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South Bay Progressive Alliance Candidate QuestionnaireFor City Council 2018

Please download and complete the questionnaire and email the completed document to [email protected]. By submitting your responses to this questionnaire to the South Bay Progressive Alliance (SBPA), you agree that your responses are public and that we may share your responses with others.

Name: Jacob Tonkel City Council Jurisdiction: San Jose District 6

Address: 671 Pamlar Ave.

Phone(s): 4083573556

Email: [email protected] Website: jake4d6.com

Committee Name: Jake Tonkel for San Jose City Council District 6

Line of Work: Sr. R&D Biomedical Engineer

Candidate Pledge:

If you cannot not make the following 4 affirmative pledges, the SBPA cannot endorse you at this time.

CORPORATE-FREE. As a corporate-free candidate I commit to refuse donations from corporations, industry lobbyists, corporate representatives, and Political Action Committees (except for union PACs and PACs that refuse corporate donations) and publicize that I am a corporate free candidate in my campaign literature.

YES NO

PLEDGE OF ACCOUNTABILITY. I commit to publicize and hold regular listening sessions with my constituents, to stay in touch with their needs and concerns. YES NO

PROGRESSIVE POLICIES. I commit to author, co-author, support, promote and defend people-focused progressive policies and practices that incorporate SBPA core values to improve communities and the quality of life for my constituents. YES NO

___________________________________________________________________________________________ SBPA City Council Candidate Questionnaire V4.2 Page 1 of 11

mailto:[email protected]

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION. I commit to help level the playing field for ALL people and prioritize the development of leadership among under-represented communities. YES NO

General Questions:

1. Endorsements— a. Who are you endorsing, from national races all the way down ballot to local races?

None at the moment

b. Which candidates, if any, are you endorsing anyone else in your own race?

None at the moment

c. Who has endorsed you?Sally Lieber, CA State Assemblywoman ret.

Gayle Mclaughlin, Former Mayor of Richmond CA

Matt Gonzalez, Former San Francisco Board of Supervisors District 5

Bill Wilson, Fremont Highschool District Board Trustee

Sandy Perry, President of the Affordable Housing Network of Santa Clara County

d. Whose endorsements are you seeking or expect to receive? Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Democratic Activist for Women Now, Silicon Valley Democratic Socialists of America, South Bay Labor Council, California Progressive Alliance and California Nurses Association.

2. Campaign Funding —How much money do you plan to raise for your campaign? Where will the money come from? Describe sources of financial contributions for your campaign that you would refuse to accept (if any). How much money do you currently have for this race? How much money do you plan to raise? Where will the money come from? As San Jose elections are not allowed to raise money and this is my first time running for elected office, we planned 3 budgets, low, medium and high (25,000, 50,000, 80,000) and can adjust as we see appropriate. The $5000 dollars I loaned should get us off to a strong start. Fundraising comes from personal outreach. A combination of social media, phonebanking and in-person events and houseparties will be part of the focus of the campaign. It is unfortunate that so much of campaigning even at a very local level requires constant fundraising to reach voters but that is the current system. The way to reduce the influence of money in politics, I will reject any controbutions from corporations and developers and any PACs that do not have transparent funding, this allows labor unions, whos funding comes from dues paying members of the community, to give to the campaign. By funding the campaign with donations from individuals and community members, my accountability as an elected official is to them and them only.


City Council Questions:

1. Motivation: Why did you choose to run for this office?

I can make a difference for my community. I have been an activist and community organizer for a years now, doing what I can before, after and sometimes during my day job to build a world that is socially and environmentally just and responsible. I don’t see that leadership from my elected representatives. The city of San José can do so much more to have a positive impact on our democracy and society. Too often city officials leave our largest political challenges (money in politics, economic inequality, climate crisis, etc) to Washington or Sacramento when there are real and impactful changes that we can make at the local level, being responsive to our community. It's time for bold action at our city levels.

2. Priorities: What do you believe are the major issues facing residents of your district? What are some specific tasks (e.g. specific legislation, policies, etc.) you intend to accomplish while in office?

The residents of my district are divided, we have small very wealthy pockets that have good services and strong neighborhood communities, and other areas that are left behind. Too many people are experiencing homelessness, too many residents spend time in traffic rather than with their families and too many feel the city isnt providing responsive city services. We all share the same goals, good schools for our children, opportunity to earn a living wage and to have a safe place to sleep.

I hope to start by fixing our broken democratic system by implementing ranked choice voting, removing the need for costly primaries and spoiler votes and by pushing for city wide publicly funded elections, to give opportunity to our lower income leaders to be able to afford to run for office and represent their community as well.

I plan to push for the raising of the requirements for affordable units on new developments to accurately reflect the incoming distribution of our neighborhoods and to remove the ability for many developers to pay fees in-lieu of affordable housing that lead to gentrification and displacement of our neighborhoods.

I will fight for an increase in minimum wage and institute a tax on companies who pay executives more than 100 times the lowest earner.

Lastly, we need to invest in our communities to not only make quality of life better but to reduce our carbon footprint. The city should be setting aside more money for low income families, renters and small buisnesses as a loan fund (until a public bank is established), to help them make the upfront investments they need to get to net zero carbon emissions.

3. Qualifications: Please give a brief summary of your background and qualifications for being a City Council-member, and include any community volunteering or activism. If you’re an incumbent, how would you assess your own job performance? Please give some specific example of accomplishments and setbacks.

Being an elected representative is about listening to constituents and focusing on decisions that lift up the entire community. With over 2 years of experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer, that was my role. I was tasked with finding ways to lift up community voices, bring people together and find resources for my community to meet their own goals. International development is no different than being a local elected representative of my community, only this time, I get the privilege of working primarily in English instead of Arabic, which can help improve efficiency and communication. That said, experience working with communities of different languages


and cultures is crucial given the diversity of San Jose and District 6. On many occasions I have seen how these miscommunications and poor understanding have led to unsuccessful projects and failure to build inclusive programs. As a white male, I cannot expect to represent every one of our diverse community members, but I believe my Peace Corps experience is going to be a valuable skill that sets me apart.

As an engineer for a small startup, of less than 30 people, I have had a wide range of business experience. Not only do I get to design medical devices and bring them to production, I have had to take on many marketing, sales and regulator tasks. When I pair these experiences with my studies in economics and sustainability, I have a unique level of understanding that is needed to make effective well-rounded policy that a city councilmember needs to address.

In my free time, I am a community organizer and strong advocate of progressive policy. In less than 1 year, I was able to work with a small team on the California Public Banking Alliance to help get AB 857 written and introduced in Sacramento. Since the introduction and as the chair of the local Public Banking Action Team here in San Jose, Senators Jim Beall and Jerry Hill and Assemblymembers Ash Kalra, Kansen Chu have all become co-sponsors with Marc Berman and Evan Low in voting in “Yes” in the assembly. In the first year introduced, AB857 has passed 3 assembly committees, the assembly floor, and 2 senate committees. This shows my understanding of the legislative process at the state level and my ability to work closely with the legislators there which is a needed to build state and regional alliances to solve many of our city’s largest problems. Locally, in the same timeframe, both the City of San José and the County of Santa Clara have voted unanimously to study how a public bank could reduce the fees they pay to wall street banks for management and bring money back into our community for local investment. This required working closely with both city and county officials and staff, building relationships and addressing concerns.

Aside from public banking, my activism has been around education in the community. I’ve organizing discussion panels and community events and I understand what is needed to effectively communicate, listen and engage constituents.

4. Housing: If elected what policies and programs would you put in place to address affordable housing, market-rate housing, and homelessness? Should the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act be repealed? Would you implement rent control in your city? If so, what would your rent control policy look like?

Our housing crisis is the result of a long history of profiteering off of a basic human need for a safe place to sleep. With weak or ineffective rent control and affordable housing mandates, the city of San Jose has become one of the most expensive places to rent in the country. Thie unfortunate added effect of high rental prices is that homeowners have more incentive to rent out homes as investments, rather than sell the house on the market, driving up market prices for homeownership which has been a traditional way for starting families to build equity and security.

The city of San José is at the mercy of development companies for housing construction. And since the current fees in-leiu of affordable housing, the city continues to meet its market rate housing requirements and then falls short on the affordable units. In the short term, we must repeal Costa-Hawkins to give local control over rent control policy back to the cities in California and remove the ability for developers to pay fees in-leiu of building affordable units. We needed the housing yesterday, the money doesn't do our community any good if we can't get units built for another six to ten years.


Rent control for San José needs to follow the actual economic spectrum of our city. We need units that are affordable across differing incomes to reduce competition for rent control units from those that could perhaps find an affordable space at a slightly higher price. Right now, rent control in San José is set at 5% per year. Mandating a profit for the landlord each year after inflation. Unfortunately, our neighbors renting these units rarely receive wages at 5%, making the policy unsustainable and ineffective. We need to put rent control below the wage increase of the lowest 3rd of our income distribution. This would allow families to actually make gains with wage increases they receive and build equity to have their own place to live. It also incentivizes the sale of rental properties, creating more flexibility in the housing market and making homeownership more affordable.

5. Public safety: How would you prioritize and address the most important public safety issues facing the residents of your district? Consider community trust, racial tensions, police conduct, use of force, etc.

Community safety is a complicated socio-economic issue and at its core, an issue of inequity. We need to focus on the community build aspect of public safety, working with neighborhood leaders to develop safety strategies that work for their neighborhood and are understanding of local cultural and race-based structures that make community safety look different in different pockets of our community.

Under the current police-based system, we need to provide racial bias and de-escalation training to all officers, give flexibility to the independent police auditor and shift to a community-based policing model in place of the current reactionary based model. I understand that many in the community see understaffing and lack of funding to be the reasoning for reactionary policing, but we need to start to shift the focus following the lead of cities like Richmond and Oakland who have implemented proactive, violence prevention task forces.

6. Diversity: What policies and practices would you implement for inclusiveness and diversity in city government, particularly for women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community?

As a city, we need to start tracking our diversity and diversity pay gap and publish them yearly. This cannot be void of hierarchal positions of power. Often, an entity may be diverse as a whole and yet that diversity is not reflected in leadership. Commissions that represent the public need to be representative of the public with mandates for non-male seats and diversity that reflects our city demographics both racially and socio-economically. We also need to allow the commissions to overlap in scope. As an example, housing is of particular importance for women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community as each has struggles with rent and homelessness. Until commissions can work together, we cannot build a system that has the incentive to look into all these areas of diversity and the impact of the policy that comes out of each commission.

7. Criminal justice: What can be done to improve our local criminal justice system? Do you support the current sanctuary policy of your city and the current county policy?

We need to completely restructure our criminal justice system from a punitive and punishment-based model to one of one that is restorative. By decriminalizing non-violent offenses, we can save money to put to better use providing education, job training, art and other social services to our at-risk neighbors. These programs should also be the major focus for violent offenders as well. When people experiencing a lack of freedom are treated as humans, allowed to see family and interact with the community. We can’t expect people who are formerly incarcerated to readjust to a society they haven’t been a part of for years.


The City of San José is a sanctuary city and needs to improve its policy to match the language of the county. It is not illegal to seek asylum in another country economic or humanitarian and undocumented neighbors are crucial to our community life. ICE has a long history of illegal and inhumane practices and needs to be abolished.

8. Land use: How would you balance development vs. preserving and/or enhancing open spaces? What are the most important land use issues facing your district?

Housing and open space seem to always be at odds. San Jose has had trouble reducing its urban sprawl for decades with zoning for single family homes being the norm. To be able to meet the housing needs of a growing city we have to densify our housing supply and do so around transportation corridors to mitigate traffic and air pollution. This has to be done in a manner that mitigates gentrification and displacement by requiring the new buildings to provide housing options to the individuals that resided there previously and at an affordable rate. By densifying we can also create more space within the city for parks, micro-forests and community gardens. This will also help us protect our open spaces surrounding the city which we cannot afford to develop. The ability for these areas to preserve native habitats for our wildlife and mitigate air pollution and CO2 emissions is crucial to building a sustainable planet. There are parts of District 6 that are very park deficient with one of our community gardens set to close in order to build housing so these issues are very much important to the residents here.

9. Business: How do you view business growth in your jurisdiction? What, if anything, would you do to ensure residents are not displaced? Under what circumstances would you support corporate subsidies, tax breaks, and credits, to attract business to your city?

The city of San José continues to buy up land, that is incredibly valuable and sell it to businesses for development, sometimes taking a loss on the property. We should instead be leasing the land, because until prop 13 reform, the city is overburdening residents with taxes in order to provide needed services. This money can then be used to grow small businesses in San Jose. While Google is expected to bring in 20,000 jobs, most of our city residents are employed by small businesses, businesses that keep their profits local, that take better care of their employees and keep the city of San Jose unique. We can't be waiting around for companies to ‘bring us jobs” there are residents in San Jose with great ideas and great drive. We need to look into ways to support them. We need to expand our small business development loans and focus on women led and people of color led organizations, worker co-operatives and local non-profits.

When companies do move into San José, we need to have community workforce agreements in place that mandate local hire, living wages, and community benefits for parks, public transportation and affordable housing so that we can mitigate displacement. The city needs to be working very closely to build relationships with other cities in the bay area to develop regional agreements that hold strong rather than letting companies pit cities against each other in a race to the bottom for subsidies. Businesses are attracted to our region because of the amazing talent, great atmosphere and innovative mindset.

10. Transit: What specific proposals do you have to alleviate traffic? What are your views and positions on public transit-oriented development?

Public transit-oriented development must be the focus of our city if we want to equitable address the climate crisis and we need a multitude of tools to bring about this transition to a new way of interacting with transportation. By pushing for increased investment in bus lines that service all areas of the city and pairing them will bus only lanes and smart signals, we can develop a transit system quickly that is more efficient than individual car travel and drastically lower in its carbon footprint. Especially as we move to a fully electrified fleet of buses. At ___________________________________________________________________________________________ SBPA City Council Candidate Questionnaire V4.2 Page 6 of 11

the same time, we need to drastically reduce bus fees with the aim of making public transportation free for everyone but focusing on providing free transit for youth, seniors, disabled and low income. On a more long-term basis, moving away from a costly and environmentally damaging asphalt road system by introducing more electrified mass transit train/light rail-based systems. I think it’s also important that we assist in the short-term expansion of true ridesharing, differing from companies like Uber and Lyft who use a contracted car and towards a carpooling application like scoot that pairs commuters traveling on the same route to work and home. This all of course must be done in parallel with a strong focus on walkable and bikeable streets and neighborhoods. As someone who commutes to work by bike, isolated bike lanes and expanding our trail network will encourage more carbon zero transportation, more active lifestyles and ultimately add to the happiness of our community.

11. Environment: What local policies would you propose to locally address climate change and the environment? Do you think your city should be a zero-carbon city?

A zero-carbon city needs to be one of the top priorities for the City of San José. The launch of Clean Energy and Climate Smart San José is a testament to our city’s commitment to sustainability. However, the city must do more to address the hurdles of equity and access to sustainable lifestyles. With a projected savings of $5B by 2050, strong investment in equitable climate solutions is both morally and fiscally responsible. By investing heavily in initiatives for urban forests, community gardens and “walkable cities” to improve the quality of life and reduce individual vehicle travel, implement a Low Income Solar Loan program such as those modeled in Los Angeles and Richmond partnering with local solar non-profits and requiring all new development Zero Net Energy (ZNE) buildings, we can make strong impacts on our carbon footprint. All city policy needs to be looked at through an environmental justice and equity lens. If it doesn't serve to mitigate both displacement of residents and to help lower our carbon footprint, it cannot be a priority. When we densify our housing supply and invest in public transportation, we mitigate the displacement of our neighbors and reduce our carbon footprint.

12. Budget: If you were on Council, what decisions would you make differently from this year’s budget? Do you think the city needs additional revenue, and if so, how would you generate it?

The city's budget is complicated and doesn't leave much room for major changes by city council. With many aspects of the budget locked into multiyear contracts or with legal requirements for areas of spending. With a general fund of $1.3B our largest expenditure by far is the police at $410M followed by $220 for Fire. Evaluation of these programs to make sure we are focusing the money spend on quality training and integration needs to be a big part of the discussion. Community and Economic Development is one of the key service area priorities for our budget and it doesn't address equity. We need to make sure that the lens of the city budget is focused on equity and the environment to create a healthy sustainable community. A look at the top budget priorities has 1) housing and homelessness, 2) public safety, 3) environment, 4) Innovation and Technology, and 5) Education and Youth. I would place public safety down at priority 5 as remove innovation and technology to be replaced with diversity and inequality. Public safety improves as we address each of the other 5 priorities, and innovation and technology should come from our residents and reduction of barriers based on racial and socio-economic status.


The city very much needs to funding mechanisms, a heavy focus on sales and parcel taxes is not a sustainable or equitable way to finance all the city needs to be efficient and responsive. For decades the city has suffered from lack of available resources that has led to deteriorating city infrastructure and reactionary based policy that has high costs. With create tax measures to address the externalities business places on our city (displacement, pollution, traffic, etc.) we can start to earmark these funds to departments that can start to make much needed investment in our community. As a city, advocating for Prop 13 reform to change the way we can collect taxes from corporations can also bring billions back to the city for the public good. We also need to start looking at city infrastructure that can be modestly profitable. For decades, the privatization of public infrastructure like power and water has led to increased cost for residents and more work for the city to regulated and fight the profit seeking motive of the corporate entity. New public infrastructure like highspeed internet and electric vehicle charging are two other avenues the city can help to keep costs low for residents, provide avenues for equitable distribution of the infrastructure and make a most profit that can be used to alleviate the tax burden on residents. A public bank would also be a strong instrument for investment in city programs like these.13. Youth: What are your priorities and policies for youth in your city and how would you implement and finance

them?

We must ensure our younger generations have a livable planet, and that starts with a livable city. Lifting voices of our youth and getting them involved in building the city must be part of our government fabric. The youth commission for the city needs to be access to resources to expand their reach to their peers. Our youth need to see themselves living here, and to give back to their communities and build our economy.Aside from improved educational resources (discussed below), we need to expand the San José Works program, a youth job program that provides on the job training and experience in different industries to help inspire and motive our next generation of citizens. I also believe we need to be sure we are providing resources to serve the other aspects of a young individual. Opportunities for youth counseling, especially with a focus on lower income families and LGBTQ+ youth who unfortunately have less likely access to mental healthcare. Mentorship programs and increased city-wide youth focused programs from sports to art to robotics, we need to reach the full interests of our community, especially our youth in order to build a healthy community.

14. Education: How could your city improve education opportunities for its young people? What is your position on charter schools?

We must close the education gap for our next generation by providing affordable ways to improve their economic future and support their families. We must ensure every child, youth and adult can thrive. Investing in our education is vital to building a safer, stronger and more equitable San José.The city can do a lot more to help create healthy, well-rounded, and successful students who want to call San José their home. The city can develop Zero/Low interest Student Loan Programs and Student Loan Forgiveness plans for students of San Jose State and make public city colleges in San José free, as implemented in San Francisco. We must also focus on less traditional education by increasing Trade Education Programs and apprentice programs and grants for aspiring artists.


With affordable preschool, and before and after school programs, the city can close a longstanding gap in education success for students from lower income families.Charter schools have had cases of success for lowing income families and people of color on occasion when public schools are struggling. Unfortunately, systematically, charter schools continue to lead to defunding of our public schools and an inequitable distribution of education resources within our communities. I support a moratorium on charter schools until full transparency and accountability can be achieved and do not support for-profit educational institutions receiving public assistance. The role of our education system is to develop healthy, well rounded community members regardless of socio-economic status.

15. Elections: Would you support electoral and campaign finance reform? If so, what kind? How would you propose to improve civic participation in your city?

Far too often those that are supposed to represent us are controlled by special interests and wealthy donors to their election campaigns.By not accepting money from corporations and developers, only donations from individuals, being elected depends on being inclusive and listening to every member of the community. I am supportive of publicly funded elections and spending limits. We need all candidates voices and opinions to be on equal standing in the community. Implementing Ranked Choice Voting and a Voter Accessibility Advisory Committee will ensure every vote is counted and removing the costly need for primaries or spoiler candidates and will increase civic participation. The city must update the Community engagement standards to establish a meaningful and measurable evaluation process to ensure all voices are represented and provide childcare at all city council and commission and board meetings. Other programs like increasing the participatory budgeting process at both the district and city levels builds faith in the community voice in government and creating an independent City Council District Drawing Board based on Census 2020 data will help to more equitably capture the desires of the community. 16. Access: How do you propose to make yourself accessible and accountable to the residents of your city?

As a City Councilmember, I plan to implement weekly office hours as well as weekly topical discussion sessions. With a focus on our cities largest priorities like affordable housing, transportation, inequality and the climate crisis, these weekly discussion sessions are a place for the community to gather, share ideas and work with me to develop community led initiatives and policy. This allows me to keep me thoughts and stances open to the public for discussion and critic. Transparency on these issues is so important to developing mutual respect with the community. I also want to take Fridays and Mondays to go over the next week city council agenda items with constituents by holding discussions open to the public. Innovative approaches to transparency like online polling and tracking/publishing of community comments will also help keep me accountable and build trust within the district that comments are being seen and heard.

17. What is your position on payday lenders and marijuana dispensaries in your city?

For-profit Payday lenders should not be allowed to operate with-in the city. In Oakland, there is a non-profit community-based check cashing organization that does well by its community. That said, the city can and should partner with local community banks and credit unions to get our underbanked and unbanked populations access


to financial services that are needed for a healthy financial planning and will save residents much needed money when monthly budgets are tight for so many in the city. Marijuana dispensaries should be treated like any other legal substance within our city. The priority of which businesses the city works with should go to people of color led dispensaries, preferably ones that focus on providing jobs for those incarcerated during the "War on Drugs," and effort to criminalize and incarcerate people of color for non-violent offenses. We must right the wrongs that came from an error of harsh drug laws, we cannot simply take a blind approach to cannabis dispensaries and business as many have expresses real concern that with the legalization of the sale of marijuana, the industry leaders are wealthy investors and not the community.

18. Anything Else? Is there anything else you would like to share?

Just to thank South Bay Progessive Alliance for their focus on people first politics.

Positions on Issues

Please answer YES or NO for each statement.

Do you support raising the minimum wage in your city? YES NO To what amount?

Do you support a restorative justice program in lieu of prosecution? YES NO

Do you support ending bail bonds? YES NO

Do you support participatory budgeting (citizen involvement in city budgeting)? YES NO

Would you support an elected rent board? YES NO

Do you support a civilian review board of your police department? YES NO

Will you support City divestment from fossil fuels? YES NO

Do you support funding projects to reduce the number of cars on the road? YES NO

Do you support Ranked Choice Voting? YES NO

Do you support Proportional Representation? YES NO

Do you support “amending the Constitution to make clear that corporations and other artificial entities

do not have Constitutional rights and that money is not speech and campaign spending should be

limited through regulation”? Pledge from MTA (https://movetoamend.org/take-pledge-amend )

YES NO

Do you support free public education from pre-school through graduate studies? YES NO

Do you support legalization with a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in

the U.S.? YES NO


https://movetoamend.org/take-pledge-amend

Do you support marriage equality and the right of transgendered individuals to use the restroom of

their choice? YES NO

Do you support the use of city funds to develop worker-owned cooperatives? YES NO

Do you support an ordinance or charter amendment to create a public bank for your city?

YES NO

Do you support Medicare for all? YES NO


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