Author Archives: Vinnie

Council Endorses Alameda County Affordable Housing Bond (7/19)

By 1 commentFiscal Responsibility, Housing

On a 4-1 vote the Fremont City Council endorsed the Alameda County bond measure that will be on this November’s ballot. I was very much in favor of this.

Since I’ve been on the Council I’ve come to believe that affordable housing is one of the most important issues facing many local municipalities including the City of Fremont. Working people are having more and more trouble renting in Fremont let alone buying a home here. When affordable housing becomes available, the number of applicants is enormous.

In my position paper on affordable housing (http://bacon4fremont.com/affordable-housing/), I note that Fremont has a ratio of 8.30 lower wage jobs to places that people with these jobs can afford to live. That means that for every lower wage job in Fremont, 7.30 people have to commute here in order to work. It’s estimated that this translates to 6,000 people who work in Fremont and have to commute from somewhere else. (The corresponding figure for the City of San Jose alone is over 21,000.) If you wonder why traffic is so bad in the Bay Area, this imbalance is a good part of the reason.

Given the current situation, one could easily argue that Fremont, and many other local cities, should have asked for more affordable housing fees on past development. Obviously there was a need for it. But the past is the past and we can’t go back and change it. We can’t go back and ask those developers to pay increased fees. We are stuck with the current situation. Even if we substantially increased fees on future development, that wouldn’t resolve the problem.

I don’t see any other immediate options available that will help resolve the huge affordability problem that we have in the Bay Area. This bond measure will be local money used to resolve a critical local issue.

Council Approves Citywide Design Guidelines and Mission Palms Neighborhood Designation (7/12)

By City Planning

This may seem like a wonky planning issue but it has significant implications for many Fremont residents. The guidelines put limits on exactly how one can improve their current home. Residents are still free to make additions to their home, but within specified limits.

The attached photo is how a neighbor’s oversized addition can greatly impact ones privacy. This is now the neighbor’s new view from their kitchen. This home was modified by a ‘flipper’ who wanted to radically increase the existing home size and sell it for maximum value. I believe that residents who move into a neighborhood have a reasonable expectation that the neighborhood will retain its original character.

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Proposition 13 Reform Support Not Considered by Council

By 1 commentEconomic Development, Fiscal Responsibility, Uncategorized

Proposition 13 was designed to help retired homeowners on a fixed income whose property taxes were rapidly rising. It limited the amount one’s property tax can increase annually even if their property values go way up. This was a laudable effort.

However, the rules of Proposition 13 apply to commercial and residential property. Of course, applying Proposition 13 to commercial properties does nothing to help homeowners. It’s estimated that this costs California nine billion dollars a year!

California used to be one of the leaders in how much we contributed to our public schools. Now we’re near the bottom of the list. Many have attributed this to Proposition 13. That’s why many school districts including Fremont’s, Hayward’s and Alameda County’s have signed on to a petition developed by Evolve to reform Proposition 13. A number of local cities and over 900 elected officials have signed on to this.

I made a referral to have the Fremont City Council sign on as well. Staff analyzed this and suggested that we simply monitor the situation. Despite this, I made a motion that the Fremont City Council sign on as well. My motion failed for a lack of a second.

Read more about the petition at http://evolve-ca.org.

We Need A More Inclusive Budget Process in Fremont

By Fiscal Responsibility

The budget is actually discussed in three separate Council meetings (5/17, 6/14 and 6/21). In the 5/17 meeting I made it a point to note that Fremont’s budget decision process is not an inclusive process. The budget notes that there is a hierarchy where the community is on top, followed by the Council and then by staff. I noted that in my experience this is not actually how the budget is prepared in Fremont.

My frustration with the budget process has not only been that there is virtually no input from the public. I also feel as a Council member that I have little say in the budget process. That the budget is simply presented by staff, there is little discussion, and then the budget is approved. As an example, there was a budget surplus last year. Instead of staff presenting to Council what options we had to spend this on, staff just presented a list of what they felt it should be spent on. This was simply approved by the Council with little discussion. I’ve complained about this a couple of times with no success.
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