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The questions were prepared by the Leagues of Women Voters of Santa Clara County and asked of all candidates for this office.
See below for questions on
Experience,
Negotiations,
Goals
Click on a name for candidate information. See also more information about this contest.
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1. What experience and training would you bring to this office?
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Answer from Jeffrey Lease:
Dr. Lease was born and raised in San Jose. He lives in the Willow Glen neighborhood with his wife Gabriela and son Logan. He has a strong background in education, being raised in a learning/teaching-centric family, and understands its value in a person's life. His father Gus, a professor at San Jose State University for 60 years, always said to him "get your education son, because no one can ever take that away from you."
Dr. Lease began his education in the Alum Rock Public School District where he was placed in the Mentally Gifted Minors program. He continued his education at Harker Academy in Saratoga for Junior High and Graduated from Archbishop Mitty High School in 1986.
Dr. Lease has a solid track record of setting goals and achieving them. As a college student at San Jose State University, he balanced full-time course work while breaking records, winning awards and earning a college scholarship in the first sales position he ever held selling Cutco Cutlery--ultimately earning the title of district manager by the time he reached age 21.
Dr. Lease earned a Bachelor of Science degree from California State University Fresno, while serving as a personal trainer to competitive body builders. During that time, Dr. Lease became interested in helping clients with their injuries, which ultimately led him to Pre-Med school. While in school full time, he volunteered in a physical therapy office and the emergency room at San Jose Medical Hospital, and determined Chiropractic to be his calling.
Dr. Lease earned his Doctor of Chiropractic degree in 2000 from Palmer College Chiropractic West. He received the nationally recognized "Who's Who" award for his outstanding contributions to the profession and school as a student, and served as President of the Sports Council. In 2001, he launched InMotion Chiropractic, and pioneered mobile chiropractic care in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is an internationally recognized educator to medical professionals.
Dr. Lease has built a successful chiropractic business by taking an analytical, hands-on approach to understanding how the interconnected parts of the body work, what leads to their demise, and the corrective action required to ensure his patients leave feeling better than when they arrived.
Dr. Lease has close personal ties with the SJCC/EVC community college district faculty, staff and their families, where he has provided chiropractic care for almost 10 years. He also, worked as a campus administrator at Evergreen Valley College for 4 years, and his mother Lois recently retired after serving 33 years as a classified employee.
Dr. Lease now wants to pass along the legacy of education, and its value in a person's life to his son Logan. His passion is to ensure that every child in the community has the same educational opportunities he did growing up in San Jose. He understands that with the limited dollars being provided for education, we cannot afford to waste any of it.
It is time for Responsible Leadership in the district, and he looks forward to your support. Vote for Lease and together we can restore trust and fiscally responsible oversight on the College Board, and put education first.
Answer from Richard Hobbs:
# As Chair of the Board Policy Committee and with our new Chancellor I have strengthened fiscal policies including tight, multi-faceted review of expenditures, regular operational audits, and demonstrated accountability reports
# Board President twice, currently Vice-President
# Guided policies and budget decisions to help San Jose City College with booming transfer rates, closing the achievement gap and offering the first California Construction College
# Guided policies and budget decisions to help Evergreen Valley College, which has the highest percentage increase of graduation rates in the entire Bay Area
# Guided policies and budget decisions to help the Workforce Institute offer innovative green job initiatives, retraining for ex-NUMMI workers, and the first-ever simulated nursing program
# Past Board Chair: Budget, Diversity, & Workforce Education Committees
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2. What do you see as the role of the board in labor negotiations?
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Answer from Jeffrey Lease:
To act fairly for hard working people within the budgetary constraints.
Answer from Richard Hobbs:
# The Board needs to bargain in good faith and focus budget expenditures on students
# Our workforce deserves fair compensation, benefits, and working conditions
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3. What are your goals for the college? Are students, faculty and staff currently meeting those goals?
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Answer from Jeffrey Lease:
1. Stop the fiscal mismanagement in the district now! As reported by the state's FCMAT report, "It is evident from fieldwork that senior management officials have spent district funds lavishly and have not always adhered to employment contracts or district policies in the process."
2. Responsible Oversight in the District, and an improved relationship with the board and the multiple interests (faculty, staff, students and community).
3. Careful management of the limited funds for education and independent audits to ensure the financial resources entrusted to the district are spent wisely.
4. Term Limits. Long-term membership often leads to complacent and negligent oversight.
5. Transparency through Sunshine policies so the conflicts of interest are clearly known. Open books. Open the Foundation. Limit closed sessions bring communities together and mend the broken relationships.
6. Improve the educational product and restore the tarnished reputation.
Answer from Richard Hobbs:
# Quality accessible curriculum for transfer students. Our students deserve the best and we are giving them the best. With our Institute for Teaching and Learning, we are constantly renovating pedagogies that will motivate and challenge our students to be successful. We are meeting these goals with booming transfer and graduation rates. Evergreen Valley College has the highest percentage increase in graduation in the Bay Area.
# Closing the achivement gap. Under-performing students need the tools they need to succeed including counseling, assessment, tutoring, mentoring, and college prep classes. We are very successful in these endeavors with middle colleges, Achiveng the Dream, the Equity Scorecard, San Jose Promise, the College Connection, and special ethnic-specific programs, among many others.
# Retraining the workforce. Our Workforce Institute is the best in the United States with the first ever Calfiornia Construction College, simulated nursing, green jobs training (500 new training jobs alone with a $2 million grant from the Department of Education), retraining of ex-NUMMI workers, etc.
Responses to questions asked of each candidate
are reproduced as submitted to the League.
Candidates' responses are not edited or corrected by the League. Answers must not refer directly or indirectly to another candidate.
The order of the candidates is random and changes daily. Candidates who did not respond are not listed on this page.
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League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
