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San Mateo County, CA November 3, 2009 Election
Smart Voter

Priorities for Our Community

By John Seybert

Candidate for City Council; City of Redwood City

This information is provided by the candidate
A brief statement about my priorities for Redwood City.
  • Working Together to Achieve Our Community's Vision

As a Planning Commissioner I have been working hard with our community on the completion of the new General Plan (including the revised Downtown Precise Plan). However, the completion of the General Plan only signals the beginning of what needs to be a prioritization of much needed housing in our downtown and along our major transit corridors as well as a continued focus on economic development that will provide our community the amenities it desires.

As far as Cargill... There are many people who would like me to say "yes" without studying the issues and others who would want me to say "no" without studying the issues. As a Planning Commissioner for the past 8 years, and a skeptic of glossy marketing campaigns of any developers, I am in favor of a thorough, transparent process that studies all the technical issues, considers the goals/priorities of our community, and includes input from a wide variety of stakeholders before making a decision. We need to uncover the facts behind the pretty pictures.

Now that a formal application has been made on this site, an unbiased study of the issues related to that application can finally begin. There are a number of issues related to that site and at this point there are still many more questions popping up then answers. We need to study traffic, water, compatibility with adjacent land use, noise, affect on the bay and biological resources, air pollution, and that only scratches the surface of the list. My 8 years experience as a Planning Commissioner tells me the studies alone could take years to complete. We need leaders on the City Council that have the experience to sift through very complex studies and land use issues.

I have stated very openly that I have much higher priorities than the Cargill site. My #1 priority is to complete our community's vision for a thriving, 24/7, downtown complete with transit-oriented housing and accompanying retail. We have a great start on our downtown and yet there is still so much more that needs to be done. Quite frankly, the Cargill project is a major distraction to completing this priority.

  • Fiscal Responsibility - Needed Now More Than Ever!

We are facing extraordinary times and a real balanced approach must be taken, including significant economic development efforts, monitoring operational efficiencies, wise use of reserve funds, working collaboratively with all areas and stakeholders within the City in developing budget reductions, and raising revenues (such as increasing the Business License tax + a measure that is on the November ballot in Redwood City with full support of the Chamber of Commerce). Finally, when the economy returns we need to rebuild the reserves for the next "rainy day." I also believe we need to take an aggressive stand against the State government as it attempts to grab local funds to fix the problems in Sacramento. My business experience, managing a multi-million dollar operating budget and HR policies for over 100 employees, is the type of leadership we need now more than ever.

  • Building Partnerships

We need to utilize the combined strengths of each sector of our community (business, government, working families, non-profits, schools, etc.) to achieve more that we could have separately. Through my work with Serve the Peninsula we have been able to significantly improve many public schools in Redwood City by partnering with a wide variety of groups.

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ca/sm Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 26, 2009 14:32
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