What S.J. is planning to tackle this year

The City Council provides list of its top 22 priorities to guide it for fiscal 2021

As they look to the upcoming fiscal year with a tight budget and limited resources, San Jose city leaders have outlined their top priorities, from crafting an ordinance that prevents people from being pushed out of their homes to restricting the sale of vaping products to developing funding for renewable energy storage.

Although the priority list is non-binding, it will serve as a guide for the San Jose City Council in the coming months.

On Tuesday night, the council chose and ranked seven out of 24 new policy priorities suggested by city staffers and council members.

For Mayor Sam Liccardo, protecting the city against future public power safety shut- offs enacted by Pacific Gas & Electric was at the top of the list. He

asked the City Council to explore financing options to develop renewable energy storage and generation facilities — such as microgrids — that could insulate critical city facilities or participating neighborhoods during future power shut- offs. Council member Magdalena Carrasco proposed adopting an ordinance that requires developers to build public art — or pay an in lieu fee — that equals at least 1% of the total construction costs for a project. Council member Sergio Jimenez suggested making it easier for traffic calming measures, such as speed bumps, to get installed in residential neighborhoods to reduce speeding and pedestrian deaths in the city.

Though all of those suggestions made the council’s priority list, more than a dozen did not, including proposals to prohibit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-affiliated businesses on city contracts, explore new regulations of short-term rentals and develop a permit program to establish sanctioned encampments on private properties.

“This year’s list is really quite impressive and if I could, I would vote on every single one,” Council member Carrasco said at the meeting. “But we have to make some very difficult decisions.”

Nearly 50 residents spoke at the meeting to voice passionate support for certain policy priorities, but Council members Carrasco and Pam Foley’s recommendation to explore restrictions on the sale of all e- cigarettes in areas around schools triggered huge backlash.

Owners of gas stations, convenience stores and small businesses from across the city went before the council to urge it to take the item off the priority list.

Under federal law, it is illegal to sell a tobacco product to anyone under the age of 21. Nam Nguyen, the owner of Stay Vaped in south San Jose, said he abides by the law and that the city should punish the “bad apples” instead of a blanket regulation that could put people like him out of business.

“I beg of you not to implement a vaping ban but to work with us to find a solution,” said Nguyen, who instead proposed that the council increase taxes on tobacco products or increase fines on business that violate those current laws.

But the voices of those adamantly against the proposed regulations were equally matched by antitobacco advocates, youth organization leaders and parents with unwavering support for restrictions, including Evergreen Valley High School freshman Dipti Venkatesh.

Venkatesh, who told the council that she sees peers at her school vaping firsthand, called the matter a “nationwide epidemic” and pleaded for the council to take action.

“The only way to take a step toward stopping this plague is to ban the sale and use of flavored tobacco products and e- cigarettes in our city,” Venkatesh said during the council meeting. “If we allow the sales to continue, more youth will become addicted, which will cripple the health and future of this generation.”

San Jose would not be the first governing body to explore restrictions on vaping products.

The sale of e- cigarettes already is banned in unincorporated Santa Clara County, unincorporated San Mateo County and a growing number of Bay Area cities — including San Francisco and Richmond.

The council ultimately settled on a list of 22 policy priorities that will serve to guide its work plan going forward. In the coming weeks and months, staffers will evaluate the new priorities and determine which items may need additional funding consideration during the budget process to come later this spring.