.
My other two things have been part of my plan the entire time I’ve been here. It’s relieving congestion or building infrastructure that makes it as easy as possible to move around the city.
My neighbors in District 1 don’t necessarily have to go down East Bidwell, but there are some services down there that we all like to go to, right? But we can circle around and go different ways.
But everybody that it’s so much easier to go to Bidwell, we should all work together to make sure that that’s as easy of a trip as possible. Getting Empire Ranch built, getting Prairie City improved, getting Alder Creek built on the south side of the freeway.
You know, it seems far away from District 1, but it’s vital to the network of transportation working most effectively.
So that’s that. And then I’ve talked about it a number of times. These are sort of like number one A, B and C, but economic development. Being able to attract that next huge opportunity for the city of Folsom to make it vital for the next 40 years.
That’s what we have to be prepared for. It may not happen during the next four years that that business comes knocking, but we have to be ready to act right away when they do.
So putting in place all of the controls and permitting processes, the land acquisition processes, our outreach to those businesses, being able to sell Folsom’s virtues widely, all of that stuff has to happen, has to have been happening, has to continue to happen, has to go into the next four years.
So I think those are probably, you know, one, one and one for me. But there’s lots of other discrete things that need to happen, right?
I serve regionally on SACOG, as I’ve mentioned. I also serve regionally on the joint powers authority for the Southeast Connector project.
For those that don’t know the full name of it, that’s White Rock Road in Folsom. It continues westward all the way through Rancho Cordova and unincorporated county and will eventually connect to Highway 5 across Elk Grove.
That project has been, gosh, probably 40 years in the making already and probably has another 10 or 15 ahead of it to get the remainder pieces of it built.
But my service on SACOG, my service on the JPA connector, those are so important to making sure that Folsom has a voice regionally and on that project because that project is the back door into Folsom from the south.
And it’s important that we have that as a relief valve for Highway 50 so that everybody doesn’t have to go to East Bidwell on Highway 50. They can use the other exits and they can come up from the south by convenient means when they’re in Rancho or they’re in Elk Grove or they’re coming up Highway 5 or 99 from the south.
So lots of road infrastructure interactions with all of that, but it keeps flowing back to that principal need for us to manage our growth, manage our infrastructure build, manage congestion. And all of those are pieces of the puzzle.
And I think all of that is to say that I started this journey eight years ago. None of this stuff happens in a short time. The funding cycle for road projects is decades long sometimes.
But staying focused on it, building regional relationships, building expertise and knowledge in all of those types of areas is what brings that next business here, is what helps us move the corporation yard, is what helps us get our congestion to a manageable place.
Q: In closing, is there an important issue facing Folsom that we haven’t asked you about or something about your candidacy that you want voters to know? This is also your opportunity to discuss your qualifications, endorsements or community support, and to tell voters why you believe you are the best choice to represent your district on the Folsom City Council.
Kozlowski: Thank you very much. So I started on this journey eight years ago and was lucky to be chosen at large to serve the city, the whole city.
I’ve tried to keep that same perspective through all of my service, even though I was elected specifically for District 1. I’ve tried to maintain an understanding that we all sink or swim together, right?
So my purpose here is to serve District 1’s interests, make sure I highlight those and bring funding and expertise and sort of know-how to making sure that the discrete things that affect District 1 get addressed in a timely fashion.
But I also try and maintain a responsibility for the wider city, and that’s why I have spent so much time on regional boards and serving in those capacities.
At SACOG, I’ve been the chair of the Land Use and Natural Resources Committee. I’ve been the chair of the Innovation and Policy Committee. And someday when I have a little bit more time, I might be chair of SACOG, but I’m not looking for that job.
I’ve chaired the JPA down there. I’ve been a member of Regional Transit. So I’ve done a lot of the service outside of the city of Folsom to make sure that our interests in Folsom get identified.
So from District 1 to wider to regional, right? And then beyond that, we’ve talked a lot about economic development.
I participated extensively with the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, including one of the years I was mayor doing an economic development trip to South Korea to encourage all of those businesses that are around us that have Korean parent companies to put more jobs in Folsom, put more jobs in Rancho Cordova, put more jobs in our region because regionally, locally and discretely, we all benefit from that.
So that was interesting. And on top of that, going on the Cap-to-Cap trip at least one time and then doing other advocacy at the state Capitol. I’ve lobbied at the Capitol. I’ve lobbied in Washington, D.C., and I’ve worked hard to maintain a good, cordial relationship with our congresspeople, not just ours that represents Folsom, but the ones that represent our region, so that I can make a call to them when need be to get the help that we need.
And principally the help that we need is getting funding for Empire Ranch Road and the Connector project and other stuff.
So we’ve had really great dealings over the years with Kevin Kiley. Enormous help. And we’re very lucky to have Josh Hoover in the Assembly working for us.
Roger Niello is now the minority leader for the Senate here in California, and all of them have endorsed me.
So we have great partnerships. And then I’ve worked extensively with Ami Bera when he used to represent Folsom in seeking funding for projects, and all of the other congressional delegation from the Sacramento area.
The interesting thing about getting reelected, right, is that oftentimes the candidates who don’t have the job are very articulate and would do fantastic, honestly. But all that they can do from the sideline is identify what the job is, what the responsibilities are.
And I’ve had the responsibility for years, and I have a pretty clear record that you can go watch on video for the last eight years of all the decisions that have come before us at the City Council.
So that’s a little interesting to position yourself so that you’re not always saying, “Yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but,” because I have said, and people who know me know that I’ve said many, many times, almost anybody in Folsom is educated enough and smart enough and capable enough, and if they had the free time and didn’t mind getting potshots thrown at them, could do a great job on the City Council, right?
But gathering up eight or 10 years’ worth of experience and knowledge and understanding the federal funding for roads and understanding how RHNA works, understanding what the heck RHNA stands for, all of that stuff is things that you get on the first day when I’m reelected.
As I mentioned before, I’ve got those endorsements. I’ve been endorsed by lots of other groups. And I’m most proud of having the endorsement of the Folsom Police Officers Association and the Folsom Firefighters Association.
I’ve said it initially that the reason that cities exist is to band together for public safety, and the most proud day is getting those two endorsements because I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job.
Folsom, by every measure, is leading the pack in almost anything that you can name: quality of life, ability to get a job, access to education, access to services, economic categories of all kinds, house value. You go up and down the list and Folsom’s right at the top of the list in every one of those metrics.
We’re doing great. Now is not the time to switch horses. And I would love to have your vote, and I really appreciate you spending time listening to me go on and on about some of these things.
Happy to take a phone call from anybody because I have had some people say, “Hey, we can’t get ahold of you.” Well, I’m going to tell you my phone number is 916-458-2512.
Text or call me anytime. If you try and reach out to me on Instagram, I will miss it. Thank you very much, and I’m delighted to do this today.
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