League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA April 7, 2015 Election
	Lan Diep Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member; City of San Jose; Council District 4

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of San Jose/Santa Clara 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?

I am a first-time candidate and have no previous experience working in city government. However, my experience as a public interest attorney licensed in California, Mississippi, Texas, and the District of Columbia has afforded me the opportunity to collaborate with various agencies at the state and federal level on behalf of low-income individuals. I understand bureaucracy, budgetary process, and how bad law-making can have unintended consequences. Additionally, I have years of experience helping individuals understand their rights and achieve their goals.

Providing direct services is something I'm adept to doing. Constituent outreach and engagement would be as high a priority for me as policymaking.

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?

As the capitol of the Silicon Valley, San José must strive to be a leader in innovation and a place where new technologies are applied to better the lives of residents. At a bare minimum, citizens of San José should be able to rely on the services that the City has chosen to provide and the standard of living it has set. In recent years, this has not been the case.

The Great Recession of 2008 brought the American economy to the brink of collapse. It revealed that federal, state, and municipal governments + San José included + had for years been operating beyond its means. As the Great Recession hit, San José's finances began to unravel under the weight of its unfunded liabilities and the City was forced to tighten its belt, to the detriment of residents and City employees. Library hours were reduced, much-needed infrastructure improvements were postponed, and funding for after-school programs evaporated.

After some tough decisions and contentious reforms, San José has recently begun to right its finances. But San José still has a long way to go before it can once again provide the full range of services it once did for residents. Moving forward, the City should endeavor to restore basic services and beyond that, fund projects and programs that reflect our values as a city. The decision to fund such programs and services should be seen as a commitment to residents to improve their quality of life.

As stewards of the public's money, the City Council should make every effort to ensure that money is spent wisely and cost-effectively. Annual budgets should be reviewed with a fine-tooth comb, and each proposed expense should be justified yearly, rather than automatically approved because it was previously funded. In this way, ineffective programs are weeded out and money is freed up to fund more deserving expenses.

The City of San José should be able to pass on to future generations a strong foundation upon which they can build their own success. We cannot kick the can down the road and burden our children with debts and unfunded liabilities. To ensure that San José is a strong city now and in the future, I will work with the Council to implement policies that create a fiscally sustainable city.

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

Public Safety Pension reform is a necessary measure, but it has caused problems for San Jose to recruit and retain new police officers. We must take measures to increase officer pay to make working in San Jose as a police officer competitive relative to other cities that have not yet undergone pension reform. In the short run, we must invest more in the Community Service Officer program to help increase response times and make residents feel that their needs are being addressed.

Smart Growth and Development The City should prioritize projects that will have an immediate positive impact for current residents, such as the creation of mass transit sites, public parks, and grocery stores. These projects give residents something they can enjoy as soon as construction is completed. The City can attract future development by investing in public infrastructure projects + repaving and widening roads, improving our sewage system, upgrading our electrical grid, expanding public transit and laying the groundwork for San José to have the capacity for superfast internet such as Google Fiber. Done correctly, smart development will pave the way for an improved quality of life and spark more commerce.

Fiscal Sustainability The City of San José should not spend beyond its means. In the present economic climate, this will mean making tough decisions regarding the budget. But through outsourcing, private-public partnerships, and reexamining how present services are provided, San Jose may find innovative ways to keep this city moving forward while the Council works to increase overall revenue. What is clear is that we cannot kick the can down the road to future generations, leaving them to make the tough decisions we should be making today.

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?

The responsibility of the City Council is to establish and maintain a safe, prosperous, and accessible city. The role of any councilmember is to actively participate in this process, while also representing the interest and desires of his or her district while the Council makes its policy decisions.

While it is my firm belief that policies that benefit the City benefit all of its residents in the long run, there will be occasions where the desires of the district and the City as a whole are in conflict. On these occasions the equities must be balanced. It is true that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but our city leaders must find ways to balance the equities and achieve the goals of the City while doing the least amount of harm to any individual, group, or district.

I will engage the District 4 residents to keep them informed about what the City intends to do, so that their voice may be heard and their opinions known before the Council votes on matters that directly impact District 4.

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?

I have agreed to be bound by the voluntary expense limits in this campaign set by the City. Thus, my campaign will not spend more than this limit, which is currently set at approximately $140k.

In regards to the source of my financial contributions, this is publically available information, and I will be held accountable to the public for the appearance of favoritism. The majority of my direct fundraising has come from friends, family, and colleagues throughout my life however, rather than special interests, and the limit of $500 that may be contributed per person or entity ensures that the influence any individual or group might have is minimal, at best.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. The answer to each question should be limited to 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: March 16, 2015 10:22
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