Tressy Capps

Tressy Capps, who has already established a distinct political profile as an advocate against the addition of toll lanes on San Bernardino County’s freeways, is making her third and most energetic effort for elected office in this year’s Fontana City Council Race.
“I am running because I see the people on the council, including our mayor, who are not representing the people but rather developers and regional governmental agencies they are members of, such as SCAG and SanBAG.”
SCAG is Southern California Associated Governments, a confabulation of Southern California’s counties and cities. SanBAG is San Bernardino Associated Governments, which is San Bernardino County’s transportation agency involving all 24 of the county’s municipalities.
“They are taking money from developers like Lewis Homes and then they rubber stamp whatever they want,” Capps said of the incumbents on the Fontana City Council. “I am running so I can be in on the conversation and hopefully get two other council members to represent the people.”
Capps said she is experiencing disappointment and frustration with the political process. She lamented that most of the candidates are divided into two groups: well meaning but unsophisticated newcomers and well-established and cynical insiders who are in politics to benefit themselves and the powerful interests that have put them in office in the past and are spending large sums of money to keep them there.
“It is disheartening,” she said. “So many of the candidates have no clue. They don’t know what they are talking about. The others are puppets. Politics is really something. I want to be an office holder but I don’t want to be like the ones who are in office now. I don’t want to be like our mayor [Acquanetta Warren]. She is a rubber stamp for the ones she is taking her marching orders from.”
Capps offered an illustration of the dictates from on high that Warren and the rest, or most of the rest, of the political establishment are carrying out. “I recently heard her say how we need to get away from cars and get on our bicycles for this sustainability business. That is not how the real world works.”
Capps said she perceived the residents of Fontana as caught between these unrealistic dictates of ivory tower social engineers and the greed and self-serving economic interests seeking to exploit the community. The confluence of these forces is destroying the local quality of life, Capps said.
“The biggest issue we face is explosive growth,” she asserted. “Density contributes to crime. That is not the only reason for the rise. With Assembly Bill 109 and Senate Bill 47, we are not keeping people in jail very long. Those are factors. But the sheer growth we are experiencing is turning us into Los Angeles. Fontana’s population is up to 206,000 and city officials are saying they want to add 55,000 people in the next ten years. They want to turn Fontnaa into Los Angeles. I am sorry, but that is not why I moved here. Some of the development they are supporting and which we so far have been successful in opposing would bring those population numbers up even higher. With the Westgate development, they tried to get up to 5,500 units. That’s a lot of people in the north end of Fontana. We pushed back. At the halfway point they have dropped it to 3,300 units. When I take my niece to high school, it’s like an episode of “The Urban Survivor.” There is so much traffic already and they want to put 3,300 more units in. And they are now talking about putting people on bicycles and cramming more and more people into the area. People are not going to ride bicycles. They will all want to drive cars and they will keep driving cars and we will have even more traffic. This is not what I want. I want to have reasonable growth, not pack and stack development. The city has spent $1.7 million on the general plan. They have paid a company, Stantac, $1.7 million for its employee’s vision.”
Capps continued, “Stantac is a firm from Boston and they are doing much of the planning for Fontana in Boston. One of their planners, Larissa Brown, talks about Fontana becoming the most sustainable city in the Inland Empire. That means rationing. So this is the struggle for what Fontana is going to become. She flies in from Boston. She comes here and talks about Fontana being a net zero energy community and that she wants Fontana to exceed California’s standards, which are already very strict. It is upsetting to sit in on these meetings and see what they are trying to do to our city. Stantac’s vision is not the vision of the residents of Fontana. I can guarantee you it is is not my vision of the future of Fontana. I have followed the general plan process from day one. I applied to get on the general plan advisory committee. I was never contacted. I did not get an email back. I did not get a phone call in return. They put their cronies on the committee. I am still studying what they are trying to institute in Fontana, and the vast majority of the people in Fontana are absolutely clueless as to what is being done in their name.“
Capps said she believes she offers the voters in Fontana a meaningful and viable alternative to the political leadership it is now under.
“I understand how things work,” Capps said. “My impression is the kingmakers don’t want the public to really understand what is happening at every level of government. I have spent time at school board meetings and at SanBAG meetings and I have seen how everything is about money. I have worked with some activists and we have managed to stop some development in Fontana. It is not fair to say we stopped it. We just put it off. We won a battle or two, but we did not necessarily win the war. I think it would be good for me to get into office because I am not being paid by anyone to do their bidding. The Fontana Water Company gave the members of the city council money for their election campaigns. When rate increases came down, the council did not speak out because they took money from Fontana Water. Burrtec gave them money. When Burrtec asked for rate increases, they were granted the increases, because the council took their money. The developers have given them money and the council has given, and are ready to give them more, high density because they took their money. I probably don’t have a chance of winning because I haven’t taken their money and I don’t have money to pay for signs and mailers. That’s how it works.”
While she is on the campaign trail, Capps took the opportunity to deviate from her own campaign and to politic on behalf of two of her favorite issues.
“I am against toll lanes on our freeways,” she said. “We have paid for those roads through taxes. We should not have to pay a private company to use our own roads.”
And she inveighed against Measure I on the ballot, which would authorize the issuance of school bonds and levy further property tax on the homeowners withing the Etiwanda School District, which extends into the western side of Fontana. “The district already has 35 percent of its budget in reserves,” she said. “The last thing they need is $137 million more in reserves. When you look at how much money the district spent to craft that bond measure it is incredible. They spent $200,000 of our tax money against us to get more taxes. If it passes, we are moving. I told my husband to get ready. I am not going to have another tax assessment on my bill.”
Capps was born in Pisa, Italy, where her father was stationed on an army base. She attended and graduated from Chino High School and studied accounting at Chaffey College. She was self employed for a quarter century with her own legal services firm. She now has a real estate license. With her husband she has two grown children. She previously lived in Fontana in the 1980s for two years, and subsequently located to Rancho Cucamonga. She relocated to Fontana 13 years ago.