Campaign News
October 27, 2009 - Interesting news article. Forbes Magazine has ranked the safest metropolitans in the country, looking at violent crime, workplace fatality rates, traffic deaths, and natural disaster risks. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara ranked seventh, and virtually all of our risk is in the "natural disaster" category. We're ranked second best in terms of violent crime, sixth best in terms of traffic deaths, and eighth best in terms of workplace fatalities.
I'll say up front that these rankings are usually nonsense. In particular, the FBI always warns against comparing cities when it comes to crime statistics - they outright say that the results are worthless. Still, it's always nice to hear good news.
October 21, 2009 - The Sunnyvale Sun article on the new RFID-based automation finally came online. There are some factual errors in the article (the cost, who's paying for it), but it's a good overview of what's coming. I'm really glad to see the project finally moving forward!
October 18, 2009 - Wow. I want to thank the 70+ volunteers who came out this weekend to walk precincts and meet voters with me. We walked 34 precincts this weekend! I'm grateful for the support!
October 16, 2009 - Much thanks to Dan and Kevin of Radio Sunnyvale and the Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce for sponsoring recorded interviews with the candidates. I did mine yesterday, and it was a good time. I was told later that 1) I ran the longest (so far - Vice Mayor Moylan hadn't gone yet...) and 2) I was the only candidate (so far) who didn't just regurgitate speaking points. I look forward to hearing the final result!
October 15, 2009 - Thanks to all of the folks in Lakewood Village who came to the candidate forum last night. It was a great crowd with a great conversation!
October 12, 2009 - News about the downtown!. This is good news.
October 7, 2009 - I want to deviate from the usual political stuff to talk about a big victory for open government that happened today, one which is personally important to me. You may or may not know that most local jurisdictions have "geographic information systems" (GIS) departments that are tasked with maintaining and producing maps of all sorts. Your governments spend a lot of time and money knowing everything about the areas that they govern, which is a good thing. However, Santa Clara County has had a long-standing policy of charging prohibitive amounts of money to obtain access to this information. If you went in and asked for county parcel data, the response was "sure thing - $250k, please!".
As both a passionate advocate for transparency in government and a GIS professional, I was quite unhappy with this. I had some first-hand experience with this, when I asked the County for the digital coordinates of voter precincts in Sunnyvale, only to be told that that information isn't available to the public. Imagine that - information about how elections are held isn't allowed to get into the hands of the public.
As you can read in the article above, a coalition sued the County to get access to the information in question. And it's being reported that the County has settled and will make the information available to the public, probably for a nominal (materials and processing) cost. This is huge, and I'm thrilled that it happened. I'm disappointed that the County chose to fight this and force a lawsuit and the resulting settlement, instead of recognizing that they were in the wrong in the first place. But this is a huge victory for open and transparent government in Santa Clara County, and I'm happy to hear about it. Your tax dollars pay to assemble that information, and barring prevailing security reasons, you should be able to access the resulting product. Now, you can.
October 6, 2009 - I'm delighted to have been endorsed by State Senator Elaine Alquist, representing the 13th Senate District, including Sunnyvale, and County Supervisor Ken Yeager!
October 5, 2009 - I'm very pleased to have received the endorsement of Democratic Activists for Women Now (D.A.W.N)! I'm grateful for their support!
October 3, 2009 - I want to thank the folks in the SNAIL neighborhood association for hosting last night's candidate forum. It was a great time, and it was terrific to talk with folks about the issues that matter most to them. Next up - the League of Women Voters televised forum on Thursday!
October 2, 2009 - NEW CITY SERVICE. This is just great. The City now has all of the candidate election filings online and viewable through the web at http://candidatestatements.insunnyvale.com. This is a terrific service and a great step forward towards a more open and transparent Sunnyvale government. The only reason why I refrained from posting my own 460 forms here is that this new system was supposed to be online soon (and now it's here!). Very slick, so check it out!
October 2, 2009 - Thanks to everyone who attended the League of Conservation Voters candidate event, and thanks to all of the folks who came to the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors forum, both of which were held yesterday! Both were fun events, and it was great to talk with folks about the issues facing Sunnyvale!
September 22, 2009 - The second big candidate forum is now in the books.
Last night was the Sunnyvale West Neighborhood Association Candidate Forum, and a good number of people showed up to meet the candidates and hear us speak on different issues. It was a fun experience, once I loosened up a little... Thanks to everyone who attended!
In other news, I received the endorsements of former Sunnyvale Mayor and former County Supervisor Dianne McKenna, Planning Commission Chair Bo Chang, and Planning Commissioner Brandon Sulser. I'm very grateful for their support!
September 12, 2009 - Today, my candidacy was endorsed by Fred Fowler, former Mayor of Sunnyvale. My thanks for his support!
September 9, 2009 - My thanks to the Sunnyvale Kiwanis for hosting me as its guest speaker this morning. It was great to have an open and frank discussion about the state of the City, and what matters most to its members.
September 8, 2009 - I'm very pleased to announce that the Sierra Club has endorsed my candidacy. I'm very grateful for their support!
September 1, 2009 - Thanks to the couple hundred people who attended last night's public forum on the Stevens Creek Trail. It was a great discussion with lots of interesting ideas and perspectives (although my friend Patrick took a bit of a beating!).
August 19, 2009 - I want to give a plug to a new effort to inform and occasionally entertain Sunnyvale residents, Radio Sunnyvale. Check it out!
August 10, 2009 - Today, I was honored to be endorsed by Manuel Valerio, former Mayor of Sunnyvale. I'm grateful for his support!
August 5, 2009 - Today, we had the first candidate forum, sponsored by AARP. I was the only candidate for Seat 3 who attended, and it was a great experience. We talked about the downtown, the budget, Prop. 13, employee salaries, and a lot of other issues that residents wanted to hear about, and there were some good ideas tossed around. I look forward to the next one. Thanks to everyone who attended!
August 4, 2009 - Today, I officially qualified for the November ballot!
July 18, 2009 - OTTO'S BACK! He gets a 2-week furlough after 6 months of duty, and he held a block party to say hi to everyone. It was great to see him, and he's in great shape, to boot.
I also got to attend the Gavello Glen block party today, which was really impressive. They have a collection of artists in the neighborhood, and they put together a really nice art show - photos, paintings, some beautiful pottery (one bowl with a cabbage-leaf pattern was very good), and even hand-made fly fishing rods. Public Safety was there too, with a fire rig and Officer Smith and her canine partner Colt (I got to do a ride-along with Officer Smith last year - good experience, and I highly recommend everyone go on one, if you have the time). Anyway, good food, lots of fun!
July 13, 2009 - Today, I visited the Sunnyvale City Clerk's office and pulled nomination papers for the Seat 3 contest in November!
I've been hitting the streets hard over the past month, and I'll be doing so through to Election Day. But pulling papers is the point at which it really feels "real". I now have to do the hard work of gathering 30 signatures on my nomination form (easy) plus at least 250 signatures on my petition to waive the filing fee (harder). I will have the forms with me at all times, so if you bump into me somewhere, please make sure to ask to sign my papers!
And thanks to all of the people in the Heritage District, Morse Park, and Sunnyarts neighborhood associations who took the time to speak with me over the past several weekends. I enjoyed meeting everyone.
July 7, 2009 - We had a very interesting Board of Library Trustees meeting last night, and I wanted to share with you some very big library changes that will hopefully be coming over the next eight months. This month, Council will make the final decision on purchasing an RFID and automated check-in system for the library, and if they approve it, this will dramatically change and improve library services. Both Staff and the Board of Library Trustees enthusiastically support this project, and I'm thrilled that it is nearing reality.
Our library circulates 2.5 million items per year, and if you do the math, that means that every single hour that the library is open, our staff has to check out one item every 5-6 seconds, and they therefore also have to check in, sort, and shelve one item every 5-6 seconds, just to keep pace. That is a huge amount of work, and it isn't uncommon for books to sit in the back room for three days or more after a holiday because staff can't keep up. Worse, the current system is prone to check-in errors - it's common for staff to think they've successfully scanned an item, but the digital display is such that they can't easily determine success. And they don't have the time to double-check every item that they scan. So it isn't uncommon for patrons to complain that they've been dinged for overdue books, causing staff to find the item in question out on a bookshelf.
The new system uses RFID tags in the books, so staff or patrons can simply wave a wand over an entire stack of books, and every item will instantly be checked in or out. Additionally, we will install a new automated handling system for checking in materials. Patrons will drop off their materials in a slot where the RFID will be automatically read, and a receipt will be automatically generated, if desired. The books will then follow a conveyer belt to the back room, where the items will automatically be sorted by type - DVDs in one bin, biographies in another, large print in a third, fiction 'A' in a fourth, etc. All that remains is for staff to take an individual bin and shelve its contents.
This is a huge reduction in staff work. We currently have multiple dedicated staff workers manning the check-in conveyer belt at all times, and we additionally have staff workers who must go outside once or twice an hour, empty the bins by hand, and return the contents to the back room for check-in. None of that will be required with the new system. Even better, check-in of materials is now immediate. So, for instance, there are limits on DVDs, and if you want to return DVDs and get new ones, you have to stand there and ask a staffer to jump your DVDs to the head of the line, before you can check out new ones. Now, your items will be checked in immediately - as soon as you place them in the slot, you are free to check out new ones.
I'm really excited by this new system, which, if Council approves it, should be fully implemented by February 2010. Not only will this dramatically improve services, it will save the library real money. We will be reducing library staff headcount by 2 through attrition, and the system should pay itself off and save the library an additional $1.5 million over the life of the equipment. This is a win for everyone, and I'm glad we're getting it done.
In addition to this, the City will be doing a major renovation of the library's bathrooms over the next three months. All of the fixtures will be modernized, and there may be some additional rearranging in order to improve facilities.
Oh, and I was re-elected to a fifth year as Board Chair. Minor detail. :-)
June 24, 2009 - I was very honored to be invited to the Sunnyvale Hindu Temple to meet and listen to Narinder Chanchal last night. My grateful thanks to everyone who attended for allowing me to be a part of this special event.
June 11, 2009 - Our very own Councilmember Otto Lee is quoted in an NPR article on Stephen Colbert's Iraq visit. Go Otto!.
June 8, 2009 - Thanks much to the Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce for another terrific Sunnyvale Art and Wine Festival! And thanks to everyone who stopped by my table to chat.
May 29, 2009 - Thanks to the Sunnyarts Neighborhood Association for a great pizza night! It was great to see all of the parents and kids getting together and having a good time on a Friday night.
May 23, 2009 - Jai ho, jai Gujarat! Thanks to the members of the Sunnyvale Hindu Temple for inviting me to join them in celebrating Gujarat Day.
April 15, 2009 - Tonight, the Central Coast chapter of the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC) voted to endorse my candidacy. I'm very grateful for their support of my campaign.
April 8, 2009 - Councilmember Otto Lee has started blogging about his experiences serving in Iraq. I encourage everyone to read his latest entry, and to send Otto your best wishes on his safe and speedy return.
March 23, 2009 - I'm pleased to have been endorsed by the Sunnyvale Public Safety Officers Association (PSOA) and the Sunnyvale Employees Association (SEA)! I'm grateful to both organizations for their support of my campaign, as well as to the many elected and appointed officials and Sunnyvale residents who have given me their public support.
March 7, 2009 - I want to thank the members of the Sunnyvale Hindu Temple & Community Center for inviting me to join them in celebrating Holi, the Festival of Colors. It was an incredible experience, and I hope I get the chance to attend next year's celebration!