Rocklin Mayor Gayaldo focused on reopening small businesses

Newly-seated Rocklin Mayor Jill Gayaldo said she can help build the town's future because of her connection to its past. Gayaldo, who was elected to the Rocklin City Council in 2018, was sworn in for her first term as mayor in December. Rooted in her family tree is another former Rocklin mayor, her father-in-law, Andres "Hank" Gayaldo. "A big part of my motivation is that a lot of the people here are new and I feel like I can be that link from where we came from, what we did and now how we can get going," Jill Gayaldo said. "If I screw this up, my family will never let me live it down." All jokes aside, Gayaldo is eager to get to work. With an education background and as a former small-business owner, Gayaldo's immediate focus is to help the local small-business landscape. "There's nothing more important than getting them back open," Gayaldo said. "I completely want to be safe but have more of an approach of 'What can we open safely?' instead of this blanket 'everybody's closed.' People have to get to work." One of Gayaldo's personal goals for her one-year term is to connect with other leadership members in Placer County through outreach and bounce ideas off one another. "We have so much talent in this county and I think I can learn from them," Gayaldo said. "You only hear from people when something's going wrong, so I'd like to get some input before we get to that point." Gayaldo is particularly excited about the female representation among the county's new mayors, including Roseville's Krista Bernasconi and Lincoln's Alyssa Silhi. "I'm not sure if I've ever known a time where we had three women leading the three largest cities in our county," Gayaldo said. "I'm excited about the unique opportunity and the message it sends to girls in our schools. I think the three of us will work very well together. We're a region. Whatever we do impacts somebody else, so it's all important if we work together." Some of Gayaldo's longer-term plans include reopening the concert series at Quarry Park when safe to do so and applying for grants for pedestrian and bike trails connecting Sunset Whitney, Johnson Springview Park and Sierra College. "As bad as this year's been, this is a great opportunity for a fresh start," Gayaldo said. "We're all energized and ready to take this on. We've been down in the dumps. Let's get together and get people back to work, kids back is school, let's get our lives back."