In a little less than a month, the new regime takes over at City Hall. It’s been a long time coming and all of us are anxious to see how the balance of power shifts with the new mayor and council members and find out what’s on Mayor-elect Reed’s agenda for his first few months in office. I know that we are all hoping for the best and feel that our city needs some big changes from the fiasco of the Gonzales years and that we need to strike out in a new direction.
From all accounts, the mayor-elect has assembled a very able transition team that includes San Jose Inside’s own Tom McEnery. Reed has also begun filling his most important staff positions with Pete Furman as chief of staff, Armando Gomez as budget director and Ru Weerakoon as his economic development director. They all seem qualified for the jobs and a breath of much-needed fresh air and we wish them well.
We all know that reform is a large plank in Mayor-elect Reed’s platform, but what comes next is not quite clear to most of us yet. I thought that now might be a good time to ask our readers what they think the Reed administration’s priorities ought to be in the coming year. The new mayor and his team are watching, so take this opportunity to blog in and tell them, and us, what you think.
San Jose has very little control over hillsides, and not much of them to see through the smog, but how come anyone has a right to consider my hillside their “viewshed”? Interesting houses on hillsides, think of Amalfi or any Spanish or Italian or Sicilian or….., are a delight. Tract houses maybe not. And houses on prime orchard land are a travesty. Something’s all screwed up here. But that aside, hillside views are a LOW priority for a real San Jose city government. Chuck Reed’s
open govt. is HIGH priority. Presently, the citizenry are viewed with open contempt by the city government, both politicians and bureaucrats, and our tax money is theirs to waste at will. Start at Quetzalcoatl (sp?), end at the Dumb Dome. Everywhere you look, in-
cluding the landscaping at the entrance to the airport, it’s trash one expensive plan for another one. Build a funky airport in the middle of town, lose millions year after year on neighborhoods razed for landing approaches, the airport named after a local politician rather than the city. Visit Planning at the new city hall, and each time get a different answer from a different planner, and the simplest procedure requires a $2000 fee.
Don’t sweep a street for 15 years, but put up “no parking for street sweeping” signs and give out a blizzard of tickets. Complain about
a city service and receive endless retaliation.
Go to Europe for 6 months and pay your garbage bill or get a lien—while Santa Clara has a pickup any crap campaign yearly—and cheaper utilities. It’s endless. Chuck, Sam, Pete and the other Good Guys need to make it all go away. George Green, Downtown Property Owner and Hillside Dweller
1. Ending Evergreen and Coyote Valley development. Use infill development in downtown instead.
2. Increase Park budgets for park maintenance, aquatic centers, connect the trails.
3. Reverse the jobs-housing imbalance.
4. Partner to improve the schools.
5. BART to San Jose.
How about starting to respect our heritage in San Jose, that would be a nice start and it costs nothing. That is unless the city loses an other lawsuit to preservationists. The new administration should take the lead on the IBM#25 building and show the world that you can bring preservationists and business together. I know our 3 new leaders are up to the task, I am not so sure about the old ones.
Oh wonderful. BART to SJ?
Nothing would piss away good money faster, with nothing to show for it except a few well fed contractors. Just take a look at the BART to Millbrae gold-plating of a few years back.
I would like Mayor Reed to look at the following alternative and consider a re-design of the current overpriced BART plan that uses the wrong route, minning the North 1st employment center alltogether.
see:
http://bayrailalliance.org/southbayrailvision/
for a much better yet cheaper alternative.
Disband, fire, eliminate, and get rid of the Renewal Agency! All of it! Do not replace it! Do not transfer the employees to other departments. They have proved that they don’t know enough to work in any area of any business. And when those idiots are fired, take them on a bus tour of downtown and then out to Santana Row so they understand their failures! And, take away their pensions and force them to pay for the repair of their errors.
You can leave the cultural buildings in place, the theaters and galleries and such. They add.
Change the sign ordinance and remove the trees that prevent the signs from being seen.
Either widen the sidewalks or take out the trees that also prevent people from walking more than single file! But nothing can really be done to bring retail back to downtown!
The area that once was viable retail cannot compete with the Santana Rows! Especially with the streets and access destroyed by the street car tracks and the lack of free parking!
Put the tax increment money into the general fund to pay for operating expenses such as street repairs, park maintenance, but not to increase the retirement payments for the city employees (including the public safety people). But first use that money to relocate the “Light Rail” system. Use the routes that the old, pre-depression street car lines used. The area that used to be downtown is still the hub, but the light rail system cuts it up and prevents traffic from using the streets.
Include operating monies in any bond election that comes up in the future. How can we build new schools without funds to maintain the buildings?
And finally, move the offices of the elected city officials down into the rotunda where the people who elected them will be able to get to them for input! Being isolated up in the high altitude doesn’t cut it!
For starters, they can re-surface Meridian Av between Curtner and Hillsdale. Easily the worst road I drive on as I go about my business around town.
I agree that many of the hillsides are outside of SJ jurisdiction. With the county in control of that type of development you can expect more schlock, but I do give them points for voting down that one Taj Mahal of a home that some not-born-here-but-look-at-us-now—we-made-it types were trying to get built over towards Evergreen recently.
The main thing I want to see from Reed is a pro-active approach to positive change, not a bunch of negative reactions to other people’s proposals. Alas, I’m afraid he doesn’t have a creative bone in his body and this town is just going to safely tread water for the next four years. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
After reading about Cortese being appointed as Vice Mayor and reading his current CSJ committee assignments, it occurred to me that Mayor-elect Reed would do a great service by changing those darned committee names back to something more normal, and less Disney sounding…Making Government Work Better Committee? Yes, we know what it means, but c’mon!
The development of the remaining rural areas is a most important item for the new administration. Whether we have the hills and valleys plastered with homes or whether we leave some of these areas green to honor our agricultural roots will be a major issue. One doesn’t have to be labeled a “tree hugger” if one enjoys the view of the green hills and valleys. I hope that those in power use their heads on this issue.
As a feel good measure that demonstrates that the city can actually do something, Chuck should dismiss the firm putting together the aquatics plan and scour up the money to fix the pools.
As a substantive matter, he needs to tackle the pensions problem.
First, the Reed Reforms. Then:
What:
1) High-quality, inexpensive basic services
(roads, police, fire, parks, bldg permits, libraries).
2) Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. Give the public and businesses a platform on which to build businesses, live safely and comfortably, and raise a family.
3) Let other layers of government to do their jobs. Or help them do it more effectively. Don’t do it for them.
(There was a lot of talk at the PACT forum in the spring about proposals that were clearly in the territory of the school districts, county, state, or federal governments, yet somehow the city was supposed to intervene. Too often we have one stop shopping for all our services. While the ease-of-use is nice, such duplication is unnecessary and wastes resources on duplicating functions already done by others.)
How:
1) Regularly survey the citizens of San Jose and ASK THEM WHAT THEY WANT. Do not hire consultants to do what you can do with a telephone and a pair of interns for cheap.
2) Treat all budget dollars as fungible. Don’t waste money on one line of the budget while starving on another – rationalize the decisions and justify every penny from the bottom up.
No more sycamores please. There are two many already and they generate nasty pollen in the summer that causes those with hay fever to suffer needlessly.
Mark T #7:Borrring might not be such a bad idea for the next four years. The CSJ needs to get back to basics.
No more endless process—studies, outside consultants. [How many consultants does it take to repair a city pool and put it back in use?] If our in-house people aren’t up to the job, fire them and hire people who are.
Fix the roads—my nomination for worst is Alma, between Vine and Minnesota. It was crumbling, so they overfilled the holes and cracks with tar, and now it’s like riding over small railroad ties. I’m sure every person in every neighborhood has a nomination for a road badly in need of resurfacing—not just chip ‘n seal—a resurfacing.
* Take every project that aims to ‘Put San Jose on the Map’ and burn it.
* Sell off every palm tree in downtown and replace them with sycamores. Give the remaining profit back to the parks fund.
* Delete all major league baseball and football owners’ names from mayor’s rolodex.
* repeal every labor initiative that makes it hard for small businesses to get started in san jose
* Repeal every ordinance that tries to put one aesthetic sensibilitly or another (signs, design, etc.)
* Put a Santa Clause hat on Quezoquatal
* rip up all the fancy hardscaping on the front of city hall and open up a community garden there
* rent out the empty office space in downtown san jose for free to start up companies
* make 1 mile around every school pedestrian and bike safe
* connect the creek trails
* turn the unused International Terminal at SJC into a homeless shelter.
* let businesses and employers in north san jose build up, up, up
#13 jmoc
Consultants can play an important role in some projects if chosen carefully and used responsibly. The City does not need nor should it have a full time swimming pool design and construction engineer on staff.
Sometimes it’s more efficient and cost effective to buy the expertise as part of the process of assuring it’s done right.
The key I would assume is in defining the scope of expertise and recommendations sought and using them effectively.
Micromanaging and meddling by the Mayor, Council members and neighborhood leaders can cause more problems than it solves. Getting CSJ government back to basics (as you say) will go a long way toward resolving some of these issues: and electing this new Mayor is a huge step in that direction.
The best thing that the incoming Reed administration can do is to go back to the basics, as David D. stated in #14: No gimmicks, no “major league city” endeavors, no “world class city” projects.
Sweep the trash. Fix the roads. Equip the firefighters. Pay the cops. It ain’t sexy, but considering what has been going down the last eight years, maybe a little bit of Ike will do us better than more JFK.
Jack,
After reading through the City Council Agenda, Staff reports and various Resolutions, it seems that the terminology, acronyms and numerical references, not to mention the wherefores and other legalese make it very difficult to understand. Reading these, I feel as though English is my second language. Even with a college degree and a reasonably successful career in industry using only English, I have difficulty deciphering some of the public information put forth by the City.
Understandably the City has to meet certain legal standards for lawful public notice, and it’s the job of the City Attorney (thankless as it may be) to guide and screen the product of Staff and Council work before it is made public. Unfortunately by its vary nature, it has become over the years a language and format of exclusion. I would venture to say that less than 10 percent of the total population can read and fully understand the meaning and impact of these postings.
If San Jose, as diverse as it is in its level of education and command of English, is to truly include its residents and give them an opportunity to understand and participate in the “business of the people”, the City should provide some way for all it’s citizens to understand the business brought before it and the work product of its Staff and Council.
Normally the local news papers fill the role of following, understanding and translating this work output. However, in the process it is not always complete or without bias; which is normal and understandable.
One possible solution, (and I’m sure it’s not new), would be for the City to hire someone or two who have the legal background and literary skill to translate the more relevant and weighty agenda items and resolutions into common, easy-to-understand English; or something 80% percent of the English speaking San Jose residents can understand.
Obviously this would add to an already stressed budget. However, if it brought more of its citizens “into the tent” and made it easier for them to express their appreciation for or offer constructive input to the Council and Staff… would it not pay for itself in the form of a more informed and engaged electorate?
David D #14 said: “The City does not need nor should it have a full time swimming pool design and construction engineer on staff. ” Agreed.
Nor does it need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to have these parasitic consultants spend a lot of time and money doing bullsh*t community outreach, and attending meetings of neighborhood associations with memebers who all have different ideas on the subject.
The maxim should be changed to: A camel is a horse designed by consultants.
Consultants may be even a worse scourge than lobbyists.
The issue is really quite simple—the closed pools don’t meet certain standards. Everyone who needs to know knows what those standards are. Apply them and fix the friggin’ pools before Memorial Day next year.
END OF STORY
JD # 15 said: “Sweep the trash. Fix the roads. Equip the firefighters. Pay the cops. It ain’t sexy, but considering what has been going down the last eight years, maybe a little bit of Ike will do us better than more JFK. “
Add my name to the list of those that subscribe to that program for the next four years @ The Taj Gonzal.
I just read in the Murky News that there will be what I know to be a very short extension of the jogging/biking trail along the Guadalupe past the San Jose Norman (WHY?) Mineta (allegedly) International Airport that will cost $1.8 MILLION. This is a short span, people—a few hundred feet. And because it’s a government project, a few hundred feet of concrete for a jogging/biking trail will cost us all $1.8 MILLION!!!!!!
I also read the City of San Jose pays a person to be a “Trail Coordinator”???!!! How much does he make, and how much benefit to the community can he possibly provide in relation to what he makes, and in relation to the fact that roads all across our city are literally crumbling?
I am sure that the CSJ budget is replete with these ridiculous positions, at a time when our entire infrastructure is crumbling. There’s the 10% for the arts program coordinator, how much do we pay a downtown parking czar ( I like Abe, but what results have we got for our money? They want to stop free downtown parking after 6:00 and on weekends. If that happens, will the next funeral of downtown at least be New Orleans style?)and the list must go on, and on, and on of bullsh*t staff positions that are certainly nice to have, IF WE HAVE an otherwise well-run city with good infrastructure in place. We have bond money for parks that immediately go into decay,‘cuz they ain’t no bucks fo’ maintenance. How did we get so far off track?
If we’re just to become Sweden, let’s go all the way and tax the hell out of everyone who works. If not, and we shouldn’t, let’s just do what JD # 15 said: “Sweep the trash. Fix the roads. Equip the firefighters. Pay the cops. It ain’t sexy, but considering what has been going down the last eight years, maybe a little bit of Ike will do us better than more JFK. “
Back to basics
>> I just read in the Murky News that there will be what I know to be a very short extension of the jogging/biking trail along the Guadalupe past the San Jose Norman (WHY?) Mineta (allegedly) International Airport that will cost $1.8 MILLION. This is a short span, people—a few hundred feet. And because it’s a government project, a few hundred feet of concrete for a jogging/biking trail will cost us all $1.8 MILLION!!!!!!
I can’t speak for the price, JC, but that last section of pathway is the reason I don’t take my bike to work nowadays. I’m a little scared to ride on the major roadways (1st, etc.).
There are enough bikepaths (almost) for me to get from my job in central San Jose to Northern San Jose—though I can speak only for myself, every little bit takes a few more cars off the roads.
#19: I have run that trail countless times. In the summer, you can vault the fence, and half the double box culvert where the mighty Guadalupe flows is dry as it goes under 101, so you can traverse under the freeway. from there you can get to Alviso on weekends, when there are no cars.
The cost quoted is so out of whack that it can only be a public project..