Oliverio for Supervisor 2018

Independent - Transparent - Fiscally Responsible

Police Budget: We Get, You Get

By

For this weeks blog, I am continuing the discussion about providing a fixed percentage of the budget towards police. A nickname for this might be, “We Get, You Get.” The name refers to when the aggregate budget grows, then funding for the most critical service a city can provide—police—would grow. (Providing a sewer system is a close second for the most critical service).

Some may say, “What happens if the total budget doubles? Then we would be spending too much on police?” My first thought to this question is, “So what?” So what if the budget grows and additional police officers and other related expenses of police force could be added.

But let’s start with reality. The reality is local government will not have a windfall or increased tax revenues. Property values are not going to catapult and consumer spending is finicky, as it has recently stalled. We may indeed see the growth of tax revenues outpace expenses after pension reform, but it will certainly not be double. So, if tax revenues for the general fund do grow 10 percent, then police would get an additional 10 percent. If we have a severe recession and revenues fall, then the police department would have to choose how best to handle it by possibly postponing purchases of equipment or not filling positions left vacant by retirement.

Back to my main point: There is insatiable demand for police services; from stopping the most egregious violent crime to issuing speeding citations. If we value the ability to walk down the street and know that criminals’ fear of police will stop an assault on an innocent person, then that is a good problem to have.

Too often elected officials are asked to choose between one program and another. Rather than eliminating discretionary spending across the board, more often cuts are implemented. However, at some point a city’s core competency suffers. A fixed percentage of the budget would allow for funding to be on autopilot.

Some may say, “Why not carve out other city departments at a fixed percentage?” Nonsense. At some point we have to choose one over another, and police provide the most value. That value translates to safety and, if marketed well, economic development. Coming up with a formula for more than one department would never happen and I do not believe residents would support it.

WeePeeCeePee

By

image
The water treatment plant in Alviso will soon be able to make wastewater potable. Robert Dawson photo.

Last week, the City Council moved forward with an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the water pollution control plant often referred to verbally as “weepeeceepee” (WPCP).  The plant and the land are jointly owned by San Jose and the City of Santa Clara.

There are competing interests on what to do with the area surrounding the plant. Some would like all of open space land preserved for natural habitat for the burrowing owl and other animals. Others would like to the area devoted to large parks with trail connectivity. Still others look to this as an area where San Jose could add office and retail opportunities to increase the tax base.

A permanent decision will most likely not be made until the EIR is completed in a couple years. However, what we do know now is that we must spend some money on updating the WPCP so that it continues to work and comply with federal regulations.

Perhaps with such a great land mass, there might be something for everyone?  Would it be possible to have land for jobs, open space and a park?  Do we try to please everyone or choose one option and stick with it?

Speakers from Alviso spoke about their concerns regarding added traffic to their area and shared concerns that any new retail would take away from the limited existing retail that is currently in Alviso.

This area is also where the advanced water treatment plant is being built that will take waste water and turn into clean potable water. Actually, this water will be cleaner than current tap water and certainly bottled water. This simple fact is important in the education process of consumers in water consumption. It is expected to open in June 2012.

Staff shared an extensive power point at the council meeting that I have placed on my council website as I have done with other staff presentations for you to view. The presentation is more visual and perhaps easier to understand than a long report so I encourage you to click on this link: City of San Jose District 6 Staff Presentations. From there, click on Water Pollution Control Plant Master Plan: April 19, 2011 to view and learn more.  This power point is the bulk of this weeks blog. Appreciate any comments you can provide from what you discern on the power point presentation.

On another topic, the District 1 and 3 budget meetings had comments from actual residents this week. To summarize, people wanted the council to fix the structural budget problem so we can restore services in the future. A woman at the District 3 meeting, who is a volunteer at a community center, said she and her neighbors understand that the City has no money and to “Just do your best and God bless.”

Paint Over Walls Or Paradigms?

By

image
Graffiti abatement in San Jose costs the Parks & Rec department $1.7 million per year. Local residents occasionally chip in to help.

I attended the District 5 (D5) community budget meeting last week—it was the third D5 community budget meeting I’ve attended. Approximately 50 people were there, with the majority being city employees.  Many of the speakers shared emotional testimonials.

One speaker stood out to me. She shared how cutting of library hours from 4.5 days to three days a week would cause a large burden to her neighborhood. She teaches music at the Hillview Library and is close to the youth who rely on the existing library. She said keeping library hours open in her neighborhood was important since she feels her neighborhood has a higher need than other areas.

This theme was prevalent. Another woman brought up that since D5 has a higher crime rate, then why not keep D5 libraries open and close District 10 (D10) libraries since crime is low there? I have asked the same question before. Should library hours be based on need? How do we determine the need? Crime stats? Census date by race and income?

Another person was concerned about the police layoffs and how they need more police in D5. Truth is we do allocate more police to D5 than D10, for example.  Since there are more calls for service in D5 than D10 our police force plans accordingly.

Another felt D5 had not gotten its fair share of capital projects compared to other districts. This one would take some research but I think it is fair to say between the Redevelopment Agency spending through the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative ($105 million for a third of San Jose), Fire Station 2, Mayfair Community Center, Alum Rock Library, Hillview Library, Mexican Heritage Plaza, to name some projects, the last 10-15 years was better for D5 than the previous period of historical neglect.

The other major issue of the night was the option of outsourcing to save money and retain a city service. The one that got the most discussion was outsourcing the anti-graffiti painting currently performed by city employees.  It was felt that the painting of walls was too important to outsource and instead should only be done city employees. Currently it costs $1.7 million to do this service and the Parks Recreation Neighborhood Services (PRNS) Department (which runs this program) estimates it could be done for $1.1 million which equates to $600,000 in savings by keeping the service but providing it a different way.

The employees who perform this work have shown up at each budget meeting to speak against the outsourcing. This service is really needed in D5; I witnessed to and from the meeting that there was substantial tagging. The sheer amount of tagging I witnessed gave the appearance that the City does not offer this service today. Speakers at the meeting felt that city staff would work harder than a private contractor. One option might be to outsource half of the city to a private contractor and the other half to city employees and judge it in a year. However, this would not generate the total savings needed to balance the department budget and thus provide this service.

The savings in outsourcing park maintenance looks even higher. The current cost for only maintaining small parks under two acres and park bathrooms is $4.1 million where if it was outsourced it is estimated to be only $1.3 million for a savings of $2.8 million.

I understand that some people will lose their current job through outsourcing and may go to work for the private contractor earning less, but the City’s responsibility is to provide services for 950,000 residents. The employees who may lose their job did nothing wrong, it’s just a sign of the times that the City needs to re-look how it can continue services and save money. The City saved $4 million last year outsourcing janitorial at the Airport and City Hall and everything is just as clean.

Last week, at the District 7 (D7) budget meeting, a career Navy veteran advocated for opening the Seven Trees library, which is completed but not yet open. However he went on to say that there should be immediate changes to the pension system. He mentioned how he receives a 30 percent pension for 25 years serving our country in the military.

A Tap on the Shoulder

By

The citywide Community Budget meetings started last week with the city manager and other city department heads in attendance to answer questions. Ten public meetings will be held with one meeting in each Council district.

This first meeting was held in District 2 with approximately 100 people in attendance. From my perspective of recognizing faces, listening to questions and subsequent applause, approximately 80 percent of those in attendance were city employees. The high ratio of employees is understandable, since most employees would attend a meeting if their employer was discussing layoffs.

Government has a much softer and proactive approach to layoffs than the private sector.  For example, I was laid off twice myself due to market downturns and in both cases I did not have advanced notification that I would be let go.  Instead, I, like many, got a tap on the shoulder from HR and a two-week severance check.  Although it is stressful to know that layoffs are looming, at least one can plan accordingly rather than having the HR shoulder-tap, which, unfortunately happens often in private sector.

The mayor spoke at the meeting and answered questions from the audience. After he finished, Ed Shikada, our assistant city manager, walked through a presentation of the budget deficit and some of the alternative cuts that might be selected by the city manager in arriving at a balanced budget.  The presentation was followed by Q and A. This week there will be meetings in District 5 and 7.

There was a survey card that was distributed at the end of the meeting that asked a few questions. I put the five questions on the internet for you to answer in case you are unable to attend the nine remaining meetings: 2011 San Jose citywide Community Budget meetings.

Also,  last week San Jose welcomed a new clean tech company to North San Jose. Wrightspeed Inc., designs digital drive systems to replace conventional power trains for commercial vehicles. Trucks that have Wrightspeed drive systems installed do not consume as much fuel, providing cost savings to the vehicle fleet. California spends $150 million a day on fuel, placing the state in third place globally for consumption of fuel, behind the United States as a whole and China.

Why would Wrightspeed, which started in Burlingame, move its 20-plus employees, mostly engineers, to San Jose? The company moved to San Jose because of our Office of Economic Development. Wrighstpeed was part of the Clean Tech Open that the City of San Jose sponsored (marketing). A connection was made by staff at the event (sales), who kept in touch with Wrightspeed.

When it came to looking for a new building, our staff facilitated a search and found a building within our Enterprise Zone which makes Wrightspeed eligible for state tax credits on hiring new employees. (Gov. Brown has proposed eliminating Enterprise Zones). In addition, San Jose has a foreign trade zone which allows Wrightspeed to import sub assemblies from Europe without tariffs, to put into their end product. Wrightspeed will also generate sales tax for the city of San Jose since they sell a physical object.

It is important to always be focused on growing our economic pie but it does not always happen if a city does not have a sales team.

Comments on Firefighters Contract

By

image
San Jose’s Fire Station 6 was put on the chopping block in 2008.

Last week the council took up the firefighters union contract with more than 100 firefighters in attendance. I thought I would share why I voted no.
First, I think it is clear that if you have worked in city government over the years that things are drastically changing due to structural budget deficits. Second, if you are new to working in city government, you will most likely not have the same career as those before you.
I remember when I was a candidate for city council and meeting with the fire union. We covered a variety of topics but I always remember this question: “How would you help us with city management on wage and benefit negotiations.” I recall saying that I would attend the union negotiations myself. They were quite happy and said that was a great response. However, the firefighters union did not inform me then of the reality that labor negotiations are not open to council members.

I appreciated the 10 percent concession and was surprised that it did not go through binding arbitration. I believe the new interim president of the union is a sincere person.

Even with the 10 percent and after vacancies and retirements, we will still lay off more than 30 firefighters. However, the larger item which remains is minimum staffing for fire engines. I have brought up the minimum staffing issue in council meetings, committee meetings and budget meetings.

The LAFCO report on all Santa Clara County fire departments shows that San Jose is the only city in the county that has four firefighters on an engine. Also looking at the same report it shows we have an over 25-to-1 ratio in calls for medical vs. fire.
I believe we should lower the amount of medical calls when council approves the ambulance contract with the County.  County government, by state law, controls the ambulance contracts. We should stop having our fire fighters respond to calls that are not necessary, like those at the county jail, since they already have medical personnel at the jail. In addition, low priority alpha and bravo medical calls should be left to ambulances.

Other cities as mentioned above are able to make do with three on an engine. We may want four on an engine and we may even want five, but we cannot afford it. This does not mean every engine would have three instead of four, as not all stations are equally busy, and therefore it provides the flexibility to keep stations open.  Residents are not so concerned if there are three or four on a engine, but they do care if the station is open or closed.

Because of minimum staffing requirements in the recently accepted fire contract and the unavoidable layoffs, we would close fire stations.

Back in 2008, when Station 6 was a line item to be sold in the city budget with zero notification to residents, I initiated the policy passed by the Council that mandates mailed notification to residents and two evening public meetings with the presentation of data for the primary service area when fire stations are proposed to be closed. Most importantly, it does not allow a station closure to be included in the budget prior to the prescribed outreach. Before this policy fire stations could be sold/closed with no notice.
So like the Communications Hill neighborhood, which now has a closed fire station, other fire stations somewhere in San Jose will need to be closed due to minimum staffing. It is unfair to residents that we close stations when they can remain open with one less person to maintain response times based on distance.

If the council does not want to see fire engines taken out of service than we will need to makes cuts elsewhere. The most likely place for those cuts will be our police department, with the laying off of police officers.
We do not have a minimum staffing requirement applied to police cars for police officers. If police run short on a shift they do not say “let’s stop patrolling in Almaden or Berryessa.” We do not have minimum staffing for our libraries. We do not have minimum staffing for our planning department to process an application for development.
This comes down to what is most important for San Jose in 2011 with the limited taxpayer dollars that are available to allocate. For me the answer is simple. It is police. Police enforce the social contract. No one else does.

The social contract allows individuals to be free from harm and intimidation.

The social contract allows the weak to be protected.

We cannot do everything. In fact we can’t even do both…police or fire. So we have to choose.
This fire union contract makes the fire department the number-one priority in the city budget by maintaining minimum staffing on fire engines. I cannot say this is my number-one priority nor my residents’ number-one priority when we provide multiple services to residents.
With that said, I vote against funding charities even when they are great organizations; they are not in the city charter. In addition to voting against the Hayes Mansion, golf courses, million dollar IT projects gone wrong or championing $1.475 million in cost avoidance on a current IT project. I voted against $1.3 million on golf nets, rezoning industrial land to residential, affordable housing that does not pay property tax. And I support outsourcing of services like janitorial to save money for core services.
I think it is wrong for myself as an elected official to make promises to every group or specific union when the reality is restricted resources do not allow promises to be kept.

Where to Draw the Line?

By

The 2010 Census data came out and the good news, from my perspective, is the population of San Jose is not one million people but instead 945,942. However, I am told there is under-counting as some residents do not want to be counted. Our population growth rate has slowed to 5.7 percent as opposed to 37 percent in the 1970’s. The average people per household city wide is 3.14, however the average number of people per household in District 5 is 4.5.

This census data will be used by the Redistricting Advisory Commission to make suggestions to the City Council on how the council district boundaries should be redrawn. Each Councilmember appointed a district resident to the commission and the Mayor appointed the chair. The goal is to have the Council districts relatively even in population by plus or minus 5 percent. The commission may take major boundaries into consideration like freeways or railroad lines, as well as non-physical boundaries like school attendance areas. The commission is having a public meeting tonight (March 14) at 6:30pm at City Hall to the discuss the data.

The council district populations as of the 2010 Census are as follows:
District 1: 88,645
District 2: 92,314
District 3: 93,896
District 4: 102,976
District 5: 90,863
District 6: 100,236
District 7: 97,868
District 8: 101,108
District 9: 88,853
District 10:  89,183

Council District 1,9 and 10 will expand boundaries to gain population while districts 4,6 and 8 will contract to lose population. For example, District 4 would need to shed an area that contains 3,652 residents while District 1 needs to expand the district to gain 1,219 residents. Whether it is expansion or contraction some residents will get a new councilperson. I have found for some residents this is a big deal and for others it does not matter. Would it matter to you?

The 2010 Census also tracks data on race and uses terms like White and Hispanic. District 9 had the highest White population. While District 4 had the highest Asian population and District 5 the highest Hispanic population. Districts 2 and 6 tied for the highest African American population.

Should the redistricting commission recommend that Council district boundaries are changed to achieve nearly equal distribution by race?

Mayor Reed came out with the Budget Message for the Council on Friday, March 11. If you want to read more than what can be covered by the media follow that link.

The Mayor’s budget message is quite serious in the challenges we face. As we look at the devastation in Japan I believe it is important to not drain our limited financial reserves in case of a natural disaster in San Jose.