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Matt Mahan is the only option for mayor of San Jose.
In a discipline of seven candidates vying to succeed Sam Liccardo, Mahan is the one who would convey creativity, accountability and monetary accountability to the town’s prime elected job.
San Jose has for many years served as a bed room group to its Bay Space neighbors, leaving it with the bottom jobs-to-housing ratio of any main metropolis within the nation. Metropolis leaders should make do with decrease revenues, magnifying the necessity for prudent administration and good investments.
That is the place Mahan stands head and shoulders above his opponents. He's the one candidate advocating for higher accountability at Metropolis Corridor on the high-priority problems with homelessness, reasonably priced housing and public security. He’s additionally brilliant, an excellent listener and prepared to compromise on points.
Liccardo deserves credit score for some main successes throughout his two phrases in workplace. He solid a compromise on difficult pension points that threatened metropolis companies, led the hassle to convey Google and BART to downtown and was tireless in serving to San Jose address the pandemic, balancing security with the necessity to hold the town working. However Liccardo admits that homelessness is the town’s biggest failing of his tenure as mayor.
Mahan is true when he says what we’re doing now isn’t scaling to the scope of the issue. Sure, offering everlasting housing for the homeless is the most-effective method of conserving them off the streets. Housing constructed with Santa Clara County’s Measure A has helped hold previously homeless residents completely housed. However there are extra homeless residents in San Jose at present than in 2016, when voters handed the $950 million bond.
Mahan advocates quickly constructing low-cost models with corresponding companies as a short-term resolution whereas searching for methods to considerably cut back the prices of manufacturing long-term, everlasting housing for the homeless.
“I need us to be extra pragmatic,” Mahan says. “I’m prepared to take a seat down, pay attention and search compromises to discover a strategy to make progress on a difficulty that's vital for everybody in San Jose.”
Mahan grew up in Watsonville, the son of a faculty instructor and a letter provider. He graduated from San Jose’s Bellarmine Prep and went to Harvard College, the place he was elected scholar physique president. He spent a yr in Bolivia serving to farmers construct irrigation methods earlier than returning to San Jose to show English and historical past within the Alum Rock College District by the Educate for America program.
Earlier than successful a council seat in 2020, he was the co-founder and CEO of Brigade, a know-how firm that offered instruments to advertise civic engagement, political transparency and authorities accountability.
The opposite candidates within the race embrace Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, San Jose Metropolis Councilman Raul Peralez, San Jose Metropolis Councilwoman Dev Davis, retired San Jose police officer Jim Spence and college students Travis Hill and Marshall Woodmansee.
Chavez has far higher title recognition than some other candidate within the race, had the early lead in polling and is prone to make the runoff in November. She is sensible, tireless and captivated with her political causes.
However Chavez isn’t simply beholden to labor. She is labor and the whole lot it stands for. She was a driving power for labor points on the Metropolis Council from 1999-2007, throughout former Mayor Ron Gonzalez’ tenure as mayor. After shedding to Chuck Reed within the 2006 mayor race, she ran each the South Bay Labor Council and Working Partnerships, a social change group based by labor and group teams. Her ongoing combat for truthful wages and dealing circumstances is laudable. However her fealty to labor raises the query of whether or not her management would trigger a return of the times when San Jose’s unfunded pension liabilities led to main finances deficits that pressured the town to scale back its police power by lots of, and severely lower library hours and parks upkeep work.
Peralez and Davis are the opposite two critical candidates within the race. Peralez, a former police officer, can be backed by labor and is positioning himself as extra progressive than Chavez. Davis has assist from enterprise, however has failed to indicate management on the council.
Spence is working on a get-tough-on-crime and anti-pandemic-mandate platform. Neither he nor Hill and Woodmansee have the monetary or political assist to compete within the race.
Mahan has the center and intelligence to be an efficient San Jose mayor. We suggest him to voters within the June 7 election.