League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA June 3, 2014 Election
	Van Le Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member; City of San Jose; Council District 7

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?

By serving as a trustee on one of San Jose's largest school district boards, working in the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, owning my own business and committing to various community projects ranging from all over San Jose, I am enabled to work directly with all community groups to better the quality of life including businesses, schools, neighborhood groups, non-profits, and community based organizations.

2. San Jose budget difficulties have resulted in unprecedented cuts to staff and services. How will you deal with coming shortfalls? Restoring some of the City services? And, if you think the City needs additional resources, what are your ideas for increasing revenues?

The city must focus its efforts on one mission. If we are to make San Jose the preferred destination for commerce that must be our focus and everything else must follow. If it is our intent for San Jose to become a large bedroom community, then that must be our focus. We must choose. The immediate need is to restore the confidence in public safety. The leadership required to operate a fully staffed organization may not be the type of leadership we need moving forward. Let not spend more money, let us correctly spend the money we have. The emphasis is to move away from effectiveness (doing the right thing), in most cases, to efficiency (doing things right). By definition, commerce will increase once safety becomes less of a concern.

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

Most concerns of the city, including having enough officers on the streets, street repair, library hours, and traffic management point back to the cities limited financial resources. As pension began to take a larger portion of city budget, voters passed pension reforms measures to stop the trend. We are now dealing with the unintended consequences of pension reform and must quickly strike a balance between the interests of labor, the interests of the public and the long-term financial stability of the city. There are only two ways to achieve this goal: increase city revenue or reduce city expenses. The only way to increase city revenue is to make the city more attractive to outside business interests. The only way to reduce our costs is to make the city more efficient and effective at is core services and begin to question services that are not core to the city. This may require the rewrite of labor MOU's or a major restructure of the city but these are changes that need to made.

4. How would you balance the needs of the City as a whole while also addressing needs of your district as well as those of special groups?

In most cases, the city's most critical services are the highest priority for District 7. This includes the safety of the public, the condition of core city infrastructure such as streets and roads, and the continued availability and accessibility of public resources such as libraries and parks. District 7 has its own unique needs that must be recognized such as it cultural diversity, it central location in the city and related traffic concerns, its unique public safety issues including gangs, prostitution and human trafficking that must be addressed specifically.

5. How much money do you expect to raise/spend on your race, and how will you assure voters that financial contributions will not affect your decisions/positions should you be elected?

My goal is to raise $80k for this council campaign. There are many special interests that are willing to provide significant contribution to my campaign if agree to support their specific causes. Sometimes the support is in the form of a written agreement. My campaign has a policy not to accept money from any organization that attempts to bias my decisions in a direction that are not in the specific interest of District 7 or the general long-term interests of the city.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. Please answer each question in no more than 400 words. Direct references to opponents are not permitted.

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

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: June 2, 2014 12:19
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