BCAC Members, Co-Sponsors, and Community Friends,

Request – We want to ask that you help by giving us your questions for the candidates for Mayor of San José  at our SPECIAL MEETING Wednesday Oct 19th 7:00-8:30PM.

The BCAC has acceptances from Cindy Chavez and Matt Mahan, and we are working to maximize participation on-site (3050 Berryessa Road) and on-line.  We need your questions. 

Note: The Registrar of Voters will post the ballots on Oct 10th, so this will be a timely candidate forum.

What do you want to ask?  Please keep each question on a single issue that both candidates can answer.Send us as many questions as you want.

How –  To submit questions to the Question Screening Committee, just send them in an e:mail to BCAC.D4@gmail.com.  We will collect all of the questions for the Question Screening Committee to sort and prioritize for submission to the Moderator, Dr. Roxane Fuentes (BUSD Superintendent). 

Background –  San José is the 10th largest city in the country with an annual budget in excess of $5B.  Our city is governed by the Mayor (elected at-large) and a 10-person council (elected by district), so it takes real leadership to organize the six votes on council needed to establish priorities, adopt any policy, or approve programs.  Here are some numbers for you.

• Police Budget – Down 1% to $493M with Core Services staffing allowance up 1% to 1740
• Housing Budget – Down 23.5% to $174M with reductions concentrated in Neighborhood Capital Investment and Community and Economic Development.  Staffing up 13 to 104
• Parks & Rec Budget – Down 3% to $154M with reductions concentrated in Neighborhood Services.  Staffing up 6.6% to 825
• Homelessness
  • San José Population 983,489 (2021 US Census Data)
  • Homeless Population 6,097 (2019 San José Report) or 0.6%
  • Homelessness Trends – up 40% from 2019 census 4,350 but flat for last 10 years
• Debt and Obligations
  • Residual Redevelopment debt outstanding $1.38B
    
    
  • General Obligation debt $582M
    
    
  • San José Airport debt $1B
  • San José’s pension cost for FY 2019 28% of the General Fund Budget  or $335M (Civil Grand Jury Report)
    
    
  • Unfunded Pension Liability – 2015 Tier 1 for Police/Fire was $846M and for “Federated City Employees” was $1.5B