Feb 3, 2004

Beasworrick outlines his focus, if elected

By Carol Rosen
Editor

Editor’s Note: The primary election on March 2 is just as important on a local level as it is on a national one. There are several councilmembers up for re-election, including District 6. The comments below are from a question and answer session that the Willow Glen Times held with Daniel Beasworrick, who is running against the incumbent Ken Yeager.

Q. What plans and goals do you have if elected to the city council?
A. The biggest point that I intend to concentrate on is finding new and creative solutions to bring jobs to the valley and keep them here. I don’t have all the answers, but I want to seek out answers and solutions. We don’t always come out with the answer that’s most expected. It takes diligence and research, it’s an ongoing process. Our job is finding answers all the time.

We’re all looking for new solutions to the budget crisis, imaginative and creative solutions. I’m also looking for the unexpected and imaginative, for example corporate sponsorships, which is one solution that the current council brought up during a recent session. We have corporate sponsorships for city facilities like the Arena, why not have them for conference rooms? Maybe those are the types of solutions needed to find for the budget crisis. It’s going to take a good imagination.

Q. Last week a 15-year old boy was stabbed on his way to Willow Glen High School. What would you do to ensure such things don’t happen again?
A. That’s a hard question to answer, how do you stop two people from arguing? We already have limitations on deadly weapons. Maybe we need someone to intervene. Perhaps moving the bus stop could make a difference. From all the coverage I’ve seen, I don’t know and haven’t heard if it was gang related, but it didn’t sound like it to me.

Q. What changes would you make in downtown Willow Glen for parking and promoting business?
A. I’ve spoken with businesses and residents here and most think the first and best idea is to put diagonal parking on Lincoln Avenue, this would create a number of spaces. Also, I think we should get the building owners to cooperate about the parking.

I also think we should promote business. We should be offering business incentive breaks in the permitting process or business tax breaks, whatever it takes to encourage people to move their business there.
At least there’s not as much empty space on Lincoln Avenue as there is on First Street. Encouraging business is one of my top priorities.

Q. What is your opinion of the Alma high-rise project?
A. There is a place in the city for high rises, and a place for medium rise development, but it needs to be made appropriate to the neighborhood, it needs to fit into the neighborhood. I believe it should have more retail space and should have stayed at its original 65 feet. There’s a lot of opposition to building up that high going back to 1995 and the first hearings.

Also no one’s addressed the shopping problem. The nearest supermarket is at Minnesota and Bird. I think that 65 feet would have been a good limit or one to two story houses. But I’m worried about the traffic congestion. Unless we can encourage people to take public transportation. We need to encourage mainstream business downtown; get people to use mass transit and encourage retail businesses to develop shops along the light rail and bus routes.
We can’t stop San Jose from growing, but the city can’t go out further. It depends on the area. Tall structures belong downtown and structures should be more appropriate to the neighborhood. San Jose is not ready to be Chicago, Detroit or New York City.