Oliverio for Supervisor 2018

Independent - Transparent - Fiscally Responsible

Small Decisions Can Result in More Layoffs

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Last week, at the city council meeting, I removed an item from the consent calendar on the agenda for discussion. As you may remember from my blog about San Jose’s million-dollar golf nets, consent calendar items do not have individual discussion, but rather are voted on all at the same time. If one wants to discuss a consent item, you have to “remove” it for discussion.

The item I removed was asking $993,876 for the library to spend over the course of seven years on an online tutoring service for kids. Nearly a million dollars is a significant amount of money. The $993,876 was not restricted funds and could have been spent on librarians instead. My comment/question to the council was: If we know we are going to have to do layoffs of library staff on July 1, 2010 to balance the budget, then maybe we should hold off on discretionary spending so we can retain staff to keep our libraries open. This expenditure is approximately two librarians salary each year for seven years. My comment fell on deaf ears and the council voted to spend this money; I voted against this expenditure.

When it comes to the libraries, the core deliverable to me is that libraries are open as many hours a week as we can afford, so users can access information and have a place to study. Any and all other programming should be funded after libraries are open seven days a week. If we have funds left over after libraries are open seven days a week then we can start evaluating the option of adding different programs. Until then, the City’s money should be used to keep libraries open with staff.

The online tutoring service could be canceled from year to year; however, good luck ever canceling a program/service once it starts.

On another note, I posted a survey last week regarding the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) budget. The RDA board adopts the final budget on Dec. 8. A person shared with me that the question I posted below (which appears on the survey) was “biased.” I shared that the information I gave was factual, not biased. I thought I would share the question with you here. I have added commentary in bold parenthesis:

The Redevelopment Agency has spent $774 million on housing (true) making San Jose the number-one provider of affordable housing in the state of California (true) by financing 18,000 units (true) of affordable housing while neighboring cities do next to nothing for affordable housing. (Neighboring Cities have not met the Association Bay Area Governments (ABAG) affordable housing targets, while San Jose has exceeded overall ABAG affordable housing targets). With so much given to affordable housing and so many people in need of jobs (12.5 percent unemployment), should the RDA borrow money from affordable housing reserves this year, as allowed by state law (true), to be spent instead on economic development to help create jobs?

The Redevelopment budget survey can be found here. It closes this week.

Happy Thanksgiving San Jose.

RDA Budget Survey

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Last week, the council had public hearings regarding the upcoming 2009-2010 Redevelopment budget. Mayor Reed ensured that the public had both a day and night session to attend, allowing more people to participate. In addition, tonight (Nov. 16) at 6pm the mayor is hosting an additional public meeting at City Hall to garner feedback on the RDA budget.

During last week’s public hearings, the usual lobbyists—those who are paid to speak at council meetings on behalf of special interests—attended and spoke. The lobbyists have also been known to orchestrate the other speakers, giving them colored stickers to wear and scripts to read from.

Others spoke on what the RDA money should be spent on, which happened to be items that might affect their own future employment.  For example, people who work for an affordable housing developer will speak to the need for RDA money to be spent on affordable housing.

This past October, I held a meeting in the District I represent (on a Saturday) to talk only about the RDA and the upcoming budget decisions. At my meeting, there was nearly unanimous support for spending the limited RDA funds on economic development. Unfortunately, the council is not hearing this at the public hearings at City Hall since most residents are busy with work, family or seeking a job.

Therefore, I have prepared a web survey for San Jose residents to fill out online. This survey is much shorter then my May 2009 General Fund budget survey, but does require that each question be answered and may be only taken once. I will share the results here on San Jose Inside.
The link is here: Redevelopment Agency Budget Survey.

Do Things Differently

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Last week, the council had a special meeting to discuss the upcoming $96 million budget shortfall. $96 million is the equivalent of eliminating all library, park and community center positions citywide. My fellow councilmembers and I gave the city manager direction on how best we think the budget gap could be closed.

The first part of the meeting covered the shortfall—which may still grow by either continued lagging revenues from sales taxes and property taxes, or the state legislature grabbing more city funds. It is clear that there are no easy answers. I hear people say “since the stock market is up then the city budget will be ok.” The stock market going up does not provide jobs to unemployed San Jose residents nor does it bring revenues to pay for city services. The only benefit is it might reduce our pension matches slightly next year; however our pension portfolios are invested in more than equities.

We spent time talking about raising taxes on residents, such as a sales tax increase to pay for city services. I said that I would prefer that we increase taxes on card clubs and allow them more tables as allowed by state law, which would bring in as much as $12 million. The card clubs already bring the city approximately $13 million each year.

I also mentioned that taxing medicinal marijuana would help our budget deficit as well.

We then went on to options that would reduce per-employee cost, whether it be pay cuts, increasing medical co-payments or 2nd tier retirement plans for city employees not yet hired. As you would expect none of these options were popular with the council.

Then city management unveiled, its “Approach to Prioritizing City Services” AKA “Core Services.” This concept would be a long stakeholder engagement process that would include scoring and weighing the value of 450 city programs identified so far. However it would not necessarily eliminate programs that scored low. The presentation contained buzz words like «engaging stakeholders,» «peer review,» «finalize a work plan.»

Others said it is not right to prioritize and rank since it puts certain city services against each other. I shared that I am willing to participate, but that the approach presented is meant to give “political cover” in making decisions.

I believe that we can’t make paid interest groups happy all the time and at some point we have to vote to make changes that may be unpopular. The Council was elected to make decisions on behalf of everyone in their district and City, not just a few. This process could take a year, therefore, I immediately offered what my core city services are: Police, Sewers, Fire, Streets, Planning, Emergency Preparedness, Economic Development, Libraries, Parks and Code Enforcement. The presentation left out an obvious city priority: infrastructure. Without sewers and streets life in a city comes to a stop.

At the end of the meeting, the Council voted on my memo titled, “Make Union Negotiations Public.” The memo asked that closed door union negotiation meetings, which take up 75 percent of the city’s budget be public meetings. It did not pass on a 3-8 vote. The majority of the council voted to keep these meetings behind closed doors even though these past meetings are why we have a structural budget deficit.

I have posted the presentation from the meeting on my Council website labeled, 2010-11 Budget Planning – Nov. 5, 2009.

Implementing Proposition 215 in San Jose

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I support an ordinance in San Jose that allows for the cultivation and sale of medical marijuana dispensaries/collectives.

Proposition 215, which was passed with voter approval in 1996,  called for the legalization of Medicinal Marijuana with 56 percent of the voters in favor. Santa Clara County supported this proposition by 64 percent. Since then, the legislature has passed SB420 which dealt with the actual implementation of Medical Marijuana.

In 2008, the State Attorney General presented Guidelines for the Security and Non-diversion of Marijuana Grown for Medical Use. Most recently, on Oct 19, 2009, the Obama administration stated that they are not prosecuting medicinal marijuana in states where it is legal: California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Maine, Rhode Island, Alaska and Hawaii.

I understand that proposing to allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis will raise questions and concerns. This issue did not happen overnight, but rather has taken a pragmatic and thoughtful approach which has included voter approval, state and federal guidelines.

Marijuana for medical use is legal. Thousands of people who are living with painful ailments currently use cannabis for potential deadly diseases like cancer, HIV/AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis and others. It was not unheard of for doctors in the past to have told their patients to have their family members go and purchase marijuana for them, illegally, since the medical benefits of cannabis help the patient.

Currently, San Jose residents travel to San Francisco, Oakland and Santa Cruz to obtain medical marijuana with a doctor’s prescription. However, since this is a legal use and and in my opinion, especially since the voters approved the use, San Jose should adopt some type of ordinance that allows and monitors the use of cannabis collectives in San Jose. In addition, the way that the dispensaries are set up, money is used as an incentive for the City and uses as a deterrent for anyone who would choose to disobey the law.

Medicinal Marijuana Dispensaries will open, whether San Jose has an ordinance or not, and will use the court system to stay open. Most recently the city of Los Angeles which has over 500 dispensaries of which only 186 our licensed, lost their court case in limiting how many could exist in their city. If San Jose sits docile, then dispensaries may open in places where we do not want them to be located. In addition, if medical marijuana dispensaries get the right to deliver their product through the mail, then San Jose would lose any opportunity to gain revenue from taxes and fees.

Last week I submitted a memo that includes the following: directing the planning staff to bring back an ordinance to the city council in four months; use industrial land since typically industrial land is not next to schools or churches. The goal is that this use would add value to industrial property owners who would might be less likely to try and convert their land to housing.

An example of an existing ordinance is the City of Oakland. Oakland voters passed a ballot measure by 80 percent to raise the tax on marijuana to $18 for every $1,000 of sales. My suggestion is to set it at nearly twice as much: $30 for every $1,000 of marijuana sales. I believe that depending on how many dispensaries San Jose would allow could bring in $500K to $1 million to the city. I have suggested that this money be put aside and spent on core services which would be police officers and street maintenance.

Here is a link to the entire memo: 10-27-09 Adopt Ordinance for Legal Medical Cannabis Use San Jose

All About Money on Tuesdays

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A variety of issues were discussed at last week’s council meeting that dealt with city finances. Jennifer Maguire, the Director of our Budget Office, shared that the ending fund balance this year is 1.3 percent. The city has always had an ending fund balance for as long as anyone can remember.

It is both a science and an art trying to guess how variable revenue sources such as sales taxes will end up. The goal is to be conservative so we have a little left over to put in our Economic Uncertainty Reserve. This reserve acts as our savings account.

The money in the reserve is not earmarked for any specific purpose. One never knows when the state of California might take more revenue from the city; therefore, it is important to have money saved “just in case.”

To give you a little flavor of how bad the some our revenue numbers are:
Sales Tax was down 14.5 percent in 2008-2009.
The last two quarters of 2008-2009, Sales Tax dropped by 29.3 percent and 28.2 percent.
TOT (hotel tax) was down 19 percent in 2008-2009.
Construction & Conveyance was down 24 percent in 2008-2009 (down 36 percent in 2007-2008).

After these facts were stated at the council meeting, a paid lobbyist from the union spoke during public comment and lambasted the council for carrying a 1.3 percent ending fund balance. It appears that this person wanted the city to spend all of it’s money and not save any.

As way of background regarding our past surpluses, from 1989-2009, on average we have ended in the black each year with a surplus of 1.8 percent. The highest year was in 2000-01 where we ended with a surplus of 5.6 percent. (There was a huge growth in sales tax that year which contributed to the high number..incidentally, that was when the city used some of the extra money to first establish the Economic Uncertainty Reserve).

The paid union lobbyist that spoke actually worked for the city during the Mayor Hammer years (1989-1996). The average surplus during the Hammer years was 1.3 percent, with a surplus as high as 2.4 percent.

Personally, I don’t think it is prudent to spend every last dollar of the city’s finances; just as I have my own personal savings account, so should the city.

The issue of outsourcing some city services was also discussed. As usual, the council voted down any chance of outsourcing, which is a subject that comes up again and again. I support some outsourcing of non-core city services. I would take the savings that the city would have from outsourcing and either shore up the budget or preferably provide more core services—such as police and libraries—to the residents.

Outsourcing may not equate to laying people off, rather, the current employees might remain. We have attrition at the city, and some city employees could supervise the contractors work. A simple fact is that the city saves $1.2 million a year from having outsourced janitorial for the city hall night shift. With savings like $1.2 million we could either open all branch libraries citywide on Sundays or Mondays or hire 10 police officers. We are simply reallocating money to what we feel is most important, as you do every day.

The debate will continue as the city will be looking at hundreds of layoffs in June of filled positions to balance the $91 million budget deficit.

Another agenda item was the city’s love-hate relationship with our two legal card clubs. These two businesses combined bring the city $13.5 million a year which is half of the citywide library budget. The clubs were looking to move out of San Jose since San Jose’s regulations are tougher then state law. As a result, the council voted to allow fewer restrictions—but still more restrictions than the state requires.

No matter what your view on gambling is, it brings our city a substantial amount of money. People who choose to partake in these activities can do so in San Jose or they may choose to gamble by logging onto the internet. However if everyone chose to gamble on the internet the city would have to cut $13.5 million out of the budget or raise taxes.

Finally, last week’s vote on not exposing police records saved us from cutting city services to the residents. Had that passed it would have created a massive burden on police and the city attorney’s office. We would have had to devote resources to manage the deluge of requests which would mean taking police off the street and attorneys off of litigation which are both core services.

If we really want sunshine then lets make all labor negotiations public meetings. Public meetings would shed light on our city finances and save an incredible amount of time/frustration going back and forth.

On any given Tuesday we could save money, spend money or break even which is essentially do no harm.

Nighttime Public Meeting on Police Issues

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The Public Safety, Finance and Strategic Support Committee, which I sit on, had a special meeting last Wednesday night. Usually, this committee meets during the day. This special meeting was being sponsored by the Independent Police Auditor (IPA) and the City Council stemming from the alleged racial profiling arrests Downtown for pubic intoxication. This is one of two meetings to be held at night to elicit public opinion about our police force. The next one will be spring 2010.

The city manager briefed the audience on the background of what San Jose has been doing to address this issue like police training, working with La Raza Round table and the Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity (CPLE) initiative to study our police force by an academic nature. Also, a new revised citizen complaint process is being worked on by Police Internal Affairs and the IPA. Finally, he described a pilot project with the Taser company for their new product called Axon which is a small camera that police would wear and turn on while arresting individuals.

A card was given out to each speaker that had three questions:

1. What reactions do you have to City efforts to date?
2. What ideas do you have to address policing issues?
3. What do you want to know about police services?

Here are some quotes from speakers at the meeting:

Question 1:
Kathleen:
Proud that we have looked at all sides of the issue, however city leaving out people that support the police and victims rights groups.

Scott:
It is night and day compared to where we were in 2008. It is positive and the vibe Downtown is good.

Thought 2008 was a PR black eye for Downtown. Sean Webby did good reporting. Chief Davis moved on recommendations from the Intoxication Task-force.

Gentleman from Church Ministry:
Positive viewpoint of police.

Kathy:
Mentally ill woman spoke and made no sense. (She is a regular speaker at Council meeting who introduces herself as the US President.)

David:
Appreciates the efforts. Felt that meetings should be held throughout city instead of city hall.

Raj:
Wanted to applaud city mgr and police with improvements on reducing the arrest rate. We still have a way to go like what is the underlying causes between community and police. Get to true community policing. Would like to see city drop Tasers. Look at other arrests other than drunk in public.

Bob:
Not a finger pointer. Feels that some are still pointing fingers at police and that they should communicate and be constructive. Proud of police dept.

Question 2:

Kathleen:
Hire more police officers as they are tired and overworked. Downtown bars need to be more accountable for who they bring to town. Victims rights advocates should be part of every committee. IPA should disclose who they collaborate with since some groups are not viewed as neutral.

Scott:
Constructive conversation is bringing community policing more into alignment.
Downtown Assoc stayed in the conversation with the Intoxication task force and did not walk out like other groups.
Need to keep training up as new people and business come to downtown.

Issa:
Too bad city waited ‘till it was a problem. Son’s car was searched without a need. Disappointed with Chief on his meeting with him. Would like police to use consent forms when doing cars searches. He himself was searched at Starbucks by police. Consent forms for searches his priority.
David:
Friends in minority groups fear that police is not representative of the population.  In SF the police are recruiting at street fair parties. San Jose should do the same and recruit police that are more like the population of the city.

Teresa:
Husband hit by car on The Alameda and helped by police officer home. Good example of community policing.  Community policing helps rid negative connotation of police. Highlight positive experiences. Police should have longer terms in the neighborhood. More training on dealing with individuals with mental illness. More access to public records.

Question 3:

Kathy2:
Commend the city of San Jose for addressing this issue head on. Concern with early intervention workplan. How would the city identify the officers and how often. Represents the NAACP.

Kathleen:
What is being done to involve citizens in community policing? Neighborhood watch and crime prevention are great programs. What is happening to bring youth and police together? More peer counseling where youth would shame others youth from doing bad things.

Open Forum:

Christian:
Disappointed with IPA choices on collaboration with groups that are not neutral. Include victims rights advocates.

David:
Human rights commission is made up of 13 community members. Rep from IPA and Police attend the meetings. If you want to make a complaint then coming to the human rights commission is a good place to do it. Likes Citizens Police Academy and feels city should do more. Also thinks the city should fund human rights commission to do outreach.

Kathy:
Said we were stealing her body parts. Illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs. Council should be charged with embezzlement. The Fairmont Hotel is my hotel and you have not paid me for it yet.

Kathleen:
Thinks there should be more outreach to neighborhoods (all neighborhoods) police do a great job and have caught many of the murderer’s who killed in San Jose. Vigil for police will be an annual event honoring our police.

Issa:
Supports the police. To support it is to help improve it. Take the time to ask police in other cities about consent forms for searches.

Francisco:
(With New Harvest Christian Fellowship) Did not hear about solutions that attack the problem at hand to become more productive citizens. Churches offer programs like a 12 step program with drug and alcohol abuse. We have a family outreach and intervention program that collaborates with 45 business to have a community event. Invited the police however did not attend/support (unclear).

Bobby:
Include the police officers, the Police Officers Association. spoke to 200 youth about opportunities. Sat down with Raj and ACLU to talk and listen. The POA is available to help. Willing to attend the Human Rights commission. Straight Talk.

Paul:
Support the committee’s work. Best city council that we have had in a long time. Sometimes the police are asked to change but are not part of the change; agree with Bobby. Otherwise police get squeezed in the middle. Overall doing a good job since your trying.

On a separate issue and with much sadness but happiness for him and his family, Jim Helmer, the Director of Transportation, retired from the City of San Jose. I personally enjoyed serving with Jim and his supporting team whose main concern is safety for pedestrians and drivers. He will be missed. But have no fear as our new director is Hans Larsen who has a great background and is very capable.