September 11, 2008

Pyle presents priorities to AVCS meeting

By Carol Rosen
Editor

District 10 City Council-member Nancy Pyle presented the top five priorities for her second term to members of the Almaden Valley Community Associ-ation meeting on Monday, Sept. 8 at the groups regular meeting.

Over the next four-and-a-half years, she hopes to make San Jose an economically self-sustainable city; a force for youth; establish an international reputation for the city; create an environmentally sustainable city; and become a leader in emergency preparation at the macro and micro levels.

Pyle then explained to the group how she plans to achieve these goals.

Finding lasting economic improvements
“Since I have been in office, the City Council has been forced to make cuts year after year in order to balance the budget. Over the last four years, we have cut $50 million. While it is always important to identify waste and increase efficiency, we must also look at ways to improve our economy so that residents have access to good jobs, small businesses grow and the city’s tax base increases,” she told the Almaden residents.

She proposes to do this by first reducing sales tax leakage. “For every dollar a person spends within the limits of the city, 1 cent goes to the city where the store is located. This money is a major component of San Jose’s general fund, which pays for all city services including police, fire, road maintenance and parks and recreation.”

Her goal is to educate residents to “Buy San Jose” by bringing previously unavailable services and retail into San Jose.

Pyle then explained she wants to further streamline the permitting process. “We have reduced the time it takes for a business to get a permit to 120 days from the previous 200, but that’s not enough. My goal is to cut the processing time in half again, so businesses can get their permits in 60 days.”

She also wants to bring large corporations to San Jose. “Not only do new corporations bring jobs and boost our local economy, the city’s general fund benefits from additional business-to-business tax,” Pyle said.

Growing businesses
While she hopes the city will encourage the next generation of high-technology businesses through city projects like the Biocenter and Green Vision, the city has to support small businesses by “maintaining and expanding successful programs such as the retail recruitment program, new stores at malls and BusinessOwners Space.com (BOS).”

The city’s retail recruitment program provides assistance to new tenants from site introduction through store opening. Focus areas for the program include downtown and 10 neighborhood business districts including those at Blossom Hill Road and Almaden Expressway.

Fourteen stores opened in Oakridge Mall this year including Sephora, Coach, Bath and Body Works, Express and Express Men, Anchor Blue, Disney, Brookstone, Crazy 8, MW Tux, Shoe Shop, Wind Spinners, Beard Papa’s Cream Puffs, Snow Miracle and Dawgs. On Sept. 15, an Oakridge Goodwill drop site for free disposal of electronics opens.

Helping youth succeed
Pyle’s second goal, to help San Jose become a force for youth, has to do with young people falling through the cracks. The former teacher hopes to decrease high school dropouts by bringing city, county, state and federal representatives to address the issue and supporting homework centers and after school programs. She also hopes to involve corporations.

She wants to create recreation opportunities for young people by offering adequate sports fields and other facilities using the city-school collaborative as she did with the fields at Leland High School.
She hopes to use the Mayor’s Gang Prevention Task Force for prevention programs including sports leagues and activities for high-risk youth as well as intervention programs and counseling for gang-involved youth and their families.

Establishing international reputation
Pyle’s third goal is to help enhance San Jose’s international reputation. “Increas-ing our name recognition will boost our economy, improve our airport and increase the quality of life.”

She proposes to do this using the Sister City Program and by overhauling the city’s visitor’s bureau and highlighting local tourist attractions and activities.

For example, she told AVCS members that the Sister City relationships with Dublin and Pune, India facilitated economic development in all three areas.

“The former Irish Prime Minister has cited the San Jose-Dublin sister city relationship among the factors contributing to Ireland’s economic development over the past 15 years,” she said adding that “many San Jose area companies have significant operations in Ireland and India including Google, eBay and Yahoo.” In addition, many Irish and Indian companies also established significant operations in San Jose including Bard, Freeflow, Silicon Software Systems S3 and Tech Mahindra.

“The sister city program can also help to facilitate tourism, and educational exchanges,” she said.  “San Jose State University has a bilateral university relationship with University College Dublin and Okayama University. This allows students and faculty members to participate in university exchange programs.”

Green city
Her fourth goal is to create an environmentally sustainable San Jose by implementing the council’s green vision to make San Jose the country’s green capital.

Mentioning the 10 goals that the city council agreed on for its green vision, she noted that San Jose is just one of the country’s cities that needs to do its part to protect the world’s environment.

Pyle said she plans to work with local businesses to purchase reusable shopping bags to distribute to residents. The bags will double as emergency outreach materials containing printed tips for emergency preparation and disaster kit supplies.

Preparing for emergencies
Finally, Pyle wants to ensure the city’s leadership in emergency preparations. “California has more than a 99 percent chance of a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake within the next 30 years, and the probability it will strike the San Francisco Bay Area is 64 percent,” she said.

While she thinks the city and Santa Clara County are well prepared for disaster in their first responder training, equipment and planning, “no government has the resources to be able to immediately care for all citizens immediately following a catastrophe. San Jose needs to do a much better job of working with citizens, families and neighborhoods to help them prepare for a disaster so they can care for themselves until help arrives.”

While the city already is able to take care of the overall situation, she says more preparation is needed. For example, emergency responders will be busy dealing with life threatening situations and won’t be able to assist residents on a large scale.

Residents must learn emergency tactics. The city currently offers a free two-hour home and family disaster preparedness course teaching care necessities for the first 72 hours. It also offers a 20-hour course to train residents and neighborhood associations on caring for themselves, their families and neighborhoods immediately following a disaster.

In addition, Pyle suggests that the city help prepare residents to provide their own adequate food and water, basic first aide, search and rescue techniques and finding and caring for vulnerable people until emergency responders arrive.

She encouraged AVCA members to create disaster kits and take advantage of the city training programs as well as thanking them for placing an American Red Cross unit in Almaden Valley.