Willow Glen Resident

News

Candidates for mayor talk about issues that affect WG

By Alicia Upano

The San Jose mayoral race came to Willow Glen, and the candidates answered questions about protecting the neighborhood's character, improving education and boosting business in the city.

The Willow Glen Neighborhood Association gathered questions from its membership by email a month prior to the May 10 candidate forum. The association's past president, Kris Cunningham, moderated the event.

The event turned out to be one of the neighborhood association's largest draws, with more than 225 residents filling the basement of the Willow Glen Baptist Church. There, city council members Cindy Chavez, Dave Cortese and Chuck Reed, county prosecutor and former councilman David Pandori and Willow Glen businessman Michael Mulcahy laid out their visions for San Jose's future.

Cunningham asked the candidates about one of the association's hottest issues--land use. Willow Glen's unique character is constantly threatened by infill development, Cunningham said. She asked how the candidates plan to protect the area's "charm and character."

Reed and Chavez said they would revisit the city's monster home ordinance to ensure the regulations are serving the community. Pandori said the General Plan changes too frequently, shifting the original blueprint of neighborhoods.

"The city has lost track of the planning we deserve," Pandori said. As mayor, he would return to the practice of changing the General Plan once a year, as was done when he served on the San Jose City Council.

In contrast, Cortese focused on the planning process and said the "done deal syndrome" needs to stop. Neighbors often discover planning projects only weeks before the city council votes, leaving them with little to no time to participate, he said.

Another big issue in Willow Glen has been the lack of available code enforcement on weekends. The city's code enforcement department has recently started a six-month pilot project for a Saturday on-call inspector who can, among other things, stop illegal tree removals. Cunningham asked if the candidates would provide funding for permanent weekend code enforcement.

All the candidates agreed weekend code enforcement was a good idea. Reed said the city needs to reprioritize its funding to pay for code enforcement inspectors, while Chavez favored collaborating with other city departments for the work. Mulcahy and Pandori agreed on using the fines from code violations to pay for the weekend inspector.

When it came to job production, the three council members focused on the businesses currently in San Jose. Chavez pointed to the 100 software businesses in downtown and work she's done to help streamline the planning process and make it less frustrating for business owners.

Cortese agreed on the importance of focusing on small business owners and said, "If you talk to those folks, they'll tell you city hall is a closed system. We have to work with small businesses in the area, making sure they don't leave town before they close their doors."

But Mulcahy took a different approach. As mayor, he said he would bring the emerging clean-technology industry to San Jose. Clean technology focuses on making materials, ranging from software to manufacturing, that are considered less harmful to the environment. The move would bring billions of dollars to the area and create thousands of jobs, he said.

"San Jose needs to be at the center of it," Mulcahy said. "I'll be the activist mayor who goes out and gets it."

Yet this technology depends on a well-educated workforce, Cunningham said, and questioned how each candidate planned to improve learning opportunities for San Jose's children.

"I'd like San Jose to be a city that graduates more kids from high school and sends more kids to college than anyone in the nation," Chavez said.

Pandori, pointing out the lack of school funding and the proposed community center cuts, said community centers should be housed at schools and all after-school programs should be funded.

Mulcahy pointed to the area's teacher shortage and said it's too costly for many teachers to live here. He suggested creating affordable housing and boosting corporate support for schools.

In the warm basement, candidates traded jabs with each other and laughs with the audience. Halfway through the night, Cunningham posed a lighter question to the candidates, "How are you and your family holding up under the stress of this campaign, and what are you doing to relax?"

The candidates said they squeezed family time between mayoral debates and other campaign work. For Pandori, the campaign is a whole family affair. His wife, Catherine, is his campaign manager, and his parents and in-laws are also working on the campaign.

Reed said he tries to put his work into the life-or-death context of his family's vocations: His wife is a cancer nursing specialist, his daughter is a U.S. Air Force pilot and his son is trying to stop nuclear proliferation, he said. At night, when he can grab a moment, he likes to watch The Daily Show.

"You have to be a magician with your time when you're doing this, and we shortchange our family a little bit," said Cortese, "but they understand about what we're doing."