Over these many years, I’ve read a lot of books. One of my favorites is Hans Christian Andersen’s tale entitled “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

For those of you who are not familiar with the story, it’s about a vain emperor who cares for nothing except wearing the finest clothes and having the biggest house. Unbeknownst to him, he hires two swindlers to make him the finest suit of clothes ever made. The swindlers go to work. Day after day they toil. They explain it will be costly to purchase the rare materials that they will need to weave into an incredible fabric that is invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or “stupid.” Finally the “garment” is finished and the swindlers pretend to dress the emperor, who then proceeds to march in procession before his subjects in order to impress everyone. The townsfolk cannot see any clothes, but they play along with the deception of not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. A child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all, and the cry is taken up by others.

My name is Guy “Mike” Lee. I am one of the declared candidates for mayor in this year’s election. I am running because the old vision of the professional politicians is quickly leading us down a path where the final destination is only a select few can remain in the city. They are determined to strip Berkeley of the values that make this a unique place to live. What is desperately needed is “A New Vision For A New Future”.

I really appreciate the diversity, energy and uniqueness that the UC Berkeley student body bestows on this community. As such, we should embrace the premise that your concerns are our concerns. Unfortunately, there are those who turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to your circumstances.

A predicament that most of you face is finding a place to live that you can actually afford. It is extremely disturbing to me when I hear that UC Berkeley students are being forced into the plight of homelessness. It is absolutely unacceptable to me that a future Henry Taube is shivering in a doorway, textbook on his knee. It is unconscionable that a prospective Alice Waters is unable to be the best she can be because of a lack of sleep — denied basic necessities of life simply based on an inability to pay. No, no, no! You represent the future. You are our subsequent leaders, scientists, movers and shakers. The present City Council may think it’s just Jim dandy to have you sleeping on the sidewalk; I don’t. They tell me we can’t build housing we can all afford. I tell them that more than 30,000 UC Berkeley students linking arms with the community at large say yes we can.

My other concern is as a collective, you do not enjoy direct representation at City Council. You make up almost a third of the population, contributing thousands of tax dollars without a direct say in city policy. A solution is to award consulting nonvoting status to a student representative. The representative will get to sit at the discussion table and share his or her ideas and concerns but have no voting privileges. Keep in mind that this is only a temporary solution until we can gerrymander a final resolution to this problem of taxation without representation.

Like the swindlers telling a tall tale to the emperor, City Council and other candidates will spin a whopper for you. At the end of the day, I know and you know that priests don’t fly, neither do birds say mass. If Extreme Makeover and Habitat for Humanity can build houses, so can we. Together, we can build housing that we can all afford. When the swindlers come with their story of why we can’t, we’re going to laugh in their face and yell “The Emperor Wears No Clothes!” We’re going to pull on our marching boots and go demand a housing policy that doesn’t force us to sleep all night on the bus. We’re going to link arms parade down to City Hall to go get a seat at the decision-making table.

Now is the time for all of us to put a hand to the collective push broom and sweep the swindlers into the dustbin of history where they belong.

Guy “Mike” Lee is a 2016 city of Berkeley mayoral candidate.

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