Q&A Sessions

I have been on the Council since 2000 and am seeking re-election. I think the three most important issues right now are these:

1. Fiscal health and responsibility: Clearly the City’s budget picture must be addressed and stabilized over the next few years. This must be done with a combination of resolute control of expenses and enhancement of revenues
   1. We must be very firm on cost control while avoiding damage to the working conditions and morale of our excellent City staff. We need to attract and make welcome those types of businesses that are a good fit with our environmentally sensitive community. Our strong suits are tourism and high tech businesses. Our community has expressed a desire for sustainable businesses employing educated workers and utilizing green business practices. By strongly encouraging such businesses, we will assure long-term budgetary health for Santa Cruz.
   2. We also have to plan for the expiration of the measure F sales tax. One possible approach is to build a community consensus to increase the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) to the average level of coastal cities.
2. Transportation and road maintenance: Without positive, proactive planning, Santa Cruz faces the prospect of dreary gridlock on roads in disrepair. We must develop attractive new transportation modes that are not currently available, maintain our current transit system as a model system, and develop a revenue stream to fix our roads and maintain them on an ongoing basis.
   1. Many residents already consider Santa Cruz to be plagued with gridlock. It appears growth of auto trips is inevitable. Major growth of the business community and of UCSC virtually guarantees even more congestion unless we take action. Transportation options ARE available but inaction will not secure any improvement. We must press for an agreement with the University to install a people mover from the Harvey West Park area up to the campus. This new system should be mandated to absorb ALL of the 8000 new daily trips that UCSC is anticipating. It should also be planned to absorb about five percent per year of the current neighborhood gridlock so that local residents can experience a steady, if slow improvement in their traffic mess.
   2. The condition of our roads has to be addressed. To repair all that are badly deteriorated, Public Works estimates it would require around forty million dollars. We need plan for a revenue stream that BOTH repairs our roads now and ALSO maintains them on an ongoing basis. All community stakeholders should explore the possible options. One option could be a parcel tax for City streets. We can bond against that revenue and fix all of our roads as soon as sufficient bonds are sold. An appropriate percentage of the revenue must be earmarked for yearly maintenance so that we don’t get into this situation again!
3. The General Plan revision: Broad participation in our General Plan update is definitely a top priority having a profound effect on our City for many years. Community decisions about land use in our industrial zones will set the tone for our business future. Santa Cruz could be the home numerous vital and state-of-the-art locally owned businesses, or simply the regional big-box store destination just like the freeway off ramps of countless places across the country molded by the blueprints for Anytown, USA. These are real choices and they are here to be made now by our community.
   1. The General Plan revision process will get underway this fall. The General Plan contains most of the foundation principles and policies that guide the day-to-day decisions of our City. A community based vision process is imperative so that all members of our City have the opportunity to contribute to this plan and help form a community consensus.
   2. If business people and residents do not participate in these community decisions, chances are that eager developers will shape our City’s future with the easiest choice, namely big box retail stores on our remaining industrial land. But, others in Santa Cruz have a different vision. We welcome and value small, locally owned businesses, particularly ones that employ green business techniques and employ local residents. The University promises to contribute to this trend with a business incubator project at the former Texas Instrument building.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) provides a detailed framework in which to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of any project and to assure that those impacts are reduced to an absolute minimum and also that they are mitigated. We must avoid any tendency to shortcut the CEQA process or to ignore any provision of its regulations. Further, the adoption of an ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT (EIR) is usually discretionary. We must not accept or adopt any EIR that is deficient or that fails to assure protection of the environment. Often, an EIR will be written by a consultant hired by the developer. It’s of critical importance that every EIR be carefully studied and that critical comments be submitted whenever that is appropriate.

In addition to California law, new projects must comply with the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. The List of Threatened and Endangered Species must be consulted on every project and it must be guaranteed that the habitat of all threatened and endangered species must be safeguarded and kept completely intact.

In regard to marine questions, the regulations of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) must be applied and be complied with.

One of the biggest issues that have developed since the University of California opened the Santa Cruz Campus is the tough competition for housing. While the University pledged to house at least 70% of the students who come to this campus for an education, sadly, that commitment was not kept and the University houses less than 50% of its students. What does this mean? It means that slightly over half of all our UCSC students must compete for scarce housing in Santa Cruz.

In what other situation could you invite thousands of people to a community but house less than half of them? I can’t think of any, at least, none that is acceptable. So, why is it acceptable for the University of California?

I suggest a sensible policy: Housing required for students should be earmarked for students. It’s that simple. I think its a fraud for the University to recruit students to an idyllic campus in Santa Cruz and then when they arrive, they find they must pay $900 a month to share a room with 3 others.

The majority of students must compete with local residents for use of local housing stock. As a result, we have experienced severe housing shortages. Its not fair to students that the University makes them appear to be the cause of our housing problems. It is the University that should assure that all students have good housing and certainly not the fault of students when there is a shortage.

In the last four years, I have supported the creation of over 1000 new housing units in the City of Santa Cruz. We have a brief improvement in our vacancy rate. For the first time in recent memory, there is a better renter's market. But, this won't last if the University is allowed to grow by 6000 additional students and then provides housing for less than half of them. Costs will rise and we'll return to a near zero vacancy rate.

I simply want to repeat: Housing required for students should be earmarked for students. If we stick to that principle, we will not be forced to repeat the housing crisis of the last several decades.

If the University were to contemplate increasing its total number of students by 6000 using only the current auto routes, it would result in about 8000 new auto round trips a day. That 40% increase in traffic would HAVE TO try to proceed to the University by way of the residential streets that most residents agree are presently FAR beyond their intended capacity. This simply cannot happen. That’s why I went to visit acting Chancellor Chemers and asked him to hold a transportation charette this fall and select a preferred technology for a people mover between Harvey West Park and the UCSC Campus. Much to my satisfaction, dr. Chemers agreed to that idea.

I mentioned a possible people mover system that I support in question 1. Once a successful loop is completed to the University, I believe it will be a very popular idea to build additional phases. Additional loops would connect to a park and ride lot at Highway one / Highway 9, then another into the Downtown, and ultimately another down to the beach area. Once several phases are completed, anyone within a quarter mile of the guideway would be able to go anywhere on the system in seven minutes or less. NO OTHER TRANSPORTATION WE KNOW OF CAN MATCH THAT PROSPECT.

The University contemplates building as many as five new parking structures on campus at a cost of twelve to fifteen million dollars EACH. This money could pay for the entire PRT system! And, PRT proponents tell us that a PRT system is so economical to operate that it would pay its own way from fare box revenues. In fact, it would be profitable. That compares with the only 25% of cost that is recovered from all current transit systems.

If Santa Cruz and the University were to partner, building and operating such a system, Santa Cruz would glean huge benefits from worldwide interest in this new transportation technology that operates in the black and relieves auto gridlock for the first time in this country.

The Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) has structured measure J in such a way that the highest and top priority is the widening of seven miles of Highway 1. They have ALSO said that the money will be used for highway widening BEFORE other projects are funded.

I am opposed to the sales tax measure (J) because this would be an unwise project. Nationwide experience has proven that a widened highway will return to the current congested condition within just a few years. In the meantime it would induce even more unmanaged growth in mid-county. Additional cars on a widened highway will inevitably cause more gridlock on neighboring streets. The cost of the proposed project is beyond belief. It has all the appearances of an artificially inflated highway boondoggle.

Over fifty percent of trips in the City of Santa Cruz both originate and conclude inside the City limits. This means that development of the rail-trail, use of the rail corridor for public transit, development of bus rapid transit (BRT), Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), and improvement of pedestrian and bicycle routes can reverse our trip into more gridlock without highway widening. I urge my friends and neighbors to vote NO on Measure J.

If the measure were to pass, which I hope it does not, I would urge the RTC to raise the priority of the Railroad Right-of-Way acquisition and development of the Rail Trail. The RTC has done this County a major disservice in failing to use the eleven million dollars of Proposition 116 funding that is earmarked for acquisition and use of the Santa Cruz rail corridor for passenger service. Its a stunning disappointment that the RTC can so casually disregard BOTH the vote of the people of this County on this question and ALSO the VALUE of eleven million dollars in scarce transportation funding.

The Santa Cruz City Council should enter into a meaningful partnership with the University and develop a significant new people-mover system to carry university commuters up to campus so that they do not need a car there. I have been and continue to be an outspoken advocate for a people mover system to deliver staff and students from the Harvey West area to the campus. I believe that a gondola or an emerging technology such as Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) can reverse the trend of ever increasing traffic in the neighborhoods below the campus.

Further, I think the University should commit to a 5% neighborhood traffic reduction per year over a period of at least 10 years once a first phase of a people-mover is in operation. My plans envision that succeeding phases of such a transit system would move into the downtown and finally to the beach. Each new phase would be a new "loop" and, after about 7 phases, the system would serve beach, downtown, and University commuters. The MTS has proven that over 50% of our traffic both originates and concludes within our City limits. This means it is within our control and that we can provide attractive alternatives to single occupant automobiles.

The university should also move in the direction of the car free campus that it was originally planned to be at its founding. The deviation from that idea has been a terrible betrayal of our residents.

There are ten projects named in measure J. I support EVERY project in measure J excepting the highway widening project. New highway crossings for bicycles & pedestrians, Express Buses, Park and Ride lots and alternative transportation programs, Local Street and Road Repairs, The Rail Trail, Senior's and Disabled transportation services, Highway 17 Safety Programs, and the Watsonville-Pajaro Junction Train station all should have a higher priority that highway widening.

It takes a very cavalier attitude for the RTC to:

1. Forfeit eleven million dollars and then ask residents for thirty to forty times that much in new taxes, and
2. Place all of the above, popular transportation projects into the same bundle with the controversial highway widening project so that we must support a project we don't like in order to get a few leftover crumbs toward the worthwhile projects.

I brought forward the recent City Council measure to require Special Use Permits for big box stores. Had I not done so, I'm not sure any other Councilmember would have done so.

I had originally brought forth the idea of a moratorium on large construction or conversion projects (big box stores) in the Cities Industrially Zoned lands. While that idea did not get support of the majority of the City Council, its popular appeal set the stage for the successful zoning ordinance change that allows that "greater scrutiny" mentioned in this question.

My comments regarding big box stores on the West Side of Santa Cruz are as follows:

This proposed Home Depot would probably require an equivalent number of vehicle trips to the Watsonville Home Depot. The EIR for the Watsonville Home Depot forecasts about 5000 vehicle trips per day to the site. There is every reason to believe that a similar if not greater level of traffic would come to a Delaware Avenue location. ALL of that traffic would have to use Delaware Avenue, Fair or Swift streets, and Mission Street. There is NO WAY to adequately modify neighborhood streets for such a commercial traffic load and still preserve the residential character of those neighborhoods. Inevitably, some percentage of the traffic would travel onto other adjacent neighborhood streets changing their character as well.

This is, quite simply, a bad location for this type of business. Home Depots are typically right near a freeway. They also typically draw from a seven-mile diameter circle of resident customers. But, the Santa Cruz site does not and cannot have such a central location among its likely customers. To the West, the City Limit boundary marks the end of residential development. Beyond that are coastal farms and virtually no customers. To the South, the ocean shore is less than a mile away and, similarly, very few customers will come from beyond the shoreline. To the North, only a band of homes about a mile wide exists. So, a home depot at the Delaware location would have a distorted pattern of customer locations with a super majority of the customers necessarily coming ONLY from the East. Unlike most other large box stores, virtually all of the major traffic flow would come from a single direction, our Mission Corridor.

In recent years, Santa Cruz went through a significant public planning and decision-making process regarding Mission Street. We decided it should be built as it is presently and we certainly DID NOT contemplate a use such as Home Depot on the far West Side of Santa Cruz. A Planning process that would violate those decisions now would be a total betrayal of all those residents and businesses that spent years in deciding the future shape of the Westside and Mission Street.

When big box stores such as Home Depot open, they inevitably cause the closure of small businesses that offer similar products and services. Santa Cruz has large numbers of such small businesses. This would be devastating to many of them. Then, with such a distorted geographic location compared to the typical Home Depot business plan, there is a real possibility that the Home Depot would not even survive at this location. Either way, many wholesome Santa Cruz businesses would be forced to close and there would be no guarantee of the longevity of the box store that displaced them.

For all of these reasons and some others, it would be a very bad idea to approve the proposed big box store on the West Side of Santa Cruz.

Finally, if we "must" resort to big box stores I think the ONLY place for them is beside the freeway where they will not create a new kind of neighborhood blight. But, I would rather see sustainable business be developed that add to the long-term health of the community. Reliance on sales tax revenues from big box stores does not do that.

One major flaw in the current General Plan is the fact that it allows big box retail stores such as Home Depot or Lowes in the IG (Industrially) zoned lands. This has been partially corrected but the above-mentioned zoning change I successfully introduced.

Another major flaw is the idea if Industrial Zoning in general. Its unlikely that old-fashioned industry will ever return to Santa Cruz and, for sound environmental, we might not want it. Santa Cruz needs to convene its community to a vision process where we decide what uses we want to define for the lands that are presently zoned Industrial. A new definition of Industrial is needed or else a new name for the High Tech industry that we hope will grow into these existing Industrially zoned lands.

A third flaw may be some of the higher density residential zoning mixed into areas of single-family homes. Smart growth concepts generally say that high-density housing should be built in transit corridors and in the Downtown. Also in second and third floors of commercial areas and on the UC campus as well. It is foolish to create warring factions within the City by betraying the promises of the zoning that was in effect when people bought their homes. There are dozens if not hundreds of opportunity sites for good, dense housing in the areas I just mentioned without seeking to place such density all over the City in some unrestrained fashion.

Its worth saying however, that most of the General Plan is filled with wonderful goals and policies that we should definitely retain. It has been suggested by some that we should discard the existing General Plan in favor of some "lean and efficient" replacement version. I STRONGLY DISAGREE! Santa Cruz has embodied years of environmental progress and movement toward sustainability into the current General Plan. Just because we are in a time of scarcity, this is not the time to discard our most deeply held values in favor of a streamlined replacement plan that opens the floodgates of unwise development! The General Plan revision must retain all of the positive content of the current general Plan while bringing it into alignment with today's reality.

As I said in the first question response, broad participation in the General Plan revision process is one of our top priorities and only by such broad participation can we have any hope of getting a new General Plan as good as or better than the present one.

I advocate a much stronger link between the City Council and the Santa Cruz City Schools district. That school system is mandated in our City Charter and I think the Council has been far too distant for far too long. Now, schools have been closed and more closings are proposed. I think this is a disaster for our community.

I have taught at Santa Cruz High School since 1980. Every year, I attend teacher development classes and workshops. Everything I have learned in a total of over 30 years in teaching is that students learn best and adapt best to smaller schools. Yet, in spite of that knowledge, the current school board closes schools, plans to close more, and continues to make the remaining schools ever more crowded. Its bad policy!

Santa Cruz needs to determine what it costs to pay for the schools it needs and wants and then set about generating the money to maintain those schools. If that means supplemental tax measures that we must do that. Santa Cruz has recently voted twice for additional tax measures to support our schools. We are a community that believes in excellent educational opportunity for all and then does what’s needed to make that a reality.

The University has acquired the former Texas Instruments facility and plans to develop a business incubator facility that will allow ideas from the classroom and University projects to turn into real working businesses. The City of Santa Cruz needs to be a full partner in this new plan and develop a companion business park on its vacant industrially zoned land on the West Side of Santa Cruz. There is over 20 acres of vacant land in that area that is zoned industrial and this new hi-tech industry is the business that should occupy it.

I would support a REAL increase in the minimum wage and would support a City version of that measure. I strongly supported the Santa Cruz is commitment to a Living Wage. We enacted what was at that time, an ordinance requiring the highest Living Wage in the nation.

The current minimum wage is entirely inadequate to support a person. An increase is very important to the health of our community.

Many different factors contribute to the causes of homelessness in Santa Cruz. The downturn of the economy, drug and alcohol problems, mental health issues and just a simple yearning to be unattached are all contributors.

Santa Cruz is a leader in this region in providing services and transitional housing to homeless people. I'm proud to say that I strongly supported the building of the new homeless family facility that is nearing completion on North River Street.

The next thing we need to do is get a year round shelter. Right now, we use the National Guard Armory from November to March and the rent that we pay them would easily pay for a year round shelter operation.

The Family shelter has been paid for entirely paid for by private contributions. When that project is completed, we should keep that fundraising effort going and develop a publicly owned year round shelter.

We should not have a law preventing homeless people from sleeping until we have such a facility where that can go in safety.

The principle I have used in considering this question is that the City Council should respond when significant numbers of people in our community ask us to be their voice. Normally such requests are unusual. But, in times of crisis and particularly recently when our civil rights are being eroded by the "patriot act" and many people feel that the United States has engaged in an illegal and unjustified war, this principle has come into play. We can be proud that our City Council has made strong statements against the war and against the patriot act just to name a few examples.

Closing: I am endorsed by 11 former Mayors of the City of Santa Cruz.

For the 2004 election, as of this date, I have been endorsed by the People’s Democratic Club (PDC), the Santa Cruz Action Network (SCAN), SEIU Local 415, The Santa Cruz-Monterey Central Labor Council, The Sierra Club, The Green Party, People Power, The Santa Cruz County GLBT Alliance, BAYMEC, The Nueva Vista tenant’s association, and others.

I have been a teacher at Santa Cruz High School for since 1980 and an active campaigner for student rights. I respectfully request that UCSC College Democrats join in endorsing me for Santa Cruz City Council and, to keep in close contact me during the next four years.