My campaign Platform
Economic
Employed
Every household should be able afford the necessities of a healthy life—medical care, healthy food, quality housing, education, and other basics. Stable employment provides people with the income necessary to buy these goods and services and maintain good health.
Per Capita Income
Every household should be able afford the necessities of a healthy life—medical care, healthy food, quality housing, education, and other basics. Sufficient income allows households reliable access to the goods and services that are necessary for a healthy life.
Above Poverty
Every household should be able to afford the necessities of a healthy life—medical care, healthy food, quality housing, education, and other basics. Research indicates that economic opportunity is one the most powerful predictors of good health, and that impacts on health are especially pronounced for people in or near poverty.
Education
Preschool Enrollment
Every child should have the chance to learn, grow, and thrive. Early childhood is a crucial period for brain development, shaping nearly every aspect of one’s future health and wellbeing.
Bachelor's Education
Everyone should have the opportunity to seek higher education and go to college if they choose. A college education is essential for many higher-paying careers, and it also helps people develop the cognitive skills and knowledge necessary to make healthy choices.
High School Enrollment
Every school-age youth should have educational opportunities that prepare them for higher education, a career and the future of their choice. Education is linked to increased life expectancy and reduced chronic disease rates, infant mortality and other negative health outcomes.
Social
Voting
Everyone should be able to contribute their voice to the political process and to participate in their communities. Voter participation is an indicator of both social power and social cohesion.
Census Response
Everyone should be able to contribute their voice to the political process and to participate in their communities. Census participation is an indicator of both social power and social cohesion.
Transportation
Automobile Access
Everybody should have safe, accessible and convenient transportation options to get to work and other destinations, especially if they do not own or have access to a car. Lack of access to a car should not limit people’s access to opportunities.
Active Commuting
Everybody should have safe, accessible and convenient transportation options to get to work and other destinations. Active commuting by foot, bike and transit creates opportunities for physical activity, provides transportation options for those without a car, encourages social cohesion, and reduces contributions to climate change and air pollution.
Healthcare Access
Insured Adults
Everybody should have access to medical care when they need it and to keep their bodies healthy with regular check-ups. Research indicates that health insurance dramatically improves health outcomes by allowing people to access necessary care.
Neighborhood
Retail Density
Everybody should have access to jobs, schools, shops and other essential goods and services which can impact one's health and quality of life. Living in a community with a mix of uses and destinations can improve health by reducing household costs, encouraging physical activity, reducing chronic diseases, improving mental health, fostering community connections and supporting community resilience to climate change and pollution.
Park Access
Everybody should have access to parks and other open spaces near their home. Parks can encourage physical activity, reduce chronic diseases, improve mental health, foster community connections, and support community resilience to climate change and pollution.
Tree Canopy
Everybody should have trees and other plant life near their home. Trees are beneficial for mental and physical health in many ways.
Housing
Severely Cost Burdened Low-Income Renters
All residents should be able to afford adequate housing without giving up healthy food, medical care, or other necessities, or accepting unsafe housing conditions. With budgets stretched to the breaking point, low-income renters also experience housing insecurity and are vulnerable to displacement from their homes and neighborhoods.
Severely Cost Burdened Low-Income Homeowners
All residents should be able to afford adequate housing without giving up healthy food, medical care, or other necessities, or accepting unsafe housing conditions. When housing cost burdens are high, individuals and families must make difficult choices with limited options.
Housing Habitability
Everyone should be able to live in a safe and habitable home. Poor quality and unstable housing quality exposes residents to toxins, mold, pests and conditions that can trigger asthma and increase risks of injuries.
Uncrowded Housing
Everyone should be able to live in housing with enough space for everyone living there. Uncrowded housing can improve mental health including stress and depression; decrease the spread of communicable diseases like tuberculosis; and improve children’s wellbeing and educational outcomes.
Homeownership
All residents should be able to afford adequate housing without giving up healthy food, medical care, or other necessities, or accepting unsafe housing conditions. Everyone should have the opportunity to build wealth over time by purchasing a home, which can protect against rising rents and promote social ties and neighborhood stability.
Clean Environment
Ozone
Everyone should be able to live in neighborhoods where it is safe to breathe. When ozone levels in the air are high, it can cause lung inflammation and more serious respiratory issues. Since fine particulate matter is so small, it can reach deep into people’s lungs leading adverse health outcomes.
Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)
Safe Drinking Water
Everyone should have access to safe, affordable drinking water. Water is an essential human right needed for healthy outcomes.
Decision Support
Extreme Heat
Our homes, neighborhoods and jobs should help protect us from heat-related health impacts. When temperatures are extremely high, especially for extended periods, people can experience heat-related illnesses such as heat stress, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke, which if not promptly and properly treated can be fatal.
Impervious Surfaces
Our homes, neighborhoods and workplaces should help protect us from climate-related health threats, like heat waves and flooding. Impervious surfaces are materials that do not allow water to soak into the soil.
Outdoor Workers
Every worker should be safe from heat-related health impacts and other workplace hazards. Working outdoors increases workers’ exposure to the extreme heat, poor air quality, diseases transmitted by ticks and mosquitos, industrial exposures, and injury.
Public Transit Access
Every person should be able to get to school, work, doctor and dentist appointments, and other destinations that provide essential goods and services. Transit access has been linked to improved physical and mental health, physical activity, employment outcomes, medical care, and resiliency during disasters.
Safe Communities
We should all be able to live in homes and neighborhoods that are safe. Every person should no longer deal with; collisions, injuries, electrocutions, hypothermia, stress and other mental health conditions, food insecurity, unsafe drinking water, toxic releases, respiratory ailments, and displacement.
Two Parent Households
Every child, regardless of the size of their household, should have the economic, social and emotional support needed for a healthy life. Living in a home with two married or partnered adults or caregivers can help ensure that children grow up with the support and resources they need to be healthy. If a child lives in a single parent household, resources should being available to bridge the gap in support.
Alcohol Availability
Everyone should have access to goods and services in their community that can support a healthy lifestyle. When there is a high concentration of places that do not promote and support health, including liquor stores, bars, and restaurants that sell alcohol over normal limits, it can adversely affect the health of people living in those communities.
Supermarket Access
Everyone should have access to healthy food options in their community. Having access to a nearby supermarket can encourage a healthier diet and eating behaviors, lower the costs of obtaining food, reduce chronic diseases, and lower the risk of food insecurity.
Heath Inequality ( Social Determinants of Heath )
Priorities
Require a $15 federal minimum wage that rises with inflation.
• Protect retirement rights for current and future beneficiaries in the Arizona State Retirement System and maintain the Arizona State Retirement System’s defined benefit system. Secure these rights for all employees.
• Ensure 12 weeks of annual paid medical or family leave for all public and private employees.
• Retrain fossil-fuel industry workers to help grow our clean energy industry.
• Prevent discrimination in pay and work conditions based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity and sexual orientation.
• Strengthen labor laws to protect older workers from forced retirement.
• Provide regulated, subsidized childcare.
• End privatization of government services.
• Regulate banking and lending policies, including redlining and covenants.
• Strengthen consumer finance protections.
• End predatory short-term lending.
• Reform arbitration laws and eliminate mandatory arbitration in consumer and employment matters.
• Tax progressively, based on ability to pay. Close loopholes. Impose a wealth tax.
• End corporate tax giveaways where there is no tangible or documented financial return on the public’s investment.
• Protect and strengthen Social Security benefits.
• Expand nonprofit financial institutions and establish public banks.
• Address the true cost of the damage done to indigenous nations and peoples and the descendants of enslaved people. Remediate that damage through reparations, policy reform and affirmative action.
Campaign Platform:
It would be an honor to have your vote again.
Before I entered my name in the race as a Arizona State House of Representative candidate.…before I was elected Chairman of the legislative District…before I was voted as Acting Mayor of South Tucson City Council….before I was sworn in as a City Councilor….I was a government intern studying Business Management and legislative policy.
With eight years of local government experience, I understand how state legislative policies preempt local municipalities.
My personal connection to entrepreneurs and cities is why like so many of you, I want more done for small businesses.
$400 rebates to offset spiking gas prices and inflation proposed by LD20 state House of Representative candidate Akanni Oyegbola
“Too many Arizona’s are struggling to make ends meet right now,” Arizona State House of Representative LD20 candidate Akanni Oyegbola (D–Tucson) said today. “He plans to offer relief similar to what state lawmakers are proposing in California.” “The rebate would target those communities hit hardest by rising prices.
My first Priority for a Better Arizona
Strong Schools
Every Arizona child deserves a world-class education. Arizona stays at the very bottom in the nation for teacher pay. We can't develop well-educated children if we don't have well-paid and qualified teachers. Those who educate our next generation shouldn't have to work multiple jobs to care for their own families.
Second Priority for a Better Arizona
Healthy Communities
As the pandemic continues to take a toll on human life, frontline workers, and our hospital system, it only sharpens the need for affordable, quality healthcare for every Arizonan. Currently Arizona underfunds care for people with disabilities by $100 million a year and support for families with children born with disabilities by $14 million a year.
Third Priority for a Better Arizona
Public Safety and Criminal Justice
Arizona has the 8th highest incarceration rate in the country and spends more on corrections than colleges.I will support the passage of alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders and to ease transition back into society.
Fourth Priority for a Better Arizona
The Water and Climate Crisis
The climate crisis has brought unprecedented fires, drought, water shortages, and extreme heat. Time is running out, and Arizonans need leaders to act on clean energy growth and come together to make job-creating investments to cut pollution, address environmental injustice, and tackle the climate crisis head on.
In closing, my priority for a better Arizona is working for all Arizonans, communities, tribal nations, and small businesses!