A Vacant Bank Worth Fighting For

Tiffany Owens Reed  0:07

Hi, everybody! Welcome to another episode of the Bottom Up Revolution Podcast. I'm your host Tiffany Owens Reed. If you don't know this, I am recording this show from the city in which I live, which is Waco, Texas, and I am delighted to inform you all that I got to wear a sweater today. So it is officially sweater weather here. At least in the mornings, it's sweater weather, which is really nice. We have been blessed with a little bit of autumnal weather, and that's very exciting. If you have been listening to the show for a while, then that I love bringing people on the show who cover a wide variety of topics.

If you've been part of the Strong Towns conversation, that we like to talk about all the different pieces that have to come together to repair our cities, improve our cities, transform our cities into more resilient, more beautiful, more human places. Sometimes we talk more about the policy side of that work, but sometimes we get to talk to people who are really involved in the material side of that work, literally rebuilding the city brick by brick.

Whether that's by building new homes, revitalizing old buildings, or opening new businesses, I think it's fair to say at Strong Towns that we recognize a strong city is a mix of both. You need good policy. You also need great buildings, a great built environment, and a great social fabric. I think maybe that's the that's the collection that we're looking for today. I'm joined by someone who has noticed an aspect of his city that needs some rebuilding. I think he's really going to be able to speak to how investing in the built environment really is investing in the community as a whole.

I'm joined by Jayson Johnson. He's a self-taught filmmaker and the founder of Strike Five Films. Born in St. Charles and raised in Batavia, Illinois, he started his career with a $35 camera that he bought from eBay with no film school training, and later worked as creative marketing manager for Francis Ford Coppola's companies. His eight short films have screened at more than 90 festivals and won six awards. And he's the author of Forget Film School and director's book.

After building his career from the Bay Area to New York, he landed in Richmond, California, where he's developing his first feature, the comedy Roger and Me, which I hope I'm saying that right. I'm sure you can correct me if I'm not. And leading 530 Mac, a project to bring the historic bank building at 530 Macdonald Avenue in downtown Richmond back to life. Jayson, welcome to the Bottom Up Revolution podcast.

Jayson Johnson  2:46

Thank you for having me.

Tiffany Owens Reed  2:46

The title of your feature film, Roger and Me. Did I get that right? Because it's actually typed out as an acronym. So how do you say it?

Jayson Johnson  2:58

Yeah, it's just Roger and Me is an acronym, and that talks about the technology that is in the goldfish in the film.

Tiffany Owens Reed  2:58

Interesting. We're going to talk about that in a minute. But how did you come to California? So you're originally from the Midwest. I'd love to hear a little bit about your journey, how you came to California, and specifically how you landed in Richmond. Tell and maybe yeah tell that part and then we'll talk about Richmond a bit and the next question.

Jayson Johnson  3:11

Well, I wish I had an original story, but like a lot of guys, I followed a girl out here and that didn't work out.

Tiffany Owens Reed  3:35

Wait, does that happen regularly?

Jayson Johnson  3:39

Yeah, yeah, I think so. I talked to a lot of guys, and they're just like, "How'd you get here?" And they're just like, "Oh, I followed my college sweetheart, and now they're here." Yeah. So, but that led me to into my film career because when I got here, I needed a job. My girlfriend, my then girlfriend, had a job, and I applied for a lot of places, but eventually landed at Francis Ford Coppola's winery.

Tiffany Owens Reed  4:09

Okay, for people who don't know, maybe you can unpack that a little bit. For people who may not be in the film world, what were you doing there? What Francis Ford Coppola? Tell us a little bit about him and the work that you were doing, and what clicked for you in terms of the film world, what made that feel like home for you vocationally?

Jayson Johnson  4:28

Well, I'd grown up watching all of his films. He's probably one of the top filmmakers in the history of film. So I was just I almost couldn't believe that they called me that they wanted me to work there, and so I think what drew me there was just the prestige of him being a filmmaker, and then just the opportunity of just working in wine because I never drank wine growing up. My family didn't. Drink wine, so this was kind of something new, and I just thought that it would be an amazing opportunity.

Tiffany Owens Reed  5:00

So you did not study film. What clicked for you when you were as you were kind of getting started,  How were you able to grow this into a career?

Jayson Johnson  5:19

So yeah, I did not study film, but I always grew up watching film. I watched a lot of soap operas with my mom growing up. That was just something that she was hooked on, and I just I was able to kind of figure out the story arc of film through soap operas, just because they're so simple. And by then I had kind of understood just the basic elements of telling the story. So by the time I got to Coppola, I knew that I could tell the story. I knew that I had some creativity, and if I just got an opportunity, then I knew that I could do something really great.

Tiffany Owens Reed  5:58

Can you share more about the work that you've done since then, your film work.

Jayson Johnson  5:58

Sure, yeah. So I've made eight short films that have gotten into 90 film festivals, and I won six times. And I'm currently developing my first feature-length film, Roger and Me, that we kind of briefly talked about.

Tiffany Owens Reed  6:19

I read an article about this film. I would love for you to share a little bit about the story, and then the story behind the story, if you're if you're willing.

Jayson Johnson  6:19

Sure, sure. So the story is about a black computer savant who goes to an all night hackathon, and while he does well on his way home, he falls asleep at the wheel, and he crashes into a tropical goldfish store. The next day, a creative judge gives him a goldfish that has a transponder in it, and that is kind of like his sentence. To he has to carry this goldfish for 30 days as his punishment, and the story is about him keeping the goldfish alive, and then meeting a lot of zany characters throughout Richmond as he tries to figure things out.

Tiffany Owens Reed  6:31

Okay, and could you share a little bit about the story behind the story? Like, because I know this has a bit of a personal connection for you as well.

Jayson Johnson  7:16

Sure, sure. So when I was when I was learning or teaching myself how to screenwrite, I had purchased an emotional support goldfish, and I sat him on my desk, and it was he was always there for me. I also named him Roger, and he was just always there for me when I was terrible at screenwriting and I didn't think that my film career was going anywhere. But that one mainstay was, I had Roger right next to me, and he would always, look at me while I was typing, trying to figure things out.

So I just grew a really close bond to him, but I don't know if I overfed him or what happened, but eventually Roger passed away, and I was just I was devastated because at that time just nothing was going right. I was I was late on bills. I was single. I was even having some troubles with my landlord, so I was just like, things could not be any worse. And once this this piece of me had passed away, I said, oh my God, I got to do something kind of memorialize him. So I buried him under a large eucalyptus tree, and I just I felt that I have to do something to keep his name alive.

And after I went home, I wrote the outline for which would become Roger and Me.

Tiffany Owens Reed  8:51

The film, from what I read, is also partly a reflection on Richmond as a city. Can you talk about that?

Jayson Johnson  9:01

Yeah, so I wanted to do it here in Richmond because when I moved here to Richmond, people were like, "Oh my God, you're you're moving to Richmond, you're gonna get shot," because I was living in Napa at the time, and Napa, I don't know if your viewers know or not, it's it's pretty homogenous, it's it's pretty white bread, I guess. So nothing really happens there. But Richmond, at one point, was the murder capital of America. At one time, there was just a lot of violence here. So, but that was not my experience at all when I moved to Richmond. It was very it's very welcoming. It was not as it was advertised.

It just had this negative stigma over it. So when I made this film, I wanted to base it off of a lot of people that I'd met here that were just kind of zany, really neat. Just kind of different people that I'd met just over my time here, and I think it works.

Tiffany Owens Reed  10:08

Yeah, I'm glad you were able to touch a little bit on Richmond's history. To the violence, can you give us a sense of just sort of like where would you say Richmond is in terms of its narrative. What maybe in terms of like years? So was this like? Are we talking like 1960? We're talking like riots and stuff that. Because I know a lot of cities struggled with race riots and stuff in the 60s at different points in time. How would you kind of orient our listeners to this is the story of Richmond. This is kind of where we're at right now.

Jayson Johnson  10:43

Sure. So Richmond started off as a shipbuilding town. Right around the time of World War II, there were a lot of people that were that came here from the South, and they came here to help build ships, and that was kind of the industry here. After the war, the army no longer needed, all these citizens or builders to make ships anymore. So they kind of pulled out, and with that, kind of went the whole industry in Richmond, and then as years went on, things kind of got deteriorated and got worse.

And then in the 80s, throughout the 90s, then that's when the crack epidemic kind of happened. kind of crack really hit the California really hard, especially in kind of depressed areas. Enrichment happened to be one of those areas, and through turf wars and just people wanting to make money and going against other people trying to make money, violence occurred. So that continued for a long time until things kind of cooled off, and but there's always been a vacuum left where there's not a lot of businesses here. So Richmond is now kind of coming back. It's a blue collar town.

Our biggest employer here is Chevron, but a lot of a lot of work needs to be done in this town. I can I'll say that, but it's it's a very proud town, and I think that it has a lot of potential.

Tiffany Owens Reed  12:20

Well, that's a great segue to talking about this project that you've taken on. Let's talk about the backstory a little bit, or maybe you can describe the building. Let's start with the building, and then, how did you discover this building? How would you describe it? And what were what were some of those first steps you took that got you to where you're at now?

Jayson Johnson  12:51

I first discovered this building while working on Roger and Me. Right now we're in pre-production and there's huge lapses of time between you're talking to someone or you're just waiting. The film industry is either hurry up or wait. And in my waiting time, I got comfortable going on a lot of walks just because I just couldn't stand just staring at the screen waiting for something to happen. So I would walk down McDonald, and I would pass this beautiful property that didn't seem like there was anything really going on.

It was just vacant, and after four or five times of passing this beautiful building, I just started to think, well, who owns this building? Why? Why isn't anything happening with this building? Something should be done. So, I guess I mustered a lot of courage within me, and I wrote the owner and I said, "Hey, you got to do something. You can't just let this beautiful property go to the wayside." There's a lot of people that are in this community that look at this building and want something to happen with it, and I'm just kind of letting that you should do something, and that was kind of my rant.

I didn't think anything of it. I sent the mail. I sent the snail mail letter. Didn't think they would ever hear from them. And then about a week later, they sent me an email, and they said, "Hey, we looked you up online. We think that we would love to partner with you. What's your idea? Since you have, since you're telling us that we should do something." And at the time, I didn't I didn't know I didn't have an idea. I just I just thought that they should do something. And then after talking to them, I said, "Well, I'm a filmmaker. I, I think that I'm going places.

So why don't we make this into a microfilm studio and community center where people can learn about the arts and learn about filmmaking? I'd be happy to teach and offer whatever expertise I've learned.". And I know other filmmakers that might be interested. So that's kind of that was the genesis of the idea, and they absolutely loved it. And we've been kind of running with that idea since.

Tiffany Owens Reed  15:13

Okay, so our listeners are listening to this, which means they can't see us or see or we can't pull up any visuals. How would you describe this building to our listeners?

Jayson Johnson  15:24

So this building was built, I want to say, in 1885. So it's an old brick building. It's a three-story structure. I'd say it's done in the Art Deco fashion. It's got beautiful ornate windows and window frames. It's a it's a structure. When you walk by it, you say to yourself, "Wow, that's got strong bones." It looks like a very strong building with a lot of personality. It's it's on the corner of Macdonald and Sixth Streets, which are kind of main causeways through Richmond, and it's just a very impressive property, just in its own right.

I think that every city has one of those old brick, brown buildings that just make you think of a different era, and this is certainly one of those buildings.

Tiffany Owens Reed  16:29

Listening to you describe that building is just solidifying for me, like my own personal belief about why we should build beautiful, because you're building not just for now, but you're building for later, right? And the way the buildings that we build in our city, like nobody is going to necessarily walk past just like your average gray box and be inspired to like revitalize it, right? But you walk past a building that you could tell was built with care and with attention to detail, and like beautiful buildings when they are falling apart have the potential to inspire.

I think a community in a way that your average or ugly building just can't. No one it's not going to pull on anybody to come do something with this the way that beautiful old architecture will. What is your what's your okay? So you mentioned film studio and community center. I'd love to if you could share more about your vision for the property, and then I'd love to talk a bit more about what happened next? So you sent this letter. They sent this email. They all said, "Okay, let's work together." But before we go there, I'd love to talk vision., what are you hoping for this building?

What are you hoping that it can contribute to the community?

Jayson Johnson  17:54

I would love to see this property become a beacon for activation of a lot of different things, so it says this is a three parcel lot. So you have the building itself, you have the courtyard, and then you have a large parking lot that's in the back of it. In the parking lot, I can definitely see farmers markets, things that can kind of occur in a parking lot, like maybe you get a lot of food trucks there, and you can have kind of a food night in the courtyard.

I can definitely see quinceañeras, birthday parties, things of that nature, outdoor screenings of film films, local daytime concerts for emerging musicians, and then inside I think that you could have a combination of those things as well as just classes and just things that if in the Bay Area we don't have winter, but we do have a rain season. So when it's raining, then you can have those events inside.

So I just see something where it's positive, it's family oriented, and it gives a community inspiration and hope because in Richmond, this as we were kind of talking earlier, this is a city that's gone through a lot. I think that the people here are very resilient, and they want something that is inspiring. And I'm just hoping that this can be that inspiring place for Richmond.

Tiffany Owens Reed  19:18

So, talk to me about what has happened since you and the property owner decided to go ahead and start working together on bringing this building back, I'm. Did you have a moment where you were like, "Oh boy," because you're you're not a real estate developer, you're not a fixer upper, as far as I can tell. Necessarily, your jam. So, what was going through your mind?, what were some of the initial steps you took as kind of decided to really commit to this?

Jayson Johnson  20:13

I'll I'll be the first to say that I don't know. I don't have any experience in any of these fields of development, or I don't know the first thing about construction or any of that stuff. So I would say that I'm the last person to spearhead a project this. However, I do have a good track record of starting something and finishing it. I've worked in film production a lot, and I understand kind of the basis of project management, etc. That said, working with the local government here to raise awareness about this project and to secure some grants to kind of get the project in motion. So, what does that mean?

We've gotten a couple of grants for to fix the upper windows because a lot of those had been either broken or over time, the framing it just needs to be replaced, and then we've gotten a small grant to architecturally draw what the courtyard might look like. Since I've gone into a partnership with the owner, we ourselves have put a new roof on the building. But that sounds it sounds that that might not have been a good move because we have to have the building structurally braced because of earthquakes here in California.

And I've talked to some other contractors and they said, Jayson, you should just run away from this project. it's going to cost you several millions of dollars, and you just don't understand how working with the local government and the county government, and just what kind of a can of worms this project is. So I don't know. That's kind of a sobering discussion to talk to someone that does this for a living, but I just fully believe in this project, and I'm just gonna continue forward.

Tiffany Owens Reed  22:29

So right now, would it be accurate to say that the phase that you're in? Do you? I know nothing about how this type of process would work either, but it sounds like part of it is raising capital. Part of it is casting a vision for what it could be, and then part of it is figuring out what it's going to take for the building to become sound, to be structurally sound. Is that would that be accurate?

Jayson Johnson  22:55

Yeah. So I would say that the casting the vision part. I guess we're in that phase now. So by talking to you and other podcasts and just presentations throughout, the greater Bay Area, I'm kind of in that process now. To start the building itself, you would essentially need to remediate the mold that is in the building. So, to do any work on that, you would essentially.

It would probably be the best to just start this structural bracing process where you would essentially hollow out the building, and then you would put about three quarters to a foot of concrete that goes around the building, making it kind of this concrete shell. And then from there, you can build up and make the building updated as far as what it will be, but I guess I'm learning as I go, so not sure exactly how that's going to come to fruition. But I just I believe that it will. I just I just don't know how.

Tiffany Owens Reed  24:12

As you're talking about this project and sharing the vision within the community, what are you hearing back?

Jayson Johnson  24:20

At least to my face, people are saying this is a magnificent project. It sounds so awesome. I don't know what they're saying behind my back, but they're probably calling me, nuts to take on something this. But I've heard nothing but rave reviews as far as repurposing this property for something that could activate the community and to get them out there. One note on this property: there is not any food vendors or any other stores within.

A half mile radius of this building, so it's it's definitely in a neighborhood that I believe wants to have something there, but there's a lot needs to happen to I guess get us to that place.

Tiffany Owens Reed  25:13

I imagine the answer to this question could be quite long, but as you're looking back, what would you say has been an unexpected challenge as you've been pursuing this project?

Jayson Johnson  25:25

I would say working with the local government and

Tiffany Owens Reed  25:35

understanding how they would fit as a partner for this project. I guess I went into this very naive thinking that as a citizen, you want to do something that's good for the community, good for the residents that live here. That the city itself would be, at least from a government standpoint, they would be very supportive of that, but I have not had that experience. I've had a very complicated experience with the government.

It feels it's a lot of things that I think could have moved along faster, or kind of stuck in Bureaucracy, things that are that could be just easily explained are left complex for no particular reason, in my estimation. So, when working with local governments, and I can't blame them 100%, but I do feel that if you have an entrepreneur that wants to bring good to the community, I think that the local government should be a little more transparent, a lot easier to work with, because ultimately the goal is to have something for the community, for the residents, and this.

This would be something that would be a positive metric as far as news to kind of help thwart some of the negative stigma that Richmond currently has. Yeah, do you have like a specific story or example that you think of?

Jayson Johnson  27:27

Sure, I have a lot of them actually, but we'll just for the sake of this one, we'll talk about one in particular. So this building, as I was saying, it was built, in late 1800s. So because it's an old building and it's a it's an attractive building, it can it can be a landmark building. It could be a historical landmark building. However, there is a process for any old building that becomes a landmark. It has to be, has to have a survey, and then it has to have some nominations, and it's it's kind of another long, complicated process for said building to become a historical site.

So currently, as is, this building has had its survey, but it's not a historical site. So I say all that because when we applied for the grant to have the windows fixed, I got stuck in kind of this discussion of, well, is it a historical site? Is it not? Because if it because you can't use those materials because it's a historical site, and I'm just like, well, it's not a historical site. It's it can be, but it has not gone through its nomination process.

So a lot of things kind of get caught in between what it can be, what it can't be. regulations, and not everyone's on the same page because all these different departments don't speak to one another, so it's it could become a frustrating process for anyone just trying to move things forward.

Because when you're starting a project this, it's it's usually just you and a couple of volunteers, and especially if you're not familiar with historical sites or developing, you just you kind of go in it just with a the right intentions, but you don't have the skill set to kind of go back and forth with government officials on what qualifies, what doesn't qualify, and etc. So working with local government has been a frustrating experience for me so far.

Tiffany Owens Reed  29:48

How does that experience kind of make you think about the potential not just of this building but of Richmond as a whole, or just like now that you've gotten this experience, you're getting your. You're kind of digging into this building and bringing it back online. How does that shape how you look at the community and think about the potential of the community and what it, what maybe some ways that government can get out of its own way, in a way, not just for this building but for the community as a whole.

Jayson Johnson  30:23

Well, when I look at this, I feel sorry for the community because there's a lot of people that they live here, and if you lived in the Bay Area, you could say, "Hey, I'm I'm from San Francisco." People would say, "Wow, I'm from Oakland." Same thing, but the second that you say, "I'm from Richmond," people they almost have this ick like reaction, like oh my god, you're from Richmond, and that's unfortunate because this city has so much potential. We it has the most shoreline out of any Bay Area city. It has the most has the most landmass out of any Bay Area city, I feel the people are most genuine here.

So it has like all these advantages, but it's kind of dogged by this stigma, and I think that stigma is in place because local politicians won't move and do what was required for the city to be successful. They just need to get out of their way to make things more accessible, more easy to work with to get things done. But local government, it seems like there's a lot of back and forth between council members. the executive branch of the mayorship. It just it seems to be just dysfunctional in general, and I don't get any satisfaction of saying that.

I think that if for whatever reason our elected officials could get on the same page as far as wanting what's best for the city instead of their own egos and own desires, then I think things could rapidly move it forward.

Tiffany Owens Reed  32:09

Yeah, we talked about this in our introductory conversation. How I kind of was riffing on my theory around why these types, because you said, you have this individual who is taking on this huge risk to create an asset for the community. You would think it'd be the type of experience where the government would just be rolling out the red carpet. how can we help? What can we do? and instead you get resistance, or you get difficulty, or you get added complexity, and it's almost the job of the government is to uphold the rules rather than to take care of the community, it feels. I don't.

I know there's a term for this. It's a type of inertia, where maintaining the rules in the system become more important than what the rules and the systems are there for. Where they're there to benefit the community, to support the community, and if the rules are, if we're spending so much energy on processes and rules and all of this to the point where good ideas can't happen, that should be a huge red flag. It's a type of I think it's a type. Yeah, I think inertia. It's a type of inertia.

But also, I think there's just really, I think there's a lot of fear over change because change is unfamiliar and it's unpredictable. look at the project you're taking on. You can't predict what's going to happen next, right?

Jayson Johnson  33:49

No, I can't. And it's just I don't know. It's just so unfortunate because I did talk to another contractor and he had worked on a project very similar to this project, and he was the one telling me that you should just run away from this project. Not because I, I don't think it was because he thought that I was incompetent or anything that. He was telling me that his journey with working with the city of Richmond was just so difficult and just such a negative force that he almost just quit himself, and he's been doing this for years.

So, I hear stuff that, and it makes me I was saying, it makes me sad because we have probably we're probably at 15% vacancy in the city where we just have empty storefront after empty storefront after empty storefront and the city could do some. About that, because they own a lot of these properties, but it's almost like they want to run on this issue. Like if you vote for me, I'm going to get these storefronts vacated, and that's that's why you should elect me.

So then, two or three years or whatever passes by and it hasn't happened yet, and then they say, "Well, if you if you vote for me, I'm gonna go ahead and get done what did not get done in the first place." So it's just it seems to be like a reoccurring thing that they run on instead of actually fixing the problem that is presented to them in the first place. I've I've only lived in Richmond for about five years, but I'm understanding that a lot of these properties have been vacant for 2025 years.

So what gives here? it's there's are you telling me that someone else didn't have a great idea that I'm the only one that had a great idea.

There's, I'm sure there's been plenty of people that have great ideas, but they got frustrated or just the city wouldn't work with them for whatever reason, and here we are. it's making me wonder if your persistence and determination with this project could be a catalyst for this other this bigger conversation of how decisions are made in your city and the way that I guess like opportunities I don't best I feel I'm being very positive but I don't know but it just makes me wonder of how you could use this to even spark a conversation about why have things been this for 20 years? this is what I'm going through as a invested citizen trying to bring something beautiful to this community, and it's been this is what I'm experiencing.

It's been this way for decades. Like why why are we okay with this because improving our communities and making them stronger more resilient places really does take collaboration it can't just be one person right it has to be the citizens but also the politicians but also the business and when you find You find the right partnerships and the right collaborations. Like so many great things could happen, and I wonder what a conversation could look like in Richmond about figuring out how to build better partnerships. Or I don't know. I don't know if you feel like there's a potential for that. I think that there is.

I think that also earlier you used a great word inertia, and I think that applies here because when something has been bad for so long, then that means that there's an inertia going in the wrong way, and to get the inertia, going the opposite direction, then that means you have to put so much effort and energy into slowing down that train going in the opposite direction and getting it going in the right direction, and I think that's what I'm experiencing is all this extra energy of trying to work with other nonprofits and going on podcasts on a national level to almost shame Richmond into doing what they should be doing is what's required to get the positive inertia to get this project done.

And I hope to God I get there.

Tiffany Owens Reed  38:32

Yeah, I think new can be scary, even if it's good, And you have to build that flywheel, You have to cast a vision, and I think you're right. I don't think there's any, I think it's easy sometimes to create a villain.

I'm like, oh, the city is the bad guy, and it's like a lot of times it's not about them being the bad guy, it's more just where is all of the energy been invested, and it's it's kind of hard to re find new energy and then reinvest it in something new, or you said, shift directions when there's so much momentum and so much investment already, and like in a certain way, things have been done, and I think it's really hard for humans in general to do things differently when it's been done for a certain way for so long. even if it's not working, it's more comfortable.

And I think that's the conversation that has to happen. Of like, well, we understand this is comfortable, and it's been done this way for so long, and maybe there's some good intentions behind some of these processes and some of these rules. But let's look at the outcome. Let's look at our vacancy rates. Let's look at the general disinterest or fear around investing here. both from just like our local residents or from. Other investors, right, or from starting a business, are those the outcomes that we want to persist for the next couple decades? Or if we want different outcomes, maybe we need different systems.

But it can be really scary. It can be really scary to have that conversation and to start to think that way. And I think your project hopefully Will hopefully be part of helping Richmond figure out how to have that conversation.

Jayson Johnson  40:30

I agree. It's this project started as something that I didn't think that I wanted to do or needed to do, but it's kind of started to turn into an obsession that I want to have because I just I see the benefit, and this is going to sound I'm a politician, but I really believe in the youth and giving them something to do, because a lot a lot of the youth get dogged by like they're getting trouble, and then the solution is to send them to prison or to jail or something that. But there's there's really no outlets for a lot of these kids here.

So as a kid, if there's nothing for you to do, then you're probably going to get into something mischievous. not because you're inherently a bad kid. It's just that you're out with your friends. You just want to have some something to do, and then you end up doing something that's just not necessarily kosher, but it's just power being a kid. But I think if there was like something that had there was like an outlet for them, then we could we could really take advantage of the genius that kids have. I think that creativity as a child is when you're probably at your best.

So, if I could, if I could be a tiny part of that, then that would be something that I think would be much more beneficial than any film or any award or anything that I've done. I think that's really ultimately the way to progress our society forward. Yes,

Tiffany Owens Reed  42:27

we're going to close up there, Jayson. Before we go, can you share about a couple of local businesses you like to recommend if people come to Richmond to visit?

Jayson Johnson  42:38

Yeah, I'm going to say one that's I think is essential for entrepreneurs. So I'm actually in this place called Co Biz Richmond right now, and it's I'd say it's probably a 10,000 square foot co-working space where entrepreneurs can get 24/7 access to a building. There's there's always free coffee, free internet, and just all the essentials that entrepreneurs would need to progress their building their careers forward. So that's that's the place that I frequent the most. The second place I would say is probably Masa Taqueria. That's in Point Richmond. I think they have the best tacos in the Bay Area.

Perhaps their nachos are probably the best I've ever had. And you live in Texas, so you might have a word, but I think that this is a quite an enjoyable place. the links will be in the bio, but their nachos are out of this world.

Tiffany Owens Reed  43:36

All right, Jayson, thank you so much for coming on the Bottom Up Revolution and sharing your story. You'll definitely be watching the story to see where it goes. But it's been yeah, it's been great captioning your story here for our audience. I really appreciate you taking time to do that.

Jayson Johnson  44:05

Thank you for having me.

Tiffany Owens Reed  44:07

To our listeners, thank you for joining me for another episode. I'll be back soon with another conversation. If there's someone in your community who you think I should have on the show, please let us know using the suggest a guest form. We'll put links in the show notes so you can learn more about what Jason is working on and more about his work. I'll be back soon. In the meantime, keep doing what you can to build a strong town. This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a nonprofit movement for building financially resilient communities.

If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a Strong Towns member at strongtowns.org/membership.

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