The Dispatch editorial board makes its recommendations in this
year’s City Council race
The “best of the best” pay raise policy at City Hall, sidewalk liability transferred to homeowners, the city’s two top law enforcement officers secretly retiring without City Council knowledge, neglect in planning for adequate school facilities, secretive deliberations on a variety of topics without justification. How do we judge the current City Council? By its collective actions.
Is Gilroy going to hell in a handbasket? Not yet, but why should we let it? What our community needs and deserves are new leaders who will view – and vote – on issues from the vantage point of average Gilroy residents with a common sense approach, not as “good old boy” club insiders who feebly object then pass policies marked with a bureaucratic stamp.
Following the election forum with candidates and follow-up interviews, we offer our choices for the three seats available in the Nov. 6 election.
We encourage residents to think critically, to consider the issues and the votes taken by incumbents. Most importantly, exercise your right to vote.
Cat Tucker’s genuine Gilroy. The lone woman running in this race, she’s clearly willing to ask questions – hard questions – regardless of the complexity of the issue or how she might come off while asking it. She’s gently relentless in seeking answers that satisfy her concerns. Her private sector background will serve her and the community well – as will her experience in local government as a planning commissioner and parks commissioner. She’s learned how projects and budgets must be managed as well as how to cooperate and collaborate with superiors and subordinates. She will retrieve the data that’s important, get all her questions answered, then stand her ground. When she’s convinced that her position is correct and is in Gilroy’s best interest, she won’t back down. But she’s neither acerbic, nor an agitator.
In addition, she represents a slower-growth segment of Gilroy that at this point has little standing in local politics. Her election would bring that viewpoint into the mainstream discussion.
In two key areas her judgment is correct: The balance of power is currently skewed in favor of the city administration and our local government should be more open and transparent. As examples, she believes the current draft audit of the police department, taxpayer bought and paid for, should be available to both the public and the council immediately before being reviewed and changed by the police and/or city administration.
She distinguishes herself in another arena. No other candidate is as clear and forceful on the subject of requiring full cooperation from City Hall in finding solutions to school facility planning issues in cooperation with the Gilroy Unified School District. Under her leadership, the city of Gilroy will not be building houses without adequate schools, period.
She’s also clear on the huge Westfield mall proposal. She’s opposed. Nevertheless, we suggest that she meet with the project representatives. Her thoughts about finding a way to bring the Westfield project downtown are intriguing insofar as it’s an idea that has the right intention, but it’s also impractical. Tucker must also become more clear on her stance related to the city’s possible purchase of Bonfante/Gilroy Gardens. The devil is in the details of that proposal, and she needs to thoroughly review the pros and cons.
On balance, Tucker earns our vote for her refreshing straightforwardness, her genuine interest in what’s best for Gilroy, her steadfast insistence on open, transparent government and and her persistence in seeking answers to tough questions.
You can’t find a more likable guy than Tim Day. He’s been embedded in our community for years. The former Chairman of Gilroy Planning Commission and a past president of the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce has served on commissions, volunteered, and has, in general, paid his dues. We have a great deal of respect for his track record of service. He’s hoping to make the jump from an appointed Planning Commission seat to an elected Council chair. Day offers an impressive level of maturity and intimate knowledge of the city. He touts his abilities as a consensus builder.
In our editorial board interview and during the Dispatch-CMAP forum, however, he seemed to lack a real passion for the race or the issues. We also wonder if Day would err on the side of secrecy or transparency. While he says he thinks that the media’s job is to “expose everything,” he also supports keeping the draft audit of the police department secret, at least for now.
Under other circumstances, Day might win our endorsement. But in this election, although he is not an incumbent, Day is nearly indistinguishable from the current Council.
He supports the 50-50 sidewalk program, dismissing the idea that the city ought to pay for all of the damage city-required trees cause to sidewalks. He doesn’t see problems with the current balance of power between elected officials and senior city staff. He supports the controversial “best of the best” compensation policy for top-tier city workers, telling the editorial board that the city “can’t distinguish between employees” based on job performance because the public sector is different than the private sector.
Perhaps in another election cycle, we could support Day. But because we believe the city needs a change in direction, we cannot endorse him. Gilroy doesn’t need more consensus, it needs a new direction, and Tim Day isn’t pointing us that way.
Perry Woodward gets it.
He knows why Gilroyans are upset about the City Council’s decision to stick homeowners with liability related to sidewalks damaged by street trees. He can’t fathom a city administrator who would keep the news that the city’s two top police officers have officially retired secret from the mayor, the City Council, the officers in the department and the public. He doesn’t believe the top-tier group of City Hall employees should be paid, by order of City Council policy fiat, 15 percent more than those they supervise, and 10 percent more than their peers in nearby cities. He wants the city to cease and desist in its secretive practices and is tired of reading stories that begin like this, “City attorneys refused to release contracts for Gilroy’s top two police officials, days after the Dispatch revealed their hush-hush winter retirements. The denial flouts public records law, according to one attorney, and has raised suspicion among councilmen and the rank-and-file cops.”
Woodward is so tired of it, he’s championing a local sunshine ordinance that would spell out and strengthen the public’s access and right to know. Hallelujah!
He is a born-and-raised Gilroyan who simply does not like the direction his beloved hometown is headed. He is not just troubled by City Hall secrecy, but by what might be described as an unhealthy overall city migration away from its roots. A tendency toward sprawl fits under that umbrella as does the lack of planning cooperation between the city and the school district as does a dwindling police officer-to-resident ratio.
He’s crystal clear on such issues as the draft audit of the police department asking rhetorically, “Why wouldn’t we make it public?” Just as clearly, he understands that’s there’s a serious leadership vacuum at the police department and believes, as we do, that officers are hungry for fresh direction from outside.
With his strong ties to the police department, we are concerned that Woodward will not scrutinize, from the city’s necessary financial viewpoint, the skyrocketing cost of benefits for public safety employees. That said, it is the lone caution flag in a sea of checkered-flag attributes.
Of the candidates, he is the most articulate. He worked his way from Glen View Elementary School through Santa Clara University Law School. He’s bright, he’s able to condense issues and think critically about those issues and he is our top choice in this year’s City Council race.
Roland Velasco is a knowledgeable, experienced member of the City Council; he’s the consummate professional. As a two-term councilman seeking a third four-year term, he says he wants to keep Gilroy largely on its current course. He does his City Council packet homework and understands the intricacies of city bureaucracy in particular and government in general.
Velasco says he wants to improve public trust in city government, increase focus on business retention at the Economic Development Corp., and plans to introduce a code of ethics for City Hall. We’re glad that Velasco’s open to the idea of much-needed fresh blood and new faces at the Gilroy Police Department and, like all but one City Council candidate, is opposed to rehiring City Administrator Jay Baksa as a contractor after he retires in January until a permanent replacement can be found.
But we can’t get behind the idea of a 12-year City Council legacy for Velasco. Partly, that’s because he hasn’t used his eight years in power to implement a code of ethics or a sunshine law, two items he’s been touting recently, or to bring non-retail, high-wage jobs to Gilroy, which ought to be a high priority for the Economic Development Corporation. There’s a disturbing disconnect between Velasco’s platitudes and his achievements as a council member.
We’re also concerned because on all the highly controversial issues surrounding City Hall in the last few years, we disagree with Velasco’s conclusions. We think he’s wrong on sidewalk liability, wrong on the controversial pay scheme (he didn’t vote on it because his wife is one of the exempt city employees, but he has not criticized it and defended it during the Dispatch-CMAP candidate forum), and blind to the out-of-kilter balance of power at City Hall.
Residents of Gilroy don’t need four more years of the status quo. Velasco has been a tireless defender of the status quo. It’s time for a change on the dais, and time for him to make room for candidates who will ask tough questions, restore the proper balance of power at City Hall, and keep Gilroy taxpayers’ best interests as their top priority.
Russ Valiquette has many attractive features as a city councilman. He has lived in Gilroy for 32 years and served on Council for four, with previous experience on the Planning Commission. He is a perennial volunteer, especially for the Police Officers Association. He is well-intentioned, and well-connected with the police and fire departments. He is a team player.
A team player … ay, there’s the rub. Human beings are social creatures. In groups, we tend to adopt the values of our fellows. Valiquette has adopted the values in vogue at City Hall: trust staff, get along.
Valiquette says that while walking precincts, the number one question residents asked was: why is all the news about the city so negative? Pressed on this point, he explained candidly that a resident’s first concern might be about sidewalks or administrative salaries. But after he explained the situation, the resident would end up asking, why all the negativity?
We do not believe that a councilman’s duty is to sell staff-driven policies to residents. Rather, it is the councilman’s duty to represent the citizens in city decision making.
Valiquette also exhibits a troubling lack of clarity in his thought, as when he expresses his opinion that the city can attract high-end jobs to the city while putting restrictions on the hiring practices of the companies.
Intelligent, articulate, engaging and good humored. That’s a fair summation for Bob Dillon, and it served him well during his previous term on City Council. He lost his seat, perhaps, in a pennywise but pound-foolish move to save the city money by declining to file a ballot statement. But he’s back, and focused on an issue he didn’t get his arms around the first time: fixing the sidewalks. Dillon believes the city should pay the entire freight and fix all the street-tree damaged sidewalks, then tell homeowners they are responsible from that point forward.
Beyond that he’s a middle-of-the-road type of candidate. In our view, he’s surprisingly naive about the current unrest within the police department and about the meddling city attorney.
But Dillon is a proven commodity. He knows the job and he knows how to communicate with people on a one-to-one basis. He does his homework, he listens and he’s as plain spoken as they come – just what Gilroy needs.
