Mayor faces 4 challengers, including councilman, former mayor
Two incumbents among field of eight running for two open council seats
Two years after becoming Milpitas’ first Vietnamese mayor, Rich Tran faces a tough re-election on Tuesday against four challengers who include a current councilman and a longtime former mayor.
Tran’s term has been controversial from the onset after he acknowledged that he lifted passages from President Barack’s Obama’s 2008 acceptance speech into his own. At the time, Tran said it was his way of honoring Obama and he didn’t intend to mislead anyone.
But the controversy didn’t end there. Ousted city manager Tom Williams, who is now in arbitration with the city and seeking $1 million in damages, later accused him of age discrimination.
Tran faces challengers Councilman Bob Nuñez and six-term mayor Jose Esteves, who was fined $6,000 in 2017 for violating campaign finance law in 2012 by paying for campaign purchases out of a personal account.
Esteves and his wife also paid themselves nearly $20,000 out of his campaign account at the time, claiming the payments were reimbursements for campaign purchases, but couldn’t provide the Fair Political Practices Commission with documentation as proof of that in many instances.
For his part, Tran vows to continue to put “Milpitas families first” by not supporting housing developments of mostly or exclusively market rate units.
He’s “greatly concerned” by the pace of development, especially around the incoming BART station, and the thousands of new residents and cars that will come into the city as a result.
“We don’t have enough firefighters, we don’t have enough police officers, and we haven’t been hiring at the levels we should,” he said.
Tran said he’ll ensure the city invests $500,000 into an odor monitoring system “to capture evidence of hazardous gases that are threatening the community” from the nearby landfill and composting facility it can more effectively fight for a solution.
Meanwhile, Esteves has sent out campaign emails blasting Tran for missing meetings, claiming he missed nine in 2017 alone, and 12 overall. An analysis of city meeting minutes shows Tran missed 10 meetings in 2017, seven of which were special meetings, and two of which were study sessions.
Tran defended the absences, saying many occurred when he was out of town serving as a reservist in the Air National Guard, including when he was deployed to assist with hurricane recovery efforts in 2017.
Esteves said someone running for mayor needs to put the city first.
If elected, Esteves said he would reverse the city council’s steps toward allowing cannabis businesses in the city “as much as possible” because Milpitas is better off as a “zero tolerance” city.
Esteves served as a councilman for four years, and 12 years as mayor between 2002 and 2016, and is touting his experience as a “longtime leader” in interviews and campaign emails.
“I’m coming back again to offer my services,” he said.
He said he will ensure the city funds more afterschool programs in the school district, and will bring back an “affordable preschool” program.
Nuñez, also a former Milpitas school board member and the former superintendent in San Jose, said he is a proven leader who can guide the city.
He said the City Council has a history of allowing city managers and administration staff to set agendas and priorities — and that the council should be the one doing it, especially concerning development planning.
He also wants to hire more police officers and firefighters, and will work with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and Santa Clara County to help pay for those hires.
He wants to help the school district, county, and San Jose City College to use their pieces of land in Milpitas to bring in income and allow a second high school to be built at the old Samuel Ayers High School site.
Also running for mayor is Yoon Lee, a former scout for a South Korean professional basketball team. Lee said he has four solutions to address the odor issue tucked into an envelope, but will reveal them in detail only if elected. He said he has a similar set of solutions for traffic congestion.
Voltaire Montemayor, a retired geologist and fixture city council meetings, is also running. He wants the city to focus on disaster preparedness by running more earthquake drills, and purchasing helicopters to help extinguish wildfires.
There are also eight candidates running for two open seats on the city council, including incumbents Marsha Grilli and Garry Barbadillo.
Barbadillo, an attorney, said if elected to a second term, he’ll create a liaison committee to help build a better partnership between the school district and city leaders.
He said he kept his promises to voters by carefully considering each decision he made, and has held developers to account by asking tough questions.
He wants to lobby state legislators to give more authority to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, so they can take firmer action against the odor sources affecting the city.
Grilli said in her first term she advocated for the rights of low-income families, and if re-elected, she’ll “seek out partnerships” with developers and the county, to bring more affordable housing to the city.
She also wants to hire more maintenance workers to help beautify the city, she said.
Timothy Alcorn, 24, is a facilities assistant and who wants to slow down the pace of development in the city, which he blames for contributing to traffic congestion and crowded schools.
He is advocating for the city to take control of State Route 237, or Calaveras Boulevard from California to maintain it better and alleviate gridlock.
Van Lan Truong, a management analyst who has worked in public service positions for over 30 years, said she wants to create a diverse task force to allow more minorities and people with low-incomes to take part in the government decision-making process.
She also wants to extend the hours at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in the city, and fund a multicultural center in Milpitas.
Suraj “Sun” Viswanathan, a business owner, wants the city to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance to protect low-income or Section 8 renters and to promote federal Section 8 incentives to landlords to help create more affordable housing.
He also wants to create multiple community centers where residents can learn about people from different cultures and backgrounds — and suggests that the centers be funded in part by taxing short-term home rental services like Airbnb.
Carmen Montano, a former school board member and city councilwoman, wants to start a committee focused on housing affordability to examine rents, home prices, and homeowner associations.
She also hopes to hire a full-time staff person to focus solely on solving the odor issue, and create a traffic circulation commission, to address gridlock.
Robert Marini, a retired engineer who frequently attends council meetings, believes the city has been “less than forthcoming” about resident water billing and wants it overhauled and water bills discounted.
He also wants to institute stricter term limits on mayors and councilmembers, and potentially subsidize home loans for people who cannot afford to live in the city.
Karina Dominguez, a crime prevention specialist and former state legislator aide, said the city should pass an urgency ordinance to protect renters immediately, and work to implement rent control in the city, with input from tenants and landlords.
She wants to build a police substation near the new BART station to ensure quick response times. She also would like the city council and administration to be more transparent, and city websites to be updated so they are easier to navigate.