February 7, 2008

His honor looks back

Reed assess first year in office; looks toward second

By Carol Rosen
Editor

It wasn’t all roses, but Mayor Chuck Reed’s assessment of his first year in office is plainly on the positive side.
In an interview last week with the Times, Reed looked back over his first year and noted his successes as well as his difficulties.

Mayor Chuck Reed took time out of his busy schedule to look back over his first year in office; his strengths, his weaknesses and to look toward the future. Photo by Carol Rosen

“I ran on honesty, fiscal responsibility and open government and successfully implemented many of the 34 Reed Reforms; now there’s more like 50. Most of them passed and we’re working on the rest,” he said.

Probably his most difficult hurdle was to work with city council members. With only one council member endorsing him, he noted that he had to develop relationships to help turn his ideas into laws. That happened throughout the year, he said, with council members lining up with him on key issues.

“I kept the majority together to deal with important issues allowing us to move ahead. That’s not unimportant.”

One example was when problems in the city auditor’s office surfaced. Although it took months, Reed noted that when the time came, the council decided unanimously to fire Gerald Silva. “It was a difficult situation, he was a friend. But potentially it could have been a worse situation, and we came to a unanimous decision,” he said.

Another example occurred with the fight over the independent police auditor, which the council unanimously supported.

Reed also managed to turn around council thinking about development. Coyote Valley is now being tied to triggers for jobs before housing, he said, stopping what could have been large-scale home development. He worked with the council to stop development in Evergreen with resulting traffic problems and appears to have turned council thinking from swapping industrial lands for housing development throughout the city.

“I stopped the rush to Coyote Valley. I stopped the mega-development in Evergreen and I stopped wholesale conversion of industrial lands,” he said.

Budgets
Among his campaign promises was community-based budgeting and fiscal responsibility. “We passed a balanced budget,” he said, “and didn’t throw one-time money at problems so that we have more to worry about it again with next year’s budget.”

In addition, for the second year, community organizations and citizens are working with the city to develop the budget, allowing citizens to help determine priorities instead of telling them the ones that elected officials determine should be cut or funded. And, that participation has led to clearer thinking, he said, with “community and interest groups learning to accept reality.”

“I got another majority with the structural budget deficit,” he said citing San Jose as the nation’s first big city to admit it has a problem. “I don’t know if it’s a 12-step program, but the first step is admitting you have a problem. We are really dealing with it now. A year ago we were the only city and now it’s all cities.”

Reed noted that all these programs help expand open government—one of his three important campaign promises. “I’m trying to expand open government. Last year was the first installment. We all need to train and practice. The budget for example; we will do better this year since we’ve learned how to engage everyone.”

Green vision
He also puts his 15-year Green Vision project squarely in the positive column. When asked how realistic this plan is, he explained that that was part of the challenge, “I didn’t want a plan that wasn’t realistic. I spent a lot of time talking to people in and out of city hall to make sure this was not just possible, but totally feasible.”

Outside of city hall, the mayor said he went to Washington, D.C. to talk with the Department of Energy and the EPA to make sure that his “bold goals” were realistic and measurable.

The first installment of the plan began last week with a three-hour meeting on Friday, Feb. 1 in council chambers to discuss the plan and how it fits into the city and its workings.

Do again?
However, Reed also cited some problems he wouldn’t mind being able to redo. One of those has been the fight over the naming of the new Vietnamese business district. If I could do it over again, I would do it differently,” he said. “I’d avoid the fight. I’d like to have another chance. I’m not happy with the outcome and that the people are unhappy.”

However, he doesn’t think that all the noise will end Madison Nguyen’s career. “The people that are upset don’t represent the majority of her district or the city.”

In addition, Reed noted the situation is difficult in itself because there are “many different elements and complicated arguments. It’s a symbolic meaning. Little Saigon is a fine name, but there are other reasons and there is misinformation on what actually happened. It’s an important issue to lots of people, but not to the majority.”

He also noted losing a couple of arguments on budgeting issues, but all-in-all not that many.

One notable loss was rebuilding Fire Station #2 instead of remodeling it, he said, which eventually shorted money for the South Side Police Substation.

The topic brought up what other media have called a feud between Reed and Council-member Nora Campos, which Reed said isn’t true.

While publicly the two have disagreed over certain issues, he said they do work together on others. “We’re working closely on the Mexican Heri-tage Plaza and other on-going projects.”

As for replacing Campos on the mayor’s Gang Task Force, “I have to put together the best team. It’s my task force and I thought Madison Nguyen would be better than Nora Campos. Madison has gang problems in her district and I thought that she would be good to work with me. She’s interest in community outreach,” he said.

As for Campos, she was appointed to the transportation and environment committee, which is a much bigger committee than the task force.

Ways to go
Reed laughingly noted that some of the things he’s done “were not failures but delayed successes. One thing that bothers him is the increased gang violence and its related increase in property crimes and graffiti.

Finding the money to provide the additional policemen the city needs is difficult. This year, the city has hired 15 new officers that currently are in training. That number keeps the police per population ratio the same, but costs about $2.25 million.

“We need about 300 more policemen and that will cost us about $120 million a year. We don’t have that money and we won’t any time soon.”

“But public safety is number one. So we will continue to hire officers and increase the police budget by 70 percent. But we also need to ensure we have the civilian staff to support the police. Civilian employees have been cut over the past few years.”

Reed also said he wants to see increased use of technology. “We’re just starting to get rid of paper tickets. We can have huge savings in the system just by using technology.”

Looking back over his first year, Reed says he sees a lot of pluses. He’s had some help; the issues he campaigned on are the same platforms that Pete Constant and Sam Liccardo campaigned on. So, he says, the stage was set. “I got the election mandate and it’s easier to persuade council members when you have a mandated election.”