Santa Clara County
Living Wage Policy
The County Board of Supervisors will vote on whether to adopt a living wage policy for the County’s procurement process. The proposed policy will be the most comprehensive living wage for the $2.5 billion in contracts and around 16,000 workers employed by the County.
While the Administration is still working out a plan to review the various contracts (innumerable according to the County at the moment, see next item) that would need to incorporate the living wage provisions, the Board of Supervisors are poised to move forward. This is substantial progress for workers in Santa Clara County and will be a national model for fairness in employment by government and private entities.
Where: Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
When: Tuesday, November 18
Agenda: link
Creating a Central Unit to Oversee Contracting
While in the process of reviewing the County’s contracting process and ongoing contracts already on the books, the County Administration realized that much can and should be done to streamline and centralize the contracting process. The initial scope of work was related to determining the fiscal implications of a potential Living Wage ordinance and the recently passed Wage Theft ordinance, but in the process the Administration realized that the County would need 3 employees just to unearth the total number of contracts. The new unit’s purpose it to conjure up the analytical work and set forth the steps to create a comprehensive proposal for contracting compliance, governance and implementation activities for countywide contracting.
That they need to staff up to three people just to formulate a plan to centralize contracts demonstrates the sheer scale of the County and the contracts it includes. Though the plan still needs to be developed, an analytical and centralized approach to contracts will have better enforcement opportunities for the potential Living Wage, the Wage Theft ordinance, prevailing wage on public works, and innovative programs that pay contractors for success.
Where: Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
When: Tuesday, November 18
Agenda: link
East Side Union High School District
Pending Board Vacancy
With the election of East Side Union High School District member Magdalena Carrasco to the San José City Council, pundits are now looking to the potential replacement for Councilmember-Elect Carrasco on the school board. Per the school board’s by-laws a replacement can be selected either by an election or with a provisional appointment.
This should be interesting for political junkies out there, as school boards are often seen as a first step to higher office. Adding a little twist to a seemingly innocuous school board vacancy are the results from the recent election, where two runners up received moderate support in the community. Keep an eye on whether the board looks to Anthony Phan and Patricia Martinez-Roach, who came just 1.4 and 3.07 percentage points shy of the third seat up this cycle.
Where: East Side Union High School District
When: Thursday, November 20
Agenda: link
City of San José
Housing Impact Fee
More than a year in the making, the impact fee proposed for San José is the city’s attempt at generating revenue to build stocks of lower-income housing that is sorely needed. Although complex on paper, the idea is simple – new housing increases the demand for services which then increases the need for service sector jobs. These jobs typically don’t pay enough to afford the absurd rental and housing markets in San José and the surrounding area, meaning those workers either need to bunk together (see the East Side) or travel from more affordable areas. Both options are bad for both the workers and the environment. To that end, the council commissioned a nexus study which came back at a very conservative level of $17 per net rentable square foot to be levied on new, market-rate rental housing developments starting in 2016. A quick note that the $17 impact fee was conservative in 2013 before the rental market increased 9-10%, making the fee even more solidly conservative.
As the rental market and housing market in Silicon Valley continue to reach astronomical levels – remember, rent here is more expensive as a metropolitan area than Manhattan and Honolulu – it’s important to remember that we can and should take action to build up affordable housing stocks. Otherwise, we’ll continue to see lower-income residents pushed out of San José and Silicon Valley which is not good for the fabric of society – oh and it will help traffic and the environment as well.
Where: San José City Council
When: Tuesday, November 18
Agenda: link
North San Jose Design Guidelines
While the City of San José has made recruiting businesses to North San José a priority, the actual recruitment of development projects hasn’t gone quite as planned. In fact per the Mayor’s memo with Councilmembers Rocha and Herrera, San José has only captured 30% of the development projects in the four cities of San José, Santa Clara, Mountain View and Sunnyvale.
To help alleviate this problem, the city is looking at ways to amend the Design Guidelines to help recruit development projects. On the docket are returning the North San Jose Traffic Impact Fee, has been identified by the Mayor et. al in their memo as a deterrent to investors looking to build. Other changes include allowing developers to build roads out of spec with the end goal to adjust them when traffic demands increase, allowing buildings of one to two stories to develop along the thoroughfares to keep a certain aesthetic look but allow companies to build to suit, and several other changes designed to entice developers chasing the tech building boom to San José as opposed to other areas in the valley.
One would suspect there might be concerns with the level of services that the City can offer which would be holding back developers and prospective tenants in the new buildings, but then again it could be a distinct lack of planning staff. Either way, North San José isn’t as attractive as it should be.
Where: San José City Council
When: Tuesday, November 18
Agenda: link
Santa Clara County Board of Education
Decision on the Charter Petition for Voices College-Bound Language Academy at Morgan Hill School and Morgan Hill Prep Charter School
The Santa Clara County BOE has two charter school petition appeals coming before them on Wednesday, both of which the staff under new County Superintendent Jon Gundry is recommending the BOE deny.
Voices College-Bound Language Academy gets faulted for being demonstrably unlikely to implement the program due to serious concerns about the financial sustainability of the charter school operator. Staff also noted that the proposed model of teaching students Spanish language lacked enough data to be able to assess its effectiveness.
Navigator operated Morgan Hill Prep Charter School finds itself on the wrong side of a staff report for multiple reasons, including an unsound educational program for the pupils, a slim likelihood of successful implementation, and a lack of descriptions of the required elements of the petition, including the education program and method of measuring pupil outcomes.
What makes this interesting from a political viewpoint is one of the solid charter school votes on the BOE, Trustee Hover-Smoot, lost her re-election bid to Claudia Rossi. Rossi just happens to serve on the school board in Morgan Hill, the same entity that denied the petition for both Navigator and Voices at the local level. Will the local wishes be implemented at the county level? Tune in on Wednesday to find out.
Where: Santa Clara County Board of Education
When: Wednesday, November 19
Agenda: Navigator Voices
Dennis Raj is the Political Director for the South Bay Labor Council
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