Juliette Beck, a lifelong social and environmental justice advocate, mother and caregiver, filed over 200 signatures on Wednesday with the Yolo County Elections office to stand as a candidate for District 2 County Supervisor.
“I am testing the waters to see if there is community support for a strong progressive, woman candidate and climate champion in Davis and Winters,” said Beck.
Beck moved to Davis with her husband Nick Buxton in 2008 when she was pregnant with their first daughter to be close to her sister and brother-in-law who had moved to Davis a few years earlier. She loves Davis and is grateful to the community for nurturing their young family over the last thirteen years.
Beck has been an active parent volunteer at Cesar Chavez Elementary and a strong advocate of outdoor learning during the COVID pandemic. Over the years, she has enjoyed coaching soccer, biking as a way of life, working in the school gardens, supporting the local youth climate strike movement, and raising her family including her two daughters and energetic dog, an “Aussiedor,” Luna.
“I want to thank the dozen volunteers that pitched in to collect over 200 petition signatures in less than a week. Juggling family, work and personal well-being is not easy during the ongoing pandemic, but clearly people are concerned about climate change and want to help do all we can to make a difference to our children’s future,” said Beck.
February 9 was the deadline for collecting signatures in lieu of paying the full filing cost. The filing cost to run for Yolo County supervisor in District 2, which spans downtown Davis, westward through West Davis to Winters, is $748.41. Many people were surprised at how much it costs to get on the ballot for the June 7 election.
“People really support having more diversity in our local election. A woman has not been elected to a Yolo County office since 2015 and has not been elected to the board of supervisors since 2006. This was alarming to a lot of people. Whenever you have fifty percent of the population unrepresented in decision-making, this is not healthy for democracy,” said Suzanne Nitzkin, a Davis parent who helped collect signatures for Beck’s campaign.
Beck is hoping to push two key priorities as a candidate: first, effective policies that address the urgency of the climate crisis, and second to ensure that the regional government serves everyone in the county and addresses deep inequities. She is particularly concerned about the impact of increasing temperatures, power shutoffs, water and food insecurity and wildfire on outdoor workers, children and sensitive populations including people with asthma and compromised immune-systems.
Beck has led a number of local and regional climate justice initiatives including a successful effort to get the Davis Joint Unified School District to meet 80% of its energy needs from renewable solar energy. Beck also helped Yolo County become the first agricultural county to set a goal of carbon neutrality by 2030, and she helped establish the Yolo Climate Action Commission to address the climate emergency.
“We have worked hard to bring awareness and the urgency of climate change to our elected leaders, but frankly, our community is still not doing enough. Working together, I believe Davis and Yolo County can and should step up efforts to advance a just transition to a healthy, equitable, climate resilient society,” said Beck.
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