League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA November 7, 2006 Election
	Manny J. Diaz Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member, 3; City of San Jose; Council District 3

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of San Jose/Santa Clara in partnership with the San Jose Mercury News and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. There are proposals to add 30,000 houses and more office space in North San Jose, thousands more homes in Evergreen and to build a new community in the Coyote Valley. There has been no in-depth study of how these plans will affect one another or services throughout the city. Should San Jose complete a thorough, public review of its general plan for growth before approving any more major development plans? Silicon Valley needs more housing, but San Jose needs more jobs to strengthen its tax base. How would you balance those conflicting pressures?

San Jose has not reviewed its general plan for more than 15 years. Before embarking on any major new developments, our city should conduct a comprehensive review of the general plan.

According to Silicon Valley business leaders, new housing is essential to boost our economic growth and there is not doubt that workforce affordable housing is necessary. To that end, I support appropriate in-fill housing that will force the market to focus on building San Jose better before expanding and building it out.

Housing development, while necessary, increases demand on scarce city services including police and fire departments, schools, roads, libraries and community centers. San Jose should not grow in a piecemeal way; San Jose should investigate the impact new major developments will have on existing communities.

2. San Jose has a council/manager form of government. Over the past few years the balance of power has shifted toward the mayor and there are some elected officials who support this stronger role for the mayor. Should San Jose move to a strong-mayor form of government or have a strong professional administrator? What kind of city manager will you look for?

The citizens of San Jose voted to have a council/manager form of government when they approved the city charter. We are all obliged to follow the law. To that end, we need to have more neighborhood residents, small business people and others at the table making decisions and not just the same insiders and usual suspects.

I will support the hiring of a new city manager that believes in open consensus building with the community and not a heavy handed autocrat.

3. Safety often includes services such as homework centers and code enforcement for neighborhoods, but the city budget now being prepared could cut much needed services. If there is no other source of funds to maintain safety-related centers and gang prevention, would you consider reducing the funds going to support the police and fire departments? Can the growing costs of police and for pensions be covered without depleting funds for other community service in the future?

Safe and healthy neighborhoods create strong cities. Collectively, we must be able to fund both prevention and diversion programs that invest in our youth as well as enforcement; the men and women in uniform who protect our neighborhoods. They are not mutually exclusive and both are necessary to maintain a safe and healthy community.

Public Safety has always been a top priority. On the San Jose City Council I worked to coordinate with 18 local school districts to establish after-school homework centers for San Jose students. In the State Assembly, I co-sponsored the law that allows Megan's List offenders to be listed on the Internet. These are two efforts at crime prevention that I will continue to champion as our City Councilmember.

4. Money to maintain and operate the city’s public facilities such as parks and libraries is in shorter and shorter supply. So while new or expanded community centers have been proposed previously, the city is looking at closing or privatizing up to 30 existing centers it cannot afford to operate. Should the city re-examine its plans to add parks and other public facilities? Are there services the city could cut to find money for these highly valued ones?

I propose the City adopt a "Level of Service" policy that will define a minimum level under which services cannot fall. Such a policy would ensure that events like a car race will never come before neighborhood services.

Under this proposal, a portion of the budget will be dedicated to basic services including community centers, libraries, public safety and infrastructure maintenance. Using this spending formula, the city will not build new parks and community centers before identifying how to pay for the operating costs of current facilities.

In addition, before building a major new housing development, the city should examine the impact of new residents on our police and fire departments, public schools and traffic. Using a measurable level of service policy will ensure that growth does not outpace the city's capacity to serve residents and it will prevent nonsensical spending on new community centers while old community centers are closing due to lack of funds.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' responses are not edited or corrected by the League.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: July 27, 2006 13:57
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