Andrea Sorce, an economics professor at Diablo Valley College, can now add another title to her name: Mayor of the City of Vallejo.
Sorce won her mayoral race by a narrow margin earlier this month after her main opponent, Pippin Dew, conceded on Thursday, November 7. Sorce built her campaign around tackling public safety and police reform, as well as creating a more transparent government and putting the interests of the community first.
On Nov. 22, she sat down for an interview with The Inquirer to discuss her campaign and her mission as she prepares to move into the mayoral role in January.
The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Nate Wendling: What is the feeling, now that you have won the election and you’re the new mayor of Vallejo?
Andrea Sorce: Yeah, it’s still sinking in. At the broadest level, it’s exciting. I decided to run for office because I saw a need for change, and I saw this beautiful city with beautiful people that had a government that really wasn’t working for folks. And I ran for office to try to bring about positive change, and knowing that now I’m in a position to do something is a wonderful feeling.
The response has been incredible. It was a close, hard-fought race, and people are really excited because I think it was at first seen as a long shot bid—you know, going up against the establishment—and winning has really given people a lot of positive energy. Even going out in the community, I still think of myself as myself, but people think of me now as the mayor-elect. I went to some Veterans Day events and met some Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and they were so excited to meet the mayor. It takes a minute to sort of realize that, yeah, this is something that I now have. I have the ability to work with people and impact people in a way that I didn’t before. It’s exciting.
NW: What is it like having people put their faith in you to help the City of Vallejo?
AS: There’s a deep sense of responsibility. I think that’s the big thing. I’ve been following the local government now for many years and have a sense of the changes that I want to make, and I see sort of two things. I think we have to change systems, and I want to be a culture carrier, to try to change the culture in the city [and] how we do business. Then, of course, there’s policy issues that we are going to have to tackle. We’re not going to be able to bring about change overnight. And so for me, the sense of responsibility I have is to be as transparent and inclusive as possible in working with the community, to communicate what we’re doing, what we’re able to do, [and] the timelines we’re looking at. Because yeah, people have put their faith in me, and even if I can’t deliver on everything immediately, I need to create systems where folks feel heard, they feel that the government’s being more responsive, and that their concerns are valid.
NW: Talking about the things you want to accomplish, what would be one of the first objectives to pinpoint as soon as you get into office?
AS: [For] the culture and system, I’m looking at how the mayor’s office communicates with the public, and how the city council meetings are framed and engage with the public. And I would like to create more channels for communication, updates and ways to increase participation. That’s an initial goal—that’s a first hundred days, you know, [looking at] how do we engage people on critical issues and create good, regular methods of communication where we can really be fair to everybody.
And then issue-wise, I think for Vallejo it has to be public safety. There’s a lot of issues we have to tackle right away, but dealing with the public safety crisis is number one. And so I’m really looking at creating a task force out of the mayor’s office to bring different agencies together, and networking and lobbying to the governor’s office to try and get California Highway Patrol support for Vallejo. That’s a huge top priority for me.
NW: The last few months, what do you think is the biggest thing you’ve learned about the entire process of campaigning, and also maybe about yourself?
AS: That’s a really good question. One thing I was surprised with was campaigning, because I never had an interest in running for office, and I didn’t like the politics, you know, that “politicking.” I do love relational work and working with people, and that comes across [with] everything I’ve done in my career with Peace Corps and teaching, so I think I was expecting not to like the politicking. But what I didn’t expect was how much I would love meeting new people and meeting people that are doing good work that I wasn’t aware of, getting to see things that I wouldn’t have gotten to see, meeting even just residents canvassing and talking to people, that was such a wonderful surprise just how much I enjoyed that aspect of campaigning.
And then I think the other piece that maybe surprised me, you know, Vallejo has a lot of problems and a lot of issues, and in many areas, [it] has not the best reputation. But, of course, people in Vallejo know how wonderful our city is, and that’s the source of a lot of frustration for folks: They see this [and ask], why is our city struggling so much? We have so many assets, we have so much to offer, we have such an amazing community. And it feels, I think, to a lot of folks that it’s insurmountable, that the problems have been let get so bad that it’s just going to be impossible to resolve. And I think through the process of campaigning, I have gotten more confident in our ability to tackle the problems, which kind of took me off guard as well. I do think that change is possible, and I think we’re in a position to make it happen. We have a wave of new leaders coming into Vallejo in Solano County. We have a new supervisor, we have a new state senator, we have three new council members in addition to myself — the entire Vallejo City Council is going to be new as of two years ago. Everybody’s new, so we’ve got basically a clean slate to work with. And you know, is it going to be easy and instantaneous? No, but I do feel confident that we’ll be able to make some real progress.
NW: What is something important that the people should know about you specifically, and what will you bring to the table as the new mayor of Vallejo?
AS: I think what’s going to feel different is that I come from a public service background, I’m not a politician, and so I approach everything with a very pragmatic lens of, ‘How do we get things done, and how do we help make people’s lives better?’ I think we’re so used to seeing or assuming that politicians are going to be self-serving, or if we have politicians that have a service background, they’re stuck in a minority, they’re not able to do much. And I think the people of Vallejo are going to feel a difference just with the culture and values piece, of changing how government works.
And then I think, also, a lot of folks know me from the work that I was doing with the ACLU chapter, and the activism that I was doing around police reform and homelessness. So there are folks in Vallejo that associate me with the activist community, and I think those folks are going to be surprised to know what a pragmatist I am, and that I have a pretty deep policy background and I’m ready to get to work. I actually love policy. The activist space would be my second choice; I’d rather be in the policy space, so now I get to be in the policy space. I think that would be the thing I want people to know: you didn’t take an activist and put them into policy, you had a policy person that was in the activist space, that’s now coming back in to be involved in policy.
NW: Has there been someone that you’ve looked to during this campaign to help you, or is there a story, or someone that you’ve met, or even someone in your campaign that’s been there for you along the way?
AS: There’s so many people. I have been so fortunate to work with former elected officials in Vallejo, so many mentors, I don’t even want to list any because I’ll forget somebody. There’s been a lot of folks that I’ve leaned on heavily. From the very beginning, my sort of closest advisor and friend was my ACLU co-chair, Chris Kelly, who I met in 2020 and we just connected. We ended up founding the [local] chapter, and I went to her last year and said, “This is what I’m thinking of doing, you know, I’m thinking of running for mayor. I wouldn’t be doing this if I hadn’t met you, and I really need you by my side, to keep me grounded, to bounce things off of, you know, just to be a sounding board.” And because she’s been so engaged in Vallejo, in activism, as an impacted family member — she lost her brother in a police shooting — I’ve kept her close the entire campaign, and I made sure she was the first person I saw after we declared victory. I wouldn’t have done it, I think, if I hadn’t met her, that’s what got me into this, into this space in the first place, so I have the political advisors, and then I sort of have the values advisors.
NW: One more question: how are you going to handle both your teaching duties at DVC and a new position leading local government?
AS: I think, you know, one of the reasons I was even able to do this is because of how flexible community college teaching is. It’s going to be a challenge. It’s going to be something that I’ll have to work out over time. But one of the nice things about the job at DVC is I can teach a little bit less in the fall and spring, teach some in the summer, and adjust my schedule so that I don’t miss any commission meetings or [other] meetings. You know, I can kind of design a schedule accordingly, [and] frankly not a lot of jobs allow that level of flexibility.
I think that’s a reason why in local government you tend to get a lot of retirees and self-employed people, realtors or, you know, lawyers or business owners who don’t have a nine to five [job]. And especially if you think about people that are in their 30s or 40s or 50s, if they have a career, it’s really hard to serve as an elected official and have that career, and DVC allows me to do that. We have a faculty at DVC in the Communications Department who is the mayor of Pleasant Hill, and I’ve also, you know, sought out his advice and will continue to seek out his advice on how best to balance the job. And I’m really fortunate that I’ve got the support of administration, all the way up to the chancellor. I’m so grateful to have the support of doing this.