Accomplishments
A RECORD OF DELIVERING RESULTS FOR BERKELEY
In 2024, the voters of District 4 elected Igor to serve as their Councilmember in a special election. With a 20+ -year record of community and public service—including eight years on the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board and 12 local commission appointments—Igor brought decades of experience to City Hall and got to work delivering results. From expanding housing opportunities for people of all income levels while protecting renters to revitalizing Downtown, improving public safety, advancing climate action, supporting local businesses and workers, and making City Hall more effective and accountable, Igor has focused on turning community priorities into tangible results for Berkeley.
Igor is the experienced progressive leader who gets it done, and here are the results.
Many of these accomplishments require continued attention and followthrough. Igor excels at staying engaged and builds on this work in partnership with city staff, community, and the many stakeholders who make Berkeley such a vibrant and attractive place to be.
BUILDING AN AFFORDABLE BERKELEY WE CAN ALL CALL HOME
✔️ Expanded deeply affordable housing downtown. Igor helped secure new housing at multiple income levels, including deeply affordable homes in Downtown Berkeley. Igor is especially proud of his leadership in securing funding and the vision for the Hope Center on Berkeley Way, a successful affordable housing project with 60 beds and wraparound services in Downtown Berkeley.
✔️ Helped nearly 100 of our unhoused neighbors move into housing and supportive services. Under Igor’s leadership, Berkeley has continued a housing-first approach, connecting people experiencing homelessness with stable housing, wraparound services, and treatment when needed.
✔️ Increased funding for affordable housing. Igor championed and campaigned for the successful Affordable Housing Bond and Large Landlord Windfall Profits Tax, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue for Berkeley's Housing Trust Fund. Measure O alone generated $135 million of funding for affordable housing projects. As Chair of the Measure O Oversight Committee, Igor directed it towards a number of permanently affordable housing projects - some of which have opened and helped us welcome new neighbors.
✔️ Protected Berkeley renters from displacement. With Igor’s 20+ years of advocacy, he has been successful in strengthening renter protections, including helping craft and pass a Demolition Ordinance that has the strongest tenant measures in the nation. He also strengthened rent caps, advanced the Tenant’s Right to Organize measure, and ensured that the Small Sites Program, which helps keep seniors and families rooted in Berkeley, has necessary funding.
✔️ Approved thousands of new homes. In his two years on the Council and 12 years on the Zoning Adjustments Board, Igor voted to approve thousands of housing units across a range of affordability levels. Almost every affordable home built in Berkeley in the past 14 years and almost the entirety of our (affordable) Housing Trust Fund exist in part due to Igor’s leadership. Igor co-crafted and campaigned for instrumental affordable housing ballot Measures U1 (the Large Landlord Windfall Profits Tax), O (a $135million affordable housing bond), and P (funding for homelessness services and support).
✔️ Helped make homeownership more attainable. Igor helped craft a local density-bonus program encouraging the construction of lower-cost condominium homes, built consensus on the council to unlock new affordable homeownership opportunities, and streamlined approval of Accessory Dwelling Units.
✔️ Made thousands of Berkeley homes safer. Igor secured changes to key programs and ordinances, such as Berkeley's Seismic Safety Ordinance, the Rental Housing Safety Program, and the Exterior Elevated Elements Inspection Program, ensuring that thousands of renters live in safe and habitable housing.
REVITALIZING OUR DOWNTOWN
✔️ Reopened Civic Center Park as a public commons. Igor helped restore the park as a safe, welcoming public space accessible to everyone, strengthening Downtown as a welcoming place to gather and connect.
✔️ Helped bring Downtown's commercial vacancy rate back to pre-pandemic levels. Igor advanced dozens of policies to reduce permitting red tape and lower the costs of opening and operating a small business, while working diligently and methodically to address prolonged commercial vacancies by cultivating a variety of vibrant storefronts and creative, arts, maker, pop-up, and community-serving uses. And he’s just getting started!
✔️ Helped local businesses stay open and thrive. Igor worked with small businesses and City staff to secure permits, remove barriers, and connect businesses with resources they need to succeed. This is a core component of Igor’s constituent services.
✔️ Brought more arts and culture to Downtown. Igor helped secure a pop-up art gallery at the former Half Price Books location on Shattuck and Addison, secured funding for catenary lighting in the Arts District, and is currently actively working with stakeholders to bring the Aurora Theater back to its former home in Berkeley's Arts District. A significant amount of Igor’s attention has also focused on exploring various funding strategies to bring a movie theater back to Downtown.
✔️ Invested in a more vibrant, walkable Downtown. Igor helped advance attractive placemaking projects on Addison St., Oxford St., and Harold Way to create safer, more attractive spaces that encourage neighbors and visitors to make Downtown Berkeley their place to gather, shop, and spend time with family and friends.
IMPROVING PUBLIC SAFETY AND ACCESSIBILITY
✔️ Made Berkeley streets safer and more accessible. Igor advanced pedestrian, bicycle, and traffic-safety improvements throughout District 4, with a focus on safety for people walking, biking, using mobility devices, pushing strollers, and taking transit. A number of crosswalk improvements and traffic calming measures are underway or have been completed thanks to his leadership.
✔️ Made sidewalks safer for everyone. Igor authored reforms to Berkeley's shared micromobility regulations to improve safety, protect ADA accessibility, and strengthen accountability when scooter and e-bike operators do not follow the rules of the road.
✔️ Reimagined Oxford Street for safer travel. Igor championed, advanced, and secured funding for the initiative to make Oxford safer for people walking, biking, using mobility devices, and taking transit. He continues to work with the City and the University to support safer pedestrian access and crossings.
✔️ Improved lighting in Downtown and around campus. Igor helped secure better lighting in high-traffic areas to make our streets and public spaces safer and help deter crime.
✔️ Strengthened regional transportation partnerships. Igor worked with BART and AC Transit to advance more affordable, accessible, and seamless transportation options, including serving as chair of the AC Transit Parcel Tax Oversight Committee.
✔️ Strengthened public safety and police accountability. Igor worked with community members and the City Council to advance Berkeley's Reimagining Public Safety package, including a Police Accountability Board with strong oversight powers.
✔️ Stood up to Flock and supported our immigrant communities. Igor consistently voted and spoke out against Flock. While Igor was in the minority on this vote, his work did succeed in strengthening Berkeley's codified privacy and surveillance protections. He helped advance a strong sanctuary city policy that reaffirmed the City’s commitment to supporting and protecting our immigrant communities - and helped codify it into law.
AN ACCESSIBLE, ACCOUNTABLE, AND RESPONSIVE GOVERNMENT
✔️ Has made your government work for you. Igor’s District 4 Council office has resolved hundreds of constituent cases, ranging from infrastructure, pedestrian, and traffic safety improvements to resolving illegal dumping and noise complaint cases on behalf of neighbors like you.
✔️ Cut red tape. Igor is diligently working to reduce red tape associated with permitting - whether it’s a group of neighbors organizing a block party, a small business making Downtown Berkeley its home, or a beloved community event seeking timely approval. Making Berkeley government operate efficiently and effectively, while being welcoming and responsive to our community, remains both a policy priority and a focus of his day-to-day work.
✔️ Effectively addressed Berkeley’s budgetary challenges. Igor worked with his colleagues and the City Administration on a new framework with a full accounting of Berkeley’s short-term budgetary revenues, costs, and liabilities. Despite a challenging nearly-$30 million budget deficit that Igor helped close, Igor was able to find additional short- and long-term funding solutions and make the city’s cuts less painful than they otherwise could have been. He is already hard at work on next year’s budget to ensure that the city continues on the path of spending only what it can afford while identifying sustainable sources of revenue that focus on corporations paying their fair share. Protecting services that help our most vulnerable neighbors remains a top priority as we weather challenging national and local economic conditions.
✔️ Championed a responsive, accountable, transparent, and data-driven government. Igor is working with colleagues to establish clearer budget criteria that identify quantifiable goals and metrics as money is distributed. Igor has also championed council initiatives establishing a proactive communication system to alert the community of upcoming infrastructure projects from Public Works, EBMUD, PG&E, and other large housing or commercial development projects. He is also working to ensure that the University of California is in closer contact with the city and neighbors to mitigate disruptions prior to large capital projects in District 4. Igor is working every day to drive forward a data-driven city that is responsive and accountable to you.
✔️ Established responsible rules for artificial intelligence (AI). Igor helped craft several items to promote transparency, human oversight, civil rights protections, and consideration of workforce impacts as the City adopts new technology. He co-authored a proposal for one of the first municipal responsible use of AI regulations in the nation, which is now in the process of implementation.
✔️ Put residents—not corporations—at the center of Berkeley elections. Igor helped pass Berkeley's public financing program and other reforms designed to reduce the influence of corporate money in local politics.
✔️ Turned creative ideas into policy through effective partnerships. More than three dozen initiatives Igor authored or co-authored in just over two years are now codified in Berkeley law or are actively being implemented.
STRENGTHENING COMMUNITY WELLNESS & QUALITY OF LIFE
✔️ Invested in Berkeley's community and cultural life. Igor supported funding for local nonprofits, cultural programs, public events, and community-engagement initiatives, including helping bring together several events to Downtown Berkeley for the first time - including Make Music Day and the Downtown Berkeley Pride Fest.
✔️ Fought to restore mobile mental-health crisis services. As a member of the Behavioral Health Commission and chair of the Council's Health, Life Enrichment, Equity, and Community Policy Committee, Igor is working with City and County partners to identify funding to restore mobile crisis response and strengthen services for people experiencing nonviolent mental-health crises.
CONTINUING BERKELEY'S CLIMATE LEADERSHIP
✔️ Helped make Berkeley a national climate leader. Igor helped craft the nation's first building electrification ordinance as well as a revolutionary Building Emissions Savings Ordinance - models subsequently replicated by hundreds of jurisdictions nationwide.
✔️ Secured millions of dollars for affordable and clean transportation opportunities. As a Member of the Ava Community Energy Board (our clean energy community alternative to for-profit utilities), Igor successfully amended an Ava Community Energy motion to invest an additional $3 million in its e-bike pilot—$1 million above the staff recommendation—funding rebates for approximately 2,400 additional e-bikes and e-trikes.
✔️ Advanced neighborhood climate resilience. Igor helped advance partnerships to bring community resiliency centers to Berkeley neighborhoods while supporting localized solar, battery storage, and community microgrids—with a focus on access for renters.
✔️ Fought pollution and held polluters accountable. Igor championed policies supporting zero-emission appliances, residential solar, and utility accountability, while working to defeat legislation that would have made solar-equipped housing more expensive.
✔️ Kept Berkeley's building electrification leadership moving forward. After a federal court overturned Berkeley's landmark building electrification ordinance, Igor advanced new green-building reach codes to continue reducing building emissions and improving indoor air quality.
✔️ Building a just, clean-energy economy, Igor helped advance Berkeley Green New Deal workforce initiatives and a Just and Equitable Transition program designed to create pathways to stable, middle-class careers as Berkeley moves away from polluting industries.
✔️Took on large corporate polluters. Igor has a long history of taking on large corporations on behalf of the public - whether it’s fighting a proposal to ship coal through our communities, calling on oil and gas companies to pay their fair share for the environmental harms they caused, or combatting the investor-owned utility monopoly.
✔️Promoted small business clean energy incentives. Igor continues to partner with state and regional agencies to expand cost savings and incentives for green infrastructure for local small businesses.
EXPANDING WORKER PROTECTIONS
✔️ Raised labor standards for Berkeley workers. Igor helped advance stronger worker protections through increases to Berkeley's minimum wage, a Fair Workweek policy, one of the first sweatshop-free procurement ordinances in the nation, and other local labor standards. These initiatives help make Berkeley a more affordable place to live for Berkeley residents.
✔️ Made good jobs part of Berkeley's development strategy. Igor worked with the Alameda County Building Trades Council to develop the Hard Hats Ordinance, encouraging major construction projects to use local hire, project labor agreements, health care, and other high-road workforce practices. He is also leading efforts to adopt state legislation that would codify these protections.
✔️ Protected workers during the clean-energy transition. Igor helped craft and pass a strong local Just and Equitable Transition program supporting workers in existing polluting industries while Berkeley moves toward a cleaner economy.
A LIFETIME OF SERVICE
✔️ Showed up for our immigrant neighbors. As an immigrant, Igor is actively involved with several mutual aid and foot patrol initiatives and has spearheaded a number of Know Your Rights forums and walks to downtown Berkeley businesses, so that everyone has the tools to keep their employees and customers safe.
✔️ Showed up for Berkeley neighbors during the pandemic. Igor worked with Mutual Aid to personally deliver groceries and meals to Berkeley seniors when they needed support most.
✔️ Made service a lifelong commitment. From local boards and commissions to statewide advocacy and hands-on volunteer work, Igor has spent decades putting his time, expertise, and energy to work for our community.