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David Schumann
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Council in Contrast
Races reveal a disparity as two candidates attempt to rattle the regime
By Sam Scott and Kelly Wilkinson
The gadflies are abuzz at City Hall, as two candidates for City Council--Frances Rowe and David Schumann--seek to pester the status quo in this November's election. Schumann--a retired palm oil trader and newcomer to city politics--is running against incumbent council member Jack Walker--and the grain of the current council. The core of his campaign is based on two issues: his overarching desire to downsize government, and his call for a public vote on the future of Moffett Field.
The other race is between Frances Rowe, whom councilmembers removed from her mayoral post in 1995 (despite her cries of conspiracy), and Tim Risch, an engineer and a familiar face around City Hall from serving on several boards and commissions. Both Rowe and Schumann frame their races on their desires to dramatically change the tack at City Hall; while Risch and Walker maintain that some of their opponents' claims are uninformed and unsubstantiated.
Schumann versus Walker
David Schumann grew up in Philadelphia, hearing the myths of the American Revolution told over and over. So perhaps it's not surprising that Schumann sees himself as a rebel, operating under the Libertarian battle cry "the government governs best which governs least."
Schumann believes all city services--with the exception of police and fire duties, the judicial system, roads, and libraries--represent encroachment into private territory. He proposes jettisoning the rest: downtown redevelopment, zoning, affordable housing, transportation, he believes, should be left to the private sector.
Incumbent councilmember Jack Walker, who calls himself the "the planning guy" on the council, says he's no fan of big government either. But he says Sunnyvale has no excess to shed and to say so is ridiculous.
"The city of Sunnyvale is one of the smallest governments, you're going to find for the population," Walker says. "To argue that the City of Sunnyvale has way too much fat is lunacy."
Schumann, who is somewhat short on specific examples of waste, points to the Fishbowl teen program, which converts a bakery into a Saturday night teen center, as an example of something the city has neither the right nor the expertise to be involved in.
"I don't think that they are--or I am--wise enough to have a bunch of outsiders direct teenagers what to do."
Walker voted to fund the Fishbowl program.
Schumann's dislike for government services extends to public schools, which he calls "crap," "hollow," and "substandard". Councilmembers have little to do with education, but he begrudges them for denying a private organization a permit to open a school in the Mary Manor Shopping Center on West Washington Ave.
Though Walker voted against the school, Schumann's main beef with him relates to Moffett Field. As a member of the Community Advisory Committee, Walker recommended allowing some cargo and flights at Moffett.
Schumann is irate that the Sunnyvale citizens were not allowed to cast an advisory vote on air cargo at Moffett. He suggests building housing there.
Jack Walker
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Walker says a non-binding vote would have been redundant because there had been one in 1992. "How many times do we need to vote," he asks. "It was clear that the public was against this."
He says plans to build housing in the complex are pipe dreams. If NASA vacates the land, all other federal agencies and then state agencies will bid on it, Walker says. Only if both sets of agencies pass on the property--an unlikely event--will the land be available to the county, Walker says.
"Those people who want to tear it down and put up housing don't realize they're so far down the food chain," Walker says.
Despite their differences, Schumann and Walker have personality traits in common. Neither has time for what they consider putting on airs. On the dais, it's not unusual to see Walker rolling his eyes at a point he considers ridiculous. Compared to bolt-upright peers like Mayor Manuel Valerio and Jim Roberts, Walker slouches in his seat, on purpose, to signify that he's not impressed with his position.
"It's just governing. It's nothing serious," he says.
Schumann, with his loathing of big government, also dismisses the grandeur of being a council member.
Positioning himself as an outsider, Schumann says he won't be afraid to speak harshly and ask council tough questions. He sees the recent ethics investigation of Councilmember Stan Kawczynski as an attempt to muzzle the one voice of dissent on the council, a position he wants to fill.
"I'm just not part of the nice culture," he says.
Neither is his opponent. Council member Stan Kawczynski aside, Walker is the least saccharine speaker of the current council members, a good few of whom speak in tones well-suited to tucking someone in to bed.
Frances Rowe
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Rowe versus Risch
Frances Rowe is another shoot-from-the-hip candidate, who has made it clear she has no intention of joining what she calls "a mutual admiration society" among council members if she is elected to office.
"I'm not running to get along with [council members]," she says. "I'm running to do a job up there."
In 1994, Rowe was removed as mayor by vote of her fellow councilmembers, who said she created a hostile work environment. She was barred from entering City Hall except to attend council meetings and fined $28,000 by the Fair Political Practices Committee in 1998 for fudging campaign records--a move she says she did intentionally to reveal what she says are the city-backed plots against her.
Several council members, as well as her opponent, Tim Risch, say that she would slant her tenure heavily towards settling the score for her 1995 ouster.
"You've got to have both the past and present," she says in response to the criticism. "If you don't clean up the past and what is happening now, what are we supposed to do in the future?"
Rowe's lingering bitterness, coupled with her current disgust with the city's governance, appear to frame her campaign. It is a motivation Risch says would guide too many of her actions if she wins.
"At best, she will only get back to where she was [at the time of her removal]," Risch says. "What it boils down to is leadership and who can work effectively with the current city council. I have an agenda that looks towards the future versus one that looks to the past."
With Kawczynksi's departure--because of term-limits--the council will lose a member who consistently objects to the majority view. And while Rowe publicly states her dislike of Kawczynski (he doesn't like her, either), she commends him for asking probing, often uncomfortable questions, and vows to do the same if elected.
Tim Risch
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Risch carried the endorsement of all current council members-- which Rowe says indicated the city's continued vengeance towards her. She also says they are afraid of what she will reveal if elected to council--listing a host of plots that she says council members and others in city government are hatching against her. Risch counters by saying he won council's sweeping endorsement because of his qualifications rather than through any conspiracy. He also makes it clear that council member backings will not translate into follow-the-pack mentality.
"When I don't believe in something or feel that something is right, I'm going to make that clear," Risch says.
Risch says he's his own guy, and has his own criticisms of the status quo in Sunnyvale. As a member of the Downtown Resource Team, and a former member of the Land Use and Transportation Study Group, Risch has criticized the emphasis the city has placed on parking in recent projects. He says he would have allocated more money to pedestrian access or public transportation in instances such as the Caltrain station improvements and the redevelopment of the Town Center Mall.
He also criticizes council members for not initiating a comprehensive study of downtown parking--and instead reviewing specific parking situations as individual projects arose.
While Risch banks his campaign on the continued redevelopment of downtown, a new senior center, and the future of Moffett field, Rowe focuses on what she calls the "flustrating" aspects of the city-- which tend to be made up of broad themes rather than specifics: a neglect of the city's finances, souring employee relations and increasing unresponsiveness of city government.
Both candidates' resumes show a long, and active history with the city. But that is where the similarities end, and the race offers a contrast between positive and negative--which leaves both candidates not so much responding to each other's claims as sticking to their own issues.
"The only thing I can do is expose what's going on there and let the citizens make a decision," Rowe states, while Risch rings optimistic.
"People want a better Sunnyvale and I'm the candidate that can do that," he says.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
