District 5 candidates Kniss, Sandoval and Trumbull.

Candidates say traffic, housing are top issues

By Jeff Kearns

Candidates for the District 5 supervisorial position emphasized quality-of-life issues last week during a public forum, sponsored by the Cupertino Chamber of Commerce.

Asked which issue was the most pressing and how they would address it, Palo Alto Mayor Liz Kniss, Foothill-De Anza Community College District Trustee Dolly Sandoval and county Planning Commissioner Terry Trumbull all pointed to traffic.

"Cupertino in particular has a lot of people driving through it, and job growth here is quite spectacular," Trumbull said. "We need light rail to Cupertino and to increase buses and transit." He also said he favored the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group's effort to create housing close to jobs by rezoning industrial land for mixed-use developments.

Sandoval also pointed to light rail as a major talking point.

"We need to think, as a region, what can the Board of Supervisors do to create incentives so that measures A and B, which the voters passed, are implemented on a timely basis," Sandoval said. "That includes bringing light rail from the soon-to-be-built Los Gatos line to Cupertino, then to Sunnyvale to connect with the Tasman Line, and making sure the [Highway] 85 and 101 interchange is structured so that traffic doesn't back up for miles and miles."

Kniss, who pointed to her experience getting a shuttle service off the ground in Palo Alto, said regional planning and technology were the best solutions.

"As long as we're not able to do this on a regional basis, we're going to continue to be stymied in how to handle this," she said. "We need to look at this as a regional issue so we can work at it on a local level."

Kniss said traffic signals on arterials should be linked to video cameras and to one another via fiber optic cables to keep traffic moving smoothly. "If you can anticipate those problems before they begin, you can adjust the signals."

The candidates all said easing the valley's housing crunch was also a top priority.

The three candidates, all seeking to succeed outgoing supervisor Joe Simitian, boast résumés cluttered with public service.

Kniss has spent the past 11 years on the Palo Alto City Council, and served on a school board there before that. She works as a communications manager for Sun Microsystem, is trained as a public-health nurse and holds a graduate degree in public administration. Kniss also has Simitian's backing to fill the seat.

Sandoval, a Cupertino resident who teaches math at Los Gatos High School, has been on the Foothill-De Anza board for eight years. She lists endorsements from all five Cupertino City Council members.

Trumbull, who lives in Palo Alto, sat on the county Planning Commission from 1976-80 and was appointed again in 1996. He teaches environmental law at San Jose State and has been endorsed by environmental groups, including the Sierra Club.

Responding to a question about cross-jurisdictional development impacts--such as the Home Depot set to open on De Anza Boulevard, across from the Cupertino city limits --the candidates all said there should be a better way to increase communication between cities and agencies.

"To me, there needs to be a regional discussion so that cities can come together and work out their differences of opinion and keep development occurring," Sandoval said, "When this particular big business goes in down the street or across the street from the city borders, the city that's most impacted, say, Cupertino, has a chance to talk to the company and the city it's in and work out some solutions and mitigations."

Trumbull said residents of county pockets would be better served in that area if they were part of a city that could go to bat for them on development issues. He also expressed concern about the new Home Depot.

Kniss said she'd been involved with a similar situation in Palo Alto, just across the freeway from a major new shopping center opening in East Palo Alto. "The way you have to begin on these issues is by establishing relationships with people in other communities," she said. "You need to be aware of what's happening and what is planned in other cities as well."

On reaching out to communities, Trumbull said he'd assign a staffer to watch issues in each city and act as a liaison, and that he would favor holding supervisor's meetings in the neighborhoods that will be impacted by their decisions. Kniss said she'd hold open office hours and hold open meetings for constituents.

Only about a dozen people attended the event, which was broadcast live on the City Channel. Although the event was sponsored by the Cupertino Chamber of Commerce, executive director Linda Asbury says the chamber will not be endorsing any of the candidates because it is still creating guidelines for how to make political endorsements.

The forum will be rebroadcast on the City Channel on March 3 at 5:30 p.m. and March 6 after the live broadcast of the City Council meeting.

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