Notes from the San Jose Mayoral Candidate Forum, 1/29/02
Five of the six candidates for Mayor were present including Ron Gonzales, Jose Posadas, Joel Van Landingham, Patricia Martinez-Roach, and Dale Detwiler.
The candidates gave a one minute opening statement, and then answeredquestions from a media panel. (Patricia Martinez-Roach and Dale Detwiler arrived late and did not give opening statements).
In their opening statements Ron Gonzales touted his record and commitment to neighborhoods, education, and traffic relief. Jose Posadas wants to bring accountability and credibility to city government and improve the quality of life in the neighborhoods. Joel Van Landingham wants to bring a no-nonsense business approach to city government.
The questions covered plans for the new city hall, impending budget cuts and where they will come from, diversity in city government, and support for multi-lingual documents from the city. A final question, that came from the audience, was on whether the candidates supported keeping a full service hospital at the San Jose Medical Center site.
The candidates answers where generally what you would expect. All supported increasing diversity in city government, and multi-lingual city documents. Ron Gonzales touted his record on these areas. Jose Posadas and Joel Van Landingham would halt construction of the new city hall and would find a less expensive solution for consolidating city government, such as building on the current site or using existing buildings downtown (like the Metricom building). Most of the candidates stated that they would not apply budget cuts to police and fire. Ron Gonzales and Jose Posadas stated they would not reduce budgets for neighborhood services.
On the question of saving San Jose Medical Center. Jose Posadas provided the strongest statement of support, saying that the city should pay for its part of a study on the effects of the hospital's closure, and that the city should keep the land zoned for a hospital. Ron Gonzales stated that he would work to keep the hospital open by working in partnership with the County government. The other candidates were against the hospitals closure, though did not seem to fully understand the issue.
11:21:49 PM 
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