Meet Steven Dunbar, Candidate For Livermore City Council District 3

LIVERMORE, CA — Patch reached out to all candidates for running for Livermore mayor and city council with identical questions. Here are the responses from Steven Dunbar, a candidate for Livermore's City Council District 3.

Responses have not been edited.

1. What is your personal, educational, and professional background?

I am the product of a nutritionist and teacher with a disability, and an accountant turned self-taught computer technician. I grew up getting myself around because that was frequently the only option. I graduated from UC Davis with a degree in Electrical Engineering and a Minor in Energy Policy. Currently I’m an Engineering Supervisor for Gillig transit bus manufacturing, leading a team of remarkable engineers who work to meet the needs of our transit agency customers and the riders they serve.

2. How long have you lived in Livermore?

I’ve lived in Livermore for 6 years.

3. What brought you here?

I was working for Gillig when they relocated to Livermore. After gradually spending more time here after work, I moved here for the higher quality of life. Livermore’s community - wine, ranchers and physicists - is similar to my hometown of Arroyo Grande, but they come together more cohesively here. A welcoming community of neighbors quickly let me know that I had found home.

4. How have you been involved in the community?

I started simply as an informed citizen attending planning commission meetings, doing my own review and making things better just by asking at the right time. Over the last few years I’ve been an exchange student host, trails committee member, nonprofit board member and board secretary for Bike East Bay, Sierra Club Group ExCom Member, Asset Management Outreach Committee member, and Planning Commissioner. I’ve attended community service days and creek cleanups and science fairs and festivals and art shows. But I started by just showing up and staying informed.

5. What do you feel are some of the biggest challenges facing the city?

Livermore is trying to stay a family-friendly, welcoming, and connected community as the region and the world present new challenges. Those challenges include providing fair housing opportunities to foster stable and cohesive communities, finding space for small businesses to succeed, maintaining funding for our essential services and maintenance needs, and protecting our environment and open space as we grow.

6. What are your plans for addressing them?

To meet these challenges, I will focus our resources on what we can control, explain our tradeoffs openly, and make proactive decisions towards small but meaningful improvements. We must complete the General Plan update so we can move forward with the facts and community buy-in. We must leverage that foundation to create better policies and objective design standards that meet our needs, while doing our part to help those who need a hand. We must finish our Asset Management Plan and act on it to ensure efficient spending and fund our essential services, using what is left to provide the most good per dollar.

7. What makes you the best candidate?

Between the Asset Management Outreach Committee and Planning Commission, I have a proven record of careful consideration, open discussion, and pragmatic decision-making. My lived experience fuels a passion to achieve the best outcomes within budget, and I know how the city council, community partners, city staff, and the public can come together to get it done.

8. Outside of politics, what do you enjoy doing?

I enjoy playing the drumset and saxophone, running, and bikepacking.

9. Any other comments?

Never forget that an individual can make a difference. Voting, making a thoughtful comment, volunteering at community service day - it all adds up.

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