Editorial: Two candidates vie for downtown San Jose council seat. One stands out.

San Jose calls itself the Capital of Silicon Valley and was ranked by WalletHub this year as the second happiest city in the United States But like much of the Bay Area California s third-largest city also struggles with housing affordability homelessness population safety and post-pandemic revitalization of its downtown As San Jose leaders look to change that voters in District which covers the downtown core will be filling an unexpected City Council vacancy in a special June runoff electoral contest The district s registered voters will have a choice between Anthony Tordillos chair of the San Jose Planning Commission and a utility engineer at Google and Gabby Chavez-Lopez executive director of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley a downtown-based nonprofit The candidates have similar positions But in this race ideas details and experience are also very significant That s what makes Tordillos the superior candidate Tordillos would provide District residents with a strong and articulate voice on the City Council He is a detail-oriented data-focused guidelines pragmatist who as a planning commissioner has direct newest and relevant experience to help deal with the one concern at the confluence of a great number of of the city s problems housing What s at stake in this voting is more than District s representation it s also the city s overall direction The winner will likely cast decisive votes on key issues facing San Jose s narrowly divided City Council which for the last two years has been split between moderates aligned with Mayor Matt Mahan and public-union-backed councilmembers District voters will pick someone to fill the last months of the term of Omar Torres who quit on Nov halfway through his term and hours before he was arrested on suspicion of child molestation for which he was later charged and pleaded no contest The April vote to replace him ended with no candidate receiving a majority Chavez-Lopez finished first with of the votes cast After a recount Tordillos captured second place with qualifying for the runoff by edging out the mayor s deputy chief of staff Matthew Quevedo by six votes What separates the two surviving candidates isn t the problems they want to solve Tordillos and Chavez-Lopez largely agree on San Jose s issues They both believe homelessness remains too rampant housing too expensive building too bureaucratic downtown too blighted and the feeling of safety too distant And at the -foot view both Tordillos and Chavez-Lopez agree on multiple of the solutions Related Articles San Jose school district parcel tax continues to trail San Jose seeks a way to win citizens buy-in for parks spending Santa Clara County will decide whether to implement ranked choice voting later this year San Jose special voting process could have major implications for city Editorial Voters should reject San Jose Unified s latest tax measure They both say that the unhoused need less criminalization and more mental healthcare care more housing demands to be built construction approvals need to be streamlined the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA demands to be reformed downtown necessities revitalization and the Police Department necessities to fill its open jobs speed up response times and rely more on non-sworn employees to handle particular problems But when you drill down Tordillos sharply distinguishes himself Tordillos who moved to the city in and has been co-president of the South University Neighborhood Association since can identify exactly what parts of the planning process need change to juice construction That s not surprising given his experience As he notes I m the only candidate in this race who has worked with city staff to get strategy passed in terms of housing land use homelessness and economic maturation Not only has he read the latest RAND research identifying the obstacles to lowering the per-unit cost of housing but he can point you to its greater part realistic actionable takeaways For example Tordillos notes buildings are constructed faster in Texas cities in part because inspections are conducted simultaneously not sequentially That little difference adds up he argues Chavez-Lopez who served on Santa Clara County s Planning Commission from - doesn t provide the same sort of specificity She offered that she has the community-building skills to get things done She works with people not content she says A lack of communication and coordination within the city and across the region s patchwork of overlapping jurisdictions are the core problems not ideas Whoever wins this race will take office in July and will have to hit the ground running to make an impact before the balloting Tordillos is best positioned to do just that Key balloting dates Week of May Vote-by-mail ballots will be sent to voters June is the last day to register June is the last day to request a vote-by-mail ballot June is Polling Day the last day to cast a ballot in person or have it postmarked