PUBLIC SAFETY

Residents need to feel safe in their homes and out in public. Not feeling safe leads to a lot of stress and other disorders. The number one job of city officials is to ensure safety for their residents EQUALLY for ALL people regardless of race, gender identification, age and economic status. Santa Clara was rated the 35th safest City in the US with populations of more than 100,000 people.

 

Former Chiefs of Police Mike Sellers and Steve Lodge have endorsed me.

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I served two years the Chief of Police Citizens Advisory Committee.

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I am a graduate of Santa Clara's Citizens Police Academy

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I am a Neighborhood Watch captain and have hosted National Night Out parties at my home for over 15 years.

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So while I have a great history with SCPD, I believe we can and must do better. We need to spend more money training our police officers in use of force techniques. Fortunately SCPD has just purchased a new Use-of-force simulator. We need to adopt the principles of "Eight Can't Wait".

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Something that concerns me is that in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, Santa Clara spent $88 million on Police and $73 million on Fire out of a general fund expense budget of $313 million. That comes to 51.4% of the general fund. Whereas Sunnyvale spends only $95.8 million or 29%  total on public safety . This means that Santa Clara spends $65.5 million more on public safety than Sunnyvale!