Applicant Zhen Wu’s supplemental response to Item 6 & 11 combined:
6. Please explain why you would like to serve as a member of the City Council; and
11. What would you hope to accomplish as a Councilmember? Answer:
I have lived in the city for 19 years. My son’s entire life has been in San Clemente. He is a proud junior at SCHS now. Over the years my wife and I improved our house to be ready for our retirement here. I also I started my small business here over a dozen years ago.
I love our city and know it well. San Clemente is the place for us to stay and take care of, so I volunteered thousands of hours to serve on Planning Commission from 2015 to 2021. I also served on Design Review Subcommittee concurrently and one year on the Coastal Advisory Committee. Learning from my service on these commission and committees, I have familiarized myself to most of the important local issues.
In 2020, I ran for City Council for the first time. The voter engagement encouraged me enough that I ran again in 2022; this time I finished 5th.
During the two campaigns I knocked thousands of doors and spoke with numerous citizens to listen to their concerns. It’s always my passion to help my own community.
I’m a problem solver. In my career of professional service, I have never disappointed an employer or a client. I would make good use of my highly relevant knowledge and skills on land use planning, urban design, sustainability, architecture, and historic preservation to solve the issues of San Clemente. The city council already has strong expertise on finance, legal issues, and education. A professional with land use planning expertise would supplement the council well, since the General Plan is the blueprint of the city, and the council needs to walk the fine line between development and preservation. A practical example is the coastal issues including sand replenishment and erosion control. As a planner and architect, I know enough engineering to dive deep into the issues, to ask good questions, and to make sure that the city gets the full benefits from the services provided to us. Another example is the amphitheater. The city wants to pick a site for an amphitheater, but there’s no progress so far because other pressing issues take priority. Site selection including investigation, evaluation, and recommendation is a service I routinely provide to my clients. I will be able to do it on my spare time, go over with a committee and staffs, then present the possible solutions to the council, without incurring expensive consulting service fees.
I’m a consensus builder. I consider myself a technocrat. I stay low key on my life and focus on addressing issues not politics. I was reappointed unanimously to the Planning Commission by the Council in 2017 with diverging views among councilmembers. When I ran my campaign last year, I did not receive an endorsement form either party. Instead, I received plenty of endorsements and votes from local community leaders and citizens across the political spectrum including Republicans, Independents, and Democrats. I am a team worker, and will unite, not divide, the council. I will strive to work with each and every councilmember to find solutions to the difficult issues we are facing: public safety, fiscal soundness, homelessness, economic development, and housing affordability, just to name a few.
I hope that through compassion, teamwork, and professionalism we can work together to make San Clemente a better place.