December 27, 2007

Pyle looks at council career

Hopes for another four years

By Carol Rosen
Editor

District 10 City Councilmember Nancy Pyle isn’t sitting on her laurels; she’s hard at work attempting to get the things done.

Nancy Pyle discusses where she’s been in 2007 and where she’s going in 2008. Photos by Carol Rosen

It’s just been the last couple of years that she’s emerged from being one of the quietest council members. Earlier this year she let the council know she did not favor a plan to outsource park maintenance. More recently, she helped ensure the South Side Police Substation with a memo, $2.3 million from the sale of the Corta de Rosa property—the money had been collected but not budgeted—and her work to increase shopping and thus augment city coffers with increased sales tax. And, she continues to work to find fields for youth and adult recreation, especially soccer.

Mending fences
There’s no surprise that she’s decided to run for a second term. She already has garnered support from a variety of politicians and community makers in District 10--from Mayor Chuck Reed to former Almaden Business Association President Rich Crowley, from Pat Dando to most all her fellow council members. So far, no one has signed up to run against her, but possible opponents have until March to sign up.

“I’m really excited about the coming year,” Pyle said of her upcoming campaign. “I really never stopped campaigning. I reached out to those who didn’t support me.” For example, she noted the traffic safety meeting held this fall after a tragic accident took four lives on Graystone Lane. Rich de la Rosa, who lost a hard fought campaign to Pyle, “brought materials to the Graystone Safe Driving meeting. She also noted close work with the Almaden Business Association.

As for the labor issues surrounding her first election, Pyle says she was not aware of what was going on. “I’m not labor involved,” she said. “It was all done without my knowledge, I was out knocking on doors.”

Sports fields
Pyle has unabashedly sought fields for youth and adult recreation, but mostly for youth soccer in District 10, which has few areas for its more than 2,000 players to practice and play their sport. Earlier this year, she pushed for a feasibility study for fields for recreation throughout the city.

Currently, she has worked out an agreement with Leland High School for three fields, that may be available in February, and continues to work with three school districts—Union, San Jose Unified and Oak Grove—to provide more opportunities to work out agreements for the school fields that are not in use on Sundays.

“We’ve investigated 34 sites in District 10 and discarded them for one reason or another; too near traffic, too much water on the field making the soil not feasible for play or not enough room,” she told the Times. “We can’t manufacture land, we need to work with each school.

“I’m busy raising money, not for my campaign, but to go full blast with the schools, to come up with some kind of agreement” for the sports fields. The more we get involved, the more we will be able to turn it into a community project,” Pyle said.

She suggests that by replacing the grass with turf, the schools will more readily agree to provide weekend fields. She’s also hoping to get more people involved, which will help lessen the financial commitments.

Police substation
Pyle was happy to help push the South Side Police Substation toward construction. “I did it and I’m happy about it. It’s another commitment to the citizens that voted for it five years ago. It’s a ridiculously long time to wait. I felt a commitment to the people [in District 10 and throughout the city].”

But the need for the substation goes further than just the voter commitment. It’s partly time and it’s also partly green. “A lot of police officers live in District 10 and South County. They drive into the city to check in, drive back out to District 10 and if they arrest someone they have to go back downtown. Then they have to go back downtown at the end of their shift. What a waste of gas. And, the hour it takes them to drive downtown is an hour that the officers are not here where they need to be.”

During the Dec. 18 council meeting to vote on the substation, Pyle said, “the substation will allow the police to work more efficiently, provide less C0-2 output, resulting in better air quality and less traffic on our freeways,” she said.

The new substation, she said, will provide police officers with more time to do their work within the area. The police are thrilled, she said, because they can be more self contained in fulfilling their duties and the substation will provide holding cells and a service yard for their vehicles.

“What helps in one district, helps throughout the city,” Pyle said.

She has been a stalwart supporter of the San Jose Police Department throughout her three years. She says she meets with Capt. David Cavallaro on a monthly basis. “We have the safest district in the city,” Pyle said, “but we still have problems. I think the substation will help San Jose get back to its place as the safest large city in America. But most important is ensuring that all the constituents in District 10 are safe.”

Economic development
District 10 is seventh in providing the city’s sales tax revenues. Pyle wants to boost that statistic and help reduce the deficits that have plagued the city since the dot.com bust. In order to do so, she stepped out and encouraged Whole Foods to build a store taking over the space at the old Rite Aid store on Blossom Hill at Almaden Expressway. She also sees the new Sonoma Chicken Coop as driving up tax revenues and revitalizing the shopping area at Old Almaden Plaza, where business slumped after Trader Joe’s moved.

City Councilmember Nancy Pyle spoke at the Doris Dillon Children’s Library opening in November. She also handed out awards to students winning the bookmark contest at the Almaden Branch Library.

In other areas, Pyle is working to develop changes at Via Valiente Center, an older shopping center that could benefit from revitalization. “We need to keep going,” she said, “to attract businesses to the area. That’s the only way to increase sales tax revenue for the district and pump up tax revenue to the city.”

“It’s the only discretionary income that I can go after and it certainly will help pump up city coffers,” she said.

Other ideas
Pyle has decided to help improve the Hoffman/Via Monte area. She worked with the community to develop the Pat Dando Hoffman/Via Monte Community Center, which is attracting many in the area for recreation and classes. She hopes to get another center opened. “My vision is to help the people that live there become employed nearby at Whole Foods, for example.”

In addition, she noted there are two new child care facilities opening in that area. One is by Pioneer High School; the other is by Almaden Lake behind the water district’s offices.

“We need to clean up the area, to make it more feasible for beautification,” Pyle told the Times. In order to do so, she has plans for a Code Enforcement Pilot Program that will eliminate dumping and other code violations throughout the city. In addition, she hopes to set up an incentive-based Neighborhood Watch program that will urge residents to call after witnessing crimes or other issues,

Constituent concerns
Pyle’s community relations and policy aide, Stephanie Holm, set up a constituent tracking system to cover concerns and comments. Just before Christmas, Holm indicated that the office received more than 1,000 calls throughout 2007. Of those, only 39 were unresolved and there were 23 cases in progress that the District 10 staff was monitoring.

The speed of their resolution depends on the issue, said Holm. For example, it takes about a week to cover up a pothole, but could take much longer to completely slurry and seal a street. “We relay the concern to city engineers, Holm said, “our office doesn’t make the [timing] call, the engineers do it. But the problem stays open in our system until it has been completed.”

Chief of Staff Lee Wilcox notes that not all calls are resolvable. “We’ve gotten a few calls asking us to stop the war in Iraq. We got one call asking us to fill in a neighbor’s pool because the people were swimming too much and some people call in and request a commendation for themselves.”

However, they also get calls from constituents that want to help their community. For example, Holm notes that a high school student at Pioneer’s Youth Reaction Corps wants to collaborate with their office to put on a health fair for the Hoffman/Via Monte neighborhood. Three other constituents—Alex Fraiser, Linda Spencer and Rebecca Gonzales—want to create an outreach program for emergency preparedness with the district.
Statistics

Finally, Pyle put together a number of statistics for 2007. For example, she attended 45 City Council meetings, “I’ve never been absent,” she said. In addition, this year she has attended 23 study sessions, 36 committee meetings, 23 commission meetings and 83 community meetings. The latter statistics includes at least 10 meetings concerning break-ins, which receive the highest priority.

She will serve on 11 committees in 2008. These include chairing the Community and Economic Development Committee, Neighborhood Services and Education, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority Board, executive board alternate for the Association of Bay Area Governments, liaison to the Civil Service Commission, the Disability Advisory Committee and the Parks and Recreation Commission, Emergency Preparedness Council, Independent Hearing Panel, Santa Clara County Expressway Study Policy Advisory Board and Suggestion Awards Commission.