League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA November 2, 2010 Election
	Jac Siegel Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member; City of Mountain View

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?

In my more than thirty years as a resident of Mountain View, I have been a renter, a homeowner, a landlord, a senior manager in large aerospace companies, including GTE Goverment Systems, TRW, Loral, and Lockheed, where I was responsible for revenue and budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars,and managed upwards of a thousand employees at a time. I have also been a small business owner. My wife Sharon and I raised our two children here, and they attended Mountain View public schools. I have participated in numerous community groups and organizations, including the Environmental Planning Commission (serving as as Chairperson of EPC in 2005), and I was co-Chair of the city's Mediation Services. I am currently a councilmember, and I presently serve as Vice Mayor.

As chair of the council finance committee, I have brought my financial managment experience to bear upon the challenge of balancing budgets and keeping the city financially strong, the foundation for being able to deliver on all our other priorities. I am proud that the city has continued to do well, despite the state-wide effects of the national economic downturn. Over the next term, I want to protect and improve the quality of life for all residents of Mountain View.

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

I believe that Mountain View can solve the looming threat to our future ability to balance budgets:

In my view, it is short-sighted to push for the re-zoning of commercial /retail and industrial property as land suitable for housing. This should be resisted because of the downside implication for our city revenue.

Instead, we should be thinking about building our economic base by attracting more retail, commerce, and industry to our city. This sort of activity takes time and effort to bear fruit. When I first joined the council, we had only one economic development employee, which was simply insufficient for this important task. I worked hard to add a second employee, and we now have two economic development employees tasked with reaching out to new businesses that are interested in locating here, and ensuring that their diligence process working with the city is easy and our policies are friendly. Also, we have re-zoned commecial lands for higher density commercial development which will result in increased revenues for the city. We have also negotiated new contracts with some of our employees that are more favorable, and we making sure that the benefit packages of future employees while remaining competitive, are also more sustainable for the city.

Liveable Neighborhoods

Neighborhoods are more than just housing. Neighborhoods are where people live their lives. As a result, when changes are proposed (changes that increase density, increase traffic, impede views, remove heritage trees, etc.) people have strong feelings about them. These strong feelings are a good thing. They are the measure of the fact that people care about their neighborhoods. In general, what should be protected is the "livability" of our neighborhoods: easy and safe access to markets, schools, shops, transportation, professional buildings, parks and recreation areas, etc.

In a second term on the council, I will:

Continue to work to strengthen our neighborhood associations;

Work to ensure that city planning is based on smart growth principles (consideration of the impact of density, height, setbacks, privacy, parks, traffic flow, proximity to schools, etc.);

Continue to support BMR and MCC programs, mediation services, and code enforcement;

Work to complete the city's General Plan. Given that Mountain View is the second mostly densely populated city on the peninsula, it is vital that growth and change be guided by a plan that reflects current conditions, options, and decisions on the part of residents.

Open Space, Parks, Athletic Fields

Making sure that everyone in Mountain View has easy access to parks, open space, and recreational facilities is a major priority of mine, and will be an important part of both my neighborhood preservation and smart growth agendas.

During my past term on the council, we have opened several new parks, and several new "reaches" of the Stevens Creek Trail, and approved a number of ped/bike overpasses to allow easier access to recreational areas around town. Also, during the past term, we started a project to develop new athletic fields on a 12 acre city-owned parcel.

Solutions:

All "in-lieu of fees" collected anywhere in the city should be applied to making sure that under-served areas of the community get the attention they need, within the legal contstraints of transfer of funds (e.g., Monte Loma area, Old Mountain View, Wagon Wheel, Rex Manor, etc.).

No city-owned land should be sold, unless or until the sale of it had to do with an ideal land purchase opportunity with respect to parks. Mountain View is not in urgent need of raising funds by selling off city land assets. The default posture should be to keep these assets around for future generations to leverage.

3. What would your general policy be with respect to maintaining current levels of service during these difficult economic times?

State of the City

In recent years, Mountain View has made sound investments that have yielded well. Mountain View is in very good financial shape, and our city manager Kevin Duggin is an excellent financial manager. When cash is on hand, cities should invest in upgrading infrastructure (roads, water and sewer, parks and open space, etc.). Making investments in infrastructure when we have the resources to do so ensures that we won't get caught with serious, systemic problems in leaner times, when we can't afford it. We also need to make strategic investments in what we hope will be future revenue streams. The recent purchase of county land that could be a future site for big box shopping outlets is a good example of this. If all goes well, future residents will thank us for our foresight.

Mountain View is also one of the few cities in the state that has passed a balanced budget this year. The reason for this is that balancing budgets is very difficult. It takes leaders who are experienced financial managers; and it takes careful diligence on a host of subjects having to do with city operations, contracts, and state law. Added to this it takes immersion in individual project details, the application of problem solving ability, and careful human relations.

For more details, see my statements on economic growth elsewhere in this guide, and on my Web site.

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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. Answers must not refer directly or indirectly to another candidate.

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

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 8, 2010 11:40
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