Like his late father, who was a mail carrier, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said it’s time to “deliver” solutions in America’s 10th largest city, starting with the overflowing trash plaguing the streets of San Jose. José.
During his nearly two-hour inauguration Wednesday, San Jose’s 66th mayor focused on three key areas that the City must address: blight, homelessness and public safety.
Drawing cheers from the crowd, Mahan focused on people dumping trash and debris in San Jose. He said the city’s code enforcement department has a 22% vacancy rate while juggling a backlog of 4,000 litter-related complaints.
“Actions must have consequences – it is unacceptable that one person’s negligence should be a burden to the entire community,” Mahan told a crowd of more than 2,000 gathered at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts.
In addition to filling those vacancies, Mahan plans to improve the city’s 311 app, which allows residents to report blighted sites and dumpsites, to ensure they receive a photo of the cleaned-up area once it’s finished. He also invited residents to scan a code on their phones to volunteer at a series of trash days, starting with District 7 this weekend.
As San José Spotlight reported, the city’s app is plagued with problems including slow response times, language and inaccessibility for people with disabilities, and technology issues that make it slow and buggy.
Mahan also created a new “neighborhood outreach” team in his office to help with beautification efforts and wants to expand programs that pay homeless people to pick up trash.
Public Safety: Hire More Officers
When it comes to public safety, the new mayor wants to double the city’s commitment to hire 15 officers per year for the next five years to 30 officers per year. He plans to allocate city funds for recruiting efforts and to ensure cadets are paid, allowing financially challenged youth to work in law enforcement.
Mahan also wants to reinstate the bonus given to officers for recruiting new employees and increase outreach to minority communities to hire more officers of color.
A city auditor report found that San Jose is not meeting police response time goals. For priority two calls, which are property or personal damage when the suspect is already on the run, it took officers an average of 23.9 minutes to reach the scene; the goal is to be under 11 minutes.
To reduce delays and boost officer morale, Mahan vowed to invest in better reporting tools, digitize cumbersome forms and find ways to speed up county jail admissions.
Mahan also lamented that San Jose officers find themselves arresting the same people over and over again. One individual, he said, was handcuffed 27 times in two years. Mahan wants to end this cycle with early intervention programs.
“I am committed to working with our county leaders to ensure that when an officer takes someone to jail or to Valley Medical Center, they are not simply returned to the street a day or two later when their situation requires further intervention,” said.
Councilman Bien Doan, a political ally of the mayor, said he wholeheartedly supports his plans, especially the emphasis on public safety.
“The basics of safety, cleanliness and caring for our homeless residents create more businesses, create more jobs, so that people can survive here,” Doan said. “When you figure out the basics, everything else will fall into place.”
Nowadays is @MattMahanSJinaugural speech of I’m here at the Performing Arts Center to keep you updated on the highlights.
Mahan will focus on “back to basics” highlighting new initiatives to address crime, homelessness and blight
Here it is before the event. @SJSpotlight pic.twitter.com/MugzVjAluE
— Jana Kadah (@Jana_Kadah) February
Despite being on opposite sides of the political aisle, Councilman Sergio Jimenez said Mahan was effective in highlighting his key goals.
“I look forward to evaluating the details of how he intends to meet those commitments while doing all the other important work for the city,” Jimenez told San José Spotlight.
Homelessness: An Emergency Crisis
Homelessness is a “humanitarian crisis,” Mahan said during his keynote address, and it’s time the city treated it that way.
If an earthquake displaced 4,975 residents, the number of people sleeping on the streets of San Jose, FEMA would have shelters lined up on public land, Mahan said. The city must handle homelessness in the same way.
Mahan spent the past year on the campaign trail advocating for putting pre-built homes for homeless residents on public land, which costs far less than building homeless housing elsewhere from scratch.
“We know that by using basic prefab modular units located on government-owned land, we can create safe housing for a fraction of the current cost,” he said.
He plans to double down on former mayor Sam Liccardo’s plan to build 1,000 new tiny houses. San Jose nearly met that goal, with about 1,000 on the way. Mahan expects to see them built by 2024. He also wants to find sites for another 1,000 units after that.
Mahan drew the loudest cheers from the crowd as he would end San Jose’s “era of unmanaged campgrounds.”
South San Jose residents Chris and Jessica Turk, who attended the event Wednesday, said they avoid taking their preschool-age daughters for walks due to increasing homelessness.
Jessica said she hopes Mahan will create homeless housing that caters to people with mental health issues, drug addiction and financial issues.
“I like that he was talking about mental health and trying to rehabilitate people instead of just putting them in houses,” Turk told San José Spotlight.
After watching Mahan’s speech, South Bay digital political marketing consultant Christopher Higgenbotham said it remains to be seen how much progress the new mayor could make.
“I think if you’re going to bring the whole common sense idea and say you’re going to be unique and innovative and run this city like a business, you’ve got to show us what it’s like,” he said. “Any public business opens their books and shows what’s going on and we can judge if they’re doing it right or wrong.”
Drawing on his experience as an entrepreneur and tech entrepreneur, Mahan wants to use data to track the city’s progress toward these goals.
He announced that he will soon release a public “Scoreboard” showing how the city is tackling blight, homelessness and crime.
“My father taught me that a postman always delivers,” Mahan said. “I think our government should too.”
Read the full text of Mahan’s speech.
Reporter Joseph Geha contributed to this story.
Contact Jana Kadah at [correo electrónico protegido] o @Jana_Kadah on Twitter.
