Answers to MCDC questionnaire

By Chris Stampolis

The Mission City Democratic Club distributed questionnaires for candidates to address. My answers are below to the questions posed by Club members.

Santa Clara's City government has several budget challenges to face in coming years: paying City employees sufficiently to attract and retain quality and to reward excellence; addressing the impacts of employee pension and healthcare costs; refining budget practices that respond to the downturn in City revenues; providing consistently high quality City services, including streets, utilities, youth & senior services, library services and infrastructure retrofit and maintenance; recruiting and retaining businesses that generate sales tax. Santa Clara has to compete to be the City of choice for businesses and for consumers. Our City leadership has to demonstrate frugality in an era of challenging choices.

For example, spending $80,000 of public money on fireworks was a questionable decision when employees are facing furloughs and the City faces infrastructure challenges. At minimum, I would require residents and the private sector to match the City's investment in advance for displays like fireworks. The 90-10 ratio was not reasonable. Also, I would reverse past cuts in City Commission training budgets. These relatively small cuts are window dressing on the budget, but have a large impact on opportunities for Commissioners to excel.

Involving community voices even more in tough economic decisions will be key.

2) Discuss how you will approach economic development issues as an elected representative of Santa Clarans.

Our City has to maintain a business-friendly approach, while significantly enhancing our City's response to the real needs of retailers and other small businesses. El Camino Real's deteriorated appearance hurts retailers because our ECR strip is not a destination of choice. Lafayette also merits significant upgrades. I will relaunch an El Camino Real Task Force to bring together business owners, land owners and residents to identify and resolve impediments to strip improvement. I also will bring together a similar group for the Lafayette corridor.

I suggest significantly enhancing our international partnerships/sister city programs to respond to the new diversity of Santa Clara. Not only will these partnerships demonstrate community respect, but Santa Clara will demonstrate a commitment to recruiting international investment in our City. Business retention also is vital. We have many long-term vacancies in Santa Clara and we cannot afford to let other communities recruit away local jobs. I will support business recruitment. We have to compete successfully with other cities as businesses choose a location for investment. We must keep our utility costs low, while recognizing that businesses cannot thrive if employees have long commutes. Developing more housing options is an important means to keep Santa Clara economically attractive.

3) Comment on how the recent passage of Stadium Measure J will impact the agency you seek to represent.

If Santa Clara wants the attention of the world with blimps flying overhead and zooming in on the neighborhoods of the Mission City, we have to step up our community performance to a whole new level. Northside residents in particular need attention to achieve buy-in for the changes that will impact their neighborhoods. As the Stadium Authority is launched, the City Council must demonstrate strong oversight of the City's financial risk + ensuring that we keep the promise of limited City financial involvement. And, we need leadership to bring City residents back together to focus on quality of life issues that are not directly related to the Stadium. More than ever before, Santa Clara must prepare to be a 24/7 destination city.

4) What is your vision for Santa Clara? How will you execute it as a local elected official?

We are good, but we can do better. The Mayor has limited powers as one of seven City Council members, but outside of Council Chambers, the Mayor has tremendous opportunity to influence community discussion and to lead. I want Santa Clara to respond actively to the today's economic opportunities and to champion Santa Clara as an education-centered populace. While respecting those who came before us, we have to move forward. The "center" of Santa Clara's life has shifted away from the traditional Old Quad. I want our City government's passion and attention to transition to the real demographics of today's Santa Clara + so we move towards a vision of what Santa Clara will look like 30 years from now.

As we approach 120,000 residents, we realistically have to plan for over 160,000 residents in the next decades. That 33 percent increase is coming + and more. As Santa Clarans live longer, we will face challenges on infrastructure and business growth. We have to be a job center so our current young people can stay if they wish. We have to respond to the dynamic multicultural environment that impacts assumptions. Much of Santa Clara will experience an urbanized lifestyle in the future. The time to prepare for those changes is now.

5) How will you deal with school issues such as rezoning, overcrowding, class size and science/math training?

The Mayor of Santa Clara has to be actively present to the challenges of the Education Districts that serve Santa Clara. While final decisions will be made by elected education agency officials, I will be aware of each agency's challenges and the needs of community members. I plan to recruit volunteers to represent me as Education Agency liaisons, perhaps as part of an internship process. Santa Clara's Mayor may be part-time, but our education challenges are fulltime. Property values, quality of life and economic opportunity are all linked to our education agencies' decisions. I commit to being aware of these details and to work in partnership with community leaders, business representatives and education agency decision makers. We have to move towards restoration of small class sizes and high end offerings for science and math training. Santa Clara thrives on technology-oriented revenue. To recruit tomorrow's businesses, we must enact a strong education profile today.

6) How will you close the achievement gap in Santa Clara? What schools are closing the gap effectively and which are struggling in Santa Clara?

To close the achievement gap, one first must want to close the gap. Across California, including Santa Clara, our Latino and African-American students consistently demonstrate lower group test scores than Asian-American and Caucasian-American students. However, at schools like Bracher Elementary, Santa Clarans have blasted past traditional assumptions of what students can achieve. A Title One school, Bracher has more than 2/3 of its students as English-Language Learners and free-and-reduced lunch qualified. Too often these demographics lead to achievement difficulties. But at Bracher, the Latino subgroup is performing well over 820 and the entire school just achieved an 894, the second highest API for any neighborhood school in Santa Clara. Conversely, Pomeroy Elementary and Scott Lane Elementary both are struggling. What's the difference? Bracher readiness-level-groups classrooms by subject, so students of like levels change classrooms during the day to study together via direct instruction. Teachers share student information regularly. The Mayor must know each public school's performance in Santa Clara and foster homework centers, mentoring and tutoring opportunities. Recognize achievement; be present to community leaders. Good enough just isn't good enough. If Santa Clara wants worldwide recognition, then let's strive for high performance across the City and work towards real accomplishment. Our teachers are committed, but need community support to achieve more.

7) How will our young residents compete worldwide in coming years? Today's youth have big challenges ahead as the rising nations of East Asia, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America send more of their residents through superior math and science education. For Santa Clara to stay as a worldwide leader in technology, we have to push towards the leading edge. The City Council must lead a culture of achievement where we recognize academic and other accomplishment on a regular basis. Our Mayor must develop and maintain relationships with high tech leaders and we must expand our City's international partnerships. Today's Santa Clara is not yesterday's Santa Clara. Young people today face tremendous competition as populations increase and countries previously classified as "third-world" jump quickly to high academic performance. Santa Clara's roots as an agricultural community provide pleasant memories, but are of minimal economic relevance today. We need to foster multilingual training, so our young people are prepared for international competence. We need parents to encourage reading. We need all residents and local businesspeople to care about Santa Clara's young people and what they need to succeed. We must work with the trades to enhance local apprenticeships. In short, it's about diligence, high expectations and desire. Santa Clara's leaders must lead.