The Bottom-Up Revolution Is…Applying Big City Lessons to a Small Town
Maricela Sanchez is a city council member and anesthesiologist from Prosser, Washington. She has lived in major cities all over the U.S., including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City. In today’s episode, she joins Tiffany to discuss how her travels and profession molded her perspective on what makes a town safe and resilient. They also discuss Sanchez’s role as a councilor, where she focuses on creating safe, walkable neighborhoods and improving active transportation.
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Tiffany Owens Reed 0:06
Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of the bottom up Revolution podcast. I'm your host. Tiffany Owens, read I get to host this show where I have conversations with ordinary people who are putting strong talents principles into action in the communities where they live, working to make them safer, more resilient, more beautiful communities. I'm really excited to bring you this conversation today. I'm joined by Marisela Sanchez. She has lived in major cities all over the US, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City, gaining perspectives along the way on what makes a safe and resilient town now living and working as an anesthesiologist in her hometown of Prosser, Washington. She leverages those experiences as a member of her city council, advocating for safe, walkable neighborhoods and improving active transportation. Maricela, welcome to the bottom up Revolution podcast. All right,
Maricela Sanchez 0:56
thank you so much for having me. I've been a fan of this podcast for a while. Excited to be here. I'm
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:02
just excited I got through pronouncing your job correctly, anesthesiologist, I was a little bit nervous about that, but I'm really excited to have you on i we had a chance to connect before actually recording, and I feel like you just have so many interesting insights and experiences that I'm looking forward to sharing with our audience. So to get started, let's start off. Going to just explore. Give you a chance to jump into telling your story a little bit. So we have something in common and that we both spent several years living in New York City. Can you tell us about that ethnic chair? How did you end up there all the way from your home state of Washington? State. What was that journey like for you? Yeah.
Maricela Sanchez 1:41
So I was born and raised in eastern Washington, and in Prosser, Washington, actually, and then went to school, went to medical school, all on the West Coast. And as some of you may know, when you apply for residencies, there's a match system, and so you can rank which cities or regions you would most like to go and do your training in, but the match system actually creates the match. And I was matched to New York City to do my anesthesiology residency training. And so once that happened, I knew I would be spending at least a few years in New York City, and I did. I ended up living there for almost a decade for my medical training, and then after I graduated, I lived and worked there for a few years as well.
Tiffany Owens Reed 2:32
So you had lived in, let's talk about the cities you had lived in before, because I'd love to just kind of get your comparative analysis. Yet lived you were born in foster and then you had lived in Los Angeles. Los Angeles, and yet lived in San Francisco, and then you went to New York City. So I feel like there's kind of two stories unfolding here. There's your professional journey of medical school and everything, but tell me a little bit about what was it like seeing those cities and like, your experience of them as like, as cities, as built environments. And then I'm just curious, kind of what stick, what like really stood out to you when you got to New York.
Maricela Sanchez 3:04
Yeah, so my hometown of Prosser, Washington, is a very rural community. It's now about 6000 people at the time that I was growing up. It was even smaller than that. And I initially went to undergraduate college in Seattle, and when I graduated from Seattle, I joined to Teach for America, and I went and taught middle school in Los Angeles. So that was the first time that I'd really been out of Washington State, and compared to Seattle, which was relatively walkable and transit friendly, when I moved to Los Angeles, I found myself suddenly really, very, very reliant on my car and needing it to do absolutely everything. And in addition to being new to the city, I just I did find it to be a bit of a lonely experience. I didn't know too many people. I was spending most of my time teaching and thinking about teaching and planning for teaching and and I was spending the rest of the time sort of navigating the Los Angeles freeway system. That's
Tiffany Owens Reed 4:15
not the type of thing you want to say when people ask, what do you do for fun? I spent a little bit of time in LA, and it is a strange place, just this weird combination of, like, beauty, but also
Maricela Sanchez 4:27
like, despair, yeah, yeah. I had the sense that it, you know, I live in this beautiful place. I'm really excited to be here. It was, it was so, like, it was so beautiful, just to look out and see the palm trees everywhere, and the sunshine and and yet I felt like I was just viewing it all from behind a glass. And it felt I had the sort of longing to be involved with it, but I felt that I needed to spend most of my time not quite able to access it.
Tiffany Owens Reed 4:59
If that. Which is something that I always think about with car culture, how it sort of moves you through the city, like the city doesn't become a it's it feels less like a coherent whole to just be in, right? Um, it's more about a collection of destinations that you have to drive to, and so you lose that experience of experiencing like the city as its own actual place. Does that make sense? Yeah,
Maricela Sanchez 5:23
I could see it, but I didn't feel I didn't feel connected to
Tiffany Owens Reed 5:26
it. Yeah, so by this time, I'm curious, did you, did you start to articulate your experience in the language of like, of like walkability? Or were you able to pinpoint like, exactly kind of what was going on to make you like have these experiences and these feelings, I
Maricela Sanchez 5:41
think not at that point, I still didn't really have a language for it. I just knew that that it wasn't really meeting my expectations, and I wasn't sure why. I knew that I didn't like being stuck in traffic, that I could articulate. But I don't think I had really a language about the built environment or density or walkability or car dependency, I didn't, I didn't have that way of viewing the world just yet, not at
Tiffany Owens Reed 6:09
that point. So the next up on your adventure was San Francisco. How was that for you? How was that different from LA
Maricela Sanchez 6:15
Yeah, so I went up, I went up to medical school, up in the Bay Area, and and decided to live in San Francisco and and found it just delightful. I initially was drawn to San Francisco because of how beautiful the city was, how vibrant it was. And I just thought, you know, I really want to live here in in this neighborhood in this city. And managed to get an apartment there and and I was living in Bernal Heights, which is just kind of just south of the Mission District in San Francisco, and it just felt alive to me. You know, I could, I could just being out on being out on the street, going to the different shops. It just felt like there was a liveliness to it that I hadn't experienced when I was living in LA and I was excited about it. It was easy to meet people and make friends and discover new places, and so I just had a fabulous time living there. Can you expound
Tiffany Owens Reed 7:18
a little bit more on, sort of the social like, sort of, what did you experience about the relationship between, like, just focusing on La versus San Francisco? Kind of what it was like for you being new to both of these cities and building, like, some kind of friend group or or community? Do you do you feel like you have, kind of, like, what? What are your thoughts on, like, what the relationship between how you were getting around and your ability to, like, meet people, yeah.
Maricela Sanchez 7:41
So I think, I think San Francisco had a very had a culture of people making spontaneous plans. I think, you know, I was in my mid 20s at the time, and so I think just, you know, I would go and meet with a friend and go to the park, or go to, just go to meet for lunch someplace, and there would always be, seem to be other people around, who with whom it was just really easy to make next steps with. Okay, now we'll go to this restaurant, maybe we'll go to this bar, maybe somebody's having a house party. I remember connecting with folks really early on who had weekly House dinner parties, and it was just like a big potluck, and everybody would it was called Monday night dinner, and people would bring their own dishes and connect on Monday nights and then maybe go out dancing afterwards. And it was just, it just seemed like such an easy thing, where, because we all lived in the same neighborhood, we were just able to hop over to people's houses, or hop over to another, like, the next place to be. It wasn't a big, you know, in comparison in LA, you definitely could still make plans with people, you know, plan for a night, but it was all right, we've got to drive there. Are we carpooling? Are we getting a valet? Are we going to pay for parking? Or, you know, does somebody, you know, is somebody going to need to take a cab back? Like, I think it was just involved a lot more planning, whereas it felt like in San Francisco, you could just do it and not worry about the planning, because everything was just
Tiffany Owens Reed 9:17
a little more serendipitous. Almost like, yeah, yeah. Spontaneous. Like, let's just go get tacos. Like, I remember those kinds of things, you know? It's like, oh, we randomly heard me, like, when I lived in New York City, oh, you randomly stumble upon some random live music, and you're like, let's go to
Maricela Sanchez 9:32
that, you know, yeah, yeah. The kinds of things you
Tiffany Owens Reed 9:35
can't really plan for, they just sort of happen, yeah. So let's go to the next I feel like I have to catch myself, because I feel like you're bringing up some of the things I just love to talk about, like the relationship between how we get around, and the kind of social capital and social fabrics and community we're able to build, primarily because, you know, when you're able, when things are closer together, and you're able to walk and you can get to people easily, have. That principle of proximity, you know? And that's just like, really changes your friend, the dynamic you have with your friends, versus when all of your friends are scattered abroad, and everything has to be planned and coordinated, and then you feel like this pressure to make the most of your 87 minutes together, because you have to get somewhere else, you know,
Maricela Sanchez 10:16
yeah. And if it takes a lot of effort, maybe, maybe you just won't do it. You know, it's just too much. Maybe I'll just stay in tonight.
Tiffany Owens Reed 10:22
Yeah, and I mean, to be fair, New York City, I feel like I definitely struggle with that, because a lot of my friends were oriented to church, so we'd see each other once a week. But then everyone lived far apart, so it was really hard to see I didn't have neighborhood. It was only the last little bit of time living there that I started to try to, like, figure out how to make friends with neighbors, like other young ladies who were in the neighborhood and we had enough in common, so that proximity principle still alluded me. So I'm not saying that just if you have a dense, walkable, transit oriented city, you're going to automatically have friendships based on proximity. You still have to work at it, but I think when you Yeah, so maybe it's complicated, but let's talk about New York City for you. So, so far, we have Seattle, then we have Los Angeles, then we have San Francisco, and then you go cross country. What was that like for you?
Maricela Sanchez 11:09
So it was a big, big move, a big, definitely, a bit of a culture shock. New York City is very different culturally from the West Coast and so, yeah, I can identify a bit with what you're saying with you know, if, if people live in different neighborhoods, it's kind of hard to connect. And I did find that once I moved over to New York City, there were a few friends that I had known from Seattle and from the Bay Area that had ended up in New York City, but were in other in other neighborhoods or in other boroughs. And sometimes that, you know, that would be difficult, especially folks who lived within Brooklyn, even though it was the same borough that I was living in, was sometimes a lot more difficult to get to other neighborhoods in Brooklyn than to just like, take the train into Manhattan. And so that that did require, I would say, a little bit more planning and effort, but yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 12:04
okay, so and Los Angeles, you kind of have this, like inundation and car culture. And San Francisco, it sounds like you're a little bit more on the walkable side of things. Then you go to LA and then I felt I take it. This is kind of like your introduction to the public transportation world, but also to biking. Can you tell us about those two experiences, yeah,
Maricela Sanchez 12:23
so that was a new thing in New York City. I did start to bike to commute, and it was not anything I'd ever expected that I would do. I had seen people bike around in San Francisco, and just thought, Oh, that looks way too difficult. San Francisco, Cisco is so hilly. Yeah, it just seemed like an extreme sport. And I kind of knew about critical mass, but knew about it almost in, almost in a little bit of a negative light, like, oh, you know, these people all get together and they block traffic, and they're just causing trouble. So that was kind of my, my view of cycling. And then I moved to New York City. Was taking the train everywhere, which worked, okay, I worked in Manhattan, and so taking the train into Manhattan worked, worked very well. I lived near a train station. But then I had some friends move to New York City, and they gifted me a bike and said, hey, you know, this is a we've been having a great time getting around New York by bike. Like, Let us teach you, like, where the bike lanes are and where the safe places to ride are. And I think you'll really enjoy it, which I I didn't quite believe them. I think I was pretty skeptical of it, but they took me out. We went out for some longer rides. I remember going across the Brooklyn Bridge with them for the first time. And also we rode bikes all the way down to the beach. So we took Ocean Parkway, which is like a protected Boulevard with for just, you know, people walking and biking, and it felt really secure, and it was fun. And eventually I just thought, you know, this is a very inexpensive, really reliable way to get around, and I started to do it more and more.
Tiffany Owens Reed 14:07
So by this point, how'd you start to put the dots together? Yet, going back to the theme of language, to articulate your experience, had you start to make the connection between how you were experiencing each place and like how you were getting around.
Maricela Sanchez 14:22
I think becoming a cyclist and somebody who, especially, I think somebody who cycles for utility rather than recreation, I think that really opened my eyes to the way that our cities and our streets are built and and for for whom they are built. And so I think that was my kind of radicalizing moment, I would say, is just becoming a, you know, I'd been a pedestrian for a long time, but I think becoming a cyclist and seeing what things worked well, when, when needs were being met. And. When my needs were not being met as a cyclist, really piqued my interest in Wait. How is this being decided and and how do I how do I affect change and ensure that improvements can be made? So
Tiffany Owens Reed 15:14
it was while living in New York City that you became a little bit involved in bike advocacy. Can you tell us about that? What does that look
Maricela Sanchez 15:20
like? Yeah, so I became aware of a group called transportation alternatives in New York City, which really worked for pedestrian cycling and public transit advocacy. And while I was living there and becoming a more and more frequent cyclist, the city was also undergoing kind of a cycling transformation, and really beginning to build a lot of new bike lanes and a lot of new pedestrian oriented spaces. And so I started to read more about it. There was a blog called streets blog that was kind of a local news blog that reported on local transportation issues and and started to get involved with, you know, community bike rides. They would encourage people to write to their local elected officials. And I remember writing to the Brooklyn Borough President at the time, Marty Markowitz, who was famously, oh yeah, yeah, kind of famously opposed to the Prospect Park West bike path that went in and, and I wrote him an email, and he he wrote me back like that very same day, and I remember being so shocked that I had actually received a personal email in return. And, and it was a little bit, it was a bit of a short email. I remember he wasn't, he wasn't quite pleased with what I'd had to say in the email that I sent him, but, but that's something that that really struck me, as you know, oh, these changes are, are made locally, and you can have conversations about them.
Tiffany Owens Reed 17:04
So, yeah, one of those little moments where you realize, oh, wait, i i People can listen to me. I can be part of this. It's not like fixed in stone, like, this is a this is a living dialog, and we can be part of it. We can contribute to that dialog. Yes,
Maricela Sanchez 17:18
and in such a big city, and, you know, I had no expectation that I was going to get anything other than, like, you know, maybe an automated message, but, but getting an actual response back from him, I thought was, was great. So good on Marty Markowitz for
Tiffany Owens Reed 17:34
that. Yeah, I remember living there, and unfortunately, like, just when I it became clear that I needed to leave, was when I was starting to figure out, like, okay, how can I be involved? And I just remember that feeling of like, the city is just too big, you know, like they're just there too many groups, there's too many people, there's too much history and, like, context behind some of these things, and feeling really overwhelmed by the thought of like, but I think the good thing about New York City is there are so many groups already established that, like, you don't have to go embark on a journey alone. You know, you can find groups that are already advocating for the things you care about, and just like participate and like support what they're doing, which I think is a is an easier way to get involved in and, yeah, just local advocacy and get involved in those conversations.
Maricela Sanchez 18:19
The groundwork has been laid, and you don't have to, you don't have to go it alone, which is exactly, yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 18:26
okay, so let's, let's continue your journey. So I think you had told me, so you lived in New York City for about 10 years, and then you eventually moved back home to Prosser, Washington. Can you tell us what that was like? And now that you've had all these experiences, and you've lived in all these interesting cities, and you've gone through the whole transit landscape with like walking, like driving, walking, public transportation, biking. And you know, you're starting to get this language, and you're able to artic, and you become involved, you know, you've really been able to articulate, oh, now I can really see the built environment and think about it. And now you come full circle and you go back home, I'm just curious, what was that like for you, and how did, how did all those experiences shape how you saw your hometown and kind of how you built a life there? Yeah,
Maricela Sanchez 19:12
so I think by the time that I moved back home, I really had gained more of a language about these issues. I had started to raid strong towns at that point, I had also, just as an aside, gotten very interested in personal finance. You know, I'd spent much of my youth kind of mired in student loan debt, and had, like, a big medical student loan debt to pay back, and so I was very interested in living as frugally as possible. And I was reading some personal finance blogs that really encouraged bicycling as a way of, you know, saving money, and, and, and so all of that kind of gave me. This language, such that when I moved back to my small town, you know that I hadn't I hadn't lived here for 20 years, but I realized what a great place, the town that I had grown up in was in ways that I don't think I'd appreciated when I was younger. So I had grown up in a place where I was able to walk as a kid to the to the places I needed to go, and realizing how much opportunity that opened up for me was it was really pivotal. You know, I was able to be involved with after school activities, which, if I'd had to rely on a parent shuttle, shuttling me to those activities, it would not have happened because they weren't available to do so. And so I was able to get a job as a teenager downtown, and I was able to walk to that. If I'd had to operate my own car to do that, I wouldn't have been able to able to access those jobs because we didn't have an extra car in our in our household to enable me to to get a job at that age. And so coming back, I felt like I was viewing my town through new eyes and seeing how how wonderful it was.
Tiffany Owens Reed 21:15
Actually, that's wonderful. I yeah, I'm really glad to hear that you were able to all these experiences sort of translate into sort of this, like retrospective grad like, appreciation for these things that maybe you didn't know were blessings at the time, like being able to walk, being able to do this. I'm sure there were days when you're a teenager and didn't want to walk to work, but now, sure, looking back, it can be like, Wow. Like, what a, you know, what a, what a blessing that was, you know, that this opportunity was available to me because I could get there on my own two feet. Yeah, yeah,
Maricela Sanchez 21:47
definitely as a teenager, even whenever I could get access to the family car, even if I only needed to go two blocks, I would drive it, because it just felt so, you know, like, Yes, I'm driving. I'm a teenager. I have my license, but, and nobody ever told me that that was silly. You know, there's very much a culture of like, yeah, if you can drive, drive, you know, even if it's very walkable. But as an adult now, I see that. I see that very differently. So by the time
Tiffany Owens Reed 22:11
you come back to Prof Sarah, it's definitely, it sounds like it's changed, and it's grown a little bit. And you How did you navigate? Sort of like, what building your life, kind of figuring out, like, where you would live, like, how are you going to get around? Now, what were you noticing about your city, and kind of, how are you processing all of that and translating it into specific decisions
Maricela Sanchez 22:32
for yourself? Yeah, so the city has definitely grown a bit since I last, last lived here, and it's grown in a very kind of suburban fashion. So, you know, subdivisions at the edge of town, a lot of new businesses, I would say, at the edge of town, that are very, you know, kind of typical car centric fast food drive throughs, or kind of strip malls with the big parking lots. And so I did see that growth happening, and kind of was able to observe how that was different. That was different. It looked different from the traditional town, it felt different from the traditional town. But I think there was a sense that, you know, well, that's just the way things are now. This is the modern way. This is the way to do it. And the the hospital where I'm working at now is in the nearby metropolitan area, which is called the Tri Cities. It's in Richland, Pasco and Kennewick, are the three cities there. And those places had just exploded in growth in the 20 years that I was away, and to the point where it was, you know, I didn't know my way around anymore. There were just so many new so much new growth had been added on there. And, you know, I had the opportunity to live in in the Tri Cities and be, you know, fairly close to the hospital that I work at. But after living and loving to live in cities that were so walkable and vibrant, I couldn't, I could not see myself living anywhere in the Tri Cities. It was just too, too isolating, too you know, it's just multi Lane strodes everywhere. So even, you know, I think even if I wanted to live in a neighborhood where where I could walk to the park or walk to a grocery store, it would involve crossing five, six lanes of traffic to get there, and is just wasn't something I wanted to do. Yeah.
Tiffany Owens Reed 24:33
So you move back to like the downtown and Prosser, is that
Maricela Sanchez 24:38
where you settle? Yeah, yeah. So I ended up moving back to the center of Prosser, and, you know, I spoke with a real estate agent, and I said, I want, I want a home near the downtown. I want to make sure that it's walkable. And I just remember the look that she gave me of like that is not something I you know, like that is not a criteria that I hear people say that they want. But luckily, there were, there were several houses within the downtown, and so I was able to find a really a good spot, which makes
Tiffany Owens Reed 25:08
me wonder how lucky we are sometimes, people like you and me and people who listen to the show, or we do have that language to articulate the kinds of patterns that lead to vibrant places and translate that into market demand. But then it makes you wonder about all the people who don't even know like, who probably feel so much frustration and they like, like you and La remember, you know when you're like, you can feel this, but you can't explain it. So you don't know how to ask for something better, and just how, I guess, how critical it is for, you know, for people to to be, I'm not saying like they're uneducated or, you know, but it's like, how, how powerful it can be when you when someone takes the time to explain to you, like, Oh, let me, let me walk you through this pattern. Or let me walk you through, like, the hidden cost of how we've been doing things in this country, or, I don't know, but just giving people the gift of language and then empowering them to translate that into organizing their life in a way that lines up with what they actually want. Because I feel like sometimes there can be this in there, and I know we're going to talk about this later, of like, oh, people keep building the chain stores and the suburbs and the highways and the strodes. And look, everyone uses it, and everyone lives there, and it's fine, like, this is market demand, and you have to ask yourself, like, how much of this is just the default? Because people don't know how to ask for something better.
Maricela Sanchez 26:33
Yeah, I think, you know, speaking of people trying to find the language for what it is, they're saying, I hear it all the time from people who say, you know, like, oh, well, things have changed. You know, it's not the way it used to be. Like people don't really know each other anymore. It's dangerous out there, you know, you can't, I can't. I've had people tell me, Oh, I can't let my child walk to the school bus stop. There's a sense of like, not being able to trust one another, and of things being dangerous, and I would really invite people to kind of think a little bit more closely about what is it specifically that's dangerous, what is it specifically that is keeping us from knowing our neighbors and getting to connect as a community. And I think it's many factors, but I think one big factor is our built environment,
Tiffany Owens Reed 27:27
for sure. Not too long ago, I had a conversation with some neighbors who were talking about, like, just the kind of this ongoing struggle with loneliness, not in the sense they don't have friends, but I think there's a difference between having friends and being able to do life with those friends. And so, you know, we all go to church and everything, and I think, and they were just sort of talking about just this just very briefly. It wasn't an in depth, you know, emotional conversation, but it just kind of, it just kind of came up of like, yeah, you know, just sometimes still feeling, still feeling lonely, and even though we have small group and all of this. And I was like, Oh yeah, that's because you can't walk to your friends houses. And it was like a light bulb went off, and everyone just sort of was like, Oh my goodness. Like no one had explained to them, like the relationship between proximity and community, like the type of community they were looking for, the deep life together community, right? And I think somebody, you know, that's just like one of those little snapshots of like, oh, the gift of language here. Let me help you understand. You know, it's like, can you walk to any of their houses? But does everything have to be pre, planned and coordinated? It's going to make a huge difference.
Maricela Sanchez 28:28
And when we think about those good old days, you know, back in our maybe parents, grandparents, time like that, was a feature of their communities, you know, of being being in proximity with one another.
Tiffany Owens Reed 28:41
Yeah, I love what you're saying too about being specific about because I feel like a lot of people, maybe they observe things, maybe they Intuit things. I think what you're saying about move past that and get very, very specific about what it is that makes it dangerous, or that makes you feel lonely, or that makes you feel frustrated, you know. And I think that can be such a helpful exercise as to, like, actually get a piece of paper, write down your frustration, but like, try to make it as specific as you can, you know. And I think that could be a really good way to start moving towards cultivating that language and being able to actually articulate and see the relationship between the design or the built environment or the width of the lanes, or the lack of the sidewalk or the speed of the cars, and realize like, oh, wow, here's specific reason why I'm feeling this way. It can be so powerful and so empowering,
Maricela Sanchez 29:30
very empowering, because those things are so much within our realm, within our power to change exactly, you know, those local factors are very much within our control.
Tiffany Owens Reed 29:41
And oftentimes there's there they might, I think sometimes that they're shocking at how like, simple they are, you know, like, oh, I don't feel safe letting my kid walk to school because of this one piece of sidewalk that's missing. It can be so simple, you know, and so small, but it can just, like, have such a huge impact on our perception of like. Our environment and how safe we feel, how how much we feel like we can trust each other. I remember visiting a friend in Alabama, and I pointed out to her, I was like, Do you know we ran across the street to borrow sugar from a neighbor because we were making something. And I told her, I was like, you know? Do you know? Do you know that it's easy for us to do this because of how narrow your street is? Like, there's so many streets where, like, I think it's proven, like, the wider the street gets, the less that people across those streets will actually interact with each other. But there is something with like, if it's a certain with like, just the psychological feel like barrier to like, going across that street and talking to a stranger or asking them for something completely changes with something as specific as, like, a couple of feet of like asphalt, right? Okay, speaking of our ability to change things in the local realm, let's talk about your public service. So you ran for city council twice, first in 2021 and again in 2023 so you lost the first time, but won the second. So they're currently in year two of a four year term. What inspired you to run for city council? I think
Maricela Sanchez 31:07
a big part of it was ensuring that our downtown was protected and improved. I i could see a general sense of, oh, our downtown is no longer as important. Or, you know, old down historic downtowns are kind of a thing of the past. And if we're going to look towards the future, we need to focus on other parts of town or other ways of building. And so that's that's really what motivated me to run in 2021 our in earlier that year, our city hall, which was in an old brick building in downtown, in an old Masonic Lodge, it had burned down, and the city council at that time was seeing this as an opportunity to move the City Hall to another part of town, and and they were looking to move it towards the edge of town. And that more kind of, basically on a strode at the edge of town. And they ended up in 2021 that was in discussion. I ran for city council on that message, lost the race, and then the following year, the city purchased a plot of land out at the edge of town, and then tried to pass a bond to build a new city hall there. And that's when really the conversation opened up within the community of Wait a second. Do we want our city hall not to be in the downtown? Do we want our city hall to be on a big campus at the edge of town? And the answer from people was just a resounding no. The bond ended up losing like 14 to 86% so it was a very it was a very strong no from the community that, no, we do not want to build our city hall out here. We it's the location of the City Hall is important and and so I think that really started the conversation among people in town of you know, what's the future of our city, and what role does our historic downtown have to play in that future? Okay, so
Tiffany Owens Reed 33:26
I'm going to ask you the same question again, Maricela, but this time I want to know, like, if this was a movie and we were watching you decide to run for city council, I'm just really curious. Were you like, oh my gosh, no way. And then slowly, sort of like, warmed up to it. Were you like, talking to a friend, like, how, I just can imagine, like, you know, you have this full time job and everything. Was this something that you had thought of doing before? Like, what was the, what was the moment like, where you were, like, this, clicks, I'm gonna do this. Yeah,
Maricela Sanchez 33:55
you know, it's something that had been, I had been thinking about for a number of years, just with increasing involvement in the town I had, I had joined the Downtown Association early on and worked, you know, on projects to improve our downtown with that with that organization, and then I had joined the Planning Commission in, I believe it was 2019 that I joined the Planning Commission and had spoken up a bit about our our land use and development, and was that was not seen favorably, and I was dismissed from the planning commission. Oh, wow. And so I, I just thought, you know, if, if, if there's going to be any sort of conversation around these issues, I'm going to need to try to get a little bit closer to the decision making. And so I think it was something that I had been thinking about, and I knew that it probably wouldn't. Be wouldn't be an easy thing. I think there. There are several factors within our community that make me sort of an unlikely candidate for city council, but thankfully, friends urged me to do so. My family was less, less on board. They kind of thought it was almost dangerous for me to run for city council, but I had a good base of community support among friends who urged me to do it. And so it was. It was kind of a multi year process of thinking about it, and then, you know, with the urging of others going for it and then choosing to go for it again.
Tiffany Owens Reed 35:39
So tell us a little bit about from your vantage point on council, what would you say are some of the challenges and also some of the opportunities that your city is facing at the moment? Yeah,
Maricela Sanchez 35:50
so I think some great opportunities are that we we are near a very, you know, fast growing metropolitan area, where an area that, you know, we're in the northwest, which I think has a lot of interest in terms of people, people moving to the northwest, because it is economically vibrant. I think one of our great advantages are also just kind of the beauty of our region, and the fact that there's so much, there's so much natural beauty here in agriculture. So our strongest, you know, our strongest industry, is the agricultural industry, and that continues to be to to be very strong in our area. So we're not, we're not a small town that is losing population or losing industries. I think we're we're still remaining, we're still gaining population and gaining industry. So and I think the challenge is that, you know, how do we maintain this kind of this fabric of our town, or kind of the traditional bones of our town, and not and not allow it to sort of be lost and become just any other kind of ex urban, you Know, place that is just, you know, kind of slapdash subdivisions surrounded by vinyl fencing, off of a off of a high speed road. How do we, how do we maintain who we are, as we as we continue to add population? Because I don't think, I don't think that growth is necessarily the enemy. I think that we just have to be thoughtful about it and ensure that we're still creating fantastic neighborhoods, great parks, access to services for people, and just a generally pleasant places to be. I think sometimes that gets lost in in the excitement to add on to the town is, you know, is this a is this a lovely place to be, and are we ensuring that that that that is being honored?
Tiffany Owens Reed 38:11
I'm curious, what is it like bringing that perspective? Do you feel like in your city there's a lot of pressure from I don't know if it's like the development pressure, or the constant race to get the next big project kind of pressure. I don't know how you would articulate that, but like, what is it like bringing this more like human centric, like tradition that this idea of like, let's really think about what kind of place we want to be. Let's think about how to preserve what we like, our traditional look and feel, and let's think more about, are we lovely? You know, I feel like those are just like, the kinds of questions that more city leaders should be asking. But I feel like a little bit of engagement I've done in my city. I there's always this, like, kind of ominous, sort of cloud in the room about, like, oh, keeping up with, I don't know if it's our budget is really tight. We just need to hurry up and get that next development. We got to get that product. Got to get that project, or we got to do things this way, because this is what people expect. What is, what is the counterweight that you feel like you're pushing against when, when you bring this perspective to the conversation? Yeah, I
Maricela Sanchez 39:13
think, I mean, you've articulated that pretty well. I think there's a constant worry of, oh, we're not keeping up with, we're not keeping up with our maintenance obligations, and so therefore we have to grow so that we can get another quick, you know, influx of cash so that we can make sure we're okay this year. And so there's a lot of kind of this, I would say, short term damage control that comes at a long term cost. I've heard over and over again within our city government that you know this, this maxim of, if we're not growing, we're dying. If we're not growing, we're dying. And kind of, really, I think what's behind. That is, is this anxiety about paying for the essential services that our town is responsible for. So paying for our sewer system, paying for our water system, there isn't, there isn't anybody coming to save us. And so how, how do we get enough money to to maintain all of those systems. It's not, it's not an easy answer. And I think that it is the easiest thing to do is to just look for the quick, short term solution, and that usually involves, you know, slapping up a big box store or approving another another subdivision at the edge of town.
Tiffany Owens Reed 40:42
I think also, too, there's just this attraction to maintaining, to maintaining the status quo or or maintaining the expected pattern. You know, it's like, well, if, if we provide certainty, that will be a great way for us to attract the growth we need, right? This feeling of like we got to keep things predictable so that we attract the right stakeholders and the right players, you know. And I wonder if that makes it harder to really embrace these other ways of framing the problem and being open to other solutions because of this, this over emphasis on the comfort of what's certain,
Maricela Sanchez 41:17
yes, and I think people, I think you only know what you know. And so if we look around within our region and we see that every other city is following the same growth pattern, then that, just as seems like that is what's natural, that that's, you know, and there's very little, I would say, there's very little variety in the growth pattern in the cities around us and our region and our state, and so I think it sometimes can be difficult to imagine a different way when, when one way is all that we know for the last 50 years. But I
Tiffany Owens Reed 41:53
think someone has to start asking like, well, who does that pattern serve? You know, who is that pattern actually serving? Is it actually serving your long term stability? Is it actually serving your town? I think that's the hard question to wrestle with. So you've mentioned a couple of people who know strong towns will notice some of the words and phrases that you've been using as very rooted in the strong towns perspective. Can you tell us a little bit about how you found out about strong towns and how just Yeah, I don't know why I keep going back to this theme of language, but like, how did that help you, sort of like, articulate a better understanding of your, of your town struggles, but also a new vision for what, what what it could look what resilience could look like in the future. Yeah, I
Maricela Sanchez 42:36
want to say that I started to read strong towns in around 2015 and 2016 and then ended up purchasing a couple years later, ended up purchasing Charles maroon book, the bottom up revolution. And I think that it the thing that was so different about the message that strong Towns was providing was that financial message, I think, that there were other other sources, you know, within urbanism that spoke about, you know, the other benefits of Good urbanism, which included things like, you know, the environmental benefits, or the finance, the personal financial benefits, which I was very much on board with, of like, hey, if I can get there with my own two feet, like, Yay, I just saved $5 and so. But I think what strong towns brought that was new to me and to my to my understanding of the world, was kind of the greater financial ramifications of continuing to build in this way that we've been building for for decades now, and what that means for our our future, if we Don't, if we don't change that or adjust that, and so that's something that I I'm still in the process of learning more about, and I'm still interested to learn more about and to bring that information to others. But I think it's very helpful to to provide, provide that information. Provide the visuals for it, whether that's, you know, the the urban three maps or the, you know, the graphs that show you know that your maintenance obligations will do okay, until all of a sudden, you know they they absolutely need to be addressed. And then at that point, you know you're you're in a great amount of debt, and it's urgent. So I would love to see that language continue to spread, and beginning to see it more and more, thankfully, among just the planning community and other governmental organizations. You know, I would, I would say that even five or six years ago, the people that I spoke with were often not familiar with strong towns. And now, you know, in 2025 more often than not, if I meet somebody new within the fields of planning or within, you know, local and regional government, more often than not, they will have begun to have heard this message and and can express some viewpoints about it, which is really heartening to see.
Tiffany Owens Reed 45:32
Yeah, how did strong towns help with your so we've got the financial side, but also the Active Transportation and the walkability side. Because I know I mentioned in your introduction that that's like, one of the things that you're advocating for in your town is making it a safe, walkable and place, and bringing more active transportation options. So what? What does that side look like for you?
Maricela Sanchez 45:56
Yeah, so I think on, on the one hand, there's these great financial benefits, because it costs relatively very little to put in, for example, safe biking infrastructure and and the benefits from that, both for the city and for the individual using that infrastructure and for the society as a whole that benefits from perhaps fewer people driving and more people choosing to bike, is it just all compounds on itself, and there's so much, there's so much that's positive to be gained from that for very little, relatively, very little cost. But another part of, I guess, my urgency around those issues has been first hand experience with seeing how lives have been affected, ruined, even ended. You know, as a medical professional, to see that when people do get hurt in within our transportation system, it's a devastating, devastating thing, and so I feel an urgency to make some changes to our transportation system so that fewer people are hurt. Yeah, can
Tiffany Owens Reed 47:16
you tell us more about that? What have you been seeing and what fashions are you hoping your town will take
Maricela Sanchez 47:21
so when the first week that I had moved back to Washington after being after being in New York, I moved back, started my job, and the very first week I had a 16 year old patient who was a new driver, who was involved in a pretty bad high speed crash, and we ended up losing her to her injuries. And I remember just feeling shocked, of like thinking to myself, you know, the whole time that I was training and practicing in New York, I hadn't ever had a patient that I'd lost to a traffic incident, and then in the following weeks and months, I had another patient and another patient and another patient, and it was just a non stop barrage of people of all ages being hurt on the roads in our regions here in Washington, and I would see more injured patients from motor vehicle crashes, or, you know, pedestrian versus motor vehicle crashes. Then I had, I would see more patients within a month here than I would had seen my entire time that I was living in New York and, and it's not to say that people don't get injured on the streets of New York, it's just it's a much slower speed environment. And so I was generally treating things like a broken bone or, you know, whereas here, you know, these were high speed accidents, and we were treating, you know, head injuries and spinal cord transactions and shattered pelvises and things that were just, you know, these incredible, life altering injuries and and, you know, it's one thing for these things to happen on like a country highway, but so many of them were happening on city streets. And I just, I thought, you know, this isn't, this isn't the way that things are supposed to be. You know, we've got to do something about this. And I remember speaking to some orthopedic surgeons at my hospital and and saying, you know, we really have to talk to, you know, this particular City's city government about, you know, ensuring that their streets are safer. And I remember that the orthopedist sort of joked and said, Why would. We do that this is great for business. And, you know, and I know they said it in a joking fashion, but I was so appalled by that. And I just thought, I'm I did not get into this field to joke about how injured people are good for my pocketbook, and so I I just thought there needs to be some connection here, and I think the medical field has some responsibility for improving the safety of where we live.
Tiffany Owens Reed 50:35
Yeah, when you bring that perspective to your city in terms of thinking proactively about street safety. What is that conversation like? Where are you hoping it goes?
Maricela Sanchez 50:47
I've been, I've had some, definitely some pushback in even with bringing my first hand, hand experience as a physician into these public discussions of safety, I've had a lot of pushback from people saying that that's not fair, and that these streets meet the standard of safety, and so if they're meeting the standard of safety, therefore they are safe. And for me to insinuate otherwise is unfair to engineers, is unfair to policymakers, and I strongly disagree with that, and I feel a responsibility to continue to continue to push back on that narrative, because if we clearly can see that the amount of injuries are increasing over time, and in Washington state, they have been despite all of our streets meeting the current standards, the number of people being injured on our roadways is going up and up and up over time. Then I think we have a responsibility to take in that information and to make some changes. Yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 52:03
two more questions for you. What would you say to people who are listening to this, and maybe they've had some interest in running for public office, but maybe have conflicted emotions about it, because it can feel tricky, to say the least, to kind of advocate from the inside, so to speak. You know, as a member of Local Government, when I think sometimes City Council or the city government can kind of feel like, sometimes, like the villain in the story, you know, like, oh, we can't fix these things because of local government. We can't fix these things because of local rules. We can't fix these things because there's no local public will, like, political will. You know how I'm just curious how you would speak to that. What would you say is the benefit of taking on that challenge, and what would you say have been some of the challenges from from your perspective, now that you are kind of inside and seeing how it works?
Maricela Sanchez 52:53
Yeah, I think, I think as a country as a whole, I think we tend to focus quite a bit on national politics. And I would really just love to, you know, pass along the message to everybody that that local, local politics is where it all happens and where change is possible. It does seem super, super slow. You will encounter many people who are not interested in doing things differently or learning about doing things differently. But if there's any place where we're going to be able to affect change, it's at the local level. And it doesn't take it really doesn't take much. If you've got one person that can start to move the needle, if you can get a few people together and and come to your local policymakers, that has an enormous effect. So, you know, I found that even with my with my email to Marty Markowitz, and you know, in a borough of millions of people, I was like, Whoa. You know, just one voice has really had quite the effect. And I think that, you know, here in now, my small hometown of 6000 people, once, once, people got together and collectively said, No, we, we, we love our downtown, and we want our city hall to be in our downtown, that had a huge impact, you know. So I think that there's so much possible within, within local government, and that is where, that is where we collectively have power and can move the needle and and and need to do so, because the change is possible, and we just have to direct our efforts in that direction.
Tiffany Owens Reed 54:41
I'm with you. I've, I think you're right. Going back to what you said earlier in the show about, you know, seeing these challenges as conversations. It's like, what better place to start being part of that conversation than, like, right, where you live, you know? And that's really, I think, one of the most helpful ways of seeing it. It's seeing. Like local government as, like, a collection of conversations. You know, yes, there are rules and there's bureaucracy in there and those frustrating. But I think at the end of the day, it really is like, you never know what could happen when you just say, like, hey, let's let me get coffee with my council member. Let me, yeah, get coffee with the director of blah, blah, blah, whatever department. You know, there's so much potential, so much power, and just just seeing it as a conversation and finding a way to show up to the table. Okay, 100% agree. Last question, hopefully a fun question. You've told us a little bit about your town. I would love it if you could just share with us a couple places that you love to recommend people check out if they were to come through Prosser. Oh sure. If you do happen to come through Prosser, we have a fabulous theater, a community theater. It's called the princess that has something happening almost every single night of the week, if you can believe it, in our little town. But we've got music acts and comedy acts and all kinds of theater for of all ages. We've got children's theater, Youth Theater,
Maricela Sanchez 56:06
adult community theater, and it's just this really fantastic space that was slated for demolition when I was a kid in the 90s, they were going to tear it down and turn it into a parking lot. And
Tiffany Owens Reed 56:20
God, I love the 90s and people
Maricela Sanchez 56:24
who really, who really cared about the building came together, saved it, remodeled it back to its, you know, former glory and and now it's this very important sort of anchor in the community. And we also have a beautifully remodeled downtown building called the Mercer building, which has been within the Mercer family, I think, for four or five generations, and was had been largely empty, I think for a while, also in the 90s, and then an interested family member, Julie Mercer, who was a former planner for the city of Seattle, she moved back to her hometown, and she decided to remodel the building, and now she's created a really lovely mixed use space where she has apartments and Bed and breakfast areas upstairs, downstairs, she has a community pottery studio that offers pottery classes. There's a ballet dance studio on the first floor. There's a wonderful coffee shop that also has musical performances on the first floor. And it's just kind of like this rebirth of this, you know, gorgeous, old downtown building, and that's been a big success story. And then also in September, we have a yearly hotter Balloon Festival, which is a big draw for people. And that runs a whole weekend, from Friday to Sunday, the last weekend in September. And that's so cool. Just a beautiful time of year to be in Prosser.
Tiffany Owens Reed 57:58
I noticed in the photo you sent me for your episode that you're drinking a wonderful mug of matcha, one of my favorite drinks. You have a favorite place. You have a favorite coffee shop to go.
Maricela Sanchez 58:09
Yeah, we have, we have a couple of great ones, but bruminati downtown is in that Mercer building that I that I spoke of, and there's another coffee shop called Shaka Cafe, which is immediately adjacent to the theater. And those are both great local, local places, locally on places Excellent.
Tiffany Owens Reed 58:29
Yeah, I sometimes I fantasize that one day I'm going to write down, I'm going to look back over all the interviews I've done and just plan the world's most epic road trip.
Maricela Sanchez 58:39
The Northwest is a great place to come and have a road trip. I
Tiffany Owens Reed 58:42
believe it okay. Well, Maricela, thank you so much for coming onto the show and sharing your story and sharing your insights. It's been so much fun to talk with you, and I hope our listeners walk away from this episode feeling inspired if you're listening to this. Thank you for hanging out with us for another episode of the bottom bottom up revolution. Please share this with someone who you think would enjoy it, and if there's someone who you think we should have on the show, please let us know using the suggested guest form and the show notes.
Maricela Sanchez 59:12
All right, thank you so much, Tiffany. We'll
Tiffany Owens Reed 59:15
be back soon with another conversation. In the meantime, keep doing what you can to build a strong town.
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Tiffany Owens Reed is the host of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. A graduate of The King's College and former journalist, she is a New Yorker at heart, currently living in Texas. In addition to writing for Strong Towns and freelancing as a project manager, she reads, writes, and curates content for Cities Decoded, an educational platform designed to help ordinary people understand cities. Explore free resources here and follow her on Instagram @citiesdecoded.