Riverside Council Candidates Talk Policy, Issues At Community Forum

The four Riverside City Council candidates this week discussed regional issues like warehouses, data centers and campaign contribution limits at a forum put on by a local neighborhood group.

The Mission Grove Neighborhood Alliance, a community organization that advocates for residents living in a neighborhood split between Ward 2 and 4, held a candidate forum October 7 at the Orange Terrace Community Center.

The group invited several local political hopefuls, including the four council candidates who made it to the November 3 general election. 

Ward 2 candidates Gracie Torres and Aram Ayra are vying for the seat currently held by outgoing Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes and covers the city’s eastern neighborhoods like University Canyon Crest and Sycamore Canyon Park. The candidates were separated by fewer than 200 votes in the June 2 primary.

Ward 4 Councilmember Chuck Conder and challenger Rich Vandenberg are vying to represent the city’s southernmost neighborhoods like Hawarden Hills, Alessandro Heights and Orangecrest. Conder received 45.63% of the vote while Vandenberg earned 28.34% in the June 2 primary.

Warehouses

When it came to logistics warehouses, Torres, Ayra and Vandenberg said they were opposed to the approval of any new warehouses in their wards. 

Torres and Ayra added they had spent years advocating against new warehouse construction, with Torres mentioning her support for Assembly Bill 98 and Ayra recalling his efforts to fight against the controversial West Campus Upper Plateau project. 

Vandenberg said he felt the logistics industry only brought in low-paying jobs and the city should instead focus on using the land for development that offers career opportunities with liveable wages. 

Conder, who ultimately voted against the West Campus Upper Plateau Project as a member of the March Joint Powers Authority Commission, first voted in support of a motion that would have amended the project to prohibit storage and distribution uses and required it to go back before the supervisors for approval before construction began.

At this week’s forum, Conder said he believed the city did not need anymore logistics warehouses, but also pushed back against the question’s premise, stating that “not every big building is a warehouse,” and that large developments would be required to attract manufacturing companies. Those businesses, he added, would bring more high-paying jobs. 

“We don’t need any more warehouses, [but] we need jobs,” Conder said during the forum. “That’s how we’re going to expand the tax base that keeps our rates down.” 

The Riverside City Council voted 4-3 in January to amend its zoning code setting stricter requirements for new storage and distribution facilities to comply with AB 98. 

The council also adopted additional regulations, at the request of concerned residents, but carved out exemptions for manufacturing and technology developments. Conder, along with councilmembers Steven Robillard and Sean Mill voted against the code changes. 

Proposed Cargo Facility

The candidates were then asked about their thoughts on a proposed air cargo facility at the March Air Reserve Base, which the community group said could bring up to 10,000 cargo planes to the area. Conder disputed that characterization and said the project would not bring any major cargo flights to the region. 

The other three candidates said they wouldn’t support the proposed project. 

“If there ever is a hearing, I intend to be there [and] get the information from both sides, but my priority will always be community safety and quality of life,” Vandenberg said during the forum. “I would have to hear something pretty convincing to change my mind otherwise from that community meeting, but that [hearing] has to happen. Otherwise, my vote’s a no.”

Data Centers

From there, the moderator asked the candidates about data centers, which have become a flashpoint across the country and in Riverside County, where several cities have placed moratoriums on the land use and the city of Coachella has adopted a full ban. 

The Riverside Land Use Committee last month directed staff to draft a 90-day pause on data center applications, which is set to be brought before the council for discussion on October 20. The Land Use Committee is also scheduled to hold a special meeting October 13 to further review the topic of data centers. 

Ayra said he supported that moratorium, adding that the city should move forward with a permanent ban, calling the industry exploitative and sharing his concern that residents would ultimately shoulder the costs. 

Vandenberg called the question a “lay up,” since he felt the issue was closely related to his sentiment on warehouses, though he stopped short of saying he would support a permanent ban. Before making that decision, he said he would want more information regarding the language of the proposed ordinance as well as a better understanding about how data centers operate.

Torres said that Riverside was fully developed and there was no place for a large-scale data center. She added that she saw mention of a data center on an August council agenda, alluding to a non-binding agreement between the city and a nonprofit that has since removed all mentions of a data center, and had made calls requesting the item be removed. 

Enterprise Technology Alliance, a company that is owned by the CEO of the nonprofit that brought forward the agreement to the city, donated $1,000 to Torres’ campaign in September 2025. In a phone call with The Riverside Record, Torres said this showed how she did not practice pay-to-play politics.

“I do what’s right, every single time,” she said. “I’m proud of the fact that people trust enough in my leadership to contribute and support my campaign.” 

Conder said he believed much of the opposition to data centers was funded by foreign governments who would prefer to have the large swaths of information stored within data centers built in their countries. He said he would much rather have his data stored on U.S. soil and added that the technology has been rapidly improving and no longer needed to be housed in large facilities. 

Transparency

According to the moderator, some Riverside residents have expressed concerns that the current council has restricted public comments as a result of how meetings are held, which brought up the question of transparency. 

Torres, Ayra and Vandenberg each said they would make an effort to increase transparency during meetings, and Torres and Ayra both stated they would pull items off of the consent calendar at the request of residents. Items included in the consent calendar are considered routine and are generally voted on in a singular motion without discussion.

Ayra and Vandenberg also said they would push for the meetings to begin later in the afternoon to allow more opportunity for their working-class communities to participate. 

“If you run for city council and you can’t show up once a week and stay late, no matter how long it is, you don’t deserve to be in that public office,” Ayra said during the forum. “If we have to stay till midnight or 2 a.m., I’m not going to pretend that’s super fun to do, but that’s something I’m committed to doing as your council member.”

Conder said the council had been operating transparently and that much of what had been put on the agenda, including, at times, long lists of consent calendar items, were routine for this time of year. 

In his closing statement, Conder added his longest meeting ran for just a little more than 12 hours, and that he was committed to continuing to show up and stay as long as needed if reelected. 

Affordable Housing

The moderator pointed out that data from the city showed it was far behind the state’s requirement for permitting housing for low-income residents, and asked what the candidates thought could be done to address the issue. 

Vandenberg said he would jump-start affordable housing projects by looking for shovel-ready projects that lacked the necessary funds to get started and would divert federal and state grant money to get the projects built. 

Ayra said he would ask the city’s legal team to investigate how it could incentivize hedge funds to release thousands of homes back onto the market while separately working to build a fund to support affordable housing projects. 

Torres said she would push the state legislature to give cities more local control, allowing councils to have some influence over state-mandated housing requirements. 

The best way to create more affordable housing projects, according to Conder, was by having city staff help developers work through the “myriad of paperwork” required to request state funding while also reducing the time spent locally on permit requests. 

Campaign Contribution Limits

The moderator also asked how the candidates felt about the council’s decision not to place a limit on campaign contributions, making it one of the few municipalities in the state to not have a cap. 

Mid-year financial reports, compiled by The Record, showed two of the four candidates have outraised and outspent their competition by wide margins. 

Conder was the sole candidate who supported the previous council’s decision to not implement contribution limits. He said he felt that it allowed for more transparency on the financial statements and helped keep dark-money out of local politics. 

His mid-year financial report showed that received about $154,000 in total contributions between January 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026. Vandenberg, in contrast, had raised an estimated $21,000 over the same time period.

The other three candidates said there should be limits on campaign contributions, because it would level the playing field. 

Vandenberg said he’d been placed at a competitive disadvantage because he hadn’t been able to mail flyers or purchase local commercials due to a lack of funds.

Ayra and Torres both added that limits would make it easier for people to run for office. 

“I ran in one of the most expensive city council primaries in Riverside’s history, and we had a long list of different organizations — good, bad, in between — pouring an insane amount of money into this race,” Ayra said during the forum. “I think we need to go a step further and have lobbying bans for anyone who’s been on city council who is now doing different jobs, and other transparency clauses as well for how money pours into elections.”

Their mid-year financial reports showed that Torres had received nearly $163,000 of total campaign contributions between January 1, 2025 and June 30 of this year. Ayra had raised approximately half of that amount, with contributions totaling about $80,000 over the same time period. 

Riverside Transmission Reliability Project (RTRP)

When asked whether the RTRP project, a second-connection to the state’s electrical grid currently slated to be built above-ground through the Santa Ana River bottom, all four candidates agreed they would push for the project to be built underground.

The Riverside City Council in 2024 voted 4-3 to move forward with the project despite pushback from residents and the city of Norco, which has continued its push for the project to be undergrounded.

Opponents of the project have long advocated for the city to work with Southern California Edison, the company in charge of the project, to build the infrastructure underground citing the area’s high risk of fire and the unsightly transmission towers.

Vandenberg, Torres and Ayra each said they would support the residents’ request to underground the project if it came before the council again.

Conder added he had worked with county, state and federal officials to allocate money toward the cost of undergrounding the project, but said the money was stuck in limbo because Southern California Edison refused to tell the city the cost of running the lines underground. 

“We’re going to get underground,” Conder said at the forum. “It’s going to happen, and I’m not going to quit until this is done.”