As a member of Livermore's City Council, I will continually strive to lead and do what is best for Livermore, guided by my vision and strategies outlined below. I will not react to, or act upon, an issue before first reviewing all facts and listening to all viewpoints. As I consider the issues before me, I will form my decisions by balancing potential outcomes against a long-term framework for success.
Livermore's "quality of life" depends on:
- Maintaining the Urban Growth Boundary and Scenic Corridor Protections to preserve open space, agriculture and our distinct visual appearance.
- Working to bring BART to Livermore along the 580 corridor. In moving forward, future councils need to respect the community's preferences and the project's technical and logistical challenges to achieve bringing rapid transit to Livermore.
- Developing quality housing projects to fit into Livermore's existing character up to limits as defined in the current General Plan; up to approximately 100,000 residents.
- Targeting strategies that focus on providing safe neighborhoods with appropriate city maintenance and code enforcement.
- Providing city services that are created with a caring, humane approach and that address the needs of all people and neighborhoods.
- Working closely with the LVJUSD School Board and Las Positas Community College to promote their vibrant local education systems, where every child is provided with opportunities throughout childhood to succeed into adulthood.
- Working closely with LARPD and EBRPD to foster the provision of a wide variety of recreation and leisure activities.
- Ensuring leadership that supports an ongoing and strong agriculture and viticulture sector, both inside and outside of the city.
Livermore's economic stability relies on:
- Diversifying city income sources by growing a well-rounded business and leisure economy. Livermore should not be dependent on only two or three sources of revenue--should one type of revenue slow (for example, fluctuations in property taxes or sales taxes), diversified revenue sources would still be capable of supporting core civic needs.
- Placing an emphasis on increasing Livermore's connections to regional transportation systems to encourage increases in employment opportunities and visitors.
- Strengthening partnerships between local educational institutions and local employers. Livermore's K-12 schools and Las Positas Community College can produce the skilled work force Livermore employers need!
- Increasing the "jobs to housing" ratio; with an aim to create a more direct ratio between the two. In other words, strongly encouraging new jobs that will employ our residents who currently commute, rather than increasing new residents who must commute out.
- Fortifying "city-to-business" partnerships to strengthen the city's focus on business recruitment and retention.
- Sizing city services to stay within revenues; including saving for future capital repair/replacement needs. Budgets shall be created to be realistic and balanced.
Stewart Gary's Strategies to Assist Livermore in Achieving Vision 2032:
The overall premise of the strategies that follow is simple: what the city council measures, gets done. Scarce revenues must be aligned with cost-effective, beneficial programs that result in improving the quality of life and economic vitality of Livermore.
Strategies for maintaining and improving Livermore's "quality of life" include:
- Ensuring that development occurs within the Urban Growth Boundary. Boundary adjustments should be approved only when and if there is a clearly demonstrated, essential need to maintain the quality of life, and the citizens vote to support the adjustment.
- Maintaining current General Plan tools for quality development, at a controlled annual rate, to ensure that Livermore retains and strengthens its historic and current community character as we evolve within a changing world.
- Continuing to improve Livermore's successful Downtown Redevelopment.
- Increasing connections to neighborhoods by holding quarterly city council-led evening meetings in each quadrant of the city. The purpose shall be to listen to residents' concerns, questions and ideas unique to each area, as well as to provide residents with brief updates regarding city programs relevant to their specific area.
- Expanding the current Environment and Energy Committee to become a "Resources Commission" that works to align program funding and support for beneficial environmental programs; including agriculture, drinking water, wastewater and solid waste.
- Combining all "Human Services" programs and strengthening neighborhood preservation, rehabilitation and code enforcement by re-configuring existing city budget resources into a "Quality of Life" Department. The city council should set clear, measurable goals for these programs and only continue to fund programs that bring meaningful results to all neighborhoods. These programs could include, for example: libraries, housing assistance, youth programs, recreation (such as golf courses), and other community-based, "people-oriented" programs.
- Creating a clearinghouse data center for Livermore's nonprofit organizations that are critical to supporting human needs. This clearinghouse would enable donors and providers to connect with each other to increase efficiencies and improve program outcomes. Available city funding would be targeted towards supporting high-impact programs aligned with identified human resource needs/goals for the city.
To improve economic stability in Livermore, city council leadership should:
- Establish, and provide a member to, a multi-organization business recruitment and retention task force.
- Establish a "Jobs Bank" where local schools and employers would be matched for aligned skills and employment opportunities and easily enable employers to apprise the schools of their on-going needs.
- Focus on downtown redevelopment planning, including the proposed performing arts theater; providing it continues to prove economically feasible.
- Explore--in all Livermore area local government agencies--ways in which to share or merge overhead and support services in order to gain the best economic efficiencies. Examples include: information technology support, billing, finance and human resources.
- Insist on performing a regular study and refinement of all city fees, charges and levies. In particular, studies should address how business and jobs fees not only offset direct city service costs, but also have the potential to increase the community's ability to grow small businesses and jobs in any given category.
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