Dear Friend,

I was asked a great question recently- Why are you running for Santa Clara County Supervisor?

My life has really been that of a businessman, not a politician. Armed with a law degree and a lifelong knowledge of the Santa Clara Valley I was busy pursuing my business and legal career when I saw that our local government was going in the wrong direction. In my beloved Evergreen neighborhood, where I had grown up picking prunes and apricots and playing baseball in the fields--alarming things were happening. Our kids were falling behind in high school due to a lack of funding and overcrowded classrooms. So I first ran for school board, a part-time position.

The people of Santa Clara County elected me to the East Side Union High School Board. I am grateful for the confidence they placed in me, and I was able to return that confidence by leading their effort to build the first new high school in Silicon Valley in over 25 years, Evergreen Valley High School. Elsewhere in the district we instituted tough new curriculum standards, lowered the dropout rate and created innovative new programs and partnerships for our most at-risk students. Youth crime declined and academic success increased. I enjoyed serving in this way for eight full years, as a part-time school board member while maintaining my full-time business career.

Around that time I noticed, as did other local residents, that traffic was getting worse and worse, thanks to runaway growth approved by politicians who often treated me and my neighbors like second-class citizens. Citizens were not being informed and were poorly represented on even the most basic issues coming before the City. I joined my neighbors in fighting city hall over bad land use proposals -- demanding a voice of our own -- but we still felt frustrated.

So my neighbors encouraged me to run for city council. They volunteered, walked door-to-door for me, and we won the election and took office on the San Jose City Council just a few years ago in 2001. This was a big change for me. City council in San Jose is a full-time job so I had to leave my private sector employment and take a pay cut to show up every day at city hall. But since then, I have been able to bring my neighbors a true voice at city hall. As a City Councilman, and now Vice Mayor I’ve been able to serve an even broader constituency. We’ve worked hard together. For example, in 2000 there was only one active neighborhood association in my council district.  We worked together to change that and as a result there are now 27 neighborhood associations in District 8.

We have formed a community roundtable where all those neighborhood leaders meet together---so that ordinary city residents can influence policy at city hall. We made sure to appoint District 8 residents to the planning commission and other key posts in city government. Together we fought for honesty, transparency and open government at city hall.

Now, parks and libraries that were stalled are getting built, highway improvements have been funded, new restaurants and retail stores are opening, and all housing development has been slowed to a standstill so that traffic congestion and school impact does not kill our quality of life. In fact, during my term in office ZERO new housing allocations have been approved in District 8.

My term on the city council is coming to an end in 2008. A few months ago I began to make plans to go back to work as a businessman and attorney, but my neighbors have called upon me once again. They have asked me to run for county supervisor, to help them connect county government to our neighborhoods. They want to protect our neighborhood quality of life, a quality of life that is once again threatened, not by the city, but by state and county record budget deficits. There are new frustrations about stalled public projects, impacted schools and youth crime that is suddenly on the rise again in various parts of the county.

My support is grass roots. It comes from local school teachers, firefighters, police officers, neighborhood leaders, church and faith leaders, and many other individuals and organizations in Berryessa, Milpitas, Sunnyvale, Alviso, North San Jose, the East Valley and Evergreen. I am asking those of you who have worked alongside me to remain there, and I am inviting newcomers to join us in this new campaign, as we take our voices to the next level.