Council Candidates Square Off At Forum

How to cope with the structural deficit plaguing Foster City is the premier concern for all six candidates running this fall for the three available seats on the City Council.

Incumbent Art Kiesel and fellow candidates Steve Okamoto, Jennifer Minkey-Selvitella, Herb Perez, Bill Schwarz and Patrick Sullivan mixed it up on the city budget and other hot-button issues of local interest.

The candidates all participated Tuesday night in a moderated forum in which they gave two minute opening and closing monologues, then answered questions posed by the audience.

The topics addressed ranged from coping strategies to solve the city's $2.8 million deficit, whether a fourth elementary school should be built in Foster City, how to build and sustain a more thriving retail commerce base in the area, the future of the 15-acre development downtown and how to manage public services, among other issues.

Kiesel, who has served on the council since 2007, said he believed the council should stay the course it has planned to balance the budget by fiscal year 2013-14.

That plan included the council last year knocking off some of the "low-hanging fruit" that have absorbed the city's finances, which will result in increasingly difficult personnel decisions in the future, said Kiesel.

He also advocated for the passage of Measure P, or the proposed Transit Occupancy Tax, which would increase tax rates on hotel room rentals in the city. But he also acknowledged that would not solve the entirety of the city's budget issues.

All his fellow candidates said they too supported the Measure P campaign.

Other candidates said that the city would need to look into ways to find savings through spending reductions, while also looking to find new sources of revenue.

Perez, a Parks and Recreation Commissioner and small business owner, said the city could look to be more like surrounding cities such as San Carlos or Burlingame, that have managed to thrive despite a struggling economy.

He said the city collaborating with the Chamber of Commerce could facilitate building a more attractive local economy.

Small business owner Minkey-Selvitella echoed that sentiment, and said that she wants to bring back the types of businesses she was familiar with while growing up in Foster City that helped the city thrive in the past.

Many candidates agreed that a significant element in the future of Foster City is deciding what will become of the 15-acre site of city owned property that lies adjacent to City Hall near the intersection of Hillsdale and Foster City Boulevards.

And though it is expected that the site will eventually house a senior living facility combined with commercial retail space, many candidates withheld judgement on how they feel about the project until more details of the competing offers to develop the space emerge.

Sullivan, a real estate broker, said the city should consider leasing the property rather than selling the site to have it developed.

But the overriding sentiment was expressed by Okamoto, a retired businessman, who said it is still too early to tell the future of the project.

Concurrent with the candidates' vision of the future of Foster City was expressing their opinion on whether a fourth elementary school should be built in order to cope with a projected enrollment surge that is expected to overwhelm the city's current school facilities.

And though no candidates disputed the merits of the upcoming spike in school population, many expressed concerns about how to fund such a project in a fair and equitable fashion.

None of the candidates expressed outright support for the proposal to pass a bond measure floated specifically to Foster City residents to build a school in the city limits.

Such a notion was initially put on the November ballot by the San Mateo-Foster City School District Board of Trustees, but was pulled amidst concerns regarding setting a precedent of dividing the district's two communities.

A popular motion among candidates was evaluating some of the existing school campuses in Foster City, and looking to see if they could be modified in such a way that they could house more students.

Schwarz, an accountant, said he believes it would be wise to look into the feasibility of adding a second story onto some of the existing elementary schools in order to increase the campus population capacity.

And while many different opinions were expressed on a variety of topics, no candidate saw a way to cope with the increasing water rates in the city.

All agreed that rates are controlled by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission which is passing on the cost of the ongoing earthquake retrofit project of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir system to customers throughout the Peninsula.

Candidates urged residents to take part in the available water usage audit in which a city worker will come to a residence and share ways in which those in Foster City can cut down on their water usage in order to reduce their utility bills.

Voters will be asked to vote for three of the candidates for City Council on election day November 8. The winners will serve a four year term. The two other available spaces are vacated by former council members Rick Wykoff and Linda Koelling, who are both termed out after serving two consecutive terms.