SGV Connect 137 Interview : Joe Linton Interviews Mayor Tim Sandoval

Joe Linton: I'm streets blog editor, Joe Linton, and I'm here with the mayor of Pomona, Tim Sandoval, and we're taping in the mayor's office here in downtown Pomona, and we're gonna focus mostly on the Olympics, but I gotta couple of things that are big in the news lately, and so we're gonna touch on a couple of current topics, and then, and then the Olympics. So thank you for having us. Mayor Sandoval.

Tim Sandoval: It's an honor to have you here in my office. And I'm looking forward to this conversation that we're going to have,

JL: Me too. So the big, you know, gorilla in the room, that's that the San Gabriel Valley and all of Southern California, that's on our minds and impacting our communities is these, are these ICE raids, and the responses to those, and the fear and the separation of families, like, what's Can you we're not going to talk about that for the whole podcast. But can you talk about how that's impacting Pomona?

TS: You know what I can say about the people of Pomona? They're incredibly resilient people, while these are incredibly difficult times, and we know that people are living in fear, and there's real terror going on, not just in Pomona, but really all over the country. Is the way people are coming together to help our most vulnerable community members. And there's an impact. There's an impact in community life. There's an impact people going to the market, going to work. It's impacted our children. And while, I certainly don't sit here and pretend to have all the solutions I know there are a lot of people that I'm working with, and people were working all over the country, really, to figure out, how do we address this issue that is impacting our communities? And so, you know, just as a as an organization like Streetsblog in thinking about community and bringing people together, this is this has had an impact. And fact, I've just seen it with our recent Second Saturday, 40 vendors canceled because there's real fear that people are going to be taken abducted, and so consequently, it's impacted us, and I believe it will continue to impact us, but I feel that we have some amazing people in this community are really doing outstanding work to help people.

JL: Thanks. So let's, let's. The other brief thing to touch on is the Gold Line, the now called the A line.

TS: No it's the gold line.

JL: I saw you. I was at the La Verne station celebration. I wasn't in to talk about the Pomona station dedication and and a little bit about the arrival of the train.

TS: So it's, it's close. It is close. Looking forward to an opening in late summer is what I'm hearing, actually.

JL: So talk for two seconds about what's the project.

TS: this is, so, this is this. Yeah, so, so this is a light rail project, one of the longest light rail projects in the world, as I understand it, and the A line is what they're calling it, but it'll always be the gold line, and if I have any say as a metro director, we're going to change that. And it'll be a line that goes all the way from Pomona to Long Beach. And then, of course, you can get off on the regional connector and connect to other parts, but we had this dedication on Saturday with several 100 people, and it was just to show the completion of the line. There's still some technical work that's being done by Metro, but looking forward to it opening at the end of the summer.

JL: Yeah, so. And for listeners who may not be familiar, it's the new segment is from Glendora to --

TS: Yeah, Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, and then Pomona, with the goal of getting it to Claremont and Montclair.

JL: about nine miles

TS: 9.1 miles. 

JL: And it's you, you were announcing. So the question everybody's mind that you're not gonna be able to settle for us today, but is when the you're saying the opening date is supposed to be summer. So it's perhaps by the middle of September. Is that a hopeful guess? Or what do you think?

TS: So, it was said that it's going to open in the summer, and how I interpret that is the summer ends around September 19, September 20. So we're going to do our best to get it open before September 19 and have this beautiful, big celebration at the Pomona station.

JL: Excellent. I've seen the station take shape, the water tower, the new platform and whatnot. It looks ready. I mean, and La Verne, too. And so it's, it's coming very soon. So what else is coming? There's this big Olympics Paralympics game coming to Southern California in 2028 and Pomona is a host city. So what's happening for the Olympics in Pomona?

TS: Yeah, so Pomona has never had an Olympic sport in the city, and so this will be the very first time in our history. So it means so much to. The city, and to into our residents and to our business community. I have to admit that probably very few people know much about cricket, and so there's a real steep learning curve, but I will tell you that we anticipate getting people from all over the world, certainly all over the country, and we're going to welcome them, and we're certainly going to make sure that when they do come here, they're going to feel a sense of belonging and just share with them some of the great things to do here in the city of Pomona.

JL: and talk a little bit about that. What so if, if I'm a cricket fan, and I'm coming, you know, from another country or another county or another state, what do you recommend what should I do in Pomona around the Olympic Sure, cricket games? 

TS: Yeah, we're still in the planning stages, so I couldn't tell you everything that will be happening. I mean, we've talked about a fan zone. In fact, I worked with the San Gabriel Valley COG to create an ad hoc committee to think about what our cities can be doing to bring people to their cities. Downtown Pomona has some amazing art galleries, some restaurants, some places to listen to music, and so we're going to be making sure we highlight that and find ways to bring people from the Pomona fairgrounds to the downtown. But I also think it's an opportunity to partner with the communities that make cricket the second largest sport, most popular sport, I should say, in the world. So as part of our planning process is, let's engage the communities, the Indian community, the Pakistani community, the those communities that have cricket as their number one sport, so that we can activate this city in the region around their their interest and and to make them feel part of the process bringing the Olympics to Pomona.

JL: and what about folks who live in Pomona that that may not have any sense of cricket? Is there any? Yeah, you know, you know, what do we get we but like myself included, how do we people get up to speed.

TS: Yeah, you know, I, I don't have all the answers for you right now, because I'm still learning. But part of what we want to do over the course of the next really, it's almost three years now, right? It's coming, is to be, is to begin finding ways to bring people together to learn more about the sport. Certainly, one of the ways that we can do that is setting up this fan zone so they can get a chance to experience it, and even just so, you know, we've started talking about creating a cricket team so that the city of Pomona can compete against the Fairplex team and see who's the best at cricket. I'm a little nervous because I don't know what's going to happen, but, but I think there's opportunities to create, to create these teams so that we can learn more about is one thing to read about it abstractly. It's another thing to actually play it and learn it. And so we're looking forward to that

JL: great.

TS: So do you want to? Do you want to form a team, streetsblog team? I don't know, you guys, create your own team and we'll compete.

JL: I'm curious to just learn a little more, and then maybe, and

TS: you're not gonna get out of this, by the way, you're gonna form that team, and we're gonna play you.

JL: Yeah, I'm curious to learn. I've seen cricket being played, but I've never understood it, and so I'm curious to brush up YouTube videos. Probably,

TS: well, you know what we need to do is, we need to bring former Mayor Garcetti to come here to Pomona to do a session on cricket. You know, as the ambassador to India, I'm sure he'll have a lot to teach us, and I'm sure he knows a lot of people who are experts at this. But if you're listening, Mayor Garcetti, want to invite you out to Pomona to teach us how to how to play cricket, and we'll put you on a team. How about streetsblog?

JL: he was at the LAX station opening. I hadn't seen him in years and and I had a Garcetti spotting a couple weeks ago. So let's talk about transportation for the 2028 games, the pitch has been to have a transit first games and not a lot of parking and a lot of shuttles and additional service and fleet of busses and whatnot. What? Um, how. How do you expect the transportation picture is going to work in Pomona for these cricket matches?

TS: Yeah. So I anticipate people who come to watch a cricket game in the city will have the advantage of being able to take the La Verne Fairplex station, of course, not far from there, the Pomona North Station. We can run shuttles to the location. We have an outstanding bus system that will tap into as well, and so I think there are a lot of different ways in which people will be able to get to the games. I mean, I'm actually interested, as we're working through the planning of it, how might people actually get to the games by bike and creating safe passage, safe corridors where they can actually ride their bikes and into the area where the cricket games are going to be played. Nothing has been finalized, but I really believe that we have the infrastructure to be able to bring people in safely, effectively, to the games.

JL: Yeah, Paris did some of that, even, like, sort of temporary, like pink lanes to get bikes to event venues. And I think as someone who takes my bike on the train a lot, whatever getting that, getting that last distance from the station to the venue is, is sometimes the trickiest part of the ride, but also with events. What I was hearing at the metro board meetings last week, getting people to the event, people sort of trickle in, and then it lets out all at once, and you've got all these people to deal with. So Stephanie Wiggins, the CEO of Metro, was saying they want to activate these fan zones and help the fan experience not be like waiting in a big line after the game, you know. So what? How's--

TS: yeah, you know. You know, one of the advantages of having cricket at the Fairplex campus is it's 500 acres, and the actual stadium will only take up very little space, and yet you have all this rest of the campus that we can begin to think about how we can activate parts of it. I mean, always a safety factor, and mindful of the role that LA 28 plays in terms of the of the stadium itself and the area around the stadium, but those are the kinds of things we can look at. Is not everybody going to the same place, right? Yeah, but somewhere else on the campus where they can perhaps watch the games, watch cricket. Have a soda, have some some some food. Actually do some of the different activities that you would see in the Summer Olympics, whether it's basketball or cricket, or whatever it may be, so that not everybody actually has to go directly into the stadium, but can go still experience the Olympics close by. And perhaps, like I did, I was, I was actually up at the Eiffel Tower during the Paralympics. And as you look down, there was a soccer court, and so you could see them playing and hear the fans cheer. It was quite cool to see that and to witness that.

JL: And how, as the metro board member, how, how are you feeling about Metro's preparations for the Olympics?

TS: So, there's still a lot more work to be done. I know that there's been talk about, you know, it's coming soon. Do we have, do we have the fleet that we need? Do we have the funds that we need to be able to carry out this? And so I believe we're headed in the right direction. I think that certainly, as a metro director, I know our plan is being put in place to be able to get people from a station to the events. And so it's a, it's a, I mean, think about this. We're going to see hundreds [of thousands], if not millions of people coming here to the region, and so the way in which they're going to get around is largely public transportation. So I'm excited that they're going to be using this public transit system, because I think it only post games. It's going to be important that we continue to support the system as we create opportunities for people to get out of their cars. So really excited for that

JL: awesome and then you've touched on this a little but there's the ticketed events for the Olympics, the cricket matches in Pomona. And then there's I. I remember, while we were in London during the last Olympics, my family was on a vacation, and we kept, we kept, we would come up from a subway station and we would see like a big screen, and there would be swimming or whatever, different Olympic events. There were lots of fan zones to the point that you wandered into them as you were going through the city. So I feel like LA isn't as good at bringing people together in big public spaces and stuff like that. But how's your what's your sense on sort of fan zones on, on folks who don't get in to can't afford to go to a game. How do they participate in the Olympics? How do we bring the Olympics to them?

TS: Yeah, so one thing I'll just say on the ticketing side, because I want to be mindful of the role that la 28 plays as I understand it. We'll learn more about ticketing from LA 28 in the future, and so we don't know all the price points or ways in which people who perhaps don't think they can go to the Olympics or Paralympics can actually attend. So so I know LA 28 will be putting out information soon, and so the best way to actually learn more about this is to go to LA28.org and you can sign up for updates from them on this, but I think to your question about fan zones, that's part of the reason why I set up this with my colleagues at the San Gabriel Valley COG is this ad hoc committee is to think how we can get as many of our residents engaged in the games, so that perhaps not everybody can attend a game in Long Beach or somewhere in the county, but really want to participate and be around others, and so, so this is our opportunity right to be able to develop these fan zones so that people can still participate and not necessarily, are going to necessarily go to a game and have that experience,

JL: any, any sense of, we won't hold you to this. But what like, what if you're mayor Sandoval looking out over Pomona? Where? Where would you like to see fans? A fan zone, fans congregating,

TS: you know, little just, just quick. We, not very long ago, we had a group called Los Tigres Del Norte perform in our downtown, and we had 15 to 20,000 people in the downtown area. So I'm envisioning that in our downtown, that we'll have a very robust fan zone where, again, kids can experience what an Olympic sport is like, where families can come out picnic. Or you can have actually, video monitors. We can watch some of the games. Perhaps you want to have a drink. It's great for the businesses, so that people can bring more tax dollars into the city. But I think most importantly is to create a sense of community, to create a sense of belonging. You know, we're at a moment right now where, or, as I said earlier, you know, there's, there's, there's real concerns that people have. And if we can find a way to bring people together during the Summer Olympics, Paralympics, I think we're doing an important work in building community. And so I see that. I think that's the opportunity to expose people to how sports play a role in bringing people together.
JL: Definitely think that's almost all what, maybe, maybe just, what do you see as sort of, it's 2029 The Olympics are over. What's the sort of Olympic legacy you from Pomona for Southern California?

TS: Yeah, so I was 14 years old when the 1984 Summer Olympics came to Los Angeles, and I watched as many of the games as I could, and it introduced me to sports that I had never even heard about before, like synchronized swimming, right? And I think really the legacy for me is the interest that particularly our young people have in the sports that are being shown on TV and being streamed, and perhaps that Pomona has a cricket team, right? And should cricket actually come to the city as some professional team should show up here and want to use our cricket stadium that's being it's a temporary build that perhaps we have a kid from Pomona who actually gets to play on that cricket team. But the other piece of it is just the message it sends to the rest of the world, given the moment that we're in, is that this country can be an incredibly welcoming place, that for that moment during the Summer Olympics and Paralympics, that you can come here and have a great time, meet people, connect, eat great food, have fun experiences, so that we can begin to build back that trust that people rely on for when they see this country. So I'm looking forward to seeing how that all plays out, but we have a role in it, and certainly when people come to Pomona, we want them to know that they're for that moment, they're a part of this community, and we're going to welcome them with open arms.

JL: Well, thank you so much. Mayor Sandoval

TS: thank you.