League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA November 8, 2011 Election
	David Whittum Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member; City of Sunnyvale; Seat 4

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?

Over the last four years we have seen a renaissance in City Hall thanks to our new executive leadership team, successive Councils, and the incredible effort of our outstanding City staff. Here are some accomplishments during this time:

-pension reform: two-tier and increased employee contribution
-crime statistics are now online at crimereports.com
-Neighborhood Enforcement Action Team continuing focus on neighborhood quality of life issues

-park dedication requirement increased by a factor of four to 5 acres per 1000 residents
-new 5.3 acre park by Morse Avenue under development
-Onizuka Air Force Station base closure moving forward to redevelopment into a Foothill-De Anza campus, a public benefit conveyance for Public Safety, with an additional 4 acres available for disposition
-accepted the dedication of 1 acre for a park south of Duane Avenue
-playground installed in Murphy Park
-golf cart path finished

-downtown street grid restored
-Murphy Avenue rebuilt
-Town & Country site cleaned up, development moving forward
-Target rebuilt, Nokia arrived in the downtown
-Mathilda Bridge Rehabilitation

-continued focus on economic development, Rambus moved into Moffett Towers, Intuitive Surgical is expanding, as are Bloom Energy, St. Jude Medical, HP, Microsoft, Juniper Networks, Sprouts, Fresh & Easy, ...

-built curb, gutter, sidewalks, ramps with ARRA funding
-installed ADA curb cuts with CDBG, CDBG-R funding
-Sunnyvale Avenue north of Central resurfaced
-installed sidewalks on the east side of Fair Oaks from Weddell to Tasman
-a left turn on southbound Sunnyvale by PAMF in planning
-left turn from Kaiser, attention to neighborhood traffic

-Bay Trail connected through Sunnyvale
-Remington bicycle lanes
-Stevens Creek Trail feasibility study underway
-trail connection from JCW Greenbelt to Tasman, in process
-East Hendy improvement moving forward

-parking exemption permits enabled for impacted neighborhoods
-restoration of twice a month street cleaning
-online utility bill pay

-Fair Oaks Senior Housing
-Armory Site redevelopment for affordable housing in process
-Funding of social service agencies, Senior Nutrition Program, Sunnyvale Community Services

-webcast of City meetings
-financial disclosure forms online
-Sustainability Commission formed

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

In my first year in office we hired an excellent new City Manager and began a reorganization that continues today. We still have a lot of work to do.

Public safety remains our top priority and to support this and all our services we must control costs, most of which are personnel costs. This year we will spend four million dollars more on salary and benefits than we did last year. That's a four percent increase. We can't afford that. We must adjust employee expectations for total compensation, to align our expenses to revenues.

On the revenue side, to preserve our tax base we should oppose opportunistic development and preserve our manufacturing, commercial and office sector. Completion of the downtown is key. In the meantime, our general fund revenue closed the last fiscal year at $127 million, our third highest ever. We are projecting higher revenue for this fiscal year.

Fiscal reform can be aided by political reform. We need a ballot measure offering voters the choice to end the numbered seat system. Councilmembers are elected at large, there are no districts, and the numbered seat system restricts voters choice among the candidates. We need a lobbyist registration ordinance. We should ask voters if they would favor municipal elections in even years to reduce City costs and promote public engagement.

At the operational level, we need to see our pavement condition index restored, our sidewalks maintained and our trees trimmed. With public works projects we would like to see neighborhoods demonstrating support and not opposition. We should expand our outreach and engagement with all neighborhoods and restore support of community events. We should support public access TV in Sunnyvale to connect the community. These are budget issues.

Finally we would like residents and business owners to feel that City Hall is on their side in the resolution of municipal problems and obstacles. We have work to do in that area.

Our aim is that Sunnyvale will be the best-run city in the USA. But a leadership team doesn't get there by congratulating itself. Leadership in City Hall must remain self-critical even as we thank our incredible employees for the great job they do around the clock seven days a week, and as we promote our wonderful City as the great place it is to live, work and play.

As we strive to do better in City Hall, how well we actually do, depends in part on what you do on November 8th and every day.

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

It serves the City to respect the rights of individuals and to apply the Golden Rule. In controversial matters, opportunities for public input and discussion are critical to help us mitigate concerns and reconcile differences.

One of the City's ongoing needs is to protect our neighborhoods and preserve and improve our residential quality of life. There are preconditions for higher density development and they include:

an established transit corridor
acceptable impact on traffic and noise in existing residential areas
provision for parks and recreation amenities within walking distance
provision for daily-essentials within walking distance

It does not make sense to approve higher density without a rationale as to how and why the extra family car can be avoided. If one has density, and still two cars per household, then mostly what one has achieved is a higher density of cars.

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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 7, 2011 14:07
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