Community Corner
San Bruno Mayoral Candidate Rico E. Medina Answers Patch Questions -- posted 10/12/2017
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Article Source: San Bruno Mayoral Candidate Rico E. Medina
Rico Medina - Ricoformayor@gmail.com
20 QUESTIONS FOR 2017 SAN BRUNO MAYOR AND COUNCIL CANDIDATES
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As a service to San Bruno Patch readers, I will be posting these questions and answers received from candidates seeking your votes in the upcoming November San Bruno 2017 election. Some of these questions were provided by San Bruno residents.
Please consider answering these questions and sending the questions and your answers back to me as a WORD document. Thank you from San Bruno Patch readers.
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1-Where have you served in an elected position?
Currently San Bruno City Council
Currently State Delegate for the Democratic State Conventions
Currently St. Roberts Men’s Club President
Former San Mateo Democratic Central Committee
Former Capuchino High School Student Body President
2-What have you done to prepare yourself for office?
I have and continue to attend events in our community, listen to folk’s comments and concerns.
I have attended every council special meeting, study session, regular closed session and regular council meeting. In almost 12 years I have not missed one roll call.
3-What abilities do you have that makes you qualified for this position?
Being a third generation and lifelong resident in San Bruno a former City of San Bruno Employee and Shop Stewart enables me to know and see things or issues from a broader perspective and understanding.
4-What will your priorities be if you are elected?
We need to have better response to our residents and more communication on what the city is doing to address these concerns in the community. We need to address the rising costs of water and sewer rates and the condition of our streets. The new City Council needs to sit down as a team and have a vision and goal setting session to set priorities for 2018. We need better communication, through collaboration and cooperation.
5-Describe your goals and how you will accomplish and fund them.
Streets – The cost will need another funding source if the community wants to have it brought to a level of acceptance. Either send this topic to the existing or a new sub-committee of the city council to work with staff to come up with a plan and options.
Water / Sewer Rates - This also needs to be an appointed committee to look at what the needs of the system are, the cost it will take and to examine the effectiveness and efficiency of how we do business and how we can improve to save costs.
6-Have you studied the City’s Transit Corridor Plan? Will you support it as San Bruno grows? If not, why not?
Yes I have studied the Corridor Plan. I was not able to participate as a councilmember in drafting it when it went to a vote of the people since my home is near the area that can and will change. I will work with what the voters approved and will look to make these developments appropriate for our community.
7-How would you propose to improve the residential parking concerns?
Currently I sit on a parking permit sub-committee with Councilman Marty Medina Tom Hamilton and Mark Howard of the Traffic, Safety Parking Committee. We have been discussing ideas to bring back a permit parking plan for areas in our community that may want this as an option.
8-What hourly parking meter fees would you support along San Mateo Avenue and ECR if any?
I have spoken to the San Bruno Chamber President, the CEO and some business owners on San Mateo Ave to get their views and opinions. I am willing to discuss the topic but want to include the merchants and how they would feel on this change and any concerns for their businesses.
9-Would you support the City hiring one or more additional police officers?
Yes I would. I found funding in our city budget to bring on an additional officer by allocating a funding source and reducing a Director title to a Manger title. With those savings it allowed me to offer it to the city council and by a 3-2 votes we added a new officer.
10-What additional tasks would you support for the City’s Code Enforcement Officers?
We need to clear up what we have pending and address those on-going complaints and issues that are not going away. To bring on additional tasks with no additional resources would mean the back log would not be addressed or closed.
11-What actions would you support to provide more low and very low income housing in San Bruno?
We recently adopted affordable housing fees, and will use the fees received to support new affordable housing. As new developments come online within the transit corridor area, we should aim to have a percentage of those units be affordable. As companies expand in San Bruno, it is my expectation that they partner with the city and nonprofits to provide additional affordable housing in San Bruno.
12-What kind of off street parking structure would you support and WHERE?
A parking structure in the area of San Mateo Ave would assist in the lack of parking currently.
13-What kind of a San Bruno Shuttle would you support if any?
An example of a shuttle that has proven to be a success is the one that Skyline College is using for its students / staff. If a funding source can be found and studies would show people would use it, I would consider it.
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)?
We need to prioritize and address the critical items, such as:
Water lines with major leak history which has been tracked by staff for several years.
Capacity deficiencies need to be addressed to increase pipe size for fire flow to meet demands that are necessary to ensure the safety of our community.
Our water tanks and pump stations so they are being used at full capacity.
I did vote no on the rate increase but understand that improvements cost money. I want to make sure that we are being effective and efficient in our use of the rate payer’s money.
15-What steps would you support to address citizen’s concerns about the cost of garbage, recycling, and composting fees?
In order for the City of San Bruno to remain compliant with such Assembly Bills as AB341 (recycling) and AB1826 (organics) our hauler must offer such services as recycling and composting and our residents and commercial businesses must do their best to participate. Additionally, there are costs associated with the processing of recycling and organic material.
According to an HF&H survey conducted in 2016 - 70% of cities surrounding San Bruno are paying more for garbage/recycling/organics services. Every 3 years Recology submits their audited financials for their rates to the council sub-committee and staff to review. The committee then compares those financials to revenues being billed for services.
16-What would you support to improve the San Mateo Avenue Business District?
The police chief has suggested to increase police presence by opening a SBPD sub-office on San Mateo Ave. A farmers market was tried for a couple of years through the Chamber of Commerce with no cost to the city but the vendors did not return do to the lack of participation and purchases. I think we first need to begin to successfully implement the transit corridor plan, and the property owners will then have enough confidence to invest more of their own money in downtown business district.
17-What would you support in trying to retain the use of the Crestmoor Field for local sports?
As a former Parks and Recreation employee, I understand the importance and quality of life this brings to a community. The city has been kept on top of what the San Mateo Union High School District plans are to do with the property. I and other members of the council and staff have attended and spoken at the district’s meetings to let the Board of Trustees know our city’s position and the importance of the fields to our community. It will require us as a community to let the school board know our interests and needs for San Bruno.
18-What will you do to motive businesses and Caltrans to embrace a bicycle, scooter, and/or car-share infrastructure?
1. Have our staff work closely with Caltrans and other agencies to implement our walk bike plan adopted just last year. Make sure they are familiar with all aspects of our plan.
2. I’m interested in learning more about the car pooling apps other communities are using to reduce single occupancy trips.
3. Work closely with our large employers to adopt transportation demand management plans. Make these plans required for all new developments.
19-Have you studied the City’s Pavement Condition Index and what would you propose to upgrade our City streets?
Yes I have. It is estimated that in order to repair all streets with a PCI of 40 or less which is considered a poor street would cost 18 million dollars. With SB1 our city will receive $750,000.00 on an annual basis. This is money that the city was not getting previously and can be used to increase the amount spent on our streets.
20-How will you speed up street repair? My street has not been repaired in 20 years.
It will take more money to make the necessary repairs to increase our PCI which is currently listed at 63 – 64. We need 2 million dollars a year to maintain our current rating. It is estimated that we need to spend 6 – 10 million a year to increase the PCI to 70 – 75.
“Extra Credit Question” – What will you do to improve the enforcement of our traffic and parking and code enforcement laws?
The police department has reorganized and we now have a dedicated supervisor that oversees the traffic enforcement. We can review those enforcement laws that have high occurrences which gives extra tools to our traffic enforcement.
Thank you for your answers.
Robert Riechel
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Robert Riechel
E=Mail: SanBrunoPatch.Robert@Yahoo.com
My Posts: http://patch.com/users/robert-riechel
Photo Credit: San Bruno CA Patch Archives
Source Credit: Rico E. Medina
