Mercury News Editorial: Sam Liccardo for San Jose Mayor
Originally posted in the Mercury News on 9/27/2014
Has ever a mayoral race in San Jose gotten this dirty this early as the one between Dave Cortese and Sam Liccardo?
Mail-in ballots are the reason. They arrive next week, and people can vote immediately. But candidates and their supporters reveal themselves more fully as campaigns unfold. It pays to take a close look.
In the mayor’s race, we recommended Sam Liccardo in the primary and still believe he’s the best choice for many reasons. But today we’re going to talk only about public safety because it’s supremely important and because of the fear-mongering campaign by Cortese and his supporters, who would have us believe San Jose’s level of safety now is somewhere between Detroit and Mosul.
As the mail arrives each day, take it with a grain of salt. No, a shaker. No, the whole Morton’s carton with the little girl on it.
Based on the San Jose Police Department’s own numbers, crime is not spiraling out of control. The number of violent crimes, both actual and per capita, was down in 2013 compared to 2012 — and even compared to 2008, Cortese’s last year on the city council. Burglaries are up since then, but even they dropped a bit in 2013.
Don’t take our word for it. Ten years of statistics are on the police department website: www.sjpd.org/CrimeStats/crimestats.html.
Also check out the FBI statistics available back to the 1980s at www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/Crime.cfm. It shows higher crime numbers in the 1990s than today.
The figures are cold comfort to residents, who feel less safe now — and that matters. But they’re a starting point for thinking rationally about the leader San Jose needs.
Cortese said at a forum last week that pensions were fully funded when he left the city council to join the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. But city records show that in 2005, there was a pension liability of $371 million, and by 2007 the retiree health care shortfall was as much as $1.67 billion. Today pension and health care liabilities together total $2.97 billion. Along the way, taxpayers’ annual contributions to pensions and retiree health care have gone up $200 million compared to 10 years ago. In the 2014-15 budget, the cost will increase $38.5 million over this year’s.
Sam Liccardo was part of a council majority that faced the city’s financial challenges head on. It would have been easy to, say, float pension obligation bonds, as labor persuaded the county supervisors to do a few years ago. It’s a form of gambling on the stock market, and the county lost money on it.
In San Jose, Mayor Chuck Reed and a council majority instead set about cutting costs and working to reduce unfunded obligations. That was the impetus for pension reform and Measure B. But despite nearly eight years of austerity, budget projections still show small deficits in three of the next four years just to maintain current service levels.
So we ask, as voters should: If Dave Cortese hopes to restore the police department to its high of around 1,400 positions from roughly 900 officers today, as he says, where will the money come from?
Liccardo, too, wants to rebuild the department. Everybody does. Response times, prevention programs and investigative units need to be restored to service levels residents expect. But the fundamental problem remains a lack of resources — unless the next mayor wants to push the city further into debt and into greater risk when the next economic downturn hits.
Liccardo would rather settle litigation over Measure B, as Cortese would, than continue the court fight — but only if real pension savings are an ironclad part of the deal. The difference is, Liccardo is honest and realistic about what San Jose can do. Police scoff at his ideas to make the department more efficient, but most are already in use in other departments.
Public safety unions, retirees and labor in general are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect Cortese. They expect a payback. Look carefully at who’s behind campaign mailers, and think about who’s being straight with voters. It’s Liccardo.