Oliverio for Supervisor 2018

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Regulation Number Five

February 2, 2009 By Pierluigi Oliverio

Last week, the Council spent two and half hours talking about making changes to a 1997 “competition policy.” At the prior Council meeting we spent two-plus hours talking about the same topic.  That policy is already burdensome and makes it difficult for businesses and/or non-profits to jump through all the hoops to do business with the city. I don’t own a business or manage a non-profit, so don’t ask me, ask the only two businesses that tried to utilize the policy during the past 12 years, but to no avail.

I believe that all Council members have the right to bring up topics or policies that they are interested in. I think the Council does a good job of remaining civil towards each other so that we do not disrespect our colleagues who have differences of opinion.

Mayor Reed quoted Winnie the Pooh at the start of the discussion: “Before beginning a hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it.”  The Mayor then asked the Councilmembers who authored a memo seeking changes to the current competition policy what problem is it that they were trying to fix. He asked for one example of something that went wrong that fueled their concerns. No one answered the Mayor’s question or gave one example.

I chose that day to not share opinions but rather just ask questions about the 15 additional proposed regulations to the policy. I asked several questions that took up about eight minutes and thanked my colleagues for their patience. The balance of the 2.5 hours was awkward, with back-and-forth about which group should review, when, how long, process, etc…

I want to thank the council members who brought forward the memo. They have opened the door to limiting campaign donations to city council races. In regulation five (out of 15), the proposal is to restrict campaign donations from any company that may provide an outsourced service to the city.

I understand the intent and agree. But why stop there?

The memo brings up the point that there is a connection between political campaign donations and elected officials’ decisions. Some people believe there is a direct connection between campaign donations and endorsements to an elected official’s voting record on things like contracts, which are covered directly in the competition policy.

Sooo…

Should we ban campaign donations from construction companies that build our community centers and libraries?

Should we ban campaign donations from residential and commercial developers as the Council regulates land use?

Should we ban campaign donations and volunteer time from public sector employee unions as the Council approves wages and benefits?

Should we ban campaign donations from anyone who makes money off city council decisions?

Currently, the only restricted source of campaign funds to San Jose city council races is from Garden City and Bay 101 Card Clubs.

Thank you for opening the door to allowing city council campaigns to one day be free

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Neighborhood Budget Meeting

January 26, 2009 By Pierluigi Oliverio

On Saturday, City Manager Debra Figone and Mayor Chuck Reed hosted 100 neighborhood residents at City Hall for a discussion and group exercise on how to balance the city’s budget and eliminate the $65 million dollar deficit.

The residents who attended represented a large geographic portion of the city. They were both young and old, male and female and represented a wide ethnic diversity. In addition, the residents came from a variety of occupations including private sector and public sector union members.

After welcoming remarks from the city manager and mayor, a facilitator took over and gave everyone an overview. Before the exercise was to begin, the facilitator asked the planning director, police chief, director of parks and director of transportation to give an overview of their departments and the services provided.  Questions from the audience followed.

The group exercise lasted for over a hour. Residents working in teams were given alternatives via colored cards representing different services, etc., that could be cut to help reduce the deficit. Anything from reducing the rate of growth in personnel costs, postponing the opening of new libraries and community centers, holding off hiring new police officers, and eliminating school crossing guards. There were also revenue enhancement options, like a one-quarter-cent sales tax that would require voter approval, increased cost of parking in city garages, restructured leases with non-profits on city property, increasing parking citation fees, etc.

The groups engaged each other in considering the pros and cons of each idea. One group made a pile that consisted of “absolutely no,” and an “absolutely yes” pile, and then a large “maybe” pile to help them get started. Some groups talked about what they liked about their neighborhood and city today before starting the process.

Some groups reached quick consensus while others had long discussions on the impact of choices. There were blank cards available where the residents were able to register their own cost-cutting ideas or revenue-generating ideas. The city manager and the specific department head would review the ideas and if doable would sign off on them. If not possible at all (such as a suggestion to raise gas taxes) then the idea would not be signed off.

If groups needed more information about a specific choice they would put up a red sheet and the department head would answer the question and in many cases the budget director was able to provide dollar figures for the new idea.

I observed from start to finish, roaming around and listening in on the dialogue. Credit goes to Mayor Reed for proposing this idea of neighborhood budget meeting, which is now in its third year. Residents that had participated in the last two years thought this one was the best. A resident from Evergreen said that interaction was great and the high level of choices made it engaging. I agree that the exercise was positive and believe as we continue to have residents sharing their views it will continue to be better each year.

Out of the 10 groups that participated, only one group did not balance the budget, with only $62 million in savings. However, they did not raise taxes. Several groups exceeded the goal and went as high as $75 million, which is likely to be the actual deficit come June. When they could not agree with a choice they would vote the idea up or down and move on. The groups worked well together as they understood the seriousness of the current recession.

After the group exercise there was a group discussion to share feedback on the exercise and what happened at each table. Here are some of the comments from the table captains in no specific order that were shared to the group at large:

• Make aggressive wage cuts.
• Everyone needs to sacrifice.
• Hire a full-time person just to do grant writing.
• Don’t cut crime prevention and gang intervention.
• Reduce benefits packages for city employees.
• Salary freeze for anyone making over 100K, like Obama’s staff.
• Have DOT parking staff give out tickets and have cars towed instead of police in neighborhoods.
• If you want to propose a new program or building, come up with the money to fund it ongoing or don’t propose it.
• Use furloughs to save money and not do lay-offs
• Outsource street landscape maintenance.
• Use contractors instead of employees.
• Don’t allow retirees to come back and work as consultants while they get paid their pension.
• Nightclubs should cover police costs.
• Focus more on economic development.

One resident said that it is easier for her to make these decisions as a resident since there is no political backlash. Another resident said the elephant in the room is the public employee unions and that we’re not fixing the real problem of our expenses being too high.

The residents’ feedback and new ideas from the neighborhood budget meeting will be discussed at a Feb. 13 city council study session.  In addition, a phone survey asking even more residents across the City about their budget priorities will be available in the next few weeks.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Three-Day-a-Week Services?

January 19, 2009 By Pierluigi Oliverio

Last week, Mayor Reed held his State of the City Address. And I think the mayor was forthright by clearing stating that the City of San Jose has a large deficit, and that cuts to services and layoffs are before us. In fact, I believe that the current $60-65 million budget deficit will worsen and grow to $70-75 million.

Just look at what is happening. Consumer spending is down, which affects sales tax revenues. Fewer properties are selling, which affects the conveyance tax. And property values are plummeting, which will affect property tax revenues for the next two or three years.

The deficit is larger then the entire Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services budget and more then twice the library budget.

Last week, I attended the library commission where the impact of the budget deficit was discussed.  All departments except public safety are being asked to find 22 percent of their budgets to cut. For the library, this means $5.3 million out of an approximate $28 million budget.

One idea that was raised at the meeting and quickly approved by the library commission is to double the fine for late books and videos. The fines would go from 25 cents a day to 50 cents a day and the maximum fine would increase to $20. This could raise $800,000. (Assuming library patrons do not change their behavior and still return their books late. Inevitably, if a fee or fine is increased it will change behavior and thus less fines may occur.)

Nonetheless, even with this fee increase, it still leaves the Library Director $4.5 million to cut.

Last year, the library spent around $3.5 million on books, magazines, and videos (of which $500,000 is spent on non-English items). The materials budget fluctuates each year based on revenue that is dependent on you and I buying and selling homes and a parcel tax on homeowners.

If the City no longer bought books, we would still be$1 million short.  And this option would not even close the gap, since the money for books is somewhat restricted and cannot be spent on personnel or other things besides materials.

The other option on the table is to reduce hours—actually, reduce days—for the neighborhood branch libraries.  The thought is to have those libraries open only three days a week, with the various branch libraries rotating days. For example, the Almaden library would be open Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and closed the rest of the week. Then the Cambrian Library would be open Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Today our neighborhood branch libraries are open 5.5 days a week. Incidentally, they have seen increasing book circulation, and more residents using the computer services as unemployment rises.

Please note that the three city-owned golf courses have not cut their hours, and are open all week in case you want to take your kids there to do their homework or read their library books.

This is just one example of how you may be affected starting in July when the council adopts a budget in June.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Paper or Plastic? That’ll Cost You a Quarter.

January 12, 2009 By Pierluigi Oliverio

Last week, I attended in the Santa Clara County Cities Association. This association has a representative from every city in Santa Clara County. In my view, a good portion of the time is spent uniting all the cities to advocate state and federal policy- makers on policies or bills that help Santa Clara county cities.  At this meeting, the Recycling and Waste Reduction Commission (RWRC) of Santa Clara County presented the concept of banning plastic bags. The idea is to come up with a policy that could be adopted uniformly through the entire county. But each city would have to adopt and implement the policy. The hope is that each city would adopt it as is or with limited changes, so that the entire county would be on the same page by April 22nd of this year (Earth Day).

The representative from Monte Sereno said that city’s council is in favor of it, but later confessed that they actually don’t have commercial stores that would be effected…funny.

So, the problem as you many know, is that plastic bags litter the environment, clog drains, take centuries to decompose and for the most part cannot be recycled. Also, these single-use bags, plastic or paper, require higher consumption of natural resources, generate greenhouse gases, and use petroleum which we as a country typically import from countries that we don’t always trust.

After stakeholder input was completed, the RWRC came up with the idea that both paper and plastic bags would no longer be free. That by charging for single-use bags we would modify the behavior of consumers to instead use a reusable bag. The thought is that under this new policy, if you were to go to a grocery store or retail store and did not have your reusable hemp bag, then you would pay 25 cents for a plastic or paper bag. If you were doing a big shopping spree at the grocery store and needed 12 bags you would only have to pay for the first eight for a maximum charge of $2 per visit. The 25 cents would be split between the store and the government. The store would get five cents and the county or the city would get 20 cents. The 20 cents would go toward enforcement of the new policy. It is not clear whether the county would enforce the implementation or the city. Who do you think would be more or less effective to oversee this new policy, if adopted—cities or the county?  (Personally, I picture Boss Hogg of the show Dukes of Hazzard doing the enforcement).

The 25 cents would essentially be a fee passed on to the consumer which could only be spent on enforcement of the policy since it is a fee and not a general-purpose tax. The average consumer uses 300 bags a year which would be $75. Would $75 change your behavior? Would you carry a large over sized IKEA like bag with you to Valley Fair or Oakridge?

Exemptions would be on produce/fish/poultry/beef or take-out food. Also, people on welfare would be exempt from paying.
I don’t remember ever getting a bag at Costco; they usually just stack everything in the cart or some random odd-shaped cardboard box and then I shove the items all over the car and do 20 trips back and forth between my car and my kitchen.

From my perspective, there is value in a plastic bag after you purchase something. I just used plastic bags to put away all my Christmas lights. I also use them to pick up dog poo. Actually, I keep a couple bags in my car so when I see an irresponsible dog owner who lets their dog poop on someones yard without cleaning it up I pull up and ask them if they need a bag for the gift they just left the resident. So far they all say yes.

My Dad, who grew up during the depression, loves plastic bags to organize all his clutter that he keeps because he does not like to throw things away (you know the type). I can imagine my Dad in the future at the Safeway parking lot selling his extra plastic bags out of his trunk for 10 cents each.

Charging for bags will not end litter. The only way to solve litter is by having Singapore-style laws where the penalties are high enough to discourage deviant behavior even when no one is looking. In the end, if I find value in the plastic bag then I am OK with paying for it. What about you? We are still in the outreach phase so what do you think?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Welcome to 2009, San Jose

January 5, 2009 By Pierluigi Oliverio

2008 was certainly a roller-coaster ride. From the rise and fall of oil to the housing market collapse and finally the recession. 2009 will be a challenging year for each and every one one of us.

The City of San Jose will have a newer City Council. What I mean by newer is that six out of 11 members will have two years experience or less on the council, including Pete Constant, Sam Liccardo, Kansen Chu, Ash Kalra, Rose Herrera and myself.  Councilmembers Herrera and Kalra are the newest members, replacing eight-year veterans Dave Cortese and Forest Williams.

The 2009 San Jose city council will be unique in that four of the 11 members will be under 40. I am not a historian of the San Jose City Council but four under 40 certainly seems to be historic for our council. The under-40 club includes Councilmembers Kalra, Liccardo, Madison Nguyen and myself.

In addition, the council has wide racial diversity, with Chinese, Greek, Indian, Italian, Latina and Vietnamese, among others, represented. Also: Of the 10 council members, the make up is half female and half male.

Some insiders try to size up the council based on their endorsements during their political campaigns, or on whether some council members are labor or chamber players, or on the political left or on the political right. In the end, the 2009 council will need to solve big problems, and in my view will need to pull together solutions for residents of San Jose, and not interest groups.

The council has a full plate in 2009 and the years thereafter. As we work to balance the current $65 million shortfall in the budget. ($65 million is the same amount the City spent on the Hayes Mansion about 10 years ago without voter approval,) We will be working through the ongoing structural deficit, implementing the Green Vision, and making wise land use decisions.

I am looking forward to being part of this new council. Although the future is a bit bleak; I have high hopes that San Jose has good representation in it’s elected officials and will do great work.

The first challenge in front of us is the budget. I hope you plan on attending Mayor Reed’s Neighborhood Priority Setting meeting on Jan. 24, from 9am-noon at City Hall (free parking). It is important that you provide your feedback on how you would like to see the City spend the money it does have, and perhaps on how the City can deliver services differently.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Four-Day Work Week

December 29, 2008 By Pierluigi Oliverio

Hope your Christmas and Hanukkah holidays were enjoyable. City Hall is closed from Dec. 24 through Jan. 5 for the annual furlough. Like many people, I am spending time with family and reconnecting with friends. I have known many of my friends since San Jose grammar school in the 1970s and ’80s, so that puts us in the 35-45 age range. Most of my friends are married with children and both parents or partners work. Our discussions usually include catching up and memories of the past. This year, however, our conversations were mostly about the economy.

Many of my friends felt pretty bleak about 2009. Some were hoping that they could fast forward to Christmas 2009 just to get away from the recession. They were pessimistic since they knew that sales results for this quarter were poor and forecasts for next year are down. Also, their own companies (like their customers) are putting off spending. Nearly everyone I’ve spoken to over the holidays have told me their companies did an RIF (reduction in force). Also, they felt more layoffs were coming.

One friend told me that his employer went from 400 employees to 220 over the span of 2008, and come January 2009, they are going to do a 50 percent layoff. The company did not want to lay people off just before the holiday, so they chose to wait till the first week of January. The reason? No orders from customers. And these same customers were poised to do layoffs as well. My friends chatted about not wanting to get laid off since the prospects for a new job are not bright.

One employer went to a four-day week so the company could save money (survive) but keep their talent. When this topic came up, nearly everyone said that they would rather have the four-day-a-week job, making less money, then have to roll the dice on a new job. They also felt that three-day weekends would be relaxing. However, they would need to hold back on discretionary spending to cover their basic expenses. A few thought it better to have 80-85 percent of your salary and an extra day to start interviewing.

Many European companies are switching to a four-day work week. The goal is that companies will be able to reduce their costs (payroll and carbon footprint) and provide an additional rest day. Economic conditions in Europe, exemplified by weak market demands and high levels of productivity, have made this idea more popular. Companies have been able to minimize the number of layoffs with the shortened workweek. However, this involves more working hours per day, but most in Silicon Valley would admit that they already work more then eight hours in a day.  Rumor has it that Cisco, National Semiconductor and Oracle are looking at four-day work weeks.

If your employer asked you in January to switch to four-day work week with a pay cut, would you say yes or hit the road? If you said no: Would you go out and find another job in your industry or career change? If you said yes: Would you enjoy that extra day of free time or be too stressed on making your basic payments? Should government hold back payroll spending during recessions to avoid layoffs and switch to a four-day work week, like the city of Atlanta?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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Merc News condemns Unions

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