San Bruno CA Council Candidate Marco Durazo Answers Patch Questions -- posted 9/25/17

Article Source: San Bruno CA Council Candidate Marco Durazo

These same questions have been provided to all Council and Mayor candidates

ANSWERS from Marco Durazo

Questions 1-4

• Where have you served in an elected position?
• What have you done to prepare yourself for office?
• What abilities do you have that makes you qualified for this position?
• What will your priorities be if you are elected?

Never have had the privilege of serving as an elected official. I have, however, volunteered with the city on the Traffic, Safety, and Parking committee, the San Bruno Education Foundation, and as a member of the San Bruno Lions I engaged in a variety of civic and community oriented efforts that are aimed to benefit our youth, families, and seniors and the wider community.

I have spent years learning about how our city serves its residents, areas in which it can do better, and how it can govern more effectively, efficiently, and in a way, that is cognizant of how it spends our tax dollars.

I studied Government at UCLA and MIT. Intellectual curiosity about city government, analytical ability, and the ability to understand complex problems, budgets, and how these factors play out on a wide scale are essential qualities of an effective council member and attributes I will bring to the council.

I bring a fresh perspective and a new set of eyes to old problems. I am eager to respect the past while developing new systems and procedures to address some of our cities most enduring problems.

I have extensive experience in this type of role.

In addition to my current service to the city as a volunteer I have spent a considerable amount of my professional career working with elected officials, law enforcement, public agencies and various non-profits to address challenges, generate solutions and build community.

I have worked to improve, both as part of my work and as a community member, public education, community safety, civic participation, and community infrastructure.

1) Manage our fiscal resources in a responsible manner

2) Develop a plan to address residential and commercial parking challenges

3) Deepen the partnership between our city and public schools

4) Address our housing shortage

5) Protect and increase jobs that paying a living wage and I will not outsource city work.

6) Ensure that the Bayhill Specific Plan (BSP) and Transit Coordinators Plan (TCP) benefit and enhance our city while protecting our neighborhoods, history and identity.

7) Position San Bruno as a city that people visit, do business, and call home.

8) Address our ever-increasing water rates

9) Reinvigorate public participation in city and community affairs

10) Ensure that our first responders have the equipment, support, and training to protect our community.

5. Describe your goals and how you will accomplish and fund them.

I would propose a TOT (hotel tax) be put on the ballot to a rate comparable to cities around us. I would increase parking ticket fines for those parking over 72 hours from $38 to $100. Currently people leaving their vehicles on our streets while they fly off from SFO find it cheaper to get a ticket than pay for parking at the airport. I would Ask AirBnB to collect the TOT like they do in other cities. I would petition the federal government to give us excess land in San Bruno so that it might be developed generating income and housing for San Bruno.

5. Have you studied the City’s Transit Corridor Plan? Will you support it as San Bruno grows? If not, why not?

The TCP has some drawbacks but I still support it. I believe we have to accept throughout the Bay Area the real estate market is very desirable. The Peninsula most of all. I think we can do adjustments to the TCP including and especially parking spaces developers are required to have while still leaving the height limits in place. Each individual development in the TCP that comes to the council will have to be judged individually. But they can't’ destroy the quality of life in the surrounding area for the benefit of a wealthy developer.

6. How would you propose to improve the residential parking concerns?

Many have suggested parking permit programs like our neighboring cities have for certain neighborhoods. Each of our neighborhoods has unique problems. For example, in the 5th addition people using BART will park there instead of paying for parking and auto body shops that have cars they are working on using our streets instead of their own property. In the areas around the train station it is Cal Train riders. Other neighborhoods have more people with vehicles per household. Sometimes this is because of children living at home longer due to the high cost rent, household sharing, people that have built in-law apartments, etc..

If we were to institute a parking permit program in neighborhoods it would have to be with the approval of a majority of households in that area.

This will not solve the problems but it hopefully will lessen them or at the very least not let things get worse. I strongly urge you to find out the facts of a parking program, the benefits, the drawbacks and discuss them with your neighbors. Other ideas to lessen the parking issues is for the city to waive permit fees for anyone wishing to widen their driveway to accommodate another vehicle. In areas that people are taking up more space than one car we can paint hash tags like on San Mateo Ave. Another thing to do is to gently encourage our good neighbors that have non-operational vehicles in their driveways to sell and or donate them. This will free up another space and make our city look better. It is against code to have these non-operational vehicles in their driveways. Sooner or later someone from code enforcement will issue a citation to get them removed. Let’s try to be as neighborly as possible.

7. What hourly parking meter fees would you support along San Mateo Avenue and ECR if any?

I would support them on San Mateo Ave if the money were to stay on San Mateo Ave and eventually go to a parking structure like they have in Burlingame and South City’s downtowns. I think the long-term plan to improve our downtown must include a parking structure where some of the public parking lots are now.

8. Would you support the City hiring one or more additional police officers? If we have the budget.

A police officer salary cost is close to ~$200,000 a year with benefits and equipment. Maybe a better solution would be to hire 2 community service officers (CSOs) freeing up our police to focus all of their time to crime prevention and solving of crimes. Little things like parking tickets, resident complaints, etc. could be handled by a CSO. The police Dept. budget is over $6 million dollars in San Bruno. Some have suggested switching over to the Sherriff’s dept like Millbrae, San Carlos, Woodside, Portola Valley and Half Moon Bay have done. Some make the argument that crime doesn’t stop at San Bruno’s border and that would give us greater enforcement. I would have to hear from the residents before I would rule that in our out.

9. What additional tasks would you support for the City’s Code Enforcement Officers?

I am not sure I would give them additional duties I would just expect them to carry out their duties efficiently.

10. What actions would you support to provide lower and very low-income housing in San Bruno?

I would pre-qualify all new development with the stipulation that a percentage of new housing be earmarked for low income and affordable housing and ensure that our veterans, teachers, and first responders were prioritized in this allocation.

12. What kind of off street parking structure would you support and WHERE?

The city owns the parking lots on the back side of the 500 San Mateo Ave. I would support this as part of a downtown redevelopment like South City and Burlingame have done.

13. What kind of a San Bruno Shuttle would you support if any?

Any shuttle would need to have stops at the YouTube and Wal-Mart.com campuses in Bayhill. I would make sure they either paid fully or contributed the vast majority paying for the shuttle since they will receive the most benefit.

14. What steps would you support to improve the City’s water and storm water infrastructure (remembering this as an Enterprise Business and only gets their funds through user rates)?

I would ensure that we are making frequent and scheduled upgrades and not kicking the can down the road. This scenario has played out before and now residents are feeling the pain in the form of very high water rates. I paid ~$700 for water in the month of July and August, 2017. This is not acceptable.

15. What steps would you support to address citizen’s concerns about the cost of garbage, recycling, and composting fees?

The contracts are set by the current city council. I would be very insistent when the contract is up to take bids from other companies and not just automatically renew Recology.

16. What would you support to improve the San Mateo Avenue Business District?

I would maximize enforcement of code violations that have plagued the district for years, I would increase police presence by opening a SBPD office on the Ave to ensure maximize safety and presence, I would ensure that business permits are expedited, I would work with a committee to reinstitute a community market, and explore plans to create a friendlier biking and pedestrian presence so as to eliminate or minimize vehicle circulation.

17. What would you support in trying to retain the use of the Crestmoor Field for local sports?

Yes. Open spaces for families and youth sports are critical to our city’s future.

18. What will you do to motive businesses and Caltrans to embrace a bicycle, scooter, and/or car-share infrastructure?

Offer incentives, seek community in-put in planning process, and pre-qualify these requests with developers seeking to build in our city.

19. Have you studied the City’s Pavement Condition Index and what would you propose to upgrade our City streets?

Yes. I would prioritize the most neglected streets, prevent unauthorized vehicles from accessing streets they do not belong on, and utilize code enforcement to prevent unsanctioned use of streets that result in damage.

20. How will you speed up street repair? My street has not been repaired in 20 years.

“Extra Credit Question” – What will you do to improve the enforcement of our traffic and parking and code enforcement laws?

Increase the fines, enhance CSO staffing, and expand staffing and create a special hotline that will result in increased responsiveness.

=

Robert Riechel

E=Mail: SanBrunoPatch.Robert@Yahoo.com

WEB: http://SanBrunoPatch.com

My Posts: http://patch.com/users/robert-riechel

Photo Credit: San Bruno CA Patch Archives

Source Credit: San Bruno CA Council Candidate Marco Durazo

CLICK on link below to Subscribe to News Alerts and a Daily Email Newsletter for San Bruno Patch

http://link.patch.com/join/3-0-subscribe?list=US_CA_SANBRUNO_282