San Jose City Hall Accessed by The Chamber For the fourth consecutive year, the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce successfully "accessed" San Jose City Hall through a series of panel meetings with city councilmembers and officials.

The event, which took place on December 11, drew more than 100 participants who asked questions dealing with economic development, business incentives and public safety.

"I want to work closely with the Council to find ways to monitor our performance and improve it," said Mayor-Elect Chuck Reed. "We need to make more decisions based on hard data, rather than just anecdotal evidence."

Reed and other councilmembers also addressed the need to streamline the approval process of businesses seeking to change or upgrade their operations.

Councilmember Forrest Williams discussed the need to bring smaller businesses into the bidding process for city contracts. "As part of the RFP [Request for Proposal] process, we can break it down to allow smaller businesses to bid on it," he said. "It should be broken down so that small businesses only have to bid on one part of an entire project."

In the first part of 2007, the Chamber will host a procurement fair that will show small business owners how to most effectively bid on city projects and navigate the often cumbersome approval process. More details will be forthcoming in the Advocate and online at www.sjchamber.com.

Interim City Manager Les White echoed Williams’ comments and said that dealing with decision-makers at the city level can be challenging.

"San Jose is the most complex city organization I’ve ever worked with," he said. "But it’s amazing what can be done when a city manager is willing to talk to councilmembers about day-to-day operations. It’s really a balancing act."

When asked what can be done to make San Jose more business-friendly. Joe Horwedel, Director of Planning, Building and Code Enforcement, offered some suggestions.

“We’ve made some progress in focusing on the customer service side of it and we’re currently in the process of conducting a survey among those people who come to us for help,” he said. "We’re trying to develop a clear set of expectations from the public."

The issue of signage was also discussed by city officials. Williams and Vice Mayor- Nominee David Cortese said they could understand the economic perspective of noticeable signage, but need to take aesthetics into consideration as well.

"I fully support signage downtown," said Cortese. "We have some of the greatest sight lines downtown and we need to take advantage of it."

One of the attendees at Access City Hall, Papia Gambelin with GreenWaste Recovery, Inc., said the event provided a good opportunity to hear about the city’s vision for the future.

"It was nice to hear Chuck Reed talk about reform and how he’s going to work closely with councilmembers in planning for the future of San Jose," she said. "The big disconnect over the past few years has been the way city officials and departments work with the business community. So, it was especially refreshing to hear Les White and other department heads talk about how they’re going to engage the business community in the planning process."

Access City Hall was sponsored in part by: Brandenburg, Staedler & Moore, KB Home, KT Properties, Pinn Brothers Fine Homes, San Jose Sharks, San Jose Water Company, SKANSKA and Sobrato Development Companies.

For more information about Access City Hall, please contact Joshua Howard, Vice President of Public Policy & Communications, at joshuah@sjchamber.com, 408-291-5262.