Chris Castorena, Planning Commissioner for the city of Banning, Calif., is known for innovative, community-driven initiatives and advocating for equity and infrastructure improvements. In this second half of this interview, "Joy of Democracy" correspondents Anyse Smith and Francisco Ramos (via "Straight Outta Rivco") highlight how intentional, local efforts—such as walking your block, writing advocacy letters, and initiating intentional, person-to-person connections—can ripple outward and create meaningful local change. You'll discover why integrated neighborhoods are so important, and why systemic change isn’t achieved by individuals alone, but through unified community demand. Real power begins at the local level, and Castorena urges listeners to ask: "Development for whom?" as a first step toward a more equitable, connected community.

Mentioned in this episode:

Andrea Garcia for Judge v2 — Q3 2026

Hi, this is Lee McGowan, otherwise known as Politics Girl, and you are watching the United America Network.

Stay tuned for the Joy of Democracy with Joy Silver.

I'm a strong believer in not pulling the plug on what quite literally reflects our humanity.

You know, serving the most underserved people, knowing that they're not forgotten, because we're all a lot closer to that than the endless riches.

This is the joy of Democracy with Joy Silver.

And this is part two of Straight out of Rivco with your hosts Anise Smith and Francisco Ramos and their guest, Chris Castoreno, planning commissioner for the city of Bannon.

On most Americans minds as we continue to see, what was it, 93,000 jobs lost the last month.

Right.

Very, very high, comparative to months we had before Trump was in office.

And I'm sure it's a lot of nerves, a lot of nerves about the unknown of what could happen.

But that's why you're there and that's why you're there.

I'm glad to hear that you're taking that perspective to the doors, which is very, very important.

Do you think that is going to be something people will be investing in later, like as an opportunity, resource through you, because of that kind of style.

Of engagement if they're going to be.

Investing in you personally, like, as your representative, Like, Chris came to my door, so I felt like I can talk to him about the future, talk to him about what?

I feel if I was a city resident, banning, and you came to my door, maybe I would use you as an opportunity to get more involved because you actually brought government to my doorstep.

Do you feel like that's how people are reacting to your conversations?

I don't want them to think that it's me.

Right.

I want them to know that it's us.

It's the only way change has ever been made.

It's never one individual person.

We need buy in from the community.

How do we do that?

We, we earn their trust.

We sit in the mud with them.

We listen to their frustrations and know that it isn't necessarily because of, of you.

Right.

They're frustrated at this system that has forgotten them out of convenience.

So very important, yeah, very important.

Making sure that we're, we're handing the mic over to them.

You know, that what they say actually matters and not sidestepping community voice whenever it's convenient or using, using any excuses.

People are still watching even when you think that they're not looking.

So what do you, what are you doing in those times?

I think that's really important, the platforming, you know, of community voices.

And I think, like Francisco was kind of alluding to it is.

It's not just the pass, right?

It's not just banning.

You know, there are numerous areas of Riverside county all the way out to Blythe.

It's pretty amazing though.

I just want to say we are very special.

Pass is a very special place.

Very beautiful, very beautiful.

And I know that we have, along with our past communities, many beautiful, very historical communities in this county that are being overlooked when it comes to investment, or let's just say smart investment and focus on the needs of the community.

And so I wonder if you could just, if you could speak to, you know, folks who maybe live in an area that is experiencing something like, similar to what you have been experiencing and observing in the past area, what would you encourage folks to do?

What would be your recommendation to like, move forward and make change to somebody who's listening and who really wants to know?

Like, I want to make a change here.

I want to respond to what's happening instead of just letting things happen to me and my community.

What would you say?

I like that.

It's really important.

I want to reinforce the idea of what you're talking about being hyper focused.

On the local level, when we listen to the news, it's usually at the national level or their state level even.

And to the individual, that kind of makes you feel powerless.

I can't make an impact on that.

What you can make an impact on is right outside your window.

Focus on your block, your neighborhood and demand better write a letter to your.

I love this tactic, writing a letter to somebody in leadership and then ceasing other folks in the email so they feel more obligated to respond because there's eyes on them.

My.

My theory of change has always been to build out collaborations for decision making because if someone gets into elected office, it can't just be them making the decision.

They're not an expert in everything.

But they can tap into the expertise of their community and bring the partners who are doing the frontline work through it.

I help bring together the.

We created a housing and homelessness solutions collaborative in the city because homelessness has been a challenge just like anywhere else in the country.

Sure, yeah.

Unfortunately, we shut down Opportunity Village, our transitional housing initiative, because it wasn't getting the results that we, I guess, imagined it to.

There was also some financial mishaps.

But I'm a strong believer in not pulling the plug on what quite literally reflects our humanity.

You know, serving the most Underserved people knowing that they're not forgotten because we're all a lot closer to that than the endless riches.

Yeah.

One health.

Health incident away, you know?

Yep.

So we brought one job.

Exactly.

Seriously.

Absolutely.

To losing our houses.

I've told this story before.

I won't say who, but somebody I love very much when I was younger told me that they weren't feeling well and we needed to go to the hospital.

So we got in the car, we go to the hospital, and we park outside.

And I'm thinking, all right, cool.

We're good.

And we're not getting out of the car, but the hospital's right in front of us.

And I look over, I'm like, hey, what are we doing?

And they told me, well, if we go in there, we.

Or I could potentially lose the house.

Can't take that chance.

Unless I pass out.

I was numb.

I didn't know what to think it was.

It was.

I felt so paralyzed and scary.

And I know people next door to me, down the street in the city next, a city over, are experiencing similar things like that where they can't afford these basic things.

That is devastating.

Yeah.

Not seeking medical care when you need it because you're afraid that.

Oh, the cost.

Yeah.

I've had several instances like that in my life.

And I know our neighbors are experiencing the same exact thing, to lesser and worse degrees.

The more that we understand this is a lifelong struggle for these basic human rights, the better off we'll be.

So we need to demand that these systems come to us or we change these systems if they cannot do that.

Structural change should always be the goal.

We're not against one particular person.

We're against the system.

It's not me versus you or us versus them.

It's us versus these systems.

I like that you use the word demand.

You've used it a couple of times, and it just brings forth for me, like, I think you said, like, demand more.

Right.

And that's a lot of what I've taken, you know, from what we've been talking about here is that you've observed these issues and these challenges, and you're not standing by, you know, while they have, and we're demanding more.

And so I know I would love to learn more, and I know our listeners would love to learn more about how to demand more.

Right.

Cause I think that there's definitely, you know, that feeling amongst folks, like, okay, we want to do more.

We want to see differently.

We want to dream better and bigger beyond what we're seeing.

Right.

In front of us.

But how do we do it?

And it's that demand more, you know, push.

Right.

And so I, I, I really like that message.

I do, too.

Absolutely.

How could more people get involved, even locally, at whatever time they have, as you said, sending one email, what else can they do at that level?

It's a great question.

Join a local organization.

Join a local organization.

If walk your block, start going on walks more seriously.

Simple things like that.

Meeting your neighbors.

When I first moved into my house up San Antigonio Avenue, it's one of my favorite streets because it connects all the way up from the San Antonio cemetery.

It goes up to the bench area, down to the high school, and all the way up to Idlewell.

Meet your neighbors.

Oh, sorry.

What I was saying, when I moved in, I put in a little free library to have, to hold space for the community to share literature.

That's one of the places, the things that our society has still fought for and decided that that is a public good, that we should not have to pay for the library.

What a radical concept.

Love that so much.

Just a neighborhood, you know, maybe you're walking.

I, I can just for free, you know, and you see them here and there.

But I think it's a really nice idea, you know, because it, it creates community.

Right.

It can create conversation, you know, give folks access to things they might not have access to.

And it's all, you know, free of charge.

You're sharing knowledge.

Yeah.

And you're going to say hello.

A few of the neighbors I've met, they're like, you're the guy with that little library in the front of their house, right?

Yeah.

Oh, I get hot.

I've, I've used it a few times.

Wonderful.

Please keep doing that.

Come by.

Yeah, I got a really cool espresso machine.

I'll make you a latte.

Right.

And I really think that speaks to, like, what makes our communities, our communities, the residents.

Right.

So those relationships that we have, you know, and I, and I know in a, I don't know, foregone era used to be that everybody knew their neighbors.

You know, everyone knew their neighbors, everybody's kids played together, all that type of thing.

And now, you know, I hear often from folks, like, they don't know their neighbors, you know, they never speak to them.

And there are a lot of reasons for that.

You know, people come home late from work and you're not going outside.

I just want to say, that's by design.

It's not that neighbor's fault.

Yeah.

I don't think it's anybody's fault, really.

Right.

Because we're all operating in this, in this kind of system.

I want to call this out specifically though, because the development pattern in North America has been around the car.

Everything is car centric.

We're not developing intentionally at the human scale anymore.

We're not creating walkable communities.

Absolutely.

Again, on the east sides of cities, you see less and less sidewalks.

That's by design.

It's not an accident.

So our people are being isolated.

They're getting in their cars alone, they're driving to work alone, and they're coming back.

There's no incentive.

There's nothing in the built environment for them to perchance, bump into a neighbor.

We don't have corner stores, we don't have corner coffee shops anymore.

Right.

Now you hear the complaint or like, I guess scare tactics is that, oh, we don't want to be the big city.

Why would we let like a corner store in and a housing or a single family housing zoning area?

Well, if you look at the photos originally of our community, and this is most communities, we had a corner store on nearly every, every block.

Right.

You had those coffee shops, you had barbershops, you had all of those things.

You had resources within the 15 minute walking distance.

So you were meeting your neighbors because it was a part of your built environment.

Whether you liked it or not, most people enjoyed it.

And you got to meet and hear the stories of all these wonderful people in your community.

In fact, the best developments, housing specifically, are ones where you have the intermixing of incomes, where the wealthy and the working class are there meeting each other and sharing knowledge.

We all have something unique to share and we learn from each other and we're better for it right now.

We have, we have so much of that segregation.

It's not, it's not.

Again, what's been normalized is not normal, just.

Right.

It's not normal.

It's just our, you know, new normal.

You're saying we need to have a conversation with our neighbors to rethink what it means to exist as neighbors.

If I get your, your understanding, we.

Gotta get back to our roots again.

These, a lot of the we talk about innovation.

It's not innovative.

We're getting back to like the practices from the very beginning.

That's why when we started this conversation, you know, I wanted to play homage to or pay homage to our Guillian Serrano people of the past.

They've been doing that for centuries.

Everything that I shared with you today is not.

These aren't my ideas, these are what I've been hearing from my neighbors my entire life.

We need to respect them.

You know, I think that's an important message, you know, respecting those who.

Who have been here.

Right.

Our tribal nations, all their contributions, you know, to the communities surrounding, you know, and that.

And the contributions they continue to make to the community.

So I know that I've learned a lot, and I think this is a really great conversation because again, you know, as such a large county with, you know, we have our.

Our county seat, we've got Riverside, we've got Palm Springs, you know, we've got all these places, but we are also such.

What makes us so rich in this county as well is that we have communities, you know, and cities like Banning, you know, that have such history and.

And present such opportunity for folks, you know, to really come and make a life.

I was going to say, you mentioned Beaumont being the fastest growing city.

We were actually the fastest growing city, I think.

Was that right?

2022.

For a blink of an eye.

For a blink of an eye.

And the sign still exists right off the freeway.

Oh, it's a faded billboard now.

Yeah, I've seen it.

Yeah.

You know which one I passed by.

Yeah, a couple times.

Yeah.

So I just say that, though, again, going back to the idea the fastest isn't always the best, or being more intentional usually takes more time.

And I like to think about whether I'm on planning commission or just a resident looking more inward and of my immediate relationships with my loved ones, with my neighbors, if I'm being more intentional and more grounded, it's going to take more time to do that.

When we rush, that process tends to not work out.

Be a little more intentional.

Absolutely.

You know, in how we operate.

And I think that that's an important message as well that I've taken from our conversation today is that, you know, to be more intentional and being a community member.

Right.

Don't just live somewhere, don't just sleep somewhere, but be an intentional part of that community.

Be respectful and be respectful and always ask development for who?

Hopefully us.

Yeah.

Hopefully.

We need to prosper.

Yeah.

Well, I really appreciate you being here.

I thought this was a great conversation and the first of many, you know, that I know we'll have.

And as a young person who is so civically involved and has such a great historical and current perspective on what's happening in your city, Banning, but also in the past region and the opportunities that are there, I think it's really, really important that we continue this conversation.

So for folks who are listening who have that question about, like, what can I do?

What does it mean?

What are the possibilities?

You know, maybe they can listen and really take a page out of your book, you know, from taking just one small step to be involved and to find out what's going on and realize that a significant impact can be made by just one person.

But it's even better when we work in community together.

Yeah, definitely.

And possibilities are endless, like, whatever you want to happen, as long as you bring folks with you, it can happen.

We just gotta stay relentless.

It can happen.

And curious.

Mm.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Thank you for bringing that.

Yeah.

And thank you both for having me.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

You both need to have an episode where you just talk more about yourselves and everything that you are doing for the community.

I take a lot of inspiration from both of you.

I hope you know that.

Joy, too.

It's.

I'm.

I get to stand on the shoulder of giants being here.

So thanks for letting me tell a little bit about my story and the story of the San Gregonial past.

We really appreciate you being here, Chris.

Thank you so much.

We really do.

And thank you to Joy for giving us the time to have this conversation.

And my name is Anise.

Thank you.

I'm Francisco.

We are straight out of Rivco.

See you next time.

See you next time.

This has been part two of Straight out of Rivco.

Your hosts, Anise Smith and Francisco Ramos, and their guest, Chris Castorino, planning commissioner for the city of Vanny.

I'm Joy Silver.

This is the Joy of Democracy here on United America Network.

Thank you for listening to such a wonderful interview here.