Pierluigi Oliverio

What Would Cesar Chavez Do?

Mar 15, 2010, by Pierluigi Oliverio Politics Comments (36)

Below are a few observations from last week.
 
Monday: Council study session on Airport
Overwhelming majority of Council thought outsourcing of janitorial to save $3 million was a bad idea so it looks like we will lay people off and consider getting rid of the night time curfew in the future.

Monday Night: General Plan 2040 Task Force Meeting
Although the General Plan board members were informed that the City’s budget problems are partially due to most of our land being dedicated to housing instead of jobs, the Task Force voted in favor of adding 300,000 people with a 14-11 vote. The two options were 200,000 or 300,000 new residents. Several task force members shared that they voted no because they wanted to see higher growth of 500,000 more residents to San Jose! I voted for the option that added 200,000 people by 2040.

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Keep the Airport Curfew

Mar 08, 2010, by Pierluigi Oliverio Politics Comments (17)

This afternoon at 1:30 the Council will gather for a special meeting to discuss the City’s airport. The expansion was voted favorably by the council in 1997 with then-Councilmember David Pandori casting the only vote against. The airport, with the hands artwork that is visible driving on Highway 87, was approved in 2005. Through the selling of bonds (borrowing) the city of San Jose has spent $1.3 billion on the renovation.

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Why Free Parking is a Bad Idea

Mar 01, 2010, by Pierluigi Oliverio Politics Comments (25)

Professor Donald Shoup of UCLA visited City Hall last week. He was in San Jose to present a lecture titled, “Why free parking is a bad idea.”  The information he shared is based on his book and research.

There are approximately 700 million parking spaces for 230 million cars in this country and 99 percent of cars trips have free parking.  Prof. Shoup showed an aerial picture of the Cisco Systems campus with its empty asphalt parking lots. He felt that these empty parking lots are not a good use of land and that it creates higher-than-needed vehicle miles traveled (VMT). He then continued to share what he thought would be a way to better utilize the land, which was to allow Cisco to build housing on their parking lots and waive all parking requirements.

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When Times Get Tough Just Borrow More Money

Feb 22, 2010, by Pierluigi Oliverio Politics Comments (38)

Mayor Reed shared a candid and honest view of city revenues and expenses at the State of the City Breakfast last week. (Personally, I miss the State of the City speeches in the evening as it led to dinner after the speech and spending money Downtown.) As we already know the City is walking the plank, with the sharks swimming below in the ocean (sharks = bankruptcy) and a sword wielding pirate (pirate = hard choices) is forcing us to walk down the plank off the ship. Walking back up the plank in not an option unless tough decisions are made now. However it seems that another alternative being heard more and more at city hall is borrowing.

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No Soup For You! No Park For You!

Feb 15, 2010, by Pierluigi Oliverio Comments (20)

Last week the Council tackled two agenda items related to parks. One was to apply for a state grant. There is $184 million up for grabs for the entire state of California to be spent on city parks. California has 36 million people and San Jose has one million. If San Jose were to get 1/36th of those state funds, that would be $5 million. The other item was the city postponing the opening of 11 parks city- wide because there is no money to fund operations and maintenance.

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