Meet Vinnie in Central Park on October 5th. (more information)

The Yard Signs are in!

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THE ELECTION - NOVEMBER 4

Get out and vote for Vinnie!!

Central Park - October 5

We will have a canopy up from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. We will between the snack bar and the office by the boat launch (at the end of Sailway Dr.). Vinnie will be there to hear your concerns and answer any questions that you may have. He will be giving a short talk at 1:00 p.m.

Meet the Candidates Meeting - October 4

The Besaro Mobile Home Park is hosting a Meet the Candidates meeting at their social hall located at 4141 Deep Creek Road (at Shylock). The event begins at 10:00 a.m. This event will have the City Council candidates as well as the School Board candidates.

PTA Candidate Forum - September 29

The Fremont PTA Council is holding a Candidate Forum on Monday, September 29th from 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at Irvington High School’s Valhalla Theatre, 41800 Blacow Road in Fremont.

September 28, Safeway Warm Springs

Vinnie will be there from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

September 27, Trader Joe's

Vinnie will be there from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

League of Women Voters Forum - September 22

This is the Candidate Forum put on by the League of Women Voters. It will be held in the Fremont City Council Chambers at 3300 Capital Avenue. The Mayoral candidates will start at 7 p.m. and the City Council candidates will begin at 8 p.m.

September 21, Raley's at Paseo Padre

Vinnie will be there from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

September 20, Brookvale Lucky

innie will be there from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

September 14, Safeway Irvingotn

More tabling.

September 13, Raley's on Paseo Padre

More tabling.

Safeway at Warm Springs - September 7

Vinnie will be there from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The address is 46848 Mission Blvd.

Raley's on Paseo Padre - September 6

Vinnie will be there from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. The address is 39200 Paseo Padre Parkway.

Safeway Irvington - August 31

Vinnie will be there from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The addresss is 3902 Washington Blvd.

Trader Joe's - August 30

Vinnie will be there from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Raley's on Paseo Padre - August 24

Vinnie will be there from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Brookvale Lucky - August 23

Vinnie will be there from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Festival of India - August 17

We'll have a table in the area just outside of the festival. Vinnie will be there to answer questions and listen to concerns.

Safeway - August 16

Vinnie will be there from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Festival of the Arts - August 2 and 3 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

We'll have a table in the Free Speech area of the festival. This is located on Paseo Padre across the street from Peet's. Come by the booth and say hi if you'll be at the Festival.

Safeway Hub - July 27

Meet Vinnie at the Safeway in the Hub - Sunday, July 26 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Again, more tabling in front of grocery stores. It's a great way to meet people.

Mission Lucky - July 26

Meet Vinnie at Lucky's on 40055 Mission Boulevard - Saturday, July 27 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Brookvale Lucky - July 20

Meet Vinnie at Lucky's in Brookvale - July 20 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. We'll have a table at the store set up and will be handing out fliers.

Forest Park in Ardenwood - July 13 from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.

Meet Vinnie at Forest Park in Ardenwood - July 13 from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. We'll have a table in the park setup. Vinnie will be there to share his vision for Fremont and answer any questions that you may have.

Trader Joe's in Centerville - July 12 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Our first event of the campaign season. Meet Vinnie at Trader Joe's in Centerville - July 12 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Campaign Kickoff - May 17

Our Campaign Kickoff was held on May 17 at Fremont's Central Park. It was a fun event with some interesting discussion about Fremont. Below are video links to the talk that Vinnie gave as well as the transcript of that talk.

Video of Vinnie's Talk (Part 1 of 2 - 7:01)

Video of Vinnie's Talk (Part 2 of 2 - 7:00)

Transcript of Vinnie's Talk

I have to thank each and every one of you for coming out here today. Just by being here you’re showing that you really do care about the future of Fremont.

I also have to thank our wonderful and talented musicians. Thank you so much for volunteering your time today. Please everyone check out their table with their CDs and thank them yourselves.

Finally, I have to express my gratitude for all of the volunteers who have helped out with every aspect of this campaign. At our first campaign meeting back in March there were 14 volunteers all revved up and ready to get involved. Given the intelligence, competence and energy of these people, I knew I already had a viable campaign. And more and more people are getting on board. I am really honored to have all of these fine people working on my campaign.

The question for me now is how do I pay all of these people back for their efforts. And the answer is simple. I will run a successful grass-roots campaign and become a City Council member whose actions reflect the will of the people of Fremont.

As I speak with more and more people in Fremont, the most common theme I hear is that people do not feel that the Council listens to their concerns. One example is the City Council going against the recommendation of the Planning Commission and approving the six story Sabercat Center development in spite of intense opposition from the nearby residents. When elected, I will listen to the concerns of neighborhoods and communities and make decisions based on those concerns.

Now I want to talk about the specifics of my platform.

A primary focus of my campaign is balanced growth. So what does that mean? It means balancing the needs of neighborhoods and communities against the desires of big developers. It means balancing the needs for long-term revenue from jobs against the short-term boost provided by more residential development. It means having a long-term vision for how we want to see our city grow and planning development to achieve that vision. Currently, every development that comes along, whether residential or retail, seem to be approved by the Council haphazardly with no discussion of how the development fits into any long-term vision. The Council seems intent on approving more and more housing and retail. I believe that we need to balance retail and housing with more businesses. In particular, businesses with high-paying, good quality jobs. I’ll talk more about jobs later on since this is a very important topic all on its own.

In general, I think we need to slow down the pace of development. We need to take a step back and ask ourselves where we really want our city to go. The Council is currently considering some huge, irreversible decisions such as Patterson Ranch and the three thousand unit development next to the proposed ballpark. Given the magnitude of these decisions, we need to make absolutely sure that this is what we, the people of Fremont, really want for our city.

Another important issue is better schools. This is an issue that’s near and dear to me as I have an eleven year old son who is in the Fremont school system. Now it’s true that the City Council doesn’t run the schools. But I really don’t like the attitude I see where Council assumes they can ignore the issues of the school district and just say “sorry, that’s not our area”. The City Council does make decisions that impact our schools. For example, it doesn’t take much insight to realize that any additional homes that are zoned for by Council will result in an increased number of students our schools need to accommodate.

We also need better cooperation between the School Board and the City Council. While there is now an occasional joint meeting of the two groups, we need to be more collaborative and creative in the way our City government and the School Board work together to preserve the quality of Fremont schools.

Another important issue for Fremont is the promotion of local businesses. Independent, locally-owned businesses are an essential part of a vibrant economy. Locally-owned businesses put more money back into the city economy and contribute to unique community character. The owners of these businesses are committed to Fremont and should be rewarded for their commitment. We need to recognize what these businesses contribute and promote a balanced economic development policy that doesn’t create unfair burdens on small businesses.

I’d also like to see the City focus on creating pedestrian-friendly commercial areas focused on our existing neighborhoods as opposed to more large auto-oriented development. You don’t have to look very far from Fremont to see good examples of this type of development. Pleasanton, Mountain View and Sunnyvale all have walkable downtown areas that are a source of pride and tax revenue for their cities. Mixed-use pedestrian and bicycle-friendly development creates vibrant communities that attract jobs and are pleasant places to live. We definitely need more places in Fremont that foster a sense of community and belonging.

Fremont already has several unique and attractive commercial districts with a lot of charm and history. In my opinion, we’re not doing enough to care for them. The newer development efforts are mainly focused on the other side of 880. Redevelopment efforts in Centerville and Irvington are stalled despite being around for years. There’s some progress being made in the Niles redevelopment project but much more can be done. With Centerville, we’ve had numerous studies and numerous attempts to build something interesting but now we’re back at square one. The same could be said of our so-called downtown area. The City has just approved another million dollar study of how to create a downtown area.

The environment is another important theme in my campaign. I am an environmentalist and I am proud of it. My father was an Izaak Walton League Republican back in the 1950’s. He was an environmental engineer before they called people environmental engineers. In fact, my favorite quote about my father is that he was an environmentalist before it became fashionable. For my part, I first learned about global warming back in the 1970’s. As an undergraduate, I majored in biology with an emphasis on ecology and my first job out of college was as an environmental researcher. I have always been passionate about the environment. My favorite hobby is wildlife photography. Over the last 10 years, my main volunteer work has been working with the Sierra Club. Last year, I was awarded one of the San Francisco Bay Chapter’s Volunteer of the Month award for my efforts.

Many have asked me what could you do for the environment as a City Council member. The answer is “A lot”. One of the things I learned at Berkeley is that local land use decisions, that is the way in which we design our cities, determines how much transportation we need. And, of course, that determines how much energy we use. If the Council approves sprawling, auto-oriented development, obviously that will result in more energy usage. By designing our cities with environmental principles in mind, we can build a Fremont that is more respectful to the environment. This kind of design is not only more friendly to the environment, it’s more friendly to the people who live there. People want to live in places where they have the option to walk and bike to get around. People will actually pay more to buy a home in a well-designed community.

Some people will argue that environmentally sound principles are nice but that they cost way too much money. In fact, the opposite is true. You here a lot of talk these days about “green business”. As I’ve heard it put “Green is the new black.” And who is talking about green business. The talk about green business today is actually coming from the business community itself.

The economics of it all are quite simple. As energy prices rise, the demand for alternative energy and energy-saving technology rises accordingly. And for any of you that have been to a gas pump recently, you know that energy prices have indeed gone up a little bit. Green business is a booming business these days. Fremont should be trying to win some of this business for itself.

Which brings me to my next topic – jobs and the Fremont economy. As I mentioned before, we need a balance in this city between housing, retail space and jobs. In city planning they talk about the jobs-housing imbalance. What this means is simply if you have all of the jobs in one place and all of the homes in another place, that’s not good for a number of reasons. Despite being right next to Silicon Valley, there are not a lot of high-tech jobs in Fremont. Go to Fremont Bart in the morning and you’ll see a lot of people getting on BART and leaving the City. You don’t see a corresponding number of people coming into the City to work. For a suburb of 5,000 people you might get away being a bedroom community with very little employment. That doesn’t work for a city of over 200,000 people.

From an economic standpoint, bringing in high-paying jobs into the City is the surest way to help our City’s economy. The business-to-business sales generate huge tax revenues. People coming into the City to work could easily be enticed to eat and shop in the City as well. This is a model that has worked well for a number of cities, even one like Pleasanton which, like Fremont, is largely a bedroom community. More good paying jobs means a balanced budget for the city and the preservation of the investment Fremont residents have made in their homes.

How do we bring jobs into Fremont? The simple answer is that we make Fremont an excellent city to live in. We implement an urban design that creates a city where people like to live. If you can create such a city, a city like Austin, Texas or Palo Alto, employers will want to come because they know there will be a good pool of talent to choose from. They could get people to work for them by saying “Come join us and you can live and work in the great City of Fremont.” There are plenty of places for companies to relocate to today. If we don’t offer them something special, they won’t be interested in Fremont.

To finish off my talk, I want to mention my experience. I have college degrees in biology, city planning, and transportation engineering. I’m familiar with terms like biological oxygen demand, FAR’s, du’s to the acre and transportation mode split. When I worked as a transportation planner, I prepared environmental impact reports and other documents for many cities and counties in the Bay Area including Fremont. I know how to look behind the nice looking graphics to get to the underlying facts. I know the questions to ask to discover the truth about how various proposals will really impact our City.

In my current job I’m a technical support manager. I listen to customers who have problems with our software. These people are often quite upset. I have to ask the right questions, understand what’s the exact source of their problem, and then try to figure out what can be done to resolve the issue. This requires creativity and good negotiation skills that took years of experience to build up. To me, this sounds very similar to what a good city councilperson should do – listen to the people in the community, ask the right questions to figure out what their concerns are, and then to work with others in the City to figure out a solution that works best for everyone. When elected to the Council this November, I vow to do just that.

As for my ethics, I was raised by a father who brimming with integrity. The highlight of his career in public service was when he was asked to run a very corrupt City organization in Chicago. He could have ignored or even participated in the corruption. Instead, he fought this corruption head on which actually led to someone putting four sticks of dynamite in his car. Despite this attempt on his life, he continued his work against corruption for a number of years afterwards. This is the kind of integrity and courage that I grew up with. And this is the kind of ethics that I intend to bring with me to the City Council.

Later in his life my father became a City Councilperson. He was known as being a very strong fiscal conservative. I also believe that any public official needs to be very thoughtful when spending the public’s money, especially in today’s economy. Any large scale financial decisions need to be done with the public’s input.

As for the finances of my own campaign, I will not be taking money from developers. To me it just seems unethical. The Council makes decisions that directly impact developers’ business. You all can go to City Hall and see who typically funds Fremont elections. It’s a matter of public record. I’m warning you, you might not like what you see. In order to run an effective, clean campaign, I’m going to need help from concerned individuals.

Fortunately, we already have enough money to run a decent campaign. This event is only the beginning. We’re going to get television commercials going soon. We’re going to get out there in many other ways as well. With your help, this campaign can be unstoppable.

I believe a new day is dawning in Fremont - a day in which the citizens of this City speak their mind and insist that their elected officials listen to their concerns. A day in which we develop a vision for our City and then carry through to make that vision a reality. Please join me in that effort.

Thank you!!