Rául Ureña discusses his candidacy for council

Calexico needs access to basic necessities

CALEXICO, Calif. (KYMA, KECY)- 22-year-old Calexico born Rául Ureña is running for a seat in Calexico's City Council in November.

Rául Ureña recently graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz in the midst of a pandemic

Ureña says this community needs access to basic necessities.

“Our air quality, water quality, access to medical services and such we are the county, that is most affected less ready but we are the ones that are most aggressive to this re-opening and it’s had really bad results.” 

Housing has also been a recurring issue throughout this pandemic, unemployment has continued to soar and so have evictions.

More than 1,600 California households have been evicted since Newsom declared a statewide state of emergency. 

“The state supreme court had said eviction proceedings at the local court can not proceed, those are frozen those are paused. Despite that Imperial County supreme courthouse, our court chief still proceeded with evictions despite state orders,” said Ureña.

Ureña also discussed how the port modernization wasn’t accessible to predominately low-income laborers. 

“There was suppose to be modernization for the car port and the pedestrian port all of the modernization went to the car, and that’s something only accessible to upper-class Mexicali citizens, the core pedestrians, consumer base from Mexicali they didn’t get anything and those are the citizens that are keeping up the swap meet and Central Calexico.”

Ureña says his primary goal is to encourage Calexico citizens to get involved.