It is with great enthusiasm that I announce my candidacy for re-election to the Gilroy City Council.
Serving the residents of Gilroy over the past eight years has been an immense privilege, and I am eager to continue our work together to strengthen our community. My campaign is dedicated to our future, guided by unwavering principles of integrity, honesty, and respect for all. I am committed to representing every resident of Gilroy equally and effectively.
I will continue to work with every council member for the betterment of Gilroy and hold the city accountable.
I have served in public office for the last 20 years. I was first elected into public office in San Jose, in November 2002, where I served on the Board of Trustees for the San Jose/Evergreen College Board.
In 2008, I was elected to the Gilroy Unified School District School Board, where I served for eight years until 2016, when I was elected by the good people of Gilroy to serve on the city council, where I continue to serve.
In addition to my work as a public servant, I have also devoted my professional career to working in higher education. For the past 25 years, I have worked at some of our world’s leading universities, such as Stanford University, San Jose State University and Santa Clara University. My longest tenure was as Director of Student Services and Admissions for Stanford School of Medicine PCAP, and now I serve as the Director of Graduate School Admissions for the School of Education and Counseling Psychology at Santa Clara University.
As a Gilroy City Council member, I have championed many important initiatives, including the raising of the Pride flag every year and dedicating March 31 as a citywide holiday to commemorate Cesar Chavez. I served as the Vice Chair for the Unhoused Committee and as Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee for Downtown, and currently serve as Vice Chair for the Downtown Committee.
My vision for a thriving downtown has led to many important revitalization projects in the heart of the city. A champion for small businesses, I work alongside business and property owners to help ensure their success by advocating for and promoting policies that make doing business easier.
Understanding the importance of a thriving downtown, I championed many new initiatives to promote vitality, including the installation of new lighting for beautification and safety, and the redevelopment of city-owned land as a pop-up park—creating an inclusive, public space for community engagement.
My passion for local business is the driving force behind my relentless efforts to prioritize the use of local contractors and tradesmen to secure work on city projects.
I have tirelessly fought to improve public safety in Gilroy. From advocating to bring more school resource officers (SROs) to Gilroy to voting to increase the number of SROs across all public schools, I have championed efforts to improve the safety and well-being of our children, teachers and staff.
I have earned the endorsement of Gilroy Fire and Police because I have proven myself to be a trusted ally who consistently leads the charge in ensuring that critical funding needed to preserve and protect our safety remains a top priority. My commitment to public safety is unwavering, and I will continue to fight for the resources and support our fire and police departments need.
Known for working across party lines to get things done, I am a true public servant who puts the interests of our community above politics to work for all the citizens of Gilroy.
Only I have the trusted leadership and proven experience needed to build a better and brighter future for all Gilroyans. That’s why this November, I ask for your vote to re-elect Councilmember Fred Tovar – “Working for All of Gilroy!”
For more information about my campaign or to get involved, please visit FredTovar.Com or contact [email protected].
Fred M. Tovar, M.Ed.
Gilroy City Council member
Ah, mon ami: Thank you to advocates for small business, and for their many years of public service for the taxpayers, namely, small business owners.
Do you help, or hurt, small business by forcing us to pay higher taxes for government sector transit? Take one example that is heading this way: CAHSRA’s Bullet Train. But the analysis applies to all other government sector transport, e.g., VTA.
CAHSRA’s high speed rail is projected to need about $1B/year in subsidies because passenger fares will be so low. Those operating subsidies will be in addition to the construction subsidies paid by taxpayers.
Do we really want another taxpayer subsidy dependent form of transport?
With socialist solutions, government support, namely, taxpayers’ dollars, is needed to make it go.
What about capitalism? Are we better off building on the bedrock of capitalism than on the quicksand of socialism?
During the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, Congressman Granville Dodge, who was a Civil War General, and UPRR’s top civil engineer, was summoned to the White House. He relates his conversation with Lincoln in his seminal “How We Built the Transcontinental Railroad.”
He was fed-up with internal conflicts at UPRR’s upper management. So, he says he told the President that the government ought to own the UPRR. Lincoln said, “no.” It must be in the private sector, or words to that effect.
So, with grants for construction, the transcontinental railroads were built. The grant were repaid. Under Section 22 of the original Interstate Commerce Act, taxpayers actually made a profit on the land grant railroad deal, hundreds of millions of dollars in profit, measured in 1940 dollars. (Ken Burns was wrong in his contrary statement in his documentary movie.)
Although the railroads were nationalized during WWI by the Wilson Administration, Congress reversed that in the Transportation Act of 1920, which de-nationalized the railroads.
During debate in the House in 1970 on creation of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (“Amtrak”), Members proclaimed that “it would be self-sufficient in three years.”
Never happened. By 9/11/01 Amtrak subsidies, stacked in $100 bills, was higher than the World Trade Centers stood before the terrorists took them down.
It has only gotten worse since then.
County Transit, all Counties, is ten times worse in orders of magnitude. Yes the SEIU and public sector unions are happy with the gang-rape of the motorists, but we do not have sound, sustainable, or fair transport funding policy, rail or highway.
Motorists are paying about 102% of the cost of our transport (including highway construction and maintenance), while transit riders pay only about 1% of the fully amortized cost of their transport (including capital & fixed costs).
The transit agencies cover-up the full extent of their losses by using non-GAAP accounting methods, “off-book” accounting, like Enron did, like Bernie Madoff did.
So, unelected transit agency directors do not even know the full extent of their insolvency. They don’t ask. They don’t want to know. I know, I’ve tried for ten years to get SBCCOG’s Directors to tell the truth in transportation, but never made it to first base. They refuse to put private-sector transport options on their agenda. They are not alone. All the Counties do the same thing. Why? To feather the nests of the powerful vested interests who control them, e.g., SEIU.
With Prop. 1A we voted for self-sufficient high speed rail. We did not vote for a supersized Amtrak, CAHSRA’s high speed rail slow motion train wreck, who have us on the same route taken by the USSR.
Instead of demanding more subsidies from taxpayers, higher gas taxes, why don’t we say what Lincoln said to Congressman Dodge: “No.”
If we used the profit you get moving intermodal tonnage (COFC & TOFC) instead of taxpayers’ dollars, then we would not need to ask taxpayers for a dime for high speed rail.
As the late Honorable Norman Y. Mineta said in 1995, at the Institute that now bears his name at SJSU, “The crucial question in transportation today is: What should government do, and what should it leave to others?”
Secretary Mineta was right then, and he is right today: that is our crucial question. Caveat viator.
Joe Thompson
Past-President, 1999-2001, 2006, Gilroy-Morgan Hill Bar Assn.
(408) 848-5506
\E-Mail: [email protected]