San Leandro Focus

Please join me in voting Yes on Measure J on the March 5th, 2024 election ballot. Measure J is a $174 million bond measure to fund essential improvements and renovations to the San Leandro schools and construct affordable rental housing for teachers and staff  without raising the tax rate  households currently pay on school bonds. Measure J will significantly improve the quality  of education in San Leandro by ... Repairing and Upgrading Aging Neighborhood Schools The school district has spent ou r tax dollars wisely. Remarkable  progress has been made in our schools. But the work is not done. Most  schools were constructed over 70 years ago.  Measure J will renovate older classrooms with new flooring, windows, doors and lighting systems. Worn out roofs and plumbing and electrical systems at our schools will be repaired and fixed before they fail. Building Needed New Classrooms Measure J provides funding to upgrade computers and computer systems at all schools for high quality instruct

San Leandro students can now attend in my opinion the finest alternative high school in the SF Bay Area. The new Lincoln High School was dedicated this week. I was honored to to speak at the dedication ceremony. Located next to Cherry Grove Park and San Leandro Adult School, Lincoln High School consists of twelve standard classrooms, a multi-purpose room, a culinary arts classroom with multiple ovens and kitchen setup, a science lab, and a fabrication lab for learning the skills and techniques used in building construction.  Approximately 400 students will attend the new high school, almost tripling the capacity of the previous campus (which consisted of portable classrooms on an asphalt parking lot in an industrial part of San Leandro).  In addition to officially opening the new Lincoln High School, the school district also celebrated the completion of significant renovation and modernization projects at Bancroft Middle School. As chairperson of the Measure N bond campaign committee t

On November 18, 2022, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters released the vote count for nearly all votes cast in the November 2022 general election. After being behind for the entire vote count, Juan Gonzalez effectively won the race.  How did this happen? First, from election night through 11/17, the Registrar had reported a total of 13,746 first choice ballots in the Mayor's race. On 11/18, the number of votes reported increased by 6,436 to 20,185 total votes. That was a nearly 47% jump in the reported votes. Another way of looking at the data is that prior to 11/18, all previous vote counts released by the Registrar did not include roughly one-third of the votes that were cast in the race. Second, Gonzalez  decisively took the lead in the the first choice ballots that were released by the Registrar on 11/18. Gonzalez took these votes by 39% to 33% margin. With the exception of the first vote count released by the Registrar on election night right after the polls closed when Br

I proudly support Juan Gonzalez for Mayor and encourage you to make him your first choice on the November election ballot. I have known Juan Gonzalez for over two decades, seeing him literally roll up his sleeves to pull weeds and dispose of trash during school district cleanup days to making countless sandwiches for meals distributed to the unsheltered during the pandemic. Juan Gonzalez is a person of integrity. His parents were teachers who instilled in him the values of education, social justice and community service. Juan will do an outstanding job as Mayor. He possesses strong leadership and management skills developed over a successful career in the private sector. Juan thoroughly understands public finance. He served on City and school district budget oversight committees and holds a Ph.D. in economics from MIT. Juan will dedicate himself to our City by retiring from his current job and serve full-time as Mayor. You can learn more about Juan and his positions on the issues a

  Lit   San   Leandro  has been an outstanding success for the people and businesses of  San   Leandro . For those unfamiliar, in 2011, the City entered into a partnership with Pat Kennedy, the founder and former CEO of  San   Leandro -based OSIsoft. Kennedy had a dream of installing – at his own expense (not paid by OSIsoft) - optical fiber lines in City-owned conduit under our streets to bring high-speed broadband to  San   Leandro  businesses. At the time, AT&T and Comcast dominated the  San   Leandro  internet market. They did not compete.  Slow and expensive were the defining characteristics of their internet service.   Lit   San   Leandro , the name of the network created out of the partnership between Kennedy and the City, shattered AT&T and Comcast’s local duopoly. AT&T & Comcast were forced to offer deals and improve their services as hundreds of companies – 300 by 2013 – quickly switched to  Lit   San   Leandro . Whereas persons and companies renting office sp

Thousands of San Leandrans came to Downtown San Leandro yesterday to celebrate the city’s 150th anniversary. The City organized a fun parade that highlighted the amazing diversity of our community. What most people do not know, however, is that the parade would have been the extent of the celebration. For the third consecutive year, the City declined to organize the traditional Cherry Festival. I understand why the festival was cancelled in 2020 and 2021. But once the City invited the public to attend a parade this year, we also should have had the Cherry Festival.   Thankfully a group of community leaders stepped forward. Members of the San Leandro Historical Society and others, including School Board Trustee Evelyn Gonzalez and her husband Juan, as well as the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce, saved the day.  All volunteers, these individuals spent countless hours planning and organizing a festival, called The Gathering, following the Cherry Parade. The Gathering was not the same a