San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan

• Talked about the focus to the budget and priorities.  The city had 42 equal priorities, and was struggling to move the needle on any one of them. They got it down to 3 priorities:  1) Public Safety, 2) Homelessness, and 3) Clean Neighborhoods with the 4th being an investment in jobs, housing and code enforcement.

  • We strive to be the safest big city in America.  To do that, we need to hire police faster.  We have 11 police officers per 10,000 residents, which is not nearly enough.  We need to make SJPD recruiting easier and more compelling to be a SJ police officer.  There has been a decline in applications in recent years.  We also need to invest in technology for public safety.

  • For homelessness, we currently have 4500 people unsheltered. In cities that have bad weather, they do a much better job at having facilities, like the east coast as an example.  We need to start with interim housing to get people off the street.  Once they are off the street, we can focus on services.

    • With Measure E dollars, any property sold over 2 million gets a 1.5% tax.  We can put 50% of that into cost effective housing and treatment centers.

    • Our immediate solutions to homelessness is quick build communities.  We can built 150 units on government owned land, which is a transitional solution until we can offer the right services. We are starting to see people sheltered, and crime and 911 calls went down in those areas where the communities are.  We are proposing up to 5 acres for a quick build community at VTA Cerone site.

    • It generally costs $65,000 per person, per year to manage the homeless.

    • The San Jose Bridge Project pays $18/hour for homeless to get paid for 20 hours/week.  The other 20 hours they receive job training.

  • For Cleanest Big City in San Jose, we are focusing on the Beautify San Jose program.  We are also upgrading 311 services app that you can use to report issues quickly and easily.

    • We've hosted 38 community cleanups so far.  We are starting a clean gateways pilot.

• We are proposing an RV school buffer zone to prevent RVs from parking around schools.  Still pending approval.

• You may have heard that we've been in labor negotiations.  We settled on 14.5% for the next 3 years for workers.  Matt did not support it, and for the next 2 years we will be looking at a $20 million deficit.  We'll also add $60 million to unfunded pensions.

• The city is cracking down on sideshows and have issued 700 citations this year.  Starting to work with social media companies to limit the posts that promote these events.

• Matt's State of the City is October 21 at the San Jose City College.

• Residents asked questions about the Pulte Wall issue at the urban village boundary and the feral cat problem in the city.  

San Jose Police Captain Randy Torres

• Randy Torres is the police captain for our district.  He can be reached at randy.torres@sjcity.gov.  

• Randy works swing shift Wed-Sat.  The area his team services is 101 to Cupertino, Stevens Creek to Campbell.  It's one of the busiest districts within San Jose.

• They are currently 100 police officers short.

• They police with statistical data, and since they are short staffed, they don't have enough resources to manage parking issues, traffic and homlessness.  If you have a parking issue, please use 311.

• If you have an issue to speeding, please go to SJPD.org to request a traffic sweep.

• The department is assigned cases based on priority, so public safety and emergencies are top, going down the list.  

District 1 - JR Fruen

• A traffic mitigation plan is in progress for holiday traffic at the Valley Fair mall.

• A lot of conversation about the wall at the Pulte development/new park.  There is no consistent plans to build a suitable and consistent wall between the urban village and residents.  Impacted residents spoke up and it was a large topic of discussion. 

• The public outreach subcontractor of the consulting group hired for the Stevens Creek Corridor Vision Study will be doing outreach at their kiosk at the De Anza Farmers Market on 24 Sept. 2023.

• The City of San Jose Planning Department will be conducting a Zoom meeting with the developer of the proposed Olin Hotel on Monday 25 September 2023.