SAN JOSE — After eight years with Mayor Sam Liccardo on the helm, the nation’s tenth largest metropolis shall be electing a brand new chief in November as San Jose grapples with advanced points like homelessness, housing and overseeing an enormous price range.
Voters will select between Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, a longtime South Bay politician and labor chief, and San Jose Councilmember Matt Mahan, a freshman council member largely backed by enterprise pursuits, to steer town over the subsequent essential years and oversee a inhabitants simply north of 1 million and an working price range of roughly $5 billion.
Chavez boasts years of expertise serving on each the county’s board of supervisors and the San Jose Metropolis Council.
“These establishments similar to companies, similar to nonprofits, similar to another group are establishments that must be understood with the intention to have achievements come out of them as a result of they’re large they usually’re cumbersome and when it is advisable make change you want to have the ability to push them to do it,” Chavez mentioned.
Mahan, with a background in tech and two years as a college trainer on the east aspect, is seeking to ignite a “revolution for frequent sense” by specializing in measurable targets and accountability.
“I feel the work that I did in tech round rising authorities transparency and accountability by means of civic engagement is especially suited to native authorities and a few of the challenges we face in San Jose,” Mahan mentioned. “And I’ve been on the council lengthy sufficient to grasp how metropolis corridor works, see the place a few of the gaps are and have a critical case for what we will do in another way.”
Each campaigns have amassed massive marketing campaign chests. Mahan is main the fundraising, bringing in $672,914 between July 1 and Sept. 24. His marketing campaign has raised greater than $1.4 million this yr. Chavez follows carefully behind having raised $557,679.79 within the newest reporting interval and roughly $1.3 million in complete.
Mahan has earned the endorsement of Liccardo, in addition to former mayors Chuck Reed, Tom McEnery and Ron James, whereas Chavez has scooped up the endorsements from the complete San Jose council — minus Liccardo and Mahan.
Q&A
Q: San Jose is planning for 62,200 models of housing for the subsequent eight years. What’s your key technique in guaranteeing San Jose reaches its housing targets?
Chavez: One of many first issues that should occur is we'd like to ensure we’re robustly hiring in [the planning] division and that we create profession ladders inside that division that each attracts the very best and the brightest and retains the very best and the brightest all through their careers as a result of that division adjustments over so usually that you just don’t have individuals who have all of the instruments it is advisable transfer tasks by means of shortly.
The second factor is we have to tackle the adjustments within the common plan which have made it harder for us to construct housing. The final time there was a significant common plan replace, after they created the city village technique, it dropped the share of housing permits by 25%. And so what that tells me is that the principles that have been supposed to boost housing did the other.
Mahan: As mayor I'll spend a whole lot of time with our planning division guaranteeing that we're doing no matter is critical to shut the 26% emptiness price in that division proper now, to overtake our know-how programs, to study from employees to determine methods to streamline the method and to work with the exterior events, the buyers and the builders who construct housing to guarantee that we’re implementing insurance policies which might be attracting funding in housing the place we wish it in locations like downtown and close to transit.
Q: San Jose noticed its homeless inhabitants develop 11% over the course of the pandemic. How do you make sure that quantity stops rising?
Chavez: Homelessness is a fancy drawback that's going to take a number of pathways to resolve, however we will do it. Very first thing is we have to hold folks from changing into homeless within the first place. Throughout COVID, we labored actually exhausting with the non-public sector to make sources obtainable for people to pay hire or mortgage or different kinds of wants in order that we'd not have much more folks changing into homeless throughout this pandemic. Prevention is important and it’s essentially the most price efficient. It’s price efficient for a few causes, however certainly one of them is by stopping or quickly rehousing somebody. It signifies that we’re capable of give them housing and plenty of of them gained’t want any providers, but when they do the providers are minimal.
Two, we have to construct housing in any respect affordability ranges as shortly as attainable.
Third, we have to guarantee that we’re not solely constructing out and sustaining shelter capability, however that we’re additionally constructing out interim housing.
Mahan: I feel now we have to shift sources away from a mannequin that's too sluggish and costly and towards constructing very primary price efficient however after all nonetheless protected and dignified particular person housing models for many who want them. We are able to’t clear up this drawback with a construct time of 5 years and a price per door of $850,000. If we will get the construct time right down to 18 months and reduce the fee to $100,000 per door now we have an actual shot at placing ourselves on a path to ending road homelessness. And that’s actually what we’ve began to do on the metropolis by means of the prefabricated modular fast construct residences that we’ve been constructing.
Q: One of many mayor’s greatest powers is shaping the price range course of. How will you employ that course of to make sure the whole lot is funded?
Chavez: I feel it’s actually vital to do a forensic audit of town in order that the brand new mayor is available in with a clear sheet of paper that claims: right here’s the place all of our sources are, right here’s the place now we have flexibility and spending, right here’s the place we don’t. I feel we have to transfer to a zero primarily based budgeting technique and the explanation for that's it’s a approach to ensure any nickels within the cushion are pulled out earlier than you take a look at any form of new funding.
Mahan: The price range is a strategic planning doc in a approach. It’s the mayor’s alternative to put out a imaginative and prescient for the place we should always go and I plan to totally leverage that chance to determine and rank order our priorities to baseline the place we're in the present day by way of outcomes, to set enchancment targets and to focus the eye of town from the council to town employees to residents on the important thing outcomes which might be most vital to our group in order that there’s better transparency and we're held accountable for shifting the needle on a small variety of strategic targets.
That’s actually what I’ve been working on an accountability plan that's all about setting targets, publishing these targets, monitoring progress towards these targets and being accountable for delivering outcomes.