For Pocekay, compassion is a strength

The doctor and council candidate is involved in several social justice community groups.|

Dennis Pocekay has spent most of his life helping people get better.

His next patient, he hopes, would be the city of Petaluma. The retired doctor, who doesn’t shy away from his political leanings as a democratic socialist, wants to help the entire community get relief from the symptoms affecting its overall health.

Pockekay, 69, is campaigning this fall for one of the three vacant seats on the Petaluma City Council. His platform is centered on the concept of a “healthy Petaluma,” which aims to tackle societal issues by focusing on housing, individual rights and pursuing a better quality of life.

“You have to hit housing from two directions - from both increasing income and decreasing housing costs,” Pocekay said. “The only promise I’ve made to people is I’ll turn over every stone in the service of affordable and workforce housing. It’s not going to be easy.”

Pocekay, a 27-year-resident, spent his early days in Richmond. His first connection to Petaluma was through his great grandmother, who used to buy chicks from local hatcheries twice a year.

He earned an engineering degree from the California Institute of Technology and his doctorate from Creighton Medical School in Omaha, Nebraska. He lives with his wife, Donna Norquist, and has two adopted children, Sean, 29, and Gina, 27.

Pocekey has always had an affinity for taking care of others, he said, and spent three decades working for Kaiser Permanente. His first 10 years he was a general practitioner before pivoting into occupational and environmental medicine, mostly helping patients that had suffered injuries on the job. He boasts an expansive list of certifications.

Since retiring nearly nine years ago, Pocekay has indulged in his other passion - teaching. He has been a long-term substitute and medical competition team coach at Casa Grande High School, and he currently teaches an Intro to Public Health course part-time at UC Davis.

Pocekay has also embraced political activism and volunteerism in retirement, something he said he didn’t have time to do during his career. He helped the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign in 2016, was on the steering committee of the North Bay Rapid Response Network and lends time to Just Cause Eviction.

In 2011, he was appointed by the council to serve on the Youth Commission and has served as a board member at Mentor Me, an organization dear to his heart. Pocekay represented Petaluma on a Sonoma County climate action group from 2013-15, has lobbied for single-payer healthcare for decades, and campaigned for the End of Life Option Act, which allows terminally ill patients to end their life under special circumstances.

To improve Petaluma’s health, Pocekay believes fixing housing first will lead to progress in other areas. By prioritizing simply “putting a roof over their heads,” the council could do it in a way that alleviates environmental concerns and reduces traffic congestion by focusing development in the areas most accessible by public transit.

“My take, Petaluma has always been a place where the teachers could live and the cooks could live,” Pocekay said. “We’re past that now. If we want it to be the way we remember it, it has to involve housing that people on the lower-end can afford.”

While admitting he doesn’t have lengthy experience in civics, Pocekay pointed to his proven ability to learn and adapt over his career, and said he wants to bridge social, economic and racial divides in the community by crafting policies that work for everyone.

“I want to not just listen, but hear people, and then make decisions for the common good,” Pocekay said.

(Contact News Editor Yousef Baig at yousef.baig@arguscourier.com or 776-8461, and on Twitter @YousefBaig.)

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