San Jose mayoral candidates Chavez, Mahan weigh in on police hiring and public safety
As November 8 Election Day approaches, KPIX 5 offers a series of reports highlighting the candidates as well as measures and issues affecting voters.
SAN JOSE -- The San Jose Mayor's race between Santa Clara County Supervisor and longtime civic leader Cindy Chavez and relative newcomer, freshman city councilmember Matt Mahan, is one of the most hotly contested local races this election cycle.
One of the key issues in this race is public safety and police staffing.
Nikki Edwards was born and raised in San Jose. She works as a realtor in the city and lives in the quiet Rose Garden community on the city's west side with her husband and two small children. She says she's seeing an increase in crime in her neighborhood.
"On my own street there was what looked like a drug drop off. And then they started doing drugs right out in the open," said Edwards
She says she immediately called 911, but it took more than two hours before police showed up.
"That's concerning. That's just not something I've ever had to deal with in the past," explained Edwards.
Both Chavez and Mahan say they are concerned about police response times, and both blame the problem on a lack of police staffing, especially for a city the size of San Jose.
San Francisco has a population of around 800,000 people and has 1,955 sworn police officers. San Jose's population is right around one million people with 1,157 sworn officers.
The candidates agree San Jose needs more police officers. Where they differ is in the number and how to pay for them.
"We are spending $50 million a year, between $40 and $50 million dollars a year over the last few years, in overtime. And if you're spending that much in overtime, you can certainly take a portion of that and apply it to full-time, ongoing policing," said candidate Cindy Chavez.
Chavez has been endorsed by the San Jose Police Officer's union. In recent debates, she has suggested adding 45 new officers each year.
Candidate Matt Mahan pointed out the city is already struggling with unfunded debt to pay for large retirement packages already owed to current officers. He says the city needs to be more strategic about growing the tax base before adding additional liabilities.
"I will make police staffing a priority, but I will not do it in a way that is unsustainable and pushes off the burden of future service cuts to future generations," said Mahan.
San Jose's next mayor will be a key player in negotiations with the police officers' union on a new contract. Right now, the union is asking for a 14% pay raise over the next two years.
"I have looked at the numbers and if we were to agree to the 14% increase, we would be growing the unfunded liabilities once again," said Mahan.
Chavez would not specifically comment on the negotiations, but said it's important for San Jose police officers's salaries to be competitive.
"I'd want to make sure it was something that we could do budgetarily. And I want to make sure it still created room for us to be able to hire more officers. And I'd want to better understand how it would assist us with retention," said Chavez.
After a number of high profile misconduct cases within the department over the past year, both candidates are calling for increased oversight.
When asked if police should be investigating themselves, Chavez replied, "Having some civilian oversight makes a lot of sense to me. It also makes sense to me that the district attorney's office would continue to play a significant role in investigations."
"We have that independent police audit function that is able to investigate complaints so the public can trust that we are not simply leaving the department to police itself," said Mahan.
How the next mayor addresses the public safety issues will have a huge impact on residents like Nikki Edwards, both in terms of her community and her livelihood.
"This is definitely a big issue. It's of the utmost importance that we come together as a community and get out there and vote and support the safety of our own people and where we live," said Edwards.
Election day is November 8.