Gilroy Gardens. Sidewalks. Raises for city officials. The
possibility of a massive new mall. Public safety. The $14 million
school facilities debt. With less than 12 weeks to the November
election, these issues consume the eight candidates running for
City Council.
Gilroy – Gilroy Gardens. Sidewalks. Raises for city officials. The possibility of a massive new mall. Public safety. The $14 million school facilities debt. With less than 12 weeks to the November election, these issues consume the eight candidates running for City Council.
As of the 5pm Wednesday evening, Councilman Craig Gartman is challenging Mayor Al Pinheiro for the mayor’s seat, and Planning Commissioners Tim Day and Cat Tucker, former Councilman Bob Dillon, lawyer Perry Woodward and incumbents Roland Velasco and Russ Valiquette are running for the three available council seats, according to City Clerk Shawna Freels.
Current elected officials, except for Gartman, said they’re trying to correct negative public opinion on the sidewalk and salary issues.
“The raises are outrageous,” said local resident and registered voter Vivian Yother when randomly contacted by phone. “I know I don’t want any of the old councilmen back in there, except for Craig Gartman,” who voted against the sidewalk and salary measures.
This is the type of opinion Pinheiro said he’s trying to rectify.
“What people are saying in the street is, ‘Oh, City Council’s giving big shots raises,’ but we’re not doing that,” Pinheiro said. “Some people want to call it rubber-stamping, but this is a council that knows how to work together.”
The salary program ensures that 42 city administrators, who can’t work overtime or form unions, make at least 15 percent more than their subordinates and 10 percent more than officials in comparable cities in order to prevent police sergeants, for example, from making more than their captains and to also recruit and retain higher-quality employees, officials have said.
“That argument doesn’t sing to me,” Dillon said. “In private industry it’s common for employees to make varying amounts of money.”
Woodward said his experience as a lawyer pointed to the same lesson, and he demanded “a new generation of leadership with more fiscal responsibility.” Velasco has recused himself from the salary issue because his wife works for the city.
Gartman, too, hopes for “new blood” on a council that’s “having difficulty understanding public concerns when it comes to these particular issues.”
Council outsiders such as Woodward and Tucker also have joined Gartman in opposing the sidewalk ordinance the council is considering that would incorporated give added protection to the city by also making property owners liable when someone sues for injuries sustained on an unkempt sidewalk.
“I’m interested in Gilroy Gardens and the sidewalks more than anything,” said local resident and registered voter Stuart Akers, also randomly contacted by phone. “Most of the problems are caused by trees that have been here a lot longer than I have. Of course, I bought the house with the tree, so I guess it’s a cross between responsibilities, but I still think the city really blew it.”
The city splits sidewalk repair costs with residents as long as they do it in a timely manner.
“Sidewalks have been a perennial pain in this city,” Dillon said, adding that he agreed with Gartman that the city should sell bonds to fix concrete headaches without burdening property owners.
But Velasco wasn’t having it.
“It’s real easy for any candidate to say, ‘Let’s bond!’ but not have a plan for it,” Velasco said. “Plus, the sidewalk task force rejected the idea of bonding because of costs.”
While Valiquette didn’t speak to the bond issue, he stood by council’s sidewalk decision as fiscally responsible.
“If the citizens expect us to be responsible with what little money the state allows us to keep from sales taxes and the money the county allows us to keep from property taxes,” Valiquette said, “then this is what we need to do to be fiscally responsible, but it’s hard to get any other points across when the sidewalk and salary issues are put in people’s faces.”
One such point is the potential Westfield Mall project that could turn more than 100 acres of farmland east of Gilroy into retail space, which could boost property values and, in turn, property taxes that might be able to shrink the $15 million school facilities deficit.
Tucker was skeptical.
“All of that, to me, is a bunch of mumbo jumbo until you get to hard facts and data,” Tucker said. “I’m still opposed to Westfield Mall.”
City staff are studying the environmental impacts now, and Velasco said he’d wait to see those potential impacts before making up his mind on the mall. Day agreed.
“I don’t think Westfield is the only answer,” Day said. “It will take a number of things to help schools get back onto a sound financial platform.”
While Gartman said all options are still on the table when it comes to the tentative Westfield proposal, “it is (still) a very attractive option” because of increased sales and property taxes.
“I see this as a huge win-win for both the city and school district,” Gartman said. “Students will benefit from increased revenues … and people won’t have to drive for 30 or 40 miles to get to high-end stores.”
If the city acquires the Gilroy Gardens acreage, though, the council “will protect that land from developers,” Day said, which seems to be the consensus among candidates.
All said they would prefer the city to have the same arrangement with Gilroy Gardens as it does with the golf course: The city owns the dirt, but someone else runs the operations on that dirt.
When it comes to running City Council, though, it’s tricky business separating the dirt from the operations.
