April 27, 2006

ELECTION ‘06

Pandori out of the box

Mayoral candidate takes on the tough issues

Editor’s note:
The Times newspapers interviewed the five major mayoral candidates and these interviews will appear in the next few issues culminating in the Times’ endorsement of a candidate for mayor. The Times’ editorial board came up with a list of issues affecting the communities we cover (and the entire city) and the interviews will appear in the order that they took place. Today we are featuring David Pandori, on May 4 we will feature Michael Mulcahy, on May 11 we will feature Cindy Chavez, on May 18 we will feature Dave Cortese and on May 25 we will feature Chuck Reed. Our endorsement will appear in the June 1 edition of the ATW. The election will be held Tuesday, June 6.

By Daniel DeBolt
Staff Writer

David Pandori is an intense man on a mission with a vision for thoughtful development of the city he has called home for the past 30 years, a city he hopes to fill with parks and thriving new businesses.

The former District 3 city councilman and current prosecutor in the District Attorney’s office has a passion for parks and urban planning. The 47-year-old candidate entered the race late in the game, and instead of focusing on the Norcal and Grand Prix scandals as some other candidates have, he is focusing on development and zoning issues.

As a deputy district attorney, Pandori has prosecuted cases against gang members and career criminals. When he launched his campaign, Pandori took leave from his job to work the campaign trail full time.

From 1991-1998, Pandori was a member of the San Jose City Council, representing the downtown area he describes as a diverse and demanding district of the city.  “As a resident I’ve led community drives to fund the Guadalupe River Park and accelerate traffic improvements at the San Jose International Airport,” said Pandori on his Web site.

He also helped to organize the first-ever effort among the major industrial cities in Silicon Valley to coordinate their development plans.  Each city changed its plans to locate housing closer to job sites and to try to provide an equal balance of both.

Pandori prided himself on being an independent voice on the city council.  “Some people called me a maverick, but in my view I just tried to vote whatever way was best for the city.  Sometimes that put me with the majority of the council, sometimes it didn’t.”

He is particularly proud of his efforts to generate funding for the San Jose Arena (now HP Pavilion) without raising taxes and for improving the downtown area around San Jose State University. 

Pandori met his wife, Catherine when he was a janitor in a local department store and she was a sales clerk. “We worked our way through college. We both went to San Jose State University,” said Pandori.  They’ve been married for 23 years and have two children, Will and Laura. Not one for flash, Pandori drove to the Times offices in an older-model red pick up truck.

For the past 20 years, the Pandoris have lived on the same street in downtown San Jose. Their house is “about 85 years old” and they are proud to have renovated much of it themselves. 

“I decided to run for office because I want to offer a different choice for voters on how San Jose grows,” said Pandori.  “I believe that San Jose should grow up, not out.  Repeating the mistakes of urban sprawl will make traffic worse, and stretch city services thin.” 

For more information on mayoral candidate David Pandori visit his Web site at www.pandori4mayor.com

Q and A

Cost of living/city budget
ATW: Many Silicon Valley workers are leaving the area because of the high cost of living. What can be done to make more affordable housing available in this area?

Photos by Jeff Frazee

DP: There is nothing magical the city council can do. The biggest factor affecting housing is land costs. What we need to do is continue the commitment we have to fund housing programs through the redevelopment fund, but we need to think longer term than that. That money is going to run out. A low-interest loan program for housing development should be offered by the city. The council needs to take the money it has now and start banking it towards that.

ATW: How can we attract more jobs to San Jose?

DP: I think this council knows more lobbyists than CEOs. We aren’t Flint, Mich. For example, Google is a big employer that didn’t exist a few years ago. I’m going to get in my car and meet every CEO in the valley and ask what they need. I’ll ask them, what is it about San Jose that makes it easy or hard to do business here? The solution is right in our own backyard.

ATW: There is a concern that the process for opening up a small business in San Jose is too arduous. Should this process be streamlined? If so, how?

DP: In the DA’s office it’s hard to prosecute drug dealers, so we have cops act as buyers. I’ve heard for years about the problems of small business people for years. I want to put city staff undercover as a small businessperson and see how they are treated and have that staff member come report to the city council about the process on a regular basis.

ATW: In the face of the city’s current budget problems, how would you allocate funds differently?

DP: There is no quick fix to the budget problems. I’m not for raising taxes. Palo Alto has twice as much money for services because they did a better job of attracting jobs. We can’t build another 30,000 houses in Coyote Valley; it will run the city into the red and make the garbage deal scandal look minor. Deals worth millions happen without public oversight and without considering impacts to the budget.

ATW: What can be done about the loss of our community centers and their staff?

DP: What I want to propose is before we build a new center let’s see if we can enhance the facilities at a local school. For kids a school is their “city”, their community. Why are we thinking differently?

Transportation
ATW: Should BART be brought to San Jose? If so, what can be done to prevent it from taking funding from other projects in neighborhoods it won’t serve?

DP: Yes, and the way to fund it is to support the bond measure on the ballot this June. (Measure A).

ATW: What can be done to mitigate the major traffic problems there could be with future developments and an expanding city population?

DP: The key reason I am in this race is to change how the city does planning. This council and all the candidates who are running right now want to change the growth policies made in the last 24 years. Good planning—and that’s my background—says you don’t just solve problems by building new highways. That’s why I don’t support a plan to build a city the size of Milpitas in Coyote Valley at the southern end of the city. We have no way of getting those people to jobs at the north end of the Valley.

Development
ATW: Recent decisions about Coyote Valley development have lead to the project being criticized as another example of urban sprawl. What would constitute acceptable triggers before building homes in Coyote Valley? How many jobs should there be first?

DP: I support the existing triggers but the council candidates (Reed, Chavez and Cortese) don’t, they voted them out. These triggers said no development without job growth in Coyote Valley; they required a stable budget surplus for five years and a study that the development won’t drain from other neighborhoods. It would also need to be part of a general plan update. Massive developments shouldn’t be done piecemeal. Maybe it makes more sense to put the housing in north San Jose. Other areas like downtown or the eastside also need more growth.

ATW: What can be done to make sure Coyote Valley development isn’t detrimental to other neighborhoods in San Jose by draining city resources? Should developers be responsible for a percentage of infrastructure improvements?

DP: The way to do that is to reinstitute the triggers. I believe in growth, I voted for thousands of homes while I was on the council. But we need to grow in an orderly way out.

ATW: With plans for continued housing growth in the Evergreen area (5,700 homes), how will you, as mayor, ensure that any negative impacts on traffic, schools and city services will be minimized for Evergreen residents? How will you balance the interests of the local residents versus the interests of developers?

DP: We should stick with the original Evergreen plan. Evergreen growth has already been substantial and traffic is out of control.

The whole Evergreen study got started as a late addition to a council meeting agenda in 2002. The justification was that the developers had a timeline they wanted to meet! The council approved it as a consent calendar item. In a staff memo it said ‘public participation is not appropriate at this time.’ They said 6,000 homes could be built there without having a traffic impact. The council took $8.8 million in development dollars to fund this study.

The most shameful thing is how they put the residents in a position of having to bargain for amenities, jobs and open space. Planning in San Jose should not be a poker game. They were actually passing out poker chips at these negotiations! No one on the council has ever argued, ‘why are we doing this? Why are we giving up 300 acres of future jobs?’

Crime/police
ATW: Although San Jose has a low crime rate compared to other cities, it still has a gang problem. What do you intend to do regarding gangs?

DP: There have actually been at least 10 gang shootings in the last year. I prosecuted a gang related case in a neighborhood where the neighbors were so scared to testify in court that I had to reassure them that gang members would not be out on bail soon. Groups like the local school districts, county probation and the DA’s office need to work together. We need to create a joint powers agency to change the nature of gangs in San Jose.

Gang crime and gang recruitment is unique today. If nothing is done it will get worse.

ATW: The city paid $1.8 million for the police shooting of Bich Cau Thi Tran. Can an expensive tragedy like this be prevented? If so, how?

DP: We need to have the best-trained police officers and we need to equip them with less deadly force. I would like officers to have more choices in how to use force. I would also like to a see a diverse police department with a broader range of language skills so these aren’t foreign encounters.

Sports
ATW: Citizens throughout the city complain they don’t have enough sports fields, especially in Almaden where citizens have spent years trying to build fields for their kids. How would you address this issue?

DP: A great city has great parks. One of the projects I’m excited about is working on the fairgrounds. I see the fairgrounds as becoming a great place for building a beautiful park and sports complex.

I don’t know why it can’t be done in Almaden as well. I understand that there has been some controversy on the location of those fields and the issue is in a bit of a twilight zone right now. For adequate funding I will propose a parks charter fund for the city like the county has. Take 1 percent of the property tax and set it aside.

ATW: If elected mayor, will you continue the city’s pursuit of bringing Major League Baseball, namely the Oakland A’s, to San Jose? If so, how will you go about doing this, considering that the San Francisco Giants have territorial rights to San Jose? Should the city spend money to buy land for a park before the territorial rights issue is resolved?

DP: No, we shouldn’t waste any money until we have an owner interested in San Jose. We’ve already bought one sausage factory too many. The city needs to spend more time meeting with people and less time looking for headlines. San Jose is a big city. We can get a meeting with Bud Selig (baseball commissioner). Maybe over time we can engage him regarding this issue and work things out.

ATW: If elected mayor, will one of your goals be to bring Major League Soccer back to San Jose? If so, will the city of San Jose be able to provide the new team with a new soccer-specific stadium, as previously asked for by the owners of the San Jose Earthquakes?

DP: I think we need to work with the university like we did for the city library. We can build a better soccer stadium for both the university and the city that way.

City Hall
ATW: There seems to be an anti-city hall feeling brewing during this election following events such as the Nor Cal garbage deal scandal and the late notice given before subsidizing the Grand Prix. What, specifically, must be done to get the community to trust city hall again?

DP: Change the leadership. Two of the mayoral candidates voted to cover up the Cisco deal. One voted to cover up the Norcal deal. They all have accommodated a new industry of lobbyists by meeting with them.

ATW: The Mercury News requested information on the San Jose Grand Prix after the council voted for the $4 million subsidy. The information given to the Mercury News had pages with information blacked out. Was the city right in keeping some of the information confidential?

DP: No.

ATW: The Sunshine law proposals currently don’t have any provisions for enforcement. Should a Sunshine law be enforced through fines or censure or dismissal of those who violate it?

DP: I believe we need an independent group doing this oversight. It shouldn’t be left to the city council’s or the city attorney’s discretion. Perhaps it should be a role of the ethics commission rather than creating a new commission.

ATW: Mayor Gonzales is suggesting that city elections be publicly funded, a policy some other cities have adopted. Do you think this would be an appropriate policy for San Jose?

DP: I love the idea of campaign reform, I helped create the ethics commission for the city, but I think campaign financing below the surface is wrought with problems. I don’t support publicly funded campaigns at this time, at least not until someone can convince me it is going to work. And I say this as the least funded candidate!

ATW: How would you go about selecting and working with a new city manager?

DP: Right now we have a strong mayor and a weak city manager and a fairly weak city council. That’s why we have problems like the Cisco and Norcal scandal. People need to be able to do the right thing and not be afraid to lose their jobs.

Your campaign
ATW: What political party do you affiliate with?

DP: The Democratic party.

ATW: Who is endorsing your campaign and of those endorsements which is the most important to you?

DP: I haven’t posted them on my Web site because I want people focusing on these development issues, not a who’s who list. But I’ve got good endorsements like former mayor Tom McHenry, several former council members including Judy Stabbler, Nancy Ianni, Jerry Estruth, Commonwealth club President Gloria Duffy, the co founder of United Neighborhoods, president of Shasta-Hanchett Neighborhood Association, Joe Bentley and a lot of people in my old council district like Ray Moreno, former president of the Guadalupe Washington Neighborhood Association.

ATW: In the past have you proven you have the management skills necessary to lead a group and the skills necessary to convince other council members to vote with you to get things done at city hall?

DP: I was known as an independent person on the city council, a person who would vote no if I thought it was the way to go. But I would also vote with Susan Hammer (former mayor). In the face of a reluctant council I made important changes in policy regarding campaign reform, gambling and airport expansion by bringing my proposals to the community and then back to the city council. With the support of community groups the laws passed, usually unanimously. In the case of the campaign reforms, I got the support of Mayor Susan Hammer after the League of Women Voters and the Chamber of Commerce endorsed them. At first only one or two council members supported it. But, the law was eventually unanimously approved by the council. Power rests with people, not just the council.

ATW: San Jose is the largest city in the Bay Area, though most people still refer to the area as the San Francisco Bay Area. What specifically needs to be done to “put us on the map” so to speak? What big projects would you pursue? What is your vision for San Jose?

DP: I want to leave a legacy of great parks in the city. We need to turn the fairgrounds around from one of the most dilapidated pieces of property to one of the most spectacular parks in the Bay Area. The Guadalupe River Park hasn’t even approached what it can be downtown. We have 100 miles of trails that haven’t been connected in this city. We can do that in a decade.

ATW: How does your campaign deal with lobbyist contributions?

DP: I’ve gotten some unsolicited checks that I’ve sent back. I don’t intend to take any lobbyist contributions. My campaign budget is over $100,000 now.

ATW: And finally …why do you want to be mayor?

DP: I want to get the city thinking about tomorrow. Rather than going from scandal to scandal. I want to make the city better.