With a full slate of candidates, The Weekly wanted to give voters insight into each candidate’s position on a slew of issues we believe matter most to Santa Clarans. 

Consequently, we asked them seven questions, giving them the flexibility to answer as many as they wanted. We limited their responses to 1,000 words (allowing a bit of flexibility for how disparate word processors count words). Their responses appear verbatim. 

The Silicon Valley Voice will roll out each candidate’s answers in the days leading up to the election.

Below are the links to the candidate answers for Mayor:

We asked each of the candidates the following questions:

1.      How do you think the city handled the Super Bowl and the FIFA World Cup this year? If you were on the city council, what would you have done differently? How would you balance the desire to have more events like these at Levi’s Stadium with neighborhood impacts?

2.      Over the past ten years, the city has added lots of housing but has floundered with respect to public amenities and infrastructure (the swim center is in disrepair, the convention center is falling apart and the BMX Park is slated to move, just to name a few). What more should the city be doing to prevent the loss of — or add more — public amenities and find a better balance between housing and public amenities, without asking residents to approve another $400 million bond measure?

3.      According to Silicon Valley At Home, while Santa Clara does well to meet its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) numbers for Low Income and Above Moderate Income households, it struggles to create housing for low-income households. What should the city do to create PERMANENT spaces for the poorest Santa Clara residents?

4.      Silicon Valley Power has increased rates six times since January 2022 as the utility continues to expand. Would you like to see this expansion continue? With more data centers than ever, do you think SVP’s trajectory is in the best interest of residents?

5.      Name some issues on which you would have voted differently from your predecessor and some that you would have voted the same. Explain why.

6.      How do you plan to balance neighborhood-specific advocacy with citywide budget and policy tradeoffs? 

7.      What would you do to ensure that the Related project does not see another several years of delay?

The Weekly will post its questions to the Santa Clara City Council candidates as well as information on Measure C, the change to the City Charter. We will also have details on the Sunnyvale City Council, Santa Clara Unified School District and state elections as the November election date gets closer.