Candidate for
Member, City Council; City of San Jose; District 4

Affordable Housing: San Jose is currently committed to the "Green Line" concept ... supporting high-density housing within a limited geography of our city. Locating these developments near public transportation and work locations is a high priority. All of this is being done in an effort to limit growth and urban sprawl. However, this policy has played an important role in the ever-increasing housing costs in Silicon Valley. Our housing stock is not keeping pace with the needs of our economy. Recently, Del D. Borgsdorf [City Manager of San Jose] spoke before the Commonwealth Club of California. He reported that San Jose plans to be building nearly 6000 new homes over the next five [5] years. Is this meeting our housing needs? Our lack of a reasonable housing stock is a very real threat to our economic health and vigor. What will we do when the "Green Line" concept no longer serves our needs? We need to be thinking of not only where to build new housing in the future, but also how to build new housing in the future. I believe that we can build housing that has a lower impact on the surrounding environment architecturally [as envisioned by Frank Lloyd Wright]. Additionally, homes should be built to the highest standards in energy efficiency and water use. Our landscaping should also be designed for smart water use and environmentally friendly maintenance. I believe that a vast majority of the residents of Silicon Valley will support this kind of responsible new home construction.

Traffic Relief and Congestion: The most important cooperative effort regionally [with respect to public transportation] is to link our light rail service to the BART system. Additionally, our light rail system needs to continue to grow and expand to serve both San Jose and Santa Clara County. Another issue that needs to be considered is the growing popularity of the various ferry services throughout the bay area. San Jose touches the bay in Alviso. Would a restored Alviso waterfront that includes ferry service options fit into the Alviso Master Plan? Redwood City restored its waterfront with great success. The North San Jose/River Oaks/Alviso area is an economically vital region to our city and has a growing residential population. Alviso has a proud history, and a restored waterfront could be an important part of the future for Alviso. Improve our infrastructure for transportation. We need to continue to repair and upgrade our local highways & roads. Traffic that moves more quickly & efficiently will produce fewer emissions. Consider the ramification of a recent report to our State Legislature, which has indicated that car pool lanes are simply not being used sufficiently. This is occurring nationally ... in fact the State of New Jersey is considering doing away with car pool lanes altogether. A lane not available to general traffic slows down traffic flow and increases air pollution. We should consider changing our car pool lanes to "smart" car pool lanes. We now have the technology available to establish car pool lanes that could "sense" when their use falls below a certain pre-selected level. At that time the car pool lane could then become available to general traffic. This is a reasonable compromise between those who support car pool lanes & those who despise them. The savings in fuel, time & air quality would easily offset the costs.

Education: I would continue to support the partnership and cooperation between San Jose and the nineteen school districts that are a part of San Jose through the Educational Summits [originally initiated by Mayor Hammer]. However, the governance of those school districts properly remains in the hands of their respective Governing Boards of Education. In 1992 I was elected to serve on the Governing Board of the Santa Clara Unified School District [includes North San Jose/Alviso]. Since 1992 I have worked to... Establish Higher Academic Standards for our 15,000 students including restoring Phonics instruction to the elementary grades, a more demanding 8th grade Promotion Policy and increased Graduation Requirements, which include Algebra and a Foreign Language. Begin Class Size Reduction in 1996 for the K-3rd grades. This program was fully implemented in 18-months. Place on the June, 1997 Ballot a $145 million dollar Bond Initiative [to upgrade our schools]. With the strong support of our local citizens and business community the voters approved this initiative. Silicon Valley has the resources and talent to help our public schools grow and change into the very best in the nation. The most important investment we can all make in this effort is our time. All of our kids deserve our time, for they are our future. And I can tell you that our future is very bright indeed! We should make all reasonable efforts to help new teachers find affordable housing. Working with the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group our district is exploring the possibility of building our own affordable housing for our new teachers [as featured on the front page of the Mercury News 10/29/99].

The Best Candidate... I offer you my record of Public Service in an elected office. In 1992 I was elected to serve on the Governing Board of the Santa Clara Unified School District [includes North San Jose and Alviso]. I have served as Vice-President and President of the Governing Board. I continue to serve as a member of the Governing Board. My Public Service in an elected office has prepared me well to represent the interests of the citizens of District Four on the San Jose City Council.