I grew up in San Jose and District 6. My heart is with the City and the District. In the past decade on the council, I have consistently voted the principles upon which the voters put me in office.
November
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Join the community for the LAST forum that allows the candidates for District 6 to present their...
September
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Join the community for the Second forum that allows the candidates for District 6 to present their...
September
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Join the community for the first of a series of forums to allow the candidates for District...
Never shy about speaking his mind, Pierluigi Oliverio left an undeniable mark in District 6 after spending 10 years as the area’s representative on the San Jose City Council....
After a decade, the 47-year-old politician will turn over his office to Dev Davis It’s hard to tell that the clock is winding down for Pierluigi Oliverio,...
Pierluigi Oliverio’s spreadsheet: Seeking clarity in a council raceWhen he leaves office at the end of 2016, San Jose Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio will have spent nearly a...
Letter to the Editor, June 17th, Mercury News: The California Department of Finance is proposing civil penalties against Santa Clara County for improperly reporting student enrollment, and misallocating property tax revenues that should have gone to K-12 schools. The County was notified of the accounting error in January, and the State has requested $145 million to correct the error. But the…
Mercury News – Nov. 7, 2019 Every fall, property owners in Santa Clara County receive their annual property tax statement. The arrival of this document is highly anticipated by some (myself), and overwhelmingly dreaded by others. These statements list out various taxes and fees assessed on properties as separate line items, and then provide a grand total. My own bill…
On Aug. 13, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted to initiate the process for placing yet another tax increase on the 2020 ballot. This would entail a 5/8-cent increase in the sales tax rate. For businesses and residents in San Jose, this means increasing the sales tax rate to 9.875%. Voters should recall that the county passed six…
San Jose Mercury News – July 24, 2019 Although planning for emergency preparedness may be considered boring by some, it’s one of the most fundamental services we expect from our government. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors intends on closing San Jose’s Reid-Hillview Airport, an action that will put lives at risk during the next major disaster. When I served…
San Jose Mercury News – June 26, 2019 Santa Clara County is the only local government entity responsible for helping the severely mentally ill, opioid addicts, and foster children. Yet our county government is considering spending $5 million on commissioning statues, and $125,000 for a single painting? The county does not operate a fine art museum, nor is it in the…
San Jose Mercury News – May 2, 2019 County government is the sole local government entity responsible for social welfare programs. In contrast, cities, by their very charter, deliver only a narrow set of services, such as parks, police and public works. Why then do cities often take the lead in dealing with homelessness when it is the primary responsibility of…
Back in 2014, I hosted a community viewing of the documentary film “The Paw Project.” The veterinarian-filmmaker attended the city hall event, and participated in an audience discussion. The film exposes the barbaric practice of declawing cats, and advocates for the termination of this unnecessary and harmful procedure. Declawing — which is much more aggressive than trimming fingernails and is…
Gov. Newsom proposes allocating an additional $1.75 billion for new housing. Regardless of how many tax dollars are spent, the biggest obstacle to building housing remains the California Environmental Quality Act. CEQA does not discriminate, as its victims can be infill housing developments, or dedicated teacher housing. Rather than fixing CEQA, our Legislature provided exemptions for billionaires to fast-track construction…
Santa Clara County cap annual pensions at $220,000 and use proceeds to help severely mentally ill, homeless. The Los Angeles Times reported on Dec. 12 “dozens of retired Los Angeles (city) employees are collecting such generous retirement pay that they exceed pension fund limits set by the IRS, saddling taxpayers with additional costs. Their lavish pensions forced the establishment of…
In 1976, Mayor Janet Gray Hayes announced that the biggest challenge facing San Jose was the city’s jobs-housing imbalance. 42 years later, little has changed. San Jose only has .85 jobs per employed resident, while neighboring cities have as many as 3 jobs per employed resident. The number of jobs a city has directly translates into tax revenue for residents….
Regarding the recent editorial concerning our Democratic Governor’s defense of taxpayers against a lawsuit brought forward by labor unions, I say BRAVO, Governor Brown. Defending the abolishment of pension spiking is sorely needed. Presently, California has approximately $206 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. Taxpayers are on the hook for this entire amount, which will cause both near term pain and ultimately…
Santa Clara County’s annual property tax statement does not provide property owner’s itemized costs for every different assessment, such as bonds and the pension levy. Unlike our county, Alameda, Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties do offer this information. I contacted the Tax Collector’s office and asked why this pertinent data was missing. It was explained to me that Santa…
Last week, Santa Clara County Supervisors voted to demolish a vacant building and build a surface parking lot rather than allow John Sobrato and Jim Salata to remodel it in order to shelter homeless individuals. However, out of this unfortunate result comes a potential victory, since verbal commitments were made to build low-income housing at this site in the future….
