Running as a Democrat for the state Assembly’s 35th District seat is Morro Bay City Councilmember Dawn Addis.
She’s challenging Republican incumbent Jordan Cunningham.
Elected to the Morro Bay City Council in 2018, Ms. Addis will vacate her position on the council two years early if she wins the election in less than a week. Before she was on the Morro Bay City Council, Ms. Addis spent much of her time working in education, serving both as a teacher and an education program developer.
Since 2001, she has worked for the 35th District’s largest unified school district, the San Luis Coastal Unified School District.
Invigorating public education is among the many priorities she lists at dawnaddis.org.
She calls for increasing funding for school functions such as libraries, art and music programs, and school nurses.
“We know that early childhood education, extracurricular activities and afterschool programs play a critical role in improving outcomes for students, and I’ll fight to increase funding for these programs,” her website reads.
As for higher education, Ms. Addis said it too requires support and needs to be made more affordable for students.
Ms. Addis is a co-founder of the nonprofit Women’s March in San Luis Obispo, which attracted a 10,000-person crowd in 2017. That same year, her advocacy earned her “Woman of the Year” for the 24th Congressional District.
Improving health care and public health is also among her stated priorities, which she hopes to accomplish by making prescription drugs cheaper, expanding senior health services and increasing funding for community health clinics.
On the environmental front, the council member intends on opposing “out-of-place developments” on the Central Coast, and securing renewable energy investment and development to reduce carbon emissions in the fight against climate change.
To address the negative economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Addis said a “bottom-up approach” is needed.
This means stimulating economic growth by providing economic relief to those most in need, low-income families and essential workers, she explained on her website.
If elected, Ms. Addis will push for gun control measures such as universal background checks for gun transfers and enhancing red flag laws designed to “keep guns out of the hands of those who pose a danger to others.”
She said her other priorities include working with federal leaders to expand job opportunities for veterans, fighting for stronger campaign finance controls to restore trust in government, reducing homelessness by increasing affordable housing, and seeking additional funding for combating and preventing wildfires.
Ms. Addis did not respond to the News-Press’ request for an interview.
email: jgrega@newspress.com
