Oceanside CA— Oceanside City Council-member Jerry Kern was invited to speak at the Republican Club of Ocean Hills general membership meeting on Wednesday. Although the council-member attends the meetings on a regular basis, he was invited to speak at this event to expound on his recent decision to run for the California State Assembly, 76th district seat being vacated by Rocky Chavez.
During the meeting the councilman said education was going to be a priority for him if elected to the assembly seat. “I’m going to give you a little of my background that you may not know. I’m a founder of the Charter School. I was really big in education until I got elected to City Council.” continued Mr. Kern “Unfortunately, when you’re on City Council you don’t get to do a lot on education.”
Councilman Kern explained how education effects more than the kid in school. “You talk about gangs, you talk about poverty, you talk about jobs, if you don’t have a sound educational system, all of those things are hurt.”
“Education is what I would really like to work on and obviously education leads into jobs.” The councilman noted that California has a very innovative and tech job economy but “We don’t make anything here.” continued Mr. Kern “We have so many regulations. People will invent something here, create something and then take it back to Texas or somewhere to make it. We need to change that.” The councilman used the problems Hydronautics, the Oceanside company that manufactures the membranes for the desalination plant in Carlsbad, had trying to secure permits for a warehouse at the current location as an example of the hurdles California manufacturers face in the state.
“There are over 3,500 bills introduced each term in the state. I would kind of like to do something about the bills.” he joked when asked what bill he would introduce when elected. Mr. Kern said he would like to unwind some of the regulations currently in place that are hurting companies and in turn hurting the people looking for good paying jobs.
The councilman answered a wide variety of questions from the group ranging from free community college tuition, which he supports, to the drought during the almost half-hour he spoke, “I’m fiscally conservative but I’m more moderate on the social issues.”
Councilman Kern said his campaign is in its early stages and won’t get fully underway until January 1st but the fundraising has already begun. He believes it will cost about $300,000 dollars to run a campaign in the mostly republican district.