Esteen Running to Unseat Miley As Supervisor

Registered nurse and Ashland resident Jennifer Esteen is running to unseat long-time Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley in District 4 in next year’s election.

Esteen is a member of the Eden Area Municipal Advisory Committee (MAC) and is vice president of the Alameda Health System board. Two years ago, she narrowly missed making the runoff for the District 20 state assembly seat ultimately won by Liz Ortega.

Miley, the current president of the Board of Supervisors, has represented District 4, which includes Castro Valley and several unincorporated communities, since 2000. He was most recently re-elected in 2020, with 67 percent of the vote.

Esteen said, “My focus is on public safety, housing, health care, jobs and  justice, issues which are all intertwined.”

“We can have a healthy, thriving community,” she continued. She contrasts that to the rise in crime and homelessness and worsening health conditions we are seeing now.

A rise in public investments in the health of communities is key, she said.

“It’s hard to convince people that they should spend more money now,” she said. “But it saves us a lot of money later on, and improves our lives.”

Esteen calls for getting away from the “Crime First” views of some officeholders. She took aim at Miley’s call for large fines and possible jail time for spectators at sideshows, for example.

“Most people don’t have $400 to spend on anything,” she said, referring to a proposed fine amount. “We can be regulating sideshows and providing job opportunities at the same time,” she said.

Esteen noted that sideshows often occur near the partly-county-owned Oakland Coliseum, where spectators now pay to see Monster Truck exhibitions and other car-related events. With the recent loss of the sports teams that have played at the Coliseum, the county is negotiating over future uses of the facility, she said.

Regulated car events there would not only draw interested people, but could also be a good place to reach people interested in training to work with cars for a living, Esteen said. There is  body work, detailing and modifications to vehicles for competition, among other specialties.

Esteen works as a psychiatric nurse and would like to see more resources directed into preventative health care in the community, both physical and behavioral.

“I one hundred percent want to see everyone get health care and behavioral health care,” she said.

She is concerned that much of the mental health help Alameda County provides is at the Santa Rita Jail, a troubled facility that has seen a number of deaths among prisoners.

As much as she would like to see more community health care, Esteen does not want to lose any of the health care facilities we have. In particular she wants the county to save St. Rose Hospital in Hayward, the one local hospital that has not been able to return to pre-pandemic levels of service.

She also urges fully funding crime prevention programs, which had helped keep crime rates down before the pandemic but some of which lost funding during it. In Oakland, crime prevention programs recently lost $4 million in funding amidst a sharp rise in crime. Esteen wants the county to pick up that funding, for the good of Oaklanders and residents of other communities alike.

More information on the Esteen campaign is available on its website at www.jenniferesteen.com and on its several social media sites.