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Saldy Suriben, SV Pride Festival
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ㅡ
Board of Directors
Rudy Flores
Bob Levy
Helen Chapman
Lawrence Ames, PhD
Jean Dresden
5 March 2025
Matt Mahan
Mayor, City of San José
and Members of the City Council
200 East Santa Clara Street,
San José, CA 95113
Dear Mayor Mahan and Councilmembers,
Parks are important to us all: they improve our physical and mental health, engage our youth, and build community and a sense of place – a reason to reside, work, and play in San José. Blighted parks with minimal maintenance detract from the city’s image and discourage investment. Residents and investors expect San José to keep their parks safe and the playground equipment in good condition – without having to wait years for repair.
We support the City Manager’s plan for no cuts to the
Maintenance and Operations of the city’s parks, trails and sports fields.
● Well-maintained parks are a highly visible sign of a
thriving city, which helps attract investment.
● The Parks maintenance budget suffered major cuts in
prior economic downturns leading to lowered
standards. Park maintenance currently is inadequate.
● A well-staffed park maintenance operation would
slow the growth of the infrastructure backlog, which
now is over $500 Million.
● Continue work with community partners to provide
diverse young adult populations to provide career
pathways to higher paying jobs – keeping our youth
out of homelessness.
[External Email. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources. Learn more] Outlook
FW: Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action - March Budget Message From City Clerk <[email protected]>
Date Tue 3/11/2025 7:43 AM
To Agendadesk <[email protected]>
1 attachment (198 KB)
SJYCAT Letter to Mayor Mahan on March Budget Message 2025.pdf;
From: SJYCAT < >
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2025 5:04 PM
To: The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <[email protected]>
Cc: District1 <[email protected]>; District2 <[email protected]>; District3 <[email protected]>; District4 <[email protected]>; District5 <[email protected]>; District 6 <[email protected]>; District7 <[email protected]>; District8 <[email protected]>; District9 <[email protected]>; District 10 <[email protected]>; City Clerk <[email protected]>; Webmaster Manager <[email protected]>
Subject: Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action - March Budget Message
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Dear Mayor Mahan,
We are the San José chapter of Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action (SVYCA), a team of 30+ students from across the city who are passionate about protecting our safe and stable climate future. In this pivotal time, we urge you to include the climate crisis as a top priority in your forthcoming March Budget Message.
We would also really appreciate meeting with you or your office to discuss this and related issues further.
Attached is our full letter.
SJYCAT Letter to Mayor Mahan on March Budget Message 2025.pdf (199K)
Thank you for your time,
San José Youth Climate Action Team
3/11/25, 3:57 PM Mail - Agendadesk - Outlook
https://outlook.office365.com/mail/[email protected]/inbox/id/AAQkADUxOWI4ZjE3LTRkNDEtNGUzMS04MjAwLTIzNzdiYTdkMjc5NAAQA… 1/2
Dear Mayor Mahan, We are writing to sincerely and urgently request that you prioritize our city’s fight against the climate
crisis
in
this
year’s
budget.
Specifically,
we
ask
that
you
include
climate
change
as
one
of
your
top
priorities
in
your
March
budget
message.
Climate
Smart
San
José
and
the
Environmental
Services
Department
need
to
be
fully
funded
every
year
to
maintain
our
progress
against
the
climate
crisis.
Our city’s young people will live out the consequences of the decisions you and your colleagues make
today
far
into
the
future.
We
have
already
grown
up
in
a
world
marred
by
climate
chaos.
Many
of
us
simply
never
remember
a
time
before
we
knew
about
this
problem.
Our
lives
have
already
been
tangibly
impacted.
Some
of
us
who
live
in
East
San
José
had
to
prepare
to
evacuate
our
homes
during
the
massive
SCU
Complex
Fire
in
2020,
while
all
of
us
have
breathed
in
the
hazardous
smoke
of
this
and
other
fires,
frequently
amounting
to
the
equivalent
of
several
cigarettes
smoked
per
day.
These
harms
will
continue
to
worsen
until
we
achieve
major
reductions
in
carbon
pollution.
Addressing climate change is a pressingly necessary investment. Studies are clear that the financial
cost
of
rapid
decarbonization
right
now
is
dwarfed
by
the
economic
damages
we
will
suffer
if
the
climate
crisis
is
allowed
to
progress.
More
pressingly,
every
delay
in
this
investment
is
a
lost
opportunity
to
avert
human
suffering
and
environmental
destruction.
Our city is at significant and increasing risk of natural disasters such as wildfire and flooding, as you
so
perceptively
addressed
in
your
directive
to
review
our
wildfire
preparedness
plans
in
response
to
the
devastating
Southern
California
blazes
earlier
this
year.
We
must
also
get
to
the
root
causes
of
such
disasters,
and
the
climate
crisis
is
the
greatest.
San José must take steps to protect and restore natural ecosystems, which are important for biodiversity
and
for
nature-based
adaptation
solutions.
For
example,
the
open
space
north
of
highway
237
is
essential
to
protect.
If
this
land
is
developed,
Bay
wetlands
will
not
have
space
to
migrate.
Wetlands
can
migrate
inland
and
serve
as
a
natural
sponge
and
buffer
for
sea
level
rise,
protecting
both
wildlife
and
humans.
Further, a rapidly warming climate will compound many of the other problems facing our city and region.
Extreme
heat
has
already
taken
the
lives
of
some
of
our
most
vulnerable
unhoused
neighbors,
and
further
warming
would
be
devastating.
Harsh
weather
and
natural
disasters
could
slash
agricultural
productivity
and
disrupt
supply
chains,
raising
prices
and
seriously
exacerbating
our
cost-of-living
crisis.
Our
communities
will
need
to
house
and
accommodate
large
numbers
of
people
displaced
by
extreme
weather
events
and
sea
level
rise.
The climate crisis is not only a threat that we must protect ourselves against, it is also a major chance
to
make
progress
on
other
fronts.
Our
City’s
Climate
Smart
plan
details
the
societal
co-benefits
our
action
on
climate
change
will
produce:
safer
streets,
healthier
air,
greener
and
more
vibrant
neighborhoods,
medium-
and
long-term
cost
savings,
and
overall
improvements
to
quality of life. This is all in addition to the economic opportunities. San José could be the base of job-creating
industries
designing
and
scaling
climate
solutions
in
fields
ranging
from
engineering
to
ecological
restoration.
Now
is
the
time
to
attract
green
companies
and
pursue
the
investments,
training,
and
development
to
make
this
happen.
San José’s actions on climate change have a significance far beyond their direct cuts in emissions.
As
the
capital
of
Silicon
Valley
and
an
epicenter
of
innovation,
other
cities
look
to
our
lead.
The
ripple
effects
of
our
decisions
are
profound,
as
has
been
shown
already
by
the
adoption
of
many
of
our
climate
policies
such
as
all-electric
reach
codes
and
ambitious
net-zero
goals
by
other
cities
in
quick
succession.
Our
city
must
not
backtrack
on
our
climate
commitments,
and
instead
move
forward
to
demonstrate
that
concerted
investments
in
sustainability
are
possible,
necessary,
and
effective.
The City is not taking on these challenges alone. Productive partnerships have already been formed
with
many
community-based
organizations,
and
we
are
ready
to
further
advance
efforts
in
public
outreach
and
education
to
bring
everyone
in
our
communities
together
in
confronting
the
climate
crisis
however
they
can.
Our city has committed to carbon neutrality by 2030 and has developed a detailed and promising
Climate
Smart
plan
to
achieve
this
goal.
We
must
put
all
resources
necessary
into
implementing
these
critical
actions.
We
cannot
afford
not
to.
We look forward to your response, and to seeing your commitment to our liveable future expressed
in
your
budget
message
next
month.
Thank
you
very
much.
Sincerely, San José Youth Climate Action Team
Co-signed by Acterra: Action for a Healthy Planet
March 11, 2025
Mayor Matt Mahan and Councilmembers
18th Floor, San Jose City Hall
200 E. Santa Clara Street
San Jose, CA 95113
Dear Mayor Mahan and Councilmembers,
As unions representing over 100,000 workers across San Jose and Santa Clara County we write to share our deep concerns about the FY 2025-2026 Budget. Our members deliver some of the most critical services our residents depend on every day, and we believe it is critical that the City Council does all it can to protect our residents and our workers' needs by averting any potential loss of services or layoffs.
In this year’s budget, we are facing a shortfall not by chance, but by choice. The added costs of short-term homeless shelter projects from the last two years of budget were made without thinking about where we can obtain the funding necessary to sustain them, and now their price tag has created a structural fiscal shortfall requiring the City to prepare for undefined service cuts. Let’s be clear, this is no way to plan for our future. In one of the most thinly staffed big cities in the country, our residents deserve a real plan. Given the significant costs and needs within the City for addressing homelessness, with interim shelter and permanent affordable housing, and the troubling impacts of further service cuts in a City already starved for improved public safety, quicker development services, better parks, and more library hours, it is clear that the City needs additional revenue. We need to consider our options, including placing future revenue measures before voters. The labor movement remains ready to do its part to work with the City to consider options.
In the interim, we believe there are several steps the City can take without threatening the quality and availability of services residents depend on and the well-being of City workers. We encourage the City Council and Administration to consider these ideas and to collaborate with our unions to find efficiencies while strengthening services.
• Adjusting account practices to more accurately reflect a more realistic vacancy rate.
While we appreciate the City listening to workers and beginning to address worker retention and recruitment, we still maintain a Citywide vacancy rate of around 9.5 percent. Despite this figure, staff assumes a vacancy rate of 0-2 percent across its departments in the base budget. Every year the City achieves multi-million-dollar savings from personnel services because of this practice, and many budgeted positions are never advertised or recruited for. This practice artificially inflates the assumed budget shortfall every year, creating unnecessary debate about cutting services when simply applying a more realistic assumption could solve some of the problem.
• Conduct a City-wide audit of contracts which could be done by City workers. Across the City, there are several expensive contracts where we pay much more for services than we pay similar City workers, but we still continue to extend these engagements year after year. Some contracts even include services for contractors to train City workers with the knowledge to transfer this work to the City staff. Yet despite the City paying knowledge transfer, the training never happens, and the contracts continue, wasting millions of dollars a year. The City should work with department heads and its bargaining units to conduct a Citywide audit of contracts which include terms for the contractor providing knowledge transfer and evaluate whether and how this work could be done in- house. By conducting such an audit during FY25-26 we can work to generate potential savings in FY26-27 and beyond.
• Assess existing City contracts or plans to enter new contracts in FY25-26. The City should ask department heads to look at contract spending and determine what contracts could be amended, ended or deferred without having an impact on services.
• Reconsider hiring freeze in key positions. Some departments and positions still have extremely high vacancy rates and with an ageing workforce headed toward retirement and face the threat of a even larger vacancy rate without efforts to hire new workers and transfer important knowledge.
• Utilize existing reserves to continue services. It’s clear that the strongest path to maintaining services is putting a proposal for new revenue before voters in 2026. To maintain critical services and retain the City’s highly skilled workforce, it may require tapping some of the City’s reserves on a short-term basis. Specifically, we encourage the City to consider utilizing the Budget Stabilization Reserve, the Salaries and Benefits Reserve, or other unexpended reserves from the General Fund balance.
• Assess executive compensation. If we are considering cuts to the City organization, we should also consider executive management. We encourage the City Council to consider a review of the compensation allocated to the top 10 executive positions, which totaled $4.1 million in cost in 2023, to identify ways funds may be directed to preserve staff’s ability to deliver essential services.
We encourage the City to commit to exploring all possible avenues to preserve jobs of current employees before considering layoffs, recognizing the value and experience they bring to the organization. Lastly we encourage the City to consider in its budgeting decisions to not disproportionately impact low income and marginalized groups, ensuring social and racial equity guides any efforts to adjust the budget.
We look forward to continuing conversations as the FY 2025-2026 Budget process continues.
Sincerely,
Jean Cohen, Executive Officer, South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council Jerry May, President, San Jose Fire Fighters IAFF Local 230 John Tucker, Representative, AFSCME Local 101
Krista De La Torre, Representative/Organizer, IFPTE Local 21 Javier Casillas, Business Manager, IBEW 332
Jeremy Cabaccang, Business Agent, Operating Engineers Public Employee Division
March 14, 2025
lwvsjsc.org
To: Mayor Mahan and Councilmembers Kamei, Campos, Salas, Cohen, Ortiz, Mulcahy, Doan, Candelas, Foley, and Casey
Cc: City Clerk
Subject: Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Mayor’s March Budget Message.
Item 3.3, File# 25-242: Vote NO
The League of Women Voters of San Jose/Santa Clara strongly urges the City Council to VOTE NO on the proposal to reallocate Measure E revenue to help fund support services and operations at the city’s temporary housing sites.
The League of Women Voters of San Jose/Santa Clara was proud to strongly support the passage of Measure E in 2020. It addressed our long-established position regarding housing and the reduction of homelessness, and we believed that the measure was structured in conformance with good government. It provided for flexibility but also safeguarded the will of the voters by requiring a 2/3 vote of Council to amend the allocation of funds.
In that first year only 15% was to go to homeless support programs and shelter construction and operations. In this year’s budget, 60% goes to them, reducing the affordable housing portion. In fact, the affordable housing for extremely low income families has gone from 40% of the allocation down to 12%.
This year the proposal for affordable housing funding is for “any remaining funds” after allocating 10% for homelessness prevention and “up to 90%” for homeless support programs. This is not what San Jose voters supported when they approved Measure E.
It is tempting to use the $39 million from Measure E to reduce next fiscal year’s deficit to $21 million, but this short term answer will have long-lasting repercussions in our ability to build permanent affordable units and to assure voters that their voting decisions carry weight.
We respectfully ask that the Council make no change to current Council Policy 1-18, Section 22.
Respectfully,
Diane McNutt, President
League of Women Voters of San Jose/Santa Clara
P: 408.961.9895 F: 408.559.9515
E: [email protected]
3180 Newberry Dr, Suite 200, San Jose, CA 95118
DESTINATIONHOMESV.ORG
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Roger Biscay
Cisco
Jan Bernstein Chargin
Gavilan College
Louis Chicoine
Abode Services
Dontae Lartigue
Razing the Bar
Ky Le
County of Santa Clara
Jennifer Loving
Destination: Home
Janae Pina
LEAB SV
Preston Prince
SCC Housing Authority
Joel John Roberts
PATH
Alex Senegal
Enneagram Prison Project
John A. Sobrato
The Sobrato Organization
Erik Solivan
City of San José
Ben Spero
Spectrum Equity Investors
Nicole Taylor
Silicon Valley Community
Foundation
Ted Wang
Gary Wipfler
Apple
ENDING HOMELESSNESS IN SILICON VALLEY
March 14, 2025
Mayor & City Council
City of San Jose
200 East Santa Clara Street, 18th Floor
San Jose, CA 95113
Re: Mayor’s FY 25-26 March Budget Message (Item 3.3 on the 3/18/25 Council Agenda)
Dear Mayor Mahan and City Councilmembers,
I write today to express my grave concerns with the Mayor’s March Budget Message and its many proposals related to homelessness. To be blunt: the Mayor’s strategy for addressing homelessness will fail to deliver its promised results. And while we appreciate the urgency with which you all are moving to address this crisis, the decisions you make today will create serious long-term implications and challenges for not only our collective desire to end homelessness, but also the health of the City as whole.
A Shelter-Centric Strategy Simply Will Not Work
As we’ve written many times before, a narrow focus on shelter will not be effective in curbing homelessness and we are deeply concerned that the Mayor’s plan triples down on a massive expansion of shelter at the expense of other key strategies.
Even as our community provided shelter to thousands of people last year, only about 1/4 of these individuals successfully transitioned into a permanent housing location (the majority of whom were only able to do so with the help of an affordable housing subsidy or unit). And because persistently high housing costs continue pushing more people into homelessness every day, we have not been able to meaningfully reduce the number of people living outside even as we’ve brought hundreds of new shelter beds online.
To make shelter work , it must be part of a continuum of solutions that includes more affordable housing options - both to prevent more people from being pushed into homelessness and to ensure there are enough pathways out of shelter.
However, this Budget Message continues a multi-year trend of depleting the City’s limited affordable housing dollars to pay for shelter expansion, without taking any significant steps to ensure the City is able to continue expanding affordable housing options in the years to come.
Increasing Enforcement is Cruel, Costly & Ineffective
We’re further concerned about the Mayor’s latest proposal to arrest unhoused individuals who decline shelter. Cities that have focused on enforcement have found their efforts to be extremely costly and ultimately ineffective at reducing homelessness.
Here, in Santa Clara County, our coordinated entry system does not have difficulty filling our shelter or housing units. There is, however, a constant lack of available options for people to go. As City staff presented during a recent study session, there are only about 2,900 shelter beds in San Jose for roughly 5,500 unsheltered individuals in the city. And very few shelter beds open up in our community at any given time - in fact, County staff recently shared that there were 1,400 households on their Countywide Shelter Hotline waiting list.
With so few available shelter beds in our community, the Mayor’s enforcement proposal will do nothing to actually reduce the number of people living outdoors. It could, however, lead to additional violence for people surviving outside, as we’ve seen recently.
March 14th, 2025
Mayor Matt Mahan
Vice Mayor Pam Foley
Council Member David Cohen
Council Member Rosemary Kamei
Council Member Peter Ortiz
Council Member George Casey
Council Member Michael Mulcahy
Council Member Carl Salas
Council Member Bien Doan
Council Member Domingo Candelas
Council Member Pamela Campos
Re: Mayor’s March Budget Message Item 3.3
Dear Mayor and San Jose City Council,
We, Silicon Valley De-Bug, are writing this letter to call on the San Jose City Council to reject the 3 recommendations by Mayor Mahan in his March Budget Message directing the City Attorney and City Manager to 1) change existing ordinances, 2) create new or amend current ordinances and worst of all 3) creating the “Responsibility to Shelter” policy.
In the Mayor’s Memorandum, we are seeing a suggested policy of arresting and charging unhoused residents of San Jose because “people should not have the choice” to be unhoused. This suggested policy is the epitome of criminalizing poverty and if passed, will be the stained legacy of Mayor Mahan and this City Council. This suggested policy does not understand the circumstances of unhoused people nor how incarceration impacts people’s lives, especially people dealing with poverty and instability. This suggestion is either intentionally cruel and unethical or it is uneducated and naive. De-Bug’s over 20 years of experience working closely with unhoused people and people dealing with the carceral system informs us that this policy will both not work in ending houselessness and will actually further throw people into the endless cycles of poverty that they may already be experiencing.
Unhoused people often choose to be outside rather than in shelters for various reasons including shelter rules or set up, not allowing pets or belongings, or not allowing family or friends to be together. This idea that because an unhoused person does not want to go to a shelter somehow makes being unhoused a “choice” is an exaggeration at best. Nearly all unhoused people would welcome an apartment of any kind if they were able to maintain their autonomy in doing so. We often wonder what meaningful interactions
or experiences the Mayor or his staff have had with unhoused people that this is their conclusion. For us, it shows the lack of relationship or meaningful experience with our loved ones who experience houselessness.
Furthermore, we think it is crucial to point out how destructive it was to our San Jose and Bay Area community for the Mayor to call homelessness a “choice” while making appearances on local news channels and posting premeditated, edited social media videos. We live in a cultural moment in the Bay Area where homelessness is being viewed as a blight and not the human rights crisis that it is. We are concerned how this will invoke people already with prejudice towards our unhoused neighbors to become more bold in how they treat them. Within the same week of the Mayor conducting his media campaign for this policy, San Jose police brutalized an unhoused person so badly that the person whose house they were in front of tried to stop it (the story was later written about in the Mercury News). The Mayor’s comments further this false public perception of our neighbors experiencing poverty and is weaponizing it for political clout. This is not a demonstration of leadership but instead an exploitation of suffering. Our unhoused neighbors are not things to be removed so the view is more pleasant. And if they do not want to go to the shelter that you have made, we must ask why someone would rather live along the creeks or freeways than stay there?
In regards to the suggested policy of arresting, charging and incarcerating unhoused people who decline the invite to the shelters, we implore the council to understand the relationship between incarceration, poverty and homelessness. Nothing derails a person's life more than incarceration. It makes people ineligible for services, affects ability to obtain housing, affects ability to get a job to escape the cycles of poverty and entirely disrupts anything a person may have been working towards prior to their arrest. We understand that incarceration does nothing more than plunge people deeper into the crisis they were already experiencing before the arrest. We often see the link between people’s housing instability and their prior incarceration. Incarcerating people is not the answer. It will only take us back to a disgraceful time in California’s history where we incarcerated more people than anywhere else in the country. And as our state takes steps back towards that inherently racist and anti-poor history with ballot measures like Prop 36, that Mayor Mahan also publicly campaigned for, we are yet again at a crossroads if we are going to continue to regress as a city and a community.
Lastly, as this Council considers arresting unhoused people for being unhoused, this same budget proposal includes cuts to funds for permanent housing and increases the already half a billion dollar budget for the San Jose Police Department, partly to enforce arresting unhoused people. The Mayor’s priorities are being expressed through this budget and none of them include actual, long-term housing solutions for the unhoused neighbors we claim to care about. Please, consider changing course in how you view solutions to the epidemic of poverty in the wealthiest region in the world, starting with rejecting the suggested policy of criminalizing and arresting our unhoused residents.
Thank you.
On behalf of Silicon Valley De-Bug,
Andrew Bigelow
Silicon Valley De-Bug
Protecting San Jose’s Smallest Businesses:
Addressing Displacement, Economic Uncertainty & Policy Solutions The Economic & Community Impact of Very Small Businesses The very small businesses we support are the backbone of San Jose’s neighborhoods—family- owned restaurants, local sombrero stores, service providers, and mom-and-pop shops that define the city’s character and economy. These businesses, with 10 or fewer employees, are owned by people who live in our neighborhoods, send their children to school with ours, and reinvest almost every dollar they earn back into the local economy. • San Jose is home to 65,000 small businesses—19,000 of them have 10 employees or fewer. • 65% of the businesses we support are women-owned, and 60% of these women are single mothers, the sole providers for their families.
• In East San Jose and surrounding areas, there are over 2,000 very small businesses, nearly 600 (30%) of which are owned by undocumented entrepreneurs. • Immigrant-owned businesses are already facing average losses of 30-40% in sales and services.
What’s at Stake? The Economic Risks of Inaction
• Revenue at Risk: Very small businesses in East San Jose and surrounding areas generate approximately $600 million in annual revenue (Biz2Credit). A significant portion of this could be lost if closures continue.
• Sales Tax Loss: An estimated $4.2 million in annual sales tax revenue is at risk, reducing funds available for public services, infrastructure, and community programs (San Jose City Tax Data).
• Job Losses: With an average of 4 employees per very small business, widespread closures could result in up to 8,000 job losses (San Jose Small Business Spotlight). • Displacement: Business closures could lead to housing insecurity and economic displacement, forcing families to leave the communities they’ve long been part of (San Jose Retail Trade Data).
These businesses reduce displacement, provide jobs, anchor cultural identity, and support access to essential services like childcare, yet today, they face threats that put them at risk of closure and displacement.
Key Challenges Facing Very Small Businesses
1. Economic Pressures & Misinformation
• Labor Shortages and Immigration Policies: Stricter immigration enforcement is causing labor shortages in industries like hospitality. Fear of enforcement actions is also disrupting operations, reducing revenue, and limiting community participation. • Misinformation is driving sharp declines in business activity— Families afraid of ICE appearances are staying home, not sending their kids to school or daycare, avoiding public spaces, and spending less.
• Without intervention, these issues will have long-term ripple effects on San Jose’s economic stability.
2. Policy Barriers & Lack of Targeted Support
• Rollback of DEI programs and minority business funding has reduced access to resources that help small businesses thrive.
• Increased regulatory burdens make it harder for very small businesses to stay compliant and competitive.
• Existing business aid often excludes undocumented entrepreneurs, leaving a large portion of San Jose’s economy without critical support.
LBFSV’s Comprehensive Support Strategy
Latino Business Foundation Silicon Valley (LBFSV) is heading a community-driven response to protect very small businesses, counter misinformation, and advocate for policy solutions.
Entrepreneurial Support
• Small Business Support Hotline – Providing immediate assistance to business owners facing immigration-related concerns, misinformation, and financial challenges. • Educational Webinars & Know-Your-Rights Resources – Informing business owners about workplace rights, employer responsibilities, and available assistance. • Strategic Referral Network – Ensuring business owners receive legal and financial services through trusted partners.
Community Advocacy & Policy Engagement
• Anti-Displacement Efforts – Just like during COVID-19, misinformation-driven revenue losses are pushing businesses toward closure. We are actively developing strategies and recommendations that will protect small businesses and families from eviction and displacement.
• Multi-Stakeholder Engagement – Partnering with city and state leaders to implement policies that protect vulnerable businesses.
• Data-Driven Policy Recommendations – Using real-time hotline data and economic impact tracking to inform decision-making.
Call to Action
Very small businesses don’t just create jobs, they create community. Without them, San Jose faces increased displacement, job losses, and economic instability.
As city leaders set priorities, we urge you to integrate small business protections into economic recovery efforts by:
• Prioritizing small business support in stabilization initiatives. • Investing in policies that prevent closures and displacement. • Collaborating on solutions that strengthen long-term business resilience.
We welcome the opportunity to work together on policies that protect San Jose’s most vulnerable businesses and ensure our local economy remains strong and inclusive.
Jesus Flores
President & CEO
Latino Business Foundation Silicon Valley
March 15, 2025
Mayor Mahan and Council members
Subject: San Jose City Council Meeting March 18,2025 Agenda Item 3.3 I am a retired judge of the Superior Court of Santa Clara County. In my role as a judge, for seven years I chaired a state-wide task force on the Justice System and the Mentally Ill.
Because of that work, I came to realize that San Jose and Santa Clara County are probably the most thoughtful, innovative and caring city and county in California (and possibly the country) in treatment and services for the mentally ill. We set the standard and should be proud of that and I congratulate you for that work.
However, a proposal in the memo on the budget on today's agenda does not reflect that thoughtfulness. It directs the City Attorney to draft legislation that would criminalize a refusal to accept shelter by an unhoused person ( who could be mentally ill or addicted). The memo states that the objective is to use this law to get the person into the Behavioral Health Court and into treatment.
Before retirement, I was one of the judges n the Behavioral Health Court and the Supervising Judge of the Drug Court. This proposal is misguided. It will not achieve its stated objective.
The justice system does not work the way this proposal contemplates. If arrested for “trespass” or some other municipal ordinance, the person will be cited and released or released on zero bail. They will not go the Behavioral Health Court. They will not see a judge. They will not be sent to treatment. Instead they will be released to the street within hours. Additionally, if arrested and incarcerated ( even briefly) they will lose their eligibility for MediCal –the only way they could qualify and pay for the treatment they need. They would need to requalify. ( Furthermore, our experience and data show that arrest and incarceration makes them more distrustful and less likely to participate in treatment.) Let me, instead, endorse a more productive path. I have reviewed the memo by Council members Cohn and Candelas attached to today's agenda and believe it offers a better approach. I think the courts and the County share the goal of shelter and treatment for this population. The challenge is how to achieve it. I believe a more robust and formal collaboration is needed. I wish there was a panacea, a magic solution, but there is none. I am the first to admit , after working with this population for more than twenty years, they are a difficult challenge and can be very frustrating. It is a hard problem and requires patience and persistence—and does not promise universal success.
Let me add that incarcerating a mentally ill /addicted person is more than just counterproductive. It visits upon this vulnerable person additional misery. They are not only burdened with being mentally ill and/or addicted but also traumatized by being homeless.
They have undoubtedly alienated their family/friends and with arrest lost track of their tent, bike, cart with all their meager worldly possessions—more trauma and less likely to seek treatment.
Please don't do that.
Sincerely,
Judge Richard J Loftus, Jr. (ret'd)
Resident District 6
This message is from outside the City email system. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources.
Join our Houser Movement. Become a member!
350 W Julian St. #5, San José, CA 95110
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March 17, 2025
Re: Agenda Item 3.3 - Approval of the Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Mayor’s March Budget Message
350 W. Julian Street, Building 5, San José, CA 95110
408.780.8411 • www.svathome.org • [email protected] 43% of San Jose’s current residents- with low, very low, or extremely low incomes1. Many are living in overcrowded living conditions, or paying more than half their incomes on rent. There is no dedicated funding for affordable housing to meet the needs of these residents, and the Mayor also proposes to alter policy tools such as the inclusionary housing ordinance and surplus city-owned land away from serving residents in this income range. These are people our communities, and our economy, depend on.
These are our teachers, our childcare workers, our grandparents living on a fixed income, our medical assistants, people working in grocery and retail stores and many small business owners and employees. A family of four would need to work at least 3 full time minimum wage jobs to reach 60% of the area median income
2 and qualify for the kind of housing the Mayor suggests should be our focus. How was the decision made to walk away from these families?
We appreciate the leadership of Councilmembers Cohen and Candelas in their memo, which calls for the City Manager to inform Council about opportunities to pursue alternative funding options for promoting affordable housing development by working with partners and stakeholders.
No plan to meet commitments made in the City’s state-certified Housing Element to fund affordable housing, exposing the City and its residents to potential liability. The city’s mandatory, state-certified 8- year housing plan, known as the Housing Element
3, lays the groundwork for the city to enable 62,200
new homes within the planning period. Nearly 24,000 of these homes must serve households with incomes below 80% of the area median. We know this level of production in housing and affordable housing is what we need to transform the city into a thriving place for everyone. If the city fails to meet its explicit commitments by diverting funding elsewhere, the California Department of Housing & Community Development (HCD) may decertify the city’s Housing Element, reopening exposure to builder’s remedy development projects, fines and fees, litigation, and loss of access to some pools of state and regional funding
4. We appreciate the leadership of Councilmembers Campos, Salas, Mulcahy, Doan, and Casey in their memo calling for an MBA to evaluate the resources and an expenditure plan required to maintain compliance with the City’s adopted and certified Housing Element Programs.
The city has made the following specific affordable housing funding commitments in the Housing Element:
• Program P-2: Subsidize Extremely Low-income Housing Including Permanent Supportive Housing for Homeless - Continue to prioritize funding to create affordable homes for extremely low income individuals and families, including permanent supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness, to meet the needs of the community and create more balance in the affordable housing portfolio.
1 Number of San Jose households by income level, City of San Jose Affordable Housing Programs and Policies: Production, Preservation & Protection City Council Study Session September 7, 2023. Persons per household average in San Jose, U.S. Census Bureau.
2 City of San Jose Housing Market Report, Third Quarter 2024 3 City of San Jose 2023-2031 Housing Element, Chapter 3: Housing Goals and Strategies 4 California Department of Housing & Community Development: Accountability & Enforcement
March 17, 2025
Re: Agenda Item 3.3 - Approval of the Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Mayor’s March Budget Message
350 W. Julian Street, Building 5, San José, CA 95110
408.780.8411 • www.svathome.org • [email protected] o Metrics
Dec 2031: 45% of City capital subsidies spent on ELI and PSH Dec 2031: 1,200 ELI affordable homes created
• Program P-5: Affordable Housing Investments in North San José - Direct City resources to help meet the city’s goal of 20% of all North San José homes being restricted affordable for lower-income residents. Prioritize city land acquisition in North San José for future 100% affordable housing new construction opportunities, then conduct Requests for Proposals to award development rights through ground leases to developers. Ensure that future city Notices of Funding Availability for new construction prioritize affordable development proposals in North San José. o Metrics
800 restricted affordable homes in North San José
2 sites acquired with RFP awards & ground leases to affordable developers • Program P-18: Loans for Affordable Housing - Continue to provide land acquisition, construction, and permanent financing for the development of new affordable homes. Provide financing for the acquisition/rehabilitation of existing market- rate rental housing to create newly-affordable homes.
Issue Notices of Funding Availability at least annually for both new construction and preservation. • Program R-2: Establish a Preservation NOFA - Establish a regular housing Preservation program, including an annual funding allocation averaging at least $5 million, funding priorities, underwriting guidelines, Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) scoring framework, NOFA issuances, and ongoing work plan.
o Metrics:
Jun 2024: Program guidelines completed
by Dec 2024: First NOFA issued at least every other year (i.e., at least 4 NOFAs during the Sixth Cycle compliance period)
$5M average available per year per NOFA
By 2031: At least 110 units of newly-restricted affordable housing acquired by nonprofits and rehabilitated through City and external funding
No plan to address the long-term fiscal consequences of a shelter-first approach rather than investing in the full continuum of responses. The structural deficit the City of San Jose is facing is a consequence of investing heavily in interim shelter without a clear plan to cover the ongoing cost of operations. Over the last several years, the city’s interim housing portfolio has been sustained by one-time funding from the State and federal government, and previous one-time contributions from the General Fund and Measure E. However, all federal sources will be depleted by the end of 2024-2025, all State funding by the end of 2028-2029, and most of the previous one-time city funded allocations will be spent by the end of 2025- 2026. As a result, in order to develop and operate only the city’s existing interim housing portfolio and previously committed expansions, General Fund contributions will total $25 million in 2025-2026, increasing to $92 million by 2029-2030. This cost is in spite of the planned closure by that date of 76 rooms in the First Street Interim Housing, and 306 rooms, 60 spaces, and 55 RV spaces in the Waterway Focus Safe Sleeping & Moteling Program
5. 5 See Table 3 in Appendix, from the City of San Jose 2025-2026 City Manager’s Budget Request & 2026-2030 Five-Year Forecast and Revenue Projections
March 17, 2025
Re: Agenda Item 3.3 - Approval of the Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Mayor’s March Budget Message
350 W. Julian Street, Building 5, San José, CA 95110
408.780.8411 • www.svathome.org • [email protected]
Source: City of San Jose 2025-2026 City Manager’s Budget Request & 2026-2030 Five-Year Forecast and Revenue Projections
The Mayor’s budget message not only doubles down, but recklessly triples down - proposing that we nearly triple existing shelter capacity beyond the existing and under-construction portfolio, at $225 million in on-time construction costs, and an estimated annual operating cost of $234 million6. The only references to funding sources to pay for this is a vague reference to “other levels of government as well as philanthropic and corporate partners,” and to “generous philanthropists and foundations.” This enormous and unfunded commitment to just one segment of the continuum of response to the threat of unsheltered homelessness is clearly unsustainable, and does not actually provide housing. An individual or family in interim shelter is still classified as homeless because of the temporary and limited nature of this resource. This is not a complete solution, only part of one that must include actual permanent housing production.
We appreciate the leadership of Councilmembers Campos, Salas, Mulcahy, Doan, and Casey in their memo calling for a limit of the total investment from the General Fund Operating Budget in shelter/interim housing construction and operations to no greater than the amount of revenue allocated from Measure E, and for reinvesting any savings into homelessness prevention and long-term affordable housing solutions.
The need for investment in the full spectrum of affordable housing and homelessness response is clear.
Homelessness prevention and affordable housing are the most cost-effective homelessness interventions. In 2023, for every one household housed, another 1.7 became homeless7. Without robust investment in homelessness prevention, and somewhere affordable for people to live when they leave interim shelter, unsheltered homelessness will continue to increase. With a shortfall of affordable places to live for people leaving interim shelter, the City’s current approach of diverting almost all funds earmarked for affordable housing to interim shelter creates a road to nowhere. A systems-level approach is necessary and more cost-effective: Increasing investments in homelessness prevention, a targeted and
6 City of San Jose, City Council 2025-2026 Budget Priorities Study Session Presentation February 11, 2025 7 The 2020-2025 Community Plan to End Homelessness 2023 Year-End Progress Report
March 17, 2025
Re: Agenda Item 3.3 - Approval of the Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Mayor’s March Budget Message
350 W. Julian Street, Building 5, San José, CA 95110
408.780.8411 • www.svathome.org • [email protected] cost-effective approach to keep people in their homes, can dramatically reduce the number of residents falling into homelessness. Stemming the tide of people falling into homelessness with emergency rental assistance and eviction diversion is the most cost effective and humane option on the table. Affordable housing, a one-time investment in an asset that will continue to serve the community for decades to come, provides a place for interim shelter residents to move on to, helps make interim shelter more functional and effective.
Affordable housing also serves the nearly 420,000 San Jose residents living in low-income households.
In San Jose, more than 33,000 households pay more than half their income in rent every month and 15% of our rental homes are overcrowded. Affordable housing is an asset that sustains and strengthens our communities by ensuring we all have a safe, stable home. Affordable housing provides a range of housing solutions that address the diverse needs of local residents who cannot afford the cost of housing in Silicon Valley. Affordable housing improves health outcomes, educational attainment, and employment stability, and helps reduce family and community violence. Households living in San Jose’s existing affordable housing save an average of $940 a month on rent, which is additional income per household to return into the local economy.
SV@Home’s Recommendations
1. We recommend dramatically increasing the City’s investment in homelessness prevention, the most impactful, cost-effective, and humane intervention. 95% of assisted households remained stably housed both while receiving services, and one year later, only 5% of households became homeless.
2. We recommend that, rather than expanding interim shelter with enormous unfunded operating expenses, the City focuses on sustaining the existing in-service and under-construction interim portfolio.
3. We recommend that the City work as partners with the County and jurisdictions throughout Santa Clara County, in close collaboration with community stakeholders and affordable housing developers, to create new sources of funding to subsidize deed restricted housing affordable to extremely low-, very low-, and low-income households. These include but are not limited to enhanced infrastructure improvement districts, bond measures, and innovative financing tools.
4. We recommend that any language regarding a permanent reallocation of Measure E be removed from the budget, as it may create a false assumption that the allocation of these funds are not considered each year by the City Council as part of the budget process.
The City of San Jose needs to be pulling together with partners to identify and create the resources we need to move the full continuum of housing solutions forward. These are challenging times, but San Jose is up to the task! San Jose is known for innovation - when we are faced with a challenge we don’t shrug our shoulders and walk away, we find solutions. We need to apply San Jose’s talent and leadership to making sure every San Jose resident has a safe, stable, and affordable place to live.
Sincerely,
Regina Celestin Williams
Executive Director
March 17, 2025
Re: Agenda Item 3.3 - Approval of the Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Mayor’s March Budget Message
350 W. Julian Street, Building 5, San José, CA 95110
408.780.8411 • www.svathome.org • [email protected] “We as a country always act like we can’t find the money to solve this home affordability crisis, which implies that we are not spending it now. We are spending it now. We are just spending it on adverse health and bad outcomes.”
-Dr. Megan Sandel, pediatrician and co-director of the Grow Clinic at Boston Medical Center, professor at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Boston University School of Public Health.
Silicon Valley @ Home is a nonprofit advocacy organization that supports housing and affordable housing development throughout Santa Clara County. SV@Home works with a broad coalition of strategic partners to address the urgent housing needs of the diverse residents across all our communities. We advocate for solutions including increasing production of homes at all income levels, especially affordable housing; preserving existing affordable housing; and protecting our community’s most vulnerable residents from displacement.
Californians about this problem. There is substance addiction, behavioral/psychological problems, lack of affordable housing, fear of the “government housing projects” of the past, and many just prefer living in their “off road” tent encampments or trailer parks. With further automation, Artificial Intelligence and other technological improvements, I suspect there will be an increase in our already very high disparity between the “Haves” and “Have nots”. In addition, housing developers prefer building luxury homes with greater profit and neighborhoods prefer that over high density housing. So, getting more affordable housing built will be a huge challenge.
Do we know if the homeless have family or close friends that could take them in if the City provides some remuneration for their assistance? I have some concern about what to do if the homeless refuse provided housing three times. What does issuing a citation do? They won’t be able to pay anything and probably not a good idea to force them into some type of homeless “jail”.
Working collaboratively with corporations and churches/temples is a great idea to help resolve the RV/auto homeless parking problem. In addition, corporations can help beautify neighboring areas and provide contributions to assist with homelessness taking charitable tax deductions and increasing their brand image. I would think that many churches/temples and their parishioners would want to help out.
Regarding our police force, are we losing more than gaining because of retirements? Or, is it too expensive to live here on a police person’s salary? Corporations and colleges sometimes provide subsidized housing to attract non-Bay Area professionals here. Obviously, that adds more expense. Do Neighborhood Watch programs help or hinder?
I am all for reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and taxes to attract desirable businesses and housing development.
Striving to revitalize Downtown San Jose, which failed before, may require coordination with Adobe, Google, San Jose Sharks, San Jose Earthquakes and Bay FC, San Jose Giants, Santa Clara 49ers and other major corporations downtown to create a master plan to take advantage of our local businesses, sports venues, shopping, restaurants and entertainment. Improving the connection between major sporting centers with shopping, restaurants and entertainment would be very helpful increasing the vision laid out in the City’s plan. Since Valley Fair has become the shopping destination for Santa Clara County (San Jose erred in not accepting Macy’s offer many years ago to develop Downtown), developing an easier transit between Downtown and Valley Fair would be helpful.
Finally, I agree with trying to pay for results for those in leadership positions that make the major decisions.
This is a very well thought out plan and meets the priorities from my single perspective.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Gary Omura
This message is from outside the City email system. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources.
March 17, 2025
Dear San Jose City Council,
I am writing in strong support of Mayor Mahan’s budget proposal, specifically the investment in reaching “functional zero unsheltered homelessness” in San Jose. While the cost estimates of $225m one-time capital investment and $234m in annual operating expenses (initially) may sound daunting, those numbers pale in comparison to the actual costs our community incurs allowing unsheltered homelessness to continue. Studies estimate that between encampment sweeps, emergency room visits, police interactions, and a laundry list of other interventions, the average unsheltered individual costs society over $60,000 per person per year. With over 4,000 people living unsheltered in San Jose, that alone is $240m or more annually. That’s just the “hard costs,” not including the impact on our local economy, tourism, and businesses.
This is a budget discussion, so I am focused on fiscal issues. But the most important impacts of all are the intangibles of increased mortality rates and trauma inflicted on those suffering on our streets, as well as the sense of hopelessness and shame for our housed community.
If San Jose boldly embraces this plan, I can assure you that the private sector will join you in avid support. I don’t need to tell you that the community is fed up-- and eager for bold leadership and solutions that will finally put an end to the suffering on our streets.
A focus on interim housing is the single point of intersection between multiple political views. For those who care about human suffering, providing safe and dignified housing options that are appealing is the humane approach. For those concerned with reducing welfare and fiscal responsibility, this is the fiscally-responsible approach. And for the general public, who as taxpayers feel they have a right to clean sidewalks and parks, they too want to see an end to unsheltered homelessness. The only thing lacking is political will. Until now.
Ending unsheltered homelessness is possible, it requires a policy decision. In a time with budget shortfalls, we can’t afford NOT to end unsheltered homelessness. Of course once everyone is indoors, the work is not done. There will still be a need to provide sufficient permanent housing, which will take time. But “functional zero unsheltered” will take enormous pressure off the system, save significant funds that are today being squandered in after-the-fact cleanup and triage-- and our streets won’t be the waiting room.
I urge you to approve Mayor Mahan’s budget proposal, including the bold initiative to be the first major US city to end unsheltered homelessness--an unacceptable, tragic, and solvable humanitarian crisis.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Funk,
Founder & CEO
DignityMoves
March 17, 2025
The Honorable Matt Mahan
Mayor, City of San José
200 E Santa Clara Street
San José, CA 95113
Re: March Budget, Functional Zero Homelessness (Support)
Dear Mayor Mahan and Councilmembers,
On behalf of the Bay Area Council, I’m writing to offer our strong support for your proposed budget action to achieve “functional zero unsheltered homelessness” in San Jose.
For decades, the state of California and local California jurisdictions have treated unsheltered homelessness as an unfortunate but acceptable price to pay for respecting the choice of some homeless individuals to remain unsheltered. However, recent research definitively shows that unsheltered homelessness comes at a staggering cost to the health and safety of unsheltered individuals themselves, many of whom struggle with severe psychiatric and substance use disorders. Homelessness policy must be centered on saving lives, and that requires bringing people indoors.
The high rate of unsheltered homelessness in virtually all California cities results in worsened public health and safety outcomes that create additional costs to our emergency medical, corrections, and public works departments and agencies that would be at least partially avoided under a low unsheltered-rate scenario. For example, a 2022 literature review on unsheltered homelessness and health found that the standardized mortality ratio for an unsheltered homeless individuals was nearly 3 times higher than their sheltered counterparts; that unsheltered individuals had the greatest risk of developing infectious disease and the average number of days hospitalized and required for follow-up care was 4 times as high as that of sheltered homeless; and that longer durations of unsheltered homelessness were accompanied by increased daily substance use, injection drug use, and dependency. An analysis of homeless deaths occurring across 10 California counties representing 75% of California’s homeless population between 2020 and 2022 found that 12 percent (1,227) of all deaths were the result of auto accidents and eight percent were (762) homicides, risk factors particularly elevated by unsheltered conditions.
These social costs have enormous fiscal impacts as well. Studies estimate that between encampment sweeps, emergency room visits, police interactions, and myriad other interventions, the average unsheltered individual costs society over $60,000 per person per year. With over 4,000 people living unsheltered in San Jose, that alone is $240 million or more annually, not counting the negative economic impacts encampments have on business, tourism, and neighborhoods. San José cannot afford not to make the proposed $225 million one-time capital investment, and $234 million in annual operating expenses, to bring the tragic chapter of encampments to an end.
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DARCY NARDUZZI, Assoc. DBIA
Vice President / Construction Manager
200 E. Santa Clara Street,
San José CA 95113
March 17, 2025
Re: Item 3.3, Approval of the Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Mayor’s March Budget Message
Dear Mayor Mahan and City Councilmembers,
On behalf of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the ACLU of Northern California, I submit public comments on agenda item 3.3, “Approval of the Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Mayor's March Budget Message” of the City Council meeting on March 18, 2025.
Criminalizing Homelessness
We understand the city is facing a critical situation with homelessness, and that there are challenging decisions to be made to support the wellbeing of the city’s residents. We are staunchly opposed to proposals to arrest and jail unhoused people. People who are unsheltered cannot avoid living outdoors when there is insufficient access to dignified interim or long-term housing. These proposals only criminalize unhoused San José residents, traumatize poor people in our community, and do not make the city safer.
This is both a racial justice and disability justice issue. Black people in Santa Clara County represent 2.7% of the population, but 19% of those who are unhoused1. A significant portion of San José's unhoused population reports having disabilities. According to data from the 2023 Homeless Census, 20% of respondents reported having a physical disability, 25% reported chronic health issues, and 34% reported psychiatric or emotional conditions2.
We appeal to City Council to reject proposals to jail unhoused people in San José. The city should not be conducting encampment sweeps without safe, clean, and welcoming alternatives. We urge the City to invest in affordable housing and basic survival needs for our unhoused community members. We need permanent, subsidized housing, instead of temporary, emergency stop-gap initiatives that do little to solve the underlying crisis, and are deeply concerned about reallocation of Measure E funding towards interim makeshift measures instead of funding new housing development. In light of the memorandum signed by Councilmembers Campos, Salas, Mulcahy, Doan, and Casey, we ask the City Council to maintain affordable housing investments by preserving some level of investment in Measure E.
Resources should not be used to expand the homeless shelter system—a strategy that only further
1 SJSU Human Rights Institute, Silicon Valley Pain Index, available at:
https://www.sjsu.edu/hri/docs/2024%20SVPI_Final.pdf.
2 City of San Josė, 2023 Homeless Census, available at: https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/departments- offices/housing/resource-library/homeless-reports/homeless-reports-executive-summary.
segregates unhoused people away from their communities and services. We agree that the City and County should improve collaboration and together deepen investment, in a coordinated fashion, in the solutions that actually work and don’t further harm traumatized people. We also hope that City Council will elicit perspectives and feedback from unhoused San José residents—they are your constituents and our fellow community members.
Privacy Concerns and Increased Surveillance
The March Budget Message notes there are currently 474 Automatic License Plate Reader cameras (ALPRs) in its network. According to the vendor’s transparency portal (https://transparency.flocksafety.com/san-José-ca-pd), in the 30-day period leading up to March 17, 2025, over 2.7 million vehicles were detected. Since the data retention period is 365 days, on any given day, there are about 32 million data points. This enormous network of cameras blanketing the city is capturing mass amounts of data. The City’s Real Time Intelligence Center (RTIC), which aggregates data including footage from cameras, creates a vast surveillance network able to monitor the everyday movements of law-abiding community members.
This surveillance is particularly dangerous to immigrant communities. Across the United States, federal immigration agencies have eagerly exploited local databases rich with information collected by private data brokers, municipal agencies, and police departments. This information is fed into a deportation machine that tears apart immigrant communities. In recent years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has further expanded its reach into communities by exploiting local surveillance systems and databases to track, identify, and target immigrant community members for detention and deportation. No local surveillance system is safe from ICE’s demands. Therefore, we encourage the City to suspend the proposal that turns about 1000 public safety cameras from monitoring to recording, to evaluate data protection and data collection practices on surveillance technologies currently in deployment, to shorten data retention periods to mitigate the risk of exposure, to improve data minimization and anonymization practices, and to ban the uploading of data to Fusion Centers.
As abortion and gender-affirming care is being criminalized in some states, there is a real threat that surveillance information collected in communities will be exploited to identify, track, and criminalize people who travel for care and the Californians who are helping those people obtain care. Deploying surveillance systems in our community fills databases with information that place people at risk. Even if there are limits to sharing information, once this information is collected, there is no foolproof way to immunize it from legal demands brought by out-of-state governments.
We encourage you, as policy-makers, to look into and invest in alternatives to surveillance that are proven to increase public safety. Investing in the physical lighting of a neighborhood, rather than installing more cameras, can reap community-wide benefits. City Council must deliberate about the very real harms of surveillance and whether these invasive tools have been demonstrated to make a meaningful impact on public safety.
Thank you for your consideration and attention to these critical issues.
Respectfully,
Victor Sin
Santa Clara Valley Volunteer Chapter of the ACLU of Northern California
City of San José
Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee
February 24, 2025
To: Honorable Mayor and City Council
RE: Priority of Street Safety in Upcoming Budget
Dear Honorable Mayor and City Council:
On behalf of the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC), we strongly urge the City Council to prioritize funding for street safety in the upcoming budget. We advocate for the continued investment in Vision Zero, in particular the Walk and Roll, Quick Builds and Data Analytics components. These programs are vital to reducing the alarming number of traffic- related fatalities and injuries in our city, which have tragically exceeded homicides. All these fatalities are preventable, and it is essential that we act now to save lives.
We respectfully request the following:
1. Full funding for Vision Zero: This ambitious program aims to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries through targeted infrastructure improvements, enforcement, and education. It is essential that we continue to prioritize and expand these efforts. We will not meet 30 in ’30 (Vison Zero Goal to reduce traffic fatalities and injuries by 30% by 2030) if we back off on support. At this time, we support:
a. Quick Builds: These initiatives are effective tools in rapidly implementing safety improvements in our neighborhoods. These programs provide tangible, impactful safety measures that can be implemented quickly while longer-term infrastructure projects are in progress. This aligns with both the Walk Safe San José component of Vision Zero and the focus on vulnerable street users.
b. Walk and Roll Programs: Safety around schools matters to everyone, and no program does so much with so little. Raising awareness and safety around schools will have lasting effects in our communities and will keep our most vulnerable safer. Children are our future and deserve the largest investment.
c. Continued funding for Data Analytics: Accurate data is crucial for addressing traffic safety concerns, including identifying high-risk areas and patterns.
Ongoing investments in data analytics are necessary to inform decisions regarding the Speed Camera Program and other safety measures, allowing the city to allocate resources where they are most needed.
SAN JOSE BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN ADVISORY COMMITTEE
DATE February 24, 2025
2. Encouragement for the Use of Discretionary Monies: We urge council members to consider using discretionary funds to support street safety initiatives, particularly the installation of enhanced crosswalks, traffic calming measures, and other pedestrian and cyclist-focused improvements that enhance the safety of all road users.
3. Grant Writing Capability: Much of the street safety infrastructure comes from grant money. Our city has done great work applying and receiving these monies, we need this more than ever in a budget-challenging landscape.
San José’s traffic fatalities are preventable, and by investing in these critical programs, we can save lives, improve the quality of life for our residents, and help create a more sustainable, equitable, and walkable city. We implore the Council to act to ensure that street safety remains a top priority in this year's budget.
This letter was approved unanimously at the February 24, 2025 Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee meeting.
Sincerely,
Aarshdeep Kahlon, Chairperson