Progressive Coalition City Council Candidates Forum Questions

TRANSPORTATION
1. Do you support a one-half cent sales tax to fund the widening of Highway One? No.
2. How would you resolve the Highway One traffic problem?
  It is questionable whether anything within the power of the City Council of Santa Cruz, or even within the power of the County as a whole, can solve the Highway 1 traffic problem. It is the product of macro-economic policies which separate jobs and housing, and of the choices made by individual residents who are willing to sacrifice time in traffic, for better paying and more rewarding jobs over the hill and in other areas, or for city workers who seek higher quality housing elsewhere in the County and region.
  However, we are not entirely helpless - aside from engineering mitigations (such as redesign of the fishhook, and other things traffic engineers are more qualified to comment on than myself), we can:
  - Encourage the construction of affordable housing, so that less people commute up and down PCH.
  - Encourage the creation of high quality jobs inside the city and in the region, to enable people to work near where they live.
  - Encourage alternative transit mechanisms - trolleys/light rail, devote greater funding to the bus system so that it can shift from a point to point system to one more friendly to the casual user, initiate and support a "yellow bike" program, support commuter rail, ridesharing and carsharing, etc.
3. Will you vote to purchase the Union Pacific Railway right-of-way? Yes.
  The sooner this happens, the better - there hasn't been a better opportunity to borrow the money to make a capital investment like this in decades. We need to do this now - land values are going nowhere but up, and so are interest rates.
4. What is the number one traffic problem in Santa Cruz and what will you do about it?
  Clearly the most obvious problem is the fishhook and PCH in general, but I few that as a symptom of the larger problem of lack of affordable housing and a general jobs/housing imbalance. See #2 - the answers to that question are the answers to our traffic problems in general.
WATER
1. Would you support a joint project with Soquel Creek Water District to develop new water sources for both jurisdictions?
  Yes - provided that the resulting system is ecologically appropriate and economically rational. Some of the plans I've seen proposed are better than others.
2. What is your position on a building moratorium until an adequate water management plan is available?
  I would support a mechanism that leads to "net zero or net negative" additional consumption, where no construction could be made without well documented and permanent compensating reductions in use elsewhere - and not via in lieu fees, unless they were substantial enough to clearly have "net negative" effect on consumption, and put into a dedicated fund that could not diverted to other uses. I would support a moratorium on construction of extremely water-intensive uses. Managing water consumption, avoiding groundwater contamination and salination, and preventing further lowering of the water table are all critical to the city and county's continued economic viability and preservation of our quality of life. [insert results of research into water recycling/re-use issues].
DOWNTOWN SANTA CRUZ/COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT
1. Will you support extending the Living Wage ordinance to include coverage of for-profit businesses that are given city economic assistance in the form of tax waivers, subsidies, and/or public works improvements? Yes.
  Have been supporting this initiative as Chair of the Living Wage Advisory Committee.
2. Are there publicly held or publicly subsidized properties that you would consider opportunity sites for safe sleeping zones? If yes, please identify them. If no, please explain.
  Yes.
  Comprehensive lists of these have been drawn up by homeless activists numerous times. The areas proposed in 2000 as a part of the aborted and sabotaged establishment of Safe Sleeping Zones are a good start. David Silva nearly killed himself trying to get these put in place, and the City Council's decision to abort the process before it even started, and after the momentum built up by a grassroots citizen movement for reform had been dissipated, was truly disgraceful. Almost as disgraceful as the outrageous rewriting of history in the June(?) 2001 Sentinel editorial that claimed that Safe Sleeping Zones had been overwhelmingly defeated during the previous fall election, when in fact, Measure U (which was on an entirely different subject, funding for a family shelter) passed with a majority (just not the 66.7% required for implementation). Among other properties, the areas in the three parks proposed as part of the City's ridiculously restrictive keep 'em moving conservation camping ordinance (which, as I predicted, not one organization has taken advantage of - the hypocrisy and the sheer waste of hot air required to pass these pointless laws disgusts me no end) are a good start.
3. Do you support the downtown ordinances passed in July 2002? Did you support the process involved in ordinance consideration and passage? Did you take a public position on the ordinances? Please explain.
  NO! I don't support the "Downtown Ordinances" passed in 1994 either (which clearly were completely ineffective)! Unjust and bad laws should not be "mitigated" or "exempted" into "acceptibility", they should be repealed and replaced with laws and policies that are directly aimed at the real problems! I submitted the following resolution to the Green Party Assembly prior to the passage of the ordinance, which was then passed, and read by a designated representative:
  Resolved:
  1. That the Green Party of Santa Cruz County, CA is opposed to the expansion of laws specifically designed to target homeless people, generically known as the "Downtown Ordinances" and associated rules and regulations. Specifically, we oppose the ordinance modifications listed on the July 15th, 2002 Agenda of the City Council under the heading of "Ordinance Amendments Related to Downtown Issues."
  2. That we reject the process by which these ordinance revisions were assembled, which involved very short time periods for solicitation of public input, dialog between the various parties and interests, and a rush to implementation in less than a month.
  3. That the Green Party of Santa Cruz County, CA urges the City Council to adopt proven methods of conflict resolution that do not use the police enforcement and judicial system as their primary mechanism, such as the mediation program implemented in association with downtown musicians and successfully operated for many years.
  I also helped organize opposition to the ordinances (and more generally against the socio-economic cleansing of downtown and concurrent privatization of public space and degradation of pedestrian friendly streetscaping) via my work with Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom, and spoke out against these with all the passion and outrage I could possibly muster - and I promise to continue doing so after being elected, as my ballot statement says:
  I promise to stay true to the policies and principles which I profess during my campaign. I promise to cut the "military budget" and prioritize funding for social services; to not endorse or accept policies which target the poor and oppressed for harassment and criminalization; to loudly and passionately dissent from the passage of hypocritical and unjust laws; and to push for positive change that empowers and engages all sectors of the community, not just the rich and powerful.
4. Please explain your view of the economic relationship between large corporate retailers and/or small independently owned and operated businesses as part of the city’s tax base revenue.
  Santa Cruz should not try and out-compete the Capitola Mall and over the hill for Big Box Retail. While I don't have the study at hand, I've been told that a least one study determined that the Gateway project cost the city $3 million and produced almost no net increase in tax revenues over previous uses, while disrupting the lives of many merchants and blighting the landscape with an aesthetically terrible design and a vast expanse of asphalt and further increasing automobile dependence. We should continue to focus our economic development efforts on the uniquely diverse and culturally appropriate locally owned retail establishments that give our city its character and make it attractive to regional tourists. As well, the city should work to expand its tax base so that it is not overly dependent on one area or type of retail - there are numerous commercial districts in this city, it is far past time that we paid attention to all them, not just the downtown. A casual glance at City Agendas and the local paper would lead a complete stranger to believe that no economic activity of substance occured outside of downtown.
5. Are you for or opposed to converting all or part of Pacific Avenue to a pedestrian-only mall? What are the financial and social impacts of such a proposal?
  This is a core part of my platform. I am for establishment of a permanent, multi-block downtown pedestrian plaza. As Santa Monica and Pasadena prove, these can be extrodinarily successful without causing the problems that the Sentinel claims will occur. In fact, Santa Monica's downtown pedestrian plaza, which is open to, and utilized by, the entire public (tourists, shoppers, residents of the area, youth and the homeless) is so succesful, that the owners of the adjacent three story indoor shopping mall (The Santa Monica Mall), are petitioning the city to tear it down and append it to the existing three block pedestrian plaza (The Promenade). Downtown Santa Cruz has all the elements that have been identified as key to the overwhelming success of the Promenade, except for the existence of a pedestrian mall. See the platform on my web site for a more detailed analysis (attached).
ELECTORAL PROCESS
Note: I am disappointed that this questionaire doesn't include any questions on Proportional Representation or Instant Runoff Voting, two major reforms that vast increase democracy by ensuring that no viewpoint that can muster the support of a significant portion of the electorate is shut out. The United States is almost alone in not utilizing it. PR and IRV can be implemented at a local level, with only minor modifications to existing election equipment and procedures in most cases - San Francisco just passed a major initiative that will implement IRV in its supervisorial and mayoral elections. It is time for Santa Cruz to consider similar reforms.
1. Do you believe there should be mandatory limits on campaign contributions and expenditures for city council candidates? If yes, why and what are those limits? If no, why not?
  Yes to both. However - the Supreme Court has made it clear that their interpretation of the Constitution prevents any limitation being placed on expenditures by a candidate her or himself (although not on contributions). I think, however, that this is a moot issue, as "Clean Money" systems of public financing, as established in Maine and Massachusetts (for example) demonstrate that the issue is less limiting total expenditures, and more about ensuring that all candidates have the base level of resources necessary to run a credible campaign. That is the real solution.
2. Will you or have you signed a voluntary pledge to limit your campaign contributions and expenditures? If yes, what is the limit you to which you have agreed? If no, why not?
  Yes. Donation limits: $250 individual, $600 committee. Contribution limits: approximately $19,000 total expenditure.
3. Do you support public financing of local campaigns? Yes.
  This is the only solution to ensure that those who govern us are free from conflicts of interest and from undue influence by those who can fund campaigns.
HOMELESS NEEDS
1. Would you support a city/county task force to identify regional solutions to homeless needs?
  We've had enough "Task Forces" whose results have been ignored by our elected officials. I served on one, the City of Santa Cruz's Homeless Issues Task Force, and there is no better example of tragically wasted time and energy. I think we, as a city, and a county, already have a good idea of what needs to be done - what is lacking is the political will, and the leadership to make it happen. The total lack of response to Michael Schmidt's efforts to find a solution that bridged the gap between business and the rest of the community was truly tragic, and nothing speaks more the to the essential indifference and utter lack of leadership on this issue.
  While I do think we need permanent City and County Commissions, with teeth, and funding, whose sole charge is to research, document and advocate on these issues, I think the establishment of such commissions is of secondary importance to the carrying out of policy recommendations already researched and recommended.
2. What is your position on revoking the sleeping ban?
  End the sleeping ban NOW. It is an inhumane and unjust law that criminalizes people for simply lacking the ability to provide themselves and their families with shelter. Making it illegal for a homeless woman to cover herself and her children up with a blanket at night is an injustice of the highest order. We need to provide every resident of this city with a SAFE and LEGAL place to sleep. Period.
3. Do you support the use of parking lots in City Parks or other locations for sleeping in vehicles?
  I support the creation of SAFE and LEGAL car camping areas. There are many areas in the City, and pieces of property that have already been identified as potential sites by homeless activists over the past decade. It is time to DO SOMETHING.
4. What other solutions do you propose to address homelessness?
  See the 32 recommendations in the report issued by the Homeless Issues Task Force in 2000, for a start. See my answers to question #23 of the Montery Bay Labor Central Council Questionaire at http://www.thomasleavitt.org/cc/laborq.html (also attached) - the best way to address issues of homelessness is to prevent it from happening in the first place, and provide people with a "housing ladder" that they can use to climb up off the street and into mainstream housing. Obviously, as well, those homeless who are dual diagnosis (mentally ill and addicted to drugs/alcohol) need a comprehensive set of services to get off the street. Which is why I support cutting the police enforcement budget, and utilizing the savings to pay for drug and alcohol treatment - when 60% of the City's arrests by police are for "public intoxication" (to quote Chief Belcher during the City's recent Budget Hearings), many of which are repeat arrests, obviously the police are wasting tremendous amounts of their time and society is intervening at the wrong point in the process.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING & OVERALL DEVELOPMENT
1. What do you propose to increase the affordable housing stock?
  See my answers to question #23 of the Montery Bay Labor Central Council Questionaire at http://www.thomasleavitt.org/cc/laborq.html (also attached)
2. Do you support changing limits on density in residential neighborhoods? If so, what changes do you propose?
  Yes. Substantive revisions to the ADU ordinance as outlined by Affordable Housing Advocates and the original City Council sub-committee report, for a start. See also my answer to question one in this section.
3. Do you support an increase in the City Property Transfer Tax to finance low cost and affordable housing development and retention? If so, what rate do you propose?
  An increase? I don't think there is a tax in place at this point. Christopher Krohn's 1% seems like a good starting point. The fact is that the average value of a house in the City has reached the point where the standard real estate agent's commission has dropped below 6% on most transactions at or above the median price, and this would probably accelerate that trend, so effectively the impact on the cost of housing would be minimal. I would support exempting a base value set at 50% of the median home price during the month of sale for single family housing to make the tax more progressive and lessen any negative impact on affordable owner-occupied housing, and a similar mechanism for rental housing based on a per unit valuation.
4. Do you support defending mobile home park rent control?
  Yes. Note: The ordinance as it exists, based on my observations of public testimony, appears to be confusing and less than perfectly implemented; I support further efforts to educate mobile home residents and potential buyers about how the ordinance works.
5. Would you support a Just Cause Eviction ordinance?
  A few years back, I was unjustly evicted when my landlady objected to the fact that I used my bedroom to store books instead of my bed. I literally wound up homeless for over a week and a half due to my inability to find any housing of the type I desired at anything approaching a reasonable price. Every rental home I looked at during this period had a waiting list of over twenty applicants, and there were less than ten units of the type I desired available in the entire county. Therefore, I support both Just Cause evicitions (although, as outlined on the PolicyLink web site, at http://www.policylink.org/content/tools/4/42-1.asp, these are of limited use without rent control), and extended notification periods. JCEC regulations need, of course, to take into account the reasonable fears of the landlord community about being tied up with costly and time consuming lawsuits when attempting to evict truly problematic tenants, and there are other solutions which can be put into place alongside them as well, such as landlord and tenant education programs, expansion of eviction prevention programs, and services designed to assist tenants and landlords to resolve problems short of eviction, as well as targeting of slumlords. I also think that extended eviction notices should be tied to the availability of similiar housing; if there are twenty vacant units of the same general nature in the area, then a 30 day notice is significantly less of hardship than if there is one or zero (when it should be 90 days), and it less likely to happen for anything short of a truly just cause, due to the likely loss of rental income.
BUDGET
1. If the City is faced with budget shortfalls, name five of the cuts you would make to balance the budget. Rank in your order of priority.
  First of all, I would have to become a lot more familiar with the city's budget and operations to make anything other than the broadest policy recommendations. Our City Government does quite a lot - clearly, some of what it does has to have a higher priority during a budget crisis. The following recommendations would be made on top of existing cuts, which largely exempted police and fire:
  1. Eliminate subsidy for Convention and Visitors Promotions - if this is a worthwhile expense, the private sector will find a way to fund it. Perhaps through an assessment district? Total Savings: $417,000.
  2. Cut salaries for top ten highest paid city administrators by 10% - at a guess, $125,000.
  3. Reduce the police budget: Save $1,000,000+ by temporary suspension of the "3% at 50" retirement program just instituted; cut the rest by 5% through reduced hiring and overtime through reduced harassment of homeless individuals and youth downtown. Total savings, approximately $1,750,000.
  4. Reduce the fire department budget by 5% through reduced hiring and overtime. Total savings, $325,000.
  5. "In-source" the City Attorney's office. The City spent $13,000 defending itself against an indigent homeless activist with volunteer legal representation - does this make any sense? A recent article stated that the City has spent nearly $300,000 defending itself against the Blue Lagoon's lawsuit, while the Blue Lagoon had spent far less than $100,000 pursuing it - if memory serves correctly, less than $50,000 even. Something just does not add up. If the City is going to be spending this much on outside legal representation, then why not simply hire it directly?
2. Besides cuts, what other measures do you support to balance the City's Budget?
  Fundamentally, the entire state needs to restructure the way it finances government. The current system puts individual jurisdictions in competition with each other for sales tax revenue, which distorts local growth and development policy, discounts housing development and has other pernicious effects. It also makes counties and school districts overly dependent on state funding and subverts democracy by removing almost all decision making power on taxation from local jurisdictions.
  I would direct city staff to present the Council with a full list of the options available for raising revenues, along with the pros and cons of each mechanism, and establish a task force of city residents and business operators to evaluate and recommend options from among the alternatives outlined. In a post-Proposition 13 environment, the city's options are limited, but I'm not convinced (as Christopher Krohn's advocacy of a 1% property transfer tax demonstrates) that we have fully explored all our options.
BALLOT MEASURES
1. Do you recommend a yes or no vote on Measure P: City of Santa Cruz Initiative Petition to Repeal Utility Users Tax?
  Vote NO NO NO NO NO NO on repeal of the Utility Tax. Even the most limited analysis of the resulting effects demonstrates that vast numbers of programs would have to be immediately and unconditionally shut down as a result. See the front page of my web site, it is the number one issue facing candidates this election cycle.
2. ...and, will you allow the campaign you support to use your name publicly? Yes.
3. Do you recommend a yes or no vote on Measure Q: City of Santa Cruz Tax on Hotel Occupants? No. The businesses of this city, if they think this is a worthwhile expenditure, should find a way to fund the CVB via the private sector, and pay for the cost of promotion as part of the normal cost of doing business. As I suggest in an earlier response, perhaps an assessment district would be appropriate.
4. ...and, will you allow the campaign you support to use your name publicly? Yes.
LABOR
1. If elected, how would you help management and labor in their next contract negotiations?
  I would hire Nancy Glock to mediate. :) Seriously, the rising cost of health care coverage is obviously a major issue - no public employee or family members thereof should be without adequate healthcare, the city has to find some way to fund this without imposing undue burdens on its employees - but some sharing of costs is appropriate.
2. Do you support the Living Wage Ordinance to require the inclusion of city contractors in the non-profit sector? Yes.
  This was the original intent of the ordinance, and the Living Wage Advisory Committee spent considerable time and energy on this in its first year, and will continue to do so.
3. Earlier this summer, CalPERS announced it was dropping two of their available health plans, HealthNet and PacificCare, effective January 1, 2003. If elected, how would you use the influence of your office to improve the state of the current employee health plans?
  I'm not sure that the City has many options here, but we should fully explore all available options before further limiting the choices and quality of healthcare available to city employees.
4. What is your position on utilizing temporary workers for city jobs on an ongoing basis?
  This is bad policy, at both City and County level. I support reforms that prevent utilization of temporary employees to "game" the system - if there is no financial advantage to using a temporary employee instead of a permanent one, except where truly appropriate, then these abuses will stop. For example, setting up an artificial threshold under which no benefits of any sort are paid, instead of phasing them as hours worked increased, encourages "gaming" mechanisms such as laying people off one hour short of qualification for benefits.
5. Under what circumstances do you support the contracting out of existing city services?
  I support minimizing contracting out of services. The talents and skills of city employees should be utilized whenever possible, and training and career development provided and made available to further broaden the range of tasks and projects they can take on. Only when it is clearly demonstrated that city staff does not have the capability to tackle a project, and that this ability can not be developed in house in a reasonable time, should we look to contract out services.
COMMUNITY RELATIONS
Note: See also the attached document entitled: "A Queer Agenda for Santa Cruz", also available at http://www.thomasleavitt.org/cc/queer-agenda.html.
1. What will you do to increase diversity in city government and staff? Transform the EEOC from a purely administrative, to a policy making body empowered to address these issues in a pro-active fashion, and utilize it as a vehicle for outreach and gathering community input on these issues. Specific ideas:
  - Work with local school systems to develop Local Apprenticeship Programs and other school to work programs that provide local youth (which have a higher percentage of minorities than the County at large) with the skills to work for the City.
  - Establish in-house Spanish translation services and work to ensure that every department has at least two employees fluent in both written and verbal Spanish.
  - Establish internship programs targeted at socio-economically disadvantaged youth of all types (including queer, physically challenged and differently abled youth).
2. What will you do about racial profiling and improving police/minority relations?
  Work with Mark Halfmoon and the CPRB to continue reaching out to the community at large. Strengthen the powers and effectiveness of the CPRB. Hire more unarmed community service officers to do outreach work and preventative policing. Work with the leadership of minority communities to identify problematic practices and educate officers in cultural competency. Work with the school district to address disciplinary policies which have a disproptionate impact on minority youth.

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