League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA November 7, 2006 Election
	Brian P. Lowery Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member; City of Santa Clara; Seat 5

The questions were prepared by the Leagues of Women Voters of Santa Clara County and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. What experience related to city government would you bring to the City Council?

The qualifications I bring to Santa Clara City Government are that I have owned and operated a successful small business for over 12 years and during this time, have made many business contacts with companies that operate within our city. I understand the basic structures that define the operations of these businesses and can therefore relate very well to their concerns. It is extremely important that a Council member be a person who can draw from a business background because commerce is the necessary ingredient to the vitality of our city. From this business experience, I will provide for a positive business climate between city government and local businesses.

The second important quality that I can bring to city government is that I was personally involved with all aspects of the complete remodel of our home in Santa Clara. From this experience, I acquired a complete understanding of the building process and its relationship with the city Planning department and therefore will be able to relate to the individual who wishes to either build or remodel their home, or the developer who wishes to build homes on a larger scale. From my engineering background I will be able to understand and deal with the complex issues facing construction on a much larger scale within the city.

The third quality that I bring to city government is that I have traveled often to many different parts of our world and therefore am open to the diversity of cultures that exist here in Santa Clara. I can speak to the people of Santa Clara in the languages of Spanish, French and Japanese and that is important because there is a certain rapport that exists between a council member who has the capacity to speak to a citizen in his/her own native language.

Finally, I have worked on several political campaigns in the recent past, and by doing so, gained a certain appreciation of the political process that will enable me to successfully deal with public processes that will invariably be political in nature.

2. What concerns are of particular importance to the city and how would you address them?

There are four principal concerns that the city of Santa Clara is currently facing: creating a environment for our businesses both large and small that allows them to thrive and prosper, finding ways to create a housing environment that is affordable for our children and for those who wish to come and live here, creating an environment for our senior citizens that allows them to live out their lives both comfortably and affordably, creating a 'downtown region' which is attractive to both citizens and visitors alike, and rejuvenation of its existing neighborhoods.

As a council member, I will meet with leaders of businesses both large and small in Santa Clara and learn from what the city needs to do to make them more competitive. I will seek to determine firsthand whether or not any problems exist that might force them to effectively operate in our city. In return, I will ask them to do more of their corporate business at our local Convention center and to participate in an `Adopt a Schools Program' that would involve them giving excess or used equipment back to a school and allowing students to spend time at their company learning about the different operations of the business.

Housing that costs between 700 and 800 thousand dollars is not affordable. The average median income for a family in the city of Santa Clara is $81,717, which does not qualify for the purchase of a three-bedroom home in any location. The high cost of housing is forcing our businesses to leave our city and our workers, both public and private, to live elsewhere. It is not enough to ask developers to build more homes here because that has not dropped the prices down; in fact, it has only forced prices to rise due to the scarcity of land. As a council member, I will attempt to work with the city manager to find ways to offer financial programs to first time homebuyers, city employees and teachers. I will also work with non-profit entities such as Habitat for Humanity as another avenue for creating affordable homes.

The quality of life for our senior citizens is rapidly diminishing as a result of the high cost of living and the dramatic changes in life style; utility rates are rising, as are medicine costs and their children are not around to help them perform the most rudimentary of tasks. As a council member I will work with the Senior Citizens Advisory committee to explore ways of improving their lives with the city resources made available to them. I will work with activists in the neighborhoods of Santa Clara to find ways to help them, by visiting with them, doing small tasks like mowing their lawns, making sure they are taking their medicine, and making sure that someone in their family is checking up on them. These are simple tasks to be sure, but it must start from somewhere.

As a council member, I will work hard to promote a vision for a downtown area. One only need look back in Santa Clara's history to see what a downtown area should look like. The citizens of Santa Clara do not need a strip mall for a downtown area with condominiums and townhouses and the like. We need a downtown at Franklin Square that the residents of the old quad and the senior citizens can walk to. Many residents come from the outlying areas and visit the Farmer's Market on Saturday, so it is not a big stretch to put the downtown area there. As a council member, I will try to get businesses to come to this area, businesses such as either a Starbucks or a Trader Joe's and additionally, shops that will be attractive to the female shoppers of Santa Clara. It might even be nice, if somehow, we could get a small movie house, similar to the one in Palo Alto. I know that these ideas may seem far-fetched, but if we work together, you and I can make it happen.

The older neighborhoods of Santa Clara have been grossly neglected in favor of the new projects that have been taking place in the North Side of Santa Clara. These older neighborhoods should be rejuvenated because these citizens pay property taxes too. As a council member, I will work with the city to make sure that all required infrastructure projects are being completed. In addition, I will work with concerned neighbors in the many neighborhoods of Santa Clara to develop neighborhood watch programs and self-help programs that empower them to make their neighborhood a place they like to live. I will setup a website where concerned neighbors can leave messages of concern.

3. How would you balance the needs of the City as a whole with groups' interests?

The budget for the city of Santa Clara is $500 million dollars this past year. This means that in order for the city to maintain its current operations, it must be able to raise the equivalent sum from sales, property, and local business taxes. This is not going to be an easy task by any stretch of the imagination year in and year out. The attempt by the city to continue on its path of rampant high-density housing is not the panacea for drawing sufficient revenues to meet its budget. Housing costs only grow exponentially because of the enormous associated infrastructure costs: there will be a higher demand for electricity, water, a greater need for public safety officers, teachers, and stores. Additionally, there is no guarantee that either the state or the county will return in sufficient quantity, the property tax that the city should deserve for building all these units, thus putting further strain on present and future budgets. The city of Santa Clara must learn to do a better job managing growth. By using all of its available land for housing, there is very little left over for businesses and even less for its citizens. And this is a very serious issue.

As a candidate for city council, I am not taking a single campaign contribution from any source because I wish to fight for what is right first for the average citizen who has lived here and made this city what it is today and secondly, for what is right for the city. As a Council Member, I will fight for managed growth, a growth that is sustainable based on measured statistics from what can be objectively obtained from tax revenues. It is the right thing to do for our citizens and our city.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' responses are not edited or corrected by the League.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: November 1, 2006 12:08
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