Julie Testa puts budget deficit first in bid to unseat Mayor Jack Balch

Councilmember Julie Testa is challenging Mayor Jack Balch in Pleasanton's Nov. 3 mayoral election, and in a candidate questionnaire Patch published in full she put the city's structural budget deficit at the top of her agenda.

Background

Testa said she has owned and run a small business in Silicon Valley for more than 30 years. She is finishing her second four-year term on the City Council and, before her election, served more than a decade on the city's Human Services Commission. She also said she has served on regional boards dealing with issues that affect Pleasanton. She did not answer the questionnaire's education question.

Priorities

Testa listed fiscal sustainability, housing and public safety as the city's three biggest issues. She said rising employee and pension costs have to be addressed while essential services are protected, and that ongoing expenses need ongoing revenue rather than repeated draws on reserves. On housing, she said she supports homes for the next generation but opposes what she called inflated, unfunded state mandates, and that Pleasanton should meet its legal obligations while pressing with other cities for realistic requirements and affordable housing money.

Her first-year priority would be a multiyear plan to close the structural deficit, with clear service priorities, measurable goals and regular public reports. She said the plan should look at contracts, administrative spending and the long-term operating costs of capital projects.

Testa said she would shield emergency services such as police and fire, clean drinking water, basic infrastructure upkeep and services for vulnerable residents, along with parks, libraries and community programs. Savings, she said, should begin with leaner administration, a review of contracts, purchasing savings and putting off projects the city cannot afford to build and then maintain, and employee pay and pensions belong in the discussion about controlling future cost growth.

For new revenue, she pointed to downtown revitalization, filling vacant commercial space and helping existing businesses. She also cautioned that pulling earnings out of the pension trust costs the city later, because that money stops compounding. If voters approve the Measure HH hotel tax increase, she said she would put the money toward essential services and the deficit, with annual public reporting on how it is spent.

Balch's answers to the same questionnaire are covered separately.

Sources

Patch