An election that could decide the future face of City Hall is
shaping up as a contest between council incumbents and planning
commissioners.
Gilroy – An election that could decide the future face of City Hall is shaping up as a contest between council incumbents and planning commissioners.
Planning Commission Chairman Tim Day, Commissioner Joan Spencer and former Commissioner Cat Tucker have announced plans to vie for three open seats on council this November. They will take on incumbent councilmen Russ Valiquette and Roland Velasco. Former Councilman Bob Dillon lost a reelection bid in 2005 and is widely rumored to be considering another run, though for the moment he remains “undecided.”
Incumbent Councilman Paul Correa announced he will not seek a second term so he can focus on family and work, and the mayor’s election remains a one-man contest for the moment. Mayor Al Pinheiro plans to seek a second term while Councilman Craig Gartman said he is still exploring a possible bid.
More so than in years past, the fall election could serve as a referendum on the future of City Hall itself. A cadre of top managers who shaped the bureaucracy have retired in recent years, or are planning to depart in the near future. Most significantly, the next council will likely choose a replacement for City Administrator Jay Baksa, who announced this week that he will leave his job after 25 years. Though hailed as a budget wizard, Baksa and several departments under his control have been criticized in recent years for encroaching on council’s policymaking powers. Council candidates will have to debate the need for charter revisions that could affect the power balance between bureaucrats and politicians.
“I don’t want to see our team broken up,” Valiquette said. “We’ve accomplished a lot over the four years on council now and with Jay’s retirement, I believe you need a strong council to come up with the right person to replace him. It’s going to be some big shoes to fill. I think I need to be around another four years to accomplish everything.”
Valiquette and Velasco gave the sitting council a “B” grade for its accomplishments in the past two years. In that time, the city has seen its downtown revamped, Santa Teresa Boulevard widened, and a new police station opened. Each of those projects encountered delays and budget overruns, however, prompting some critics to question the city’s fiscal oversight.
“It’s pretty easy if you’re an outsider to throw stones, but I think the real leadership on council is able to see how all the pieces interconnect and why things are not as easy to do as the general public seems to think,” Velasco said. “In that sense I’d give us an A- for effort and a solid B for doing other things right.”
Tim Day agreed with the letter grades and lauded council for its “team work.” But he and other challengers questioned council’s handling in recent weeks of a controversial increase in pay ranges for top city managers. They agreed that employees deserve competitive wages, but objected to provisions calling for city managers to always earn 15 percent more than their union subordinates and 10 percent higher than the average salary paid to their peers in nearby cities.
“This last round with the raises, I’m not sure that was completely thought through,” Day said. “There could have been increases without tying them to some type of percentage.”
Day, a life insurance salesman and chairman of the planning commission, has developed close ties to the business establishment as a long-time member of the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce’s governing board. He supports “smart growth” but opposes extreme measures such as s building moratorium. School officials anxious about budget shortfalls and classroom overcrowding have asked council to force developers to shoulder a bigger portion of costs for new facilities.
Developers bristle at the suggestion, saying the city already charges among the highest fees in the country for new construction. A national survey of development fees by industry analyst Duncan Associates supports that assertion, though it has not assuaged school officials scrambling to keep pace with growth. The debate promises to place growth at center stage in the coming election.
For Cat Tucker, a product marketer for Applied Materials, development should be geared toward bringing in high-paying jobs.
“I want to have some business being brought to Gilroy for clean manufacturing or a business park, so our kids can graduate from college and can come home to good jobs,” said Tucker, who now serves as a parks and recreation commissioner.
Joan Spencer pointed to three over-arching areas as concerns – affordable housing, fiscal responsibility and “being more environmentally conscious.” The first-term planning commissioner works as a respiratory therapist and has been a champion of solar power and other efforts to improve air quality and the environment.
She was loathe to grade council for its past two years of work, but said the time has come for “some fresh faces and new ideas.”
“There’s not even a woman on council,” she said.
Councilman Craig Gartman announced last month a possible challenge to Mayor Al Pinheiro but said he has not made a final decision. The councilman’s seat is not up for renewal and whatever his decision, he is guaranteed another two years on the city’s top governing body. He said it is too early to start endorsing council prospects, but said he knows the type of person who he wants to work with.
“As I’ve told many people, I would like to see people on council who do their homework, are thinkers and have the best interest of the community at heart,” he said. “People who are willing to ask questions, challenge the status quo, think outside the box, and not be scared to stand up and say I don’t understand this or I don’t think this is right.”
