Oliverio for Supervisor 2018

Independent - Transparent - Fiscally Responsible

Influence of Society on Career Choices

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When I was a kid, I would watch the old 1950’s show, The Honeymooners. I remember one scene where the main characters, Ralph and Ed, were talking about future vocations for their children. Ralph spoke about his child going to college, while Ed said—if he had a boy—that he would get him a job working with him side by side in the sewer. At that point, the audience laughs and Ralph’s eyes bulge out. He yells that Ed is nuts for suggesting a career in the sewer.

Although parents and their children may not always agree, more often than not parents only want the best for their children. For example, it is not unusual for a parent to want their child to be a doctor or a lawyer because these occupations often offer prestige, autonomy and good pay. These occupations require an academic education rather than trade school. The 1967 film “The Graduate” comes to mind when Mr. McGuire says to Ben, “Just one word. Are you listening? Plastics. There is a great future in plastics.”

For many high school graduates, college may not be pursued. Like Ed in the Honeymooners, many in society are employed in vocations that use a trade and/or manual labor that is also mentally challenging.

Last week, the City Council approved spending money from sewer fees—not the general fund—to hire a private company for the next year to assist at the Water Pollution Control plant. These private contractors will be used to augment city staff and do tasks that current city employees will choose in the near future not to do. The contractor will also provide relief for city employees to take vacations.

In 2007, when I started on the council, I heard over and over again that the plant employees were predominantly baby boomers and that getting new staff would be a challenge. Why though? Is it not just like filling a job in any other organization?

This takes me back to the Honeymooners analogy. Out of the general population, not many people were pursuing working in the sewer system because society did not deem it a positive career. We do know that these positions require a learned skill set over time and the jobs pay well and it is literally lifetime employment.

The general public has become more interested in sewers with the connection to keeping our environment clean. I believe individuals may choose a previously overlooked vocation in the sewer system once they understand the salary and job security. However, this will not change in weeks or months; it will most likely take time to garner the skill set for senior positions.

As I have written before, there is an opportunity for veterans returning to the USA if they choose to obtain work with the city. Or, perhaps it is the chronic unemployed who get laid off during every economic downturn and want more stability. Perhaps a better use of an outside contract would go to a company to help the city set up an apprentice program, so people with entry-level skills could learn the ropes and all the positions are permanently filled.

In an organization like the city, which has thousands of employees, 11 unions and a litany of job titles, it is nearly impossible to pay certain positions more within a union because it requires negotiation. If one job classification has people who work in the Water Pollution Control Plant and also work in City Hall, the increased salary must go to both even though they are inherently two different jobs. In any other organization you could simply raise the salary of that specific job, but that is not the case in municipal government. This instead must be dealt with in the long, arduous and secretive meet-and-confer process with the union.

Issues like this one would seem to be an easy matter, where the discussion could be held in public so we could get to “yes” faster and allow everyone to understand the details easily.

The Importance of Santana Row

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Ten years since it opened, Santana Row remains a premiere destination and tax revenue jackpot for San Jose.

Santana Row will be celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year. It has provided a new destination for Bay Area residents as well as additional tax revenue for San Jose.

Santana Row is a unique place that draws people from outside of San Jose and has people talking about it across the country. People I know who typically did not visit San Jose years ago do frequent Santana Row today. The same visitors spend money while enjoying themselves in the 95128 zip code. The cultural diversity at Santana Row is amazing, with nearly every nationality represented and many first-generation immigrant families strolling The Row day and night.

To some it is a “Disney Downtown,” because it was fabricated from the ground up. To others it was a development that slowed down the potential of our own downtown. One could argue that an expanded Valley Fair mall did more to impede retail growth in downtown.

To me, Santana Row is a success. As much as I enjoy urban centers like our downtown, I also enjoy the sheer intensity of Santana Row with approximately 1,000 on-site residents and a hotel, offices, restaurants, marquee retail, movie theater, tall buildings, etc. All of these things together make Santana Row unique.

I have heard Santana Row brought up many times in reference to urban planning, and that it is ideal for pedestrians—there something interesting to be seen by the walker. Residents across San Jose often voice opinions about potential new developments in their own neighborhood and ask if they could get something like Santana Row. It would be nearly impossible to replicate, however, the principle of significant housing over retail and office is a good one and promoted in our newly adopted General Plan.

The millions in sales tax revenues generated from Santana Row is often discussed and the good fortune it brings San Jose. One example is when people buy a Tesla car from the store at Santana Row. The Tesla store at Santana Row has broken foot traffic records and is second in the world for actual sales of the electric car out of nearly 20 stores worldwide. The assessed value of this parcel and surrounding parcels skyrocketed through private development, which brings property tax revenue to many levels of government.

Besides direct sales tax and property tax revenues, Santana Row provides the opportunity to capture high-paying jobs through the development of substantial new office space. On Tuesday, the City Council will consider approving a large office building at Santana Row instead of housing. This new 240,000 square foot office building will provide an attractive option to companies locating in San Jose. Some companies will view Santana Row as a perfect fit for their employees and clients, because they can simply stroll to great amenities. Also, the opportunity for a company to have its brand shown with massive visibility is better than an office park.

As other cities to the north have developed new office parks, this impedes San Jose’s ability to draw in new, fast-growing companies from the peninsula that are searching for office space. The new office parks to the north entice companies that are looking for new space that in the past would have gone to North San Jose. However, Santana Row is a true differentiator, as the new office parks in other cities have virtually nowhere to go for the employee by foot—only by car.

The net new job potential of Santana Row is why I strongly opposed the rezoning of land last year from commercial to residential adjacent to Santana Row. Keeping the space open for business provided another opportunity for a potential corporate headquarters.

I still root for our downtown—especially August 10-12 for the Jazz Festival—but we should not miss opportunities at Santana Row.

Pierluigi Oliverio is a San Jose councilmember for District 6

Prioritizing Future City Spending

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At the upcoming Aug. 7 City Council meeting, the discussion will focus on how to prioritize city spending IF revenues increase. So, in the example below, if revenues increase by $10 million—either by revenue growth or tax increase—this is how I think it should be spent by percentage. We will still be spending money on all of the city services included in the current budget, however, this example is for future potential revenue that is above the budget passed in June:

53% — Police $5.3M
15% — Road Paving $1.5M
5% — Planning, Building & Code Enforcement $500K
4% — Libraries $400K
2% — Tree Planting & Tree Trimming by Our City Forest $200K
2% — City Attorney’s Office $200K
2% — Information Technology $200K
2% — Pedestrian & Bicycle Safety-slowing cars down in neighborhoods $200K
3% — Pay down Debt $300K
2% — Save Money for Rainy Day Fund $200K
10% — Discretion of City Manager with Approval by Council to be Distributed to Human Resources, Finance, Public Works, Economic Development and/or a Need That Becomes Apparent in the Future $1M

There is no extra allocation for the Fire Dept., as Fire Chief William McDonald and staff have been successful in obtaining federal grants. Federal grants are great in the short term, but they will make it more difficult to allocate future funds to hiring police officers—which is why the majority of future revenue is allocated to police. In addition, I agree with the 2011 Santa Clara Civil Grand Jury that San Jose could utilize three firefighters on a fire engine like every other city in the county. The data in San Jose shows that calls for service are 4 percent structural fires and 96 percent non-fire calls, mostly medical. Any cost savings from realigning resources to match call data should go to police.

We need to allocate general fund dollars to the Planning Department rather than increasing and relying on fees. Development can be sped up this way, increasing our tax base and private sector employment base to fund city services. Funding of Code Enforcement to keep our city safe/looking good and also could bring in revenue by assessing fines to irresponsible property owners—especially apartments that are ill kept.

Adding some funding to libraries is good, but much more can be done with volunteers to keep the doors open than is done today.

One way to make San Jose more visually attractive is through more tree planting, including maintenance, which also has other positive environmental attributes. Putting 5 percent aside to pay down high interest debt and save for a rainy day fund is prudent. Allocating something, even though small for Information Technology, must be done to achieve efficiencies and put a down payment on upgrading the financial software of the city to enable more sharing of financial information with the public.

The city manager, as chief operating officer, needs flexibility in allocating funds where the council or general public may not be aware of the need today. Of course, any action should require Council approval, but 10 percent between so many different needs may not provide enough. The city manager will have to make do.

Borrow or Pay Out of Pocket?

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The Council last week made the second SERAF payment to the state. SERAF is where the State raided all RDA coffers in California—again—in our case taking $75 million from San Jose.

The state allows payment of the SERAF to come from the housing department if a city chooses to do so.  This second payment of $13 million is due this week so Council had to decide to pay or perhaps not pay or even to cease RDA operations.  I have advocated paying the state with housing department funds.

What was decided, however, was to issue commercial paper to replenish the housing department as a way to finance the payment. Yet there is more than $13 million on hand in the housing department that would not require borrowing.

Ultimately the general fund is at stake for commercial paper, in the same way that the general fund is on the hook for the Hayes Mansion and golf courses.

I voted no, since I felt “Why borrow when you have cash in your pocket?” We do not get “miles” or some other reward for borrowing.

I understand that we would not be able to continue with two more affordable housing projects if we did not borrow, but felt that was OK since neither project will be paying property tax to pay for city services. I could contemplate borrowing if we were going to get something like road repair but in making a payment to the state I would rather just pay it and be done with it.

RDA was not meant to last forever but the recent settlement with the County of Santa Clara, which included the old city hall and was approved in closed session, makes closing the RDA even more complicated.

What Happens in Vegas…

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The saying, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” can be said for the City of San Jose’s closed session meetings. In a prior blog, I wrote about what I could of closed sessions called The Mystery of Closed Sessions.

Closed session attendees sign a paper with legal verbiage at each meeting signifying the importance of confidential information shared at the meeting.  As mentioned in my prior blog, closed session tackles topics like labor, litigation, real estate and personnel matters.

As a side note, I was able to attend several of the public labor negotiation sessions involving the city attorney union. I found the process valuable. Valuable to hear both sides discuss their viewpoints live, and it served the attorneys well from my perspective. I hope other unions take their negotiations public in future years.

Quite often in closed session the Council will take votes on important items even though the public does not have the opportunity to hear what is said or voted on. The information shared and comments made in closed session is not supposed to leave the room. These can be on important matters, however again the vote cannot be revealed.

So, what I can say, there is sometimes vigorous debate and not all votes during closed session are unanimous. I understand the need for closed session but feel that I am restricted in saying what I said or how I voted.  Videotaping closed session for me would be alright in case it was needed in the future. We do audio-record real estate discussions currently in closed session today so perhaps closed session will keep evolving. For me I would just as well have the closed session as a public session, however what I may want may interfere with the right of another.

WeePeeCeePee

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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.”